23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 6 Homily
September 6, 2026
Did you ever hear the voice of God? Or, did you ever hear someone say: “The Lord told me such and such”? If you’ve heard His voice – you know that you know that you know it’s true. But still, we might wonder – “Have I heard God’s voice, or was that just me?”
Now, when I say I’ve heard God’s voice, I mean, as I was sitting silently in prayer, I felt a thought deep in my heart. That’s right, it wasn’t just a thought that popped into my head. But it was a word, actually a phrase, that touched my heart. And what the Father revealed to me in the silence of my heart was that being a follower of His Son is about living a whole new life. This means, not just living in such a way where we try to live a regular life, but just “gooder”… doing more good things. But rather a whole new life, where we are centered completely on loving God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and by extension, loving others.
St. Paul makes that reality clear in our second reading today. There, he tells the Romans that to love is to fulfill God’s Law. By love, he doesn’t just mean being “gooder” to people. God’s Commandments indeed teach us how to not sin against another. But that is just the beginning or the start. The fulfillment of that Law, then, is to seek their true and eternal good, even above ourselves. Love causes us to go out of ourselves to seek God’s good will for someone’s life. But, I have to say, living in such a way really requires a reordering of things on the inside first.
And Jesus shows us by His own life what He means. Jesus didn’t come just to teach people how to live a better kind of life. Like, if I’m just a kinder, gentler, nicer, more forgiving person – then I’m living as God wants. Even non-Christians can live in this kind of way – nicer, and all the rest. Rather, Jesus came to give us a whole new life – His life. The Son of God gave His very life in its totality on the cross. He gave everything for us. And so therefore, He doesn’t just want us to give some of ourselves to Him. He wants us to belong totally, entirely, and completely to Him. He wants to have the first place in our lives as our Savior who saved us from eternal death to give us eternal life.
The truth of the matter is that Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father. And through our journey of faith, which begins in baptism, we are adopted into God’s family as sons and daughters of the Father. The Holy Spirit literally comes to dwell within us, enabling us to cry out, “Abba, Father.” We become children of God – we receive this new identity – because of what Jesus did for us as Lord. Then, because of His Spirit living and dwelling in us, we can then do things like keeping God’s commandments, being more merciful and forgiving, acting more kindly and compassionately. And this is the big paradigm shift to make. Do I live out of my identity as a child of God, which comes first – making God my first priority in my life – so that I can then live as Jesus commands. Or, do I try to do the best I can with my own efforts, so that I can hopefully somehow be good enough to earn God’s favor as a good person.
Do you see the difference? First, we are children of God because of what Jesus did and our faith in Him, and then we live from that identity – And not the other way around. It’s like children growing up in a house where they know they are loved by their parents. That love gives them the safety and security to confidently grow into who they were created to be – reaching their full human potential. Whereas, a child who is belittled and demeaned by his or her parents lives by either trying unsuccessfully to please them all the time or radically rebelling against them or by trying to prove themselves to others as worthy.
I’d like to propose a question that each one of us must settle. “Do I really want Jesus to be the Lord of my life?” Do I really want to put God first? If you’ve never asked yourself that question so bluntly or seriously before, I invite you to do so. And if your answer is “No”, or “I’m not sure”, then get curious about that. “Why is it I don’t want to put God first?” Many times, we may say we want to put God first. But there’s still parts of us that want to live life on our own terms. We still want to try to be just good enough, but also still be in charge of our lives too. The truth of the matter though is quite different. We can’t just partially be the Father’s children. We in fact are children of God. But we often don’t live that fact out, at least fully, because we don’t always live from our truest identity, which no one or nothing can ever take away. If you want to take a journey from “doing” to “being”, join us for Discovering Christ. Over 150 people have already signed up. I can’t wait for us to encounter God together and hear His voice deep in our hearts. God bless you.