• Home
• >
• News & Events
• >
• News Articles
• >
• 2025
• >
• February
• >
• 2/16 Homily for 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time
• >

News Articles

Bishop's Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

February 16, 2025

Homily of the Most Reverend Larry Silva, Bishop of Honolulu
[Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa, Honolulu]

Harsh words, unkind thoughts, in-your-face challenging – these are all things we normally would think are contrary to love.  As we recently celebrated Valentine’s Day, we think of love as romantic, sentimental, and always heart-warming.  But Jesus challenges us today to look at things differently, to see them not as human beings normally see them, but as God sees them.

In this “Sermon on the Plain” in the Gospel of St. Luke, Jesus starts off pronouncing blessings on the poor, the hungry, the sorrowing and the mistreated.  We like that!  Jesus is advocating for the “underdog,” something we admire and even try to imitate.  How wonderful to have these blessings, when other people and the circumstances of life are otherwise difficult.  Then Jesus turns the tables, pronouncing “woes” on those who are rich, who laugh, who are spoken of well.  Did Jesus suddenly become unloving because he was upset with some people?

The point, of course, is that God’s ways are not our ways, and that the more we can turn to God’s ways, the happier we will be.  God is love – always – though his expressions of love may not always be so romantic.

I have known parents, for example, who seldom correct their children in a way that really makes them change their bad behavior.  Perhaps they think they are being loving, or perhaps they just want their children to be their friends, thinking well of them all the time.  Inevitably, this turns out badly for the child, who does not learn in the context of a loving relationship that he or she is not the center of the universe and who then learn that hard lesson in an unloving environment.  The same, of course, is true for the overly controlling parent.  There must be a balance, as Jesus is teaching us today.

I have known couples who were experiencing difficulties in their marriages.  Rather than sitting down to talk out their problems, they pretend they don’t exist.  They drift farther and farther apart until they decide they really do not want to be with each other any more.  Sometimes the healthiest thing a couple can do is to have a good argument – being careful to respect the spouse at all times – but sharing feelings honestly.  Then they can begin to work together on solutions, even though they may be difficult.

God is love, pure love!  There is never a time when God is unloving.  But sometimes his love is affirming and sometimes he shows us “tough love,” because he knows what it takes to make us pay attention.  We can see this not only in today’s Gospel but in the Scriptures in general.  Many times God showed his unwavering love for the people of Israel in ways that astounded them.  But he also punished them when they were simply too proud to listen to his voice and receive his love.  He never abandoned them, but he did give them a rude awakening from time to time so that they could think as God thinks and act as God acts, and not deify their own wayward ways.

This is why it is so important for us to come here every Sunday and to be strengthened by the Word of God and our encounter with the risen Jesus in the Eucharist.  Sometimes he comforts us in our troubles and anxieties; but if we are really attentive, we know that sometimes he disturbs us.  St. Theresa of Avila, for example, experienced many spiritual sufferings such that she told the Lord, “Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, it is no wonder that you have so few!”  We may be scandalized by such honesty, but St. Theresa knew that honesty is a godly virtue, and so she strove to think like God rather than like an ordinary human being.

As we travel through life’s journey, we also have many dilemmas.  But the Holy Spirit guides us, so that we may always think and act as God does and not as mere human beings.