DAILY HOMILIES

We often assume the church should be a place for holy people only but in reality, the church is also a hospital for the sick; a hospital that is always in need of good doctors. If we all walk away, who will save the dying?

Without adequate preparation, we are hardly guaranteed success in any venture. He who fails to plan actually plans to fail. If you rush into something without adequate and careful preparation, you would soon find yourself rushing out soon. I did not consider or assume there was a huge price to pay in the long run. Whatever is good comes at a price, even being a Christian comes at a cost and this explains why many who started so well give up along the line. Have I ever taken time to consider the cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ?

The great challenge of the Christian faith today is that those who fill up our churches live as though God does not exist. We seek God’s blessings but we shun His counsel, we refuse to operate according to the mind of Christ. We are practical unbelievers; we don’t even believe it is possible to live holy and sinless lives, yet we claim to believe God for miracles of abundance and prosperity coming our way.

In the end, what we actually celebrate today is HOPE. Hope that as we pray for the dead, they will enter heaven, hope that if they are in heaven, they will pray for us. Hope that one day, when we too depart, there would be people around here praying for us

The truth is that there are more saints in heaven than we know of. As John says in our first reading today, the Saints are a “great multitude which no man can number.” Today’s feast is particularly interesting because it affords us the opportunity to celebrate thousands of unknown saints and those we never imagined are in heaven.

The easiest way to detect pride is when you begin to assume that no one is as good, holy, wealthy, knowledgeable or important as you are. When you assume you are the best, it means you have become blind to the existence of anyone better than you.

Jesus knew the Pharisees were not all in good terms with Him. He knew they sought ways to trap him. He knew their deep-seated hatred yet He went to eat in their homes. Jesus called them hypocrites (white-washed tombs) but He never distanced Himself from them. As a Good Shepherd, Jesus did not mind walking into the “lion’s den” to rescue the lost sheep.

Yes, we are soldiers. And the war we fight is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. Just as the war is not a physical one, the weapons of this particular war are not also physical. To succeed in this war, we must first realize that we are on a battleground.

To be a Christian is to be born again; it is dying to something old and taking up a new identity and this new identity entails that we see ourselves as St. Paul describes; fellow citizens with the saints in heaven, pillars of God’s house where the Apostles and Prophets are part of the foundation.

Quarrels and fights in marriage are like grains of mustard seed. When these fights are not forgiven, they pile up in our memories little by little and before you know it, they affect the quality of our love for our spouse.

Are you bent over spiritually because of your sins? As a child of Abraham, is Satan still holding you captive preventing you from letting your light shine? Does immorality reign in your life? It is time to get close to Jesus today to free you from bondage.

While we must condemn stealing in very strong terms, the fact is that there is a lot of hunger in our land occasioned by a lack of sensitivity to the plights of the poor, the youths, the widows, orphans and the needy. And this is precisely the message contained in today’s readings.