Here is my homily from this morning. May God bless each of you!
Homily for Thursday, 29th Week of Ordinary Time, Year II
October 23, 2014
Once God grabs you, he doesn’t let go. Never. His choices and his calling are irrevocable. His Word is unalterable. It simply IS.
So, no matter how much we may resist, our power is not equal to God’s. As a famous Jesuit poet once wrote in the poem, The Hound of Heaven, God is relentless in his pursuit of us and his claim on us.
St. Paul today prays that we might know the height and the depth, the breadth and the length of the love of Christ, and that we might comprehend and be strengthened by the power of God which is at work in us. Indeed, he writes, we are to be “filled with the fullness of God.” Imagine that!
Indeed, when we are grasped by God, when we begin to comprehend however imperfectly the power of God in our lives, then we truly are set apart from others. This chosen-ness – which is pure gift, not something we have ever or can ever earn – will cause division in our social network. Chosen-ness is not elitism. It is not clericalism. It is not a power or oppressive thing. To be chosen is to be set apart to be a beacon of hope, faith and love to the world. In being so chosen, we will cause division for we will be a sign of contradiction.
The mystery of all this is that God has chosen all men and women to something special. Yet many, because of ignorance or by decision, reject that call, that chosen-ness, and thus, divide themselves from God’s gifts of grace. When we reject God’s choices for us, we fail to know “the height and the depth, the breadth and the length of the love of Christ” and the power of God at work in us.
My dear people, let us, this day, open our lives to the working of God, open our hearts to the gifts of his graces and the immeasurable love of God for each one of us.
