Christ is Our Reward

Homily for September 11, 2019 | Pink Sisters Tagaytay City

INTRODUCTION

Sisters and Brothers in Christ,Sisters and Brothers in Christ, In our Gospel today Jesus directs his sermon to his disciples; it is about the blessing intended to the persecuted and suffering, and the woes to those who are living their prime; with their corresponding eschatological reward. Our first reading invites us to seek heavenly things and be rewarded with the eternal reward that is Christ himself. Christ is our reward.

Christ is our reward.

For the many times we connived with injustice and suffering, let us ask the Lord for his pardon and mercy.

HOMILY | Colossians 3:1-11 | Luke 6:20-26

Our Gospel today from Luke has a similar face in Matthew 5, one which is more famous and is popularly known as the Sermon of the Mount. Matthew’s version took place on a Mountain, while our Gospel situates it down the hill where Jesus preached and healed from our Gospel yesterday. It is also equally important to note that Matthew’s version was intended for a general public from Galilee, Decapolis and Judea. On the other hand, our Gospel today is intended directly to the disciples, as a warning, a precondition to the consequences of being his disciples sharing in his ministry.

Our professor in Pauline Literature, Sr. Bernardita Dianzon FSP told us about the overlap of the ages. The age of human history is overlapping with the coming age of the Kingdom. In the middle of these overlapping ages, where there if pressure and rift between the two realities, is human suffering. There is human suffering because the world is at odds with the values of the Kingdom. But sufferings today is our assurance that the Kingdom is coming, not necessarily soon but it is surely coming.

But sufferings today is our assurance that the Kingdom is coming, not necessarily soon but it is surely coming.

I hope I am not sounding doomsday here but this intends to explain to us that human sufferings are byproduct of the incompatibility of values.

What does it mean? The values of this world is at odds with the values of the Kingdom. The rewards that this world seeks is not the Kingdom but rewards born out of immirality, impurity, inordinate desires, and greed as St. Paul enumerates in our 1st reading. He invites the people of Colossae to put to death all that is earthly in you. It is our duty to pave the way for the Kingdom by reminding its values to the world. It is our duty to be witnesses, to show the world how beautiful it is to live in Christ.

For us who chose to follow Christ, as did the disciples, ought to face sufferings ourselves. We are at the forefront of the opposition from the world. The reality of hunger, sorrow, rejection, and insult were all experienced by those who followed Christ in his time; and so did the martyrs of our time. We are persecuted because we follow Christ, and proclaim his truth; truth that the world cannot stand to hear. The old world order intimidates the new world. The world is intimidated by the values of the Gospel. We are mocked because the world cannot embrace the order our proclamation brings. We are persecuted because they refuse to understand the Gospel we stand for.

The world is intimidated by the values of the Gospel.

We who are disciples by the virtue of our Baptism must be the faces of eternal reward in the midst of suffering so that people will love what is of above, and will strive for it. Christians must be Christ to fellow Christians that Christ may be all in all.

Christ may be all in all.