Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara
Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN
Sunday, October 25, 2026
A careful reading of the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, reveals that the ancient Israelites were governed by three kinds of law: liturgical, ritual, and moral. Liturgical law specifies how God expects Israel to worship him properly. God wants to be worshipped in a particular way. As I’ve said many times before, this isn’t because God needs our worship. God needs nothing. God is perfect and complete. Rather, asking Israel to worship him in a particular way shapes them into a holy, unique, set-apart people. For instance, Exodus and Leviticus contain extensive instructions about sacrifices and how to perform them properly. They also discuss the tabernacle, which later became a temple; priests and their vestments, including turbans, tunics, and miters; and the order of priestly ordination. You’ll also read about the altars where sacrifices were performed, as well as incense and the structure of Israel’s liturgical life.
Regarding ritual law, Leviticus lists which animals are clean or unclean to eat, describes skin diseases that make a person ritually unclean, and explains how to recover from that state. As for the moral laws, they are littered throughout the Torah, with the Ten Commandments providing their foundation and outlining how the people of Israel should behave ethically.
The key question today is: What happened to these Old Testament laws? Have they been abrogated, or should we still abide by them? What is their status? Consider the liturgical laws. The Catholic Church has preserved much of the ancient Israelite liturgical life. The tabernacle, temple, altar, sacrifice, incense, priesthood, miter, vestments, and ordination—all the things I mentioned—were brought into the Catholic Church and given new focus in Christ Jesus. Who is Christ Jesus? He is the true sacrificial Lamb, and his Cross is the true altar. Christ himself is the true high priest who offers the sacrifice. The incense is the offering rising from Calvary, pleasing to the Father. All these elements were carried over into the Catholic priesthood, which participates in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. So Catholicism has taken up this part of ancient Israelite law and given it fresh expression and meaning.
What about ritual laws concerning clean and unclean animals—what you are to eat and avoid—and people who are ritually unclean? In Christianity, much of this has been abrogated and set aside, as the New Testament itself shows. From Jesus’ lips, we hear, “It is not what enters one’s mouth that defiles that person; but what comes out of the mouth is what defiles one” (Matthew 15:11). In Mark’s Gospel, we hear that he declared all foods clean (7:19b). The Lord’s actions and statements were quite revolutionary and radical, especially for Jews of Jesus’ time. With these declarations, Jesus moved beyond much of Leviticus.
Another scene worth mentioning appears in Acts 10:9-16. Peter was praying at noon when he saw a vision of a large sheet coming down from heaven. It contained all kinds of animals, both clean and unclean. Then he heard a voice say to him, “Get up, Peter. Slaughter and eat.” As a pious Jew shaped by Leviticus, Peter responded, “Certainly not, sir. For never have I eaten anything profane and unclean.” But the voice said, “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.” In St. Paul's great teaching, we hear that we are justified not by the works of the law—especially the ritual law of circumcision, so important to ancient Israel—but by faith in Christ Jesus. In this way, the ritual side of the law was largely set aside. We have moved beyond it.
What about the moral law, the subject of our first reading today? According to the angelic scholar St. Thomas Aquinas, the moral law has endured from ancient times, through Christ, and into the life of the Church. Israel's moral teaching remains in force across the centuries because it expresses enduring insights into the ethical life that should shape how we live. This is the context for today’s first reading (Exodus 22:20-26), which remains deeply relevant: “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.” What is the Lord saying here? This is not an abstract moral recommendation; it is an invitation to empathize with others’ suffering. God is telling ancient Israel: remember that you were oppressed, suppressed, and molested in Israel. Don’t forget what that was like. Let your experience guide how you treat those who suffer now. Whatever your political position on immigration, and however you balance a nation's right to define its citizens and borders with the rights of the foreigner, the other, you must not violate God's clear command in the Bible: love your neighbor as yourself. Since we were all once aliens and immigrants, treat immigrants as you would treat yourself, not as some inferior species.
In our second reading today, we also hear, “You shall not wrong any widow or orphan.” In the ancient world, widows and orphans were among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people imaginable. No social services or support networks existed. A widow had no means of support, and an orphan was in an even worse position unless a family member was willing to take them in. Without one, they were essentially destitute. The Lord urges us not to wrong these two most vulnerable groups in society. Catholic social teaching, which grows out of the Bible, calls this principle “the preferential option for the poor. It expresses God's special concern and love for the marginalized, powerless, and economically disadvantaged. This is not optional charity, nor does it exclude others; rather, it means that moral, social, and economic decisions must first consider their impact on society’s most vulnerable—in this case, widows and orphans. When we say, “A society is judged on the basis of how it treats the poorest and weakest among them,” we are expressing a biblical idea.
If these commands don’t move you because of your political or social views, listen to the next line: “If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.”
God bless you!
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