Homily For Saturday Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Year B, 10th February, 2024. The Memorial of St. Scholastica

Readings: 1Kings 12:26-32.13:33-34; Ps.106; Mark 8:1-10

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

 

EXPERIENCING THE COMPASSIONATE CARE OF JESUS TOWARDS HUMAN SUFFERING

 

When God created humanity, he entrusted all his creation to us and gave us regulations to follow in order to ensure the successful fulfilment of this responsibility. But out of pride and selfishness, we disobeyed God’s instructions and regulations. Hence, we separated ourselves from God, where we should have remained and enjoyed the bliss of God’s presence, just as we heard in our first reading today.

 

For we heard how Jeroboam out of greed and selfishness separated himself and the people entrusted to him from God by creating for himself a golden image in replacement of the living God.  Such conduct made the House of Jeroboam a sinful House and caused its ruin and extinction from the face of the earth.

 

This is how we often behave and separate ourselves from God and are heading towards destruction and suffering. Nonetheless, God has not abandoned us in our downfall. He is still compassionate, and caring and loves us even in our imperfections and our disobedience, for his compassion for the sufferings of humanity is so great. This is evident in our Gospel reading today, where Jesus reveals his compassion towards humanity. This compassionate love of Jesus in its historical and physical solidarity with human suffering, springs from the love of God the Father for his creatures.

 

Here, Jesus had compassion for the people who had been with him for days listening to his words. He then says to his disciples that there is a need for him to give them something to eat before sending them away lest they faint on the way since some of them have come a long distance. This compassion of Jesus is meant for us to spread it throughout the world in a practical way by our ways of life.

 

Dear friends, God has not abandoned us even in our imperfections, he still cares about us. All he wants from us is to be faithful to him and be compassionate to one another. But how strong is our compassion towards others? Do we know people who are helpless and need some help? Let us look at them for a moment and imagine Jesus looking at them.

 

Today, like Jesus, each one of us is called to reach out to people around us who are really in need of our assistance. This includes our family members, our neighbours, our colleagues and others who we encounter in life. The truth is that you may be the only person who can bring the healing and compassion of Jesus into their lives, just like St. Scholastica whose memorial we celebrate today. For she was deeply prayerful, caring and faithful to God. She was the twin sister of St. Benedict.

 

LET US PRAY: Lord God, our fragile and contingent nature propelled by pride and sins have always brought about our downfall, but you have never abandoned us. As we embrace your compassion, through the intercession of St. Scholastica give us the grace to look at people around us with the compassionate eyes of Jesus and be of help to them the best we could. Amen. Do have a peaceful weekend.