Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Ethic For The Saints

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 23, 2025

Experts in world religions say there are two contrasting approaches to religion. The first, which can be found mostly in Asia and in pre-Christianity era in Africa, is a religion of karma, and the second, well known in Abrahamic religions, is the religion of grace. What’s the difference between the two? The religion of karma accepts the law of karma which says that if you do bad things, you will suffer, either in this life or the life after. And if we do good things, we will be rewarded, again either in this life or in the afterlife. Many people including some Christians actually like the karmic approach to religion. Why? Because it seems to satisfy our sense of justice. It seems right and fair. 

But a religion of grace is different. It begins from the standpoint of, “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), as St. Paul says. Biblical religions like Christianity begin with “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). It claims that nobody is righteous, not you, not me. It teaches that all people are sinners and hence deserving of punishment. But that God, out of sheer generosity, gives us his forgiveness, his love, and eternal life, which we don’t deserve. It is crystal clear in the Bible that we don’t get what we deserve as in the religion of karma. What do we hear in that Christian poetry, “Amazing Grace” written by John Newton? Yes, it was first written as a poem in 1772, and after 60 years, it was put to the tune to which it is sung today. In those perennial words, we hear, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” In the religion of karma, wretches don’t deserve to be saved. A wretch deserves to be punished. But in the religion of grace, what the wretch gets is an amazing grace. Throughout the Bible, we see the religion of grace, the gifting of amazing grace to those who don’t deserve it. A very good example is the story of the Prodigal Son. After insulting his father, he leaves home with his father’s money, goes to a foreign land and squanders it in a reckless living. After losing everything, he comes back home. What does he deserve in the religion of karma? He deserves to be punished and rejected. But what did he get? His father lavishes him with forgiveness, acceptance and grace. In that story, the older brother appeals to the religion of karma. He reminds his father that this son of his has wasted his money with prostitutes, while he has been home working for the father and didn’t get what he deserves. But the reality is that in the religion of grace, God doesn’t operate that way. 

Now why am I spending time talking about the two approaches to religion? We are the one who sinned. We are the ones who have done bad things. But did we get what we truly deserved? No! Jesus suffered and died in our place. By his sorrowful Passion, we have been gifted with unmerited grace. What is grace? It’s a gift! But when you cling to a gift, hoarding it for yourself, refusing to share and give, you undermine its very nature. We are given to give. We are forgiven to forgive. We are blessed to bless. The whole point of receiving God’s life is to give it away in turn. If you are stingy with it, if you refuse to share that which you have received from God, I tell you, you undermine it. It does not grow or multiply. As a matter of fact, it fizzles away. But when you give it away, it is renewed within you.

With this in mind, let us look at today’s Gospel (Luke 6:27-38), which is Jesus’ extraordinary and paradigmatic Sermon on the Plain. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gives his great quintessential sermon on a mountain. Now, what Jesus is saying in our today’s Gospel can only make sense for people who are sharing in the divine life, who believe and accept the religion of grace, and not the religion of karma. In the religion of karma, it is “Tit for tat.” “If you like me, I will like you.” “If you hate me, I will hate you.” Christianity, I often said, is counterintuitive and counter-cultural. Without grace, it is impossible to accept today’s teaching of the Lord. But if you believe in the religion of grace, if you believe that you’ve been gifted by God, if you submit to divine life, you will be able to live and give just as God does. Listen now to this unsettling statement: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Love your enemy? Who is an enemy? It is someone who doesn’t love you, and who is trying to harm you. To such people Jesus says: give what you have been given, which is mercy. Furthermore, Jesus says, “Do good to those who hate you.” What a very counter-cultural thing to do. We generally live according to the principle of “I will be good to you as long as you are good to me.” But this is not what Jesus is talking about here. He is talking about breaking the pattern of the religion of karma. More to it, he says, “Bless those who curse you.” Again, that’s not how we normally live. If I am blessing you, I expect you to bless me in return. As for blessing those who are cursing me, that’s a hard sale. But if you bless those who are cursing you, you love just the way God loves. Jesus also says, “pray for those who mistreat you.” O boy! 

What is the motivation to live this way? Jesus gives the answer, it is so that “your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” God gives freely to everyone— saints and sinners alike. To participate in the divine grace, we must live accordingly. And if you only love those who love you, and give only to those who give you, Jesus asks and I paraphrase here, What’s the big deal? You have not done anything outstanding, for even sinners do the same. I tell you, that is the heart of Jesus’ message. The law of the world is “I scratch your back and you scratch mine.” “I am giving you a gift so that you can also give me.” That’s the standard of the world. But we are being invited and drawn to love the way God loves. Step away from living according to the laws of the religion of karma and begin to live a graced life. By baptism, we have been Christified. So, let’s now begin to live as St. Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). 

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

To Whom Does Your Heart Belong?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 16, 2025

For someone with no keen sense of the spiritual life, the words we hear today from Prophet Jeremiah are deeply negative, deeply troubling and deeply gloomy. But for a spiritual alert person, they are very profound articulations. In our first reading taken from the seventeenth chapter of his book, we hear, “Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:5). Are we being told to not trust any human being? Not even our parents, brothers, sisters, close friends, priests, staff in the office? Does it mean that married people should not trust themselves? Does it mean that parents should not trust their children and vice versa? Not so fast! Aside from family members, we certainly have met people who are indeed trustworthy; people whose yes are yes and whose no are no. We have friends and colleagues at work that have proven to be reliable and worthy of trust. So, there are human beings out there who can be trusted. But the Bible is laying a curse on anyone who trusts in human beings. What does it mean? 

As human beings, we surely have other interests in life like sports, entertainment, local, national and international politics, geography, nature, economy, science, world affairs etc. We have passion for this, and passion for that. As we live our daily life, we can be preoccupied with a lot of different things. No doubt, we can trust in human beings who have shown themselves trustworthy. You can trust that your bosom friend will not betray you. You can trust that the contract you signed with a company will be honored. I can trust that my parishioners in St. Bridget are with me. But that is not what prophet Jeremiah is speaking about today. When the Bible talks about the heart, as Jeremiah does, he says, “whose heart turns away from the Lord,” he means the deepest center of one’s life and activity. By heart, the Bible means the core, the organizing principle of someone’s entire life. Prophet Jeremiah is speaking about the allegiance of our heart. That core of you, that deepest organizing center of you, to whom does it belong to? To whom does your core, your heart belong? If it belongs to any human being, if it belongs to anything in this material world, Jeremiah says you are in a very bad spiritual space. 

Sisters and brothers, do not see the words of Jeremiah as a rejection of the human person, or the rejection of matter, or the rejection of the world. That’s not what it is. Biblical people do not see the material world as evil. They loved the world; they have nothing against the flesh. They understood it as God’s creature and God’s gift. In our tradition, nature reflects the glory, power and awesomeness of God. Created things glorify God who loved them into existence. So, biblical people do not see nature as intrinsically evil. They are not Platonists or Puritans. In the Bible, Genesis 1:31 says, “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good” (1:31). So, the world is good. But our heart does not belong to anything in this world. The core and the deepest principle of our life must belong to God alone. After that, the rest of our life must align with God’s will. That means your friendships, your relationships, your business interests, your politics, your entertainment interests, your scientific interests, your attitude to food and drink, all of it, and everything you could possibly do in this world must surrender to God’s will and purposes. If your heart truly belongs to God, then you will never refuse forgiveness. If your heart belongs to God, you will never be resentful. If your heart belongs to God alone, you will not keep malice. If your heart belongs to God alone, you cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering and misfortune of others. If your heart truly belongs to God alone, you cannot be cold to cruelty and wickedness being meted upon another person. If your heart truly belongs to Jesus, the organizing principle of your life will be compassion, and nothing more. But if your heart is divided, which means to some degree, your heart belongs to God and also belongs to other things, you will basically be equating your love for God and your love for other things. It means your heart does not belong to God totally. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).  To be pure of heart is to be single-hearted. It means your heart belongs uniquely and entirely to God. It means nothing in this world competes with the Lord in your life. Whenever the choice is between coming to church or staying home to do other things, you choose coming to Mass. If your heart belongs entirely to God, and all your other interests find their place around that great organizing center, then you are a saint. This is exactly what the prophet Jeremiah is saying to us today. 

May God bless you and give you his peace!

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

God Always Takes The First Step

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 9, 2025

One of the many questions people ask me concerning my journey to the priesthood is “Why did you become a priest?’ When such a question is asked, people assume the decision to become a priest was entirely mine. They think I woke up one morning and made a decision to go into the seminary to become a priest. I am not sure there is any priest who thinks his yes to God was his initiative. How come? In the spiritual order, it is always God who takes the first step. The spiritual life always begins with an invasion of grace due to God’s perfect unmerited love. In his Last Supper discourse, Jesus echoes this very reality when he tells his Apostles, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain” (John 15:16). That means the initial desire of a young man to go into the seminary is not entirely his. It is God who plants the desire. And it is God who keeps that desire alive. The desire to give one’s whole heart to God is the invasion of grace started by God. The desire for friendship with Jesus is an invasion of grace initiated by God. The desire to save souls is an invasion of grace initiated by God. It is always God who says, “Come, follow me,” and not the other way round. Grace comes without our asking for it or manipulating it. What does grace mean? Grace means God’s favor or his graciousness to us.

In today’s Gospel (Luke 5:1-11), we see the invasion and breakthrough of grace, the acknowledgement of sin, and the command to go on mission in full display. Luke says that Jesus is at the shore of the sea preaching. Then without asking for permission, and without being invited, Jesus gets into Simon’s boat and begins to give orders. For a first century Galilean fisherman, a boat meant a lot. It wasn’t just a means of transportation, it was his whole livelihood. It is like his shop, a place of doing his business. Imagine someone getting into your car uninvited and starts telling you where to go. I don’t think you will like that. But this is what invasion of grace looks like. This is God taking the first step to initiate a relationship with Peter. Peter didn’t ask for it. He wasn’t expecting it or expecting some big changes in his life. He and his colleagues had worked hard all night without catching any fish. By morning, they were getting ready to go home in disappointment. Suddenly, Jesus shows up, enters his boat and commands: “put out into the deep” water. Every encounter with God is always an invitation, a summon to go into the deep. Some of us spend our lives fooling around on the outside, by the sea shore, and living in the shallows. We may be successful in the eyes of the world, but spiritually speaking, we are living our lives at the seashore. Like little kids, we are playing on the sand without entering into the water. But God doesn’t want that for us. He wants to bring us into the depth. So, he breaks into Peter’s life. He gets into Peter’s boat and orders him to stop playing around.

After being ordered to go into the deep, Peter protests, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing.” But after his initial protest, he submits to grace “but at your command I will lower the net.” He is an experienced fisherman. He knows the water; he knows how to fish in it. But the Lord is inviting him to trust, not in what he sees, but in what he hears. This is probably happening to you at this time in your life. You are trying to find happiness and peace but haven’t found it. You are trying to find spiritual meaning, but haven’t found it. Why? Because you are trying on your own terms. And as long as your effort is your own business, your own project, you are not going to get it. Look at Peter! The great moment happens when he willingly cooperates with grace. In every encounter with God, grace comes first. But once grace breaks through, God wants us to cooperate with his love. God does not turn us into passive puppets. He wants to awaken our minds, wills, hearts, bodies, energies in cooperation. As soon as Peter follows the promptings of grace, he finds so many fish that his boat begins to sink. Some people came to help him to prevent his boat from going under. What does that mean? When you allow Jesus to get into your life, you let him command you, you allow him to be the Lord of your life, you stop playing along the seashore, you stop playing around with your own projects, you are going to find so much life that overwhelms you and in fact, attracts other people to take in some of the life you have been given. This is exactly what we find in the life of all the saints. People get attracted to the saints. Why? Because there is so much life and grace around them. 

In the wake of this invasion of grace, Simon acknowledges his sin: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Check this out! The acknowledgment of sin did not come from the very beginning. It is not the sine qua non for grace. It is not when you say you are sorry that grace is given to you. That’s not how it works. The confession of sin is always the consequence of the invasion of grace. In the light that Christ brings, Peter sees his own inadequacies. When you compare your life and the life that Jesus is offering you, you will definitely acknowledge your sinfulness. One of the signs that you are not doing well in your spiritual life is when you are reluctant to admit your sinfulness. Once you agree that everything is fine and great with you, that’s a sign that you are not standing in the light of grace. Following Simon’s acknowledgment of his sins, Jesus does not say to him, you are okay. Rather he says to him, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” That means, go and become an agent of grace you have received for other people. But why does God invade our lives? Because he wants us to be fully alive. The glory of God is the human person fully alive. God does not want us to play around like kids. He wants us plugged, grafted and connected into the great adventure of the spiritual life. He wants us to be spiritually alert and not to be carried away or distracted by the affairs of this world. Everything we do should be done with a keen sense of God’s presence. 

God bless you!

Homily on the Feast of St. Bridget of Ireland

Great Lessons From St. Bridget Of Ireland

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily on the Feast of St. Bridget of Ireland

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 2, 2025

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. But it is also the Sunday we celebrate in a special way our dear patron, St. Bridget of Ireland. Because of the uniqueness of today, I will like to share some of the key lessons we can learn from St. Bridget. Saints in heaven are saints because they were first saints on earth. If you want to be a saint in heaven, you must first be a saint here on earth. So, how did St. Bridget become a saint?

We live in a world where selfishness and greed are the order of the day. Greed indeed is an incurable disease that only the good God can cure. People don’t complain, don’t protest and don’t frown until something hits them directly and personally. But waiting until something affects you personally before you stand up and oppose it is not Christianity. In the case of St. Bridget, we are told that she had a deep compassion for the poor and the marginalized. She was renowned for her unwavering care towards the poor, the sick, and those on the fringes of society. In the course of her life, she emphasized the vital importance of actively reaching out to help others without expecting anything in return. That’s what saints do. They give and give expecting nothing but the Lord. For the saints, the greatest treasure is not silver and gold but the Lord alone. For St. Bridget, what matters is not awesome power but awesome service to others especially the most vilified and maligned in the society. If you want to be a saint in heaven like St. Bridget, start being a saint today by caring for those who need our help the most.

St. Bridget was also known for her generosity and hospitality. She was known for welcoming all people with open arms, sharing what she had with others, and creating a space of hospitality for those in need. What does generosity really mean? It means mercy. If you have experienced the loving mercy of God, allow others to also experience the same through you. If you have felt the providential hand of a loving God, become a vehicle, a conduit through which others experience the same love and mercy. Give to others everything you have received from God. You know, everything God gives you including your life is not for keep. We are given to give. My life is not about me and what I want. It is primarily about God, then others and then me. Take this to the bank: if you want real joy in your life, the word “JOY” has to be an acronym you live by. “J” then stands for Jesus, “O” for others and “Y” for you.” If you want to be a saint in heaven, like St. Bridget, actively welcome people that God brings to your space. Don’t ignore them. Don’t avoid them. Open your arms to them. That will make you a saint.

The great St. Bridget was also known for her prayer life. But beyond prayers, her faith was manifested through her actions. She actively sought to alleviate the suffering of others and lived out the teachings of Christ through her daily life. Saying your prayers frequently is a great Christian virtue and habit, but in prayer, do you encounter Jesus who said, “Whatsoever you did for the least of my brethren, you did to me?” If your prayer life does not lead you to an encounter with this Jesus, something is really missing. During his public ministry, Jesus practiced open table fellowship, he actively reached out and brought back those in Israel who had been disenfranchised— the poor, the sick, lepers, prostitutes, the blind, tax collectors. By gathering the tribes, Jesus announces his disapproval of the ugly game of insiders versus outsiders. As far as Jesus is concerned, no one is an outsider, rather all God’s children are insiders. Do you want to be a saint in heaven? Begin now by being a saint on earth. Show compassion to those on the fringes of society. 

St. Bridget created what we have come to know as St. Bridget’s Cross. Why? She wanted a tangible symbol that will help her share her faith and connect with others. She knew there is nothing like “private faith.” We cannot privatize faith or make it something we do when we are only in church. Authentic faith is lived out. It is shared with all and sundry. Finally, despite her influence and miracles, St. Bridget remained humble and focused on serving others. By concrete example, she demonstrated that true power lies not in dominating and controlling others but in selfless acts of service. What truly makes a person great? Who is a great person? Is it that individual that bullies others? No! Is it that person that dominates and terrorizes others? No! Is it that person that uses power to make his presence known? No! A great person lives for others. If you want to see the greatest person ever, take a look at the cross. What’s Jesus doing on the cross? He is setting us free. He is drawing all people to God, and by drawing people to God, he draws them together. 

Sisters and brothers, this is our patron saint. If we want to be saints in heaven, this is what we have to do on earth. 

God bless you!

Homily on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Mother And Child United By One Fate

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 2, 2025

Today we celebrate the Fourth Joyful Mystery— the Presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple. In fulfillment of the law, Joseph and Mary took the infant Jesus to Jerusalem. Upon entering the temple, they met two godly and prophetic figures, Simeon and Anna, who for many years, had been praying and waiting for the Messiah. The Jews were expecting a messiah that would make all their socio-political problems go away. At the time, Israel was under the political control of Rome. Now, being controlled and governed by a foreign government was not new to Israel. They had experienced it before in Egypt. But, this particular submission was uniquely terrible and painful for them because they were living in their land and being governed by a pagan government in Rome. So, they were expecting a Messiah who would come on a rescue operation. But instead he came in riding on a donkey. As the Son of God, he could have come with legions of Angels, with power and might. But he came humbly. He rode into the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey. And guess what? He continues to do so till today. 

So, when Mary and Joseph came into the temple to perform the custom of the law in regard to the infant Jesus, the upright and devout Simeon was on hand to receive them. He was in the temple at the rightest of time. Of all the times and hours he had been in the temple to pray and worship, this particular one is the most signifiant. He had been promised by God that he would not see death until he had seen “the Christ of the Lord.” That promise was fulfilled at this event. Simeon was in the Spirit when Mary and Joseph brought in the child Jesus, and it seems he did not even wait for the parents to do what brought them all the way from Nazareth to Jerusalem before he took the child into his arms and began to bless God and say:

“Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples; a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory of  your people Israel.” 

Friends, in the words of his prayers, Simeon, presents Jesus to Jews and Gentiles alike. He also presents him to all the people of the world. In his prayer, Simeon testifies that what he has seen will bring light to Gentiles and glory to Israel. The child is a manifestation of the glory of God and a visible sign of God’s saving presence. However, shortly after those joyful words, Simeon turns to Mary and foretells of a future sorrow: 

“Behold this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and a sign that will be contradicted— and you yourself a sword will pierce— so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” 

In those words, the holy man, Simeon, speaks about the fierce opposition that Jesus will face. He tells the child’s mother that the grief she will undergo will be so great that it will pierce her very being. As if to soothe Simeon’s prophecy, prophetess Anna walks in and begins to thank God and speaks to all who have been waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem about the child. After Mary and Joseph had fulfilled the prescriptions of the Law of the Lord, they returned to their own town of Nazareth in Galilee where Jesus “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” 

Mary and Joseph understood that their baby, Jesus, had to be brought to the Temple, not to be redeemed like every other male child that opens the womb, but to be offered to God as a true sacrifice. It was in the process of offering her Son to God that Mary learned that she too will share closely in Jesus’ redemptive mission. She learned that her fate and that of her son are tied together. The good news is that this Jesus is also presented to us as our Savior and salvation. He is the Light of the world, the manifestation of the glory of God, and the visible sign of God’s saving presence. He is God in the flesh, Yahweh moving among his people. He is the Lamb of God who would redeem all people from their sins.

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family

Love Even The Most Difficult Ones

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, December 29, 2024

The feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is a good time to think about  some relatives—mom, dad, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, cousin etc. who for some reasons don’t have it all put-together, whose lives have gone off kilter, who don’t quite fit in. As a result, the rest of the family considers them as failures and feels embarrassed when they show up in a family gathering or reunion. What should we learn from the idea of family? First lesson, none of us chooses the family to be born into or the people to be born with. But no matter who they are— saints or sinners, great or not-so-great, prominent or obscure, wealthy or pauper, grace-filled or source of embarrassment, beautiful or ugly etc. we are called to love them. The notion of family is that  we don’t choose the people we love.

In my immediate family and extended family, I have wonderful people, very lovable, very admirable, and worthy of emulation. They have amazing qualities of friendliness and easy going. But I also have relatives who are difficult to deal with. I have an elder sister, on the one hand, she is success driven. She has done so well to raise her children. She was nice when we were growing up. But since we all became adults, her relationship with the rest of the family has been an uneasy one.  She just has this difficult personality for any of us to handle. Multiple times I had intervened and spoken to her about how she is alienating the rest of us from her. But it always falls on deaf ears. Do I still love this my sister? Absolutely! I have no option. For a Christian, loving the other especially difficult people is not an option. You know, the easiest thing to do with difficult members of the family is to say, “I don’t want to deal with them anymore.” But in our family, God gives us people he wants us to love, whether they meet our expectations or not. More to it, what makes our family holy is that we are able to love not only the ones that are easy-to-get-along, successful, amiable but also the difficult and off-putting ones. That they are members of our families means that God has given them to us to love. 

When God became human, God entered into a family. The Blessed Mother and St. Joseph are two of the greatest saints in our great tradition. They were the most intimate members of Jesus’ family. But have you ever wondered what the cousins and second-cousins of the Blessed Mother are like? Do you think there were some unpleasant figures in her family? What about Joseph? Did he have some irregular figures in his family? You betcha! Did Jesus have some cousins who did not treat him nicely, who probably considered him weird and avoided him? Most probable! If you read the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels, you will find heroes and people of questionable characters too. The point is, and that’s the second spiritual lesson, God saw fit to enter into such a family. Jesus had a series of human ancestors, and like most families, they were kind of a mixed bag, But God loved them still, just as he loved the heroes. That’s the reason why we are called to love those that God has given us to love. Don’t only love those who are exceptional, who have been helpful, who have been successful in life. Love as well those who have gone off-kilter. They are not perfect, they are not angels, but God loves them still. Being a Christian includes loving such people too as much as you love the incredibles in your life. On this feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, remember to pray for your family members especially those others you are not really proud of. 

God bless you!

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, Year C

Confession: The Most Real Way To Receive Mercy

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, Year C

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, December 15, 2024

In our Last weekend Gospel, we hear that the word of God came to John the Baptist in the desert. Why in the desert? It is a place where there is hardly any distraction. The desert is the cure for what Blaise Pascal called in his beautiful French “divertissement,” diversion in English. After that, we hear “John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3). Having heard the powerfully challenging and transformative message of John, the crowd reacted, “What should we do?” (Luke 3:10) Check this out! John the Baptist is described as wearing animal skins and eating weird food like grasshoppers and honey (Mark 1:6), yet it is to this strange and emaciated man that many people were going to. What’s taking them to him? To listen to him and to confess their sins! You know, one of the first things I noticed as soon as I started my pastoral ministry in America is that while the communion lines are always long, the confession line is way too short. At Mass, everybody comes forth to receive communion, but when it comes to the sacrament (confession) that actually prepares us to worthily receive communion, we stay away from it. I know that before Vatican II, sin was overemphasized far above the mercy of God. That was a theological and homiletical mistake. But immediately after Vatican II, we have gone to the other extreme of de-emphasizing sin. Today, the stress is on God’s goodness, God’s grace, and God’s mercy. That’s in order. That’s true. The Catholic Church believes in the primacy of grace. Grace always comes first. In this letter to the Romans, the great St. Paul says “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). So, it is God who first comes to us, and not the other way round. However, there is no serious biblical figure who does not come to grips with our sin. It is so true to say that the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is the story of God’s love and God’s quest for the human race. However, the awfulness of sin is never ignored in the Bible. It is mentioned in every page of the Bible. The amazing Vatican II never in any way discouraged Catholics from going to confession. What caused the sacrament of confession to suddenly fall off the table overnight is the misreading, misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the Council documents by people who ought to know better. Prior to the Council, people regularly went to confession. But today, not so much. 

But as we can see in today’s Gospel (Luke 3:10-18), people who came to John came not only to listen to him but to also do something very different. Hence the question, “What should we do?” In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear that Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to John the Baptist, were being baptized by him in the River Jordan and were confessing their sins (Matthew 3:5-6). I tell you, there is something very healing, very liberating and very satisfactory about the confession of sins. Last Sunday, I spoke about the different ways our culture tells us “we are okay,” “everything is fine,” “there is nothing wrong with us.” The culture makes excuses for us. In fact, it normalizes sins. In some ways, it celebrates sins and strips away the remorse, regret and penitence that ought to follow sin. The culture tries in a number of ways to justify sins. That’s the reality of our life today and everyone of us is susceptible to these suggestions coming from the culture. But the message of John is: don’t listen to those voices. The message of Jesus is: don’t listen to those voices. Deep down, we know we are sinners. Deep down we know there is something wrong with us. Deep down we know all is not right with us. As such, there is something profoundly healing and liberating about being able to confess our sins. One of the great moments of my life happens after I have confessed my sins. 

Sisters and brothers, avoiding going to confession is not good at all. You are toying with your salvation if you stay away from this amazing sacrament. Emphasizing the grace of God, the mercy of God should drive and motivate us to go to confession. Why? Because it is in this sacrament that the boundless grace and mercy of God is received. Confession is the most real way, the most assured way, the most profound means to receive the healing mercy of God. It is in the active use of this particular sacrament that we are forgiven, healed and delivered, not in staying away. You don’t get well by staying away from the hospital and doctors. You don’t get well by simply believing that a doctor’s intervention might cure you. No! It is by actually going to see a doctor that medical help can be attained. So it is with going to confession. We are forgiven by God after we have confessed our sins, not to ourselves but to a doctor of the soul, a priest. A Catholic priest sitting in a confessional is like a doctor sitting in his office. If we are not confessing our sins, we are not being spiritually honest. The irony of this is that while the culture tells us that we are beautiful in every way, meaning there is no need to confess our sins, people are seeking for different outlets and avenues to confess their sins. They go to therapists, psychologists, judges, TV shows and judging shows just to have an opportunity to confess their sins. Today, I urge you, before the end of Advent, to follow the example laid down by the people who came to John the Baptist and confessed their sins. If you really need that soul-healing moment, then go to confession. To the ten lepers, Jesus says, “Go and show yourself to the priest” (Luke 5:14). In this season of Advent, we are also being asked to do the same. It is the best way to prepare for Christmas. 

God bless you!