Homily for Wednesday, Week 28 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Wednesday
28th Week of Ordinary Time

Gal 5: 18-25
Collect
Year II
Oct. 12, 2018
Salesian HS & Provincial House Community, New Rochelle

This homily was drafted before we were informed that there wouldn’t be a school Mass this day because of standardized testing.

“Brothers, if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Gal 5: 18).

St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians contrasts the Law of Moses with its hundreds of rules and the law of the Spirit, meaning the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit.  This ties in with the prayer of this morning’s Mass, in which we asked for God’s grace to guide us at all times.  Grace is the working of the Spirit in our lives.

When our lives are filled with Christ’s Spirit, the result—or the fruit, as St. Paul calls it (5:22)—“is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, self-control” (5:22-23).  Paul adds that there’s no law against these virtues; the Law of Moses has no control over them.  The only thing that might block those works of the Spirit is sin; and Paul lists 15 different sins like hatred, selfishness, drunkenness, and impure behavior (5:19-21).

To combat our sinful inclinations, and to have our actual sins forgiven, we need grace.  We need the Spirit.  So we pray for that.

All of us have experienced when people have been patient with us, kind to us, generous.  We appreciate that.  We appreciate people who radiate joy—like Mr. J. did—may he rest in peace!  Don’t we really want to be like that, to be Holy Spirit-filled?

We do.  Let’s not just say, “I’d like to be loving, joyful, kind, patient, faithful, self-controlled.”  We pray for those gifts of the Holy Spirit.  We pray that God’s grace “go before us and follow after” us so that we may “carry out good works” (Collect).  Every day, we have opportunities to put those virtues into practice, to “carry out good works.”