Living a double life

INTRODUCTION

The Lord reminds us to be sincere in our Spiritual journey. It seems the Lord is telling us that insincere attendance at the mass, insincere prayer and unmindfulness of the very message of the Gospel does not yield any spiritual reward. Prayer, attending the mass and listening to sermons attentively, when done with sincerity and utmost mindfulness, must lead us towards service and love, and sharing, and caring. Prayer is meant to make us good people fitted for the narrow gate.

To be less unworthy to partake in this celebration, let us call to mind our sins and be sorry for all of them.

HOMILY

Today yet again Jesus offers us another fact about the Kingdom of God. As we know, we could never know the Kingdom of God as it is. Jesus had to use parables and images to approximate what it looks like. It is a total mystery as in the reality of God. Human comprehension is so limited. Human language is so insufficient to even articulate the very gist of the Kingdom. But we could however know the Kingdom by its fruit which is Divine Life and by its demands which are the values it engenders.

In today’s Gospel, we are presented with the fact about admission. The image of the narrow door shows us that the Kingdom of God is something to be aspired for, something to be sincere about, something we must enter into, something to achieve. While the Gospel acknowledges the importance of doing things for God like calling to the Lord in prayer, dining with the Lord, listening to the teacher teach on the streets, and many more….what the Lord truly cares the most is our sincerity.

The Lord despises the characters who, despite calling him Lord, listening to him, and dinning with him, are not sincere. The Lord despises double standards. He despises hypocrites many times.

Today we are reminded of our duplicities. We pray, we dine with the Lord in the Eucharist, and we listen to homilies so many times…but our hearts are not sincere. We pray but we remain hostile. We go to mass but we antagonise others. We listen to homilies, or deliver homilies but we live totally different lives outside the Church. We are all guilty of having double life or double standards.

Prayer, going to mass, and listening to sermons are meant to nourish the values of the Kingdom in us. They are meant to deepen the goodness inside us and so live our lives worthy of disciples of Jesus. They are meant to form us, and make us fit for the narrow door.