Homily For Tuesday Sixth Week in Ordinary Time Year B, 13 February, 2024

Readings: James 1:12-18; Ps. 94; Mark: 8:14-21

Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

 

LORD GIVE US AN UNDERSTANDING HEART

 

One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is understanding, which is the ability to perceive an idea or situation mentally and to know and comprehend the nature or meaning of things. Hence, understanding is seen as a gift of God and it is to be prayed and desired by all. Understanding has a moral character which one has to seek and learn. Understanding, then, involves the cognitive, the spiritual, and the moral. While human efforts are required, the ability to understand comes from God and the true test of understanding is obedience to God.

 

However, Jesus in our Gospel passage today was disappointed at his disciples’ inability to grasp what he was saying to them or who he is. They failed to understand what he was capable of doing in their midst. Hence he asked them over nine questions which they failed to understand. We can imagine them asking what is it that we do not yet understand.

 

But they had been witnesses to two extraordinary events done by Jesus: the feeding of five thousand people with five loaves and four thousand with seven Loaves. Yet they do not seem to have grasped the implication of the miracle they had witnessed nor the divine identity of Jesus who had made it possible.

 

Thus, Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand?” This question, reveals that the disciples are really in need of the gift of understanding, which is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that is given to us to make sense of what is happening around us all the time.

 

Dear friends, the fact remains that we all need the gift of understanding just like the disciples in our Gospel today. We need to ask the Lord to give us an understanding heart. Often, we are confused about so many things going on in our lives even concerning our faith, our families, our work, our vocation and every other thing around us.

 

Little wonder St. James in our first reading today says: make no mistake about this, my dear brothers: all that is good, everything that is perfect, which is given us from above; it comes down from the Father of all light; with him there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow of a change. By his own choice, he made us his children by the message of the truth so that we should be a sort of first fruits of all that he had created. Therefore, let us ask God the Father to send the Holy Spirit for an increase in the gift of understanding.

 

LET US PRAY:  Lord God, you are the source of all understanding, help us to understand you better and as we struggle with our daily activities endow us with an understanding heart, so as to break down the walls of confusion that press on in our heart. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Do have a blessed day.