DAILY HOMILIES #creation

What does it mean to receive God’s kingdom like a child? It means having an open heart and being willing to learn and accept correction. It means trusting God entirely even when one does not understand Him. It means fearing God and doing everything possible to avoid sin. Today, Jesus wants us to recover our childlike spirit. Unless we revive our dead consciences, we cannot enter heaven.

God inspired both creation accounts; they are not journalists’ reports of creation. Far from revealing the details of “how” the world was made, they both seek to tell “why” the world was created. Some questions answered by the second creation account include: “Why are males sexually attracted to females? Why does marriage exist in all human societies? Why does the human family exist? Why do parents have such strong love for their children?”

Having been created in God’s image and likeness, only God knows how best we ought to live. Hence, He gave us the manual of life, the commandments. These instructions are not restrictions on our freedom but the key to enjoying life to the fullest. We must, therefore, trust God and follow his commandments rather than mere human traditions. God cannot be deceived; He knows when we pay lip service to His commandments.

The more we try to touch Jesus (the more we allow the light of Christ to shine through us), the more we are healed and restored to our original goodness. The healing power at work in Jesus Christ when he walked on earth thousands of years ago is still available today. Only believe. Jesus said: “All things are possible to him who believes.” (Mark 9:23).

An example of the love that sustains family is what we see in the Gospel passage when a woman was willing to swallow what seemed like an insult just for the sake of the healing of her daughter. She so loved her daughter that she was just not ready to take “No” for an answer. If this kind of love exists in our families, the world would be a much better place.

One of the ways we resemble God is our capacity to will something into existence, that is, to create out of nothing. Just as God imagined the world before creation and then spoke it into existence, we have the power to imagine things and speak them into existence.

Just as many made efforts to get to Jesus for healing, we need to make every effort to get to God, obey his word, and live according to the original purpose of our creation in other to find wholeness and life. The more we try to touch Jesus, the more we allow the light of Christ to shine through us, the closer we get to healing and the closer we get to our original goodness.

The second account of creation attests to the fact that there is nothing in this world that can satisfy our heart as much as the love we feel for our fellow human beings. Just as Adam was unhappy until he met Eve, the Syrophoenician woman in our Gospel passage was restless so long as her daughter was under the possession of unclean spirits

The book of Proverbs says: “Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23). Your thoughts are powerful, they determine what becomes of your life. Where your thoughts are now, there you will soon be. Where you are now is where your thoughts were in the past.

I can only imagine that many years after this coronavirus saga, many would still be arrested and molested (treated as grave sinners) for not wearing facemasks in public. It is so easy for humans to begin a tradition but once its original purpose has been served or if it takes too long, it can become extremely difficult or impossible to stop it.

t was to an imperfect world that Jesus came. He came that we might return to the status quo. Jesus did not just bring healing to many, he left humanity as a whole with the secret to wholeness. To love God with all our heart, with all our mind and with all our souls and to love our neighbours as ourselves.