(Homily for SUNDAY of the 22ND Week in Ordinary Time, Year B. 2015).
Bible Study: Deuteronomy 4:1-2.6-8. / James 18:21-22.27. / Mark 7:1-8.14-15.21-23.

A few years ago, I went to a busy market to purchase a particular electronic device. I did not find it in the first five shops I visited, the more I kept asking for it, the more they seemed to refer me somewhere else. I was almost giving up on ever buying the device until I decided to try one last shop. When I told the shop owner what I was looking for, he initially said, “Sir, it is out of stock,” but seeing the way I turned to walk away downcast, he decided to call me back saying, “Oga, no vex, let me go and check my warehouse.” I decided to wait patiently.

After about thirty minutes, the man came back full of smiles with the very device I had asked for. He was so happy because that was the last piece he had. I was happy at first on seeing it but looking at what he was holding, my happiness dampened quickly. Why? The carton was covered with dust all over and pressed. It looked like something he picked up from the dustbin. So I asked him, “Sir, are you sure this is a new one? It doesn’t look like an original item to me oh…” I was still speaking when he quickly cut in and said these words in utter annoyance, and I will never forget what he said to me: “Oga, na wetin dey inside na you dey buy oh, no be the carton.” That was my moment of enlightenment.

Of all the electronic devices I have bought, none has been as effective as this particular one. I have never had course to complain about it but each time I look at it, I keep remembering the words of that shop owner who sold it to me. True to his words, “It was what was inside the carton and not the carton itself that mattered.” This was the point Jesus meant to teach us in today’s gospel passage, when he said: “It is not what goes into a man from outside that defiles him; but the things which come from within…”

There is a term in business called “Packaging.” Some businessmen would tell you, everything is all about packaging, meaning that, as long as the package is attractive, whatever is inside would sell. Come to think of it, how often have you been tempted to buy a particular item as against another simply because of the colour and other external qualities of the package, only to get home and become disappointed after throwing off the piece of paper that attracted you in the first place?

The concept of packaging has now gone beyond the world of buying and selling, virtually every aspect of life these days, from advertising to politics, to cooking, to dressing, just name it, even religion itself has become adversely affected by packaging. People now make very conscious effort to ensure that everything looks good only on the outside while the inside is full of rot and decay. Let me take this line again. People now make very conscious effort to ensure that everything looks good only on the outside while the inside is full of rot and decay. And when asked, they say: “It’s all about packaging.”

A young man who has never travelled out of his village before begins to speak with a foreign accent naming all the streets and popular places in Washington D.C. and a lady is carried away thinking he is the son of a multi-millionaire only to discover he is fake after he has successfully duped her. You attend a ceremony and see a well-dressed man with flamboyant traditional attire who even has a driver running around him with a briefcase and he tells you he has just secured a federal government contract and wants your company to partner with him and he even goes as far as giving you his complementary card only for you to realise, after a long interesting conversation that you have just been robbed, of not only your phone, your handbag and even your wristwatch. Chaaiiiii, you say! Isn’t it? And they tell you, “It’s all about packaging.”

I can go on to mention many more examples but I can only say what my mouth can carry. For the Ladies, well, you all know how packaging, (I mean, artificial things, from head to toe) has become a billion-dollar industry as far as beauty and shape is concerned. Once upon a time, a man sued his wife to court demanding for the sum of ten million dollars. What happened? This woman won a beauty contest as the most beautiful woman in her country, she was so beautiful that the man being a successful businessman was willing to spend all his money to make her his wife. Their wedding was the talk of the town and after the wedding, they bought a mansion where they were supposed to live happily ever after. Everything went well until the day this woman after carrying a pregnancy for nine months gave birth in the presence of the man to a bouncing black monkey-looking baby! The man could not believe his eyes. How can his wife who was fair as the morning sun, bright as the noon day give birth to such an ugly looking creature? That was when the woman confessed to her use of plastic surgery. It was the end of the marriage.

This packaging thing has so much affected our world today that one can hardly find honestly and genuineness anymore even among Christians. It is very sad. We tend to project our best before others but deep down within us, we know what we are made of. In the public, we are angels, but at home and in the secret, we are demons. We also judge people based on their outward “package” which we see rather than the true content of their hearts which in most cases is known to God alone.

Like the Pharisees who were the direct recipients of Jesus’ stern words today, we have all been guilty of reducing the worship of God to mere externalities, outward observances of rites and traditions while our hearts are far from him. While we put on clean clothes and observe hygienic practices such as washing our hands before eating, keeping our surroundings clean by scrubbing and mopping, etc., we allow all sorts of dirty things to fill up our minds; we entertain immoral thoughts, pornography, wicked imaginations, plotting of crimes, revengeful feelings etc. We are like people who paint our houses beautifully but bring in deadly snakes and wild tigers into our bedrooms as pets.

The greatest temptation we Christians face is a temptation to secrecy. Satan never stops lying to us in this regard. He makes us develop a strong belief that as long as nobody else knows or see what we do, it is alright. Few weeks ago, two people committed suicide in America when news broke out that hackers have raided a website. This website has over 37million subscribers who use the site as an avenue for cheating on their spouses on the basis that the website promises absolute secrecy. For so many years, 37 million married men and women have been patronising this website and having affairs unknown to their partners. As long as it was secret, there didn’t seem to be a problem but now that they realise their evil deeds would be exposed to the light, they are running off to hang themselves. What a tragedy?

Let us reason together, wouldn’t it be better not to have a skeleton in your cupboard at all than to wake up one day and find that the skeleton you kept has become a lion waiting to attack you? Why chose to live a double life? Or as St. Paul admonishes us in the second reading, “Why are we deceiving ourselves?” Why have we turned God’s word into a fun thing, a source of entertainment! Why do we listen to the word for the sake of listening only without ever doing what the word says?

I once read an auto-biography of a certain man of God who attained a great height in his church. He spoke of how he was a Christian for so many years and a very active person in the church, how he was leading people in worship and making others to know God while he himself was still in darkness. Even though he was baptised, he wasn’t yet converted. He knew the Bible verse by verse and could quote from Genesis to Revelation but he was still a pagan. He wrote of how he was moved to repentance through a tragic event that nearly brought him to his early grave and from that day promised God he would change! From that day, he realised that what God wanted was not eye-service but a pure heart. From that day, he knew that true religion begins from the inside and spreads out and not the other way round.

Dear Friends, God’s commandments are not given to us to make us look good before him. Therein contain the hidden wisdom of God for our life as Moses instructed in our first reading today. The worship of God begins from the heart. When it is clean, every other thing will be clean. If you must overcome sin and repent today, it has to begin from the heart. Renew your mind in holiness and your life will change. This world can be a better place but then, change must begin with the man I see each time I look at the mirror.

Let us pray:
O my good Jesus, I come to you. Change me, wash me, and make me a new person today. I repent of my past life of secrecy and religion of hypocrisy. I resolve from this day to serve you from the depths of my heart and offer you a pure worship uncontaminated by the world. Amen.

Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. Happy Sunday.

Bible Study: Joshua 24:1-2A, 15-17, 18. / Ephesians 5: 21-35. / John 6:60-69.

Today’s readings reminds us of a well-established and undisputable fact – truth is bitter. There is this thing about the truth that makes it harsh and unacceptable. Like a bitter herb, truth is often very difficult to swallow. It always comes as a shock and can turn friends into enemies within seconds. People generally do not like to hear or be told the truth. And as one musician once sang: “If you stand for the truth, you will always stand alone.” Today, Jesus was left standing alone with his disciples in today’s Gospel passage.

Why did the people walk away from Jesus? Because he told them something they didn’t want to hear. He didn’t tell them to come and receive miracles, he didn’t tell them that all their financial problems will end, he didn’t tell them to come so he can point and kill their enemies, neither did he tell them to come and receive fruit of the womb or job opportunities.

Yes, Jesus did not tell them to come and receive signs and wonders yet he was telling them about the greatest miracle ever since the world began; the miracle of God himself becoming available to us live and direct in the form of bread and wine. Remember that this was a crowd that came to Jesus because they wanted something to fill their empty stomachs. Now they walk away from Jesus because he is offering something that is more than ordinary food. We too come to Jesus to seek a lot of things from him but there is only one thing Jesus want us to have; his own body and blood in Holy Communion.

The bitter truth is that Holy Communion (the Eucharist) is more important than every other thing we seek from Jesus be it healing, be it money, be it children or job, just name it… anything you can think of. None of these things is as precious as the gift Jesus renders to us by allowing us to eat and drink his flesh and blood. Does this sound harsh? Perhaps it does because it is the truth and you may as well walk away from the church right now if you feel disappointed.

Many times, I hear people talk about the Catholic Church in very derogatory terms. They say things like, “there is no power in the catholic church,” meaning, that, things do not happen here, there is nothing like “testimony time,” during our mass, people do not fall and roll on the floor, no miracle session, and we don’t have priests who prophesy the future on behalf of people. They see our church as a dull church where the mass doesn’t even last long enough.

Even our Charismatic brethren have this strong belief that it is because of them that people are not leaving the church. They feel that without their style of prayers and what they offer, many people would abandon the church. Some Catholic priests today go as far as copying the Pentecostal pastors changing the order of Mass and bringing in items that are not part of the liturgy in a bid to “keep the people from leaving.” They do all-night sessions and hold powerful crusades which are very good spiritual exercises but unfortunately, they rush over the Eucharistic Prayers as if this part of the mass is not so important and fail to reverence Christ present in Holy Communion. They forget that there is no prayer that can be greater than that, which brings Jesus into the sacred species. They are more concerned with making the people feel good than whether or not they have led them to repentance and to Jesus. Once again I ask, “Am I sounding too harsh?” Maybe, but don’t forget that truth is bitter!

In the Catholic Church, we do not advertise. We don’t go on television to announce miracles, we do not use bill-boards calling for people to come for special Sunday anointing (as if there is any Sunday that is not special) or things like that yet this church that has lasted longer than any other church in the world continues to blossom. What keeps us going is the Holy Eucharist.

When the people walked away from Jesus, he turned to the twelve and asked them whether they too wouldn’t want to leave. That is, Jesus was prepared to be left with nobody than to compromise the truth. He knew that the success of a church was not a measure of the quantity of its members but in the quality of their faith. Jesus was not interested in numbers as much as he was interested in eternal salvation. Today churches compete for numbers because of pecuniary issues.

As Peter asked Jesus “To whom shall we go?” Who else has what Jesus is offering? Who else can give us life? No one! No one can love us to the point of giving us his very flesh and blood to serve as nourishment for our souls. This is the ultimate sacrifice which love alone can inspire. That is why St. Paul in our second reading draws an analogy between the Sacrifice of Christ for the Church and the relationship that ought to exist between a man and his wife. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her… For no one hates his own flesh
but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church.”

In all of these, the choice is still up to us. We are free to decide either to walk away or remain firm in the church that Christ loves so much by sacrificing his flesh and blood for us in Holy Communion. We are free to go in search of miracles and signs and wonders, we can even decide to visit native doctors (some of whom have even upgraded their shrines to church-like structures) but as for me and my family, I will add my voice to that of Joshua, “This is where I will remain and I will serve God in my Catholic Faith for the rest of my life.”

Let us pray:
O my good Jesus, I come to you. Deepen my love and appreciation for your body and blood that I may not search for in vain amongst material things that which you alone can provide in Holy Communion. Amen.

Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. Happy Sunday.

(Homily for SATURDAY of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time, Year B. 2015). Feast of the Queenship of Mary.
Bible Study: Ruth 2:1-3, 8-11; 4:13-17/ Matthew 23:1-12.

For every good deed that we do, there is surely going to be glorious reward. The story of Ruth and Naomi comes to an end today with the happy union of Ruth and Boaz whom God blessed with a child that eventually became the direct Grandfather of David and subsequently, one of the ancestors of Jesus Christ.

Our responsorial psalm today says it all. There is a surely a reward for being good. Blessed is everyone who FEARS THE LORD, who walks in his ways! You shall EAT THE FRUIT OF THE LABOUR of your hands; you shall BE HAPPY, and it shall BE WELL WITH YOU. Your wife will be like a FRUITFUL VINE within your house; your children will be LIKE OLIVE SHOOTS around your table. Lo, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The LORD BLESS YOU from Zion! May you see the PROSPERITY of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children's children! Psalm 128:1-6.

Today, we celebrate a woman whose fear of God brought her great reward. Today, we celebrate a woman who was not only pure in body, but pure in heart as well when God found her and decided to make her his own mother. Today, we celebrate a woman whose firm “YES” to God changed the course of human history.

And come to think of it, she was such a humble person. In her song of thanksgiving, she sang: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has regarded the LOW ESTATE OF HIS HANDMAIDEN…” Luke 1, verses 46 to 48. She was definitely the direct opposite of the people Jesus spoke about in today’s Gospel passage: “They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honour at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men.” Matthew 23, verses 5 to 7.

Today’s feast happens to be the last of the five glorious mysteries. On Easter Sunday, we celebrated the first, which is the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, then we celebrated his Ascension into heaven about forty days later. On Pentecost day, we celebrated the third glorious mystery which is the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. On the 15th of August, just last Saturday we celebrated the fourth, which is the Assumption of Mary into heaven and today, we complete the glorious mysteries with the celebration of the coronation of Mary as queen of heaven.

Each of these glorious mysteries are episodes in the history of Christianity which deserves our full attention and meditation. They point to one fact: THAT AFTER THE PAIN OF THE CROSS, THERE IS SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL AHEAD. As St. Paul would say: “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” 1st Corinthians 2, verse 9.

The Queenship of Mary, is a natural follow-up of her glorious Assumption into heaven; her final reward so to say and the fulfilment of the words of Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Luke 1, verses 31 to 33.

If Jesus Christ is a king whose reign shall last forever, it follows that Mary his mother is a Queen. Her Queenship is a share in the Kingship of Jesus. Like Mary, we all are somehow going to be partakers of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ so far as we endure to the end.

Let us pray:
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve: to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus, O merciful, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary! Amen.

Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. Happy Weekend and congratulations to all those getting married today.

(Homily for MONDAY of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time, Year B. 2015)
Bible Study: Judges 2:11-19. / Matthew 19:16-22.

Today’s readings call for a sincere examination of conscience on the part of each and every one of us. What are my greatest aspirations in life? What is that which I treasure most for which I am prepared even to die so that I do not lose it? Who or what do I really worship and treat with the greatest degree of care and reverence?

In the first reading, the book of Judges summarizes the life of the Israelites as a nation soaked in idolatry. Very much like us Christians today, they only pretended to be worshipping God when their hearts were very far from him. Each time, they went after other gods, God’s anger blazed upon them and he allowed them experience disaster. In the face of disaster, they would remember God again but not long after they get some relief, they would relapse back into their old ways again. God gave them judges but their spirituality only lasted while the judge was still with them, it was a spirituality of “NOTICE-ME.”

In the Gospel passage, we see a rich young man who felt he was a good person just like most of us do, we can even beat our chest before Jesus to say we are not sinners, we have been keeping the commandments since we were in our mothers’ wombs but we fail to realise that beneath our external show of religiosity, we have made a god of our material possessions. We keep the commandments because of the benefits contained therein but we are not prepared to allow God take centre stage in our hearts.

How many of us today still aspire only to become Saints? How many of us are prepared to let go of all our possessions just to grow higher in our spiritual life? How many of us would continue to serve God if it so happens that we stand to gain nothing by so doing? How many of us pastors and ministers like me would still go to Church if there were no more tithes and offerings, no more luxuries of any sort, no more shows that promote self-aggrandizement or worship from our people? Have you noticed how people stop attending meetings the moment they no longer hold positions?

We have a lot of gods that compete for our attention daily such as our priced possessions: our bank accounts, houses, cars, clothes, even things as little as our looks, or our phones. And we never know how much value we place on these things until we lose them and we then begin to feel like our very life has been snuffed out. Yet, we do not feel that way when we miss our prayers or devotions. We don’t feel bad when we miss church or fail to say our rosary daily but we feel like our world is crumbling down when we do not receive a particular alert we are expecting. We are not concerned whether or not we have read the Bible in a day but we are up to date with every single happening in the life of our celebrities, actors, musicians, footballers etc. we want to know the latest about them and even the most nasty things they do make headlines but we do not care to know about the lives of the Saints! We complain that a homily like this very one is too long, but we don’t mind finishing a romance novel of over 300 pages containing explicit scenes within a single seating.

It is sad that we worship idols without even knowing. It is sad that we are holding on too tightly to things that are not needed for eternal life. It is sad that we do not even know what we want in life; while our lips claim we desire God most, our actions reveal we desire luxury, abundant wealth and popularity.

The young man went away sad! What is the cause of the widespread unhappiness in the world today? Why are people even in developed nations committing suicide? Why are people who you think have everything going well for them still suffer from depression?

Why am I unhappy despite all the things I have? Am I walking away from Jesus because of my attachment to things forgetting that “Naked I came to this world, and naked I will depart”? Am I unhappy because I still seek fulfilment and satisfaction in a god I have created? Or am I unhappy because I have allowed the anger of God to fire me with disaster because of my refusal to give him the due honour and respect that rightfully belongs to him?

Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, it is you I need. Help me to realise that you alone are enough. Help me to drop my self-created gods and worship you alone. Give me a heart of charity to share with the poor and needy rather than hoard things I will never need. Amen.

Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. Happy new week.

(Homily for SUNDAY of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time, Year B. 2015)
Bible Study: Proverbs 9:1-6. / Ephesians 5:15-20. / John 6:51-58.

Our readings today makes use of two contrary terms in delivering a message: WISDOM and FOOLISHNESS.

What does it mean to be wise according to the standard of God? What does it mean to be foolish? In understanding the difference between the both, it is very important to note that much of what the world counts as wisdom is actually foolishness in the eyes of God.

We live in a foolish world, we have technological gadgets and sophisticated devices that help to promote foolishness, we have a lot of foolish aspirations and we enjoy the company of fools, we love watching foolish movies, reading foolish magazines (because they sell more) and we take fools for our idols.

Does this sound like an insult? Perhaps it does. But the facts are clear! Wisdom according to the standard of the world is pure foolishness in the eyes of God. A world that highly esteems sinfulness, a world that has turned on its head by rejecting God and rejecting the Bible in her legislations, a world that treats people with dignity only based on how much money they have, thereby making money some sort of god, a world that worships beauty and external appearance more than the soul, that world is really foolish.

In our second reading today St. Paul admonishes us: “Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil.” If as at the time of St. Paul, he could say the days are evil, what can we say about our own time today; with the level of moral degradation and spiritual apathy? What do we say about our world where sin has become a commercial commodity?

Watch carefully how you lie, not as foolish persons but as wise! The question we now ask ourselves this morning is: “Am I living a wise life?” Or “Am I among the crowd of foolish people?” or better still, “Is there any difference in my life from that of others?”

What are the things that count for foolishness?

1. IGNORANCE OF SCRIPTURE.
I once heard a secondary school child talk about the latest song a popular musician just released so I said to him, “Wow, you must be a very intelligent person oh. But I wanted to ask oh, how many books are in the Bible?” The young man looked at me for solid five minutes and couldn’t even figure out a guess! He couldn’t name single book in the Bible yet he was being trained in a Christian school. I just began to wonder, “What then could be the lot of those who are not even in Christian schools?”

“Therefore”, St. Paul says, “Do not continue in ignorance but try to understand the will of God.” We all tend to have big dreams and aspirations but do we ever try to find out what is God’s will for us? We desire to be wealthy and have lots of cars and houses and be recognised by society but are these what counts as wisdom in the sight of God?

How often do we take out time to read the Bible? Isn’t it foolishness on our part that we never try to read the Bible for ourselves but are simply content with what others tell us about what the Bible contains?

Did Satan not quote the Bible to tempt Jesus? How did Jesus respond, did he fall into the temptation simply on the basis of what Satan quoted? Didn’t he also quote from that same Bible to counteract Satan? How many Christians today are being deceived and led astray by people simply on the basis of Bible quotation?


2. LIVING ONLY FOR THE FLESH.
Another point in St. Paul’s admonition to us goes thus: “And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” By referring to wine, St. Paul is not simply referring to alcohol, he addresses a much deeper problem in our world today which is the care only for our physical bodies at the expense of our souls which accounts for great foolishness in our world today.

According to a priest friend in his homily for this Sunday, “Taking a walk down the high streets of our towns and cities today, one wonders, how our contemporary culture has become so much concerned with the care of the human body. It is so amazing how industries of body care and cosmetics are fast growing... I see other terms on sign-boards: teeth-whitening, tanning, anti-ageing treatment… and so on.” To add to this, we now hear of artificial human hair, artificial body enlargement, even people now go as far as changing their gender from male to female or female to male and so on. People are no longer content with how God made them, they want to look beautiful and attractive by all means forgetting they also have a soul to care for.

Isn’t it foolishness for a young girl for instance to be so consumed about being attractive only to end up attracting a crowd of people to herself who are simply interested in her body? Haven’t our society reduced the dignity of women to the level of mere objects for adverts and sources of entertainment to the extent that you can almost not find any music video without some form of nude girls dancing?

This is the foolishness of our society. We have made idols of musicians and artists who promote the gospel of immorality and sadly even those of us who should direct our minds towards the care of our souls are more interested in financial prosperity and material possession than anything else.

You would observe that despite the increase in the number of churches in our society today, there has been no improvement in the general spirituality of our society neither has been any reduction in crimes, immorality or corruption. It has reached a point where men of God and leaders of Churches are now being looked at with suspiciousness by the very society they ought to transform. The number of fakes and people entering into ministry with wrong motives far outweighs the number of genuine ministers.


3. REFUSAL TO FEED FROM WISDOM’S TABLE.
In our first reading today, wisdom calls on us: “Let whoever is simple turn in here; To the one who lacks understanding, she says, Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.” Prov. 9:3-6.

What is this food that wisdom is offering? It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” John 6:53-57.

When last did you receive Holy Communion and did so in the state of grace? What is keeping you away from Holy Communion? Do you receive Jesus with absolute faith in his presence and with devotion?


Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, help me to feed worthily from the table you set for me daily which is your body and blood and not be carried away by the world. Amen

Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. Happy Sunday.