Sermon for 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B Homily

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
“Look, your God is coming”: The Messiah is here!
 “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity.”  May be you’ve heard this expression before.  It was written by one of the Church Fathers, Tertullian (197 AD).  This sentence does not sadistically justify the suffering of Christians.  In fact, Tertullian uses this expression in his Apology that he writes to the Roman Governor defending the Christians.  However, he says, “The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is the seed.”
I think, the high level of indifference to Christianity prevalent in some societies, particularly in the Western societies today, could be seen as a contemporary form of ‘persecution’.  In some societies today, it takes a lot of courage to exhibit in public any form of Christian […]

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