Saturday, October 23, 2021

27 October 2021 – homily for Wednesday of 30th week in Ordinary Time – Luke 13:22-30

    Yesterday, at the Tuesday daily Mass, in our Gospel reading, Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a small mustard seed that is able to grow and flourish into a large bush. He compared the kingdom to a woman who made leaven a whole batch of dough with yeast, about how God’s kingdom can grow and flourish amongst believers. Today, we hear Jesus tell us to go through the narrow gate in response to a question about how many will be saved.  After our life here on earth, we hope to enter into eternal life with our Lord. Will he recognize us?  Will he acknowledge us as one of his disciples?

    When I was on retreat in Spain two years ago praying the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola, one of the prayer methods we used was called contemplative prayer, a way of sharing time with God and nurturing our relationship with him. That is an essential component in our journey of faith.  It does not necessarily matter how many types of prayers we use or how many different prayer methods we master.  What is important is that we foster and nourish our relationship with God, that we spend time with him on a regular basis. Once we have established that relationship with God, once we start growing and developing our relationship with him, our words and our actions will be affected by it as well.  Then we can truly call ourselves disciples of the Lord. Then we can hope to enter through the narrow door.

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