Homily for Friday Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Year B, 24th September, 2021

 Homily for Friday Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Year B, 24th September, 2021

Readings: Haggai 2:1-9; Ps.43; Luke 9:18-22

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

HAVING BEEN A CHRISTIAN FOR A WHILE, WHAT CAN I SAY IS MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH JESUS 

In life there is always a moment when we will want to examine and know if our friends can really be trusted, if they truly know and understand who we are and what we represent? This is because, as social beings, we often make friends who we can confide and entrust with our inner most thoughts and plans. But the friendship does not come automatically, it is developed gradually.

This is the situation between Jesus and his disciples in our Gospel passage today, when Jesus asked them saying: Who do people say I Am?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ. But he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone anything about this. For the Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day.

 

Here, we see how Peter expressed his personal conviction about who Jesus is. He did not have to quote any authority, because his response was a clear and sincere knowledge of who he professed Jesus to be. This is because Peter’s gift of faith comes from his personal identification of the person of Jesus. Thus, our faith requires that we give a personal answer to the question: who is Jesus to me personally? For it is not enough to quote the teachings and Catechism of the Church about our faith or the teachings of other theologians and preachers or to respond only from the head, but from the heart that is convinced of what it believes in. 

Today most people are following Jesus without knowing who Jesus truly represents. Some people find it very difficult to embrace the teaching of Jesus because they lack the faith and conviction about his personality, even when Jesus has revealed himself to us through his great miracles and teachings. The fact is that, Jesus wants us to develop a divine way of looking at things. He wants us to know him deep down our soul, so that we can profess our faith with deeper meaning and conviction. This faith is necessary in order to accommodate and overcome the ugly event of persecutions, condemnation and blackmail that awaits us.

And when that time comes the Lord says we should be courageous for a little while now, he is going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all the nations and the treasures of all the nations shall flow in, and he will fill his Temple with new glory that surpass the old, as we heard in our first reading today.

Dear friends, having heard the teachings and great works of Jesus in the scriptures and traditions of the Church, the question remains: what can I say is my personal experience of Jesus? Have I personally identified our Lord Jesus in our lives? How has my knowledge of Jesus helped other people to come to faith in Jesus?

Today we are called to really examine our conscience to know where we are with regards to our faith as Christians. We are called today to develop a divine way of understanding the mysteries of God, but not rejecting them because we do not understand them. Therefore, let us turn towards God once again with all our hearts and devote our whole lives in seeking to know Him more and more.

LET US PRAY: Lord God, you revealed to Peter the true identity of Jesus your Son, help us to personally identify the person of Jesus in our lives and so profess our faith with deeper meaning and conviction. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. God bless you.