IT’S  ALL  GIFT!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 27 Monday in Ordinary Time is, “It’s All Gift!”

Want to know one of the great secrets of happiness?

There it is: 3 or 4 words, “It’s All Gift.” or “It Is All Gift.”

Get that and you got a chance to have a very happy daily attitude.

It’s all gift.

FOR STARTERS

For starters, pinch yourself.

If you feel the pinch you’re alive.

And we had nothing to do with it: this gift of being alive, being me.

It’s all gift.

The gift of our parents embrace – our parents meeting each other – and their parents meeting each other – and in every conception – 250 million sperm in each moon shot – amazing.

One egg, one sperm, unless we’re a twin – and it’s me – conceived with their DNA and I’m on my way – entering into the great experience of life.

It’s all gift!

Making it to birth – making it to the bench you’re sitting in today – pinch yourself. You’re here. You’ve come a long way baby.

PAUL’S LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

We open up the  Paul’s Letter to the Galatians today [1:6-12].

One key message we’ll hear from Paul as we listen to first readings from Galatians – is, “It’s all gift. It’s all grace.”

The Galatians had received the Gospel – the Good News about Jesus – but then they slipped back into B.C. – Before Christ.

All men who wanted to follow Christ had to be circumcised first.

All those who wanted to follow Christ had to keep the Law - the whole of the Law – to be saved.

The Law was like an accounting book.  If you do more good deeds in life than bad deeds – you are saved. Every time you kept the Law – you get a check mark for being good – sort of regardless of Christ..

The symbol of Christianity is not the scales – but the cross – the messy, messy, bloody cross – which tells us – we can be saved at the last minute – being a good thief and stealing the kingdom….. What a gift!

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel [Luke 10: 25-37] contains the great parable of the Good Samaritan.

It presents two men keeping the Law – a priest and a Levite. They were keeping the Law – rushing by a bleeding, hurting human being.  The foreigner, the Good Samaritan, not a person of the Law stops and saves the hurting human being.

That wounded person on the road was Paul.

Jesus stopped on the road to Damascus to heal Paul.

Paul got it – the gift of God’s life. He didn’t earn it. He just was gifted with it.

And he grabbed it – got up – and got moving.

The wounded person on the road is me – and Jesus stops to anoint and to heal me.

CONCLUSION

It’s all gift

-O-O-O-O-O-

Painting on Top: 

"The Good Samaritan"  

by Rembrandt (1630)