Homily Archives 2008

• Twenty Sixth Sunday - You can do the Will of the Father. Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane you can say, “father I do not really want this but not my will but your will be done...
   
• Twenty Second Sunday - A vocation or call from God comes to every person. The most usual call is the call to Married life. But not all have this vocation. Some are called to the Vocation of serving God as a single person.
   
• Twenty First Sunday - this is not a reflection on the Primacy of Peter - and the Vatican’s place in history. Rather it is story of Peter being called to guide God’s people. This responsibility was abused by the Scribes and Pharisees: they were blind guides leading the blind.
   
• Twentieth Sunday - Isaiah tells us that these two places are Sacred Spaces where God will speak not only to the People of Israel, but to all people. All are welcome to the Mountain.
   
• Nineteenth Sunday - Like the young seminarian, when we read the miracle of Jesus walking on the water we might be tempted to spend all our time on the miracle. Yet after each miracle, especially curing the sick, Jesus was constantly telling the cured, “Go and tell no one.” Jesus was not interested in being “type cast” as a miracle worker or magician. He was interested in preaching the Kingdom of God. The miracles were only signs. People would get caught up in the sign and not move on to the Kingdom.
   
• Eighteenth Sunday - I did something, I had not done in 50 years. I baby sat a 9 month baby. The baby rested quietly on my chest, watching the TV screen. I meanwhile tried to prepare today’s homily. It was a peaceful reading of a joyful free feast from Isaiah. All you who are thirsty come to the waters, eat and drink milk and wine.
   
• Seventeenth Sunday - Our prayer can be that of the Al-Anon:
  Lord, give me the courage to change the things I can, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, give me the Wisdom to know the difference. Amen
   
• Sixteenth Sunday - The Book of Wisdom emphasizes that as people of God,if we are righteous, then we must be kind, we should fill the people with hope and courage, true power is shown in controlling our strength and force and anger.
   
• Fifteenth Sunday - From each of the four reading which you could meditate upon during the day: From Isaiah: “the Word of God will go out and not return empty”, Psalm: Your Word O Lord brings forth life., Romans: Sufferings cannot be compared to the glory that awaits us., Gospel: Some seed brought forth 30 fold, others 60 fold, others 100 fold.
   
• Fourteenth Sunday - In the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius there is a meditation called the two standards. He paints The standard of Satan and the Standard of Christ.
   
• Thirteenth Sunday - On this feast day, of these two great men who were united in mind and heart based on the Love of Christ - and acknowledgment that Jesus is the Lord, on this feast day we should strive to see what is good in each other and emphasize and build these qualities, gifts and talents. God bless you all.
   
• Eleventh Sunday - God chose to love us and Jesus will die for us. We are people who are loved and therefore forgiven - and not the other way around.
   
• Tenth Sunday - Jesus said, I have come for sinners.  It is because we are sinners, it is because we are imperfect, it is because we say, “Lord I am not worthy..” that we have the Church, the sacraments, the anointing service, the reconciliation room.
   
• Ninth Sunday - Psalm 31 is an individual thanksgiving, praising God in the temple for deliverance from sickness and trouble. Today's selection combines several verses that speak of God as the source of security and refuge.
   
• Corpus Christi - Today a trip from the Red sea into Israel would take a few hours in a nice comfortable luxury coach. Even a “uncomfortable” journey on a camel would not take more than a few days. It took 40 years with Moses leading for the People of Israel to reach the promised land on foot. It would an experience that formed the soul of the People. It last till today. It is remembered even now.
   
• Trinity Sunday - the feast of the Trinity does not  invite us  to abstract speculation into the nature of God, but to enter into a community of Love. It is also a story of persons and communities relating their experience of God.
   
• Pentecost Sunday - That is the richness of our Church as we celebrate this feast of Pentecost. But we are like the people of the first Pentecost. This is our Church, we are Companions of Jesus and we are proud to profess it in Christ Jesus our Lord.
   
• Ascension Sunday - Because of the Ascension, Jesus can rise and go to the Father. Because of the Ascension, Jesus can go and send us the Holy spirit. Because of the Ascension, we can function as members of the Body of Christ. Because of the Ascension, we can start our mission of proclaiming the Good News.
   
• Fifth Sunday of Easter - What we should find easy to accept is that believing in Jesus we can and will preach the Word of God. Jesus says we will do even great works than he did. We may find that difficult to accept, but in a way it is true. Jesus preached only to a limited amount of people in the three years of public life. Our message of the Gospel can go to thousands via the TV and by a single click on a computer.
   
• Fourth Sunday of Easter - Today is Vocation Sunday. Two things are involved in a Vocation from our readings today: (1) Coming from our first reading: our vocation is to proclaim the message, (2) Coming from the image of the Shepherd -our vocation is one involving caring.
   
• Third Sunday of Easter - This charming Gospel, challenges our own expectations of how God moves, how God acts and how God behaves. God will not be limited to our preconceptions of God. God will not fit into our convenient pigeon holes. God always pushes the envelope.
   
• Second Sunday of Easter - “If you built the catechism only, we would lose 50%; if you built RCIA around the Eucharist, then that faith community will both grow and flourish.”
   
• Easter Sunday - They remembered. They believed. We remember. We believe. We celebrate.
   
• Good Friday - Good Friday? - the agony in the Garden, the Crowing with thorns, a whipping at the pillar, the carry of the Cross and the humiliating nailing to the Cross. Was there no other way? Our human mind and human reason wold like a more antiseptic and more humane, a more clean way of doing things.
   
• Holy Thursday - WE CELEBRATE. Paul invites us to celebrate because Christ took bread and wine and blessed and broke and gave it to his disciples. Before the changes in the liturgy WE CELEBRATE was the main theme of our Holy Thursday Solemnity.
   
• Sixth Sunday in Lent - The suffering servant, Paul tells us is equal to God, but will empty himself and take the form like any one of us. He will know our sufferings, he will walk our walk. Now at the table, knowing that his hour had come to depart, he will make an intimate gesture. He will take the bread and break it and give it to his apostles.
   
• Fifth Sunday in Lent - like Lazarus we are in the tomb when our marriage breaks up, when we cannot pay our bills, when we are addicted to certain sins, when we have been diagnosed with crippling illnesses. Then we feel we are dead or wish that we were dead. It is precisely at this moment that the Good Shepherd comes searching for us sheep, and he calls us by our name. He bids us to come forth from the darkness of the tomb.
   
• Fourth Sunday in Lent - The Letter to the Ephesians tells us that we were once in darkness. There is no reason to stay there.  Some of us like the Scribes and Pharisees prefer to stay there. It becomes our comfort zone. But we are challenged to be a light in the Lord’s presence and t live there as the children of the light.
   
• Third Sunday in Lent - At times like these they will cry out against God and against Moses.  “Think of the fish we use to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic! Here we are wasting away, stripped of everything: there is nothing for us but manna to look at.”  Numbers 11:5-6.
   
• Second Sunday in Lent - In the Transfiguration, we see the radical transformation of the appearance of Jesus. Jesus in turn invites us into a Repentance, a radical transformation from the interior. This is the call of our Baptism.
   
• First Sunday in Lent - When it comes to choices we do not have all those problems in decisions. We have three fairly sure guidelines. First there are the commandments, then there is the teaching of the church, and finally as the late Holy Father John Paul II said, “we have our consciences which are the ultimate rule of action.”
   
• 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time - God is the servant's only strength. We do not have any other source of strength: not the external strength fund in politics, in business, in the media, in studies, in titles, nor the internal fortitude found in research. Only God. And when we learn the wisdom of this reality, we will experience how Blessed we are in God's sight, and even in the sight of the men and women who outwardly look with pity on us.
   
• 3rd Sunday 2nd Version - The relevance of Paul’s letter is very, very pertinent to us today.
   
• 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - “The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light” it is not a question of being sinful people nor people who live doing evil. But rather people who are surrounded by a great deal of spiritual and true wealth and are unaware of it, because the light has not shone around to make them see the beauty and riches.
   
• The Baptism of our Lord - The feast of the Baptism of our Lord brings to a conclusion the Christmas Season, yet it does not refer to either the Little Child born in Bethlehem nor does it refer to the Baptism of little babies. It introduces us to Jesus, adult and mature. It is a Jesus who is about to enter his public ministry, a Jesus who travels and teaches, preaches the Kingdom and performs miracles. John calls these miracles – signs.
   
• Epiphany - Our Gospel is from Matthew who has the exclusive story of the Wise Men. However, if we take Matthew’s Gospel alone, we would not have the following mysteries: 1. No Visitation of Angel Gabriel to Mary. 2. No visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. 3. No journey down from Nazareth. 4. No Bethlehem, no manger, no shepherds no angels.
   
• Holy Family - The feast we celebrate today has an intriguing history and equally changing purpose. It was introduced to the Church calendar by Leo XII as a result of a tradition in Quebec. Leo XIII proposed the Holy Family as a model we are to imitate in our daily life.
   
• Jan 1st - “Remember Lord, your church, may we grow in love together with Mary, the Mother of God.” May this Mary, Mother of God draw us closer to Jesus during this Christmas Season and fill us with the Peace and Joy he came to bring.
   
• Christmas Day - Today is also the time for gift giving. We have spent so much time and care in choosing and buying gifts for our loved one and those who have done so much for us during the year. Your gift giving says I love you and that is also what we are celebrating today. It is the giving of not just presents, but of our love, our caring, our thoughtfulness - but most of all the gift of ourselves. We are only reflecting God.
   
• Fourth Sunday in Advent - Perhaps we will be slow to judge that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly. He could be a worried 19-year-old college student. He has his final exams on which he cannot concentrate, because with budget cuts, his student loans for next semester are uncertain ...
   
• Third Sunday in Advent - The third Sunday in Advent is one where we are called to wait patiently for the Messiah and yet paradoxically the mood and colour of the vestments are one of anticipated Joy. It is like tasting the food before it was made. But this is not a contradiction. Waiting patiently for the Lord is not waiting passively for the Lord.
   
• Second Sunday In Advent - Paul tells us that our basis for hope is that we have the Steadfastness and the Encouragement of a God. It is in this spirit we journey through Advent, a season of quiet joy and hope.
   
• First Sunday in Advent - We discuss the Day of the Lord, the contrast between day and night, light and darkness. Strangely enough this mediation does cause fear, but it encourages hope, excitement and a sense of wonder. From my personal experience, I found it is important to carve out a time of quiet, a space of sacred to be alone with the Lord to savour these riches...