YEAR C: HOMILY FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (9)

YEAR C: HOMILY FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

HOMILY THEME: THE GIFT OF LOVE – WHAT IS LOVE? WHAT LOVE IS NOT.

BY: Msgr N. I. Ndiokwere

HOMILY: (1) LOVE IS NUMBER ONE. LOVE DOES NOT LIE.
(2) LOVE COVERS ALL EVIL.
(3) LOVE IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF HATE.
(4) LOVE DOES NOT SHARE BOARDERS WITH GRUDGES, JEALOUSY & REVENGE.
(5) LOVE FORGETS OFFENSES EASILY.
(6) LOVE DOES NOT OPPRESS AND INTIMIDATE THOSE UNDER US.
(7) LOVE DOES NOT REMEMBER THE PAST UGLY ENCOUNTERS WITH ‘ENEMIES’.
(8) LOVE “EMBARRASSES” UNFRIENDLY COMRADES AND LEAVES UNDELETABLE FOOT PRINTS AS IT “FOOLISHLY” EMBRACES ‘ENEMIES’.
(9) LOVE GROWS BY GIVING.
(10) LOVE DIMINISHES, GROWS COLD WHEN “SELF” DOMINATES.

These are some of the activities of LOVE and makes this virtue “NUMBER ONE”. It is the most difficult ‘TOPIC” to handle. WE PREACHERS MOST OFTEN CONTRADICT OURSELVES WHEN WE MENTION THE WORD ‘LOVE” AND FOR MANY PREACHERS IT IS BEST TO IGNORE THE MESSAGE OF LOVE! BUT IS IT THE WAY OUT? NEVER! THE WORST IS TO ACCEPT DEFEAT!

READ I CORINTHIANS 13: 1ff CAREFULLY AND SEE WHY WE ARE GROSSLY CHALLENGED!! LIKE A POEM WE NEED TO MEMORIZE IT AND TEACH OTHERS, TOO!

“IF I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end………And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is LOVE”

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