HOMILY FOR FRIDAY OF 14TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME.
THEME: The Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you.
BY: Fr Deotacious Chikontwe SMA.
*READINGS OF THE DAY*
Gen 46:1-7,28-30
Psalm 36:3-4,18-19,27-28,39-40
Matthew 10:16-23
*LITURGICAL COLOUR*
GREEN
*INTRODUCTION*
Good morning dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate Friday of week 14 in Ordinary Time, Year A.
*FROM OUR FIRST READING*
There is a very moving scene at the end of today’s first reading as Jacob (Israel) meets with his long-lost son, Joseph, whom he had presumed had been killed. Joseph embraced his father and wept on his shoulder, and Jacob declared, ‘Now I can die, now that I have seen you again, and seen you still alive’. We are reminded of the prayer of Simeon at the beginning of Luke’s gospel after he had set eyes on the child Jesus, the ‘salvation’ he had been waiting for, ‘Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace’. Jacob could have said of Joseph what the father said of his son in one of the parables in Luke’s gospel, ‘this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ The son in that parable had chosen to leave his father, whereas Joseph had been forcibly removed from his father by his brothers who sold him into slavery.
RELATED: HOMILY FOR FRIDAY OF 14TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME.
*FROM OUR GOSPEL READING*
Joseph’s situation is more akin to the situation that Jesus envisages in the gospel reading, ‘brother will betray brother to death’. Conflict in families is as old as the story of Cain and Abel, where again a brother betrays a brother to death. It was jealousy that prompted Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery. Jesus envisages a situation where he himself will be the cause of brother betraying brother to death. Those who believe in Jesus and bear witness to him will be hated even by members of their own family.
*CONCLUSION*
Our attempts to be faithful to the Lord’s way can continue to cause family tensions today. In such moments, Jesus assures us that we will not be left to our own resources. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus and of God the Father, will be given to us as strength in our weakness, just as God promised Jacob in the first reading, ‘I myself will go down to Egypt with you’.
The Lord be with You.
Fr Deotacious Chikontwe SMA.
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