Fr. Emmanuel Megwara, MSP - Homily for Tuesday Week 28 Ordinary time - October 13, 2020

DATE : 13/10/2020, Tuesday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time (A) EVENT :Mass of the Weekday COLOUR : GREEN READINGS : Gal. 5:1-6; Resp. Psalm 118:41.43.45.47-48; Luke 11:37-41. THEME: TRUE WORSHIP IS NOT DETERMINED BY EXTERNAL ACTS Greetings beloved people of God. I welcome you to "My Catholic Homily Digest". Today, I want to reflect with us on the theme, " True Worship is not determined by external acts". Beloved, Scriptures was right when it said that God judges the secret intentions of man's heart, and not their external acts. Most often, we fall in the error of concluding that a person is a sinner and unacceptable to God or a saint and pleasing to God, based on what he or she allows us to see or know about them externally. Thus, there is a distinction between true worship and display of worship. Most Christians display worship in Church and religious gatherings, pretending to be moved by the spirit in the worship, whereby in reality they are far from experiencing God in a deeper way. They have perfected the act of pretension in worship such that we assume them to be holy and dining with God in the Spirit. In the Gospel of today, Jesus challenged the Pharisees for laying too much emphasis on external acts of worship and religion than on internal transformation and conversion. This is same for most Christians today. We are like white washed tombs, clean and sparkling on the outside, we can sing externally with fine voice, can dance well to the melodious instrument, can scream the loudest Alleluia, can preach so powerfully well, can advice and counsel so well, can emphasis the rubrics and liturgical exactitude even more than Rome, can religiously follow the rites of worship impeccably, but yet, our hearts are far from God, our ways far from Conversion and our actions far from Christian. Therefore, let us not act like fools, who focus only on the externals while the internal rots away. Let us make sincere efforts to clean and purify our internal organs, hearts and intentions for it is these that matters the most. God bless you Oh that today you would listen to his voice harden not your hearts (Ps.95:7-8) LET US PRAY : Lord Jesus, help me to pay attention to the things that really matter in my faith's journey...Amen @ Fada Emmanuel Nnamdi Megwara, MSP. ⛪