26th sunday-B

26th Sunday in B 

Good evening/morning everyone and welcome to church today. 

I have one announcement to make, if any catholic thinks that he or she has a clear, clear conscience, please remember, it is the sign of a bad memory. 

Once after Mass at a prison as I was shaking hands with the prisoners and saying, ‘Good bye” to them, one of them said, “Keep out of trouble”. And I said, ‘I am but you didn’t”. Then he said, “Do you think you are a funny priest?” 

Once a man went to confession and said, “Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. During world war, I hid a refugee family in my attic”. The priest said, “Well, that is not a sin and you did a good thing”. But the man said, “I charged him $20.00 a week”. That is not good, but you saved a family though”. The man said, “Oh thank you so much Father, now I feel so relieved”. And I have one more question, “What is that, my son?” the man then said, “should I tell them the war is over” 

Then school children came to confession and every one of them was saying the same sin to the priest. One after another, they were saying, “Oh father, I threw peanut in the water”. The priest said, “that is a good thing. You are feeding the fish. God bless you and go in peace”. Then finally a little boy came to confession and even before he said anything, the priest said, ‘I know what you did. You threw peanut in the water and that is a good thing. God bless you. The boy then said, “No, father, I didn’t, and I am peanut”. 

Dear friends in Christ Jesus,  

Christ is the beginning of all.  Not one thing or two things but everything comes from Christ and Christ alone. Because the world exists only because of Him. Though one man, Adam, death came into the world and life came through Christ. Everything belongs to Christ and those who are not against Him are always for Him. 

God made the covenant of marriage with Adam and Eve. God made the covenant of family with Noah and covenant of tribe with Abraham. God made the covenant of nation with Moses and covenant of kingdom with David and through our Lord Jesus Christ, God established the covenant of universal kingdom. And everyone belongs to that kingdom. Though people don’t know Christ or away from Christ; though they accept Christ or don’t practice their faith, everyone belongs to Christ and His kingdom. Those who are not against Him are always for Him. 

Once a Christian, a follower of Christ, was brought before judge saying, “This man is a traitor because he gave water to a Muslim during war”. So, he was condemned to death. On the way to his execution, the man said to the king, “your majesty, at the battle field as people were suffering and dying, I never see a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian but only the face of Christ in every suffering human person”. The king then looked at him and said, “Go and give water to the suffering and dying”.  

There is a beautiful resurrection story, it’s about the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. After encountering Christ, they would say to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us and were not enlightened while He opened the Scripture for us and so on and then they would get up at the same hour and went to Jerusalem and proclaimed the Good News to all. 

When the love of God fills our hearts, we cannot resist, and we cannot sit still, we have to go out and proclaim the Good News. Whether He belongs to a Christian group or not, they will go out and do great things in the name of Christ.  

Our hearts and our church are not that big to hold all the love and all the kindness of Christ and our rituals and our customs are not big enough to proclaim all the love and all the forgiveness of Christ and there will always people who do not belong to us will go and proclaim and do great things in the name of Christ. Yes, those who are not against us are for us. Let them continue their good works and let Christ’s light shine upon everyone.  Amen.