Homily For Thursday Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Year C, 31st July, 2025. The Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola

 

Readings: Ex. 40:16-21.34-38; Ps. 84; Matt 13:47-53

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.

THE LORD IS OUR POTTER WE ARE RAW CLAY IN HIS HAND 

A story was told of a beautiful clay pot used to decorate a garden. The clay pot was the point of attraction to all, including its fellow ordinary clay. So one day the ordinary clay approached the beautiful clay pot and said, We have no doubt that you are clay just like us. But how come you have become so beautiful and special that everyone admires you? 

The clay pot smiled and said: There was a time when I was nothing but a dumb lump of red clay. Then one day a Potter came with a digger and a hoe, dug me out of the dumb lump, and painfully separated me from my fellow clay and brought me to his house. I cried out, but he ignored me. 

He rolled and pounded me on a wooden table several times without mercy. I cried out, Don’t do that! Leave me alone!’ But the Potter suddenly placed me on a spinning wheel and spun around and around and around until I lost all consciousness. Just when I thought it was over, he placed me carefully into an oven which is hotter than hellfire. 

Why me! I cried out in anguish! But the potter only smiled and gently said: Because you are special! I struggled, I yelled, knocked and broke several times, but the Potter was patient and meticulous in ensuring that I adjusted to his will. Realising that I cannot win, I surrender completely to the will of the Potter, and he only nodded in understanding and quietly said: “It's not over yet! 

Then he pulled me out of the oven, when the heat had cooled, he carefully picked me up, dusted away some dirt, and behold, I was totally transformed, looking so beautiful and special. And the potter smiled and said: This is what you are meant to be. For God has made you into a special vessel for a special purpose. 

This story reflects our relationship with God, who is our Potter. For God has created humanity as beautiful clay in his hands to be moulded into a beautiful and special vessel for the heavenly kingdom. But humanity has sinned and rebelled against God and his plan for us, just like the people of Israel in our first reading today. 

For knowing how stiff-necked they were, God sent Moses to build a tabernacle of his presence from where he guided and moulded his people along their journey according to his plan after they had repented and turned away from their sinful ways of life.

Hence, we are called to repentance and cooperate with God's grace,  for there will be a day of judgement, of which Jesus,s, in our Gospel passage, used a parable to describe that the kingdom of heaven will be like a dragnet cast into the sea that brings in fish of all kinds. 

When it is full, the fishermen haul it ashore; then, sitting down, they collect the good ones in a basket and throw away those that are no use. Here Jesus is telling us that the kingdom is open for all but not all can be suitable to dwell in it, only those who on the judgement day are found suitable can be admitted into the kingdom, just like St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose memorial we celebrate today. 

Dear friends, God is our potter; we are nothing but raw clay, hoping to be moulded into heavenly vessels. So, all God requires from us is for us to let him mould us to become his heavenly vessels. No doubt that sin has destroyed our original nature, but just like when a potter was shaping spoils in his hands and he formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. So will God re-mould us into a new vessel for his heavenly kingdom if we repent from our pride and sinful ways of life. 

LET US PRAY: Heavenly Father, sin and pride have separated humanity from your plans for us. Today, we come to you like a lump of clay in a dump, be our Potter once again and remould us into the heavenly vessels which you planned for us. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. God bless you.