2014/09/30 - Homily - 26th ord. Sunday

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 The conditions for life with God : 

pratiquer le droit et la justice, (I reading)
rechercher l’unité
avoir assez d’humilité pour  estimer les autres supérieurs à vous-mêmes (II r.)
et même si l’on a pas envi au début, finir par dire oui à Dieu. (Gospel)


It is not so easy to accept the consequences of faith: practicing justice, looking for unity and  adopting real humility. None of this is easy. Practicing justice is very difficult.  Firstly, : - it goes against our natural inclinations  to dominate those who depend on us - But despite this first point, we have a very deep sense of justice,  especially for ourselves ; it is visible  for example with children at the dinner table who always imagine their brothers or sisters have the best part.


Of course, we try to be fair with our employees, our employers, within our family between parents and children etc.   We try... ! but it’s not easy.


The second reading shows us two other conditions for a good relationship with God, seeking unity and  humility.


When seeking unity, we also need to practice justice. This is a pre-requisite for unity. We can not share God with others without practicing justice.


We know about the second condition, humility, as exposed by st Paul in the 2nd reading


“Be humble enough to always esteem others superior to yourselves »


But if the first condition was in fact difficult for obvious reasons, here too we have a real problem with the understanding of such a demand


We are all on the same level, after all, we are all created in the image of God and we wear the same dignity given us by God ! Yes that is the truth. But st Paul expects such behavior  and asks us not to forgot it.  Knowing this, we can enter into a relationship with God much more easily and much more confidently. If we forgot that, we fall into the moralizing, bad christian attitude, incapable of seeing ourselves fairly and truthfully. We catholics especially,  tend to behave like this.


But we must see in st paul’s words an invitation to be open minded towards one another because we can learn so much from others.  We can learn how firstly to be the servant and then the friend of Jesus. “I no longer call you my servants but my friends”


So, following today’s readings, justice, unity and  spiritual humility,  are the three conditions for a good relations ship with God. But how about our desire to practice them? and how about continuing to do so ?


Are we like the first son or the second ?  Sometimes is better to refuse to do something at first, not to challenge God, but to have time to discern and eventually, later, change our mind / rather than pretending to accept something and then not doing it.. Jesus knows  our human nature very well,  he knows that we are Christians by our culture and social behavior ; But, we need to convert that part of ourselves too as life with God call us constantly  to  repent and follow Him with a new heart.


Do it  knowing that people without faith in Christ,  when really converted by Gods’ love, will probably enter the kingdom before us!  We must be happy for them, remembering God’s call to us for unity, humility and a knowledge of His justice. AMEN