SATURDAY HOMILY OF 8TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR B
HOMILY THEME: “FOR YOU MY SOUL IS THIRSTING, O LORD, MY GOD”
BY: Bishop Anthony Ewherido
Jude 1:17,20-25; Psalm 62(63):2-6; Mark 11:27-33
Following Jesus’ Ascension, the early Christians lived in conscious awareness and hope of Jesus’ imminent return. Consequently, delays raised questions, whose answers have residues in early Christian writings.
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Today, St. Jude lets us know that the gift of life is an opportunity for holy vigilance and patient wait on/for the Lord’s return. While in that state, he admonishes us to build our lives on the foundation of faith, to cultivate the habit of praying in the Spirit, to love God and be in a constant state of readiness, and to support our brothers and sisters by reassuring those in doubt and helping the spiritually weak amongst them. Finally, he cautions us against the allurements of the world. The lack of such vigilance made it impossible for the Jewish leaders to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah, but instead questioned the source of his authority. James’ exhortations remain valid for us today. We continue to live in the end times and must be constantly ready. We must not allow the world distract us from the main goal of life, eternal life with God in heaven. In Christ, the Wisdom of God, fully embodied in the Holy Spirit, who continues to journey with us, we can find our way to our original innocence through detachment. We need to let go of some of the things to which we have clung for so long or the things that hold us down against God’s will. Our unwillingness to do that is what gives rise to the kind of rationalization and suspicions manifested in the encounter between the Jewish leaders and Jesus. They rationalized what they could no longer accept wholeheartedly because it challenged the status quo which favored their ways and to which they clung. So, what are you clinging to that is holding you back? Remember, true joy can only be found in the “precepts of the Lord.”
Lord, draw me close to you. Amen.
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