Friday, June 25, 2021

 Dear Reader, if you receive these homilettes by email, you may find the service stopped in July.  As I understand an instruction from Google, its Burnfeeder program will no longer support the service.  You can always find the homilettes on the blog site: https://cbmdominicanpreacher.blogspot.com/ . Perhaps if you send me your email address, I could send the homilettes in a mass email.  You may send your email address to cmeleop@yahoo.com. When I ascertain that the service is no longer functioning, I will start sending them to you personally.

Friday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 17:1-9-10.15-22; Matthew 8:1-4)

Laughter signifies joy.  Among a group of friends over food and drink people are likely to laugh.  They share odd stories and even make fun of themselves and one another.  Rather than creating embarrassment or anger, they increase the bonds of their affection.  In today’s first reading, someone is laughing.

One may wonder about Abraham falling to the ground and laughing when God assures him that he and Sarah will have a child.  It is fair to ask, is he ridiculing God for suggesting that old people can have a baby.  Perhaps, but evidently God does not take offense. God tells Abraham that his son is to be named “Isaac,” which literally means “man laughs.”  Which man laughs? Abraham who is already on the ground bursting at the seams.  Perhaps Isaac himself for all the joy he will bring his parents.  But maybe it is God who laughs thinking how limited human imagination is.  Abraham would be happy if Ismael fulfills God’s promise of making him the father of a great nation.  God, however, will make a great nation of the progeny of Abraham and his beloved wife Sarah.

Like everything else, laughter runs both ways.  It can signify genuine joy but also sinful mischievousness.  We may laugh at immodest jokes even more than guileless humor.  It is not always good to laugh, but we should laugh sometimes. We should laugh with joy to have God as our Father and Jesus, our brother.

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