DAILY- HOMILY

07 January 2016

Christmas Weekday /

St. Raymond of Penafort, Priest

White.             1 Jn 4: 19 - 5: 4.           Lk 4:  14 – 22.     

Spaniard St. Raymond of Penafort (1175 – 1275), third Superior-General of the Dominican Order, is famous for his efforts to abolish slavery.

Gospel  Reading:   Lk 4: 14 - 22 

Jesus acted with the power of the Spirit, and on his return to Galilee news about him spread throughout all that territory.  He began teaching in the synagogues of the Jews and everyone praised him.

When Jesus came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, he entered the synagogue on the sabbath as he usually did. He stood up to read and they handed him the book of the prophet Isaiah.  

Jesus then unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and new sight to the blind; to free the oppressed and announce the Lord's year of mercy."

Jesus then rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant and sat down, while the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him then he said to them, "Today these prophetic words come true even as you listen."  All agreed with him and were lost in wonder, while he kept on speaking of the grace of God. Nevertheless they asked, "Who is this but Joseph's son?"

Reflection

In one of my Theology classes in College, our teacher was discussing the difficulty of being a Christian because of our natural tendency to believe only in things within the reach of our senses.  One of my classmates quipped, "To see is to believe."  To which the teacher replied, "You believe in Jose Rizal:  have you seen Jose Rizal?"

One of our greatest challenges in trying to be a true Christian is how to firm up our faith. As Jesus said, we must be like little children to have faith.  It is easy for us to love a person we can see, feel and interact with; it is much more challenging to love a God whom our senses cannot detect, whom we cannot see or feel.  

However, many have proved they can love the God they cannot see or feel. And they have also shown it is something worthwhile. 

While we may start by separating our rationality from our faith, we find that, while faith and rationality may seem to contradict each other, we find that there can be a delicate balance between faith and rationality and that they do not really contradict each other.   

We can acknowledge that God may seem beyond our rationality and practicality because he is indeed utterly beyond us and is not bound by time and space.  Once we accept this, we can truly appreciate all the wonderful things God has blessed us with and we can begin to develop a personal relationship with God and soon we will find ourselves able to follow his commandments and able to love him.

WE PRAY FOR MTQ DAILY PRAYER DIARY INTENTIONS:

BIRTHDAY

     Benedict Patrick S. Syling

     Jannally C. Quezon

THANKSGIVING

     Prime Spots, Inc.

WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

     Tyrone & Letty Tang

Finally, we pray for one another, for those who have asked our prayers and for those who need our prayers the most. 

Have a good day!

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