HOMILY FOR THE EVE OF CHRISTMAS YEAR A 2022
Msgr I greet you. You will live
long. You will live well. Fr. Victor I greet you. You will live long. You will
live well. Dear people of God you will live long. You will live well. I will
live long too. I will live well as well. I bring you this eve of Christmas the
secret of living long and living well. Let me start the homily with this
interrogation. You hold a cup of coffee in your hand and somebody bumps into
you. Then a third party asked you, “Why did you spill the coffee?” What will be
your response? I know the kind of responses common in our parlance. “Are you
blind? Didn’t you see the person who bumped into me?” is possible. This is
however wrong. The right answer should be: I spilled the coffee because there is
coffee in the cup. Of course, the logic of the answer is in the question’s
doing word, coffee.
For instance, if the cup is filled
with water, the inquirer would not ask, “Why did you spill the coffee?” The
question would have been out of place. He would have asked instead, “Why did
you spill the water?” The coffee is no more the doing word. It is now the
water. The reason why the spilling happens is because something is in the cup.
Spilling will not happen when the cup is empty even when the person bumps into
the other who holds the empty cup. So the reason he spills the coffee is not
because somebody bumps into him. It is because there is coffee inside the cup.
What do you have in your heart? The heart is like the cup. It holds a lot of
values. Some people’s heart contains anger, jealousy, vice, pride,
covetousness, envy etc. Some other people’s heart contains holiness,
righteousness, joy, happiness, peace, justice, love, goodwill, moral goodness,
etc.
Now if somebody slaps you, your
reaction will depend on what you have in your heart. If you flare up in visible
anger, the reason for flaring up will be as a result of the anger welling up in
your heart, not because of the person who slaps you. If you do not have anger
in your heart, you will not react with anger. If it were joy you have in your
heart, you would have reacted with joy. If somebody slaps you in your right
cheek, you would have turned the left and still be green with rapturous joy and
love. It is in the human heart you process a lot of things before you express
them in your action. People ordinary do things to you in order to expect a
certain reaction from you. If you give them what they expect, they will be
happy while you will be sad. If you however refuse to give them what they
expect, they become sad while you become happy. Is that not good for you?
The person who slaps the other
expects a bout of anger from him. If he gets angry, the person who expects
anger is happy while he that gets angry becomes sad. If however he refuses to
be angry, he becomes happy while the other who expects anger becomes sad. Is
that not good for you? When your children offend you, people around will want
you to curse them. If you curse them, the people will say ‘amen’ and be happy
while you will be sad. If you however pray for them instead of cursing, you
will be happy while they will be sad. I am not saying you should not reprimand
your children. In fact reprimand them, but do not curse them. Try and imitate
St. Monica who prayed for St. Augustine and became happy at the man Augustine
later turned out to be.
Jesus that we celebrate this Christmas is the giver of joy. The joy he gives is one the world cannot give. He gives joy because there is joy in his heart. He also gives love, peace, righteousness, compassion, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, justice, holiness, perfection, wholesomeness, meekness, gentleness, etc. These fill his humanity. He is all things to all men. When he was on his way to the cross, people did a lot of indignities to him, slapping him, spitting at him, piercing him with a lance. He never uttered a word of anger. He instead prayed for them asking God, his father, to forgive them for they know not what they do. Jesus expects us to express this kind of humanity in our interactions with others. With this humanity he changed the world. He will also change your heart in order to change your life. Remember it is what you have in your cup you spill out. Your heart is your cup. This is the secret to live long and to live well.
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