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(17th August 2025) Homily for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

READ: (Jer 38:4-6, 8-10; Heb 12: 1-4; Lk 12: 49-59)

REFLECT: Endurance with and for love of God and others wins eternal life…

Dear friends, we are on the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. We all know the meaning of endurance. It is the ability to withstand hardship or adversity or endurance is as well can be the power to withstand something challenging. Endurance makes us strong, endurance helps us to be patient, and endurance makes us understand different aspects of life in a little better way without any hurry. The readings of the day call each one to focus on endurance in life. Life is a mixture of both happiness and sorrow. But if we could persist in our efforts to endure the sufferings and daily hurdles of life with the gift of endurance, we shall be dear to God. So based on the liturgy of the word, I would like to share with you three points of reflection.

1. Endure for God’s work:

We learn that to endure for God’s work means that we try our best to live faithfully in the midst of hardships and difficulties to carry out God' s will in our lives. We strive to remain faithful to the vocation we received as Christians and spread the mission of God in life despite our sufferings and pains. We could perhaps say that it is a kind of spiritual resilience, where our spirit and flesh is at war but we choose to live by the spirit of God, although we are discouraged and in discomfort. However, the plain fact is that when we endure for God's work, God gives us the strength to withstand all difficulties in life.

When we reflect on our way of life, we come to know that there are times we endure for ourselves, we endure for the sake of others and we endure for God’s work. Most of all, when we endure for God’s sake or for God’s work, God makes sure that he gives us grace to be strong or gives us grace to set us free from the sufferings of life. That’s what we see in the first reading from Prophet Jeremiah.  A false accusation by the officials against Jeremiah is cooked up that he is weakening the hands of the soldiers and so they want him to be put to death. The king says to the officials to do as they liked and so Jeremiah is cast into the cistern of Malchiah. However Ebed Melech the Ethiopian comes to the rescue of prophet Jeremiah saying to the King that the officials have done evil against Jeremiah and he would die of starvation if we don’t release him from the cistern. The king orders him that Jeremiah be removed and saved.

Yes, we all know that Prophet Jeremiah was sent by God for God’s work and the Lord makes sure that Jeremiah’s life is not ended but extended and so he sends the Ethiopian as the saviour of his life. Something similar can happen to us as well, if we really endure for something that is true and sincere, if we endure for God’s sake or God’s work, God will rescue our lives from the fatal destruction and destiny. We will experience the hand of God in one way of the other without any doubt.  That’s the power of God at work in us when we endure for God’s work. But the fact is that we are not prepared for endurance, because we lose hope, trust, and confidence in God, thus ending life in desperation and distress.

2. Jesus - an example of  Endurance;

I am sure there is no one who could endure life as much as Jesus did. From birth till death Jesus had to undergo enormous threats, oppositions, insults, hardships, unbelief, desertion, denial, betrayal and even death. But in all these, Jesus endured life for our sake, so that we might become part of the salvific work that God established in Jesus Christ. The reason why Jesus endured is to obey his heavenly father; to show love for the entire human race and to fulfill God’s saving act on earth. That’s what we find in the second reading of the day.

The letter to the Hebrews spells out very clearly how Jesus becomes the model and example of endurance, exhorting us to be and to do the same, so that we would find favor with God.  The reading says, Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith endured cross, shame and seated at the right hand of God the Father, so also we shall run the race with endurance and not grow weary or fainthearted. It calls us for endurance of life in the midst of persecutions and problems. Yes, we all undergo pains and problems. There is no one who could say that “I am without problems and pains,” because we all have pains and hardships, but nothing compared to Christ Jesus’ pain and sufferings. That’ s what someone has very beautifully said,” when I compare the cross and crisis of Christ to myself, all that I go through is nothing but a very little.” So what we need is to fix our minds with a right focus and goals to reach the destiny of life.

Aptly, today’s reading uses an athletic imagery like running race and the contests of the contestants in the race, which reveals the right focus and goal to achieve success and reach the destination. Just as, in a running race there are contestants, who have to fix their mind, run faster than the other and all of them move towards a destination for success so as to win, similarly if we run the race of life which has contest and complications with endurance, we shall run the race of life smoothly and find success. Just as the runners look at the destination with utmost attention and care in the running race, so also we should look at Jesus, the final point and goal, so that we reach him unwaveringly without any deviation and divided attention. But, to move towards such a point of success, meaning and happiness in life, we need endurance. Yes, let us realize that Jesus’ example is a signboard for all of us to move towards the final point where God has called us to be. So let us not give up but endure till the end, because Jesus gives us strength to walk ahead in life.

3. Endurance at all times:

It’s not that we live a life of endurance once a while and lose sight of it the next moment, rather it has to be sustained all throughout life. The words of Jesus in the Gospel of the day are a surprise for us. Jesus says, “I have come to set fire on earth… I have a baptism to be baptized with and how great is my distress until it’s accomplished… I have come to cause division and not peace…” The message of Jesus is shocking than surprising because in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke  at the time of annunciation (Lk 1: 26-38) we hear that mother Mary will bear a Son, his name is Jesus, He is the Son of God, He will rule forever and his reign will have no end. We ask ourselves, “Will God, our saviour who has come to save life, bring fire or division to destroy us?” I don’t think so.

The fire on earth that Jesus speaks could be the holy spirit in the tongues of fire at Pentecost (Acts 2:3-4). The fire of the Holy Spirit will fall over the earth and fill them with zeal for God’s word and work. The baptism to be baptized with could be the followers of Jesus being baptized in large numbers in Acts of the Apostles when Peter addressed the crowd (Acts 2:41). The Division and not peace that Jesus speaks about could arise from the teachings and values that Jesus proclaims. We know when Jesus proclaimed or taught in private or public, there  were many who took offence at him, many Pharisees and Sadducees were jealous of him, felt threatened by Jesus’ teaching, tried to make arguments with Jesus even challenged and plotted to put an end to his life. Something similar could as well happen to us individually, in the family or society or world because of the in-depth teaching and values that Jesus pronounces or when we try to practice what Jesus teaches. That’s why perhaps Jesus says, there will be division in the family.

However, the purpose of Jesus’ coming is to establish peace but the refusal to listen to Jesus and follow his teaching would bring division in the family. The division will even affect the household relationships among father and son, mother and daughter, mother-in-law and daughter –in-law. So those who follow Jesus need to be ready to face such divisions and be committed fully to follow Jesus by way of endurance. Jesus even addressed people that they were good at judging or predicting weather by looking at the sky and wind but not able to judge the present time themselves of what is right and wrong. The time Jesus speaks is the opportune time or the appointed time for repentance and renewal.

The repentance and renewal do not happen all of a sudden. It takes time. So only by endurance through the grace of God can we change and renew life better. A life in reconciliation with God and with one another is possible by endurance. In a life that we most often endure, speed is not so important but a steady life is important. Yes, ‘Speed thrills but kills’ is the phrase that we read on the road while we travel. But for sure, endurance will have no end. Endurance might make you feel that you end your life in suffering and pain but endurance lends us a helping hand to move forward in life with hope and courage by the grace of God.

Today, we need to realize that endurance of life by the grace of God wins. Endurance for the other in every human situation and conditions is the proof of our love for them. That’s what God endures with us in many ways, because God loves us. Very well, Pope Leo exhorts us, “Each person is  a unique, priceless good in God’s plan, a living, beating capital that must be nurtured and invested or else it risks drying up and losing its value. The gift of God within each person needs space, freedom and relationship to thrive and above all, it needs love. Love transforms and elevates every aspect of life making us more like God.” Yes, if we love God and others sincerely, we would be ready to endure anything and everything at all times. Let us endure others for God endures all that we do because he loves us always. 

RESPOND:

Are we prepared to endure everything for God’s work and mission or work only for my selfish ambition?

Do I endure everything realizing that Jesus endured everything for you and me? 

Do I curse daily problems or ignore or do I consistently and persistently love others and make efforts by way of endurance to overcome the storms of life?

Endurance never ends until we choose to put an end to it.  May God bless us all to endure life with love for God and for others through God’s grace. Amen.

“The more perfect our patience, the more perfectly we possess ourselves. Often recall to your mind that Our Lord saved us by his sufferings and endurance. In the same way, we must work out our salvation by sufferings, trials, bearing insults, conflicts and troubles with as much as gentleness as possible.” (St. Francis De Sales, IDL, 3rd Part, Chapter-3, p. 145)

God bless us all! Live Jesus!