20TH DEC 2015 (Micah 5, 1-4; Heb 10, 5-10; Luke 1, 39-48: Year C)

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Micah 5, 1-4; Heb 10, 5-10; Luke 1, 39-48: Year C)

    Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, her pregnant old cousin, in today’s gospel story was not just a courteous visit, but a visit borne out of genuine love. Mary stayed with her for three months, comforting her with her presence and helping her with domestic chores. This visit was replete with joy and happiness. As soon as Maria arrived, the child in Elizabeth’s womb, jumped out of joy, as he recognized the newly conceived Jesus in Mary’s womb. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth cried out: Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  Mary, joyfully sang the Magnificat, the hymn of praise and recognition of what God has done with her and in the history of salvation of her people, Israel. Jesus’ presence is, therefore, the fount and cause of joy for all. His presence should also be fount and cause of joy for us, if we open our hearts to him. The celebration of Christmas should then lead to throwing the doors of our hearts wide open to Christ and removing all those things that impede his coming to us with his grace.

    In the gospel story of today, two women are the protagonists and the first witnesses to the coming of the Messiah. Elizabeth is pregnant with a child that is the result of divine promise and a miracle of the goodness of God: Elizabeth was sterile and conceived at an advanced age. God chose her in order to bring the precursor to the Messiah into the world through the gratuitous gift of his power and the Holy Spirit. Mary also is carrying in her womb a son, the Son of God, conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. Also in this case, it is God the Father, who gratuitously and freely chose the mother of His Son and wishes that he comes to us through her. Therefore, it is the Power of God (the Holy Spirit) that made his Son incarnate in human flesh and that was also responsible for the birth of the precursor. This is completely a divine initiative, absolutely, outside any type of human influence or participation. Looking at it closely, the birth of Jesus by a virgin, through the power of the Holy Spirit is the most evident sign of the absolute gratuitousness of the gift of salvation. The salvation that is being offered to us, through the coming of the Son of God, is a pure gift of God, his mercy and compassion, and limitless love for humanity, which he wishes to redeem. We should welcome this salvation in faith.  Blessed Virgin Mary is a model of such faith as Elizabeth testifies in today’s gospel: Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled. Mary’s faith is the perfect disposition to welcome the divine initiative and cooperate in the work of redemption. She exclaimed in Luke 1, 38: Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word. Through Mary’s faith, a new era in the church and the world begins. And it is through faith that we are to welcome and appreciate Christ as God’s gift, as well as His message, project and proposal for salvation. It is also in the spirit of renewed and revived faith in the Son of God made man that we should celebrate Christmas; it should be such a faith that is coherent with life and the gospel tenets.

    Two women, Elizabeth and Mary stand at the beginning of the New Testament. This is a very significant fact, when we consider that at that epoch women did not enjoy much public consideration. What is more, both women, Elizabeth and Mary, had no children before God powerfully intervened in their lives. For the Hebrew of those days, being the mother of a child was a singular title that a woman needed to be honoured with. Elizabeth and Mary were, as it were, two unknown and unrecognized poor Hebrew women, completely cut off from the company of the powerful and appreciated people of the society. But God chose Mary to be the mother of His Son, Jesus Christ and chose Elizabeth to be the mother of John the Baptist, the precursor of Jesus Christ. In the same way, God chose the small and insignificant Bethlehem to be the birthplace of His Son; poor grotto in which Jesus was born, to welcome the child Jesus; the simple and poor shepherds were to be the first to recognize the newly born child; poor, humble and uneducated fishermen were to build up his church and evangelize the whole world.  These instances show us God’s preferences, on how to realize his projects.  Often he chose diverse and even opposing ways from those of men; he does not choose the powerful but the weak and fragile ones; not the honoured and prestigious ones of the society, but the humble ones; not wealth and avidity but poverty and detachment from earthly possessions; not domination and power but humility and service of love; not deceitful success, but renunciation and sacrifices. We should divest ourselves from the criteria and mentality of the world in our judgment/thoughts and our actions and make effort to appreciate and acquire virtues and values which God prefers.

    The author of the letter to the Hebrews (2nd Reading) tells us that the fundamental disposition of Jesus’ mind, as he came into the world from the first time till his entry to suffer and die at Calvary, was to do the will of God: …on coming into the world Christ said: God here I am! I am coming to obey your will. To do the will of God, that is, to comport ourselves in all things as the Lord wants and directs, should be our effort and duty for meaningful and profitable celebration of the glorious feast of Christmas.  The will of God and the manifestation of his mind are clearly spelt out for us in examples in the life of Christ, in his gospel and the teaching of the Church, mother and master of our souls.

    May I use this opportunity to wish every one of you a happy, grace-filled celebration of Christmas and God’s choicest blessings in the coming year 2016. Happy Sunday! Happy Christmas and Happy New Year!+John Okoye

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR C

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Zephania 3, 14-18; Phil 4, 4-7; Luke 3, 10-18: 3RD SUNDAY- Year C)

    Joy is the dominant theme of this third Sunday of Advent. The first reading takes up this theme, which the entrance antiphon started. It runs through the responsorial psalm and we will still see it in the second reading. The liturgy, therefore, exhorts us to be joyful. But the social environment which we live in, with all its manifold social, financial, security and health problems, seems to dampen this clarion call to be joyful. However, the type of joy we are invited to have is an interior and spiritual one. It is not superficial, artificial or external joy that is motivated by human consideration but spiritual and interior joy that is rather motivated by deep religious faith. 

    In the first reading, Jerusalem is called upon to rejoice, exult with all your heart. She is to rejoice because the Lord is present. God is in the midst of his people and offers them security and assurance. The presence of God is surely a legitimate motive for joy. But the ultimate reason for joy is the knowledge that God loves his people as he would like to renew you by his love. The profound motive for us to have joy should be the conviction that God loves us. If God loves us, no matter how difficult we find things, God will be able to bring us out from any type of difficulties or mess. The highest point of God’s love for us was concretized by sending His beloved Son to save the world. He offered His son to be immolated for our salvation. Jesus, completed the gesture of love, which God the Father started by his death and resurrection. In addition, Jesus promised an abiding presence and protection through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

    The call in today’s liturgy to be joyful (as we tried to analyze above) was repeated by Paul in the second reading. He was making this call even when he was in prison, in physical confinement. It was neither easy for him nor his flock. Nevertheless, he and his flock were to be joyful. This was because the Lord was near. The Lord does not abandon us; he is always near us, and ready to get us out of our difficulties. Paul used the opportunity of the nearness of the Lord to enjoin the Philippians and us to pray, that is to say, to enter into loving relationship with this Lord. It is a relationship in which God will guide us in seeking and doing His will. By so doing we will grow in intimacy with Him and our joy will abound and over flow.

    It is when we are in such good relationship with the Lord that we will be in the position to perceive what concrete things to do in our lives for the preparation of Christmas, as John the Baptist indicates in today’s gospel reading. We would, then better understand his instruction: If anyone has two tunics he must share with the man who has none, and anyone who has something to eat must do the same. By this he holds that whatever we have in excess belongs to our neighbour who is in need of it. Furthermore, we have to share what we have with one another and even to deprive ourselves of legitimate rights in order to make our neighbours happy and joyful. It is when we are in prayer relationship with God that we will be able to use our positions of power for the service of our neighbours judiciously and profitably and not for selfish purposes. Our loving relationship with God in prayer will make it possible for us to respect the dignity of every person and eschew from our lives all sorts of expression of violence and little terrorist-like insinuations towards our neighbours. Let us joyfully prepare for the coming of the Lord in our lives especially at Christmas through intensive loving relationship with God in prayer and active charity to our needy neighbours. 

 Happy Sunday! +John I.Okoye

2nd Sunday of Advent, Year C.... DOCTRINE AND FAITH

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Baruch 5, 1-9; Phil. 1, 3-6.8-11; Luke 3, 1-6: 2^nd Sunday of Advent, Year C)

  

 Advent is a season in which we celebrate the salvific intervention of God in human history and our hope for the culmination of the salvation plan in the world to come.  In today’s first reading, the prophet Baruch proclaims the message of hope to the house of Israel within the context of their bondage.  To every nation, God intends to show Israel’s splendour and for this, God has decreed the flattening of every high mountain and the filling of the valleys.  It is this same hopeful expectation that the evangelist Luke dwells on in the gospel.  Re-echoing the prophecy of Isaiah, the evangelist makes allusions to the event in which all mankind shall see the salvation of God, prior to which every hill shall be levelled and every mountain filled

In these passages, we see not only joyful messages of God’s saving liberation but also an urgent invitation to us to be collaborators in bringing about the salvation promised us.  In Jesus, God has wrought once and for all, the long expected salvation and liberation for man.  The second coming of Christ to which we direct our gaze in a special way this season of Advent is meant to be the culmination of this salvation and liberation. The note of waiting and expectancy that characterize the advent season do not negate the fact that, objectively, man’s salvation has been obtained by Jesus on the cross.  Rather, this season brings us to a deeper consciousness of the need to appropriate and make ours, the salvation obtained on the cross in order to be prepared to meet Christ when he comes again. 

    Writing to the Philippians in the second reading today, St. Paul underscores the need for this idea of preparation.  For St. Paul, waiting for the Lord’s Day must, necessarily, make the Christian to strive to be pure and blameless.  Herein lies the basic message and the challenge placed before us this holy season of advent- preparation of the way for the Lord’s coming by levelling the hills and filling the valley of our lives which sin and imperfection have created in us.

    An effective word that depicts the attitude just mentioned above is John the Baptist’s call for repentance, the call of transformation that results in a change of heart.  The readings are filled with other examples of reversals that characterize such transformation: the robe of mourning is replaced by the splendour of glory, tears are turned into rejoicing; those in exile are brought back by God, etc. Advent is a time of yearning for such transformation. It is a time for preparing for His arrival. It is a time we open ourselves so that, as in the past, God can accomplish through ordinary human beings the necessary reversals that are part of this hoped-for transformation. It is also the time of bringing the promise for the future, made in the past, to fruition in the present. Moreover, the transformation or repentance of heart, takes place within human life, relationship of justice, and in genuine unselfish live. It produces the fruits of righteousness of which Paul speaks. May we, therefore, fix our mind on the spiritual benefits of the Advent season and make effort to confront whatever stands between us and perfect peace with God and our neighbour.  It is only by so doing that we can be ready to welcome the Lord whose coming we are joyfully anticipating as we chant- Maranatha, come Lord Jesus! +John I.Okoye (graphics by blogger)