SUNDAY REFLECTION: 21ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR A)

SUNDAY REFLECTION: 21ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR A)

HOMILY THEME: PROFESSION OF FAITH IN CHRIST

BY: Fr. Cyril Unachukwu CCE

HOMILY: The Christian faith is centred on the person of Christ and on the merits of His life, passion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven and also on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples for the prolongation, throughout all the ages, of the Salvation wrought in Christ. In Jesus Christ the Emmanuel is found the crystallization of all of God’s plans and wishes for the whole of Creation. Our profession of faith in Him connects us to that indestructible foundation on which the Church was built. May we truly be living stones for the edification of the Church of God here on earth; Amen.

The encounter between Jesus and His disciples in the Gospel Reading of today (Mt 16:13-20) teaches us one important lesson about life; not all those who follow us about understand who we truly are. Not all of them understand what our mission is all about or what purpose we are set on achieving. Even when they understand, not many of them are willing to help us realise who we are and to reach our purpose in life. It must have been strange to our Lord Jesus Christ to discover that many of those who flock around Him never knew who He truly was. It was Peter, inspired from above, who spoke the true identity of his Master “You are the Christ, he said, the Son of the living God.” At this point Peter received his nomination and his primacy of place in the college of the Apostles “you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.” Whoever wants to be one of the stones of this foundation on which the Church was built must profess this same faith with Peter; the faith that truly recognizes who Christ is; the faith that Christ is the only Saviour of the human race and that in Christ we become adoptive sons and daughters of God; the faith that the salvation Christ achieved for the whole human race is made available and accessible in the Church for all ages by the power of the Holy Spirit; the faith that by our cooperation with God through a noble and holy style of life we make ourselves candidates for all of the promises we hope.

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We can never know ourselves and the immeasurable treasures inherent in the faith we profess in Christ if we do not know who God is, and what He has achieved in Christ and what He continues to effect in our midst by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is this knowledge of God and of ourselves that leads us to cooperate with God in all He does and to avoid the mistake of Shebna in the First Reading of today (Isaiah 22:19-23) that led to his rejection, deposition and dethronement by God. His mistakes were borne out of presumption and pride. He lost sight of God and became ignorant of whom the Lord, the God of Israel is. As a consequence, Shebna also lost sight of his duty and responsibility as the Treasurer of the Household of the King of Israel and became selfish instead of being selfless; he became pompous instead of being humble; he thought his progress depended on his qualities forgetting that “God is the Judge! He puts down one and lifts up another” (Ps 75:7). This ignorance became the source of his downfall as God rebuked him; “I dismiss you from your office, I remove you from your post.” Faith is never presumptive! Faith is never destructive! Faith makes us humble and responsible! Faith brings us to know God and to understand His purposes! Peter’s blessedness lay in his profession of faith in Christ and in his recognition of the fulfilment of all of the promises of old in Him. God is known as much as He reveals himself to us. We come to know Him by humbling ourselves and by opening all of our spiritual and physical faculties and senses to the direction and to the impulses of His self-revelation. Truly speaking, we come to know God on our kneels for; “how rich are the depths of God; how deep His wisdom and knowledge; and how impossible to penetrate His motives or understand His methods!” (Romans 11:33-36). In the actual sense, it is impossible for those who refuse to kneel! And the more we kneel, the more we come to know God and in turn the more we come to know ourselves, to understand ourselves and to grow more conscious of our mission in life. The more we grow in our knowledge of God, the more we become strong in our profession of faith in Him and then the more we become living stones, after the pattern of Peter, to make more visible the Church of God on earth and to reign with the God of the Church in heaven.

Lord Jesus Christ, as we contend with our untrue and distractive images of You, may we never lose sight of Who You truly are. May we grow deeper in our love for You and in our faith in You and in our knowledge of You; and in knowing You, may we become living stones for the edification of the One Family of God, to the greater glory of Your name and to the favour of all men and women of goodwill; Amen. Happy Sunday.

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