DAILY HOMILIES #time

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?

Why did God send an Angel to Mary? St. Augustine answered: “God created us without our consent, but He will not save us without our consent.” We always have a choice to say “Yes” or “No” to God’s plans for our lives.

Sometimes God tests us by putting our enemies in our hands. Revenge is not as sweet and glamorous as we see in the movies; killing your enemies makes no sense because it will not restore what they have taken away from you. If you treat your enemies the same way they treated you, it means you would have done worse if you were in their shoes

God is not pleased with the Proud. God does not recognize those who believe that they are self-made; those who live as if God is not necessary; those who never go down on their knees to pray; those who consider going to church as a waste of time; those who depend on themselves or on other people rather than God. One quality of proud people is that they consider Thanksgiving a waste of time or money.

To the surprise of everyone, Jesus praised this woman for giving the highest because while others gave only tiny bits of what they had, this woman gave everything she had.

Jesus is not afraid to approach the cross because of his absolute confidence in the resurrection. This is the same confidence we should have when we go through tough times. Whatever it is I am suffering today, one day will come that I would get down on my knees and say: “God, I thank you for allowing me to suffer those years.”

For Jesus, that wasn’t the right time to fast. Not that there was anything wrong with fasting but that everything, no matter how good, has its season. New wine is good, old wine is also good. Some prefer old wine, and some will rather take fresh wine. But then, there is a type of bag (season) for old wine and a different bag for new wine. There is a timing for everything.

In our Gospel passage today, Mark tells us that Jesus began his public ministry by preaching saying: “This is the time of fulfilment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” In other words, “today is all we have, this is the time, repent now and believe the Gospel.” In our first reading, we see a very similar message being preached by Jonah to the people of Nineveh: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” In other words, there is no time, we cannot postpone repentance otherwise, we shall be destroyed. Even our Second reading today contains the same message: “The appointed time has grown very short…”