Committed to authentic listening (HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 5TH WEEK OF EASTER MAY 2023

HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 5TH WEEK OF EASTER

Acts 14:5-18; Ps.115; John 14:21-26

Committed to authentic listening

The first reading of today records the healing of a cripple at Lystra. The process through which this cripple was healed leaves us with so much lessons. First, Paul and Barnabas were not engaged in a prayer session or a miracle crusade. Their intention was simply to preach God’s word and through it, bring the people to accepting Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Lystra was a pagan city. So, Paul and Barnabas busied themselves with telling the people about the goodnews of Jesus Christ and the mighty works that accompanied Him.

The cripple who had never walked since birth, gave a listening hear to the message preached by Paul. He listened to the point that his faith started building up from what he was hearing about Jesus of Nazareth. His whole being was so engrossed with the goodnews that the faith that which was building up in him started to cause him to have an unusual desire. The unusual desire here was the desire to walk. Scripture described him as a “man”, not a “boy”. This means, he had come of age. Yet, his faith grew above accepting his age-long condition as something permanent.

It was this same building faith, arising from listening to the Word of God that attracted the attention of Paul to him. Truly, like-minds will always attract each other. The faith that lead to the healing of the cripple came about through listening to God’s Word. Beloved, we cannot claim to have no access to God’s Word today. We cannot say that we have never heard the Word well preached. The problem sometimes is that we listen to be entertained rather than to grow our faith in Jesus Christ. Some other times, we listen to be hypnotized by the pseudo preachers. It is only through authentic listening to God’s Word that we can develop a true desire to encounter the Lord.

See, unless we truly listen to God’s Word, we cannot get to the level of loving God. In the gospel reading, Jesus clearly said that the sign that we love God is when we keep his commandments. Anyone who says that he loves God but does not keep his commandments, is a liar. But again, no one can keep a commandment that he/she has not listened to. Listening means to submit our will to the Will of God; it means to dispose ourselves to be directed only by what the Lord wants of us. Every authentic listening brings about an uncommon touch of the Divine in the life of the listener. In humility, let us recommit ourselves to authentic listening.