HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 2ND WEEK OF LENT.
THEME: THE RECIPROCITY OF COMPASSION!
BY: Benedict Agbo (Rev Fr)
*Dan 9: 4 – 10, Lk 6: 36 – 38.
‘Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate. Do not judge or condemn others. Forgive and give as much as possible! ‘. In the spiritual realm, so many things are reciprocal; love, compassion, judgment, forgiveness and offering. The earlier we learn this ‘karmic law’, the better: ‘whatever measure we give is the measure we receive’.
I pity people that are deceived by their false piety – thinking that they can lobby God to be on their side with so much prayer and fasting yet they are more wicked than even the biblical Jezebel. And sorry to say, some may be putting on clerical wears and some carrying bibles in their hands or wearing scapulars on their necks yet are more devilish than Lucifer himself!
RELATED: HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 2ND WEEK OF LENT
We often fail to study what happened to our parents. We often fail to learn from what is happening to people around us. Yet people continue to reap what they sow – and their children too, by extension. Poverty and riches have continued to rotate in cycles from family to family because Christ warned that those who are first today might be last tomorrow and vice versa. Yes, this happens because, when we become rich, we usually oppress the poor. Our children learn /imbibe that selfishness from us and get the repercussions perhaps through untimely deaths – leaving their own children as orphans and beggars. These may learn their lessons, work hard, behave well and are blessed with riches. They misbehave and go down again and the cycle continues! Is it not interesting?
If there is anything we must learn and teach /hand over to our children, let it be compassion and generousity. These are the secrets of lasting prosperity. For those who insist that they must correct others through punishment and brutality, let them realize that though they may think they are doing the will of God, they themselves will one day need compassion from God and will not receive it. According to Edward Wallis, ‘There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly becomes good of any of us to talk about the rest of us’. J Mason concludes with this wise counsel: ‘Judge yourself with the judgment of sincerity, and you will judge others with the judgment of charity’.
For those who insist that they must hoard their well earned resources from the poor (most of whom they believe are responsible for their own plight), let them realize that unshared resources are very useless resources which must either be left for termites to consume (example some whose bank accounts are liquidated by unknown fraudulent bankers) or abandoned for friends or even enemies to take over when they suddenly die. As Prof Peter Ebigbo eloquently put it: ‘Life is an improbable series of improbable probabilities’. It is cyclic and karmic. We better be careful to learn from others’ plight. May God bless you today!
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