Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, Year B

“If God Is For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 25, 2024

The Bible is not the story of our quest for God, rather the story of God’s relentless and passionate quest for us. It is the story of love, not our love for God, but God’s love for us. In the Bible, it is evidently clear that the brokenness, the dysfunction, the sins of the human race is overmatched and outmatched by God’s incredible and indescribable love, compassion and patience. As such, littered in the Bible are assuring, comforting and endearing promises that underscore this very reality. In our Second Reading for today (Romans 8:31b-34), we find one of those soothing and cherished biblical assurances: “Brothers and sisters, if God is for us, who can be against us?” If the almighty God, the Creator and Lord of the universe, takes our side, nothing can harm us, in the long run. Nothing! Not Satan! Not his evil spirits! The gates of hell will not prevail against the people of God, which is what the Church is. 

But is God really for us? How do we know that God is for us? Because of Jesus Christ! Jesus himself said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). God gave Jesus up to die in order to save us from death, which is the necessary punishment for sin. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, the great St. Paul said, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Now, wages and gifts are opposites. Wages are necessary; gifts are free. Wages are demanded by justice; gifts are chosen and given out of love. Wages are deserved; gifts are not. Because of our dysfunction, we don’t deserve God, or heaven, or salvation. It would be arrant arrogance to think we did. It would be insane to tell God after you die that you deserve God’s eternal life, that you deserve infinite and perfect joy. No one deserves it. But the incredible news, the Good News, the Gospel, is that God freely chose to love us and spared nothing to save us from the just punishment that our sins deserved— namely, exclusion from himself and his life and his heaven. God did not spare anything, not even the life of his only beloved Son. If you are still looking for an empirical and concrete proof of God’s love for you, look at a cross. If you want to know how much God loves you, look at a cross. And when you look at a cross, look at the arms of Jesus. Where are they? Not held close to his chest or his sides; they are extended out to the opposite ends of the world. The posture of his hands is that of embrace, embracing everybody. His hands are opened out and pointed in every direction without limit. Nothing can limit his love, not even our sins. Our sins only limit our reception of his love, but not his love. If you are still looking for evidence of God’s love for you, look at a cross, and look at the wounds of Jesus, his five wounds. Each of his wounds is a gate opened for his love to pour out. 

On this second week of Lent, we are meant to reflect on this powerful statement, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” You know, someone can look at those words and then replies, “Well, I will tell you who can be against you! The IRS, your boss at work, your in-laws, your known and unknown enemies, corrupt politicians, terrorists, a rogue police officer, natural disasters, illness, and on and on.” As puny human beings, our real-life enemies may threaten and shake our belief, trust and confidence in the ideas communicated by St. Paul. Despite such biblical promises, we still have to endure physical, mental, and emotional struggles, so much so that we may wonder if God is truly for us. Check this out! The man who wrote the very words we read today faced the same struggles we face and even much more. Five times at the hands of his fellow Jews, St. Paul was given forty lashes, three times he was beaten with rods, he was stoned once, three times he experienced shipwreck, he faced so many dangers and problems on seas, on lands, in the wilderness and from all directions (2 Corinthians 11:24-28). And let’s not forget that St.  Despite all those life-ending problems he faced, he still wrote that if God is for us, no one can be against us. What is he talking about? St. Paul is looking at all the problems of this world— threat, opposition, persecutions, trials, suffering etc. He is looking at them and comparing them to the everlasting power and presence of God Almighty, and he is declaring the winner. No one can overcome God’s love for us.  Nothing and no one can defeat God, and therefore insofar as we are with God, nothing can defeat us in the end. Nothing can defeat our divine protection, not even our sins, if only we sincerely repent of them. If God is with us, who can be against us? No one! Nothing, except you. Only you can be against you if you do not make God your absolute Shelter and Refuge.  

God bless you!

Angels And The Wild Beasts

Angels And The Wild Beasts

The Gospel for this Sunday is St. Mark’s version of the temptation in the wilderness. Unlike Matthew and Luke, which is full of rich details of Jesus’ confrontation with Satan, Mark’s account is like the rest of his Gospel. Just spare and straightforward to the point. What we hear from Mark is that the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert where he was tempted by Satan. Why would the Spirit of God take him into the place of temptation? Although Jesus is divine, he is God, he is fully human like us in all things but sin. Which means he was tempted. The Gospels were so clear about that. So, from a purely human standpoint, there is something spiritually valuable about this kind of temptation. Why? Because it clarifies and strengthens who we are. In Jesus’ confrontation with Satan, Jesus underscores his mission. He comes to clear sense of his mission. 

More to it, Mark says, “He (Jesus) was among wild beasts and the angels ministered to him” (Mark 1:13). In time of his temptation, Jesus stood between the physical and the spiritual. But who are the wild beasts? What's the symbolism of wild beasts? The wild beasts stand for the dark powers, for the forces of darkness and everything that wants to frustrate God's will, plan and purposes for us from being fulfilled. Angels represent God's providence, protection, grace and everything good that helps us realize our vocation in life. That Jesus is between these wild beasts and angels tells us where we are in this world, which is in the middle of two opposing forces, good and evil. But if we continue to lean towards the good, towards the ultimate Good, towards God, even though we will face temptations from time to time, we will prevail. Why? Because God's angels are on hand to minister to us, just as they ministered to Jesus, our Lord. 

Fr. Marcel

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, Year B

Desert Experience And Repentance 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Jesus’ public ministry began from the desert. The Gospel of Mark says he was driven into the desert by the Spirit. Great biblical figures like Moses, Joseph, Elijah, John the Baptist, Paul etc. all spent time in the desert. But there is basically nothing in the desert. So, what is it about deserts? Desert appears regularly in the Bible. When God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, God did not bring them straight into the Promised Land. He took them on a journey first. And not just any journey, God took them into the desert for 40 years. What is the significance of desert? At first, the idea of spending all that time does not sound pretty at all. Why should anyone spend any time in the desert? It is a tough and hard place; it is lonely, and its stillness is deafening. But God had a plan. As the ancient Israelites wandered through the desert, God revealed himself to them more than ever before. As human beings, we avoid the discomfort in life, because we think we have legitimate reasons for doing so. When we find ourselves in a desert, in a dry, lonely and hard place, we lament, and everything seems lifeless or pointless. In extreme cases, even taking a single step out of the door appears to require an extreme amount of effort. Yet, the Bible does not present the desert as a hopeless place. God has used the desert and the wilderness to speak with his people. If you are in the middle of a desert, you are actually not alone. 

What’s the significance of the desert for us today? It was the French Mathematician, physicist and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, who gave us the best explanation. He said that most of us, most of the time, divert ourselves. We distract ourselves from attending to the great questions about God, about life, about the meaning of death, about sin and about grace and all the great questions. To avoid thinking about those realities, we engage in diversions. Paschal himself, by the way, loved to gamble. He was a brilliant man; he spent way too much of his life in these sort of idle games. And most of us do it too. We distract ourselves from these great questions. So, the desert is a place of no distractions. It is a place where we get down to spiritual basics, where nothing can divert and distract us from attending to the great questions. We are often worried about our jobs, family, sports, entertainment, traveling, politics, power, health etc. Those are important, but they can be our ultimate distractions. In our Gospel for today, Jesus our Savior invites us to go into the desert, meet him there and ask these fundamental questions.  

After his desert experience which includes his temptation, Jesus appears in Galilee. The first message on his lips is: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” Today, the call to repentance has been given a bad name. People frown at its mention and associate it with the brand of Christianity that is fanatical or judgmental or angry. But the proper understanding of repentance shows it is nothing to be afraid of. Repentance is not a bad word. The word “repent” in Greek is “metanoia” which literally means “Go beyond the mind you have.” What’s your view about power, wealth, honor and pleasure? If you consider any of these as your ultimate good and goal, during this season of Lent, you must go beyond the mind you have about them. Change your way of thinking and your way of seeing. How do you assess the world? What is your priority? If your priority is not God, change your mind; change your mentality; change your perspective. 

Why is the changing of our minds so important? Jesus says it is because “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” Lent is a penitential period when we come to grip with our limitations, sins and attachments in order to prepare for real communion with God. It is a season for refocusing on the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we will be ready to embrace the good news of the Resurrection. But why this emphasis on suffering? Who wants it? It is because Jesus saved us through an act of suffering. In his own person, he bore the weight of our sin and died for us on the cross, where suffering and love met. As we begin the Lenten season, let us resolve to focus on Christ’s suffering, and to unite our own suffering— through fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and reflection on the Stations of the Cross— with the suffering members of the Church. It is not the destination but the journey that will ultimately transform us and lead us to the destination. 

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in the Ordinary Time, Year B

“Do Everything For The Glory Of God”

Reverend Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in the Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center

Sunday, February 11, 2024

The tendency to separate and isolate our religious life from professional life, political life, business life, family life, moral life, social life and other life we may have is quite strong today especially in a secular society like ours. Everyday, secularist minded people tell us, religious people, to bifurcate our life into departments, to bracket out our religion and make it a private affair that shouldn’t meddle into our other life. In explicit and subtle ways, they urge us to keep religion in our worship places or at home. They tell us, “When you are in Rome, behave like Romans.” Sometimes the phrase, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is misapplied to mean “What you are told in your church and what you do in your church should stay in your church.” So, outside your church, be free, be wild, live as you want. Are Christians immune to this subtle and obvious campaign to make their religious faith a confidential matter? Not at all. We are all susceptible to it. And many of us are already victims. How do you know if you are already a victim? I will tell you! You are a victim if in your social life, professional life, cultural life, political life, moral life, business life, you keep your religious life, the most basic tenets of your faith at bay. You are already a victim if when you are in the church for Mass or for any other religious activity, you put on the appearance of being religious; you speak and act like a godly person. But when you are out there in the world, your speech, behavior and attitude is off-putting. Your speech is littered with profanities, curses and expletives. In social events and workplaces, there is this dominant attitude of pride, arrogance and looking down on others. You are a victim if outside the church your behavior is erratic, reckless, out of control and out of order. It’s like watching light and day. By the way, centuries ago, the great St. Paul warned us to be careful of people who are self-centered, who are lovers of money, proud, abusive and having a form of godliness but denying its power to save them (2 Timothy 3).

What is the antidote to these tendencies? What is the cure for dividing our life into departments: religious and secular and keeping God at bay from our secular life? In our Second reading from 1 Corinthians 10:31, St. Paul says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” That’s the cure, everybody. No matter where you are— home, workplace, in a party, in church, with your friends eating and drinking, if your words and actions are giving glory to God, you are authentic, and you are not a victim of the campaign pressure of secularists who want to rid society of God. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Founder of the Society of Jesus, shortly known as the Jesuits popularized the phrase, “For the greater glory of God.” That phrase is at the heart of Jesuit spirituality. What does it mean? It means that there is no such thing as a secular department of life that is not sacred; it means there is no part of our life that God is not found. So, in your professional life, political life, social life etc. God is to be loved, honored, served, adored and glorified. If you are a teacher, glorify God through your teaching. If you are a medical doctor, glorify God in the practice of medicine. If you are a fire-fighter, glorify God while working to put out fire. If you are a receptionist, a security guard, a nurse, a janitor, a handyman, a bus-driver, a land-mower, a snow-remover, whatever is your means of making a living, glorify the living God while performing your task. Do not keep God at bay. When you eat and drink and dance, do so with the mind of glorifying God. What does that entail? It means I will eat with moderation. I will drink with moderation. I will not make food or drink my god. Dancing is good, and when I dance, I will dance with moderation. I will actually dance like a child of God and not letting my dancing steps and moves become a temptation for others around me. Glorifying God will be uppermost in everything I do.

In the words of the great St. Irenaeus, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” What does it mean to be fully alive? Does it mean feeling lively? No! That’s just a feeling, which comes and goes. Does it mean having biological life? Being born and not aborted? No! It is far more than that, and more precious than biological life. But what does it mean? It is you and me fully alive with God’s life, supernatural life, the life that is stronger than death. It is the life we are not born with but receive by faith and Baptism. To Nicodemus, Jesus said, “What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). “Flesh” here means mortal life, natural life, for both body and soul; “spirit” means not just the human spirit or soul— everyone has that, but the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. Check this out! We won’t make heaven by being born but by being “born again” as Jesus said. Our earthly parents only give us the life of the flesh, the mortal and natural life, but only our Father in heaven can give us the life of the Spirit, the immortal and supernatural life. This supernatural life, this life of God, which is given to us in baptism is to be maintained, sustained and kept alive by being in the state of grace, and not in the state of unrepentant mortal sin. But what is the glory of God? Glory means beauty and splendor, radiating like light. It is a kind of spiritual light. We can see the glory of God in the faces of the saints like Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the great Pope John Paul II. We can see the glory of God radiating in the faces of our spiritual heroes. For some of us, they are our moms, dads, faith formation teachers, our priests, and so many people who allowed God to use them to minister to us. When this beauty and splendor and light of God find expression in your secular and religious life, God is delighted. What gives God joy is not only because you are naturally alive, but that you are alive in every sector of your life. What gives God glory is that in your professional life, political life, social life, family life, moral life etc. God is given his supreme place. God is found in them, and not kept at bay. So, whatever you do in every sphere of your life, do everything for the glory of God. 

Veni Sancte Spiritus! 

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in the Ordinary Time, Year B

The Non-futility of Human Suffering

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in the Ordinary Time, Year B

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 4, 2024

The book of Job is one of the most intriguing, most profound and most challenging books in the entire Bible. It is a book that beguiles the believer and the unbeliever, the faithful and the faithless. The central theme of Job, which is the suffering of the just, has continued to be on the minds of people up and down the centuries. From the time the Book is written to the present day, it has continued to trouble a lot of people, most especially, our young people today. The great question of our day and in the time past is, how do you reconcile the existence of a loving God with the terrible suffering that we see in the world, especially the suffering of the innocent. I tell you, no OT book wrestles with that problem better than the book of God. If you are interested in apologetics, in trying to explain the faith, read the book of Job. 

Now, what’s the basic story? Job is presented as an entirely righteous man, good man, upright man that walks with God. And he enjoys the blessings of his moral excellence. He has a functional family; he is blessed with wealth and has an admirable position in the society. But then something happens in the spiritual realm. God and Satan engaged in some kind of conversation. In that conversation, Satan tells God that the reason why Job is his friend is because God has blessed Job bountifully. But if he takes away all those blessings, Job would curse God. Surprisingly, God accepts the challenge. He allows Satan to strip Job of all his blessings. Thus, in one terrible swoop, Job loses everything. He loses his family, his loved ones. He loses all of his possessions. Add to that, he loses his health. In one fell sweep, everything he had and had enjoyed is stripped away. At the beginning of his woe, Job does not curse God. He stays resolute and determined and faithful. But as his suffering persists and intensifies, he falls, understandably, into depression. As Job drowns into his own sorrow, three of his friends come to visit him. For seven days of their visit, they sit in silence. If you are involved in pastoral ministry, this approach is a welcome one. Rather than say something that might undermine or trivialize a person’s pain, just sit in silence. It is a rather beautiful gesture. When someone is in great pain, words probably may not be the best and suitable remedy. After sitting in silence for seven days, they start to speak. Unfortunately, what they said is something they shouldn’t have said. In summary, what they said to Job is like this: Job, you must have done something bad to bring all this evil upon yourself. I know you look like you’re righteous, but you must have done something wrong because God is punishing you. 

After listening to his friends accuse him of some evil deeds, after protesting that he is innocent, he dismisses the three friends. And in one of the most dramatic moments in the whole Bible, he calls God into the dock. In his anguish, Job cursed the day he was born, “Perish the day on which I was born, the night when they said, ‘The child is a boy!’ May that day be darkness: may God above not care for it, may light not shine upon it! May darkness and gloom claim it, and clouds settle upon it….” (Job 3:5). And about life on earth, Job says, “Is not life on earth a drudgery, its days like those of a hireling?” (Job 7:1). Job has had enough and he is speaking up, but not to his godless friends, but to God. He speaks for anyone who has endured great suffering, especially those who know they have not done some terrible things to merit the suffering, and yet they are suffering. Job calls and challenges God: Why? Why would you allow this? Why would you preside over my misfortune and pain? Isn’t this the same question we hear all the time when people suffer? We may have posed similar questions too. Growing up in Nigeria without my father and without any helper or guide, I asked that kind of question too. And as a priest for almost 17 years, people in pain and suffering have come to me expressing those sentiments.

But in chapter 38 of the book of Job, we hear “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: Who is this who darkens counsel with words of ignorance? Gird up your loins now, like a man; I will question you, and you tell me the answers! Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have an understanding. Who determined its size? Surely you know? Who stretched out the measuring line for it?” What is God doing and saying? God takes Job on a tour of the cosmos, basically asking him “Where were you when I created all these things?…Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked into the recesses of the depths? Have the gates of death been revealed to you…Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Have you entered the storehouse of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail? Do you give the horses its might? Do you clothe its neck with mane? Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars? Is it at your command that an eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high?” What is God doing with Job? He is taking Job on a tour of his cosmos that Job does not know and did not contribute anything into putting into place. What does Job know about the sea, hawk, horse etc? What does he know about their movements and their activities? Now, what is particularly interesting about God’s speech to Job is that it is almost about the non-human world. It is about aquatic animals, terrestrial animals, about the sea, about the cosmic realities and not about human affairs. What is God getting at? What does God want us to pay close attention to? God’s providence! God’s providence has to do with all of human affairs, but as St. Thomas Aquinas noted, God’s providence also extends to particulars, that is, to everything in the world. Everything we can see and cannot see is under the providence of God. God is in-charge!

More to it, God says to Job, “Look at Behemoth, whom I made along with you, who feeds on grass like an ox. See the strength in his loins, the power in the sinews of his belly. He carries his tail like a cedar; the sinews of his thigh are like cables. His bones are like tubes of bronze; his limbs are like iron rods.” God is admiring the amazing creatures that he has made just as he has made Job. God is telling Job that his creative providence extends to everything in creature, seen and unseen, known and unknown. And at the same time asks Job if he knows anything about these beautiful and powerful animals. What’s the point of this? In God’s lengthy speech to Job, God does not provide a detailed layout answer as for why Job is suffering. But God does not dismiss Job’s suffering. Rather, God places suffering in an infinitely greater context— into his loving providence. What does that mean? Someone applies for a job they thought was their dream job; they worked towards it with all their heart. Although they competed with others for the job, that’s actually the job they really wanted and they knew they could do. At the end of the day, they did not get it. What’s their natural reaction? Devastation and brokenhearted! Oftentimes when this happens, God is questioned and God is blamed: “How could God have allowed this to happen to me?” Later on, because they did not get that job, they got another job they never dreamed of, which turned out to be so much better, and it opened up doors they never dreamed or imagined possible. Why did God allow that suffering? Within the rich complexity of his providence, God saw something else. The good God, who sees the entirety of the universe, visible and invisible, sometimes allows suffering to happen, so as to bring about a greater good that we cannot immediately see. 

To his servant God asks, “Where were you, Job?” You can substitute Job with your own name. Does anyone like to suffer? No! I don’t want it, you don’t want it too. When we suffer, we understandably feel the pain and narrow our focus on what we are going through. When we suffer, all we see is our suffering. And in our distress we wonder how God could allow this and that to happen to us. But in his response to Job, God invites us into this infinitely complex setting for all that happens to us, and then invites us into the place of trust. Do I know why God allows a particular pain? Not at all! I have no idea. My knowledge is limited in scope in this world. When I get to heaven, I may be able to know. But in the meantime, all I can do is to trust. In the here and now, I believe; I have confidence. The most basic theology my mother taught me is, “God knows!” The God who is the Lord of heaven and earth knows what he’s doing. 

Veni Sancte Spiritus!