The Gift of God is God Himself(REFLECTION/HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 28TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 21ST OCTOBER 2023

REFLECTION/HOMILY FOR SATURDAY OF THE 28TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 21ST OCTOBER 2023

Rom.4:13, 16-18; Ps.105; Luke 12:8-12

The Gift of God is God Himself

Faith is a supernatural gift of God, and so, whatever is received through faith is also a gift. In today’s first reading, St. Paul tells us that the promise to Abraham that he will inherit the earth came to him through faith as against through the law. This does not mean that obedience to the law is unnecessary but that it is not our effort in obeying the law that wins us salvation but God’s grace that is bequeathed to those who believe.

The promise made to Abraham reaches us too through faith which makes us children of Abraham. By law, we would have only merited this promise if we are the biological descendants of Abraham. Thus, we must be thankful to God because the graces we receive are freely given. When the responsorial psalm tells us that the Lord remembers his covenant forever, God is saying that his graces will forever remain free.

The best way we can inculcate an attitude of gratitude is to bear good fruits with the graces received. To bear fruit means to acknowledge Christ before the world. It will be ungrateful of us to receive a gift and live as though it was not a gift. This is what we do when we are not bearing fruits. The teachers of the Law could not bear fruits because they resisted the gift of God by accusing Jesus of being a prince of Beelzebub. This is what is technically called the sin against the Holy Spirit.

When scripture says that this sin cannot be forgiven, it means that God will never force his gift on anyone. For anything to qualify as a gift, the giver must be free in giving and the receiver must be free in receiving. Therefore, one who rejects God’s gift cannot have it and so, cannot be saved. The hindrance to salvation is created by the person not by God. God is mercy Himself.

In the gospel reading, Jesus tells us to expect persecution on account of the gift we have received. Since we were free in receiving God’s gift, we become responsible too. However, it is God himself who is the gift that he has given to us. And so, when persecutions come our way, we should never contemplate compromise because greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.

Beloved, if God has sent you on an errand, be rest assured that He will defend you all along. You will notice that sticking to the dictates of Divine inspiration means walking into some form of challenges. When this foresight envelopes us, Jesus does not want us to result to self-preservative mode of evangelization. We are not called to negotiate with evil but to overcome it. Of what use is light, if it is not discarding darkness?