DOCTRINE AND FAITH : 22nd Sunday of the Year, Sunday22: Year B)

(Deut 4,1-2,6-8; James 1,17-18,21-22,27; Mark 7,1-8,14-15,21 - 23: 22^nd Sunday of the Year, Sunday22: Year B)

In the Old Testament Theology, a necessary link exists between the quest for life and faithfulness to the law of Yahweh. It is the latter that guarantees the former. In today's first reading, Moses put this very clearly before the Israelites. He enjoined them to be faithful to the laws of the Lord which he placed before them so that they might have life and possess the land. In addition to the guarantee of life which fidelity to the law of the Lord would give, it would also be an indication of the depth of wisdom of the people. He said, "Keep them, observe them, and they will demonstrate to the peoples your wisdom and understanding".

St. James took up this same issue of finding life through fidelity to the demands of the law of the Lord in today's second reading. Consistent, with the Old Testament theology, he was convinced that submitting to the demands of the word of God necessarily brings life. On this issue, he was quite emphatic: "Accept and submit to the Word which has been planted in you and can save your souls. But you must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves ".

In the gospel today, Jesus chided the Pharisees and Scribes for their hypocrisy. They pretended to be very zealous for the religious laws and customs. However, Jesus looked beyond their external observances to condemn their lack of sincere worship. He had this terse statement for them: "You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions ". In essence, true religion is not about the externalities. Observance of religious customs and rites are meaningless without the readiness to allow the demands of the word of God and the divine law to transform one's life. It is in the latter that true religion is found.

In our lives as Christians, we need to discover the wisdom embedded in the commandments of the Lord. They are not just legal codes to be formally observed to avoid punishment. In them, we rather find practical guide to a good and purposeful living. The litmus test of the depth of the Christian life, therefore; lies in the extent to which the commandments of the Lord determine our actions and system of value. When this link is missing, our religion lacks depth and runs the risk of becoming pretentious and empty ritual. When this happens we would be honouring God with our lips and not Our hearts and we would be far away from God. This would be hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is an evil, dangerous snare that can take root and nest itself in our comportment as Christians. It pushes us to pretend to be better Christians than we are, to cultivate in our religious living exteriority more than interiority, to pay more attention to formalisms of religion than to the substance of it, and sometimes going ^thereby, against the commandment of God on justice, love of needy neighbour, honesty of life, and moral rectitude. This is probably why we scandalize the non-Christians and remain a hindrance to their conversion as they do not see the life of a true Christian in us. Rather, what is manifest is the disharmony between what we believe and what we do; a violent contrast between faith and life. What do we do so as not to be hypocrites? The readings of today leave us with some directives. The gospel enjoins us to purity our hearts, make our intentions straight, eradicate from our hearts all those things that are in disharmony and in contrast with the will of God:For it is from within, from men's heart, that evil intentions emerge... We need to put our hearts in order. In the second place, as Moses teaches in the book of Deuteronomy, we have to conduct our lives according to the commandment of God and put into practice the word of God that we listen to every day. St James takes up this theme in the second reading of today. We are not to be onlylisteners to the word of God but also doers of the word of God. The word of God is both dianoetic(imparts knowledge) and dynamic (transforms). When we listen to the word of God it indicates to us what God would want us to do (dianoetic quality of the word of God) and at the same time it transforms our lives (the dynamic quality of the word of God). Transformation of our lives is the end result of listening and adhering to the word of God. Once our lives are transformed to be in conformity with the mind of Christ, hypocrisy will be a far cry from us. Thirdly, to avoid a life of hypocrisy and live as authentic Christian live have to pay attention to the poor and very weak ones among us, (the sick, the abandoned, the elderly ones, the lonely, the handicapped, the homeless, and beggars) and come to assuage both their material, moral and spiritual needs. Also we cannot call ourselves good Christians and declare ourselves in favour of divorce, abortion; practice dishonesty and cheat in business, transgress justice, manifest all sorts of selfishness in our families and in the society. May we therefore ,pray that the word of God we listen to will transform our lives to resemble that of our Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God. Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye

DOCTRINE AND FAITH 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B)

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

 (Joshua 24,1-2, 15-18; Ephesians 5,21-32; John 6,60-69: 21^st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B)

Faith is not dependent on rational certainty; neither does it oppose it outrightly.  In the journey of faith, the human person, true to his nature, as a rational being, must begin with a conscious rational judgment, decision and assent.  However, one must definitely come to a point where logical human reasoning must give way to a sort of ‘leap in the dark’.  At such a point, there must be the readiness to be guided by a childlike trust that allows one to follow the dictates of divine revelation with utmost trust and resignation.  Joshua’s action in today’s first reading and Peter’s resolute profession of faith in the gospel offer us abundant light into understanding all these. A profession of faith in most cases always involves a choice among many options.

Joshua invited the Israelites to make a careful and conscious decision about their readiness to serve God.   The Israelites were challenged to declare if they wanted to serve the only God or the gods of the pagans. Joshua warned them to be mindful of the implications of making such a decision.  In essence, Joshua wanted the people to employ their sense of judgment that must follow a rational appraisal of the demands of serving God and their own readiness to be faithful to such demands. He saw the need to allow their faith grow out of a conscious rational appraisal and judgment.  The choice must be made. He himself did, so will the Israelites. The profession of faith followed: “We will serve the Lord for he is our God”.

    In the gospel today, we see another example of making a choice to follow God.  At a moment when some of the followers of Christ deserted him because they found it difficult to obtain a rational clarity of what Jesus was saying, Peter made this bold profession of faith and declared to continue following Jesus: “Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God”. You can be sure that just like those who decided to leave Christ, Peter did not have a rational clarity of all that Jesus was saying.  But unlike them, he was ready to make that leap of faith where rational clarity was not sufficiently available.  Peter’s statement did not, in any way, indicate a half-hearted acceptance of an unavoidable option.  It was rather a profession of faith arising from the conviction that human reasoning does not have all the answers in understanding the mystery of the kingdom of God.

    What Joshua did and also encouraged the Israelites to do is even more pertinent for us today: we must make a conscious decision to serve God.  That decision calls for a rational awareness of the challenges inherent in serving God and our readiness to meet up with those challenges. However, we must understand that in analyzing these challenges and understanding them, human reason does not have all the answers.  St. Peter teaches us today in the gospel to dare the leap of faith with trust in divine revelation even when we do not have all the rational clarity.

    But before we end this brief reflection we need to remind ourselves that a lot of Christians have abandoned their choice of Christ to follow other gods, make for themselves the gods they worship, some of which are: money, financial or cultic power, pleasure, carrier, etc. Some of us have become slaves to these gods, under whose bondage we live.  It is true, we have made our profession of faith and made a fundamental choice to follow and serve Christ, putting into practice his teachings and examples.

The big question is: Are we faithful to our choice? Do we not often prefer the idols of this world to God and the teachings of Christ? As weak human beings, we are constantly tempted to follow the idols of today and we often, like the Jews of  today’s Gospel, find the words of Jesus too hard when for example we are challenged to make some renunciations and sacrifices like: (a) overcoming our bad passions (b) living honestly, ethically and morally (c) withdrawing our hearts from  the goods and things of this world (d) loving all without discrimination (e) Always and spontaneously forgiving others their offenses against us (f) taking up our daily crosses like Christ did. At such moments of challenge when we are expected to witness to our Christian faith-commitments, we are tempted to withdraw, and find scape goats. Today, the Church invites us to verify, and profess our faith and faithfulness to Christ again and find at what point our daily choices, in our personal, family, professional, social and political lives conform to the Gospel and will of God. Today, we are called and challenged to renew our efforts to live coherently as Christians and declare and profess from the depth of hearts with the people of Israel of Joshua time: “We will serve the Lord for he is our God”. Also with Peter to profess our faith and faithfulness to Christ: “Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God”. May the good Lord sustain our profession of faith in Him and in His Son with His abundant graces, Amen!Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye

20th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B 2015

DOCTRINE AND FAITH
(Proverbs 9,1-6; Ephesians 5,15-20; John 6,51-58:  20^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B 2015)

No other teaching of Jesus met with stiff opposition from the Jews as the pronouncements he made about his body and blood being real food and real drink respectively.  That was one teaching Jesus gave with repeated emphasis as we see in John’s gospel.  The more the Jews expressed their displeasure with and rejection of the teaching, the more Jesus insisted on it with added emphasis: “I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you”. In the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the Church guards this gift jealously and continues to present it to the faithful as sure means of eternal salvation. So central is the Eucharist in Christian Theology that the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council described it as ‘the source and summit of the Christian life’.  It is a sacrament and the greatest gift Christ gave to us – the gift of himself, whole and entire.  It is the memorial of the sacrifice at Calvary, the real presence of Christ among us and above all, a sacred meal which assures us of life.  In the magnificent antiphon of the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, the Church could not conceal her amazement at this wonderful gift as these words reveal: “Oh Sacred Banquet in which we partake of Christ: his sufferings are remembered, our minds are filled with his grace and we receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours”.

In the first reading today, Wisdom makes a clarion call: ‘Come and eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared’.  In the gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ who is Wisdom par excellence makes an invitation that is also an emphatic command: “If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you”.  This is a command issuing from an overwhelming love. To ensure that we fully and intimately share in his life, Jesus invites us to feed on his very flesh and blood.  Flesh and blood is a biblical expression to indicate a person in his entirety; here the person of Christ. Therefore, in the Eucharist, Jesus gave us his entire personality as a real gift, even though mysteriously, in the fullness of his humanity and divinity; he donates himself so that we may nourish ourselves from Him. When we nourish ourselves from the flesh and blood of Christ, a communion of life is effected, a profound and vital union between us and Jesus, already in this life. What is more, the divine life which is in God, the Father, is transmitted into our souls through our union with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. The soul is, thereby, introduced into the divine life of the Blessed Trinity. Nourishing oneself with the flesh and blood of Christ capacitates one not to fear death and helps one fix one’s mind on eternal life relying on the promise of Jesus that he would raise him/her on the last day.

The Eucharist, is a gift for which we must, always and everywhere give thanks to God. The best way we can appreciate the immensity of love Jesus showed us in the gift of his Body and Blood is to respond to this invitation with love and devotion, partake of this holy meal always and allow it to transform our lives. It would be a contradiction to feed on Life Himself without becoming fully alive and sharing this life with others.  The worst of it all would be to treat this wonderful gift of love with indifference or cold response as many do today.  For those who have lost touch with this sacrament altogether, let the words of Christ today serve as a reawakening: “If you do not eat the flesh… and drink his blood, you will not have life in you”. May we therefore, pray in this Eucharistic celebration that through the Holy Communion we receive, we may be profoundly and intimately united with Jesus Christ who donates his flesh and blood for our nourishment in this life and for eternal life in the next. Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye 
(graphics by blogger : )

19th Sunday of Year B: 2015 ....DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(1Kings 19,4-8; Ephesians 4,30-5:2; John 6,41-51: 19th Sunday of Year B:

2015)

          

  In Catholic Theology, divine grace has enormous significance and plays dominant role in God-human relationship.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this classic definition of Grace as favour, the free and underserved help that God gives us to respond to his call. (cf. CCC 1996)  This definition underlines the fact that man cannot do it unaided as far as responding to God’s call is concerned.  Salvation is not possible without God’s Grace. Saying yes to God and following where He leads are indeed unrealizable without the light of His Grace.  In His paternal solicitude for man’s salvation, God has always been generous with His grace.  He always holds out his generous gift of grace to man everywhere and constantly reminds us that our human efforts come to nothing without His assistance.

            “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too long for you”.  This was what God told the prophet Elijah in the first reading today.  For a prophet threatened by frustration and beaten down by the challenges of his vocation, nothing could be more revealing of God’s solicitude.  When he was on the verge of hopelessness; when the next step looked unsure and the motivation to push on eluded him, then the light of God’s loving care came.  God fed and gave him the strength to continue his journey.  Without God’s intervention, Elijah’s journey to Horeb could not have been completed.

            In today’s gospel, Jesus was quick to remind the Jews that salvation, and therefore, faith that leads to salvation, is not a fruit of mere human effort and determination but God’s own doing.  He told them, “No one can come to me unless he is drawn by the Father who sent me”.  It is God’s loving choice of us, in spite of what we are, that qualifies us to be His children and co-heirs with Christ. What role does a person, then, play in the issue of salvation/ faith? We play the role of leaving ourselves to be drawn by God; allow ourselves to be lorded over by God; being open to the grace of God and not imprisoning ourselves in the false idea of auto-sufficiency or presumption or in one’s mental scheme or prejudice. We thank God that we believe in Jesus Christ, His Son, the Bread of eternal life sent by God the Father into this world. This is because whoever believes in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the living bread, and feeds from his Word and the Eucharist, has eternal life as St. John the Evangelist states in today’s gospel. By using the verb in the indicative mood and present tense (has) John means that the person already is participating in Divine life of God inchoately, that is to say, at its beginning, in its rudiments. It is this rudimentary participation that will, in the next life, develop into perfection and fullness. Feeding from Christ, the bread of life and nourishing oneself from his Word and Eucharist mean being united with him in his thoughts, sentiments and desires; it means putting on Christ like a dressas Paul so expresses in Romans 13,14 and Galatians 3,27. When we feed from Christ, the bread of life and from His Word and Eucharist it becomes possible for us to establish new rapports among men, based on sacrificial love and not on selfishness; nor motivated by sheer will for power and dominion. It is then possible to put into practice Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians: “Try then to imitate God as children of his that he loves and follow Christ by loving as he loved you giving himself up in our place as fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”.

            In our vocation as Christians, our aspiration to respond to the challenges of this call and our journey towards God, we cannot do without the solicitude of God’s grace. This truth has even more practical implication for us in our daily struggle. The limitedness of our human strength should not discourage us but should rather draw us to a better appreciation of the grace of God that supplies where and when our human capability stops. May we, therefore, in today’s Eucharistic celebration pray for the very important gifts of both faith and grace for ourselves and for others. Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye