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).
Prophets Unaware
In 1923 a book was published which has
become not only a best seller but a book written by the third best selling poet
in all of history, according to the Wikipedia. The first best selling poet is
Shakespeare. The second is the Chinese poet Lao Tze. And the third best selling poet is the author
of this best seller book published in 1923. The title of this book is THE
PROPHET. Its author is Kahlil Gibran. This book has been translated into more
than 60 languages and in English has sold more than 9 million copies.
When I bought this book in the 1970s I
thought that its author was a Muslim. It is only this month that I knew that
Kahlil was a Catholic, a Catholic of the Maronite Rite, an Eastern or non-Roman
Catholic rite.
There was a passage in that book which has
influenced the rearing of my children. I do not remember much of what I read
there but this passage stood out and it influenced the rearing of my children.
Listen to this passage:
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s
longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they
belong not to you.”
This passage was instrumental in my not
dictating to my children what they would be in life. I just let them be what
they wanted to be.
Why did I introduce my homily today with
information about the book THE PROPHET? Because our Gospel reading today talks
about a prophet whose quality or function or role as a prophet we have not
taken seriously.
There is a passage in Deuteronomy about a
prophet whom God would raise up from among the Israelites after Moses was gone.
God said to the children of Israel, "I will raise up for them a prophet
like you (Moses) from among their kinsmen, and will put my words into his
mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him" (18:18). This verse also
tells us the basic role of a prophet, he speaks the words of God, from God, for
God to the people.
Commentators identify this prophet as any
true prophet coming after Moses. But they also point out that in a special way
this prophecy applies to Jesus who is "the Great Prophet in whom the
prophetic office finds its fulfillment and completion" (NAB foot
Commentary).
And that is what we read in our Gospel
today. When the blind man who was now healed of his blindness was asked by the
Pharisees what he thought of his healer, he replied, "He is a
prophet." What he meant was that this man had a commission from God to
speak for him and to do things for him.
This role of Jesus as a prophet is not
given due importance by us today. Perhaps this is because we refer to him
mostly as Savior and Lord. But Jesus is indeed the Great Prophet, as the
commentary in the New American Bible declares. And perhaps because we do not
give due importance to this role of Jesus as the prophet we also do not give
due recognition to our own role as prophets.
In baptism we were made to share in this
role of Jesus as prophets. Our Catechism tells us, "By Baptism they (the
faithful) share in the priesthood of Christ, in his prophetic and royal
mission. They are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's
own people, that [they] may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called
[them] out of darkness into his marvellous light." (1268)
And our role as prophets of God was
confirmed when we were confirmed in the sacrament of Confirmation. Here is what
our Catechism tells us, "- it (Confirmation) gives us a special strength
of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true
witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be
ashamed of the Cross" (1303). That is what we do as prophets, we spread
and defend the faith by word and action as true witness of Christ, we confess
the name of Christ boldly and are never ashamed of the Cross.
Our first readings tells us how a prophet
is proclaimed or recognized or made one. It is by anointing with oil which
signifies the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Samuel was told by the Lord to fill his horn with oil and to anoint
David the new king of Judah. This is how we also were made prophets, by
anointing with oil in baptism which signifies the Holy Spirit. This was again
done in our confirmation.
Our second reading tells us our work as
prophets. Specifically Paul tells us "Take no part in the fruitless works
of darkness; rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things
done by them in secret; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible,
for everything that becomes visible is light."
When we tell others about our faith in
Jesus, when we sing praises to God, declaring “the wonderful deeds” of God
during Mass for all to hear, when we teach a little child how to say grace
before meals, we are exercising our prophetic role, we are imitating Jesus the
Great Prophet. We may not be aware that we are exercising this prophetic role
but we are prophets, though unaware, but truly prophets by being anointed in
baptism and confirmation and by our unity with Jesus the Great Prophet.
What is unique about Jesus as a prophet is
that he not only tells us the words of God from God for God. He enlightens us,
he gives us the light to understand what he says. He opens the eyes of our body
and soul to understand the words of God.
I started this homily with a reference to
the book THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran. Nowhere in that book is it stated that
this prophet is Jesus. As related in that story the name of that prophet is
Almustafa which sounds like a Muslim name, the main character of the story. But
when we ask why this book has sold 9 millions more than other books in history,
my answer is that this book makes the reader connect with the spiritual world.
We are a people hungry for the things of the spirit. And when we read something
which fills this void for the things of the spirit, we gladly devour the words
in that book.
That is what Jesus as the Great Prophet is.
He connects us with his Father, the father of all spirits. He satisfies our
thirst for spiritual things as we learned last Sunday. As prophet he opens the
eyes of our soul to see spiritual realities.
Lent is a special time of pausing and
reflecting on the spiritual side of things. Our readings tell us that Jesus
heals our blindness so that we can see the spiritual realities in our lives. As
Jesus healed the blind man of his blindness, he also heals the eyes of our
souls so that we can see the things of the spirit.
Let us bow our heads in prayer. Lord Jesus,
you suffered and died and rose again from the dead so that we can be elevated
to the spiritual realities. Make us see these spiritual realities now and lift
us to your cross and coming glory. 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.
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