YEAR II: HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 3RD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME (2)

YEAR II: HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 3RD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

HOMILY THEME: THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT!

BY: Fr. Ben Agbo

HOMILY: * 2 Sam 5 : 1 – 10, Mk 3 : 22 – 30.

The Holy Spirit is the principal agent of conversion, repentance and forgiveness. Everything spiritual collapses once the Holy Spirit is disconnected. The sin against the Holy Spirit is therefore a fundamental sin against faith in the 3rd person of the Trinity. It is the denial of God and all sources of repentance and salvation/ God’s mercy. It revolves around unbelief, obduracy in sin, slander, blasphemy, pride and everything that makes us completely disconnected from the spiritual network service of grace – just like removing the battery of a handset disables the whole operations of a phone.

In today’s gospel, when the Scribes ( the learned theologians of that time) described Christ’s source of power as demonic, they rendered themselves unredeemable. I don’t blame them. Perhaps, deliverance ministries were so rampant then as we have them today. Every Dick and Harry were claiming to be casting out demons and so as theologians, they concluded that it was through the Prince of demons ( Beelzebul) that many ( including Jesus) did what they did. After all, even till today, we theologians seeing the nasty way people fall claiming to be falling under the anointing have not seized to believe that these things are demonic or psychiatric cases. Jesus had to remind them that Satan cannot drive out Satan because a kingdom divided against itself will not stand.

It is a reality today that certain occultic dibias – people that kill and poison people cannot become our saviours when we are sick. Many who do the negative (give poison) also have the positive ( panacea). But the fact is that they are agents of Satan and so are not our friends. Our people say “Onyinye ekwensu bu wet’ishi bia wer’ishi”. What happens in the spiritual life of a Christian after visiting these shrines is that he/ she becomes spiritually empty and become a slave of elemental spirits. Placing Jesus at this level was complete blasphemy and total resistance of his salvific mission. The sin against the Holy Spirit is that sin that makes us unable to repent. It is a total rebellion against God that assigns satanic power to God and make his salvation impossible. From CCD we get the following summaries about sins against the Holy Spirit ;

1. Presumption ( I Ji ngara na-echekwube )
2. Hopelessness ( Nkoropu)
3. Rejecting known truth of faith (Iju ikwenye n’eziokwu doro anya)
4. Envy against someone’s spiritual gift (inwe ntaji anya n’ebe ezi omume onye ozo di)
5. Persistence in sin ( Ikpochi obi n’ime njo )
6. Impenitence at the time of death ( Iju inwe ncheghari n’oge onwu.) May God save us from the corridors of this kind of sin. May God bless you today!