Homily for Wednesday 23 November 2022 - the Last Week in Ordinary Time.
First Reading: Apocalypse 15:1-4, Psalm 97:1-3,79, Gospel: Luke 21:12-19
Men will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to the synagogues and to imprisonment, and bring you before kings and governors because of my name. This will be your opportunity to bear witness.
In May this year, a Catholic Bishop was arrested in Hong Kong. Retired Cardinal Joseph Zen, ninety years old, was taken from his home by the ominously named National Security Police and charged for colluding with a foreign power. His crime, if it can be called that, was helping to pay the legal fees of arrested protesters. Cardinal Zen joins the ranks of countless other Christians throughout the world today and throughout the centuries who did not shy away from Our Lord’s warning in today’s Gospel; Men will persecute you, he says, and so they have.
And throughout the centuries we have examples of men and women who witnessed to the truth with their lives, dying and suffering for the truth. We are hated and persecuted because wherever there are powerful people doing evil, there is a Christian voice, which dares to speak out and say, I disagree! In the whole of human history, there has never been a powerful person set on doing some wicked thing who responded well to those two little words. I disagree!
We are called to witness to Jesus’ name, to have courage, to be prophets in a world turned away from God, and we are promised in return, that we will be given the words to speak in our defence, and that not a single hair on our heads will be lost. If we hold firm, with faith and conviction, to the truth, we will join the ranks of those blessed that Saint John saw on the lake shore singing out the praises of the Lord for ever!
Today then, we ask for courage, that when we are called on to witness to the truth we will be ready. And we pray especially for those who already experience persecution and hatred on account of their faith, we pray especially for Cardinal Zen, ninety years old, on trial in Hong Kong, those who are on trial with him, those Christians who suffer in Hong Kong and China, and all those persecuted Christians throughout the world. We pray that they will have the courage to persevere. We pray that they will be given the words to witness to the truth.
And We trust the Lord’s promise, not a hair on your head will be lost.
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