Have a persevering Faith! HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 22ND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 9TH SEPTEMBER 2023

Have a persevering Faith!

HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 22ND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 9TH SEPTEMBER 2023

Col.1:21-23; Ps.54; Luke 6:1-5

Have a persevering Faith!

St. Paul continued his admonition to the Church in Colossian in the first reading. He began by making them understand that they were reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. The death of Christ is salvific, and so, it is able to disassociate one from any sinful or satanic entanglement one may have had due to sin or any form of evil initiation. When we are appropriated with the effect of Christ’s death through baptism, we become holy, blameless and irreproachable before God. It is in the very nature of baptism to wash away original sin and any form of satanic ancestral connection.

However, St. Paul went on to teach that the saving effect of baptism remains efficacious in us to the extent that we remain in Christ. Thus, having been brought into the life of Christ, we must keep the light burning brightly in our hearts; we must preserve the faith that saves us. The fact that baptism gives an indelible mark to the soul does not mean that after receiving it, we may now engage in licentiousness; living recklessly with the hope that our salvation is guaranteed on the ground of our baptism.

St. Paul wants us to understand that if after our reconciliation with God, we return to waywardness, we by that very fact, reconnect ourselves to the wimps and caprices of the devil. The message here is that, the way we live our lives matters a lot and determines to a great extent what happens to us in this life. We cannot continue in sin and expect that the devil will be far away from us just because we cast and bind him in prayer sessions.

Therefore, the first and decisive way to cast and bind the devil is by living uprightly. This is the point Jesus wanted the Pharisees to understand in the gospel reading. They claimed to be very stringent with the law of the Sabbath, yet they wine and dine with the devil by their hypocritical life styles. They were very quick to point out law-breakers but very comfortable with their hypocrisy. So, each time they put forth a self-righteous attitude, Jesus was always quick to reveal to them the contradiction in their lives.

Beloved, there is no salvation in contradiction. It is either we are reconciled to the Lord or we are cut off from Him. Our life style reveals our position.