Homily for Monday of 3rd Week in Ordinary Time Cycle II (1)

Homily for Monday of 3rd Week in Ordinary Time Cycle II

Theme: One Unforgivable Sin

By: Fr. Gerald M. Musa

Homily for Monday January 24 2022

The scribes were dangerously threading the path of damnation when they stubbornly rejected the Gospel of salvation preached by Jesus. They were stiff-necked in their ways and unrepentant; they doubted the source of the power of Jesus and accused him of being an agent of Satan. So, Jesus called them and said to them, all sins will be forgiven but “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin.” What is this unforgivable sin? St. John Paul II in his encyclical letter ‘Dominum et Vivificantem’ vividly explains the gravity of Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. He says, “Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit…does not properly consist in offending the Holy Spirit in words; it consists rather in the refusal to accept the salvation which God offers to men and women through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the Cross..It is the sin committed by one who claims to have a “right” to persist in evil – in any sin at all – and who thus rejects redemption” (#46). Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is to doubt and deny the power of God and the work of the Holy Spirit to the extent that one voluntarily, deliberately, and stubbornly excludes oneself from every means of salvation. The scribes denied themselves the grace of the Holy Spirit through whom they were to receive forgiveness. Can we remember to pray today against the temptation of unrepentance?

Mark 3:22-30; Monday, 3rd Week