Homily For Tuesday Sixth Week in Ordinary Time Year C, 18th February 2025

Readings: Gen. 6:5-8,7:1-5,10 ; Ps. 29; Mark: 8:14-21

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

LORD GIVE US THE GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING

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 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.

This is what humanity in our first reading was lacking; they failed to obey what God had instructed them because they lacked understanding of God and his ways as they continued to sin against God.

Thus, when the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was so great on the earth and that the thoughts in his heart fashioned nothing but wickedness all day long. He regretted having made man on the earth, and his heart grieved. Hence, he planned to get rid of mankind, though Noah found favour in God’s sight and he promised to preserve humanity and other creations through him.

Similarly, Jesus, in our Gospel passage today, was disappointed at his disciples’ inability to grasp what he was saying to them or who he really was. 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, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you not yet understand? Have you no perception? Are your minds closed? Have you eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear? Or do you not remember?” These questions reveal 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. Oftentimes, we are confused about so many things going on in our lives, even concerning our faith. Therefore, let us ask 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 your word today, calling us to embrace love sacrificially; give us the grace to truly love you to understand and follow the examples of our Lord and Saviour who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.