3RD MONDAY HOMILY IN LENT — YEAR A
3RD MONDAY HOMILY IN LENT — YEAR A
HOMILY THEME: “I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.”
BY: Bishop Anthony Ewherido
God’s grace is extraordinary and mysteriously beyond human calculation. Yet God makes it available in ordinary and sometimes overly simple ways, that sometimes befuddle human calculations, leading to people’s rejection of God’s gifts.
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In today’s first reading, the prophet’s solution for Naaman’s plea for healing was so simple and ordinary (compared to his grandiose and expensive preparations) that Naaman simply got upset, angry, felt slighted and walked away, until he humbly submitted, having been persuaded by his servants. God’s grace surprised him through an ordinary bath in the Jordan. The mystery of the Incarnation is God’s way of teaching us simplicity. Humans prefer the complex and mysterious and remain blind to the simple ways in which God has put the mysteries of his saving grace before us, especially in the Eucharist and the Blessed Sacrament, where Christ is truly and really present and abiding. May the experience of the leper bring us to look for God in the very ordinary and simple ways in which his presence is manifested around and amongst us. Familiar with the person of Jesus, his presence amongst his own kinspeople was grossly ignored and undermined. They even wanted to kill him. Jesus cited the Sidonian widow and the Syrian leper (non-Israelites who were blessed by Israel’s rejected Prophets) as exemplary indictments against them for their hardheartedness. They missed the opportunity to be blessed by the presence of the Messiah. How many of God’s blessings have we ignored, simply because we do not recognize the people and things that God puts in our lives? And what about the many times that God wants to use our ordinary gifts to work wonders in peoples’ lives and we do not cooperate generously?
Lord, make me an instrument of your grace; open my eyes to your grace-filled presence. Amen.
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