Welcome to read homilies for the Sundays of
the year. These are sample homilies which you can read with devotion. You may
use them in your own homilies without asking my permission. You may also change
or edit these to fit them to your audience. A unique quality of these homilies
is that they are Christ-filled. From beginning to end they present to us some
aspect of Jesus so that beholding his glory we “are being transformed from
glory to glory into his very image” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NAB).
The Gate Ajar for Me
I borrowed the title
of this homily from Lydia Baxter who wrote the song The Gate Ajar for Me. This
song has led very many persons to a deeper, more intimate friendship with
Jesus. It begins this way:
There is a gate that stands ajar,
And through its portals gleaming
A radiance from the cross afar,
The Savior’s love revealing.
Lydia Baxter was a
Christian songwriter in the 19th century who lived many years of her
life as an invalid. Her poem tells us that the gate of heaven is ajar, that is,
it is open a little bit such that we can see the gleam of glory of the cross
from inside that heaven revealing Jesus’ love for us.
Our Gospel reading
today tells us that Jesus left the gate of heaven ajar so that we can see a
little bit of what is inside heaven. Our Gospel text ends this way: “When you
hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your
relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you
have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled,
the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to
repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Jesus addressed this
statement, as Luke tells us, to the host who invited him for dinner. This
statement tells us that there is a time or a moment when there will be a
resurrection of the righteous and in that time or moment the host of Jesus will
be repaid for giving a banquet to the poor, the crippled, the lame and the
blind.
This statement of
Jesus does not only tell us about this moment of time of repayment. It also
tells us that there is a place where this repayment will be done. This place
has a gate but Jesus has left the gate ajar, that is, a little bit so that we
can see a bit of what is inside.
We see through this
gate ajar that the ones living in that place are righteous who have been
resurrected. It also tells us that they are repaid for what they did on earth
for which they were not repaid then and there.
Our second reading
makes this clearer. It says, ". . . you have approached Mount Zion and the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal
gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the
judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator
of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than
that of Abel."
Our second reading
tells us that this place referred to by Jesus where the righteous will be
repaid is "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" where
countless angels, spirits of the just made perfect, God and Jesus dwell.
We see so many persons
in this other place which Jesus talks about, where the resurrected righteous
are repaid for work unpaid on earth. We see this through a gate ajar. Jesus
left a small opening of this gate so that we can see what is inside that place.
The second reading is more explicit. We see there the inside of the city of the
living God, countless angels, perfect spirits, God and Jesus himself.
At least for now we
see one person there who is righteous and resurrected, Jesus himself. And he
lives within and through us. As we continue to live each day with him he
reveals to us more and more what is inside that city of the living God.
Our responsorial psalm
tells us that that city is our home. There we see "the just rejoice and exult before God;
they are glad and rejoice." And the Spirit of Jesus exhorts us: "Sing
to God, chant praise to his name; whose name is the LORD."
That is our glory as
Christians. We can see already through this gate ajar our home after our
earthly home, we can see those inside that home, we can also see what is
happening inside there.
When we finish our
task on earth, our final home awaits us, most ready and most happy to welcome
us. Thanks to Jesus who left the gate ajar and lives in us and through us
making sure that we safely arrive there.
Let us bow our heads
in prayer.
Jesus, thank you for
leaving the gate of heaven ajar so that we can see a bit of what is inside your
home which will also be our home with you. And thank you for your servant Lydia
Baxter who two centuries ago wrote about this gate which you left ajar for us.
Amen.
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Note for the readers:
The Mass readings are
from the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). This is where our
Lectionary gets the readings.
NAB stands for New
American Bible (before it was revised).
AV stands for
Authorized Version of the Bible. It is more commonly referred to as the King
James Bible. It is the version most used in English literature, therefore it is
the one known more by the English speaking world.
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