Homily for Tuesday, Week 3 of Advent

Homily for Tuesday
Week 3 of Advent

Dec. 16, 2025
Zeph 3: 1-2, 9-13
Matt 21: 28-32
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

We don’t hear this parable of 2 sons as often as we hear that of the prodigal son.  This one makes a different point, viz., that God’s kingdom is open to anyone who wants to enter.  Anyone who turns from his own selfishness or confusion and desires, instead, to please God is welcome to come in.  For “the Lord hears the cry of the poor,” as our responsory acclaimed (Ps 34), and no one is poorer than a sinner.

“On that day, you need not be ashamed of all your deeds,” God says thru Zephaniah (3:11)—the day on which we hand over to God our sins.  God will receive us heartily, as Jesus did the tax collectors and all other sinners who looked to him for mercy.  “The handiwork of [his] mercy” becomes “a new creation,” the collect stated.  He shapes sinners into saints who “call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one accord” (Zeph 3:9).