DAILY HOMILIES

Jesus feels compassion because He has a heart that is gentle and lowly. It gets even better, apart from merely feeling for us, Jesus is always ready with a solution. Like in the feeding of the multitudes, Jesus is not a person who simply says “sorry” and walks away. Jesus sent out the twelve and when they returned with Good News, Jesus was overjoyed.

Today, Jesus teaches us that it is not the number of words we use that moves God but the love that God already has for us. Every single word we utter in prayer carries weight. Think of prayer as a conversation between you and the one who loves you.

“Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1).

God hates evil. God does not tolerate sin. God doesn’t just watch while innocent lives are being crushed by those in power. Nonetheless, God loves the sinner and even when the sinner has to suffer the consequences of their wrong choices, God never stops loving him or her.

If we all take an eye for an eye, there would soon be humans without eyes. If we took a tooth for a tooth, there would soon be people without teeth, in short, if we never forgive and let go, the human species itself would soon disappear. It is by forgiving others that we live up to our calling as the salt of the earth and light of the world.

Last Sunday, we noted: Do not try to understand the Trinity, rather just know that God loves you so much that He is willing to do anything for you. It is this great love that we are celebrating today; the fact that God while in our human flesh gave us His very flesh to eat and His blood to drink to sustain us and guarantee our entrance into eternal life

The Eighth Commandment teaches us: “Thou shall not bear false witness.” Telling lies is a disease capable of destroying whole families and even nations. In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus teaches us to avoid swearing. Let what you say be simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Our vices and bad habits begin from the heart. The summary of your future is the contents of your hearts right now. What are you thinking about? What kind of thought has become permanent visitor in your mind? As Jesus taught us: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8).

The name Barnabas means “Son of Encouragement.” He was truly a man of encouragement. It was Barnabas who went to Tarsus to look for Saul upon hearing of his miraculous conversion. Barnabas gladly received Paul as a brother instantly forgetting and forgiving his past as a persecutor, and went ahead to introduce him to the company of the other Apostles. Barnabas teaches us the importance of team spirit.

Like Elijah who stood as one man against four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, devoted Christians today must learn to stand almost alone against a world that swims in darkness and evil.

Jesus is not asking us to become salt or light, rather He is revealing our true identity as Christians. When we live by the beatitudes, (when we are pure in heart, poor in spirit, peaceful, merciful, thirst for righteousness and so on), we become the only salt left to preserve and sweeten our world as well as the only light left to shine on our world.