Homily For Saturday Third Week of Lent Year A, 18th March, 2023

Radings: Hosea 5:15-6:6, Ps. 51, Luke: 18:9-14

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike  Onyia.

 

LEARN TO CULTIVATE THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARDS PRAYER

 

Prayer is part and parcel of our Christian life. It is the act of raising up our minds and hearts to God. But sometimes we find it difficult to carry out this exercise because we don't understand how or what is demanded of us or the best disposition or attitude towards prayer.

 

Little Wonder today in our Gospel passage, we heard how two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” 

 

While the tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Hence, Jesus said, the tax collector, went home at rights with God; the Pharisee did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.

 

Dear friends, we must learn to cultivate the right attitude towards prayer. For in prayer, we are not to give God instructions or present our profile of piety, but our disposition and attitude should be that of humility and contrition just like the tax collector. We are to present ourselves to God just like a good servant will report for duty and wait for instructions from his master. So, we are to respond in obedience to God's instructions in prayer for there we encounter God in the inner most part of our being.

 

Thus, we are called in our first reading to return to the Lord in prayers, for he may torn us to pieces, but he will heal us; he may struck us down, but he will bandage our wounds; since what he want is love, not sacrifice, humility and not holocausts. Therefore, we have to cultivate the right disposition and learn how to communicate with God the right way through prayer. Let us then put our prayer into action by going out to prayerfully cast our votes today in faith and trust in God intervention.

 

LET US PRAY: Lord God, we do not know how to pray as we ought, as we listen to your words today, may we learn how to cultivate the right attitude and disposition towards prayers especially as we carry out our elections today. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. It’s weekend, wishing you a peaceful and joyful day.