💖 HOMILY - FEBRUARY 3 💖

First Reading - 1 Kings 3:4-13

Gospel - Mark 6:30-34

You must have heard this famous maxim - "Work is worship". This maxim cancels out our any need for prayers either personal or community, for those who believe in this maxim work suffices. However, work without prayer is like house without a foundation. The readings of today invite us to understand the importance of prayerful calmness with God in our lives.

In the first reading, we have a well known episode of the dream of Solomon. A dream, in the Biblical sense, is seen as a vehicle of God's communication which means God chooses dreams as means to communicate His will or message. The dream of Solomon fulfills this idea as God appears to him in a dream. The dream follows the holocaust offered by Solomon, implicitly means as a sign of acceptance of the offering of Solomon. God asks Solomon to request a favour and Solomon asks for discernment or wisdom to oversee the kingdom of His chosen people. This request for 'wisdom' is granted to Solomon. The whole scene revolves around prayer, calmness in dream and vision of God. This episode reflects that in calmness of mind, heart and soul, we can speak and listen to God and this calmness proceeds from prayer.

The gospel reading draws our attention to the need of our moments of calmness. The disciples of Jesus return after their mission and report to Jesus everything that they could do. Having heard their stories, Jesus tells them to come with him to a lonely place on the other side of the lake that they might have rest for a little while as they couldn't have time for rest because of the crowd that kept coming. Jesus teaches his disciples by this that they are to punctuate the work with the moments of calmness and quite moments.

Dear friends, we are engaged in various works all throughout our day; some with jobs, studies, ministries, activities etc. They are all good but not the whole thing of our lives. We need calmness, a moment of serenity to be alone with God in prayer; to speak to Him about our projects, our dreams and expectations and listen to Him for the inspirations and enlightenment. The moments of enlightenment and inspirations will flow from the wisdom of God for our every activity.

We do lots of works all throughout the day but never have a feeling of satisfaction or fulfillment at the end of the day, why? Somewhere, we have not spared enough time in quite moments with God. Our few minutes spent with God in calmness and tranquility can bring real satisfaction and fulfilment at the close of the day. And in addition to it, an encouragement to reinvigorate our gusto for any work that we will be undertaking on that day.

Let's make a point on this day that we will spare our few minutes in quite moments with God; to speak to Him and to listen to Him.