DAILY HOMILIES #holiness

Is there a contradiction between what I preach and what I do? Am living in pretense? Then as the prophet Isaiah says today: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doing from before my eyes, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow…” (Isaiah 1:16ff).

God listens to all but that of a righteous man, that of an innocent child, that of a pure heart is different! In fact, as Jesus said: “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

The first thing we must do to avoid becoming guilty of scandalizing anyone is to remind ourselves constantly that innocent minds and hearts still exist.

If we observe our Advent properly, our joy on Christmas day would not simply be about the fact that Jesus was born, our joy would be that we have been able to conquer certain bad habits and sinful behaviors in our lives.

When your life proclaims God, you have nothing to fear as Jesus promises us: “When they bring you before synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” (Luke 12:11-12).

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus likened the Scribes and Pharisees to whitewashed tombs which were beautiful to look at from the outside but were full of dead men’s bones inside. If people get close to me, would they see something different from what I portray in public?

In our Gospel passage, Jesus describes the kingdom of God as a mustard seed that appears to be the smallest of all seeds but eventually becomes the biggest of all shrubs. A good character begins with little habitual acts. To become the person of your dreams, you have to start with very few acts of goodness and holiness.

Jesus tells us today to aim for perfection because we serve a perfect God. Of course, children must resemble their father. Since God is perfect, we who claim to be His children must reflect God’s perfection in us.