Many Christians are still denying Christ like Peter did – Fr. Henry Oduro Asante

by Catholic Trends

April 14, 2025

in Ghana

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Rev. Fr. Capt. Henry Oduro Asante

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Outgoing Parish Priest of St. Michael Catholic Church, Michel Camp in Accra, Rev. Fr. Capt. Henry Oduro Asante, has called on Christians to reflect deeply on their commitment to Christ, warning that many today still deny Him, just as Peter did.

Preaching on the themes from the Palm Sunday liturgy, Fr. Asante drew a parallel between the biblical account of Peter’s denial of Christ and the modern-day Christian experience.

“Even Peter, he said, if everyone will betray you, not me, but it took a little girl for Peter to deny Jesus,” he said, emphasizing how quickly some believers fall away when faced with adversity.

“We are like the crowd in the gospel. When it was good, they were following Jesus, but when it became tough, they started to withdraw.”

The priest lamented the tendency of some Christians to practice their faith only in comfort and convenience. “In our Christianity, in our lives and at our workplaces, we must not behave like the crowd,” he said. “The people followed Jesus when times were good. When it became tougher and tougher, they started withdrawing,” he noted.

Fr. Asante’s homily marked not only Palm Sunday 2025 but also his final address as parish priest of the Michel Camp community. His message touched on humility, holiness, and spiritual readiness — using vivid metaphors from the gospel to drive home his points.

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“Ask yourself if you are a donkey or a horse,” he challenged. “Donkeys are animals with the thinking that they are strong, but the donkey is an animal that is humble. So if the Lord is in need of you today, you must be a humble Christian.”

He continued, “Your heart is the donkey the Lord wants to use this morning. The Lord is in need of your heart.”

Highlighting the theme of sanctity, he reminded the congregation of the purity symbolized by the unused donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem. “We were told that nobody had used the donkey. It is telling us about holiness, cleanliness and sanctity. So as the Lord is in need of our hearts, our marriages and lives today, they are supposed to be pure.”

Fr. Asante also likened Jesus to a divine GPS, able to guide and locate anyone, anywhere. “If it were today, he would have given them a GPS. In the kingdom of God, Jesus is the GPS. Wherever we find ourselves, Jesus knows it because he is the GPS. Whatever is going through your mind and life, Jesus knows it because he is the GPS.”

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Daily Reading

Saturday of the Twelfth week in Ordinary Time

Book of Lamentations 2,2.10-14.18-19.

The Lord has consumed without pity all the... dwellings of Jacob; He has torn down in his anger the fortresses of daughter Judah; He has brought to the ground in dishonor her king and her princes.
On the ground in silence sit the old men of daughter Zion; They strew dust on their heads and gird themselves with sackcloth; The maidens of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground.
Worn out from weeping are my eyes, within me all is in ferment; My gall is poured out on the ground because of the downfall of the daughter of my people, As child and infant faint away in the open spaces of the town.
They ask their mothers, "Where is the grain?"--in vain, As they faint away like the wounded in the streets of the city, And breathe their last in their mothers' arms.
To what can I liken or compare you, O daughter Jerusalem? What example can I show you for your comfort, virgin daughter Zion? For great as the sea is your downfall; who can heal you?
Your prophets had for you false and specious visions; They did not lay bare your guilt, to avert your fate; They beheld for you in vision false and misleading portents.
Cry out to the Lord; moan, O daughter Zion! Let your tears flow like a torrent day and night; Let there be no respite for you, no repose for your eyes.
Rise up, shrill in the night, at the beginning of every watch; Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your little ones (Who faint from hunger at the corner of every street).

Psalms 74(73),1-2.3-5a.5b-7.20-21.

Why, O God, have you cast us off forever?
Why... does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
Remember your flock which you built up of old,
The tribe you redeemed as your inheritance,
Mount Zion, where you took up your abode.

Turn your steps toward the utter ruins;
Toward all the damage the enemy has done in the sanctuary.
Your foes roar triumphantly in your shrine;
They have set up their tokens of victory.
They are like men coming up with axes
to a clump of trees.

With chisel and hammer they hack at all the paneling of the sanctuary.
They set your sanctuary on fire;
The place where your name abides they have razed and profaned.

Look to your covenant,
For the hiding places in the land and the plains are full of violence.
May the humble not retire in confusion;
May the afflicted and the poor praise your name.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 8,5-17.

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion... approached him and appealed to him,
saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully."
He said to him, "I will come and cure him."
The centurion said in reply, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.
For I too am a person subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come here,' and he comes; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it."
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, "Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.
I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the kingdom of heaven."
but the children of the kingdom will be driven out into the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."
And Jesus said to the centurion, "You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you." And at that very hour (his) servant was healed.
Jesus entered the house of Peter, and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.
He touched her hand, the fever left her, and she rose and waited on him.
When it was evening, they brought him many who were possessed by demons, and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick,
to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet: "He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases."

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