Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A, 2022

Make Your Expectations As Extravagant As God’s Generosity

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, December 18, 2022

In almost every other religion in the East and West and across the ages, God or the gods are considered powerful forces that must be begged, pleaded with and sacrificed to in order for human beings to get what they want. Worshippers of these gods believe that their gods are distant, difficult, and reluctant to grant favors. So, to make them give to people what they want, the gods have to be greatly persuaded by embracing extreme moral views, by practicing all forms of excessive mortification like fasting and mutilation of the body. In some situations, making animal and human sacrifices are adopted just to appease and motivate these divinities to give something they are not willing to give out on their own. But the Bible presents an entirely different picture. The Bible is not the story of our quest and longing for God. It is rather the story of God’s quest for us. What we see in other religions is the quest of human beings for God. What we find in other spiritualities is the human person’s search for God. But the Bible is not that story. It is not the tale of our extravagant invocation to God. It is the story of God begging us to ask more of him. I know this sounds strange; it is counterintuitive. But that is just what it is.  

In today’s first reading and the Gospel, we find this interplay in full display. In the first reading (Isaiah 7:10-14), we hear of Ahaz. Who was he? He was a young and inexperienced king who found himself in a very difficult situation. At that time, the powerful Syrian army was marching towards Israel, and Israel’s allies and enemies were forming various kinds of agreements, and the young Ahaz was in the middle of it all. He was confused and didn’t know what to do. Then Isaiah the prophet tells him to put his trust in the Lord, but Ahaz hesitates. The prophet encourages him, “Ask for a sign from the Lord, your God; let it be deep as the netherworld, or high as the sky.” What does this mean? The young king was told to dream big, to aim higher, to trust unreservedly, and to ask God for something extraordinary. Unfortunately, Ahaz dithers and says, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the Lord!” Check this out! God is not demanding more excellence from the king. God is not giving him a list of things to do before God can give him what he wants. God is simply telling him to dream big, aim higher, ask for something mighty and extravagant. Ask for something extremely huge. Ask for a crazy sign if you want to. Let it be as high as the sky and deep as the netherworld. In other words, God wants to do something great for Ahaz if only Ahaz will be open to it. God never hesitates to give us grace; we are the one who hesitate to receive it. What is fantabulous about this story is that even though Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, God still gives a sign anyway: “…the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.” What’s Emmanuel? God is with you! 

After about seven hundred years, the prophetic declaration of Isaiah was fulfilled in a little town of Nazareth in Galilee, and precisely in the simple home of Joseph. Today’s Gospel  (Matthew 1:18-24) says that after Joseph the carpenter had engaged a young girl named Mary, he later received devastating news that the woman was pregnant. The implication is that she is not faithful to Joseph. As would be expected, Joseph was heartbroken. The young girl he loves has betrayed him. The life he had planned with her has been shattered. In his community, this very act of infidelity will humiliate Joseph; and if the law of Moses is applied to the letter in this case, Mary will be stoned to death. Sad and disappointed, Joseph resolved to divorce Mary quietly so as to save her life and reputation. What does Joseph and Ahaz have in common? First, they were both young men. I know we often assume that Joseph was an old man, but there is nothing in the Bible that suggests such. Two, both were under immense pressure. Three, they were also confused. It must have been so difficult for Joseph to fall asleep the night he realized that Mary was pregnant. Did he ask God for a sign? We don’t know. In the entire New Testament, no word of Joseph is ever recorded. But the Gospel says that night Joseph did receive a sign in his dream. And it is something he could never ever have imagined: “the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Joseph’s despair and confusion has turned into a profound joy.

Sisters and brothers, as the season of Advent comes to a close, it is important to remember that what was promised to Ahaz, what was promised to Joseph is also promised to us. God wants to give us life. He wants us to dream big. He wants our expectation to be as extravagant as his generosity. Christmas is coming. God is becoming one of us. The greatest act of humility in human history is unfolding before us. God who created one hundred billion galaxies, and each galaxy has one hundred billion stars created us in his image and likeness. And once we got into trouble with original sin, he came to be with us. We are not talking about faith like the Greeks and Romans where God is above the clouds and occasionally they do come below the clouds to take advantage of the people. In the Bible, our God comes down below the clouds to love us, to save us and give us the greatest gift of eternal life. The implication of St. Augustine’s assertion, “If we praise God, God is not made any greater. If we don’t praise God, God is not made any smaller. But if we praise God, we become greater and if we don’t praise him, we become smaller,” is that God does not need us. God is self-sufficient. God is blessed within himself. However, God wants us. God wants you. Christmas is all about God desiring us, wanting us to be with him in a covenant relationship. When the virgin conceived and gave birth, the child is called Jesus, which means God is my salvation, and that is God’s greatest gift to us. At Christmas, we celebrate the stubborn fact that God has pursued us. God wants us. God wants to adopt us as sons and daughters. God has not left us as orphans to figure things out ourselves. Christmas is so much more. It is not about Santa Claus, gifts, food etc. It is about being adopted. Christmas is about being pursued by God; it is about being overcome by his love. As Christmas draws near, let us prepare to meet God with an open and willing heart— a heart of a son, a heart of a daughter. 

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, Year A

Something Substantial Is Happening In Jesus Of Nazareth

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Upon his emergence on the public scene, John the Baptist announces and points to Jesus as the long expected Messiah. He addresses Jesus as “the one mightier than I.” He seems pretty clear in his proclamation regarding Jesus. But in our Gospel today, John  appears confused about the identity of Jesus. What changed? John is in prison at this time. He has been arrested by Herod Antipas for opposing Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodias. John’s public ministry has ended and he is within a few days or weeks to his execution. Evidently, John is receiving reports of Jesus’ own ministry from the prison. We can speculate that perhaps Jesus wasn’t exactly what John expected him to be. While John was a preacher of fire and brimstone, Jesus had a different style and approach. So, John sends his disciples to Jesus with a puzzling question: “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” What is interesting is not so much the question, but the answer that Jesus gives: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” From that very moment to the present day, when the question comes up: “Is Jesus the Messiah? This is the answer always given. So, if you are asked if Jesus is the Messiah, this is still the right answer to give. 

Notice that the Lord’s answer to John the Baptist is concrete, and not a compendium of abstractions. It means that in Jesus of Nazareth something concretely huge is happening. There is a major difference between Jesus and people who are simply Gurus and spiritual teachers. Granted that Jesus is also a spiritual teacher, but he is like no other. There was and is none like him. Something substantial is happening in Jesus. And what is happening is exactly what prophet Isaiah said would happen when the Messiah comes, namely, healing and uniting together God’s creation. Sadly, for centuries, a lot of people including some theologians had tried to deny the miracles of Jesus. They said the stories of Jesus’ miracles in the Gospels are simply made up. They advocated for the elimination of all the Gospel passages that talked about the supernatural events in the life and ministry of Jesus. But any attempt to do that will leave us with just a few pages of the Gospel. Why? Because the witness of Jesus as a healer and a miracle-worker is littered throughout the Gospels. Jesus was a great preacher with a difference. Aside from his transformative preaching, he also worked miracles. In any town he visited, innumerable miracles accompanied his great sermons. It is so right to say that his teaching was taken more seriously precisely because of his healing. That’s why people came to listen to him. People saw him as a remarkable figure. 

But how come Jesus didn’t cure every afflicted person? With all the infinite power that Jesus possesses, how come he didn’t heal everyone of every disease? The right answer is that we don’t know. What we know clearly is that in Jesus’ ministry, something substantially concrete is happening; the kingdom of God has finally arrived and is making its way in human history and experience. Additionally, we also know that the Church, which is the mystical body of Christ, is continuing to be the means by which the Kingdom of God breaks into the world; the means by which the healing power of God comes into this world. Some of our great saints were healers. Up till this present day, the Church’s healing ministry still exists. And before a holy man or woman is canonized, miracles must follow. Prayers and petitions made through them must be accompanied by verifiable miracles of healing. Throughout my priestly ministry, I have heard and seen some priests and lay faithfuls who have the charism of healing. In the life of the Church, there are authentic healers who continue Jesus’ work of uniting creation together. Furthermore, in every Catholic hospital and clinics, people are effecting healing in the name of Jesus.  

Beloved in Christ, in the list of things that Jesus told John’s disciples he was doing, the last is “the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” Who are the poor? All of us! What makes us poor? Sin! God is the Source of grace and life; so, all of us are poor inasmuch as we wander away from him via sin. What good news is being proclaimed to us? Forgiveness of sin! At the heart of Jesus’ work is the forgiveness of sin. To the paralyzed man, Jesus says, “As for you, your sins are forgiven.” To John’s disciples Jesus said, “the blind regains their sight.” Jesus healed people of physical blindness, but blindness is also a classical biblical image of sin. Estranged from God, we wander in the dark, and lose our way. So, the forgiveness of our sins is a kind of light. It shows us the path and we know where to walk. Next, Jesus says “the lame walk.” Did Jesus physically cure lame people? Yes! But we can also view sin as a kind of paralysis. We are meant to walk towards God, but we don’t always do so. We are meant to make progress, but we are paralyzed. By freeing us of sin, we are able to walk again. We also hear that lepers are cleansed. Did Jesus really cure lepers of leprosy? Yes indeed! But leprosy in the Bible is always used as a symbol of sin. It compromises us, weakens us, and eventually kills us. So, with our sin forgiven, we are cleansed spiritually just as a leper is cleansed physically. Jesus also says, “the deaf hear.” Did Jesus cure deaf people of their deafness? Absolutely yes! But in our sin, it is as if we are spiritually deaf. We are unaware of the suffering and cry of those around us; we refuse to hear the voice of God. Finally, Jesus says, “the dead are raised.” Did he raise the dead physically? Yes! He raised Lazarus, the daughter of Jairus and the only son of the widow of Nain. But the ultimate symbol of sin in the Bible is death. Sin is nothing but spiritual death. Sin eats away our vitality until we succumb. But here now is the great good news: in the life and ministry of Jesus, through his death and resurrection, Jesus deals definitively and decisively with sin which is the greatest suffering that we have. More to it, through the ministry of the Church, Jesus continues to forgive us and heal us today just as he did during his public ministry. In this Advent season, as Christmas approaches, present your infirmities and weakness to the Divine Physician, Jesus. Present your blindness, your deafness, your lameness, your spiritual death before him and ask for his healing. 

May God bless you!

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year A, 2022

Produce The Fruits!

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Before the great ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates was born, no one foretold his birth. Prior to the birth of Buddha, no one pre-announced his birth and his message. No one predicted the day he would sit under a tree and receive enlightenment. The mother of Confucius, the birth of Confucius, the birthplace of Confucius were not recorded anywhere centuries before his birth and emergence. There were no predictions about the birth of Mohammed or any other significant figures in history. These figures only came and said, Here I am, believe me. They were men from men; they were men among men and not the Divine in human flesh. But with Jesus, it was different. His coming was not unexpected. For centuries, his birth, his birthplace and mission were foretold all throughout the Old Testament. Jesus’ birth was predicted from the beginning of the Book of Genesis. Aside from Genesis, the Books of Isaiah, Micah, Hosea foretold of his birth. As for his death, it was predicted by the authors of Psalms and Isaiah. What does all this mean? It means that those who say that Jesus is just one more religious figure among the many are dead wrong. If you say he is one inspiring human being among the many others, you are wrong. If you say he is the greatest of all the prophets, you are wrong. If you say that he is one of the many messengers sent by God, you are absolutely in error. If you say he is the symbol of God, you are completely and utterly mistaken. Jesus is himself God! In the Nicene creed, we affirm and declare that “He is God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God.” 

One great prophet of ancient Israel, the last Old Testament prophet to prophesy the Adventus of Jesus was John the Baptist. In fact, he was the one who identified Jesus and pointed to him when he appeared at a public scene. In today’s Gospel (Matthew 3:1-12), John is in the Jordan River preaching repentance in preparation for the coming of Jesus. He is also baptizing penitents. More to it, he is letting everyone know his own job description: “I am baptizing you with water, for repentance…” But right after that, he transitioned into speaking about the one he is sent to announce of his coming: “The one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John warns his listeners, especially the Pharisees and Sadducees who brag about being the descendants of Abraham that claiming Abraham as their father is not enough. He warns that for them to avoid the coming wrath, they must produce good fruit as evidence of their repentance. John is encouraging them to prepare for the coming of Jesus the Messiah by repenting. And he ties it to fruit. He ties it to doing things in their life that are righteous and upright. 

In our first reading (11:1-10), Isaiah speaks about the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit— the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, of counsel, of strength (i.e. fortitude), knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. These gifts have been given to us, hopefully to produce fruits. And that fruit according to St. Paul in Galatia chapter 5 are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The problem with the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees is that they were looking to their spiritual lineage as kind of their tickets to heaven. They are indeed children of Abraham. But John’s warning is that being children of Abraham is not good enough. They must produce fruit, fruit of repentance. In our own lives today, we can say, “Well, I have been baptized.” It’s good to be baptized. Baptism is the gateway to heaven, but we must produce the fruits of baptism to finally make it to heaven. Producing the fruits is how we prepare for the coming of the Lord. At every Advent, we memorialize Jesus’ first coming, pay attention to how he is coming to us today and then look forward to his second coming at the end of the age.

As we prepare for the coming of the Lord, it is important to ask ourselves the following questions: am I producing the fruits? Which of these fruits am I producing and which of them am I not producing? Am I turning away from that which is hurting me and preventing me from turning to the Lord? Interiorly, am I preparing for his coming? Is Advent just a period of putting up Christmas decorations? Is it about making our homes look more beautiful and smell more beautiful? Don’t get me wrong, doing all of that is good. But we should not forget the real house of God, which is you, your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. During this season of Advent, make it a project to turn your heart around. Consider those things that are hurting you right now. Think of those things that are detrimental to your spiritual growth, walk towards Jesus the Divine Physician and present them to him. Before you know it, Christmas will be here. If you want to celebrate Christmas with Christ, take this season of Advent seriously. 

God bless you!

Homily for the First Sunday of Advent, Year A, 2022

Advent: Season To Finally Let Jesus Into Your Life

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the First Sunday of Advent, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, November 27, 2022

God is invisible. We can’t see him, but if you want to know what God looks like, look at Jesus. If you want to get some ideas of what God looks like, look at Jesus. Jesus is the icon, the image of the invisible God. In him the invisible God becomes visible in order  to set us free. He comes to save us from the deception and lies of Satan. He comes to save us from the seemingly glamor of wealth, power, honor and pleasure. Jesus comes to save us from ourselves. He comes to save us from the corrosion of attachment. Each of us, in various degrees, is attached to some worldly goods. We have some desires, some loves, some longings that work against our Christian commitment. Jesus wants to save us from those too. But if we deeply feel there is nothing in us that we need to be saved from, Jesus becomes a historical figure we fondly remember. If we don’t need salvation, Jesus quickly becomes one wise person among the many. He becomes a spiritual or moral teacher among the many others like Buddha, Mohammad, Aristotle etc. On the other hand, if you feel like a prisoner waiting to be released and set free, if your disposition is the same as the thief who said to Jesus, “Remember me when you enter into your kingdom,” then the ancient Advent chant, “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel…” will be on your lips. If you have checked yourself out and found out you need the Savior, you will passionately sing and pray, “Come Lord Jesus, do not delay!” 

But why do we need salvation? Why do we need the Savior? Because we regularly wander away from the Lord’s path. We are meant to walk in the spiritual order of God, sadly, a vast majority of us do not always travel along that way. And the saddest news here is that a great number of the lost do not know they are lost and do not feel and think that they are lost. When I started driving here in the USA, I didn’t use GPS because I couldn’t afford it. I relied only on printed MapQuest directions. One day, after taking a priest to Memphis Airport and was driving back to the parish, I missed turning to the right boulevard. Since I wasn’t using anything electronic that can recalculate my route automatically, I got lost. The good news was that I knew I was lost. So, the moment I saw a gas station, I drove into it to seek help. As soon as I mentioned my intended destination, the answer I got was, “You are truly lost.” In the end, I was able to get home because the man I met at the gas station knew where my church was located, he was going my way, and he also asked me to drive behind him. 

Sisters and brothers, like the man I met in a gas station in Memphis, Tennessee, Jesus knows we are lost. He knows where we are meant to be. Jesus is the Way to where we are meant to be, and he is the Savior that wants to take us there. But are we willing to travel with him? If you look at your life right now, you may be pleased at where you are. You may have attained some success in your profession. You may have a good family and your children may be doing well in life. But at the deepest level, are you happy? At the spiritual, religious and moral level, are you entirely okay? Don’t you feel lost at the core? Like me, don’t you sometimes feel like you don’t know where you are going? Outwardly, we try to put up a good show. We paint a good picture that communicates to others that all is well with us. But at the depth, we know all is not truly well. We know there is some emptiness, some incompleteness, some deficiency, some darkness, some shame. Rather than ignore them or numb them with more worldly activities, turn and cry out to the one who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). 

Advent is always the season of preparation. We prepare to celebrate Christmas. But this preparation won’t be adequate and complete if we go through the season without paying particular attention to how we conduct ourselves. Advent is a season of waking up. In our today’s second reading, St. Paul says, “Brothers and sisters: You know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.” Advent is the time to “throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” It is the season to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and to make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” Therefore, let us begin this Advent by identifying those actions and attitudes that come between us and our Lord. I understand that our culture tells us in a million ways to affirm we are innocent: “I’m okay, you’re okay.” But the Word of God instructs us to be honest with ourselves, to admit and acknowledge just like the thief Jesus promised paradise to, that we have done some things sinful and criminal. Acknowledging our guilt should not be a psychologically debilitating exercise. It should not lead to self-pity or a feeling of utter depravation. It is rather a courageous willingness to offer our weakness to the divine physician. It is allowing the God of justice to set things right in us. Until we do this, we will never appreciate the one who said, “I have come that you may have life, life in its fullness” (John 10:10). To be able to celebrate Christmas with Christ, we have to take Advent seriously by coming to grips with our deep spiritual deficiencies.  

Solemnity of Christ The King of the Universe, 2022

Our King Is The Crucified One

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Solemnity of Christ The King of the Universe

St. Bridget Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ Jesus the King of the universe. Everything we say and write about him, everything we celebrate in relation to him is finally meant to affirm him as the King of our lives, as the King of the universe, the one to whom absolute obedience and allegiance is due. In the entire New Testament, no statement emphasizes the absolute preeminence of Jesus Christ stronger than what St. Paul said in today’s second reading: “Jesus is the image of the invisible God...” God is invisible. We can’t see him. But if you want to know what God looks like, look at Jesus! If you want to get some ideas of what God looks like, look at Jesus. Look at what the authors of the Gospels say about him. If you pray before an icon, the icon becomes for you a window to the actual figure. For you, the icon is not just a pretty picture; it is meant to be a window to the truth behind it. When you pray before the icon of the Mother of Perpetual Help, the icon becomes a window through which the Blessed Mother is present to you. St. Paul is saying here that Jesus is the icon of the invisible God. God himself is present to you when you look at Jesus.

But what does Jesus look like? Let’s go to Golgotha, a garbage dump outside Jerusalem. Golgotha was the place where people were crucified, where criminals were put to death. At Golgotha a young Galilean Jew who proclaimed himself to be the long awaited Messiah was dragged to. Prior to this deeply sad event, he had appeared on the hills of Galilee, preached with unprecedented and alarming boldness. He also performed great miracles of healing and demonstrated a mastery over the forces of nature. He spoke and acted, not like a typical Jewish prophet, but as God. As a result of all these, huge crowds of people came to him. Some were drawn to him out of love; others out of curiosity, while others, out of jealousy and hatred. But at a climatic moment of his ministry, his haters got him arrested and brought him to Golgotha. With his arrest, his followers abandoned him. All those who were once with him left him. He was alone. At Golgotha, in this garbage dump, they stripped him naked and pinned him to a terrible instrument of torture— the cross. He is surrounded by a brutal band of soldiers who specialized in putting people to death. To make matter worse, as they walked by, they pointed at him, laughed at him, made fun of him. The onlooking people shook their heads not out of pity but out of disdain. The irony here is that he is the one that St. Paul is talking about. He is the image of the invisible God. He is the Lord of of lords. He is the King of kings. He is the one in whom all things hold together. He is the beginning, the middle and the end of all reality. He is God from God and light from light. He is through God from through God.

With these in mind we all can now see that our notion of kingship is sadly mistaken. Our notion of power, majesty, and lordship has very little to do with the real thing. Consider the things they said to Jesus on the cross, and it will help you understand how we get things right and wrong: “The rulers sneered at Jesus and said, ‘He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God.’ Even the soldiers jeered at him…. if you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.” Add to that, one of the criminals reviled Jesus and said, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” Their mockery contains the key. It contains the clue. What do we think kingship means? Power! Authority! Domination! For us, kingship means the capacity to save yourself. If you have enough money, if you are Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Bill Gates etc. or a billionaire, you have saved yourself from most of the inconveniences of life. If you have enough political power, enough political clout, you can save yourself. If you have enough cultural influence, you can save yourself from embarrassment, from humiliation and from being forgotten. To be king is to be able to protect yourself. But the irony here is that the true King, Christ the King is not the one who saves himself, but the one who forgets himself in love. The true King is not the one who saves himself, but the one who dies as he saves others. The true King is not the one who aggrandize his ego, but the one who gives it away. He is not the one who fills himself up, but the one who empties himself out. 

Sisters and brothers, this is the icon of the invisible God. Do you want power in your life? Stop filling up your life with the goods of this world. Empower others. Do you want life? Save others. Do you want to be saved, redeemed? Help someone else find Jesus. Do you want to be protected? Reach out and protect someone else. If you want to know the Alpha and the Omega and everything in-between, perform a simple act of love. That’s how you become a loyal subject of Christ the King. I guess it is not what you expected. It is not what the world tells us over and over again. But the true King is the one who gives himself away. 

Homily for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Nothing On Earth Lasts

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. John the Baptist Church, Jordan, MN

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Jesus began his public ministry in Galilee. On the hills of Galilee, he preached with unprecedented and alarming boldness. He performed great miracles of healing and demonstrated a mastery over the forces of nature. As a consequence, lots of people came to him. From among those he encountered, he chose as apostles and disciples. At a climatic moment of his public ministry, he sets his face to the holy city, Jerusalem, towards his passion. In today’s Gospel (Luke 21:5-19), Luke tells us that Jesus has just arrived at Jerusalem with his followers. More to it, they are now right in the temple. For the Jews of Jesus’ time, the temple was the very center of life. The temple was the economic, cultural, political and religious center for the nation. And it was unquestionably the most beautiful building any Jew at that time could see, especially for country folks Jews from Galilee. Coming to Jerusalem was a big deal for the disciples of Jesus, however being in the temple, the most elegant building in the entire nation in the company of Jesus who proclaimed himself to be the Messiah was a bigger deal. As the disciples were looking, adoring and praising the most beautiful building they have ever seen, which is the temple, Jesus drops a bomb on them: “All that you see here— the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” Could you imagine the impact of such words on the disciples? They must be scratching their heads and wondering what sort of comment is that. They must have thought: this man claims to be the long awaited Messiah. And he is doing what the Messiah was expected to do. At the culmination of his work, he is now in the holy city and in the temple. Why can’t he move in, take over, and rule from this holy place? Why did he look at this stunningly beautiful building, which is the symbol of everything that is good, beautiful and right, and then predict that it will be turned down? Put yourself in the shoes of the disciples. Imagine you are one of his followers. You have walked with him through Galilee, you have journeyed with him and you have seen the enthusiasm of the crowd. You have seen him do the things that the Messiah is expected to do. Now you are with him in the temple, the most beautiful building and the center of the nation. And right before you he predicts the destruction of the temple.

What is the Lord talking about? As he has said in other passages, Jesus is once again declaring the stubborn truth that nothing in this world lasts. Yes, everything in the world is good. The Book of Genesis tells us that after God created everything, he looked at them and saw they were good (Genesis 1:31). Everything in this world is good, but nothing in this world lasts. Everything in the world reflects God but nothing in the world is God. The temple here stands for all those beautiful, delightful, beguiling, wonderful things that attract our attention; those things that we look at with rapt attention. The temple stands for things and people we are attracted to and captivated by. It stands for that pop star, that cultural icon, that political figure. It stands for your idea of the good life, the fat bank account, the impressive stock portfolio, that job, that building, that position, that office that you aspire to occupy one day. The temple stands for that house you dream of purchasing and living in etc. All those things we long for are represented by the temple. Like Jesus’ disciples, you are looking at them in wonder. But the Lord’s message for us today is this: that which you gaze upon with rapt attention, which you chase with everything you have, which you are giving up so much to attain, procure and acquire, will not last. Days are coming when all those things will be destroyed. 

Is this pessimism? Some people might say it is pessimism, but it is not. It is the deepest truth. Is it not true that nothing on earth lasts? Is it not true that buildings, offices, jobs, bank account, stock-portfolio will one day mean nothing? The point is— do not rest your life on any worldly goods. Reorient your life in such a way that the ultimate good is God alone. When you do this, then you will relate properly to all those earthly things. But when they become your God, when you stand bedazzled by them, then your life is disordered. This is the reason why Jesus at the climax of his life, deliberately undermines this worldly attitude and calls us to begin to live properly. 

But I have a warning for you. When you reorder your life around the love of God, expect storms and troubles. How come? Jesus says, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.” In relation to what we have said already, read these symbols interiorly. When you are convinced that nothing in this world finally lasts, and you place your hope in God, expect interior warfare. There are interests, desires and powers in you that are focused on the goods of the world. Think of your ambitions, aspirations and love for worldly goods. When you say in your soul, none of these things lasts, don’t expect them to go away quietly. Expect a fight! There will be an interior struggle. When a new way of life centered on God meets the old way of being centered on money, pleasure etc expect storms and earthquakes. Why? Because new life is coming and it is confronting the old. Jesus also says, “They seize you and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you before kings and governors because of my name.” Christians who center their lives around God will always be troublemakers. When we stand like the rest of the world, bewitched by the goods of this world, we cause no one any trouble. We simply fit right in. But when we say no to what others consider ultimate value, when we stand with our eyes fixed on God and not on the goods of the world, expect earthquakes and storms on the inside and opposition from the outside. 

Homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, 2022

What Happens To Us After We Die?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Bridget of Ireland Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, November 6, 2022

From ancient times to the present day, the great spiritual question, “what happens to us after we die?” has been of great interest to poets, philosophers, and religious figures. The Greek philosopher, Plato said that at death the spiritual soul escapes from the prison of the body and continues to live on a higher realm, the realm of forms. Surprisingly, some versions of Plato’s dualist view are still very influential today even among Christians. Ask Christians what happens after we die, and many will say that the soul escapes from the body and lives in the spiritual realm. As for Hinduism, it speaks of reincarnation or transmigration of souls into a new higher or lower body depending on how you lived your life on earth. Hinduism says after a person has died, the soul might reincarnate as a cat, a cat might reincarnate as a human being and a human soul might transmigrate into the body of another. This process of birth and rebirth is endless until the soul achieves “moksha,” or liberation. So, it is after a long process of purification that the soul finally shakes off its association with matter. This doctrine is old and enduring in the East, however, it has made its way in the West. As for the ancient Greek and Roman mythology, they claim that the dead go into a dreary and lifeless underworld where existence is rather grim and where the dead long for life above the ground. In the Old Testament, we see a theory that is similar to Greek and Roman mythology. Some OT texts say that the dead go to the land of Sheol. What’s Sheol? It is a kind of depressing, dark, shadowy underworld. Elsewhere in the OT we find an even grimmer view of what happens to the dead. Many texts indicate that the dead will simply disappear. They return to the dust of the earth. The Psalmist famously asked, “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the grave? Will the dust praise you as I do today” (Ps. 30:9). The sense is that it is only the living that praise God. As for the dead, once they are gone, they go back to earth. Now, the shocking thing is that all these views of what happened to the dead are still held by people to this day. When you ask people what their afterlife view is, you will find some versions of all we have said so far. 

Although the Old Testament has two views of the afterlife that are not compatible with what we see in the New Testament, it does have one unique view that matches with the view littered everywhere in the NT— that at the end of the age, those who died will be restored to full embodied life in a transfigured way. This view is on display in today’s first reading taken from the second Book of Maccabees (7:1-14). At the time when the Jews were being persecuted, a whole family was being compelled to break the Jewish law that forbade eating pork. But the family heroically refused to do it even with the threat of death. As one of the sons faces death, he says to his executioners, “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever.” As another son holds out his hands to his executioner to cut them off, he says, “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.” As the last brother dies he says, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him…” In those words we find a distinctive doctrine of afterlife which insists that God will at the end of time bring back to life these heroic martyrs. Their language is not platonic dualism. It is not the language of the soul escaping from the body. It is not the language of gloomy Sheol. It is also not the language of resignation to nothingness. These young men are filled with uncommon confidence that God in his love will restore the dead to a full and elevated bodily life. 

Against this rich background we read the Gospel of today (Luke 20:27-38). We are told that the Sadducees— a priestly caste often associated with the temple worship in Jerusalem who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead came to Jesus with the question of the resurrection. Jesus has been preaching a different doctrine and the Sadducees have heard of it. So, they came to him and posed a puzzle meant to embarrass him, ridicule him and confuse his belief in the resurrection. They made up a story of seven brothers who, one after another, got married to the same woman during their earthly life. Then they asked Jesus, “At the resurrection, whose wife will that woman be?” Their question was meant to mock the belief in the resurrection. What does Jesus say? He says in the next life, in the resurrected life, people won’t marry or are given to marriage. How come? Because we won’t die. One of the prime purposes of marriage is the procreation of life. The need to procreate is based upon our own mortality. We have children because we know we are going to die. So when we die, our children will preserve the life of the human race. Since we won’t die, the concern to propagate human life won’t be needed. The point that Jesus is making is that the resurrected life is an embodied life but also an elevated, transfigured embodied life. It will no longer be saddled with mortality but now clothed with immortality. 

Of course this Gospel is a great anticipation of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. All the Gospels witnessed the truth of Jesus’ terrible death in the hands of his executioners. Much like the story in the Second Maccabees, Jesus is a martyr in the hands of the enemies of Israel. He died and is buried. After that, nobody in the Gospel talks about Jesus’ soul escaping from his body. Nobody talks about Jesus going down to Sheol or to some boring existence. Nobody says he dies and stays in the grave. What they said is that Jesus rose embodied. He rose physically from the dead. They touched him. He ate in their presence. But his resurrection is not a return to this ordinary life. In numerous ways, Jesus shows that his resurrection transcends the limitation of space and time. That his resurrection is embodied, real and objective. When St. Paul was asked what resurrection is like, he speaks of a spiritual body. The resurrection is an embodied life, but it is also a body that has been spiritualized, elevated, transfigured, transformed, and more beautiful through God’s love. This is what happens to us after we die. Let’s thank God for it everyday.  

Homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

When The Son Of Man Returns, Will He Find Faith On Earth?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Bridget Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, October 16, 2022

One of the most frightening and disturbing lines in the entire New Testament is in our Gospel for this weekend. After narrating a parable to his disciples about the necessity “to pray always without becoming weary,” Jesus drops a bombshell question, “But when the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?” Jesus came to set the earth on fire, that is the fire of the Holy Spirit. The fact that the Church has been in existence for more than two thousand years is a sign of the abiding presence of the fire of the Holy Spirit. But does it mean that the Church will always be around? “When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?” To answer the Lord’s question, let’s look at how faith is passed on. Faith is contagious. My siblings and I got it from our parents. My generation got it from the previous generation. But if we fail to pass on the faith, it can fade away in one generation. Couple disturbing facts show that we are always one generation away from the extinction of faith. If you think the Christian faith cannot fade away, look at some places in the world where the Christian faith was once very vibrant. But now, it has ceased to exist. Where did St. Paul mostly preach? In Asia Minor. Today, it comprises most of present-day Turkey. St. John Chrysostom and St. Maximus the Confessor also preached there. Add to it, some of the earliest Christian churches were formed there. In Turkey today, the Christian faith is practically non-existent. Where is the birthplace of the Christian faith? The Middle East. There were once vibrant churches there, great Christian figures, great saints, great theologians, but today only a handful of Christians are there. What about Egypt? Egypt was the home of Origen, one of the greatest Christian theologians of all time; it was the home of the Desert Fathers, and once had a very vibrant church in Alexandria. Today, Christians are a tiny minority in Egypt. What about North Africa? Great Christian figures like Cyprian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo were North Africans. The region once had a vibrant Christian church in North Africa. Now, it is practically non-existent. Look at Western Europe today. It is even worse there. For centuries, it used to be the bedrock of the Christian faith, it was the place that produced many missionaries that went out to all the world, it was the continent that gave birth to pivotal figures like St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Catherine Sienna, etc. Today, the Christian faith is seriously threatened over there. Faith is fading over there. What you find mostly in Europe today are historic huge cathedrals with a few elderly people in them. Faith can disappear. 

Today, Jesus asks a troubling question, “When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?” Do you want to know my answer? In some regions of the world, he will find lots of Christians but with little Christianity. In others, he will find lots of Christian arts, Christian architectures, huge and beautiful cathedrals, etc but with a few Christians fighting to survive. Basically, the prediction of the future is very dire. This beautiful faith of us, this thing that God has given to us, this everything that Jesus has offered us may fade away. Not because of God’s actions and activity, rather due to ours. The world is becoming aggressively resistant to the Christian faith. The secular culture is intensifying its war against the Christian Church and the proclamation of the Gospel. Our first reading for today taken from Exodus 17:8-13 says, “In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel. Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, ‘Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle. I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” In that short passage, Israel stands for God and for the Church, and the Amalekites stand for all the cultural forces that are fighting against the Church. If you don’t know it, know it now. We are in a fight, in a war, in a spiritual warfare. We have always been in a fight from the beginning. After all, we worship a crucified God who was put to death by cultural and political forces. 

Sisters and brothers, the survival of the Church and the spread of the faith is primarily God’s work, however it is our work too. It is also our responsibility to ensure that the Christian faith is passed on from one generation to the next. Tell others about your faith. Share your faith with your family, especially your children. When your children ask faith based questions, don’t ignore them, and don’t tell them to ask the priest or their faith formators. Be the one to answer their questions. If you don’t know the answer, be the one to make enquiries. Understand your faith and then be able to explain it to your children. Read good Catholic books, ask your priests, read Catholic newspapers, go online, but be mindful of the sources. Your children trust you a lot. If they don’t get the answer from you, they might become disappointed and may even conclude you have no reason for believing in what you believe and in what you are trying to teach them. I believe that one of the reasons why many of our young people are disconnecting from faith is due to lack of understanding of the faith. No one understands the Christian message and abandons it. If a child does not understand the reason to believe, to practice, to experience and express the faith, when he or she gains independence from the parents, they will disconnect. As you share your faith with others, especially your family, one thing you should emphasize is practice, practice, practice. In religious tradition, two things are important— the passing on of beliefs and the passing on of practices. Practices are the things we do, like prayer, rituals, sacraments, processions, signs of the cross, dipping your hand in the holy water, kneeling, genuflecting, doing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. If you believe strongly, practice strongly. If you believe boldly, practice boldly. Do not privatize the faith. We have a fight in our hands, Christians. The secular world is fighting with everything it has, but we can fight back with love, with beauty, with practice and thereby hand on the faith to the next generation.

Homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

What’s The Path To Spiritual Healing?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center

Sunday, October 9, 2022

The story of Naaman is our first reading today. On the surface, it is a simple narrative; but in the depth, it is spiritually packed. Naaman is a successful commander of the Syrian army at a time when Syria was a major political power. He was famous, influential, feared, and admired. In the worldly sense, he is the kind of person most of us would like to be or would like our children to be. We want to be famous and powerful. We want our enemies to fear us and our friends to admire us. Although Naaman is a powerful and important figure in the Syrian army, he also has leprosy that worries, torments and humiliates him. Leprosy is a kind of skin disordering and disfiguring disease. He is a significant public figure with a nagging and embarrassing condition. How and where will his help come from? A young Israelite slave girl captured by Naaman’s army enters the stage and recommends a prophet in Israel that might cure Naaman. In Naaman’s entourage, no one is lower in social scale than this Israelite slave girl. In the normal course of things, she would serve Naaman quietly and not be heard. But now she has become a source of wisdom and if Naaman wants to be cured of his leprosy, he has to humbly accept her recommendation. Despite the fact that her counsel is a welcome one to someone like Naaman, it is still a difficult step for Naaman to take because it requires him going to a foreign religion to be healed. It is like someone asking you to travel to India or China to see a Buddhist monk that might heal you. I can imagine you protesting against the move. That’s exactly how it is for Naaman. Eventually, Naaman takes her advice, and with permission from his own king, he goes to see the king of Israel. When Naaman tells the king of Israel that he is in his land to see prophet Elisha, the king does not believe him. He thinks Naaman, from an enemy country, is attempting to spy his own land. So, he tears his own clothes and turns him down. 

It is a humiliating thing for Naaman. His coming to this foreign country was at the “behest” of a slave girl, and now a less influential king compared to his own king is blocking his way and denying him the opportunity to see the healing prophet. After hearing of the situation, prophet Elisha persuaded the king to allow Naaman to see him. Naaman was finally allowed to see the prophet. But before he got to the prophet’s house, Elisha himself sent a messenger to Naaman instructing him to go and wash seven times in the River Jordan. In the world that Naaman lived and moved, this is quite humiliating. He is a great General of the great Syrian army. He is a leading figure in his country. Before he came, he went to see his king. In Israel, he also met the king of Israel. After the initial humiliating refusal, he is on his way to see a provincial prophet that he has never heard of before. Rather than to see him personally, the prophet sends a messenger. And to add salt to injury, the prophet asks him to go and wash in a Jordan river. Deeply upset, Naaman says, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand there to call on the name of the Lord his God, and would move his hand over the place, and thus cure the leprous spot.” Further expressing his anger, Naaman says, “Are not the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be cleansed? With this, he turned about in anger and left.” After all these setbacks and humiliation, Naaman agreed to do the bidding of the prophet. He dips himself into the river seven times, and right away, “His flesh became again the flesh of a little child, and he was clean of his leprosy.” 

What is the spiritual lesson from this story? Firstly, everyone of us, no matter how accomplished and important we are, has some form of leprosy. That is to say a disease, a mental illness, a persistent moral fault, an addiction that torments us, humiliates us, and frightens us. As hard as we may want to dismiss it, everyone has something that worries, bedevils, shames, and frightens us. St. Paul refers to it as “a thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7), which he begs the Lord three times to remove. But the Lord tells him, “my grace is sufficient for you.” Do we want to get rid of this thorn? Yes! But we should be careful because that thorn might be the very thing that God is using to bring us to him. The very thing we would like to immediately get rid of in our life might be the very thing that God is using to bring us close to him. God can use your very weakness to get to you. As the saying goes, “Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” Secondly, if you want to be healed, you must walk the path of humility. Naaman was healed because he quelled and cooled his pride and then submitted his will to God. Is this easy? Not at all! But the only way to spiritual healing is through humility and not ego inflation. 

Centuries later, the Gospel says that as Jesus entered a village, he was met by ten lepers. Standing at a distance as required by the Jewish law, they raised their voices in supplication, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” Again, in those words we hear a great mark of humility. They know that no great act is going to save them. No great accomplishment can heal them. There is nothing they could possibly do that can better their conditions. What they need to do is to humbly submit to Jesus the Master of the universe. So, they called upon his name in faith and trust. We all have leprosy. What the ten lepers did is the necessary first step we must take. We must admit our powerlessness and weakness and say what we say at every Mass: Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy; Lord have mercy. After the lepers were healed, only one Samaritan returned to give thanks. Like Naaman, the Samaritan (both of them are non-Israelites) have further grace and humility to give thanks. He fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. So should we when healing comes. But it will only come through humility. To the Samaritan Jesus says, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” Faith is not stupidity or naiveté. It is an attitude of trust in the will and purpose of God. How should we deal with the thorn in the flesh? Turn to the Lord in faith and humility and say: Lord, save me! And when healing comes, have the further humility to kneel down and give thanks. 

Homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Wait And Trust

Reverend Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 2, 2022

The distressing opening line of today’s first reading, “How long, O Lord? is not unique to prophet Habakkuk. Up and down the centuries, it is also the cry of the oppressed, suppressed, repressed and enslaved people. It is the agonizing question of many believers as they read and watch the mindless destruction of lives and property in Ukraine and the growing threat of nuclear attack by Russia. It is the question of many as they see our society increasingly embrace the culture of death. Prophet Habakkuk’s question, “How long, O Lord will I cry for help, but you do not listen?” is the excruciating lamentation of people in the face of prolonged personal tragedy like infirmity and sickness. It is the weeping question of millions of people who have experienced natural disasters like drought, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane,  famine, etc. People who experienced morally impermissible acts like terrorists atrocities, genocide, extreme poverty, needless and unjust war etc. have also posed the question, “How long, O Lord?” Social unrest among our people, the threat of autocracy at home and abroad, racial and tribal wars, political infighting, the growing division among people, riots and insurrection, the devastating attacks of the pornography industry on our children, the constant breaking news alerts on our phones about many negative events can trigger us to join the prophet in questioning God’s presence and control. If you have never asked that question before, it could either mean you are too young to notice or you are just oblivious and indifferent. And if you are too young to even notice what’s happening around you, all you have to do is just to live long enough. A time will come when those words or similar words will be on your lips.

Did God answer Habakkuk’s agonizing question, “How long, O Lord?” No! God simply tells him to wait and trust. God tells Habakkuk that everything God has said will definitely come to pass at a proper time. God’s time is the best, and when that time comes, the vision, the message, the prophecy that God himself has revealed will happen. But if the time of fulfillment is delayed, God says he (Habakkuk) should exercise patience and wait. For it will surely come. God tells Habakkuk that the task of the just ones as they wait is to live with integrity and to have faith: “The just one shall live by faith.” It is that faith that the Apostles, in the Gospel passage ((Luke 17:5-10), ask the Lord to increase. What does it mean to live by faith? To live by faith is to be convinced that without the true and living God, I will not be. It is to finally believe that I am because God is. It is to make God the center of my live and to allow my life be guided by what I believe. God is the one who rescues us from the grip of death, from the kingdom of death, from the covenant with death that is brought about by sin. The great St. Paul says of God the Father, He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). That’s why St. Paul can write to Timothy in today’s second reading that, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.”

Sisters and brothers, as we live in this world and fight for what is right, virtuous and good in God’s sight, we should not look at the world’s dysfunction and wonder how we are ever going to overcome it. Rather, look at them through the lens of faith which says  that everything that is evil in the world has been conquered by Christ and in Christ. With faith in God, stand your ground and declare, “You no longer have any place here! Your kingdom has been defeated on the cross.” After that, endeavor to join hands with other people of faith to change this world by living a life of integrity, by expressing your unapologetic faith in God who is love and good. Like the three young men in the Book of Daniel 3:8-30, tell the Nebuchadnezzars of our time, “Your Majesty, we will not try to defend ourselves. If God whom we serve is able to save us from the blazing furnace and from your power, then he will. But even if he doesn’t, Your Majesty may be sure that we will not worship your god, and will not bow down to the gold statue that you have made.” 

Saints of God, authentic faith is an attitude of trust in the presence of God. Faith means surrendering your entire life over to God. It is openness to what God will reveal, what God will do, and what God will invite us to become. What do you think God will reveal and invite us to become? It is to be great! For the people of the world, greatness lies along the road to ego inflation. But as for Jesus, the path to greatness lies on the road to Calvary, to self-forgetting and sacrificial love. Imagine what happened to Jesus in Jerusalem. He was rejected, tortured, and killed. In the end, he is the greatest of all. If you like prophet Habakkuk is asking the most agonizing question, “How long, O Lord?,” if you have prayed and fasted and God hasn’t intervened yet, God is speaking to you through Habakkuk and he is saying to you, wait (that is, be patient) and trust (that is, have faith). The good news is that God’s plan for you, God’s vision for you, God’s purpose for you, God’s promises for you, that which God has reserved for you will be yours. If its realization is delayed, God says, “wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.” Do not let what you see, hear and perceive distract you. Remember, the just one shall live by faith. 

God bless you!