TUESDAY HOMILY: MEMORIAL OF SAINTS BASIL THE GREAT AND GREGORY NAZIANZEN, BISHOPS, DOCTORS.

TUESDAY HOMILY: MEMORIAL OF SAINTS BASIL THE GREAT AND GREGORY NAZIANZEN, BISHOPS, DOCTORS.

THEME: ‘One is coming after me who existed before me’

BY: Fr Deotacious Chikontwe SMA

READINGS OF THE DAY
1 John 2:22-28
Psalm 97:1-4
John 1:19-28

LITURGICAL COLOUR
WHITE

INTRODUCTION
Good morning my dear brothers and sisters in Christ.Today we celebrate the second day of the Year 2024. And on this special we mark the memorial of two great Saints, that is Saint Basil the great and Saint Gregory Nazianzen, the two were Bishops as well as Doctors of the Church.

FROM OUR FIRST READING
In our first reading today. Saint John mentions about the dangers of the antichrists, all those who denied the truth of God, and spread false teachings and heresies. Heresies and false teachings are quite common throughout the history of the Church, right up to this day, but those words from St. John highlighted the fact that even from the earliest days of the Church there had been those antichrists and false prophets and leaders who had been subverting the message of truth and the Good News of God, which brought about a lot of confusion and divisions among the Church and the faithful community of God’s people, as those antichrists and false leaders led many among the people of God into the wrong paths.

FROM OUR GOSPEL READING
At the end of today’s gospel reading, John the Baptist declares to those who question him, ‘There stands among you, unknown to you, the one who is coming after me’. Jesus, God’s Son, the Word made flesh, was standing among them, but they were unaware of his significance. John knew who Jesus really was. He could see more deeply than those who were questioning him. He wanted to open the eyes of his contemporaries so that they could see Jesus as he saw him and come to know him as he knew him. Jesus was close to them, standing among them. Yet, he was also remote from them, because they were blind to who he was. God was present to them through Jesus, but they were unaware of it.

CONCLUSION
John the Baptist could use the same phrase with reference to us today, ‘there stands among you, unknown to you’. Jesus, now risen Lord, stands among us. He is as present to us as he was to his contemporaries. Yet, he often stands among us, unknown to us. We do not always recognize his presence. We fail to appreciate the significance of his presence to us. We can sometimes live our lives as if he was not standing among us. We often need a John the Baptist figure to help us to see the Lord who is at the heart of our lives. We all need the guidance of others who see more deeply than we do. Others can help us to see the Lord who stands among us, but we can also help ourselves. We can learn to become more attentive to the Lord standing among us. We can become more responsive to the Lord’s daily invitation to ‘come and see’.
The Lord be with You.

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