GOD IS REPROACHING OUR UGLY ATTITUDES OF PRIDE AND SELFISHNESS

 Thursday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time Year A, 15th October, 2020. The Memorial of St. Teresa of Avila

Readings: Eph 1:1-10, Ps. 98, Luke 11:47-54

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

GOD IS REPROACHING OUR UGLY ATTITUDES OF PRIDE AND SELFISHNESS

Today in our Gospel passage Jesus continued with his reproach on the Scribes and the Pharisee for hardening their hearts from the teaching of Jesus, and therefore behaving like their ancestors. Little wonder, Jesus in his reproach said: woe to you who build the tombs of the prophets, the men your ancestors killed! In this way you both witness what your ancestors did and approve it; they did the killing, you do the building. But the scribes and the Pharisees began a furious attack on him and tried to force answers from him thereby setting traps to catch him out in something he might say.

Here, Jesus was speaking to the people on the ugly attitudes and wickedness of humanity well manifested by the Scribes and Pharisees in the various occasions when we ought to obey the Lord but preferred to live and act in accordance to our own selfish and proud attitudes. Hence by reproaching us, Jesus is reminding us that this is not the right path for us to follow, instead, we should be more faithful and pay more attention to God’s words and teachings which he had repeatedly communicated to us through the prophets, of which we often rejected and killed the prophets. In a similar way, Jesus despite all the signs and wonders he had done for humanity we still refused to have faith in him. 

However, St. Paul in our first reading says: blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ. For he chose us in him before the foundation of world, that we should be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence. A life which St. Teresa of Avila embraced so deeply and became a renowned mystic and holy woman. For with the help of St. John of the Cross, she was a very important figure in the renewal and reformation of the Carmelite order through which she established the Discalced Carmelites. She is one of the few female Doctors of the Church because of her immense contribution to the faith through her writings and way of life by which she sought to return the Christian faith to it’s purer state.

Dear friends, today we are called not to be like the Scribes and Pharisees, who out of pride and selfishness rejected the words of Jesus and sort to kill him. Rather, we should be more humble and disposed towards the words of God we hear everyday. We should make efforts to transform our lives and faith more closer to that of Jesus just like St. Teresa of  Avila who dedicated her life in the reformation of the Christian faith to it’s purest state.

LET US PRAY: Lord God, as you reproach our ugly attitudes of pride and selfishness today, through the teaching and intercession of St. Teresa of Avila, may we be filled with the longing for true holiness and humility, we ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do have a blessed day.