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Our Lady - Star of the Sea |
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Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time : Year A: 2011
Listening to the eight beatitudes of Jesus, many
of us can wonder: How
can Jesus attract people to follow him with
these radical guidelines.
Secular people look at us and say to each other:
They are following a
loser. They are following a man who loves the
poor; he loves the
mournful; he loves the meek; he loves
righteousness; he loves mercy;
he loves purity; he loves peace; and finally, he
loves persecution for
the sake of righteousness. No kidding, that was
the way he lived two
thousand years ago on earth. The main teaching
of the beatitudes is
that: we should attach to whatever belongs to
this world. When I talk
about “world”, I talk about material things,
vain glory or corruptible
treasure on earth. We have to live for our true
home in heaven.
I have been in this parish three months and a
half. I personally
understand what St. Paul said in his letter to
the Corinthians. Like
him, I found out that I am not as smart as some
of you are. I did not
come from a noble birth as some of you may have.
I don’t have a high
education as some of you do. I don’t have
power as some of you do. I used
to pray to God: I am weak, I am useless before
you and your people.
However, you made me a priest, and you brought
me here. So I know I
have to do the best to serve your people, and
the outcome is in your
hands.
The letter of St. Paul reminds me that I have to
rely on Jesus and my
blessed Mother, not on my strength, my ability
or on my title of
priest. Some people remind me that I have small
shoulders for many
things. I agree, but I believe that God wants me
to be faithful to my
calling. That is what I can do.
Someone came to my office and asked for help
financially. I sometimes
have to show them my meekness, my powerless.
They think, as a pastor,
I have all the power to help them, but in
reality, I don’t always have
it.
Dear friends, we sometimes try to do too much to
prove ourselves
smart, powerful, or helpful in our workplace or
our community. We try
too much to prove that we are not lowly, we are
not weak, or we are
not humiliated. It is pride according to the
readings today brothers
and sisters. God wants us to live humbly and
rely on him. God calls us
to be humble, to seek for righteousness, to be
merciful, to be
peacemakers, to be pure and truthful to our
faith.
The Beatitudes are as important as the Ten
Commandments. It shows us
how we are suppose to live in order to be
blessed. However, it is not
easy to follow if we don’t lose ourselves for
the Kingdom. As Jesus
said: whoever loves his life will lose it.
Whoever loses his life
because of his Name, will have eternal life. If
we endure through all
temptations, challenges and suffering on earth
and still keep our
faith in Him, he will give us a great reward in
heaven.
The Beatitudes are not a dream, but a way of
life that all of us have
to go through in this life. The Beatitudes were
not a new teaching to
the Jews because many prophets, books of wisdom
and proverbs already
talked about them long time ago before Jesus
came. Jesus just reminds
us of eight points of what the kingdom of heaven
is about. Before we
want others to change, we, ourselves, have to
change first. Each of us
have to live faithfully and truly to our own
calling as parents or
single parent, grandparents, single man or
woman, deacon or priest,
etc. If each of us can do it, I think we are not
far from the kingdom
of heaven.
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