HOMILY FOR THE FEAST OF SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE

HOMILY FOR THE FEAST OF SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE

HOMILY THEME: FIRST HAND WITNESSES

BY: Fr. Benny Tuazon

HOMILY:
(Lk. 6:12-16)
In the day’s Gospel, feast of the apostles Simon and Jude, Jesus calls His apostles. It was not as easy as pointing them and they followed. The apostles had their families, land, and livelihood to attend to. They were hoping Jesus was the Messiah they were waiting for. They were curious and hopeful about who was Jesus and what He will do to save Israel.

If you notice, Jesus chose apostles who were from different sectors of society. Not only that, they were of different personalities, status in society, and moral integrity. Only Jesus knew who He wanted and who they were. This shows us that everything is a gift. The apostles were apostles not from their own merits but by the grace of God. We are absolutely dependent on God’s grace. Our responsibility is to be worthy of it. When we make ourselves worthy, God’s grace become useful.

The apostles were our first hand witnesses to Jesus and vice versa. They saw, heard, and felt the Lord Jesus. The accounts of the apostles in Scriptures are considered words of God. They are events, sayings, and testimonies of Jesus’ mission and action of salvation. If only because the faith which we now profess is claimed to be true is primarily because it came from the witnessing of the apostles. In other words, what Jesus said and did, we now receive from His chosen apostles.

Two things arise from this feast. Holiness is a gift. And we claim to be the true Church of Christ because of the apostles. When Jesus chose His apostles, He did it not by the merits of those He chose but by God’s will. And we have the faith which Jesus gave and our Church profess it because of the apostles.

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