Homily For Tuesday Seventh Week of Easter Year B, The Feast of St. Matthias, 14th May 2024

 

Readings: Acts 1: 15-17.20-26; Ps.113;  John 15:9-17

Fr. Emmanuel Emenike  Onyia.

 

IF YOU KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS YOU WILL REMAIN IN MY LOVE

 

One of the greatest gifts of God to humanity is love. A gift that shows how much he loves us by sending his Son whose life-giving sacrifice means salvation for the world. So, the love that Jesus has for us is nothing less than the Divine love that unites the Persons of the Trinity. And Jesus presented this love as life that must continue among his disciples.

 

 That is why love is beyond human nature and when we love, we are actually acting out that very nature of God in us and this can be overwhelming and mysterious because love is the nature of God that we share. Little wonder in our Gospel passage today, Jesus said to his disciples: ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

 

Hence, today as we celebrate the feast of St. Matthias, we see how the apostles worked so hard to keep the Lord’s commandments and remain in his love as they chose Matthias to replace the traitor, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed the Lord and then killed himself in regret and grief. Thus, Matthias, one of the earliest followers of Jesus, was chosen in order to complete the number of the Twelve Apostles as we have it in our first reading. History has it that, St. Matthias out of love, went on to serve the Lord and his Church faithfully, for he went on many missions and travelled as far as Ethiopia. He laboured hard to establish the Church and the faith in different places and preached the Good News of the Lord, calling many to conversion and true faith.

 

Tradition has it, that Matthias suffered martyrdom in Colchis in Asia Minor. No doubt that St. Matthias together with the other Apostles gave their life, strength, dedication and their whole heart to serve God and his Church, practising and doing what Jesus had commanded them to do, which is to keep the commandments of God so as to remain in his love.

 

Dear friends, let us keep the Lord’s commandments, let us embrace Jesus and the love he is offering us. Let us like St. Matthias serve the Lord and His Church faithfully by spreading his love everywhere we find ourselves. The truth is that it actually feels right and awesome to experience and share the love of God. I don’t know if you have ever loved someone and you show it, or someone loves you and shows it. Or somebody loves you and you know it, it is something great and awesome, because love brings life, healing and wholeness into people’s lives. Thus, it is by loving God in our neighbours that we can share and experience this nature of God in us and by so doing, we will conquer the world full of hatred, self-centeredness, greed and sin.

 

LET US PRAY: Lord God, You chose St Matthias to become one of the Apostles, grant that through his intercession, we may keep your commandments and remain in your love. And help us to spread this love to the world and by so doing conquer the hatred, self-centeredness, greed and sin rooted in our families, societies and the world at large. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen  Do have a lovely day.