YEAR A: HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 22ND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME (2)

YEAR A: HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 22ND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

HOMILY THEME: JESUS’ MANIFESTO

BY: Rev. Fr. Jacob Aondover ATSU

HOMILY: READINGS: 1THESSALONIANS 4:13-18, PSALM 96, LUKE 4:16-30

Greetings of peace and love to you my dearly beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord. As we begin this new working week, let me pray that our faith in the resurrection of the dead which is our stronghold as Christians grows. Let me pray that we queue into the thought pattern of Paul who suggests that Christ will raise up those who have died in him – the truly Christian (1Thess. 4:14). For when we live in Christ, loving him and serving him as we should, then nothing can separate us from him: “Neither death, nor life…will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).

Moreover, 2 Corinthians 4:14 assures us that “The one who raised Christ from the dead will also raise us with Jesus.” Beloved, today is a reassurance that our journey here on earth is transitory and our eternal home is heaven. Jesus is there before us to prepare places for us (Jn. 14:3) so that where he is, there will shall be to behold his glory (Jn. 17:24). We may never be afraid, rather, we may strive to lead good and faithful lives so that upon our death and subsequent judgment, heaven may bid us welcome. Amen.

Dear friends, Jesus begins his public ministry today with a clear cut manifesto. He quotes Isaiah 61:1ff stating exactly why he was graced with God’s Spirit and sent into the world – to instantiate a new dawn. Coming into a world that was coarsened, corrupt, perverse, evil, unjust, wicked and unrighteous; Jesus needed to make a mission statement, which statement he followed faithfully to the end. We may do well never to look at Jesus’ statement as did the Jews; they saw Jesus as a temporal messiah and wondered how he could do all he said. They saw him as an ordinary Nazarene well known to them too.

Beloved, I’d rather we see Jesus’ statement as a spiritual manifesto aimed at liberating us from the shackles of sin, immorality, infidelity, vice, greed, satanism, evil and dark manipulations and so on. We must see this as an invitation to approach Jesus in whom lies our salvation. He came to set us free from ourselves (concupiscence), he came to help us transcend our mortality so as to assume immortality at the resurrection. Jesus came to break and unbind us from the chains of: hate, malice, enmity, jealousy, injustice, pride and the many social ills we have found ourselves in. Indeed, he came to set us free from physical oppression too, remember he is the good shepherd who knows, feeds and caters for his sheep.

On our part, as followers of Jesus, we cannot but further the mission of Christ as we go about our day to day activities. We can be channels of disseminating the good news of Christ to the wearied, the poor, the downtrodden, the rejected and outcast. We can be Jesus to the brother or sister who is marginalized unjustly and persecuted because he’s a ‘nobody’. We all have the Spirit of God in us as received through the sacraments, we may do well to obey the call of the Spirit by continue the mission of Christ wherever we find ourselves. Amen.

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