YEAR A: HOMILY FOR THE 6TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
YEAR A: HOMILY FOR THE 6TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
HOMILY THEME: The Law of God.
BY: Fr. Cyril Unachukwu CCE
HOMILY: In creating human beings, God imbued in us the default capacity to do good and to avoid evil. He decorated us with the gift of freedom, so that not being robots; we are able to choose and to determine a whole lot of things about ourselves and about our future. In choosing to do good, we lose nothing. In choosing to do good, we connect to God. In fact, in choosing properly, we gain everything proper to our identity as human beings created in the image and likeness of God and we live in full our status as sons and daughters of God redeemed by Christ and guided by the power of the Holy Spirit. May You, Lord, grace and strengthen our will; Amen.
The Law of God is not totally unknown to us! Beyond endowing us with the natural capacity to perceive and follow His Law, God, throughout the ages, never failed to reveal His Law to His sons and daughters through the ministries of the patriarchs, the judges, the kings and the prophets. In His relationship with His chosen people, He not only engraved His Law a stone tablet, but also He inscribed it in our hearts, that in following the Law of God we truly live and we become fulfilled. Affirming the perennial nature of the Law of God, our Lord Jesus Christ made it clear in the Gospel Reading of today (Mt 5:17-37) “do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them.” Sometimes, there is this classification of the Law of God, in some quarters, as something outdated and without any relevance especially to the modern man and woman, with the peculiarities and complications of the modern way of thinking. This is manifest with the rise in the propaganda for the legalisation of abortions, the neutralization of the sinfulness of sexual sins and also in the desecration of the sanctity of marriage with the increasing motion for divorce. Against these modern movements that propose for the norm ideas contrary to the Law of God, the Word of God speaks; “we have a wisdom to offer those who have reached maturity; not a philosophy of our age, it is true, still less of the masters of our age, which are coming to their end… It is a wisdom that none of the masters of this age have ever known, or they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory” (I Cor 2:6-10). It is immaturity to choose anything contrary to the Law of God. It is precarious to allow oneself to be swayed from God by the products of transitory human cogitation. In the face of these human calculations and manipulations contrary to the Will of the Creator, our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us once more today “till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke shall disappear from the Law.” The Law of God remains a light and a guide for all ages and for all generations. The Law of God is salvific!
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The Law of God was never for the purpose of diminishing our capacities and potentialities. The Law of God is not in anyway a burden. On the contrary, the Law of God guides us to truly realise ourselves and to blossom and to uncover and understand the arithmetic and logic of our existence. The Law of God guards and guides us to our true destination; the same place from where we were called forth into existence. The Law of God makes us great, not just in this world but also in the world to come. The Law of God leads us to God Himself. This is achieved when we open ourselves to God and choose the path He treads for us. In the wise words of the First Reading (Ecclesiasticus 15:16-21), “if you wish, you can keep the commandments, to behave faithfully is within your power.” It is possible to keep the Commandments of God! Human freedom is fundamentally for the purposing of consciously and freely choosing to do good and to avoid evil. Every choice contrary to the will and commandment of God, in whichever way or form, is an abuse of our freedom. When human freedom becomes enlightened by the example of Christ and by the values of the Gospel, we become truly human and we reflect the graciousness of the gift of freedom. In such state, we concretely live the rhythm of the Psalmist “they are happy who follow God’s law!”
Lord, help us to love all You command and to make them the daily guide of our choices and actions so as to be counted among the great in Your kingdom; Amen.
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