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

Worship: The Key To Internal And External Order

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

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

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, October 12, 2025

In ancient times, leprosy deeply frightened people, just as contagious and mysterious diseases scare us today. However, besides the fear of catching infectious diseases, people were more worried about the consequences of such diseases. Leprosy rendered someone ritually unclean and, therefore, incapable of engaging in the act of worship. That is the reason why the person responsible for examining the patient in ancient Israel was the priest. It was the duty of the priest to oversee and preside over Israelite worship, including deciding who could and could not participate in the temple.  

In today’s Gospel (Luke 17:11-19), we hear the story of Jesus healing ten lepers, with only one returning to give thanks. As Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem, he was met by ten lepers who stood at a distance and shouted, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” These lepers, who begged for a cure, were not just worried about their health but also about their inability to participate in temple worship. They were Israelites banished from the temple and excluded from the worship of Yahweh. Exclusion from temple worship was a serious punishment for an ancient Israelite. The temple was the literal dwelling place of Yahweh on earth. Therefore, excluding an Israelite from worship was a deep spiritual disconnect from Yahweh, leading to social isolation and preventing the atonement of sins. 

Although many people today avoid worshiping God, they speak openly with confidence and joy about being atheists. While some religious individuals, including Catholics, often skip attending Mass on weekends without serious reasons, this has not always been the case throughout history. Our generation believes we are wiser, more open-minded, and more intelligent than those who came before us. Before his death, Christopher Hitchens, a leading advocate of new atheism, stated that people should dare to seek knowledge and not settle for others' opinions or accept strange stories from ancient times. He also said that it was time for people of faith to grow up and discard their childish preoccupations. Well, he's late now, and I wonder what kind of conversation he had with God. 

What did Jesus say to the ten lepers? “Go show yourselves to the priests.” What does that mean? The Lord is essentially telling them to return to the temple, from which they have been away for so long. He is sending them back to a place they were meant to be. He is reconnecting them with God, the Source of being and life. In healing them, Jesus was, symbolically speaking, gathering the tribes and bringing them back to worship the true God. By the way, these lepers stand not so much for the socially ostracized but for those who have wandered away from proper worship, the ones who are no longer in communion with the Church and are no longer able or willing to worship the true God. 

But why is the worship of God so important? What does worship really mean? To worship is to direct a person’s entire life toward the living God, and in doing so, we become rightly ordered both internally and externally. Worshipping God indicates what your life is ultimately about. Worship is not something God needs, but something we need very much. The true and living God is not a needy God. God is self-sufficient and self-existent. He needs nothing from me, you, or anyone else. The great St. Augustine of Hippo said, “If we worship God, God is not made any greater. If we don’t worship God, God is not made any smaller. But if we worship God, we are made greater, and if we do not worship God, we are made smaller.” One of the key ways to understand a person is by identifying their ultimate concern in life. What someone worships reveals a lot about them. If it’s not the living God, they, like the ten lepers, are in exile and have become unclean. 

Let me conclude with this thought: every one of us, no matter how successful and important we are, has some form of leprosy. That is to say, a disease, a mental illness, a persistent moral flaw, or an addiction that torments us, humiliates us, and frightens us. As hard as we may try to dismiss it, everyone has something that worries, bedevils, shames, and frightens us. St. Paul calls it “a thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7), which he pleads with the Lord three times to remove. But the Lord tells him, “My grace is sufficient for you.” Do we want to eliminate this thorn in our side? Yes! But we should be cautious because that thorn might be precisely what God is using to bring us closer to Him. The very thing we want to eliminate from our lives immediately might be the same thing God is using to draw us nearer. God can use your weakest point to reach you. As the saying goes, “Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” However, if you genuinely desire to be healed, you must walk the path of humility and come to Jesus. You must see Him as someone you cannot do without. You must surrender to His Lordship and allow Him to lead and guide you. You must do what He commands. 

God bless you!

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

The Spirit of Power, Love, And Self-Control

Rev. 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 5, 2025

Today’s second reading is from Paul’s second letter to Timothy (1:6-8, 13-14). Paul wrote to his spiritual son, Timothy, whom he personally converted to Christianity, while he was in prison. Christians who believe in Christianity without embracing the cross should take note: Paul often found himself imprisoned. Timothy traveled with Paul during one of his missionary journeys. He was half-Jewish and half-Gentile. Paul, an apostle to the Gentiles, converted Timothy, who represents Paul’s mission to both Jews and Gentiles. In this letter, you can sense the father-son relationship. It’s like hearing an old soldier advise a young soldier. Clearly, Paul loved Timothy and was mentoring him as a disciple. Paul's advice to Timothy is filled with military imagery. Why? Because Paul saw the Christian life and mission as a struggle. From prison, he used his letters to guide Timothy toward a meaningful life as a missionary. 

In our reading today, we come across a line that has been one of my favorite passages in the Epistles: “I remind you, to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.” As a priest, I am moved by Paul's reference to laying on of hands. For that was the gesture by which he ordained Timothy to ministry, and that gesture continues today. When I was ordained a priest on June 30, 2007, the ordaining prelate, Bishop Gutemberg Regis, CSsR of Brazil, placed his hands on my head. It is the same gesture used by Paul, and as you can see, it is an ancient gesture. Whenever you attend an ordination Mass and see the Bishop imposing his hands on the candidates for ordination, remember Paul’s words to his young spiritual son, Timothy. The fearless, bold, and confrontational old soldier, Paul, is telling Timothy that the Spirit he received through the laying on of hands is not a Spirit of fear, but one that makes us strong, loving, and wise. 

Sisters and brothers, the Spirit of God is for fighting. And you see this truth echoed throughout the Bible. You see it in Abraham, Moses, Joshua, the prophets, Jesus, and in the lives of every first-century Christian. The Christian faith is a faith that fights. In his other letter written to the Ephesians, St. Paul says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (6:12). We are fighting against a world of hatred, violence, exclusion, racism, division, family feuds, and marriage collapse. We are fighting against secularism, the world of a lack of a sense of God, and the flight of religious reverence. All of these, and many more, are rising against the Church of Jesus Christ, and we who proclaim it, embody it, and try to live the Christian faith must be fighters, full of the Spirit of courage and resistance. 

What is the weapon of this fight? How should we fight? St. Paul says, “We are not given the spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.” We don’t fight with the weapons of the world. We don’t fight the world on its own terms and ground. We cannot fight hatred with more hatred. We cannot fight cruelty with more cruelty. We cannot fight darkness with more darkness. When we do that, we lose. Instead, we Christians fight with the Spirit of God, which empowers us to be strong, loving, and wise. Christianity is not a naive religion. Throughout the Christian centuries, Christians have known how to fight, but we fight with the weapon of love and self-control. As followers of the Crucified God, we should be ready for opposition. Jesus was put to death by the world, so we who follow him, who are marked by the sign of his cross, must be ready for a fight. That’s what Paul is saying to Timothy and to all of us today. 

The Spirit given to you at your baptism is a Spirit of power, love, and self-control. I have said it many times: fighting hatred with hatred is weakness. Fighting anger with more anger is weakness. Fighting violence with more violence is a weakness. Hatred, anger, violence, and aggression come from the world of darkness. You cannot overcome darkness with more darkness—only light can. The antidote to hatred is love. The saying, “Revenge is best served cold,” originates from a world of darkness and ugliness. The most disempowering weapon against hatred, cruelty, and meanness is love and self-control. Take this to the bank: how you react when you're angry reveals where you are in your spiritual life. In tense moments, does the spirit of self-control take hold? What do you do and say when your spouse hurts you with harsh words? Do you fight back verbally? Or do you allow the spirit of love and self-control to reign? When a colleague at work is cruel to you, how do you respond? Do you plan and carry out your own cruelty? When someone spreads a false story about you, how do you respond? Do you foment lies against that person? No matter what happens at home, at work, in church, etc., never forget who you are: a disciple of a crucified Man-God. You follow someone who experienced all that is ugly in the world. In the end, he was crucified naked outside Jerusalem like a common criminal. He has all the power and the right to revenge, but in the most dramatic and disempowering way, he uttered the words of mercy: “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). On the cross of Jesus Christ, we see the spirit of self-control. We experience divine mercy that completely cancels all the sins of the world. 

God bless you!