HOMILY: FRIDAY AFTER EPIPHANY SOD: ST. SEVERINUS OF NORICUM (APOSTLE TO NORICUM)

 

 

8 JANUARY 2021

 

FRIDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

SOD: ST. SEVERINUS OF NORICUM (APOSTLE TO NORICUM)

 

INTRODUCTION:

 

Today the mother Church remembers St. Severinus of Noricum (Apostles to Noricum). He was born in 410 in Southern Italy. He gave away his wealth to live as a hermit in the Egyptian desert. Though he loved the quiet and contemplative life, he felt a call to spread the faith, and he followed it. He was noted as a travelling preacher and healer throughout Austria and Bavaria. He established funds to ransom and rescue captives. He ate once a day less in Lent, went barefoot, ignored the weather and slept on sackcloth that he spread on the ground where ever he stopped. Severinus foretold the date of his own death and died singing Psalm 150

 

SCRIPTURE LESSONS SUMMARIZED

 

THE FIRST READING 1 John 5:5-13

In today’s first reading St. John is telling us that only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, overcomes the world.

 

St. John tells that the Spirit testifies that Jesus came by water and blood and not only by water and that Spirit is the truth.

 

There are three things that testify Jesus:

-Sprit

-Water

-blood

And all these three agree

 

St. John says that the testimony of God concerning the Son is greater than man’s testimony.

 

Whoever does not believe in the testimony of God is a liar.

 

The testimony of God is this: God gave us eternal life and this eternal life is in his Son Jesus Christ.

 

Whoever has the son has life in him or her.

 

St. John is telling to his listeners to believe in the Son of God so that they may have eternal life.

 

THE GOSPEL READING: Lk 5:12-16

 

In the Gospel reading of today St. Luke narrates an incident where a man full of leprosy comes to Jesus and falls on his face and begs him to make him clean with these words: “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” Jesus stretches out his hand, touches him and says: “I will, be clean.”  Immediately the leprosy leaves him. The man was told three things:

 

-To tell no one

-To go and show himself to the priest

-To make an offering for a proof to them

 

But he told everyone. Great crowd gathered to

 

-Hear him

-To be healed by him from their infirmities.

 

But Jesus would withdraw to lonely places to pray.

 

MESSAGES FOR OUR DAILY LIVING FROM THE FIRST READING:

- To overcome the world and its temptation, we need to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Many a times we fall into temptation and commit sin because we do not have complete faith in the Son of God and we do not ask his help with childlike faith every day to help us in our struggle to remain holy.

 

- Whoever does not believe in the testimony of God, is a liar. We believe in the testimonies of human beings very easily but very often we do not believe in the testimonies of God.

 

- It is God who gave us eternal life. And this eternal life is in his Son Jesus Christ. We need to make effort every day to conduct our life in such a way that our life is worthy of eternal life.

 

MESSAGES FOR OUR DAILY LIVING FROM THE GOSPEL READING:

- We need to be like the man of today’s gospel reading, humble and surrender ourselves in the hands of Jesus to be healed by him and become whole. We continue to suffer from many problems, diseases because we do not have the humility and patience to rely on God and his healing power.

 

- Jesus is always willing to heal us. He takes extra miles to cure us as he did for the man with leprosy. He stretched out his hand, touched him and said: “I will, be clean.” He healed him involving many gestures as well as words.

-  Jesus did not want any publicity for his good works. Unlike Jesus today people do just little work and want a big name for themselves. Some go to the extent of spoiling other’s name so that they have good name for themselves.

 

- Jesus asked the man to go and show himself to the priest. For a total wellbeing, social and religious acceptance is very much needed in our life. When we are socially and religiously accepted in our society, our many wounds are cured.

 

- Jesus asked the man to make an offering. When God is so generous with us, we too need to be generous with others beginning with God. We lose lot of grace by being selfish and by our unwillingness to share our things with others.

 

- We too must be like the man of today’s gospel reading ready to spread the good news of Jesus to others so that as many people as possible come to know about Jesus especially through our life and good example.

 

-  Like the people of today’s gospel reading, we too should be eager to and long to hear Jesus’ words and be guided and healed by his words.

 

- Like Jesus we too should withdraw to lonely places to pray no matter how busy we are, no matter how famous we are, what position we occupy in the society.