You are Perfect Because of My Splendor Which I Bestowed on You (Ezek 16:14-15); Homily- Friday of the 19th Week of Ordinary Time/Memorial of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe

 

Homily- Friday of the 19^th Week of Ordinary Time/Memorial of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Fr. Udoekpo, M.

v  Ezek 16:1-15, 60, 63 Or Ezek 16:59-63

v  Ps/Isa 12:2-3, 4bcd, 5-6

v  Matt 19:3-13

 You are Perfect Because of My Splendor Which I Bestowed on You (Ezek 16:14-15)

 On this Memorial Day of Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Priest and Martyr; and in light of today’s scripture reading, we celebrate the faith, the sacrifices, the teaching love, forgiveness, faithfulness to his covenant with God, which this Polish Saint, priest, displayed  in a prophetic manner, during his life time on earth (1894-1941).

 We know he became a Franciscan priests and religious and dedicated his life to fostering devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, promoting God’s love and forgiveness. He spread the faith through a publishing media, as well, and suffered for it.  As a prisoner waiting for death in Auschwitz prison camp, in Poland (a place, including Maximilian Franciscan Monastery of Niepokalonow, the Museum of Maximilian Kolbe, Black Madonna at Czestochowa etc., I was privileged to visit and learn, during my 2015 pilgrimage to different parts and historical places, especially of the footsteps of the saints, in Poland) he offered to exchange his life for that of a family man.   He will always be remembered also, for his prophetic words “Hatred is not a creative force. Only love is a creative power.” It sounds, though slightly different from what we would also later read from Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. He writes, in the last chapter; “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite,” (LWF, p.749).

 Of course,  Maximilian Kolbe, in his own  particular case, is referring  to God’s love; the covenant-love that God had first loved Israel with his splendor that the prophet Ezekiel refers to in the first reading( Ezek 16:1-15,60,63). This is the covenant love, that God sent Ezekiel to remind the exiled Israel, including how he protected them, led them through the desert and how he established and renews over and over again his covenant with them! In doing this, Ezekiel is to remind Israel that harlotry, abuse of the blessings and beauty and splendor God had blessed them with, or disobedience and unfaithfulness that Jesus, later, touches on in today’s gospel, were all acts of abominations and unacceptable in covenanted community of God’s people.

 The Good news with God is that he “will remember his covenant he made with them.” He will always love Israel, and remind them that they are perfect, beautiful, handsome, because God’s splendor. He will always remind them of their weaknesses, as well. He will always be a teaching God, and father to them. In fact, as stated in Ezekiel 18:21, “if a wicked person turns away from all his or her sins and keeps God’s statutes and covenant promises, he, or she will surely live. God has no pleasure, at all, in the death of a wicked person (v.23).

 This call to faithfulness, to God’s values, his love, tender care, compassion,  his forgiving power and grace, that Maximilian Kolbe would later live and die for, is also heard in today’s Gospel of Matthew 19:3-12, in fact, from the mouth Jesus, as he teaches the Pharisees, about faithfulness, for example in marriage life. In doing this, Christ, is actually teaching us today in our various contexts and states of life.

 Whatever, our vocation in life is, priesthood, as that of Maximilian Mary Kolbe, religious life, or marriage life we called to love as God has first loved us. We are called to be faithful to our callings and vocations in life. And be ready to serve, to sacrifice for others( like Saint Maximilian Kolbe, like Christ, like many other saints familiar to us, like Nelson Mandela etc), to share, knowing that- and from where we came from, prior to baptism, that, all that we have comes from God’s splendor( Ezek 16:1-15).

 Reflection Questions:

1.      Could we think of any or many ways that we have, or are willing to sacrifice something or “die” for neighbors?

2.      What prevents us from remaining faithful to our various callings?

3.      In what ways have we tend to forget that initial splendor of love and beauty, that God had adorned us with?

4.      In what ways have we assisted in reassuring members our faith community that the Lord remembers his covenant forever?