Homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Inaction Is Not A Virtue

Fr. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Bridget Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, September 25, 2022

There are two characters in today’s Gospel (Luke 16:19-31): one is a rich man and the other a poor man. The rich man was not named but the poor man has a name- Lazarus. The name “Lazarus” is derived from the Hebrew name “Eleazar” which means “God is my help.” Like so many rich people, this rich man dressed expensively and also ate lavishly each day. By every standard, he was comfortable. In a very poor region where many people would consider  themselves fortunate if only they ate a small piece of meat once a week, and where they labored and toiled for six days of the week, this rich man indulged himself in a lavish, flamboyant and extravagant living. Meanwhile, not far from him was a poor man, Lazarus, who sat and waited for crumbs that fell from his table. Lazarus was a beggar and it seems he was homeless too because the gospel says “And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus...” His body was covered with sores. He was so helpless and so weak that he could not even ward off street dogs that hovered around him and licked his sores. 

After an earthly life of untold suffering, Lazarus died and was taken away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and went to a place of torment- hell. From the place of torment, he looked up and saw Abraham and glorified Lazarus beside him. So, he pleaded, “Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” Imagine the turn of events. But Abraham quickly reminded him that he was reaping what he sowed while on earth. When his first request was rejected, he made a second one: “Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.” To his second request, Abraham called his attention to the fact that his brothers have priests and prophets whom they should listen to. But the rich man insisted that if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent. Again, Abraham rebuffed his request and said to him, “If they (your brothers) will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.” 

Now do not see this parable as blanket condemnation of riches or rich people. And do not consider the story as an endorsement of poverty by Jesus. It is a great theological error to do so. The kind of poverty that bedeviled and tormented Lazarus is evil. It gives God no glory. It gives no commendation to humanity. No human being should be allowed to experience such suffering. That kind of misfortune debases the dignity of the human person and makes mockery of the very idea of humanity and community. Such kind of poverty should be fought and be defeated. It violates the beautiful virtues of charity and compassion. As for the rich man, he was not damned for being wealthy. Jesus is not anti-riches or rich people. Wealth when acquired justly can be the blessings of God. The rich man did not end up in hell simply because he was rich. After all, he did not order Lazarus out of his sight or be thrown out of his house. His sin was that he never noticed Lazarus. Lazarus was invisible to him. As far as he was concerned, Lazarus was part of the landscape. As far as he was concerned, it was perfectly alright for Lazarus to live a life of hunger and deprivation while he wallowed in extravagant feasting. What took the rich man to hell wasn’t what he did but what he did not do. Right before him was a man of suffering, a fellow man ravaged by disease, a child of God, a fellow citizen, a human being like himself, yet he felt no sense of grief and pity in his heart for him. He saw a man in dire need of help, but did nothing. He had no feeling for him, and no love for him. God is nothing but love. And love is willing the good of the other and doing something about it. The rich man went to hell because there was no love in his heart for Lazarus. He did not go to heaven because he does not possess what God is, which is love. And what made the rich man’s indifference to Lazarus’ condition shocking is that he does have the resources needed to change the life of Lazarus. He does have it in abundance yet, he turned a blind eye. He was punished for refusing to notice the presence of Jesus who is uniquely present with the poor, the abandoned and those on the margins of the society. As for Lazarus, he was carried to the bosom of Abraham not just because he was poor. He went to heaven because like his name suggests, he totally depended upon God for his sustenance. In his poverty, he was not jealous of the rich man. In his poverty, he did not turn away from God. In his poverty, he was not upset with God or with anyone. Despite his poverty, he still had faith in God. He loved God and sought help from him. In the end, he got the relief and salvation he sought for.

If you are able to help someone, if you are able to put a smile on someone’s face, if you are able to make an impact in someone’s life, an impact rooted in love and compassion, just do it. In the end, you will realize that you have stored so much treasure for yourself in heaven. The Lord has not called us to do nothing. Each of us has been called to do something- something good. Each of us has been called to be active Christians. Dormant and inactive Christians produce nothing. Dormant and inactive Christianity is worthless. Doing nothing is not a virtue. Do not be a Christian who does nothing. In the course of your life, God will severally put you in positions of doing something valuable for others— like wiping away tears from the eyes of another, lending a helping hand to a needy person, giving your time to a lonely person, visiting the sick and the shut-in, making a difference in the life someone, and making others see Jesus in you. Whenever that opportunity comes, don’t act like the rich man in today’s Gospel. Do something! Christianity is a religion of action- compassionate action towards others for the sake of Jesus and the health of the society. 

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

Lessons From The Unjust Steward

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

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

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, September 18, 2022

What we see throughout the Gospel is that Jesus rarely preached in a systematic and doctrinal way. His preferred method of teaching is the parable. He uses disquieting and disturbing stories to shock us and wake us up from our spiritual dormancy, aridity and sleepiness. He uses parables to get us into a whole new way of thinking. One of the most puzzling and mystifying parables of Jesus is our today’s Gospel— the story of the unjust steward. The steward is responsible for caring for his master’s goods and money. But his master has caught him lining his pockets, squandering his property and money. So, the master said to him, “…you can no longer be my steward.” At this point, the unjust steward panicked. Why did he panic? First, the Palestine of Jesus’ time was a very poor country. Secondly, in that society, there were no unemployment benefits, no insurance and no welfare payments. When someone loses his job, especially an older man, he is in serious trouble of becoming homeless unless he has a wealthy family member to support him. So this man is facing a very dire situation. What’s he going to do? He made an assessment of himself, “I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.” If he lost his job, especially for malfeasance in a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business, his chances of getting another job is quite small. What he is left with is the possibility of doing the most menial kinds of labor of which he said he is too old and too weak to do. He is in a very dire and desperate condition. So he called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He replied, one hundred measures of olive oil. He said to him, ‘Here is the promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’ To another the steward said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘one hundred kors of wheat.’ The steward said to him, ‘Here is the promissory note. Write one for eighty.’ 

What is he doing? He’s calling the people he has been dealing with for years and then cheats his master further in order to find favor with them so that when he finally loses his job, they will give him a softer landing. He is about to be fired from his job for stealing, but he is doubling down his immorality to get ahead. At this point, Jesus shocks us all. He says the master praised the unjust steward for being clever. Praise him? This parable is in the middle of Luke’s Gospel where Jesus has been telling us over and over again not to cling to the things of this world, to let go of our possession, to find our treasure in heaven, and live the radical life of the Gospel. And now in this story, he seems to be saying, I approve of this man who clings to wealth in an immoral way. What changed? Like all parables, this one is meant to shock us and teach us something about spiritual life. Jesus is not praising him for his immorality, rather for his cleverness. 

Now this parable is meant to teach us three great spiritual lessons. First, the unjust steward is in serious trouble and he knows it. The crisis in his life has woken him up. In Latin, the word crisis means “decision” or “judgment.” Throughout the Gospel, Jesus compels a choice. In Jesus, God has come. God is now here. You are either with him or against him. You have to choose. There is no room for complacency. In Jesus’ inaugural address in Mark’s Gospel, the first words out of his mouth is, “The time is now. Therefore repent and believe the good news.” And he repeats these very words in all his preaching. The time is now! Wake up from your current spiritual aloofness. Connect your life unto the power of God. End the complacency and the lack of care for your spiritual health. In this parable, Jesus is urging us to wake up to the crisis that we are in spiritually and the need to make a clear and unambiguous decision about our life. We don’t have to wait until we hit rock bottom to wake up. Wake up now and make a decision. 

The second lesson. The unjust steward makes a very honest assessment of himself. He knows he’s about to be fired. He tells himself the truth: I am not strong enough to dig and I am  ashamed to beg. He is admitting his own physical weakness. When you are in a crisis, you are compelled to be honest about yourself. Most of us go through life living complacently, inventing lots of lies about ourselves. We say to ourselves, “I’m okay! I’m doing alright! But when the moment of crisis comes, there is no more room for dishonesty. Consider someone who has gone through most of his life eating poorly— eating big marks for dinner, French fries for breakfast, preferring highly processed food over organic one, drinking whatever he wants and whenever he wants, smoking and not exercising at all. Then comes the heart attack or stroke. It does not kill him per se. But the tragedy wakes him up and there is no more room for self-deception and lies. Right there he realizes that he has not been eating well and not exercising. He realizes that he needs to stop smoking. He says to himself, ‘I have to change.’ ‘I’m not alright.’ What Jesus admires in the unjust steward is his honest self-assessment. He is able to assess that things are not alright in his life. In a spiritual crisis, we should say, ‘Lord, I know all is not alright with me. I know my spiritual life is not where it should be. I am not praying the way I should. I know my relationships are not alright. I know I am not caring for the poor. I know I am not doing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  I know I am not participating in the sacraments.’

The third lesson. The last quality that Jesus wants us to see is the fact that the unjust steward acted. Yes, he acted immorally, and Jesus is not telling to be immoral. But what he admires is his resolute action. He’s in crisis. He knows he is in crisis. He accesses himself honestly, and then decides to act. Imagine someone who is awakened to his spiritual crisis: he knows that his relationship with God is the most important thing. Secondly, he is aware of his weaknesses, and decides to act. If your prayer life is weak, start praying now and today. If you have been staying away from Mass and the sacraments, get back to them. If your relationship is weak, fix them. If you are not charitable, start being charitable now. That’s what Jesus wants us to see today. There is no time for wishy-washy in spiritual life. You are either with me or against me, so says the Lord. The time for judgment and decision is not tomorrow, not next week. It’s today. So act! 

Homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Lost And Found And Joy

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Bridget Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Modern day spirituality emphasizes an individual’s quest for God. Adherents of this kind of spirituality talk about their search for God. They will tell you they are on a quest to find God. As interesting as that sounds, it is not biblical. The Bible is about God’s quest for us. Our supposedly quest for God is a veiled reflection of God’s passionate and unrelenting quest for us. It is God who finds us and not the other way. If the project of finding God is entirely ours, we may never find God. So, as from today, let your prayer life and moral life be about setting yourself up to be found by the one true God, who is good. Our today’s Gospel gives us three classic parables of Jesus that highlights the stubborn fact that God is the one who searches for us. God is the Seeker. In the first story, Jesus says to the crowd, “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?” The implied answer is nobody! No one will take such a risk of putting the ninety-nine sheep in danger just to go in search of one. It’s just bad math and bad economics. Ninety-nine is greater than one, isn’t it? Leaving the ninety-nine and going after one sheep is simply bad shepherding. But that’s our God, everybody. His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8b). But why would God bother about one soul? It is what God is and does! God is nothing but love, and in supra-rational ways, God relentlessly searches for the lost. That’s why St. Catherine of Siena said that God is pazzo d’amore (crazy in love). 

In the second parable, Jesus tells the story of a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Then she turns her entire house upside down in search of the lost coin. The coin we are talking about is of small value. It’s like a nickel or a penny. Could you imagine someone turning her entire house upside down just to look for a nickel? If it is $20 or $50 or $100, I will understand the passion to find it. But to turn an entire house upside down because of a nickel is shocking. I don’t know of anyone who would do that. Yet, that’s what this woman does. More to it, she invites her neighbors for a celebration. If you invite your neighbors to celebrate with you for finding a nickel, they will think you have lost your mind. If they know your children, they are likely going to be telling them: I think you should check your mom. Something is not right with her. Again, the point here is how crazy in love God is. He searches even for the smallest or the least of us. 

The third parable is the famous story of the Prodigal Son. In the story, the younger son severely insults his father by precisely saying to him: I have desperately been waiting for you to die and since that has not happened yet, I can no longer wait for your demise. Just give me my own inheritance now. In Jesus’ time, such a move is the worst insult a son can heap upon his father. To add salt to injury, he squanders his inheritance on a life of dissipation. Every father has the right to right off this kind of son. Yet, the father waits and waits and waits until the boy returns home. Then going against all the social conventions of the time, the father runs to him and receives him with open arms. What the father has done is crazy. That’s bad fatherhood. In that era, no father would behave that way. At least, he should be imposing punishment upon the reckless son or at least receive him back grudgingly. Indeed, God is pazzo d’amore! God is crazy in love with us. He is relentlessly after us. We are hunted by the image of God who is distant and difficult to please, who is waiting for us to perform morally at a very high level before he can give us any time and attention. But that’s not just the Bible. God is the shepherd, the mother, the father who is crazy in love with us. Even the most obnoxious of us, the prodigal son, is crazily loved by God. 

What’s the spiritual lesson of the three parables? The lost coin, the lost sheep and the prodigal son represent three clear ways of being lost. The woman, the shepherd and the father represent three kinds of finding the lost and three manners of divine intervention and activity. First the coin. The coin is an inanimate object. It is not able to know or feel or sense anything. When it is lost, it doesn’t even know it is lost. It can’t do anything to get to where it truly belongs. Some people, including the ones we know, are in this kind of situation. Who are they? They are people who are spiritually dead, who are so far from God, who are so alienated from their real purpose but don’t even know they are lost. An unexamined life does not know when it has gone off kilter. Such people may be successful in the world, but spiritually speaking, they are far from God and don’t even know they are lost. For St. Augustine, such persons drift into the region of the unlikeness. We are made in the likeness of God, but our sin could be so bad that we wander into the colony of the unlikeness. I have heard people say, ‘I am fine; I am doing well; I don’t need God for anything.’ These people are so lost that they don’t even know that they are lost. People in this situation are like the lost coin. Is there any hope for such people? Today’s Gospel says YES! Because God is like the woman looking for the coin. He is diligently searching for those who don’t even know they are lost. Let’s look at the lost sheep. Obviously, a sheep is more than a coin. It has mobility, sense, appetite, and mind at a very low level etc. When I was growing up in Nigeria, my friends and I once traced a bleating and crying sheep into a ditch. It was his persistent cry that led us to where he was. The sheep knew he was in trouble, his loud and persistent bleating is for someone to come and save him. Some people are like the lost sheep. Spiritually, they are compromised and unable to help themselves. However, they are aware of their dysfunction and messiness. They know they are in a totally bad place. They are like people who admit they have hit bottom and then enroll in an AA program. Like the sheep, they bleat and cry for help. Spiritually and religiously they know they are lost. One day I was sitting in the rectory chapel praying. Upon a reflection of my life, I prayed: “I don’t know what I am doing, Lord. I am so lost. Please, locate me, find me, and bring me home to yourself where I truly belong. Amen.” The words of that prayer is like the bleating of the lost sheep. To such sheep, God finds them too and carries them home. 

Now the prodigal son. He is not like the coin, just dumbly lost. Nor is he like the sheep able only to bleat and cry for help. His situation is more complicated. How come! He has gone into a conscious rebellion against his father. He didn’t fall into a pit and didn’t know why. He consciously and rationally strayed and rebelled. Furthermore, his reasoning skills did not abandon him even when he suffered spiritual and moral collapse. He examined his situation, and made the rational and wise decision to return home. Are there people like this? Yes! You may be one of them. In the past, you may have consciously rebelled against God. Maybe something happened to you. You lost a spouse or someone nearest and dearest to you. May be you prayed and your prayer was not answered the way you wanted it. Maybe the good health you once had has gone south. Maybe the condition of your children saddens you. Maybe you didn’t get the dream job. Maybe you didn’t save enough money and in your retirement you are barely getting by. And in that state of anger, you consciously rebelled against God and stopped praying to him. After a few years, you realized how so lost you have been and you sought your way back. Notice how the father respects the son’s freedom. When the son decided to leave, he let him go. In the same manner, when we exercise our freedom, God respects it too. And when the son exercises the common sense to return home, the father runs to meet him. Finally, what does the woman who finds her coin, the shepherd who finds his sheep, and the father who finds his son have in common? Joy! They are all overjoyed when they found what was lost. God operates in several ways depending on the situation of his children. When we are lost, God finds us. When we allow him to find us, he carries us and welcomes us home. That’s the amazingly great news for this weekend, everybody. 

Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Hate What The World Tells You To Love

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, September 4, 2022

Many people including Christians will find today’s Gospel (Luke 14:25-33) quite  intolerable and difficult to comprehend. But as tough as this passage is, it is worth pondering over because it is about the life of discipleship. Luke says “great crowds were traveling with Jesus,” and in a dramatic fashion Jesus drops a kind of spiritual atomic bomb on them: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, his wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” These people have been fascinated by the personality of the Lord. They have been intrigued by the authority of his word. The great miracles that followed him have driven them to walk along with him. They have heard his long sermons on the Mount and have accepted them. Then Jesus drops the bomb: unless you hate your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters and even your own life, you cannot be my disciple. I can imagine many of them scratching their heads and wondering, isn’t he the one that spoke about love including loving one’s enemies? Isn’t he the one who said, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you? (Luke 6:28) I can imagine many uttering inaudibly: I have to hate everyone I love in order to follow you? I can imagine some in the crowd kicking and fuming and questioning: Why is he telling us to hate those who are dearest and nearest to us? I imagine many left him and went away. 

Sisters and brothers, let me ask a very important question: deep down are you happy? Do you know a lot of happy people? By happy, I mean people who are deeply content and satisfied, who are right with themselves and God. One thing my pastoral ministry has taught me is that a lot of people are sadder than they appear in the public. In the public view, they smile and come across as happy. But in reality they are not. Permit me to ask another important question: do you think our understanding of happiness and what constitutes happiness is right and accurate? Is it not possible that our understanding of happiness has made us slaves of an illusion? What is the illusion? The illusion that says you will be happy when you get enough pleasure; the illusion that says you will be happy when you have power and wield lots of power; the illusion that says you will be happy when people adore and admire you a lot; the illusion that says you will be happy when you have abundant material wealth. If you think you will be happy once you get all you need or want, you are chasing an illusion.

The two tough spiritual truths are, one, everyone is a victim of this great illusion. Two, none of the aforementioned worldly goods can make us happy. Yes, when pleasure is obtained, when power is attained, when honor and wealth are acquired, we experience a rush of excitement. But sooner or later, all that excitement fades away. We become bored and restless again and find ourselves wanting more and more and more. If we don’t turn to God and surrender totally to him, our whole life becomes the terrible desire to fill up our ego with these goods of the world— money, power, fame, sex etc. If you are wondering why we are not happy, this is it! It is an illusion and a great one for that matter to believe that the acquisition and procurement of power, wealth, pleasure and esteem of others will guarantee true and lasting happiness, peace and rest of mind. What’s the secret to being happy? Right now, right before you, you have everything you need to be happy. Regardless of the state of your life or what your pain is or how many attachments you have, right now, you have everything you need to be happy. The holy grail to happiness is right in front of you at every moment.

Remember the book, MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktore E. Frankl. In that book Viktore shows there were happy people at Auschwitz. Auschwitz is hell on earth. It was the largest concentration camp of death located in southern Poland. Those locked up there were deprived of everything we try to fill up our life with. They were deprived of freedom, money, wealth, pleasure, power, honor, status, fame etc. Yet, Viktore Frankl says there were happy people at Auschwitz. Remember St. Edith Stein? She was a Carmelite nun. Her life ended at Auschwitz. She and her fellow nuns were dragged out of the convent and put in a train that was heading to Auschwitz. A few days after they arrived, they were killed. But some people who were in the train with them and who survived the war talked about what they saw. According to them, St. Edith Stein and her sisters were so calm, so peaceful that they were ministering to those around them. How can they be calm in the train going to Auschwitz? How can they be calm in the concentration camp of death? All the things we think make happiness possible were taken away from them, yet they had peace and serenity, even ministered to those around them and became bearers of God’s presence. How’s this possible? Listen again to the words of Jesus: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” In other words, hate all these things and all these people in the measure that they have become gods to you. If you are filling your ego with all these things and with all these people, you must hate them. Hate the very things that the world has convinced you you need to be happy. Hate the attachments and possessions the world has convinced you you need to be happy. And when you detach from them, you will discover something miraculous. You will realize that the holy grail of happiness is right in front of you. Even in Auschwitz, even on a train taking you to Auschwitz, you can find peace. Original sin has darkened our mind and fuddled our will. Due to it, we choose things in the wrong way. So, the spiritual bomb that Jesus drops today is meant to break us into a new consciousness. Consider Jesus crucified. Naked! Humiliated! Stripped of all that the world holds as good. Yet, he is the most blessed. Hate what the world tells you to love. Love what God tells you to do. That’s how you become truly happy. 

Homily for the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Bend The Stick The Other Way

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Bridget Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, August 28, 2022

The central message of the Bible is that there is one true Good, God alone. For this reason, the Bible beckons, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve” (Luke 4:8). This command to worship and serve the one true God is at the heart of the Christian enterprise. It means that God alone should be the center of our life. It means that other things that take our attention away from God are finally idols and false gods. So, to make them the center of our life is to commit idolatry and engage in false worship. Sadly, there are people who are in love not with God, but with money. To acquire money, they will do anything, break any law and hurt any person. Why? Because they made money (wealth) their god and the center of their lives. Others love power. To attain it and retain it, they will do almost anything— break any law, hurt any person because they have made power their god and center of their concern. We also have people who love pleasure— pleasure of the body. To obtain it in its various forms they will do almost anything, break any law, hurt any person. Why? Because they’ve  made pleasure, one of the classic alternatives to the true Good, their god and the center of their lives. Now there are some people who care less about money and wealth. They care less about power. Power is not their thing. They also care less about pleasure. In fact they are willing to give up all kinds of pleasure. But what they want, what they are hungry for, the center of their life is honor. They want to be admired. They want all the attention, everyone looking at them and hailing them. They want to be in the spotlight. For a lot of people, this is an intoxicating good. For honor, they are willing to break any law, hurt any person just to attain and remain in the spotlight. They have made honor or fame their god. You see these people all over the place. Look at the politicians. Of great importance to them and other famous people is the hunger for fame and glory. Like wealth, power, and pleasure, honor is also a false god. But it is not the ultimate good. 

But the truth is that those who are addicted to honor are hardly free. How come? You can be doing the best thing and achieving the best thing, but if the crowd does not like you you are not happy. On the other hand, you can be doing the worst thing that is damaging to you and others, but if the crowd likes you, you are alright. Is the crowd very good at honoring the right people? Once in a while they might honor the right persons, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta. In her case, the crowd showed good taste and good judgment. But most of the time, people who get honored and admired are the worst kind of people. People who are truly good, truly righteous, truly full of love etc. are often ignored by the crowd. So when you put your life in the hands of the admiring crowd, you flush authentic goodness down the toilet. You put your life in the hands of very dubious people. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, honor in itself does not add one bit to your life. When you are honored and admired by the crowd, when you are in the spotlight, does it add one ounce to the substance of your life? Does it add to your own goodness, to your own truthfulness, to your own righteousness and integrity? Heck no! It does not add one drop to it. Honor is simply a kind of indication. It’s pointing to something worth looking at. That’s why the Church honors the saints. The Church points to the saints and asks us to admire them because there is something in them that is worth imitating. But in itself, honor, admiration and glory adds nothing substantial to you. 

Look at it this way! If you are quietly reading a good book at home and savoring the truth contained in it without anyone noticing you, there is more value in that than in the applause of a million people. If you are engaging in one of the corporal works of mercy or helping a child do his homework and no one sees you and admires you, there is more truth, more substance in being in that than in the cheers of a million people. Honor adds nothing substantial to your reality. If you are looking at a beautiful sunset, admiring the countryside and admiring God’s beauty, and no one notices you, there is more truth, more value in that simple act than in the admiration of a million people. There is more value in the simple act of reading a book at home and taking its truth. If the whole world knows about you and admires you, so what?

What’s the antidote to this false god? What do we do if we are addicted to honor and fame and admiration? Our today’s readings tell us what to do. The first reading from the Book of Sirach says, “conduct your affairs with humility and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are and you will find favor with God.” The watchword, everybody is humility. When St. Augustine was asked to name the three most important things in spiritual life, he said the first is humility, the second is humility, and the third is humility. To be humble is to be connected to reality. What’s that reality? That you are not God, rather a mere mortal. Forget about vainglory, and be in touch with the simple reality. If your temptation is to be great in the eyes of the world, bend the stick back the other way. The more you are honored, the more you should become humble. In the Gospel, Jesus urges that we not sit in the place of honor when we are invited to a wedding party or else when someone greater arrives, the host might ask that we vacate our position for him. What you should do when you are invited is to sit in the lowest place. People who are in love with honor will definitely hijack the high places of honor. In the workplace, they will hijack the highest positions. Why? So as to be noticed and admired by the crowd. If honor is your problem and temptation, just do the opposite. Bend the stick the other way. Move in the opposite direction. Strive instead not to be noticed. I know doing this is not easy, especially if you are addicted to honor. But you must strive to wrestle your soul from this addiction. Without humility, it is impossible to please God.  

Homily for the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Strive To Enter Through The Narrow Gate

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, August 21, 2022

From time immemorial people have been asking the question just as they ask it today: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Who is going to make it to heaven? Who is going to be saved? If sometimes you wonder about it you are not alone. The early disciples of Jesus were interested in knowing the number of people that will be saved. In today's Gospel (Luke 13:22-30), someone asked Jesus, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” But why was the question not “Lord, will a lot of people be saved?” Why a few? My guess is that after listening to Jesus and realizing what he is requiring of us, he started to think, “I don’t know if a lot of people could do this.” And you know, left to us, no one can ransom himself or herself. But with the help of God, we can all attain eternal life in heaven. We can all be saved. However, it is not going to be on our terms. If you turn on your television today or listen to the radio or go on to the internet or you read newspapers, you would think that all you need to do to get to heaven is just to be nice. And it is not even being nice at a higher level, but just being as nice as you can be. Being as nice as you can be is now taken as one’s heavenly certificate. But that’s not what the Bible says. 

Our Gospel for today has both good news and bad news. The good news is that you can have eternal life; you can be saved. The bad news is that not everyone will go down this path, meaning, not everyone will eventually be saved. When Jesus was asked, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” his response is: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ Depart from me, all you evildoers!’ And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God and you yourself cast out.” 

Sisters and brothers, the scariest moment in eternity is actually to see the great patriarchs of our faith and at the same time to be thrust out. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be one of those who will be cast out. Jesus is the Rabbi here. He is our Master. He is saying to us that there will be those who will make it and those who won’t make it. The goal of every Christian is to obey him and put into practice what he is teaching us. We cannot be his disciples unless we obey him. Obeying Jesus is what we are called to do. His injunction today is “strive to enter through the narrow gate…” What is the narrow gate? The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the narrow gate is responding and obeying the teachings of Jesus Christ so that when our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed. So, the easiest way to ensure salvation in our lives is, first, know what Jesus taught; secondly, entrust yourself to him; and thirdly, obey him on a daily basis. That’s what he is calling us to do. Those who are pushed away are those who do not know him and who do not obey him. 

I am not the judge and you are not the judge. Jesus is. But in today’s Gospel, he is giving us a good insight into the future that some people will grind their teeth and be filled with anguish and torment as a result of the choices they have made here on earth. Eternity is so valuable. Eternal life is so valuable. Being with Jesus forever is so valuable that there is nothing on earth that is worth sacrificing that. Nothing on earth worth giving up eternal life for. We have resolved to obey Jesus, but in the course of life there will be times we miss the mark. That’s where the sacrament of confession, reconciliation, and penance comes in. Throughout this week, meditate on entering the narrow door. If you are going through tough times presently, it might be that God is disciplining you and bringing you back to that narrow door. Certainly, it does not feel good. There is no fun in being disciplined, but in the end, Scripture tells us there will be the joy of righteousness when we share in the Lord’s glory. When someone asked Jesus, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He pointed to that narrow gate. Your goal, my goal is to strive to enter through the narrow gate of responding to the invitation of the Lord and obeying him.

God bless you!  

Homily for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Allow Jesus To Interrupt And Disrupt Your Life

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, August 14, 2022

In today’s Gospel, Jesus said, “I have come to set the earth on fire and how I wish it were already blazing.” What’s the Lord saying? Since the Second Vatican Council, there has been this tendency in the Catholic circles to play down the challenging aspects of the biblical revelation. The notion of God as kind, merciful and loving has become the overriding theme in our preaching and evangelization. Don’t get me wrong. The biblical God of both the Old and New Testaments is kind, merciful, and compassionate, but he is also fierce, demanding, frightening and judgmental. In our contemporary culture, being judgmental is one vice a vast majority of people consider unacceptable. But whether we like it or not, whether our contemporary culture accepts it or not, whether being judgmental fits our present sensibility or not, the fact is that the true and living God is extremely judgmental. Even though our culture is against being judgmental, it is not so in the Bible. In Jesus’ statement in today’s Gospel: “I have come to set the earth on fire and how I wish it were already blazing,” we see the judgmentalism of God. He has not come to light a gentle and cozy fire in the fireplace. He is throwing fire down. Just like the God who in the Old Testament destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and sent down fire to consume the enemies of prophet Elijah, Jesus is embodying in flesh Yahweh.  

Add to it Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three.” Interesting! I thought prophet Isaiah announced that Jesus would be called “Prince of peace?” How come he is now bringing not peace but a sword? How come he is bringing division? How come he is dividing households? How do we make sense of these different dimensions of who God is? How do we connect together the harsh and frightful images with the gentle and lenient ones? In the context of a corrupt world, what does God’s love look like? Love is what God is. God never changes. However, God’s love is received by us in the context of the fallen world and perceived by our fallen mind. According to the principle that St. Thomas Aquinas adopted from the great ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, “Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the recipient.” What does that mean? We receive things not as they are but as we are. Whatever is taken in is taken in according to the capacity of the recipient. If you recite Shakespeare to a three year old, he is not going to take it in because he is not yet able to do so. If you teach theoretical physics to someone who has no background in it, he will hear you but it will be received as a gibberish. God’s love is unchanging, but when it breaks into a world and a life messed up by sin, it will sometimes appear as fierce, judgmental, harsh and demanding. Look at it this way: when you are in a grumpy mood, who is the most obnoxious person to have around you? It’s not going to be a fellow grumpy person. A grumpy person will most definitely appreciate a company. The most annoying person to have around when you are moody is someone who is in a good mood, who is full of sunshine and light. That’s the person you find obnoxious. But is the person objectively obnoxious? Not at all! But you receive the person as you are. You receive that person as annoying. If you are stuck in a cave in absolute darkness, what’s your greatest enemy after being rescued? Light! But light in itself is good, beautiful, and illuminating. But to you who have been stuck in a cave for quite sometime in total darkness, the light will be a torture. Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the recipient. God’s love is like a good world class soccer coach who is hired to manage a football club. Once he resumes work, how would lazy players perceive him? Obnoxious, mean, fierce, unpleasant.

Sisters and brothers, the world is like a dysfunctional family. G. K. Chesterton said “we are all in the same boat and we are all seasick.” Therefore, when Jesus comes, he necessarily comes as a troublemaker, as an interruptor, as a breaker of peace. In a dysfunctional family, there is some kind of phony peace. Everyone finds a way to get along even though they know there is a deep problem. But that’s not peace! Such families need someone who can come in and break up the phony peace. This is what Jesus means when he says I have not come for peace rather for division. Jesus comes as God’s own order, and because the mode of the receiver is dysfunctional, he will be received as judgment, as fierce. A good soccer coach will not select third grade players and lazy players for competitive matches. If he tries to set things right and they are not going along, he will not select them for matches. In fact, he will start offering those players to lower teams to buy. To those players, the coach is mean and ruthless. But he has a job to do. Jesus has come to light the fire. As the consuming fire, he has come to burn everything in us that is opposed to God’s desire and purpose. He has to clear the threshing floor.

As you can now see, there is no contradiction between God’s gentleness and God’s fierceness. There is no contradiction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. There is no contradiction between the God who is kind and God who is fierce and demanding. Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. If you are in a good spiritual place, how would God’s love break into your life? As something gentle, kind and pleasant. But if your spiritual life has gone off kilter, you will perceive God’s love as judging fire. Do you want God’s love to gently break into your life? Then consider the words of our today’s second reading: “Brothers and sisters: since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.” If someone is preparing for a relay race, he has to get rid of those things that make running smoothly hard and impossible. He has to lose weight, change his form, adjust his style, change his diet and rid himself of certain things. Finally, he has to have a clear sense of  goal. This is also true in spiritual life.