HOMILY FOR THURSDAY OF THE 2ND WEEK IN ADVENT SEASON, YEAR B
THEME: A greater than John the Baptist has never been seen.
BY: Fr Deotacious Chikontwe SMA
SAINT OF THE DAY Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, Priest.
READINGS OF THE DAY
Isaiah 41:13-20
Psalm 144:1,9-13
Matthew 11:11-15
LITURGICAL COLOUR
WHITE
INTRODUCTION
Good morning my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate Thursday of the second Week in Advent Season Year B. And today in a special we commemorate the memorial of Saint John of the Cross.
FROM OUR FIRST READING
In our first reading today, we continue to hear the reading from the prophet Isaiah, in which we are constantly being reminded yet again of God’s love and all the reassurances and promises which He has given to us all, His beloved ones, which He has also fulfilled and accomplished through the coming of His Son, Our Messiah or Saviour. The context for those words of reassurance were that God wanted to remind all of His beloved ones, that despite of their many sins, wickedness and evils, He continues to care for them and love them as usual, just as He has always done from the very beginning. What He despises from them, and hence, from all of us, is our sins and disobedience, our wickedness and evils, but not us personally.
ALSO RECOMMENDED: THURSDAY HOMILY FOR 1ST WEEK OF ADVENT – YEAR B (St Ambrose, Bishop, Doctor)
FROM OUR GOSPEL READING
In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus has high praise for John the Baptist. He is greater than all the children born of women. Yet, for all his greatness, John the Baptist pointed to someone greater than himself, Jesus. He did not live to witness Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which flowed from those events. He knew nothing of the church, what Paul calls the body of Christ. That is why Jesus says of him that the least in the kingdom of heaven, which Jesus proclaimed and inaugurated, is greater than John. We have all been more privileged than John the Baptist. What John pointed towards we look back on and, indeed, experience in the here and now.
CONCLUSION
Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus is referring there to all of us. He is reminding us that God has privileged us in a way that John was not privileged. John was executed shortly into the public ministry of Jesus. He was not graced through the death, resurrection, ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit in the way we have been. He did not live to see the formation of the church, the community of the risen Lord’s disciples. We are being reminded that we have received a great deal from God, through his Son, without any merit on our part, and our calling is to live out of what we have received. As Jesus says elsewhere in the gospels, ‘You received without payment, give without payment’.
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.
FOR SIMILAR HOMILY, CLICK HERE >>>