HOMILY, SATURDAY, 14TH WEEK IN ORDINARY, YEAR A
{MEMORIAL, ST BENEDICT, ABBOT]
[St Benedict,(480-547 AD), was born in Norcia in Umbria. Though he came from a wealthy family, he left his patrimony to the care of the poor and became a hermit. He is called the father of Monasticism.]
Isaiah 6:1-8, Matthew 10:24-33
THEME: CLEANSED AND SENT
No one is worthy of the call of God. For his special assignment, God hardly call those who have no history with him. The closer we are to him, the more we realize his majesty and the more we see our unworthiness. It takes those who are humble to acknowledge their low state before God so as to be worthy of his call.
Having found himself before God’s majesty, Isaiah exclaimed,
“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lip; for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of host!” Isaiah 6:5
However, the recognition of his filthiness bagged him the cleansing touch of God, that one of the Seraphim has to touch his mouth with a burning coal and said, “behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven.” Isaiah 6:7
Hence, having been cleansed of his sins, he was endued with the courage to say, “Here am I! Send me.”
However, while answering this call, we are bound to meet all sorts of oppositions and condemnation. The Lord said in the gospel, “if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household.” Matthew 10:25. The Lord wants us to be ready for any kind of difficulties we may face in our efforts to share the gospel. We should always juxtapose our life experience with that of Christ. This helps us develop the appropriate response to them and equally draw strength to move on. There is nothing we suffer for the sake of the kingdom that Jesus has not suffered.
All we need to do is to be sincere and open to God who sends us. What he tells us is what matters, and not people say about us. People may use their mouths to run us down, but we must remember that we once shared in the lot of the people of unclean lips before we were set apart to sing the praise of God. We must equally remember that our own mouth has now been cleansed to proclaim the word of God.
Hence, our focus should be to obey the injunction,
“What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops.” Matthew 10:27
This simply means, go and share the fruits of your intimacy with God. Go and tell others the testimony of how he journeyed with you to make you worthy of his call. What he did for you, he can also do for others. No human judgement should debar you from following God’s direction.
PRAYER
O Lord, Like St Benedict, give us the grace to strip ourselves of earthly glory so as to do all things to please your holy will, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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