THE GREAT MULTITUDE OF SAINTS. (Homily for November 1, 2016. Feast of All Saints.)

Bible Study:  Revelation 7, 2 to 14. 1^st John, 3, 1 to 3 and Matthew 5, 1 to 12.

Happy new month. Wow! Please tell yourself a big congratulations. If you can read this message now, you really need to be happy and rejoice. This year shall end well for you and all your plans shall come to pass in Jesus Name. Amen.

On this first day of the month of November, the Church says we should turn our minds to the millions of men and women who have lived exemplary lives on earth. Men and women who have fulfilled the demands of the Gospel, some of them married, some virgins, some religious, some priests even bishops and popes, some doctors, nurses, accountants, engineers, farmers, school teachers, professors, some even traditional rulers, selfless warriors who fought for justice and right, some models of our indigenous cultures who set up taboos, created myths and stories that kept our past generations in the path of morality. The list is just endless.

Today, there are three questions I would like us to ask ourselves:

FIRST QUESTION: Do I want to be Saint? The answer is either Yes, or No. In truth, our aspirations in life are many but only few persons have a strong desire to become Saints.

SECOND QUESTION: How Can I Be a Saint? Our first reading this morning answers this question. The great multitude are “those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.” Am I washed free from sin?

Jesus also gives us a way out in the Gospel passage when he outlined the beatitudes. Am I making efforts to practice these beatitudes?

QUESTION THREE: How much do I know about the Saints? Compared to my knowledge of celebrities, how many Saints can I give their biographies off-heart? Which Saint is my personal role model?

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, deepen my love for your Saints that I too may aspire to be one. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. Happy new month. Welcome to November.

Fr. Abu

THE SIN OF SELF-INTEREST. (Homily for October 30, 2016. Monday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time.)

Bible Study:  Philippians 2, 1 to 4 and Luke 14, 12 to 14.

Have you noticed that food tastes differently when eaten alone? Do you sometimes ask yourself why the same amount of food when shared with others fills your stomach faster than when you eat alone? Are you surprised at this saying that: “When you want to walk FAST, then walk ALONE, but if you want to walk FAR, then walk with SOMEBODY.”

However, the great economist Adam Smith once said: “self-interest is the first law of nature.” As much as we know the importance of looking out for the interests of others over that of ours, in practice, we only think of others when we stand to gain something in return from them.

Jesus went to the house of a leading Pharisee to eat but upon noticing the caliber of people who had been invited, he said to his host: “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

How difficult it is for us invite poor people to our celebrations? Or those who do not have what it takes to invite us in return. How difficult it is for us to stretch out a helping hand to people who may never help us in the future? Christianity is not about living a normal life, it is actually about being a super-human; it is about going beyond what everybody will do; it is about helping people you stand to gain nothing from.

The challenge is set before us today to go out and be GOOD. The world is a small village. We can make the world a better place to live if we live according to the principle of helping one another.

As St. Paul says to the Philippians, chapter 2, 1 to 4:  “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. DO NOTHING FROM SELFISH AMBITION OR CONCEIT, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”

Let us pray: Lord, cleanse my heart from all forms of selfishness knowingly and unknowingly. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. Happy new week.

Fr. Abu

BE MERCIFUL TO ME, A SINNER. (Homily for October 30, 2016. Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time. Year C)

Bible Study:  Wisdom 11, 22 to 12, 2. 2^nd Thessalonians 1, 11 to 2, 2 and Luke 19, 1 to 10.

If you recall last Sunday, two men went to the temple to pray. One considered himself righteous and ended up praying to himself. The other man, being a tax collector simply said: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” and he went home justified. Today, we see another humble man, a chief tax collector who acknowledged his sinfulness before God when Jesus visited his house. And for this, Jesus said: “Today, salvation has come to this house.”

When we are able to acknowledge our sinfulness before God and express a sincere desire to repent, the gift we get is salvation. But then, it takes a deep sense of humility on our part to admit that we are wrong or that we are not perfect. There is always a tendency to readily cast blames to others. We believe every other person is the bad person while we are simply victims of other people’s crimes. Even we sin consciously, we accuse the devil.

Sometime ago, a group of Armed Robbers were caught and when asked the reason for their action, they blamed the Government for not providing jobs. They not only spoke good and correct English, they also proved they were second-class upper graduates and they seemed to have no remorse for their act of robbery. That is the classic attitude of most people and this attitude is quite offensive to God.

Zacchaeus had the very opposite attitude. He knew he was short and he knew he had short-comings, he knew that he was a sinner and that he had defrauded people in the business of collecting taxes. Yet, he did not push the blame on anyone else. He took full responsibility for his actions and he made efforts to get things right with God. He climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus.

Do I really acknowledge my sinfulness? Or do I believe that people or circumstances are to blame for my actions? Can I actually stand before God today and say the prayer of the tax collector: “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner?” What efforts am I making to change? To climb the sycamore tree? To go for confession? Or to declare like Zacchaeus: “Half of my goods, I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” Have I ever stolen anything in the past? What is stopping me from returning it today?

For declaring his intention to return stolen goods, Jesus said: “Salvation has come to this house.” The salvation we are seeking by going to church day in day out is actually very easy to attain. All we have to do to get it is to return today whatever we have stolen, to share our goods with the poor and repent of our sinfulness.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, be merciful to me a sinner. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. Happy Sunday.

Fr. Abu

PRIDE GOES BEFORE A FALL. (Homily for October 29, 2016. Saturday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time.)

Bible Study:  Philippians 1, 18 to 26. And Luke 14, 1 and 7 to 11.

A simple way of understanding the meaning of pride is giving ourselves credit for that which is not ours. To be proud is to assume that we are what we are by our own power or that the Grace of God is no longer responsible for our goodness. One way to know if you are proud is going for an occasion and assuming you are more important than others.

The moment we begin to see ourselves as better than others, the moment we begin to talk badly about others as “good-for-nothings,” God does teaches us a lesson. He humiliates us before their very eyes.  Like the host of a party, God politely asks us to step aside and he does it in so many ways.

The so-called good for nothing now become your helper. The one you taught would amount to failure now become crucial to your own success. The one you considered to be poverty stricken who used to come to you to beg suddenly become richer than you. We see these things happening every day.

As one musician sang: “Life is turn by turn.” Don’t ever assume that others do not or will never have what it takes to make it big as well. That you are “somebody” today does not give you a right to call a fellow human being a “nobody.”

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, cleanse me from the blindness of pride. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. Happy Weekend.

Fr. Abu

YOUR LIFE IS NOT A MISTAKE. (Homily for October 28, 2016. Feast of Saints Simon and Jude.)

Bible Study:  Ephesians 2, 19 to 22. And Luke 6, 12 to 16.

As we celebrate the Feast of two out of the twelve great apostles, Simon and Jude today, our readings challenge us to reflect on the concept of our election and choice before God. First and foremost, we must understand that nothing happens to us by chance. There is no such thing as mere luck or what scientists refer to as “random selection’”

Dear friends, we are products of a God who is purposeful, a God who prepares things before hand, a God of whom Jeremiah spoke about as saying: “For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29, 11.

Jesus did not simply do guess work in his choice of the apostles. He didn’t select them according to their good looks or merely according to their line of trade. He spent a whole night in prayer, consulting with God who has plans, before making his choice.

Like every good parent, God has plans for us his children. No responsible parent brings a child into the world without first making certain plans on how to ensure the future of that child, in fact, parents already have ideas of what they want their children to become even before they are born. It is in this light that St. Paul tell us in today’s first reading that we are not just strangers or foreigners to God, we are his children; citizens of God’s household.

As long as we continue to pray the lines of the “Our Father,” which states, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we continue to remind both God and ourselves that we are not strangers, we are his children and we want his plans for us to come to pass in our lives.  

God wills the best for us, but, there are times when our own will, runs contrary to the will of God. There are also times, we tell God out rightly, “I know what you want for me, but God, let my own will be done instead.” Every sin is a deliberate attempt on our part to reject the will of God for us. And you know what? God does not force his way on us.

That is why we should not be surprised that having spent a whole night in prayer, having asked for discernment over the choice of the twelve men who would carry on the message of salvation to the rest of the world, Jesus, being God, in all his wisdom still chose Judas Iscariot, the very guy who would betray him. As much as the twelve were equally tempted, only Judas gave in to it. He had a chance like Simon and Jude to fulfil God’s will in his life as well.

So we celebrate Simon and Jude today because they COOPERATED with God. They were chosen, but they also worked hard, they strove to live above temptations, they carried out Jesus’ instructions and they proclaimed the Gospel to millions.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, help me to fulfil your plans for my life. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you.

Fr. Abu

WE ARE SOLDIERS! (Homily for October 27, 2016. Thursday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time.)

Bible Study: Ephesians 6, 10 to 20 and Luke 13, 31 to 35.

Dear friends, do you still remember that song: “We are soldiers, soldiers of the Lord, we are soldiers, fighting for the Lord, in the name of Jesus, we shall conquer…” Yes, we are soldiers. And the war we fight is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. Just as the war is not a physical one, the weapons of this particular war are not also physical.

To succeed in this war, we must first REALIZE THAT WE ARE ON A BATTLE GROUND. We live in a world that is not our real home and we are surrounded by enemies and thieves. Jesus tells us in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal, to kill and to destroy.” In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus refers to Herod as a fox. Woe betides the soldier who goes about eating and drinking freely not knowing that he is in the midst of a battle.

Secondly, we must realize that LIFE IS BEYOND THE NATURAL REALM. Just as your thoughts control your physical actions even though you cannot see your thoughts, there are invisible forces and powers responsible for the events of the natural realm.

Thirdly, we must be KNOW WHO OUR ENEMIES ARE. Our struggle is not against people, it is not against our so-called enemies, next door neighbours, co-workers, colleague, competitors in business etc. Quite often, we attack human beings rather than the principalities and evil spirits responsible for their actions. You cannot cure a sickness by treating the symptoms, you only cure it by attacking the virus or bacteria itself which is the root cause of the sickness.

Fourthly, we must be FULLY DRESSED UP FOR BATTLE ALWAYS. Just as no soldier would run into a battle field without being properly dressed and armed, so also, we cannot afford to fight without the appropriate battle kits. And these are:

1. THE BELT OF TRUTH. Never tell a lie. Speak the truth at all times. Being truthful is itself a weapon that many Christians do not know about. Some of us are chronic liars and because we tell lies, Satan, the prince of liars is always a guest in our hearts.

2. THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. To be righteous is to have a ready disposition to do the right thing at all times even when it entails sacrifice on our part. Righteousness is living above sin. It is outright refusal to compromise with sinfulness all in the name of “we are only humans.”

3. SHOES OF EVANGELISM. As St. Paul says, for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Another strong weapon against the enemies of our warfare is the proclamation of the Gospel.

4. THE SHIELD OF FAITH, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Faith is a shield. When trials come your way, it is like bullets from the devil, but with an unshakable faith, the bullets do not penetrate your spirit.

5. TAKE THE HELMET OF SALVATION. Just as a helmet protects the head thereby giving the soldier confidence to press on. We must fight knowing that salvation is already assured because Christ has won a victory for us on the Cross already. This battle is a won battle, we cannot afford to be crushed. We must renew our confidence in God everyday.

6. The SWORD OF THE SPIRIT, which is the WORD OF GOD. Pray with the Bible everyday. Never let a day pass without reading something from the Bible.

7. PRAY IN THE SPIRIT AT ALL TIMES in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Prayer is the key. Imagine a soldier on battle field fully armed for war standing face to face with the enemy yet he refuses to pull the trigger. That is how many of us Christians are when we refuse to pray.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, by your blood on the cross, grant us victory over the enemy. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you.

Fr. Abu

THE BEAUTY OF THE NARROW DOOR. (Homily for October 26, 2016. Wednesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time.)

Bible Study: Ephesians 6, 1 to 9 and Luke 13, 22 to 30.

Jesus tells us that salvation is not an easy task. We must not expect that the road to heaven will be easy and we must not deceive ourselves by following the wide road that is most travelled by others. Luke 13:24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.” What is the narrow door and why does it have to be narrow? It is not the size of the door itself that makes it narrow and we must understand that Jesus is not referring to a physical door into heaven, but he is speaking in a figurative sense. By narrow door, he refers to the path of the cross, the path of difficulty, the path of making sacrifice and letting go of personal comforts and attachment to material things for the sake of achieving heaven.

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul also makes some hard points about the Christian life which would even make this door narrower. He says “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother"-- this is the first commandment with a promise: "So that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth." Ephesians 6:1-3. OBEDIENCE is not easy. It is not easy to be under instructions and close supervision. In fact if you think obedience is easy, then ask Saul why he refused to destroy the Amalekites according to God’s instruction, a sad event which led to his rejection as King of Israel. Being an assistant in so many capacities myself, I must confess that there are times I feel like refusing to obey my superiors thinking I have better ideas but then I remember the vow of obedience and quickly caution myself so that as St. Paul says, it will be well for me and I may live long to also have people under me some day.

It doesn’t end there, even Parents, Masters and Superiors also have a challenge on their part to treat those under them with patience and discipline. Ephesians 6:4.  And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This is another difficult task and quite often parents find themselves unable to handle their children in a manner that would produce the desired results because as the saying goes, “you cannot give what you do not have.” Some parents are unable to discipline their children as they themselves lack personal discipline and only those who are willing to follow the narrow door of pain, sacrifice and letting go can afford to train up their children in a way that leads to God. When you see a child that has been well brought up, then you know that the parents have taken the narrow path.

Many of us Christians expect that things would be easy. We believe that Christ has died for us and has done everything for us and we desire only God’s blessings and prosperity. We do not want to hear of sacrifice and pain, we stop going to church or we change our church when we are not receiving signs and wonders or seeing miracles on display, we love to be in places where we hear prosperity messages, we love to feel good and never be reminded of our sinfulness and there are thousands of pastors and preachers out there who capitalize on this. They only tell you what you like to hear and but I must be honest to say this is just the wide path. We must enter by the narrow door.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, bless our children and teach us all to follow the narrow door. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you.

Fr. Abu

LOVE AND RESPECT: VITAL INGREDIENTS FOR MARRIAGE. (Homily for October 25, 2016. Tuesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time.)

Bible Study: Ephesians 5, 21 to 33 and Luke 13, 18 to 21.

In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians today, we get to see two vital ingredients in marriage; Love and Respect. These two items are vital in the sense that they determine the life of the marriage. Take away love from Marriage and what you get is two strangers fighting each other every day. Take away respect from marriage and what is left is two people set to sniff out life from each other.

No marriage can survive without love and respect. This means therefore that, so long as love and respect exist in a marriage, nothing can shake it. And if there is any marriage at the brink of collapse, love and respect can bring it back to life.

Are you already married? Two questions for you right now: Do I truly and completely love my spouse? And secondly, do I adore, revere and cherish my spouse? Your sincere response to these two questions can tell you how long your marriage will last.

When we read this first reading, there is a tendency to assume that the wife’s duty is to respect while the man’s duty is to love. This is because of the way and manner in which St. Paul drums “Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord.” But the fact remains that a man who lacks respect for his wife cannot claim to love her.

More so, respect is not the same thing as fear. A man doesn’t have to be afraid of his wife, all he needs is to respect her likewise, some women claim to respect their husbands but they actually fear them. It is possible to be afraid of a person yet lack respect for him or her; you start hiding things from the person yet what you do behind him or her shows your total disregard for that person.

A spouse who truly respect her partner will never cheat on him or her. Indeed, love and respect go together. To truly love a person is to value that person and make that person feel needed. When I know there is someone who needs me, my self-worth, self-esteem and zeal for life is greatly boosted. I feel respected when you love me. And by merely realising how much you respect me, I in turn will also respect you. Respect begets respect.

Husbands, respect your wives. Your self-worth as a person depends on your wife. How? Even if the whole world bows to you outside the house, people lick your shoes and throw their caps for you, you still feel worthless and stupid when your wife does not respect you. When you come home, your wife puts you in your correct shoe size and all the worship you get out there vanishes like dust. But you cannot force respect from your wife. You have to respect her first so that she will reciprocate that respect.

If you treat your wife like a rag, you are reducing yourself to a rag. You can never be greater than the woman because you both are not two separate persons but one. Whatever you do to her, you are doing it to yourself. Pay attention to what St. Paul says: “He who loves his wife loves himself.” Meaning: a man who hates his wife, beats her or embarrasses her does so to himself. Greater shame and pain goes to you than to your spouse when hurt your spouse. Why? You are one person.

It is not possible to say you love a person without also respecting that person and one way to test if you really love a person is to find it if you have ever lied to that person. If you tell me something and I discover it is a lie, I feel very bad not because of the issue at hand but because by being able to summon courage to lie to me, you are telling me that I am not worthy enough to hear the truth. Every lie is a sign of disrespect and a sign that you are not really loved by the one who lies to you. If you want to start loving your spouse, then start by being truthful!

Jesus says the kingdom of heaven starts small like the grain of mustard but soon grows to become a tree. It is like a little leaven which can act upon a whole large piece of flour. In the same way, quarrels, misunderstanding, disrespect and so on begin small in the marriage. A very small issue can easily escalate if not properly handed. Husbands and wives, do not bear grudges, silence does not take problems away, quench that fire before it grows bigger, do not sweep dirt under the carpet otherwise it will attract worms, insects and pests. As a rule, do not let your anger last overnight! Confer, Ephesians 4, 26. Kill that anger before it grows. Never allow your love turn to hate!

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, bless our marriages with love and respect. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you.

Fr. Abu

YOU TOO ARE A CHILD OF LIGHT. (Homily for October 24, 2016. Monday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time.)

Bible Study: Ephesians 4, 43 to 5, 8 and Luke 13, 10 to 17.

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, today, St. Paul reveals to us the essence of letting our light shine as Children of God.

1. Be kind to one another and tender-hearted.

2. Forgive one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

3. Be imitators of God, as beloved children. 

4. Shun fornication and impurity of any kind. Avoid obscene, silly, and vulgar talk.

5. Live a life of thanksgiving. That is, be grateful always.

And the key to walking as a child of light is first realizing who you are. You are not just anybody. The fact that you are reading or listening to this message right now already marks you out from the rest of the world. You are special, you are a child of Abraham. Satan has no right to hold you in captivity or in the bondage of sin.

In the Gospel passage, Jesus was in a synagogue on a Sabbath day and there was this woman who was completely bent over and she could not stand or walk upright. She had been under this bondage for eighteen years. When Jesus saw her, he immediately reached out to her, laid his hands on her and cured her. Jesus cured her not simply to prove he could disobey the Sabbath law but because of who she was: a daughter of Abraham!

Are you bent over spiritually because of your sins? As a child of Abraham, is Satan still holding you captive preventing you from letting your light shine? Does immorality reign in your life? It is time to get close to Jesus today to free you from bondage.

This woman was in this condition for 18years even though she was always going to the Synagogue. Some of us have been Christians for more than 18years yet we are still bent over. It doesn’t matter how many times you go to Church, what matters is that you are free from the captivity of sinfulness and your light actually shines!

The Pharisees represent a category of people who will never see anything good in anything that happens to you. Their minds are so filled with darkness that they always point out errors in everything. If you are failing, they say you lack sense, and if you finally succeed, they say you cheated. Negative minded persons are never grateful nor truly happy in life. Note that one of the criteria St. Paul mentions in our first reading this morning is that our lives must be pervaded by Thanksgiving.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, release me from captivity of any sort preventing my light from shining. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. Happy new week.

Fr. Abu

PRAYER IS LIFE (PART 2). (Homily for October 23, 2016. Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Year C.)

Bible Study: Sirach 35, 12 to 18. 2^nd Timothy 4, 6 to 18 and Luke 18, 9 to 14.

Today’s liturgy bears so much resemblance to that of last Sunday so much so that I titled it the Part Two. Just as our readings dwelt heavily on the theme of Prayer, today’s readings also centre on Prayer; why we should always pray, how we should pray and the content of our prayer.

If you recall, last Sunday we read about how Moses stood with hands raised in prayer while the Nation of Israel led by Joshua went into battle against the Amalekites. So long as Moses’ hands remained raised, victory was on the side of Israel. This story highlights the fact that prayer is life and we cannot afford to toil with prayer lest we become defeated by the forces that assail us.

Indeed, prayer is life. Prayer is life not simply because it assures us the best things in life, prayer is the only thing we can hold on to in the face of oppression, injustice and man’s inhumanity to man. Before God we all are poor creatures and prayer is the only thing that can boost our life and bring us true wealth. Hence, in today’s first reading, we are told:

“He (God) will listen to the prayer of one who is wronged. He will not ignore the supplication of the fatherless, nor the widow when she pours out her story. He whose service is pleasing to the Lord will be accepted and his prayer will reach to the clouds.”

In a society like ours when the rich are ever getting richer at the detriment of the poor, a society where money is worshipped and human beings are treated like livestock simply because of their poverty, our readings today encourage us to PRAY. A single prayer in the lips of a poor man is far more valuable than millions of naira in the hands of a rich man. Sirach is telling us to pray when we cannot fight for ourselves, to pray when we have no one to stand in for us, to pray when we have no parents or no one to serve as our breadwinners.

God listens with keen interest to the prayers of the innocent who is wronged. God must surely come to the rescue of that little child who cries. The first reading also adds: “The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds…” It is one thing to be humble because of our circumstances but it is more honourable when we chose to be humble despite who and what we think we are. The disposition of humility is something essential to make our prayers more effective and we cannot fake humility! Our level of humility determines the weight our prayers would carry. It determines whether or not God will listen to us.

How do you feel taking instructions from a proud person? How do you feel running errand for a boss who warns you, threatens you, insults you or even beats you while issuing commands? How do you feel when you have a madam or an oga at the top who is not simply content with being over you but wants you to know you are nothing? Sometimes, if we are honest with ourselves, we would agree that this is how we treat God. We issue commands to God in the name of prayer and we go about committing sin boldly and carelessly without realizing that by so doing, we are insulting God.

When we stand in need of favours, we pretend to be humbling ourselves before God but the moment we are done praying, we act as if our very bodies belong to us and that God has no right to determine what we do with it. We say things like: “Leave me jareee, it is my life abeg eee.” What we don’t know is that our pride in refusing to live by God’s commands hampers our prayers. We must be humble for our prayers to pierce the clouds.

Apart from humility towards God, we also need humility towards to our fellow human beings for our prayers to be effective. To prove this point, Jesus in our Gospel passage today teaches us a lesson with the use of the parable about two men who went to the temple to pray. One was such a proud man who felt he was better than the rest of the world while the other was truly humble. The prayer of the proud was rejected while that of the humble always pierces the clouds.

The fact that we are able to keep God’s commands does not give us room to look down on other people who are not as holy as ourselves. This is because in the real sense of the word, it is only by God’s grace that we live holy lives. And so, when we pray, we should desist from attacking other people or analysing the evil things they have done because we only make our prayers invalid by so doing.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, teach me to humble myself and to pray well. Amen.

Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you.

Fr. Abu