Homily For Saturday Third Week of Lent Year B, 9th March, 2024

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

Fr. Emmanuel Emenike  Onyia.

 

LEARN TO PRAY IN HUMILITY AND CONTRITION

 

One of the traditional dimensions of this Lenten season is prayer. Prayer is part and parcel of our Christian life. It is the act of raising 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 to prayer.

 

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 Pharisees did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.

 

Dear friends, in prayer, we are not to give God instructions or present our profile of piety, but our disposition should be that of humility and contrition like this 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 innermost of our being.

 

Thus, we are called in our first reading to return to the Lord in prayers, for he may tear us to pieces, but he will heal us; he may strike us down, but he will bandage our wounds; since what he wants 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 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. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. It’s the weekend, wishing you a peaceful and joyful day.