Homily Sixteenth Sunday Year A Mercy and judgment
Homily:
Sixteenth Sunday Year A
Reading 1: What is the
message of this reading? God is a God of justice and power, who does not
condemn nor is unjust. He is lenient and judges with mercy. In this he teaches
us two things. One, God gives us hope and time to repent for our sins, before
justice and judgment occur. Two, as God, who is just, he is also merciful. As
his children, we are to express true justice by deeds of kindness and mercy,
leaving the final judgment to God.
God has the power and the
right to enact judgment after we sin and especially after we remain in sin, unrepentant.
But in his unconditional mercy and love he gives us time to repent and return
to him.
This was his process with his
Chosen People. When they turned away from their agreed covenant with God
through repetitive sin, God sent prophets to call them back to repentance. It
was a time of mercy. After some time, however, he would chastise them, when he had
every right to annihilate them. Again, it was a sign of his mercy for them.
This was his mode of
operation, repeated often in the Old Testament. Unfortunately, the Chosen
people, in spite of their sins, presumed that since they were chosen, God would
always protect them. They were presumptuous and would experience the
chastisement of God. But a time of mercy will end when God will judge the heart
of each person.
Gospel: The main parable is
another way of expressing what the first reading revealed to us. It is in Jesus’
explanation that we understand the meaning of the parable. The human reaction
is to respond immediately by trying to uproot the wee. The Divine reaction is
to wait until the harvest.
Even though in nature the
weed will never become a grain of wheat, in God’s providence the sinner can
repent and be saved. But in the end, the weeds will be separated from the wheat
and cast into the furnace for burning.
St. Peter expressed the same
concept of the mercy and justice of God. People asked him why was Jesus
delaying in returning, as he promised. Peter said that his delay was deliberate
to give us time to repent and return to him.
Some of us are like the
presumptuous Chosen People. We presume that we can live both in the world of
darkness and sin as well as the world of light. We think we have time to live a
double life. Sin is such a habit, a way of life that we have become comfortable
in it. We don’t see any rush to change our life style. There is time we
convince ourselves. We fail to remember and act on the words of Jesus. You don’t
know the time or day that the Lord will return.
Reading 2: Jesus and the
Father sent the Spirit to us to sanctify us, so that we can live in right
relationship with God and holiness of life. He also comes to mission us to
extend the mercy and love of God to others, as we witness the same in our
lives.
Paul gives us another reason
of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He intercedes before the
Father for us. Many times we do not know what to pray for or how to ask. We are
reminded that we are to ask the Holy Spirit to pray for us with inexpressible
groaning. As we groan within our hearts and on our lips, we believe the Spirit
will ask the Father for our needs, according to the will of God for us.
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