Monday of the 12th Week in Ordinary Time

Abram’s story begins not with a triumph… but with a call—a simple command: “Go.” He is not yet Abraham, the father of nations. He is just a man living an ordinary life when the God of promise interrupts his routine and invites him into the unknown. No map. No guarantees. Just a promise: “I will bless you… and you will be a blessing.”

There is something unmistakably human in that moment. How often do we find ourselves standing at the edge of change—between what we know and what we cannot yet see? We cling to the familiar, even when it binds us. But Abram lets go. He leaves land, family, certainty—and walks into a future defined not by clarity, but by trust. He teaches us that faith is not certainty, but courage. It is not comfort, but surrender.

This call to trust, to move beyond our small stories into God’s larger promise, echoes through today’s Psalm: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” Not blessed because of strength or status, but because of its relationship with the God of justice and mercy. In a land like ours, marked by longing—for fairness, for truth, for peace—we understand this hope. The psalmist’s cry becomes ours. We long for leaders who serve, not exploit. For policies shaped by compassion, not power. And yet, the blessing remains—not for the mighty, but for those who, like Abram, entrust themselves to the God who sees, who hears, who delivers.

Then comes the Gospel. And it turns the spotlight from systems to souls. “Do not judge, lest you be judged.” Jesus cuts to the heart. How quick we are to label, to condemn, to draw lines. How easy it is to measure others by their failures - while excusing our own. But Jesus does not leave room for moral superiority. He calls us to mercy. To humility. To the painstaking work of removing the plank from our own eye before we reach for the speck in our neighbour’s.

These are not soft words. They are a scalpel. In a world fractured by suspicion and blame, where judgement masquerades as righteousness, Jesus asks us to see others as God sees us: beloved and broken. Created in His image, even when tarnished by sin. Especially then.

This, too, is a call. Just as Abram was called to leave behind his homeland, so we are called to leave behind the habit of judging. To trade fear for hospitality. To become a blessing in a land that desperately needs one. Here in Zimbabwe, where the poor remain on the periphery, where public discourse can so easily dehumanise, we are summoned by this Gospel to a radical mercy that reaches beyond tribalism, beyond class, beyond creed. To see not the label–but the life. Not the failure–but the face of Christ.

Perhaps the deepest question the readings ask us today is this: Are we willing to let go? To let go of the past that limits us, the fears that chain us, the judgments that blind us? Are we ready, like Abram, to trust a promise we cannot yet see—and to become part of God’s blessing for others?

The road of faith is not smooth. But it is sacred. And it begins with a single step.

So we pray, and we ask:

• Where in my life am I clinging to comfort instead of stepping forward in faith?
• Whom have I judged or dismissed, and how can I begin to see them through God’s eyes?
• How might I become a blessing this week—to someone who feels forgotten, overlooked, or unloved?

May the God who called Abram
also call us—
into deeper trusts,
wider compassion,
and braver love. And may we answer
with our lives.

Amen.

In preparing this homily, I consulted various resources to deepen my understanding of today’s readings, including using Magisterium AI for assistance. The final content remains the responsibility of the author.