THE WORD OF GOD GIVES LIFE (Hebrews 3:7-14/Psalm 95:6-11/Mark 1:40-45)

THE WORD OF GOD GIVES LIFE
(Homily for Thursday 17 January, 2019
The Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot)

The essence of going to school is to learn, to gain knowledge, to widen one’s horizon and worldview from other people thoughts and experience. Some have the privilege to go to school while others do not. One who goes to school and consciously and deliberately fails to learn could be termed to be an unserious person who wastes his/her resources, energy and time.

Life is a school where everybody is a student and nobody is exempted. Each day life presents us with so many lessons. When one fails to learn from the school of life, life’s experience will eventually teach that person. In this school of life, we are expected also to learn from the mistakes of others so that we will not fall victims of the mistakes of the past. Therefore, those who fail to learn from the mistakes of others can as well be termed as unserious people.

The first reading of today presents us with a wonderful picture of learning from the mistakes of others. The author to the letter to the Hebrews refreshes our memory with the exodus experience when the chosen people upon seeing what the Lord did in their very before, the miracles He performed and how He saved them from the hands of the Egyptians, Pharaoh and his armies still failed to listen to God’s instructions.

The first reading is like a moral instruction or even a warning to each and every one us “If only you will listen to Him today, harden not your hearts as some people did in the past and God’s anger fell on them. So the first reading gives us a stern warning to desist from falling into the same mistakes of those who deliberatively, consciously and willingly provoked God after seeing all He worked for them.

They listened to His voice and eventually hardened their hearts. It pays to listen to the word of God and allow it to transform our whole being.
The word of God can only perform wonders in our lives when we open our hearts so wide to receive it. The word of God is life for those who make it their heritage and a stumbling block for those who harden their hearts.

Take care, dear brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil mind and unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of Sin. For we are all partners with Christ if we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had from the beginning (Heb. 3:12-14).

The memorial of today reminds us of a holy man in the person of St. Anthony who not only listened to the word of God but was transformed by the same word of God. The word of God brought a positive change in his life to the extent that he abandoned the wealth of his family in pursuit of a greater treasure for the sake of the gospel and the kingdom.

The same word of God touched the life of the leper in the gospel of today because of his faith in Christ, he moved in search of Christ and when he found Him, he pleaded with Christ to cure him and eventually his request was granted and he went home a happy man.

The people presented to us in the first reading of today were termed unreliable people and rebellious generation because they failed to grasp the way of the Lord after seeing the Lord’s greatness in their midst. This implies that when we listen to the word of God and welcome it with open minds and hearts, and allow the word to work in us, we are seen as reliable people in God’s presence but when the reverse is the case, God will see us as rebellious and unreliable people.

Therefore, let us ask for the grace of God as we celebrate the memorial of St. Anthony to make us not only the hearers of His word but people who will make it our daily heritage.

Let Us Pray: Lord Jesus Christ, may your word nourish my heart as I meditate on it day and night and may I be willing to share your word with others. Amen.