Homily for Monday of the 20th Week of Ord., Time, Year B. Fr.
Udoekpo, Michael
v Ezek 24:15-23
v Ps/Deut 32:18-19, 20,21
v Matt 19:16-22
Do Not Forget God Who Gave You Birth
Today we live in a world that consumerism, subjectivism, materialism or
pursuit for money, has almost replaced true worship of God. That is to say,
idolatry has become the order of the day in different forms today. To be fair
it has always been so, since the beginning of creation, as we find in biblical
history, particularly in today’s bible readings.
Prophet Ezekiel’s generation, at least some of them were caught up in their
practice of various forms of idolatry, worshiping other gods and disobeying
the true God of Israel, which, as listed in Deuteronomisitic History, and
confirmed in today’s responsorial Psalm, Deuteronomy 32, led to their loss of
the land and the temple. They were
exiled.
You would noticed that since last week, Ezekiel, being “mortal” and “son of
man” and called while in exile---- has warned, encouraged, preached and acted
out God’s disapproval of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Last week, he acted out, the
punishment for such unfaithfulness, exile with his exilic baggage and by making
a hole through the wall.
Today, in the first reading(Ezekiel 24:15-23), God directs Ezekiel not to
mourn the death of his wife, and not to cover his beard, nor eat customary
bread—as signs of God's displeasure with Israel’s, idolatrous practices, as well
as an invitation for them to repent and take personal responsibility. Or, never
to forget the God who gave Israel birth, and saw them through challenging
times, provided and established a covenant with them.
Similarly, the new Moses, Christ, a different kind of prophet, and Son of
God, in today’s Matthew’s Gospel challenges the rich young man, who thought he
had kept all the 10 commandments, to sell all he had and give to the poor, in
order to attain perfection before the Lord.
Obviously, in this interaction, Jesus knew the greatest weakness of the
rich young man was idolatry of materialism / money. This is where Pope Francis
is also coming from in his recent preaching and writings. Since his papacy, he has re-emphasized the
need for the rich to reach out to the poor, the needy and to those on the margin.
In his Laudato si’, he went further steps in challenging modern
technocratic culture, extreme capitalism, worship of money, and inordinate
anthropocentrism, as against, mankind judicious and ethical use of wealth,
respect to other non-human creatures and the planet, as a whole!
We pray, especially in this challenging time of covid-19 for the grace to
put on God, and his values first in our dealing with others, and to always
consider the poor as we use all the blessings and material things, God has
blessed us with.
Reflection Questions:
1.
What would you consider is your
modern idolatry?
2.
Do we use our money and wealth
wisely for the greater glory of God?
3.
How often do we extend our helping
hands to the needy and the poor of our society?
4.
Do we worship God alone, and encourage
members of our faith community to do same?
