Homily For Monday Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B, 30th September, 2024. The Memorial of St Jerome

 

Readings: Job 1:6-22, Ps.17, Luke 9:46-50

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

TRUE GREATNESS IS FOUND IN HUMBLE SERVICE TO OTHERS 

As human beings we often desire to be great and to do whatever that will make us feel great. Hence our lives become competitive and comparative in nature because greatness gives more ego to our status. This competitive and comparative way of life is what the disciples of Jesus displayed in our Gospel passage today, where we heard how they were arguing about who is the greatest among them. 

This is quite surprising for them to be arguing for such intention just after Jesus had told them that he was going to be betrayed. This shows that his disciples had not grasped his teaching thereby exposing the danger between the mission of Christ and human ambition as a result of ignorance.

For Jesus knowing the intentions of his disciples, showed them the way to identify true greatness and one who has such quality using the images of a humble child. Here, Jesus surprised his disciples by linking true greatness to that of humility and simplicity of a little child and also showed how  children can be the subject of a parable that reveals the vanity and deception found in some great persons. Because children are docile, humble, teachable, loving, forgiven and dependent.

Thus, Jesus explains that in the kingdom of heaven, true greatness is found in humility and children serve as a symbol of humility  for they are dependent on adult for everything just as we also are dependent on God. Little children serve as concrete symbol of the simplicity which is a condition for entering the kingdom of heaven. So, in children we see these great virtues of simplicity and humility being placed.

And these act of simplicity and humility are what characterized the life of Job in our first reading today where Satan said to God that Job’s faith was only strong because he was so blessed and protected by God, but if he should lose them all, then he would surely abandon God and curse him. This is while God allowed Satan to attacked Job and took away everything he had, his great possessions and his  family. But job in simplicity and humility remained faithful to God saying: naked I came from my mother’s womb naked I shall return. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken back. Blessed be the name of the Lord!’

Dear friends, today we see in the lives of the disciples the danger between human ambition and the mission of Christ especially in the midst of ignorance and pride. Therefore we are reminded that true greatness and ambition are found in humble service to others. But this is exactly what many of us are lacking. For we are so proud, greed and selfish, for we are deeply attached to the pleasurable things of this passing world which prevents us from seeking true greatness that leads to heavenly kingdom. 

This is not with St. Jerome whose memorial we celebrate today for he involved and experiencing all sorts of worldly pleasures as a young student of philosophy. But later his conscience led him to conversion into the Christian faith as he renounced all of his past sinful ways of life and devoted himself deeply into the study of the Scriptures, from which comes all his great works we are still studying today.

 LET US PRAY: Lord God, amidst the danger of human ambition in relation to your mission, we have become so much engrossed with the competitive activities of this world, seeking to be great in things that are passing away, grant that, we may embrace true greatness rooted in the humble service of our neighbours, we ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do have a blessed and fruitful week ahead.