YEAR A: HOMILY FOR TUESDAY, SEVENTH DAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS (1)
HOMILY THEME: AND 2019 ENDED WELL
BY: Rev. Fr. Jacob Aondover ATSU
HOMILY: READINGS: 1JOHN
Here I am Lord, Is it I, Lord? I have heard You calling in the night. I will go Lord, if You lead me. I will hold Your people in my heart.
YEAR A: HOMILY FOR TUESDAY, SEVENTH DAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS
HOMILY THEME: AND 2019 ENDED WELL
BY: Rev. Fr. Jacob Aondover ATSU
HOMILY: READINGS: 1JOHN 2:18-21, PSALM 96, JOHN 1:1-18
May God be praised for keeping us safe through 2019. Thanks be to God. Thank you family, friends, colleagues and well wishers. May 2020 be nice to us all.
Beloved friends, the Jews believed that in the last days, God will reign supreme and his people will obey him completely (Cf. Isa. 2:2, Micah 4:1, Jer. 23:20, 30:24, 48:47). The last hour as used by John and other books of the bible therefore does not imply a time of annihilation whose end will be a great nothingness. It is the end of one age and the beginning of another where things as they are pass away not leading to world obliteration but world re-creation.
Dear friends in Christ the call before us today is simple: using Jewish thought we can afford to say it is a call to align ourselves more to the age to come, the golden age when God reigns supreme and his chosen share in his glory. Differently but importantly too, we may say it is a call to tilt towards the re-creation of the world and of course the re-creation of ourselves. It is an invitation to follow Christ, the incarnation of God, the word made flesh, the light that darkness cannot overcome; the word through which all was made, the one fully graced and full of power and truth and goodness (Jn.1:1ff). It is a call to make a paradigm shift from the time of evil and not follow the antichrist which is the incarnation of the devil and evil.
Beloved, John calls us to follow Jesus, the light of the world as preached by his Church. He presents the problem of people leaving the Church and for him ‘All of them are not of us’ (1Jn. 2:19). Today more than ever do we have incessant outflow of our Church members. The quest for miracles, the love for power and the ‘in-charge’ mentality has driven many out of the Church which remains the reservoir of truth and light. Instead of being unstable prowling round only to be harmed by the evil of our day; we are challenged to focus on bettering our lives pursuant to our inheritance of eternity.
Let us shun our old ways of hate, vice, sin, evil, greed and so on and turn towards the light, truth, love, righteousness, selflessness and so on; that so, Christ, the author of time would gladly welcome us into his ‘timeless’ kingdom. Let us welcome 2020 in newness of heart loving God truly and caring for fellow man sincerely. Amen
BE CHARITABLE, HELP FEED AND EDUCATE THE MUCH YOU COULD IN 2020.
