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!

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year C

Casting Aside Distractions And Looking To Jesus

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year C

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, December 8, 2024

The three biblical figures that demonstrate in different ways the spirit of Advent are Isaiah, the Blessed Mother Mary and John the Baptist. Today, let’s reflect upon John for today’s Gospel passage is actually about him. John the Baptist was the last of the prophets of Israel. Concerning him, Jesus says: “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist…” (Matthew 11:11). That means that he was the greatest of the prophets. Why did God send John and many other prophets before Christ? To prepare the way, the historical way, for Christ to plant his roots in history. 

John made his first public appearance in the desert. Many great figures in the Bible spent some time in the desert. Jesus himself was also in the desert. But what took these great figures to the desert? Desert is not a pretty place; there is nothing fun and pleasant about being there. We have the Desert Fathers who consciously moved into the deserts. Why? It was Blaise Pascal, the great French philosopher and mathematician who gave us the best explanation. He said that most of us, most of the time, divert ourselves, distract ourselves from attending to the great questions about God, about life, about the meaning of death, about sin, about grace and all the other great questions. To avoid paying attention to those great questions, we engage in what Blaise Pascal called in his French “divertissements,” diversions. Pascal himself, who was a very brilliant man, spent way too much of his life engaging in diversions. His main distraction was gambling. He gambled a lot. And many of us engage in one diversion or the other. We distract ourselves from these probing, intrusive, morally and spiritually challenging questions. What is the cure for these diversions and distractions? The deserts! They are places with no distractions at all. There in the deserts, there is nothing to distract us from paying focused attention to the great questions we have been running away from. It is in the desert that John the Baptist meets us. Although not on the same level as Lent, Advent is meant to be a desert time to put all our distractions aside and intentionally ask the great questions like “How do I stand with God?” “Is the worship of God the “numero uno” in my life? Where is my life now? On top of the mountain, the place of intense encounter with God? Last week, during the daily Mass I said in my homily that the Church exists primarily to do three things: to worship God, to evangelize and to care for the poor. Are those still my top priority? We are worried about many things. We are worried about jobs, family, sports (your team winning), entertainment, traveling, politics, power, health etc. Don’t get me wrong. Those are important, but each of them can be your ultimate “divertissements” distractions. But in this season of Advent, the Church invites us to go into deserts and meet John the Baptist there, and attend to these great questions we have been avoiding. 

What is the theme of John the Baptist? Repent! Reform! From today’s Gospel (Luke 3:1-6), we hear “John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus repeats that too. In his inaugural address in the Gospel of Mark Jesus says “repent!” “Metanoeite” in Greek, which means “Go beyond the mind you have.” Change your way of thinking; change your way of seeing; change your way of perception; change the way you see the world; change the way you view power, wealth, honor and pleasure. To all of us sinners, John says, change. Change your mind, change your mentality, change your attitude towards God, others, the Church, the sacraments, the poor. Why is this change crucially important? Because the reign of God is at hand. Don’t ask me “What’s the reign of God?” That’s a wrong question. The right question is, “Who is the reign of God?” John the Baptist is not pointing to somewhere. He is not pointing exactly to a new state of affairs, not an idea, not a new political movement, not even a religious reform. He is directing his audience towards someone that Origen called the “autobasileia,” the kingdom in person. In Jesus of Nazareth, divinity and humanity have met. In Jesus, heaven and earth have embraced. In Jesus, God has visited his people. In Jesus, the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus, a new way of being has appeared. 

Because a new way of being has come, John the Baptist invites his audience and people up and down the centuries to leave their “divertissements,” their distractions, to repent, to wake up, “to prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight” (Luke 3:4b). You know, for two thousand years, that has been the central message of the Church. In many cultures across the centuries, and in many languages, that’s what the Church has been saying: repent, change your mind, open your eyes to see Jesus who is coming to you in different ways. This is Advent, sisters and brothers. Go into the desert. Cast aside your distractions, and look at Jesus. It is upon him, the Father, God has set his seal (John 6:27b). 

God bless you!