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Homily for Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

READ: (Ezek 33: 7-9; Rom 13: 8-10; Matt 18:15-20)

REFLECT: Loyalty, love and listening to God and others restore relationships…

Dear friends, today we are in the twenty third Sunday in ordinary time. Today we all of us value relationships above all good relationships, because good relationship gives us happiness and satisfaction, peace and consolation. But we know relationship at times is like a curvy road that we travel, it does not take us on the straight path, and it has ups and downs and zigzags too. However, our relationship can reach to its highest level of goodness, when we have loyalty, love and listening to God. One’s we become loyal, loving and listening people to God, God makes us loyal, loving and listening to one another. Therefore, based on the liturgy of the word, I would like to share with you three points of reflections as how we can restore our relationship with God and with one another;

1. Loyalty to God:

We all know watchmen’s duty or responsibility. He has to be vigilant and as well as duty bound to inform all that happens very specially the danger that approaches or the harm he could foresee; the watchmen’s unique feature is to be loyal to the authorities, the duties and responsibilities that he or she is entrusted with. Failing to be loyal to the authorities and a failure in the duties and responsibilities only prove how disloyal or irresponsible one can be. So we need a loyal watchman or woman, who can be relied on or trusted. The first reading gives us such a glimpse of a watchman, in and through prophet Ezekiel. Prophet Ezekiel has been given the responsibility to be a watchman and whose warnings were to be heeded. Perhaps, this message parallels 3:16–21, where Ezekiel was first appointed a watchman over Israel (Ezek 3:17; 33:7).  The purpose of returning to this theme was to show that how prophet Ezekiel had been faithful to his task and to place the responsibility upon Israel to pay attention to his warning. 

As we all know that Ezekiel’s messages were divinely manifested and specifically directed to the people of Judah. However, as a watchman Ezekiel did not use his own powers to subjugate or dominate people but remained as a channel of God’s divine warning. He remained loyal to God’s word and just wanted to make known to people what God wanted through prophet Ezekiel. It does not matter whether people respond to us or not, listen to us or not, what we have to do is to just make known God’s messages to people entrusted to our care. Therefore, our responsibility is to warn and proclaim as persuasively as possible, but how the message is received is beyond our control. It is the word of God and the work of God that take control of people and we are just instruments in the hands of the Lord in spreading the faith that God has given us as a gift. 

Today we all of us have a natural inclination to be vulnerable to domination and subjugation or overloading the mind and heart with various worries and botheration, when things do not work the way we wish or want. We need to realize that we are called to do God wants of us and not what we want. Just as a watchman or a woman does what the owner orders or commands, so also we as watchmen and women of God are called to do the orders and commands of God. We only do what God commands or orders us. Ultimately it is God who does and we just play the role of mediators or instruments in the hands of God and remain loyal to him in our responsibility as followers of Christ.

Very beautifully Pope Francis tells us “There is a cost to remaining faithful to what counts. The cost is going against the tide, the cost is freeing oneself from being conditioned by popular opinion, and the cost is being separated from those who follow the current.” Yes, remaining faithful to God counts us a lot. It demands that we give up everything that pleases us or pleasant to our senses, which can be deceptive and momentary or temporary. When we remain faithful to God, God blesses us in abundance. Our loyalty to God would prove how much we love and honor God or how much we can give God’s ways, God’s experience and God’s blessings to others in our vicinity or elsewhere. So let us be loyal followers of Christ always.

2.              Love of God and all:

We all know that love of God and love of neighbor as oneself is the greatest of all commandments that Jesus summarizes of the Old Testament and teaches us in the new testament (Matt 22: 37-40). However, we as Christians are never told in the bible to neglect or ignore the social responsibility as a citizen of the mother earth too. As a Christian we have an obligation and are duty bound to the state or government, to live as a good citizen by obeying its laws and paying the due taxes. Yet the Christian obligations demands or calls for more or takes us on a higher mode of life. it is not that we are satisfied with the minimal following up of legal requirements or procedures rather with what attitude or virtue we manifest matter a lot. Indeed, if we look deeply, there is a bigger contribution we could make as Christians and have an obligation which underlies all that we can do or expected as followers of Christ. It is the commitment to act in love towards our brothers and sisters.

That’s what we hear in the second reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another. For the one who loves the other person has fulfilled the law. All the more, the end of the second reading gives us a clear picture which is summed up in this commandment: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Yes, pure and genuine love does not do any evil to another. True love overlooks everything and true love understands the circumstances and situations.  Most often, love is based on our emotions than our actions. Good actions or bad actions will prove whether one’s love for another is real or false. Actions based on true love will never damage or harm any person. It always promotes person’s goodness and spreads person’s goodness all over. 

Today, what marks our guilt feeling is the lack of genuine love for one another and the pretentious outlook that we have or the mask that we wear with a false personality. Most of the times our mouth is as honey as a sweet; our face glows as bright as light but only God and we know how good or bad our intention is. True love for one another will accept others with their limitations and accept them as they are. True love for another although at times is questioned, suspected, hurt or devalued yet there is a satisfaction and happiness because the love for another was never fake but true and genuine. Let us realize that true love for one another will form in us when we have genuine love for God. 

That’s why very beautifully Pope Francis would say, “There is no true love of the other if it is not rooted in one's relationship with God. Love for God is expressed most of all in prayer and adoration and love for one's neighbor is expressed by being close to people, listening to them, sharing and caring for others. So often we overlook listening to others because it is boring or because it takes up my time. Such feelings even arise when someone else needs someone close during times of trial or sorrow.” Yes, true love for our brothers and sisters will be manifested when we love God deeply and genuinely. True love for another is difficult and demanding, but if we love God deeply and truly, we would automatically inclined to love others, because God’s love in us elicits always genuine and true love. So let us love God and love one another. Let the genuine love begin from the family to the society, society to the world. 

3.              Listen to God:

We all know to listen means to pay a careful attention or to hear something with thoughtful attention. However, attention reaches its greater level, when we listen to another. Even, an understanding of a concept or a comprehension of thought could better be communicated, when one listens carefully and explains to another substantially. Therefore, the art of listening is an important act of communication skill. That’s why someone has very beautifully said, “Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process.” So if listening to ordinary persons we deal daily require a careful listening, let us imagine how much more we need to be attentive to the voice of God, the promptings of his Spirit and realize the presence of God in our lives. The gospel reading of the day invites us to embrace the offender with a listening ear and restore him or her to relationship with God or us.

It gives us a proper understanding of how we can realize the presence of God formed in the name of Jesus and how we need to listen to one another, give a chance and restore the other back to God and with one another in reconciliation. Thus the gospel reading presents to us three-fold ways of restoring our brothers or sisters. Firstly, One to one encounter - meeting privately the person at fault to accept the mistakes; it enables us to respect and accept another rather than to put the one to shame before others. Secondly, One with semi-community encounter – meeting the person at fault with one or two witnesses; it makes the presence of two or more witnesses but protects the one at fault in the discussions, so that the demands for correction are not misguided. Thirdly, one with a full community encounter – meeting the person at fault with a community of people or church; it enables the person at fault to be excommunicated from the community with a deliberate choice, choosing to remain in sin. 

Yes, if we could observe in these three different modes of meeting, the offender or the one at fault, if he or she listens and accepts the mistakes or faults, they will be saved but if he or she refuses to listen or respond, accordingly they have to pay the price for their own choice. Therefore, the most important aspect in the restoration of relationship with God or with one another is listening and responding. Today, quite a lot of disturbing issues or unnecessary worries can be avoided if we listen and respond to God and to one another rightly and attentively. One of the main drawbacks in our relationships with others today is our failure to listen and respond properly and correctly. There are rather a lot of issues in our relationship in the family or society or the world, but if we have a better listening capacity to be attentive to what one says and understand correctly what one says, we would have a well-balanced or healthy relationships with God and with another. 

Most of our relationships end up in failure because we fail to listen to God and others; we don’t pay careful or proper attention to what God says and others say; perhaps in our human relationship, we just pick up few words from the conversations or the words uttered and argue for no reason at all. Most of us take extreme delight in bring others to public shame or exposing one’s weakness or vulnerability. But what we lack today is the realization of the presence of God in us and in others. For such a realization of God-present in us or God’s presence with us, we need to have an attentive listening and a right response to God. That’s why Jesus says, “where two are three gathered in my name, I am there in their midst.” Yes, the community of disciples or followers of Christ gathered together in the name of God, there God is present and God’s presence enables us to listen and respond to those at fault properly. The failure to realize the presence of God in ourselves and in the other makes us to accuse others or find fault with or not able to accept others as they are. Let us realize the presence of God in ourselves and in others, so that we may enable in ourselves to lend a compassionate listening ear to the cry of the offender and offer him or her opportunity to turn to God in repentance and renew life in God. 

RESPOND: 

Do we remain loyal to God as his children and do we remain loyal to one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord?

Do we love God first in order to find the love of God in the other or do we submerge ourselves in the ocean of selfish love?

Do we listen to God’s word and the promptings of his spirit or do we ignore and avoid the promptings of God’s spirit in our lives?

Let us remain a loyal, loving and listening people to God to deepen our relationship with him and thus restore the lost relationship with God and with one another around us. Amen. 

God bless us all! Live Jesus!

Fr. Ramesh George MSFS

rameshvkmsfs@gmail.com

9500930968