HOMILY OF THURSDAY 10TH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME – YEAR B
HOMILY THEME: “If your virtue goes no deeper than that of the scribes of and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.”
BY: Bishop Anthony Ewherido
St. Anthony of Padua; Pray for Us
I Kings 18:41-46; Psalm 64(66):10-13; Matt 5:20-26
This opening statement of Jesus to his disciples as he dealt with particular regulations and interpretations of the Law is an invitation to a higher ethical standard of living that surpasses and is over and above conventional obligations. It is equivalent to St. Paul’s urge for us to live in the spirit, a level at which no law can touch us because such a life is over and above what societal and community laws regulate (Gal 5:18).
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The introduction to the six cases in point challenges us to live by Jesus’ command, not by conventional rules or expectations. We must strive always to meet God’s expectations, which demand that we live at a higher moral level than the level regulated by convention. In today’s example, prohibiting murder, Jesus actually notes that that is too low a level for a disciple to condescend and that just succumbing to lesser failures like anger and resentment, is already unacceptable. The episode ends with a warning against standing against God, to whom we must reconcile our ways and align if we desire the path of life. In today’s first reading, the prophet Elijah’s prayer was answered and God sent rain on the land that was scorched from famine and draught for three years. We join Elijah in prayer for our scorched earth so that through our prayers, God would heal the draught in our lives and land. As we celebrate the feast of St. Anthony of Padua today, we pray that this great Saint, who is revered as patron of lost things would intercede for us to recover all lost graces and the other items that we have in actual fact lost in life, sometimes even without knowing what we have lost. May he inspire us to always be mindful of the poor in these difficult times.
Lord, bend my heart to your will. Amen.
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