Miracle and Conversion(HOMILY FOR FRIDAY OF THE 26TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 6TH 0CTOBER 2023

HOMILY FOR FRIDAY OF THE 26TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Baruch 1:15-21; Ps.79; Luke 10:13-16

Miracle and Conversion

God and man have longest entered into a covenantal relationship. On this relationship lies the fulfilment, peace and salvation of man. God has absolutely nothing to gain but everything to give. If man is not fulfilled as this covenantal relationship promises, then there is need to evaluate the level of commitment of each party in the covenant. The readings of today humbly but firmly reveal to us that a great deal of man's sufferings in the world is as a result of his unfaithfulness to his part in the covenantal relationship with God. Man continues to heed the old trick of the devil, namely, that if we sin against God, we will be better-off by becoming like God 

Like the prodigal son, we continue to calculate that leaving outside of the realm of the father will be more fulfilling. The first reading tells us that all of us are guilty of this in different ways and to different degrees. It therefore becomes the responsibility of everyone to consider where and how he or she has deadened the conscience and given in to wayward living.

In the gospel reading, Jesus retorted that Chorazin and Bethsaida are guilty of wasting the manifestations of God in their midst. The ever faithful God has manifested himself to the people but the people have refused to understand divine manifestation as an invitation to repent, to draw nearer to God. Funny enough, we continue to demand for this manifestation. The quest, hunger and drive for miracles is really getting weird in our world today. Everyone wants a miracle just as very many claim to have the capacity to perform miracles. A common denominator is that there is no corresponding quest, hunger and drive for intimacy with Jesus.

This situation perfectly describes a parasitic relationship whereby a party wants to gain from the other party without bearing responsibility towards the other party. Beloved, we all have experiences of divine encounter and intervention in our lives. What have we made of them? Is our level of received miracles commensurate with our level of conversion? Does our love for God increase each time He manifests himself to us? Today and henceforth, let us struggle to answer these questions in the affirmative. Miracles will save us but only to the extent that we respond to them as invitations for conversion.