DAILY HOMILIES #death

Life combines good and bad times, and there is no escaping the bad times. If you cannot endure the bad times, you won’t be around to enjoy the good times. If Peter had walked away from Jesus when He taught about the Eucharist, would he perform signs and wonders in Joppa?

The Holy Eucharist is the best protection any human can ever have. As Jesus protected the Christians in Damascus from Saul’s raid, Jesus would surely protect you from the plans of your enemies, whether known or unknown. As a communicant, no one can cut short your life or kill you before your time.

Lent is finally over. Am I also in haste to move on with my life? No more Stations of the Cross, no more fasting and abstinence. Am I going to return to my old habits and vices? Mary Magdalene refused to move on. Her actions proved she was a true friend of Jesus. She was among the Women of Jerusalem who wept for Jesus while the crowd cheered and mocked, but when others moved on, she went to the tomb early in the morning

This is the night that, even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them with his holy ones. This is the night Christ broke the prison bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld…

Good Friday shows God understands our pains. He knows what it feels like to love and be rejected, to be betrayed, angry, hungry, insulted, dissatisfied, sick, weak, or sorrowful. Good Friday teaches us that Jesus once felt whatever you were going through today.

The story of Susanna tells of the courage of a well-trained woman who preferred death to sin. The judges thought they could blackmail her, but God came to her rescue. In today’s Gospel passage, the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus whom they accused of adultery. Like the Judges in our first reading, they thought they had cornered Jesus. In the end, Jesus, God in human flesh, displayed a wisdom far superior to any human imagination.

Has my love for the world made me a sterile Christian? What things must die so I can bear the right fruits? Could it be my desire for comfort or pleasure? The book of Hebrews teaches: “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” (Hebrews 12:4).

Jesus warned the man who had been cured to avoid sin so that nothing worse would happen to him. What else could be worse than suffering for thirty-eight years? What else could be worse than spending half of your lifespan in pain, discomfort, and misery? This is exactly what sin does to us.

Today, our Psalmist sings: “For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hopes of the poor ever perish.” When it seems like evil people are succeeding, don’t worry, keep trusting in God, don’t give up hope, and stop being good.

No matter how we try to escape death, it follows us like our shadow. The more we run from it, the more it sticks to us. Today, the Book of Wisdom teaches us that the death cure is not in trying to avoid death but in living a virtuous life: “The souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God, no torment will ever touch them… they are at peace.”

The steward made friends by reducing the debts of his master’s debtors. We are to make friends by giving away whatever is at our disposal. After all, nothing belongs to us in the first place. Empty we came, and empty we shall return.

Sin is not just an offence against God; it is an offence against myself. As long as I do not live by God’s instructions, I can never become all that God desires for me. When a doctor tells you to choose between your favourite meal and death, I bet you will start hating that meal. To live above sin, we must hate sin. If our hatred for sin is not strong, we may abstain for a while only to return.