Homily Archives 2005

• 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time - When God called the prophets, God did not have a built in obsolescence plan. The prophets were there to guard  Wisdom, to instruct the people in the Torah and to give Glory to God.
   
• 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Love God and Love your neighbor - that is what Jesus tells us in the Gospel. The first part as Jessica realized is easy. It loves a God, full of mercy, all beautiful, all powerful. It is a God who listens to me when I pray.
   
• 29th Sunday In Ordinary Time - It is interesting to note the qualities that the Pharisees give Jesus before they try and entrap him. We know that you are sincere. We know that you teach the way of God with truth. We know that you do not show deference to anyone.
   
• 28th Sunday In Ordinary Time - Our Psalm is the most well known of all psalms: Psalm 23 where the Lord will take us to rich pastures to nurture us, but then he will prepare a Table for us in the presence of the enemies.
   
• 27th Sunday In Ordinary Time -
• Version1 (for teachers)
• Version2 (for community)
   
• 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Price of Love is simply to say Yes to God’s invitation. The choice is ours. We must take responsibility for our Actions.
   
• 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - We expect God to live up to our needs and our design of God. And hence we hear over and over again, “How can you believe in a loving God when all these disasters, these earthquakes, these hurricanes, these tsumanis take place?”
   
• 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Our readings today are about forgiveness and peace. One can be bland and sterile and speak of our petty hurts and how we need to forgive. Perhaps that is all we can do. But we are also a part of a bigger picture. And in our own way and for our own sakes, we must talk and reflect on our feelings on this fourth anniversary of what we call the Nine-Eleven.
   
• 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - And we go back to Ezekiel, - each one of us individually is in need of healing, caring and salvation. This sometimes has to be in the form of Discipline as we admonish one another, as we ask each other in fraternal love to “get our act together.” If we do this in the love of Christ, and with the care of the Good Shepherd no one can take umbrage, no one can be hurt. Together we will give Thanks to the Lord our God.
   
• 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - When Jesus told Peter to carry the cross, he meant business, serious business. And it applies today to all of us who glory in the name of Christian. But we have seen the Crucifix so often, that it takes a person from another faith, like 10 year Samuel to bring the seriousness of this invitation to us. Like Peter we shy away from the intensity.
   
• 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - he idea of the Keys is taken up in the Gospel today in the passage of You  are Peter and I will give you the Keys of the Kingdom. There is a consensus among scholars that the original setting of these words were after the Resurrection of Jesus. The Rock on which Jesus will build the Church is Peter and not the Faith of Peter.
   
• 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time - “I believe in the Catholic i.e. Universal Church”.  The theme that runs through all the readings is one of Inclusiveness. All are invited to the Banquet Table which is a sign and symbol of Heaven...
   
• 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Oh that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts.
   
• 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time - God said to Solomon, “Ask what I should give you”.
   
• 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Blessed are the peacemakers - those who dare to reach out and be instruments of peace. You are the salt of the earth and the light to the nations. Men and women in our midst who are persons of integrity, who will not sell out our birthrite, our faith, what makes us Christians for the sake of popularity and prestige.
   
• 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time - The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted.  How much longer am I going to look and not see, hear and not listen or understand? 
   
• 14th Sunday In Ordinary Time - Come to me all you who are weary and heavily burdened and I will give you rest. But it means that we will have to change our mind set, our way of thinking, our values and all the things we want and desire so badly.
   
• 13th Sunday In Ordinary Time - Our first reading today has three simple points: the Giver the Receiver and the Gift, or the Guest, the Host and the Gift.
   
• 11th Sunday In Ordinary Time - “We are his people, the sheep of his flock.” Because of his love for us Jesus did give his life up for us. At the height of our sinfulness, in the middle of our sinfulness, God encounters us. Then God justifies us: pays our debts. And God saves us: God raises us on high.
   
• Corpus Christi - As we celebrate the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ we remember two basic needs of each of us. We are challenged not only to meet our needs but to help others less fortunate than we are to meet the same needs in themselves...
   
• Trinity Sunday - The feast of the Holy Trinity is a feast about belonging. It is not about dogmas, doctrines and theology classes. Though the very talking about “Belonging” is Theology. It is belonging not in a touchy feely sense. Neither is it about warm fuzzies. Rather it is a response to an invitation. It is response to a deep inner need which is a part of every human being.
   
• Pentecost Sunday - The Descent of the Holy Spirit is the dramatic fulfilment of the promise of Jesus that he must GO before the Holy Spirit comes. And when the Holy Spirit comes down on the Apostles, they will do great things, in fact, even greater than the deeds performed by Jesus. And this is what happens in reality.
   
• 7th Sunday of Easter - Ascension is a time of transition. And like all transitions, it is a difficult time. Jesus had been such a charismatic figure. He had attracted the crowds. He had chosen a few and called them his Disciples.
   
• 6th Sunday of Easter - Our readings today deal with the two questions: When and What. When does the Holy Spirit come into our lives and what is the Role of the Holy Spirit that the Lord promised us.
   
• 5th Sunday of Easter - “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God.” Ah, but as Hamlet would say,  “ay, there's the rub”   My heart is troubled because my belief in God is weak. I have been through this in the past, and I know that there will be other occasions in the future, when I question everything ...
   
• 4th Sunday of Easter - The Lords is My Shepherd, thers is nothing I shall want ...
   
• 3rd Sunday of Easter - We too must get up and share the good news with those hungering to hear the GOOD NEWS - but please wait until the Mass is celebrated - God bless you all.
   
• A Special Easter Message from Fr. Coutts
   
• Easter Sunday
   
• Good Friday
   
• Holy Thursday
   
• Fifth Sunday In Lent - Today is the day for us like Lazarus to COME OUT of the things that entomb us, bury us. It is a time to stop being dry bones parched with pride and prejudice and a sale of our integrity.
   
• Fourth Sunday in Lent - The season of Lent was mainly designed as a preparation for those who were interested in joining the Christian community as Christians. As the practice of infant baptisms increased and fewer people joined the Church as adults, Lent became a preparation for Easter especially for the faithful who kept their duties of keeping the Sabbath holy.
   
• 3rd Sunday In Lent - The SAMARITAN WOMAN in our Gospel did not win the Miss Congeniality Contest. With five former husbands, she was not welcome to draw water with the rest of the women - either in the cool of the morning or late evening. She had to come in the hot midday sun, when no one would be at the well.
   
• 2nd Sunday In Lent - The voice of God is also inviting us, “Come back to me with all your hearts, don’t let fear keep us apart.” God is calling us into the intimacy of more personal prayer - time perhaps to put aside that whole list of 100 and one prayers that we think we must finish, the Divine Mercy prayer that MUST be said at 3:00 sharp, a Charismatic prayer group I must attend - and just talk to God as one friend to another.
   
• First Sunday In Lent - Temptations seek to destroy a relationship with God, our Creator, a God of compassion and mercy. The woman instead of trusting a loving and kind God, instead of trusting: God’s wisdom, God’s command, God’s invitation to relationship ...
   
• 4th Sunday In Ordinary Time - it is pretty difficult to read the Beatitudes which tell us “Blessed are the poor, Blessed are the meek, Blessed are the merciful, Blessed are the pure of heart”.
   
• 3rd Sunday In Ordinary Time - We too will find that joy - when we allow the Light to shine in our Darkness.
   
• 2nd Sunday In Ordinary Time - “Ours is the call to be a servant and it is in us, that the Lord will find delight.”
   
• Baptism Of Our Lord - “But like a proud mama or proud papa, God is not content with sending Angels and a Star to announce the Messiah. God comes in person. "This is my beloved in whom I am well pleased”
   
• Feast of The Holy Family - Today as we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family, we ask ourselves what exactly makes a family today - and can we be holy within it.
   
• Fourth Sunday in Advent - For our Society to realise that People count, God becomes flesh and dwells in our midst. It was to show us a heart that can love, a heart that can care. And we are entrusted with this awesome task to reach out to the lonely, the depressed, the broken hearted and homeless. Governments cannot do that, we can because God is with us.
   
• Third Sunday in Advent - But  there is a Cup that is shared. The cup of generosity - filled to the brim and  running over. The cup of inclusiveness, you differ from me in out look and life  style, but our values are the same: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ is  coming again.
   
• Second Sunday in Advent - The Birth of Christ which we await with eagerness is a birth of Compassion. It is a compassion that will surely challenge injustice everywhere. But the confrontation will not be done with Violence, with guns, with Aerial Attacks, but with mercy and justice.
   
• First Sunday in Advent - Our Advent calls us once again to a spirit of anticipation, a spirit of expectation. One of the hymns that best express our theme is the CITY OF GOD: Awake from your slumber, arise from your sleep, A New day is dawning for all those who weep, The people in darkness, have seen a great light, The Lord of all longing has conquered the night.