HOMILY FOR DECEMBER 3, MEMORIAL OF SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER.
THEME: Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.
BY: Fr. Diotacious Chikontwe SMA
*READINGS OF THE DAY*
Isaiah 30:19-21,23-26
Psalm 146:1-6
Matthew 9:35-10:1,5,6-8
*LITURGICAL COLOUR*
WHITE
*FROM THE GOSPEL OF TODAY*
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus wants to teach us something like this: “Without cost, you have received; without cost you are to give,” (Matt 10:8). Jesus lives this teaching because He himself cures the sick people; lets the blind see, expels demons, feeds the hungry with His words and material food; restores the dead to life; cleanses the lepers and so on and so forth without asking any payment or doctor’s fee whatsoever.
RELATED: HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 1ST WEEK OF ADVENT
*WHAT DO WE LEARN FROM THE LITURGY OF TODAY?*
The very nature of God is to give. God is a Giver. Because He is a Giver, we have received all that we have now like: creation, redemption and sanctification. Yet in receiving all these from Him, we are called to enter into the divine logic of giving too. Sin is nothing other than receiving and not giving. Sin and the sinner are “getters.” Getters and givers cannot be mixed up. Let us be a giver so that God will be in us and we in God. “Without cost, you have received; without cost you are to give.”
*CONCLUSION*
Jesus’ statement, ‘you received without charge’, leads on to his call, ‘give without charge’. Because we have been freely graced in so many ways, we are to grace others just as freely. We are to give without looking for or expecting a return. We give freely out of the abundance we have been given. There is nothing calculating about the Lord’s love for us, and our love is to reflect something of that same quality.
Happy feast day of St Francis Xavier, Priest and Patron Saint of Missions.
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