Grace to you!
 
Sunday last week, I shared with you a powerful testimony about the gift of faith. I also explained the audacity of faith. Today, may I reflect on the gratitude for God’s gift of faith. 
 
Have you surprised someone with a precious gift before, or at least, you thought you did? It could be your child, your employee or a friend. You went the extra mile to make it possible. You put lots of love in it. 
 
You waited too long to hear if the person received the gift. You walk past or have an eye-to-eye glimpse of the person and instinctively think, “I hope the gift was received.” You realized later the gift was received, though the beneficiary never cared to say, “thank you.” This is definitely not nice, or is it? 
 
How about flipping the coin here? You were the beneficiary of the gift. You forgot to thank the giver of the gift. This is not who you are; maybe you forgot. Months or even years after, you realized you didn’t say thank you. You will feel terrible about yourself and would want a do over, won’t you? 
 
We receive many gifts from God. God’s gifts are generous and abundant. Due to how numerous and frequent those gifts are, many times we tend to forget to thank the Lord. We take life for granted, and with it, all the good things that happen to us. Did you not know that the act of faith is equally the act of gratitude? 
 
Living the life of faith is living the life of gratitude to God for all the special gifts to us. If you are a believer, thank God for the gift of faith you received. We are privileged to know God and to love God. This knowledge, this faith, is a rare gift. Please don’t take it for granted. Be grateful!
 
The Gospel of Luke 17:11-19 tells a story of ten lepers who were cured of their leprosy by simply a word spoken by Jesus: “Go, show yourself to the priest.” They believed the Lord’s word and received healing miracle. Believing God’s word opens the door to miracles. 
 
You have to understand that when Jesus spoke that word, the lepers, coming from Jewish culture, had a sense of what it meant, namely healing for them. For the Jew of the time, ‘go see a priest’ means to confirm you’re healed (see Lev. 13:49; 14:2). The priest confirms the healing, not the leper himself or herself. There is a metaphor here about how the healing forgiveness of God is confirmed by the priest. Note also that for the Jews of the time, leprosy was regarded as a sign of sin. 
 
The lepers, having believed, were healed. Yet, only one came back to give thanks to Jesus. Jesus said to the one, “Stand up and go, your faith has saved you” (Luke 17:19). Here lies the difference between the first acceptance of faith and the redeeming faith. Redeeming faith lives a life of gratitude to God. It transforms into worship—Eucharist (etymologically eucharistia - giving thanks). It’s in Sacred worship that the faith we have received mature and bear fruits, leading to salvation. 
 
We also see the redeeming faith in the gratitude of the gentile Syrian governor, Naaman, who plunged himself into the Jordan seven times, obeying the word of the prophet Elisha; and, he was cured of leprosy (2 Kings 5:44). 
 
Here again, we have another metaphor; that of Baptism. When we are plunged into the water of purification and are reborn in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we receive wholeness from Original sin. We receive sanctifying grace too. Free indeed!
 
At first, Naaman doubted, but when he believed, there was healing. In response, he offered gifts to the prophet, though the prophet didn’t accept it (sign of detachment). In Naaman, one sees a heart grateful for what the Lord has done for him. His confession was the saving part: “I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the LORD” (2 Kgs 5:17).
 
I hope you are grateful for the gift you have received. 
 
Lord, give me the grace to always give thanks for all your blessings. May I give thanks too in every situation I find myself, knowing that you dwell on the praises of your people (Ps 22:3). Amen. 
 
God love you. God bless you.
 
Fr. Maurice Emelu 
 
[28th Sunday C 2 Kgs 5:14-17; 2 Tm 2:8-13; Lk 17:11-19]

Grace to you! 
 
“Hurricanes, earthquakes, mass shootings, terrorism and threats of nuclear battle, etc., are these not signs of divine judgment?” Someone had asked. 
 
Honestly, the frequency of sad events these days is scary. They provide us with enough doses of material for prayerful reflection. They remind us that try as we may, there are many things around us we can’t control.
 
Whether these are signs that judgment is near, my reply has been to point to the Lord’s response as recorded in Scripture: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Mt 24:36). 
 
In the prophesy of Joel, one of the Old Testament minor prophets, we read about the day of the Lord. It was highlighted in at least five different places (Jl1:15; 2:1, 11, 32; 3:14). According to biblical scholars Gavigan, McCarthy and McGovern, in their commentary on the prophet Joel (2009), when the prophets speak of the day of the Lord, two ideas are talked about separately or together. It refers to Judgment Day, as well as the day of divine salvation. 
 
I believe that God's judgment is in view of salvation. When the Lord appeared on earth, his life and example were a measure for other standards and provide for us the way to salvation. In that sense, through the Incarnate Lord, divine judgment is revealed because lives and actions are to be judged by the standards and examples Jesus Christ has set. The Lord is our reference point to what is true, good and beautiful. 
 
His action, for instance, in driving out demons (Lk 11:15-26), is itself a judgment to the doubters that the messiah is here. His love, purity of life and morals, etc., speak directly to the hate and moral decay of societies. His unimaginable compassion and kindness are a judgement to worldly meanness. His welcoming of sinners and others outside of his Jewish roots are a judgement to discrimination. The justice of his life and actions speak directly to the change that must occur in a world of injustice. The life of Christ is a judgement to the life of the worldly. 
 
In Jesus Christ, too, is divine salvation for in him is life to the fullest. “I have come that they may have life to the fullest" (Jn 10:10). 
 
Prophet Joel’s invitation is a reminder for us to find in our life that disposition of Christ’s, which saves so his judgment will be not destruction for us, but salvation. 
 
Christ be our light, and may he light our way so we constantly follow the path of salvation. Amen. 
 
God love you. God bless you.
 
Fr. Maurice Emelu 
 
[Friday Week 27 A: Jl 1:13-15; 2:1-2; Lk 11:15-26]

 
Grace to you! 
 
History repeats itself. Many of our concerns today were concerns for distant past generations. There may be different characters, key players and cultural products in the plots, but we deal with basically similar sorts of issues. Nothing is new under the sun.
 
A college student would say to his dad or mom or grandparents, this is old stuff. Our generation has grown past your ideas. The child doesn’t know the parent has seen it all and was there before. Nothing is new under the sun. 
 
Recently, I shared with some friends how many things we see happening in our society today, many of the things some call progressive ways of life, had happened before, hundreds to thousands of years ago. Nothing is new under the sun. 
 
In the mid-sixties, a new style of Christianity was championed built on the principles that reinterpreted sacrifice on the cross to mean only glory. In fact, by the 1980s through the nineties, the gospel was measured by the wealth of the believer. It is the so-called prosperity gospel. People gulped it as if they gulped water. It is still strong in many parts of the world. Why? Because many believe that if you follow God, you shall not be materially poor. Some called it a new way of making the gospel relevant.   
 
Did you know that over 2500 years ago, the same concerns were the concerns of the people of Israel who returned from the Babylonian captivity? The book of prophet Malachi (the last book of the Old Testament, one of the minor prophets) was, in part, written to address a situation of this kind?
 
For many of those who were returned through divine intervention to their land in Jerusalem, they believed their freedom implies material prosperity. They kept the commandments and even paid their tithes. Yet, they observed that many who didn't care about God prospered, while many of the faithful weren’t prosperous. 
 
Thus, they started to grumble against the Justice of God. “’It is vain to serve God. What is the good of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? Henceforth we deem the arrogant blessed; evildoers not only prosper but when they put God to the test they escape’” (Mal 3:14-15). Nothing is new under the sun. 
 
The Lord's response through Malachi is spot-on even for our concerns today: "They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession..." (Mal 3:17). God was reminding the faithful, that they will be His special possession. 
 
Of course, this prophecy refers to the time of Christ. It’s our time when divine promise is fulfilled in Christ and the Holy Spirit sent as our Special Counselor, to comfort and to guide us. 
 
It speaks, too, to the kind special blessing fidelity to God ushers. To be God’s special friend through the Holy Spirit is the best blessing ever. So, our ultimate blessing is to see God and totally be His. Material prosperity, while it is always a welcome blessing, may or may not occur.
 
So, as a believer, whether things are going well for you or not, keep faith anyway. The Lord reassures: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk 11:13). With the Holy Spirit, you are safe and secure. 
 
May God give us the insight to know what is most important in life and trust in providence. Amen
 
God love you. God bless you.
 
Fr. Maurice Emelu 
 
[Thursday Week 27 A: Mal 3:13-20b; Lk 11:5-13]

Grace to you! 
 
The fourth chapter of the book of Jonah, our biblical text for today's reflection, brings the entire message from the Book of Jonah together in a beautiful way. We read that Jonah was upset because God showed mercy to the repentant people of Nineveh. 
 
The prophet was so upset he claimed that was the reason he refused to go preach to Nineveh in the first place, because he knew God would forgive them if they repented. Isn’t this ironical? 
 
One may say Jonah wasn't a kind man at all. One may also claim a moral superior position, thinking they would have been more kind than Jonah. We easily forget that from time to time we adopt the same attitude too. Especially, when we are the victims of the offender’s hurting wounds.
 
On numerous occasions, I have heard faithful Christians complain bitterly that a murderer, or even a terrorist with blood on his hands, repented. Once someone said, “I hope God will not allow that one (referring to a repented murderer) into heaven after all he had done, repentance or no repentance.” 
 
I remember a day, during one of the 9/11 memorials, when I called for prayer novena for the conversion of terrorists. After the Mass, someone from the congregation gave me the eye. “Not that kind of forgiveness” he said. 
 
Funny, isn’t it? 
 
We set limits to what we can forgive, but this isn't the way God does. For God, there is no limit to His mercy and forgiveness, provided we did like the people of Nineveh. 
 
This is one of the lessons we learn from Jesus the Lord himself. He teaches us to forgive, making it the only conditional prayer point in the Our Father—“Forgive us…as we forgive others” (Lk 11:4; Mt 6:14). He shares many parables of the radical nature of divine forgiveness (Lk 15). He tells Peter, as he tells all of us, that forgiveness is limitless (Mt 18:22). 
 
Why? Because the Lord cares so much for everyone He has created and would do anything to offer the sinner the opportunity of salvation. Pay attention to God’s message to Jonah in response to his objection to divine mercy shown to the people of Nineveh:
 
"You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise; it came up in one night and in one night it perished. And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?” (Jon 4:10-11)
 
I pray that we believers be as concerned for the salvation of souls as God wishes. May we be open to the limitless measure of mercy and forgiveness, and welcome the grace that makes these possible for ourselves and for others. Amen. 
 
God love you. God bless you.
 
Fr. Maurice Emelu 
 
[Wednesday Week 27 A: Jon 4:1-11; Lk 11:1-4]

Grace to you! 
 
Using the story of biblical Jonah, I reflect on God’s unfailing love and mercy towards sinners. 
 
For those who love literature, the Book of Jonah's literary quality is impressive. It casts the characters, plots and scenes with exciting details and leaves the reader with multiple imageries to delight the imagination. It is one of the stories in the Old Testament that are told not only in the Jewish bible and the Christian bible, but also included with a few variations in the Koran.
 
One notices that God called Jonah two times. The first is reported in chapters 1 and 2 of the Book of Jonah; a mission Jonah did all he could to avoid. The second call is narrated in chapter 3:1-10. Unlike the first, after many frustrating experiences on his way running away from God, Jonah was literally forced back to Nineveh where he should be. 
 
After learning the lesson that there is no need to run away from God because it is not in our interest, Jonah became a little more open to divine mission. So, when God spoke to him a second time and commissioned him to preach to the people of Nineveh, he listened and began preaching. May we also listen when God speaks. 
 
In this particular reflection, I am more interested in the incredible response of the people Nineveh when Jonah preached repentance and God's gracious forgiveness: “When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out” (Jon 3:9-10). 
 
This ties to the general lesson of the Book of Jonah which the Jews recite (they call it Haftara) during their Yom Kippur (Jewish holiest day, Day of Atonement). They read the story to remind those asking for cleansing and divine forgiveness that God's mercy is boundless for those who repent. 
 
May this message of Divine Mercy be for us and our loved ones, a source of inspiration to always turn to God if we sin. There is no distance away from God that is irredeemable. There is no past that God can't heal. There is no sin beyond Divine Mercy. 
 
Do you have any past that is holding you back? Does guilt hold you back from gazing as the Holy Face of the Redeemer? Take it to the Lord in prayer in humble submission to His grace, realizing that though we are weak, God is strong. Though we fail, God’s steadfast love is everlasting. God forgives. God heals. 
 
Moreover, turning to God is in our best interest. Turning away from God deprives us of inner joy and peace. It deprives us of salvation too.  
 
Be reconciled. Amen 
 
God love you. God bless you.  
 
Fr. Maurice Emelu 
 
[Tuesday Week 27 A: Jon 3:1-10; Lk 10:38-42]

Grace to you!
 
Roses are one of the most beautiful flowers, God’s special gift of nature. From the white rose to the pink, yellow, sterling silver and deep red, all roses are nature’s wonders. 
 
Even if you have little appreciation for aesthetics, you can’t gaze too long at a garland of roses without been drawn to its beauty. Occasionally, I drive by neighborhoods where roses flourish, and I could hardly take my eyes off the walkways. Roses are strikingly beautiful. 
 
Have you ever received a gift of roses from someone? What did you think about the gift? Your feelings? Your emotions? Didn’t you feel honored, appreciated and loved? 
 
Sometimes I contemplate: How would God feel if God received roses from me? I know God does not feel like we humans do, but surely, God who gave us the gift of sensation and feeling, surely knows what feeling means; otherwise God wouldn’t gift us this nature. As Sacred Scripture says, “Does He who made the ears not hear? Does He who fashioned the eye not see?” (Psalm 94:9) God surely does. 
 
I believe God relates to us as our nature is; and God graciously accepts our reciprocity of His love as our nature is as well. God would not expect us to relate with Him as angels, those spiritual beings; nor would God expect us to relate with Him as birds who have limited ways of expressing their “feelings” or instincts. God expects us our reciprocity to be truly human. 
 
It’s human to have feelings. God receives our feelings and God pierces into the deepest of our feelings and welcomes them too. A glorious mutuality of love and affection!
 
What roses do we bring to the Lord? What colorful petals do we offer God? Everything—our life, our sacrifices, our brokenness, our sins and our joys?
 
Let me also tell about one of the most wonderful roses offered back to God. That rose is the Virgin Mary—the woman in whom God is much delighted and who the Lord called “Most Blessed.” She was a spotless vase of roses offered to the Lord. The vase that bore in her womb the aesthetics of God’s revelation, the fullness of God’s Glory revealed—Christ the Lord. 
 
Mother Mary’s life was adorned with roses; capturing in the most beautiful way, all of the human praises and worries. Like the praises of the Book of Psalms, the story of our salvation is rendered in beads of her roses. The Holy Rosary—which literally means; holy garden of roses, bed of roses, garland of roses, garland beads (by extension); and tells that story which found fulfillment in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, you shall call him Jesus” (Is 7:14; Mt 1:23). 
 
The Blessed Virgin Mary is God’s Special Rose of Incarnation. The rosary tells the story of our salvation, on beads, rings of rosy beads, designed as images and metaphors, tangible things expressing the intangible. 
 
I love to offer God back those roses. First to offer God the merits of the special Rose of the Incarnation—the Blessed Virgin Mary. Offer back to God the roses of His goodness and love for us narrated throughout the beads of the rosary. Offer back to God the unique experience of my feelings and connections with the mysteries of our Christian faith as I tell that story, touching the beads. 
 
Ultimately, I pray God to feel me as I feel the beads; to touch me as I touch the beads of the rosary; to cuddle me as I wrap the beads of the rosary around my palms. I want God to see in me, one of the redeemed, God’s precious child, following the footsteps of the woman most blessed, Virgin Mary, who also followed the Son, Jesus Christ. 
 
May Our Lady of the Rosary pray for us. Amen. 
 
God love you. God bless you.
 
Fr. Maurice Emelu

 
Grace to you!
 
Recently, a onetime atheist shared with me a powerful testimony about how he received the gift of faith. He is a very brilliant fellow, whose knack for mathematical reasoning is exceptional. According to him, there were deep-seated questions within him concerning the meaning of life, which he couldn’t answer.
 
One day, he bumped into the spiritual writings of great Catholic mystics such as Saints John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Siena. He gulped their contents like a deer does fresh water. Though as someone without prior religious background (he simply wasn’t exposed to it), he didn’t know what they were saying, except that within him, he felt something positively different about what he was reading. God was nurturing his mind for a deeper encounter.
 
His faith-journey could be compared to that of Edith Stein (Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), the great German Jewish philosopher (student of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology), whose readings about Christian classics stirred her heart to faith. From reading about the life and faith-journey of the saints, this young man came to the inner joy he was looking for. This led him to search for a church, a long journey that eventually led him to the Catholic Church. 
 
The first time he participated at Mass, he said: “I felt, this is it.” He found what he was searching for. He discovered his heart’s desire. The gift of faith is wonderful, isn’t it? 
 
Nonetheless, every faith journey comes with a price. A growing faith has to be tested. His was. There came moments of trials and temptations. He also experienced moments of anguish too. Thank God he survived them all. He grew faithful in his commitment to the Lord. For as the St. Paul writes; “suffering produces perseverance, which produces character” (Rm 5:3-4).
 
When we receive the gift of faith, we pass through those initial experiences of joy. Then the journey and moments of deepening begin. It’s different for everyone, though certainly those moments of test will come. It is at those moments we realize how little or strong is our faith. 

Realizing how little their faith was, just like many of ours today, the apostles prayed the Lord to increase their faith (Lk 17:5). The Lord’s response is key here: “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” (Lk 17:6). Matthew’s Gospel gives us another variation of the encounter, reporting that the Lord said that with a faith the size of a mustard seed, one can move the mountain (Mt. 17:19). Moving the mountain or the sycamore (mulberry) tree—in either case, the message is the power of faith to do what is beyond our physical abilities. 

We often think of faith in terms of quantity, but the Lord teaches something different. It is not the quantity of our faith that matters, but its quality. My best description of the faith that moves mountains, the one about the size of a mustard seed, is genuine faith. It is the faith that is simple and complete in sincere trust and love. That is the faith that endures through trying moments.  

Some qualities of this faith are comparable to the kind of trust a baby has in her mother, always confident of mom’s affection, provision and love. It is the genuine faith that says, ‘good or bad, God is in charge.’ Call it blind faith, yet it sees; it holds on and it is trustingly confident in divine providence. 

It is the kind of faith of the three men in the heart of the fire (Ananias, Azarias and Mizael) that made them tell Nebuchadnezzar (symbol of anti-true God policy) at his face that if our God wants to save us, He will; but, if not, we are not going to serve you (Daniel 3: 17-18). It is the kind of faith that does not compromise good principles no matter the consequences. 

It is the kind of faith that made Abraham (Gen12:1ff) move, without questioning, to an unknown land just because God spoke to him. It is the kind of faith expressed by people in the person of Job, who passed through the most severe trials and yet declared: “I know my redeemer lives.” (Job 19:17). 

It is the kind of faith demonstrated by people like Saint Damien of Molokai, who despite the glaring dangers of leprosy, was not deterred to serve God in his fellow human beings. It is faith rooted in God, driven by hope and charity. 

Scripture announcing the blessing of this kind of faith says: “The just one, because of his faith, shall live” (Habakkuk 2:4). Some scholars suggest the text could also be read as the just man lives because of their faithfulness. This faith is faithful. It’s enduring. It lasts. 

Would you, therefore, pray with me for the increase of faith: “Lord, Increase our faith.” Amen. 
​
God love you. God bless you.

Fr. Maurice Emelu
 
[27thSunday C: Hab 1:2-3, 2:2-4; 2 Tim 1:6-8, 13-14; Lk 17:5-10]