THE POSSIBILITY OF PEACE AND JUSTICE


OUR LADY, QUEEN AND PATRONESS OF NIGERIA

Isa 11:1-10; Ps 72:1-2,7-8,12-13,17; Eph 2:13-18, Mt 2:13-15,19-23

In His Day, Justice Shall Flourish

The Church in Nigeria celebrates Our Lady, Queen and Patroness of Nigeria, to mark our purported Independence from the colonial masters. In celebrating this solemnity today, the Church understands that human beings can be genuinely free only when we overcome the forces of sin, darkness, and evil within and around us. The Church wants us to understand that only God can truly set us free from oppressive forces that are within and about us. God is not tardy in sending his word for our liberation. What delays our freedom is our poor reception of his word; we must do so wholeheartedly and with faith. Historically, we got our independence from colonial forces on 1st of October, 1960. But time has shown it was a change from foreign exploitative forces to local exploitative forces. We have come to understand that our real enemies are within us, the attractions of sin and evil that each of us must combat daily. The selfish love of self, greed, and avarice have voided our hope for a truly free and independent Nigeria. Our hope for a better Nigeria, where everyone has equal opportunity to flourish, continues to elude us because of our individual and collective ignorance and blindness to what makes for human growth and development.

As Mother and Teacher of morality, the Church points out the lessons we must learn in the readings to change our direction for the better. The reading from Isaiah commends the shoot from the stock of Jesse for our embrace. Our different diversities as a nation can become an advantage for growth and development when we welcome the Son of Man as our king, to rule in our minds and hearts. These are the advantages we will gain for embracing Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. “The wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies down with the kid, calf and lion feed together, with a little boy to lead them. The cow and the bear make friends, their young lie down together. The lion eats straw like the ox. The infant plays over the cobra’s hole; into the viper’s lair the young child puts his hand.” This passage speaks to us, for there are really wolves, panthers, lions, bears, vipers, as well as lambs, kids, calves, cows, infants among us in Nigeria. Peace and development are possible only when the Gospel of our Lord Jesus is preached and lived sincerely.

The prodigy of nature and grace described above is possible only when each of us seeks knowledge of God. “They do not hurt, no harm, on all my mountain, for the country is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters swell the sea.” Saint Paul says the same thing in simple terms. “In Christ Jesus, you that used to be so far apart from us have been brought very close, by the blood of Christ. For he is the peace between us, and has made the two into one and broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, actually destroying in his own person the hostility caused by the rules and decrees of the Law.” The reconciliation starts within each of us; we must be reconciled to God and to our true self in Christ. The Gospel helps us understand the formidable forces of evil we must overcome individually and collectively for Jesus Christ to rule over us and bring about a better Nigeria. “Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him.” We must, therefore, keep awake and pray with the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Queen and Patroness, for the safety and growth of the will of God the Father within us and in our country, Nigeria. Let us petition God to bring the reign of Jesus to our minds and hearts, our families, to Nigeria, Africa, and the whole world. “In his days justice shall flourish and peace till the moon fails.”

Let us pray: Grant, Lord God, that we, your servants, may rejoice in unfailing health of mind and body, and, through the glorious intercession of Blessed Mary ever-Virgin, may we be set free from present sorrow and come to enjoy eternal happiness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GOD IS LOVE

Image
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS   Deut 7:6-11; Ps 103:1-4,6-8,10; 1 Jn 4:7-16; Mt 11:25-30 Great Things hidden from the Wise We celebrate the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ is a mystery, as coming from the mystery of the Son of Man. The human heart of Jesus Christ is a symbol and reality of the love of the Son of Man for his brothers and sisters. It is a human representation of the heart or love of the Son of God for us, his own people and creatures. As he revealed in Heb 2:14, that he took on our nature, that he may share everything in common with us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death.” The Father brought us into existence to be the inheritance and the companions of His Beloved Son. The love of the Son for his own could not let him be, but made him take on our nature and appear among ...
Read more

CALLED TO KNOW AND PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL

Image
THE CONVERSION SAINT PAUL, APOSTLE Acts 22:3-16; Ps 117; Mk 16:15-18 Proclamation of the Gospel of the New Covenant Celebrating the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul brings us to a deeper reflection on the meaning and implication of the new covenant in Jesus Christ. As Paul himself narrated in the first reading to his people in Jerusalem, he was so zealous in the practice of Judaism, the religion of his fathers, that his eyes were closed to the new realities and relations God had brought into existence. Though these new realities and relations were prophesied by the prophets and the Law pointed to them, Paul and many of his contemporaries were blind to them. His words are: “I am a Jew and was born at Tarsus in Cilicia. I was brought up here in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was taught the exact observance of the Law of our ancestors. In fact, I was as full of duty towards God as you are today.” These words of Paul testify that zeal without the knowledge of the will o...
Read more

ESTABLISHING OURSELVES IN HIS PRESENCE

Image
THE 6TH DAY OF OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS     1 Jn 2:12-17; Ps 96:7-10; Lk 2:36-40 Recognising the Incarnate Word for Self The Church, in the opening prayer, prays for the new revelation of God in the flesh to commence its purpose of setting us free from the bondage of sin and servitude to evil. The fact of the Incarnation means that human nature is redeemed in principle, by God joining it to the Eternal Word in a hypostatic union. The Lamb, the Word in human flesh, is already sacrificed to God, waiting for the consummation of the sacrifice on Calvary. Thus, He already started the work of redemption in principle, each of us must now appropriate the result of the redemption. The purpose of his appearance in human flesh is that he may enter our minds as God, who created us in love. He comes to receive us back into his company; this requires he enters the temple within each of us. We must recognise what he has already done for the love of us and respond in a similar gesture b...
Read more