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).
Our True Guides
There have been many
success stories of people who engage in business using only the computer, the
Internet and their credit card. This type of business is called by many names
such as online business, internet marketing, online marketing, online job, job
on the Internet, and so forth. It is estimated by people engaged in this type
of work that for every 100 persons who try their hand on Internet business only
1 or 2 succeed. The 99 or so end up as failures. Many are scammed. Some lose
interest after a month or two in this kind of work.
The majority of those
who do succeed tell us that they only succeeded when they found a guide who
showed them how to effectively do business online. They call this guide a mentor.
In the business of
living we need true guides or mentors who will show us the way how to handle
life effectively and successfully. These guides are a necessity. They are not
optional. Failing to have them inevitably leads us to failure in living.
Succeeding in life is
immeasurably more important than succeeding in business on the Internet. And if
internet business requires a guide to succeed the more so we need guides to
succeed in the business of living.
Our Gospel reading
today tells us who these guides are. And the one who identifies them as our
guides is one who never made an error in life and never can make such an error
because he is the one who makes all success, of any kind, possible, the man
Jesus.
Jesus told us who
these guides are. Today he still tells us they are our guides.
In our Gospel today
Jesus tells us a story. Some teachers of the Bible say that this story actually
happened because Jesus used the name of a character, that of Lazarus; it is not
a parable, a story made up to teach us a lesson. Whether it actually happened
or was just a parable or fiction, Jesus used it to show us our true guides in
the business of living.
This story has only
four characters, five if we include the dogs. The characters are the unnamed
rich man (who was once called Dives because dives is Latin for rich man),
Lazarus, the angels and Abraham. The dogs are the fifth character.
The story is very
familiar to us. After some time the rich man and Lazarus died. The rich man
went to hell. Lazarus, as related by Jesus, was carried to Abraham's bosom by
angels. The rich man asked help from Abraham to assuage his terrible thirst in
the midst of fire. This was refused. The rich man then asked Abraham to help
his five brothers so that they would not end up in hell also. Abraham told the
rich man that his brothers had guides so that they would not end up where he
was. Those guides are Moses and the prophets.
Of course, it was
Jesus who thought up this story and it was he who put into the mouth of the
character Abraham the words "They have Moses and the prophets; let them
hear them." So it is Jesus himself using the character Abraham who says,
"They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them."
Through this story
Jesus is telling us today, 'If you do not want to end up like this rich man,
you need to hear Moses and the prophets. These are your true guides.'
Because we live in the
twenty first century after the birth of Jesus, because we have the Old and the
New Testaments in our Bible, we tend to forget that in the time of Jesus and
his apostles there was no New Testament yet. All they had was the Old Testament.
And the Old Testament can be expressed in two words, Moses and the prophets or
the law and the prophets. These were the only books for Jesus and the apostles.
These were their only guides, Moses and the prophets. And they were superbly
successful in their lives following these guides, except for one who made money
his guide, the apostle Judas Iscariot.
Today, more than two
thousand years after his birth Jesus still tells us that these are our true
guides. We need to hear them and follow them. And what do they tell us to make
the business of living successful? They tell us about Jesus.
Jesus once told the
Jews, "Search the Scriptures (that is, the Old Testament, Moses and the
prophets) for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which
testify of me" (John 5:39 AV).
In the first page of
the Christian Community Bible we read these words: "You have opened the
Bible; now look for Christ as you read."
The Old Testament,
Moses and the prophets, are our guides to Jesus. Reading them, hearing them
makes us know more of Jesus.
I will give only one
instance where reading the Old Testament can give us a clearer and more
intimate knowledge of Jesus.
In the first two
chapters of the Old Testament, that is, in Genesis 1 and 2 we read about the creation
of the world, the sun, the stars, the moon, the earth, plants, animals, and the
creation of human beings. We read in the first sentence, "In the beginning
when God created the heavens and the earth . . .". But John 1:3 tells us
"Through him (the Word of God) all things came into being, and apart from
him nothing came to be." Putting these two verses in our mind they tell us
that it was Jesus before he became man who created the heavens and the earth.
During our recitation
of the Creed we say "We believe in one God the Father almighty, creator of
heaven and earth." Using only these words we tend to forget that God the
Father created everything by his Word and this Word is Jesus, as John the
Evangelist writes, And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, as we say in
the Angelus.
If we compare this
with the world of corporations, God the Father is the chairman of the board and
he is ultimately responsible for everything in the corporation and Jesus the
Son of God is the CEO or chief executive officer, in charge of the actual
operation of the corporation.
If we realize that
Jesus as God created everything and if we consider him as our dear friend, we
would lovingly take care of his creation, as Francis of Assisi did. We would
not indiscriminately kill insects and bugs. We would treasure the trees that
Jesus causes to grow around us.
Our true guides, Moses
and the prophets, lead us to Jesus. And with Jesus life is always successful.
We will not end up like the rich man in the Gospel story. We will be like
Lazarus, resting in the bosom of our father in faith Abraham.
Let us bow our heads
in prayer. Lord Jesus, by your story about the rich man and Lazarus you point
to us our guides who will lead us to know more and more about you. Help us to
read the Old Testament with reverence and understanding and application so that
like Lazarus we will one day rest in the bosom of Abraham, our father in faith.
Amen.
- - - - - - - - - -
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). This is the translation I use. Unless
otherwise stated the text I use is from this translation.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment