Homily For The Seventh Sunday Of Easter Year B.

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Acts 1:15-17.20-26; Psalm 103:1-2.11-12.19-20; 1 John 4:11-16; John 17:11-19.

“LET LOVE BE REAL!”

By: Rev. Fr. Charles Onyeka Ezejide.

·      Today the church celebrates the 7th Sunday of Easter. Today is also the last Sunday of the Easter season which ends with the Pentecost celebration - the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church.

·      Today the church wants us to reflect on the theme of love not as something fundamentally new but as a reality that is most times misunderstood and abused by the standards of the world.

·      It is nothing surprising to oftentimes hear a young man tell a young lady “I love you” or vice versa. One may wonder if they truly understand and mean what they are saying to each other. Husbands say they love their wives and wives equally say they love their husbands. The question is to what extent do we love people?

·      Friends in Christ, today the Lord challenges us to a new understanding of love and to let our profession of love be real and genuine. Our love should be selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional. It should be modeled after the love Christ has for his church by dying for her on the cross of Calvary.

·      Dearly beloved in Christ, one thing that is not in doubt is that all of us as Christians love God, this is seen by our effort to obey his commandments, come to the church daily or weekly, do good, and avoid evil. Those are the precepts of God, but God expects that our love for him be more practical, contagious, and expressive to those around us.

·      In the second reading (1 John 4:11-16), St. John challenges us with our acclaimed love for God by stating that how can we claim to love God who is invincible without first of all loving our fellow man who is not just visible but also created in the image and likeness of God?

·      We who are Christians of this era must learn to outdo one another in love. We must let our love for God and for one another be real, unconditional, and experiential. It is only at that time that we can claim that the spirit of God lives in us and that we are sons and daughters of God.

·      In the gospel reading (John 17:11-19), as part of his farewell speech, Jesus prayed for Christian unity, he prayed that none of us be lost. The basis of this Christian unity and togetherness must be love. How can we grow as a Christian community when we have no love? Remember that it is first the love that existed between members of the early Christian community that merited them the name “Christians”.

·      Dearly beloved in Christ, to effectively practice love and let our love for each other be contagious, we must learn to constantly meditate on the word of God. We must put before us the likely decisions of Jesus whenever we are confronted with choices to make. How did Jesus show love to the sick, homeless, the hungry, the blind, the lowly, the poor, the oppressed, the lonely, and the homebound? His attitude should always be our attitude.

·      Jesus makes it clear that while it is true that we are in the world we are not of the world and we must not conform to the standard of the world because we are heavenly beings just having an earthly experience or on pilgrimage to go back to our homeland of heaven.

·      Friends in Christ, it was the strength of love that existed between the apostles that kept them together even after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus into heaven. They made even more converts who continue to bear witness to the fact of the resurrection from their show of love to each other and their followers. It was from one of these converts that an election was conducted to fill up the office of the betrayer -  Judas in the first reading (Acts 1:15-17.20-26).

·      The lot fell on Mathias because he was described as a man of impeccable character, full of the spirit of God. From the election and prayers of the Apostles, we also learn the lesson of always committing our plans into God’s hands through prayers so that the Lord will accompany us all the way. Because they prayed, Mathias never turned out a bad choice after all.

·      Today we pray that the Lord will make our love for him and our neighbors real and contagious to heal the world of wickedness and selfishness through Christ our Lord, Amen!

·      Happy Sunday!!!

 

 

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