HOMILY FOR WEDNESDAY OF THE 3RD WEEK OF ADVENT.
THEME: OUR DILEMMA OF FAITH!
BY: Benedict Agbo (Rev Fr)
* Is 45: 6 – 25, Lk 7: 19 – 23.
Faith does not depend on what you think but upon what God has said in his Words. Faith founded only upon reason or upon feelings will bring no one into association with God. ‘Holiness’, Fulton Sheen says, ‘must have a philosophical and theological foundation namely on Divine truth; otherwise it is sentimentality’. God says in today’s 1st reading: ‘I am Yahweh and there is no other. I form the light and I create the darkness. I make well being and I create disaster… Woe to the one who argues with his maker.. Does the clay say to its Potter ‘ What are you doing?’ Woe to the one who inquires the hidden things around his life or around the life or death of his father or mother (divinations or fortune telling). The Bible says that ‘The secret things belong to the Lord our God but to us his children the revealed’, Deut 29: 29.
Mary Rosell says that ‘Faith is saying ‘Amen’ to God in all situations’. And I add that ‘Faith means drawing strength from God. It is the beginning, the centre and the end of the spiritual life. God cannot simply do anything for somebody that does not give him the chance. We give God this chance through our faith’. ‘Faith, says John Rose, ‘is the secret key which unlocks the power of God. It is a treasure in a believer like the hair of Samson, in which his great strength lay; It is Moses’ rod which divided seas of difficulties; It is Elijah’s chariot, which mounts up to the heavens’.
RELATED: HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF THE 3RD WEEK OF ADVENT.
When John the Baptist’s faith appeared to be failing him; When he had a dilemma of faith, he asked his men to go and ask Jesus: ‘Are you the one who is to come or shall we wait for another?’. *Jesus encouraged his faith not by meeting his heart’s desires but by reminding him of what the Word of God said about the Messiah: The blind is seeing, the deaf is hearing, the lame is walking, the good news is being preached to the poor, Lk 4: 18.* We should therefore not lose our faith in God because of personal disappointments. As we behold John the Baptist’s dilemma of faith, we ask God that our own dilemma of faith may not be worse. Since in the case of John the Baptist he did not have a revelation of the Cross of Christ, but in our case we have seen the cross, we have an advantage.
Let me conclude with the words of Lamentations 3: 20: ‘The steadfastness of the Lord never seizes, his mercies never comes to an end. They are new every morning’. 2 Tim 2: 11 – 13 also encourages us: ‘Here is a saying that you can rely on: ‘ If we have died with him, then we shall live with him. If we persevere, then we shall reign with him. If we disown him, then he will disown us. If we are faithless, he is faithful still, for he cannot disown his own self’. May God bless you today!http://catholicforlife.com/homily-for-wednesday-of-the-3rd-week-of-advent-1-2/
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