REVISED
Fr. Rick’s Two Minute Homily for Friday 19th Week in Ordinary Time 08-12-2022
Friday 19th Week in Ordinary Time 2022
Matthew 18:21:1 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081122.cfm
MAN’S INTENTIONS OR GOD’S INTENTIONS.
I met a couple recently whose 40-year-old son was utterly dependent upon them from birth. They do everything for him. Also, on the news, I heard of a mother or father running into a burning house to save their children. Acts of heroism are acts of love. However much we may lose, we put others before ourselves. Love is long-suffering and sometimes risky.
Jesus knew this throughout his ministry and on His Cross. Yet, he never backs down like the parents of the forty-year-old son and the mother and father running into the burning house. It’s the love that Jesus gives to man and wife in the Sacrament of Marriage. It is a risk and may involve tremendous sacrifice, but people are more important than stuff. Divorce in marriage and any relationship is possible when our stuff becomes more important than our commitments to people.
There is tremendous strength in the intentions we make to each other. Nevertheless, commitments for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, will all demand sacrifice at one point or another.
Jesus did not back down and accept divorce when challenged by his contemporaries, and he said humans have no authority to break the vow to love as He did on the cross. We get the strength to love our partners through difficulties because of our relationship with Jesus, and we love them with His divine strength in us.
You may have experienced the trauma of divorce. Go to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle of the Church and give Jesus your pain. Or you may be struggling now in a marriage relationship. Go to Jesus in the Sacraments of the Church. Rekindle your love for Him, making Him more important than anything in your life. Your partner will soon become more important to you than anything else. This is the love Jesus has for us and expects us to have in the vows we make to each other.
Make intentions that last and keep them with the Lord’s strength when you make them.
IGNITE THE FIRE!
Father Rick Pilger, I.C.
pastor
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