Be Content

HOMILY FOR YOUTH MASS. 14-08-2016 TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR C
 

SCRIPTURAL READING:

Jer. 38:4-6.8-10
Ps 40:2.3.4.18 (R. 14b)
2 Heb. 12:1-4; Accl. Jn 10:27
Gospel Lk 12:49-53.

Preamble:

Dear friends please repeat these words after me;
Stay with me Lord Jesus as I give you my mind; help me understand your word.
Stay with me Lord Jesus as I give you my ears; help me hear your voice.
Stay with me Lord Jesus as I give you my heart; help me welcome you.
Holy Spirit, rekindle in me the fire of your love. Amen.

THEME: BE CONTENT.

Contentment is key to a fulfilled life. Beloved in Christ I want you all to know a simple truth and that is we are not simply the random addition of body, mind and spirit. Our journey to maturity brings those parts together into a working whole; each fits into the overall pattern of our personality.

What we often we see today is too much earthiness in human beings, and not enough of the heavenly quality. The story is told of two old painters whom out of their own personal experience expressed this same idea. They are August Renoir and Henry Matisse both where close friends.

When Renoir was homebound in the last years of his life, the younger man visited him daily. Matisse was amazed that Renoir, nearly paralyzed by arthritis, continued to paint each day. Finally he blurted out, “August, why do you continue to paint when you are in such agony?” Renoir’s reply was simple and direct, “The beauty remains, the pain passes.”

The journey to wholeness calls for a decision to commit yourself totally to integration, that is to the healing as well as to the fullness of life that springs from this healing. Integration is a process of interior synthesis that unifies the discordant attitudes. It is a fact that we often have to pick up from negative attitudes, we have to rebuild ourselves. We have to discover the real self.

Philippe Vernier writes, “when you take the first step, accomplish that tiny act, the necessity of which may be apparent only to you. You will be astonished to feel that the effort, rather than exhausting your strength, has doubled it-and that you already see more clearly what you have to do next.”

The integration reaches the innermost recesses of your personality as the inner energy that leads you to question, to choose and to decide and to act. God is the author of all reality and the originator of human personality. Co-operation with God yields much because you are his child and so with everyone created.

Keep alive the gifts of God. How this works, we do not know. Jesus Christ gives this explanation. “It is like this. A man scatters seeds in his field. He sleeps at night, is up and about during the day, and all the while the seeds are sprouting and growing. Yet he does not know how it happens.” “the soil itself makes the plants grow and bear fruit; first the tender stalk appears, then the ear, and finally the ear full of corn.” (Mark 4).

Personality unification is imperceptible but constant. Do not frustrate or hinder it. Preserve your freedom. Conflicts may arise within you, but the spiritual values battle with the negative emotions and urges. Resist your negative passions, never stick around with bad friends or hang around people that don’t share the same value with you, they will make you feel that where you are is actually wrong. And the right decisions you have taken cannot be far-fetched or realizable.

Such persons are demons in human skin-stay away from them. Don’t stick around people with no dreams for themselves or the future, they definitely will drain you of your life’s dream and worth and essence. They have nothing to offer you rather they will lead you to destruction of self, of your value, of your dreams and goal in life. Stay away from them. For they will weaken you, poison your mind, shrivel your soul. Block your spirit input.

Do not become or spend your time in been jealous, angry, ambitious, but revive in you the spirit who does not make you timid but produces in you love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, self-control. That only way you can actually overcome and practice the value of the spirit is by sticking around people that have got something to offer you. This begins with you been content with yourself and happy with yourself and whom God has made you to be. Don’t try to imitate for it will most definitely destroy you, don’t be a fake or a copy-cat be yourself. Be yourself and it begin with been content.

Being content means to bloom where you are planted. That is what David did. He spent years in the lonely shepherd’s fields taking care of his father’s sheep. He had been anointed king of Israel by the prophet Samuel but the time hadn’t come for him to take over kingship of Israel because Saul was still alive. He understood the principle of blooming where you are planted. He knew that God was in control, so he just kept being his best, going to work with a good attitude, grateful for where he was. Because he was content in the shepherd’s fields, he made it to the throne, to the palace he passed that test.

Beloved if you are not content in the season you are in, while you are waiting for things to change, then even if you do somehow make it to the throne, so to Speak, and your dreams do come to pass, you are still not going to be satisfied. You may be happy for a little while, but discontentment will follow you everywhere you go.

IF God blesses you with a promotion, we are happy for a little while, but then the discontentment comes. We don’t want to work so hard or we don’t want the responsibility. But it’s not our circumstances. It’s the spirit of discontentment, seeing the wrong, complaining about what we don’t like, never having enough.

St. Paul said-I have learnt to be content. You have to train your mind to see the good, to be grateful or what you have. Life will go so much better if you will be content in each season. Content when you have a lot, and content when you don’t have a lot. Content wherever you are is key to a fulfilled life.

God has given you grace to enjoy every season. If your dreams are not coming to pass, that’s a test. Your situation will change when you change your attitude. You have to be satisfied with where God has you right now. Again, it doesn’t mean you settle there and never expect anything better. It means you don’t lie frustrated, always wanting something more.

I need more money-then I will be happy, I need a better job, I need a bigger wrist watch, I need a smarter phone-what’s wrong with the one you already have???
You need to have this set of mantras-when you feel discontented-everything may not be perfect in my life. All my dreams may not have come to pass yet, but I am not living frustrated and stressed out. I am going to bloom right where I am planted.

Contentment is not based on what you have or don’t have, on who likes you or who doesn’t like you. Learn to be content in every season. Content when God blesses you with a lot, and content when you have a little. Content when the dreams are coming to pass, and content while you are waiting for it to materialize.

Scripture says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” Life is very freeing when you can say, “I am content with who God made me to be. I am content with my personality, content with my looks, and content with my gifts. I am content with where I am in life-my position, my career, my relationships, and my vocation.”

So many are today are unhappy because they are always wishing for something different. The lack of contentment is hydra headed. There are some single people who are not going to be contented until they get married. But you need to enjoy being single because when you get married, you will enjoy it more. There are married people today who wish they weren’t married, or who wish they were married to somebody else. White people sit in tanning booths trying to get darker.

Dark people put cream on their skin trying to get lighter. Ladies with curly hair go to the salon to get it straightened. People with straight hair go to the salon to get it permed or get it scrapped off because they want no hair on their skin. Some scrap off their eye lashes and eye brows, some others fix eye lashes to look like dollies and mark their already scrapped off eyes lash area with eye pencil.

Some are not even proud of themselves or who God made them to be. They get their self-esteem from what others tell them about themselves, they go around carrying along their mistakes, shortcomings, weaknesses, things that they wish were different without realizing that God made them to be simply the best, valuable, a masterpiece, strong, bold and beautiful and confident. Some also get into the habit of ascribing unto others so much and leave themselves behind.

They will so complement and celebrate their friends and brag about them and leave themselves behind. The truth is that just as you appreciate others, you must learn to appreciate yourself, believe you are special, strong, confident be happy with yourself. The enemy knows that if he succeeds in getting you to be unhappy with yourself then he has succeeded in ruining your life and destiny. Get out of that mentality and believe that there is something special about you and with God you will be that. But then you must begin to be content with whom God has made you to be. A lack of contentment is the beginning of unhappiness.

Contentment means believe in yourself: we are not static. Our inner man, revived by the spirit, is always dynamic. The spirit permeates the whole being. We work with our capacities. We battle against the environment in which we work. We associate with people. The acceptance and the appreciation of these factors determine to what extent we will be mature individuals. We modify attitudes on different levels.

On the psychological level, it consists mainly in training ourselves in responsiveness, reflection and assertiveness.
On the sociological level, our work consists in our endeavour to modify the social environment in order to make the world a better place to live in.
On the spiritual level, we deal with our relations to God, our trust in his goodness and mercy.

Wholeness begins with religion. Wholeness is the harmony of the whole man such that we are able to be in touch with ourselves then we can be content. We can live with the grace of the Lord to live for each season. Learning not to complain but to live and cooperate with the grace of God. Learning to go through every moment with God.