Wisdom to cherish the supreme value of the Kingdom

Jul 27, 2020 | Homily

By Fr. Marcel Uzoigwe, CSSp.

(1Kigs.3:5,7-12, Ps.119, Rom.8:28:30 & Matt. 13:44-52)

Dear Friends in Christ,

Wisdom makes a lot of differences in life. Wisdom enable us, not just to have knowledge and right judgement, but also proper understanding and right application of reason in every situation. The ability to understand and allign our reasoning or knowledge to the will of God is all that is needed to discover and possess the treasures of the Kingdom. Consequently, James 1:5 advises that “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.“ The readings of today invite us to reflect on the need for wisdom and its appropriate application in life matters.

The first reading presents King Solomon’s request to God. After Solomon was made a king in succession of his father David, God appeared to him in a dream and urged him to ask for whatever he desires. Being mindful of his enormous responsibility as a king, to judge and rule over the people entrusted to his care, Solomon decided to ask God for a heart of Understanding and Discernment  to enable him decipher what is good and what is evil in discharging his leadership duties. God was so pleased that, instead of asking for long life, wealth or the life of his enemies, Solomon requested for understanding and a discerning heart that he gave him a heart so wise and understanding that it can never be equaled by anyone.

There is something about this request of Solomon. He did not ask for something that is solely for his personal benefit. He asked for something that will benefit the people he governs. He treasured good leadership above personal wealth and selfish desires. He, therefore realized that he needed wisdom to achieve it. When the opportunity came, he went straight to ask for it. There are three important points to be noted in the comment preceding his request. First, he recognized that it was God who placed him on the King’s stool, and not out of his own individual qualification. Secondly, he quickly acknowledged that he was a little boy, lacking experience. But the task before him, i.e. leadership, was great. Thirdly, he noted that the people whom he was chosen to govern were God’s chosen people, great and numerous, thereby expressing the need for vigilance and care in discharging his duties. 

This humble attitude displayed by Solomon on ascending the throne is an example to all, whether called to take up leadership responsibility or not. Solomom’s request was informed by his lofty sense of duty and responsibility based on his love and regard for God. He got his priorities right. His primary preocupation at this point was to execute his duties with utmost diligence to the satisfaction of all. The love of God that was examplified in the life of his father, David, was still very much in him. We know that when Solomon got old and his value system changed, he married several wives and was led away to worship foreing idols. This points tot he fact that people could sheaply give away what was treasurable to them, just the way Esau gave away his birthright for a pot of porridge (Genesis 25: 29-34).

The gospel presented this theme with the three parables of the kingdom of Heaven as treasure buried in the field, as a fine pearl found by a marchant, and as a net thrown into the sea that collected all kinds of fish. A very important fact in the three parables is the choice made by the actors – the one who found the hidden treasure went and sold everything he owed and bought the field; the marchant who found the fine pearl sold everything he had and bought the pearl; and the fisher took his time to select the good fish out of the bad. They all gave away their time and treasure to acquire the kingdom which is of a higher value. The persons who sold the field with the hidden treasure and the fine pearl may not have known what value they were giving away. They may have made wrong choices out of ignorance.

Our everyday life is filled with the issue of making choices. We choose the cloth to wear, which food to eat, who to call, which friend to make, where to go, what to buy, which television channel or program to watch, how much to spend for what, etc. We also choose how and when to do what, what to believe, who to marry, what job to apply for, and so on. We could choose to live in the service of God and humanity or to be selfish; to live according to the values of the kingdom of God or to live as if God does not exist. Every choice is governed by what value we attach to them, and every choice has its own consequences. 

It is not always easy making choices, especially among two apparant good options. Yet we must always strive to make right choices. One way to evaluate the value that governs our choices and set them right is to check the thought of our heart, because every other thing flows from it (cf. Proverbs 4: 23). What we treasure occupies our mind and influences our choices. Consequently, Jesus said to the crowd during his teaching on the mount, “…store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:20-21). If we treasure who we are and the things we have – like the grace of being a Christian, our Christian community, the family we have, etc. and work to uphold them,  they will determine the direction of our future choices, and be the source of our happiness. 

Paul clearly expresses this thought in the second reading when he says, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Hence, if we love God and seek to do his will; if we appreciate his invitation to serve him in the community we belong to,  our daily choices would allign with that option. We would find ourselves desiring to grow in faith and service to God and humanity, and God would not hesitate to imbue us with his wisdom and graces.

Finding the treasure of the kingdom and giving everything away to possess it is what Jesus meant when he said, “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). The decisions of the person who found “treasure hidden in a field” the merchant who found “one pearl of great value” and those who put the good fish “into baskets but threw out the bad” were all motivated by wisdom and understanding. Without wisdom and understanding, it is difficult to appreciate the kingdom of God as a treasure of supreme value. That is why the world is filled with violence, crime and all sorts of evil because most people are busy seeking the kingdom of the world – material riches, power and fame. Paul’s missionary experience led him to conclude that preaching Christ crucified is a “stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corienthians 1: 23-24). The difference lies on one group relying solely on their own human reasoning and the other being guided by wisdom and understanding. Thus we need the wisdom that comes from above (cf. James 3:17) to guide us in our daily life choices. 

The prayerful attitude of of the young King Solomon should guide us to ask for wisdom and understanding to always set our priorities right, give God the first place in our lives and allow His principles and values to determine our daily life decisions and choices. We could then appreciate the supreme value of the kingdom of God and be willing to forgo other distraction that seek to take out heart away from efforts to possess it.

Recognizing Christ in our neighbour

Jun 29, 2020 | Homily

By Fr. Marcel Uzoigwe, CSSp

(2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a; Romans 6:3-4, 8-11; Matthew 10:37-42)

Dear friends in Christ,

We often presume that others are the beneficiaries of whatever we are generous with, whereas we are actually the ones who reap from our acts of generosity. It is interesting to know that our acts of generosity serve to supply what we lack, and everyone lacks something in life, either materially or spiritually. The facts that “it is in giving that we receive” (St. Francis) and “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts. 20:35) are clearly highlighted in the readings of today. They also portray love as the driving force of generosity.

The first reading presents the wealthy but childless Shunammite couple. What makes this couple exceptional is the ability to feel the sufferings of others, shown in the initiative they took to alleviate the suffering of Elisha. They provided bed and board for Elisha each time he came across. The process was set in motion by the woman, and her husband must be a good and generous man to be open to her suggestion to furnish a little room for Elisha in their house so that he could always have a place to rest during his journey. Their generosity was matched and surpassed by God who granted them a son according to the words of Elisha: “This time next year you will be fondling a baby son” (2 Kings 4:16).

Hospitality is a form of generosity, and it is one of the greatest virtues in the Bible. The ancients believed that each person should be welcomed as though one were welcoming God himself. The virtue of hospitality is encountering the presence of God in others, usually in those whom we least expect. This reminds us of a similar story found in the eighteenth chapter of the book of Genesis, where the old man Abraham and his aged wife Sarah welcomed and entertained three strangers. But they never knew that the travelers were actually God’s messengers. And in a year, Abraham and Sarah had a baby boy whom they named Isaac. Many a time we miss to welcome God who visits us in a way we never expected Him to.

For those who know how to listen, like the Shunammite couple, they hear the voice of God inviting them to take action. Despite the attendant dangers in doing good for others—peoples incomprehension—they trust that God sees their hearts and good intentions. Such people get surprised by God. The Shunammite couple couldn’t buy a child, in spite of their wealth; but they received a gift of a son, through the prayers of the prophet. Note that when God called Elisha, he cooked his farm animals and fed his workers with the meat—his whole wealth and source of livelihood disappeared in a single day (1 Kings 19:19-21). He too was generous with his material possession, but even more in dedicating his life to God’s service with the attendant material poverty and dependency that go with it.

The gospel deals with excessive attachments which restrict our generosity and freedom to do God’s work accordingly; something that St. Ignatius of Loyola  would call ‘inordinate affection’. To demonstrate to us that charity or generosity with our gifts to others is not easy, three classes of excuses we usually give for refusing to be generous are presented to us: responsibilities to our parents, children and preservation of our wealth. Against these excuses, Jesus warns that “whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37-38). By demanding that we prioritize his call to serve above every other human consideration or family ties, Jesus affirms the very principle of love as the driving force for generosity which looks beyond the individual to see God in human persons. Thus, when we  are generous to a person, it is actually to God that we are generous. We see this also in the statement of Jesus concerning the last judgement, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” ( Mathew 25:40). 

What goes on in our minds when we see people in difficulty or suffering? Do we simply get angry and place the blame on institutions and governments for wrong policies or do we think their situation calls us to take action? Bad policies do lead to people suffering, but it is not just the anger against institutions and governments that matter; rather, our ability to be generous towards them.

Generosity does not require a great deal of wealth, for anyone to feel dispensed from it;  a cup of water to a thirsty person suffices as generosity: “And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple – amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42). Everyone is rich enough to share something, no matter how little, with others. It is sin – especially greed and lack of faith – that prevents us from sharing with others. The solution to this sin, given in the second reading, reminds us that our sinful nature died with Christ in baptism. We must therefore consider ourselves dead to sin and alive with God in Jesus Christ (Romans 6:11). If we are still stingy and unfeeling towards people who suffer, our claim to Christianity is questionable. We must be supportive to anyone who needs what we can offer. 

Generosity goes beyond material giving. The very source and origin of generosity is God himself. He made us freely in his own image and likeness and generously gave us the entire creation to manage (Gen. 2:26). After the fall of Adam and Eve that brought us death, God’s generosity gave us salvation. Thus generosity is an expression of the person of God which is love itself (1 John 4:8).  In John 3:16 we read, ^“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. It is God’s gift of His Son that enables us to be generous like Him. We can then offer our time, attention, services, resources cheerfully without grudging. It also enables us to see something good in everyone, feel their pains and seek to help them in ways we can.  The greatest form of generosity is to lead the sinner and those going astray to salvation, and to be part of the salvation ministry which is the very reason Jesus emphasized on generosity given to prophets, apostles, disciples and ‘the little ones’. 

Let us realize that whatever we posses in terms of time, talent and treasure as well as spiritual gifts, are freely bestowed on us by God for the purpose of serving our good and that of our neighbour, knowing that whatever good we do to others, we are ultimately doing it to God.

Solemnity of the Corpus Christi: The Food and Drink of Eternal Life

Jun 15, 2020 | Homily

By Fr. Marcel Uzoigwe, CSSp. (Deut. 8:2-3,14-16, Ps.147:12-20, 1Cor. 10:16-17 & Jn.6:51-58)

Dear friends in Christ,

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Corpus Christi (Body and Blood of Christ) which is at the very center of Catholic spirituality. Ever since the institution of the Eucharist in the Upper Room by Jesus with the mandate “Do this in memory of me”, (Luke 22:19, 1Cor.11:24,25), the Church has in obedience gathered regularly in the name of Jesus to do and say what the Lord Jesus did and commanded at that last supper. By this establishment, Jesus really wants us to keep celebrating and living out his life and message as Eucharistic people and also to draw life from his Body and Blood which sustains us in our pilgrimage to eternal life. 

The three readings of today deal with the subject of Jesus as the Bread of Life from different perspectives. In the first reading, Moses calls on the Israelites to remain faithful to God who led them through the desert for forty year, feeding them with manna, the bread of heaven. He described this bread as something uncommon and unknown to their fathers; something that God alone bestows on his people out of love, to strengthen them on their difficult journey through the desert. Moses pointed out that the event of feeding the Israelites with the manna coupled with the circumstances of their painful journey obliges them to realize that there is more to life than bread and butter. They are called to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. In other words, they are called to obedience of faith – living by God’s commandments and standard so as to remain the people of God, pleasing to Him. Their unity as a people derives not only from their common ancestry but also from their faithfulness to God who has claimed them as His own and saddled Moses with the task of leading them out of slavery to the freedom that befits the children of God. 

Paul takes up this theme with the early Corinthian Christians who were besieged with various pastoral problems. He cautioned them on the dangers of neither according the Body and Blood of Christ the dignity it commands nor living according to its demands. Sharing the one body required them to be united in love for one another, working for the good of all rather than seeking individual interests in ways that harm the community of believers. Being a Jew did not blind St. Paul from realizing Jesus as the new source of unity among the believers rather than ancestral descent. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: The old has gone, the new is here (2 Cor. 5:17). He or she is a member of the new community of the people of God.

Partaking of the body of Christ implies being one with Jesus. The consequence of this event is enumerated in the earlier verses (verses 1-15) of the 1Corinthians 10 out of which today’s reading consists of only versus 16 and 17. St. Paul connects there the dangers of unworthy participation in the  Eucharist with the Israelites at the time of Moses who ate the manna in an unworthy manner, and consequently died in the desert. They were, so to say, the rotten part of the body, and therefore unworthy to remain united with the rest. Paul warns us that sin makes us unworthy and has an unpleasant effect when we approach the Eucharist. We need to be prepared because we are dealing with God who is holy and almighty.

The question of true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is the subject of the Gospel reading. In spite of Jesus’ declaration that the bread and wine are his true body and blood, this discussion has continued until this day. Down through the ages many heretics doubt and deny the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. For some it is impossible to be true while for others, Jesus’ real presence is limited within the time of the Eucharistic celebration but not after the celebration. 

The importance of this teaching of Jesus led  Pope Urban IV to establish Corpus Christi as a Feast for the universal Church in 1264 and Pope Clement V made it an obligatory feast for the universal Church at the Council of Vienna in 1311. The Church takes this teaching serious because it was Jesus who made this statement “I am the bread of life”. He didn’t stop there, he went on to say that, this bread is my flesh. So the bread you see is God whole and entire, body and blood, soul and divinity. The bread is not a pointer, but Jesus himself who continues to offer himself to us. Again, during the Last Supper, “while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”  Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”(Matthew 26: 26-28). Searching for the very words of Jesus in the scriptures (ipsissima verba), scholars found that these were the actual words of Jesus himself. He said, “this is my body, this is my blood” and not “this represents my body, this represent my blood”.  Corpus Christi Feast was, therefore, established in order to re-assure the Christian Faithful of Christ’s ever abiding real presence in the Eucharist as opposed to the heretical doubt and denial of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. 

In the light of our great celebration today, the big question that confronts us is, to what extent do we really believe in the Eucharistic Jesus and His ever abiding real presence, and how has the celebration of the Eucharist positively transformed us as individuals and united us as a community of faith where the life of Jesus is replicated in our dealings with one another? The early Church gives us an example of living as a community of faith. Acts 4:32 says, “all the believers were one in heart and mind.” And when problems started arising, the apostles chose men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom to handle the situation and maintain unity among the brethren (Acts 6:1-3). 

The feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus (Corpus Christi) reminds us of who we are: the people of God on a journey to our eternal home in heaven. While here on earth, we are united with God, protected and strengthened by the body and blood of Christ we celebrate. It is our responsibility to remain united with Him, helping one another with the realization that we are members of the one body, and the journey could sometimes be more difficult for one or more of our members. In this regard, let us heed to the admonition of St. Paul in Romans 15: 1-3, “we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.  Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me’”.