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MARY, MOTHER OF THE CHURCH: MONDAY AFTER PENTECOST, 21ST MAY, 2018.

On Saturday 3rd March 2018, the Vatican announced Pope Francis’ decision that the Church celebrates the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role as “Mother of the Church” every year on the Monday after Pentecost, as a way to foster Marian piety and the maternal sense of the Church.

This celebration is just very logical and appropriate because it furthers our reflection on the power of the Holy Spirit using Mary as a case study.

In the life of Mary, we see what the Holy Spirit can do in a soul. The Holy Spirit preserved her from sin from the very instance of her conception, by the power of the Holy Spirit she conceived without a carnal relation, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, she glorified God and prophesied that all generations shall call her blessed, moved by the Holy Spirit she was able to endure all the agonies she went through in her vocation as the mother of the redeemer.

Interestingly too, even after her greatest agony, she remained with the Church despite how all the Apostles but one deserted her son. She was always with them in their meetings as testified to by the first reading.

Yesterday, being the birthday of the Church, today it is just appropriate that we celebrate the Mother of the Church.

This celebration will therefore also help us to meditate on her role as the Mother of the Church and of course our Mother. With this in mind, we may learn to remain very close to her so that through her patronage, we may continue to grow in grace, in divine gifts and in holiness.

As we celebrate this memorial today, let us have recourse to our Mother for two things:

A. To help us discover, preserve and utilize with humility, the gifts of the Holy Spirit we have received this period.

B. We want to also beg her to help us obtain some fruits of the Holy Spirit- especially these two;

I. The fruit of gentleness to help us dissolve our temper. Everybody seems to be too impatient an

A REFLECTION ON QUALITY OF WORDS: 8TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR C. 3RD MARCH, 2019.

ECCLESIASTICUS 27:5-8; PSALM 92; 1 CORINTHIANS 15:54-58; LUKE 6:39-45.

The first reading of today draws our attention to the importance of the words we speak.

It says "the defects of a man appears in his talk...the test of a man is his conversation... a man's words betray what he feels...

The Gospel also ended its admonitions by telling us that "...a man's words flow out of what fills his heart."

In other words, the quality of our words reveals the following about us

I. Our true character and the measure of our integrity.

II. The depth of our wisdom

III. The level of our spiritual maturity

IV. Our degree of modesty

V. The quality of the contents of our heart.

As children of God, our words should be;

A. Words that edify/encourage and inspire those who listen to us.

B. Words of blessing, charity and peace and not curse, abuse, insults or condemnation.

C. Words that are modest and pass the purity test.

D. Words of grace and wisdom.

E. Words that are entirely true and purged of any deceit.

Three bible passages for us to ponder on today;

James 1:26

If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.

Ephesians 4:29

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

James 3:2

Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.

Today, the Lord is inviting us, to focus on ourselves, not on our neighbour, not our friends or our colleagues at work, leave your spouse or your children, let us not think about the malicious words of our enemies right now, let us deal with the plank in our eyes today or put directly, the cancer of our tongues.

If this is our project for this new month, this lent and this year and we are able to achieve this, then we are making significant progress in our journey of faith.

Fr Emmanuel Okami