Readings: Galatians 3:1-5; Responsorial Psalm: Luke 1:69-75; Luke 11:5-13
Imagine me starting a Sunday homily by saying, “Are you people in St Thomas Aquinas, Bletchley mad?” I am sure many people will carry their purses and face the exit, some will remove their facemask and adjust their eyeglasses to look at me very well, of course, and many will send email to the bishop before the end of the homily. Isn’t that correct?
St Paul did exactly that. He said, “Are you people in Galatia mad?” The Greek word he used is interesting. It is “anoetus,” which had the idea of someone who can think but fails to use their power of reasoning and perception.
St Paul taught them the correct message of the Gospel namely salvation through faith in the redemptive work of Christ, to confirm this, they received the gift of the Holy Spirit not because of keeping the law or by circumcision but through faith. Shortly after Paul had left, some people came to tell them that Paul was wrong, that salvation was impossible without first coming under the law. They believed this again and doubted the authenticity of Paul’s ministry and message despite the clear evidence before them, which was the Spirit, they had received. St Paul found this very disheartening.
A sign of spiritual immaturity is that we are easily swayed, we are accommodating to all sorts of wrong ideas, doctrines and information, we allow ourselves to be deceived, we are undiscerning, we accept whatever we are told once the speaker is eloquent.
God expects a soft heart from us, not a soft head that can accept anything or a soft mouth that will swallow anything.
This is a lesson for us dear friends. There is so much false publicity about the Church, about the Pope, about the truth, about faith and doctrine, about the end of the world. Some deluded Protestants and people-of-no-faith are out there to attack the Catholic faith and discredit it. We are not meant to just accept everything as many do and start panicking and forwarding misleading information to others. Some people think that once information is on the Internet or YouTube therefore it is authentic and so they ‘baptise’ it and start spreading.
This is the character of anoetus. We ought to be sensible, convinced and firm in our faith.
In today’s gospel, Jesus teaches us two things.
- Persistence in prayers
- The goodness of God who gives us only what is good for us even when we ask for what is not.
May we pray today therefore for discernment to be able to differentiate between truth and falsehood and to consistently reject what is false and misleading.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka Gukena Okami on October 8, 2020