YEAR A: HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF THE 3RD WEEK OF LENT (3)
YEAR A: HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF THE 3RD WEEK OF LENT
HOMILY THEME: REVENGING RIGHTLY
BY: Fr. Joseph Nyarko Asare
HOMILY: Daniel 3:2, 11-20/Psalm 25:4-9/Matthew 18:21-35
We don’t need to pretend or fain joy. We can be absolutely peaceful and extremely joyful in the middle of conscious hatred and direct persecution. The fire was not enough to make Azariah and friends feel bitter. They have been accused wrongly and thrown into fire, yet, they praised God as if they had no challenges in life. Peter asks the number of times he must forgive. After Pentecost, the Peter who now seeks an opportunity to revenge looks for avenues to convert his opponents. He pitied those he should have been mad at during his early years as a disciple.
We have imaginative, perceived and actual enemies. They make us feel so bad that, at times, we wish their destruction. Peter might have felt same as he asked the extent to which he could forgive. The way to true joy is our personal conversion to the Lord and not the destruction of our enemies.
When God is fully in us, when we are fully converted, we will praise God in all situation, and revenge evil by seeking the conversion of the evil doer. Killing the sinner increases evil. Praising God and seeking the transformation of the sinner collapses the kingdom of darkness and populate the dwelling places of God’s people. May we find grace to revenge by forgiving the sinner and praising our God.
PRAYER POINTS
~That we can keep our focus on Jesus
~For forgiving hearts
~For the conversion of our persecutors
(Fr. Joseph Nyarko Asare, Priest of Obuasi Catholic Diocese)