HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR B (1)

HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR B

HOMILY THEME: JESUS DEALS WITH THE HARDNESS OF HEART OF THE SCRIBES

BY: Fr. Benny Tuazon

HOMILY:

(Mk. 3:22-30)
In the day’s Gospel, Jesus deals with the hardness of heart of the scribes. Because they had ran out of reasons to discredit Jesus, they had resorted to the worst which is to accuse Him of being possessed by evil Himself. Jesus pointed out that the demon cannot go against himself. Otherwise, it will result to his destruction.

If there is an unclean spirit, there is a clean spirit. If there is an evil spirit, there is the good spirit. The two spirit cannot be together. Jesus, possessing the good spirit cannot and will not conspire with the evil spirit. In fact, the evil spirit feared Jesus. That is why the evil spirit relies on mans’ cooperation to spread evil in the world. But not without challenge from the Holy Spirit, God Himself.

We rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us and help us see the good. Thus, it will be the worst situation if the very reason for change had been rejected. This what Jesus was referring to in the Gospel today. Blaspheming the spirit means a lost of faith in God and His mercy and compassion. It is tantamount to a lost of hope for ones’ situation. This maybe the reason why once, suicide was considered a sin of this genre. Suicide is th lost of the will to live because living has lost its meaning and purpose. To arrive at that point also means lost of confidence even to God. As Jesus said, it becomes an everlasting sin and would never receive forgiveness. When one has lost the capacity to acknowledge sin, repent, and recognise hope from a God, forgiveness cannot take place.

Pope Francis came with the message of Jesus: Mercy and Compassion. It means that God is capable of unconditional forgiveness. He is willing to free us from punishment which we deserve and out of sympathy to us, went out of His way to be one like us (in Jesus Christ) and did something, a great thing, in fact, by dying on the cross to deliver us from our sinful and damned situation. If our God died for us, why can we not die loving Him? The least we can do is to spend all our lives in gratitude to Him. Not an iota of ingratitude and unfaithfulness is worth committing after having been loved like that. It is therefore our responsibility to appreciate that love and tell the world of this love!