MONDAY MARCH 4, 2024
MONDAY OF THE THIRD WEEK OF LENT B
2King 5:1-15
Luke 4:24-30
OVERCOMING OBSTACLE OF OVER FAMILIARITY IN OUR DESIRE FOR GOD’S BLESSINGS
God never rejects anyone. And God does not favour one person against the other. Everyone is treated equally before our all knowing and all powerful God. And such treatment that God administers to us can also be determined and moderated by our faith, our trust and our devotion to God. We are favoured more when we are opened to God’s grace and accept his love.
The two pagans that witnessed the God’s favour and blessings in today’s first reading were not part of the covenant people or from the kingdom of Israel.
Naaman the Syrian and the widow of Zarephath, are the two pagans or strangers who were extraordinarily blessed, favoured and graced in their respective places of which they never also thought themselves worthy to have been blessed.
Jesus in the gospel of today references these two in his admonition as a warning to the people of Nazareth, his own people who had lost faith, confidence and trust in his power as God. The people jettisoned Jesus because of their familiarity with Jesus. For they knew Jesus very well because he grew up with them. They also know the mother and father and all about Jesus. So his public ministry was not impressive to them rather they questioned where he got his power and never believed in him.
This became a stumbling block for the people and their faith in Jesus waned and died. They could not rise to accept or see Jesus in his person as their Saviour. And that affected the good works, miracles and mercy of God from visiting them. And Jesus could not do much because of their lack of faith and incredulity.
There can be so many obstacles that may be stumbling block to our faith. What is blocking your faith in Christ? First stumbling block is Familiarity and this can be a great obstacle. Others may be our great human expectation or relying heavily on human experience and expectation just like Naaman who thought that the river Jordan was not clean enough and also Elisha was not mystical enough in his instruction to him to go bath in Jordan. Our expectation may affect our blessings and graces and keep us stunted in growth and faith.
We must rise above familiarity and our human expectation by trusting more and never taking the divine and the spiritual into the same category as the human. God is still God and man is still man. Do not mix the two and do not ascribe any human category to God.
Again, do not toy with the divine. Do not disregard the spiritual no matter how well you may know something about them. The church is very deep, the priests are still messengers and divinely called, the sacraments are efficacious and ways of salvations, our sacramental are great sources of spiritual strength and energy and the ornamentals in the church structures are very sacred, powerful and efficacious because they carry the divine presence or are divine presence carriers. Do not joke with them or toy with them or disregard them.
This Lenten season is a period of grace and mercy, do not even forget this. Use this period well and allow God to visit you, to be merciful upon you and to remit your sins.
You attract God’s Favour, blessings and graces by being open to the divine, opening your hearts to God, accepting and trusting, and developing faith and reclining into God’s embrace and peace. Let there be no iota of unbelief, no sting of over familiarity and no idea or impression of favoritism because of ones status, or others.
Heavenly Father, you healed Naaman the Syrian from leprosy. You provided food and sustenance for the widow of Zarephath because she trusted in you, believed in you and reposed her faith in you. Help us to have deep trust, great faith and confidence in you. May we never doubt your power to redeem us, to heal us, to bring your blessings upon us. And may our faith never fail us and never allow our familiarity to be a stumbling block to our blessings through Christ our Lord
Fr Norbert Uchuno
