Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Ethic For The Saints

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 23, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

To Whom Does Your Heart Belong?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 16, 2025

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

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

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

May God bless you and give you his peace!

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

God Always Takes The First Step

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, February 9, 2025

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

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

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

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

God bless you!