Homily Archives 2009

• Christ The King - His Kingship is without pomp and circumstance. We find ourselves very comfortable in being in front of this King. Come let us worship. Come let us adore.
   
• 33rd Sunday - Why don’t we leave the final cosmic end in God’s hands. God created it and God knows how to restore it.
   
• 32nd Sunday - The poor widow in the Gospel was willing to trade in all that she had for all that the Lord had promised.  She knows how the Lord had kept his promises, and how the Lord would continue to keep his promises to who trusted in the Lord through the ages. She puts in all that she has.
   
• 31st Sunday - One asks a question, the other side replies. Who will stand in the Holy Place (the Temple, which is a sign for Heaven). The who walks in the path of the Lord.  The one who lest the light of God shine through.
   
• 29th Sunday - On this World Mission Sunday, we have to remember the words of Thomas after the resurrection, “Unless I can see the mark of the nails in his hands, and the wound in his side.” We must remember the admonition of Jesus, “God’s ways are different from ours.” The Kingdom of God must be preached by being servants and slaves of all.
   
• 28^th Sunday - Jesus told the Rich Man to sell all he had and come rise with him. Let go, said Jesus. I cannot said the Rich Man. But you and I know that one day we are going to have to let go of everything. Jesus says, “Come fly with me!’
   
• 27^th Sunday - No matter what the laws and traditions and teachings of the Church and the Scriptures, we stand before God, as God‘s children. The Vatican Council has said, the present Pope even before he was a Pope, said: finally, we must follow the dictates of our conscience. Jesus took them in his arms, and blessed them.
   
• 24^th Sunday - Faith: This brings us to the age old question: Can faith save us without good works. Apparently Martin Luther thought faith was enough. But was this the faith that James speaks about in the second reading. It was not.
   
• 23^rd Sunday - The healing of the deaf-mute in today‘s Gospel reaches down through the centuries to us today. WE too have that impediment, and it will be cured as we continue to Speak From the Heart.
   
• 22^nd Sunday - Jesus confronted the Scribes and Pharisees because they had lost their sense of balance. They confused their own human traditions with the commandments of God. Jesus did not condemn.  Their cleanliness in the washing of their hands.  Their hygiene in the washing of brass pots and cups.
   
• 20th Sunday - When we have the maturity to accept this invitation of the Lord, when we have the insight to walk the paths of Jesus command, then we will have the Bread of Eternal life, and the Cup of Eternal Salvation as our food and drink. Then we will be able to come and eat freely of the banquet table prepared for us by Wisdom.
   
• Fifteenth Sunday - "Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...it's about learning how to dance in the rain."
   
• Fourteenth Sunday - We are stained: - we are sinners.We are glass, we are so fragile. We are windows, through whom the Light of God will shine… and that is precisely what a Prophet is called to do. Let the Light shine on the people of God.
   
• Thirteenth Sunday - Life is a gift, and an immortal gift, we learn from the Book of Wisdom. Life is given to us as we approach the altar at the Eucharist. Life is given as we exchange the gift of peace. What are you going to do with your life?
   
• Twelfth Sunday - As Christians we have to go out and spread the Good News. At times, the sailing will be just beautiful like a cruise, at times there will be no wind, and we will be stalled in one place – with apparently no progress, and at times we will be like the Apostles tossed and thrown up, and throwing up. But remember Jesus will always be with us.
   
• Corpus Christi - What a sense of relief, of hope, of peace and joy. There will be no more blood to be collected in basins as Moses did. We march in Corpus Christi processions, just like David did before the ark of the old covenant. We remember, we celebrate, we believe.
   
• Trinity Sunday - And so in the Trinity, we find a God who comes out to meet us in all our yearnings, in all our questions, in all our confusion – as Mary was in the Annunciation, and asked, “How can this happen?”
   
• Pentecost Sunday - We welcome the Holy spirit to come and fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in us the fire of Divine love. The Spirit, we invite, will heal our planet and restore us to the unity with the Father, for which Jesus prayed.
   
• Ascension Sunday - There is another and richer benefit as we think of the Ascension in terms of a Person. It gives us fuller dimension of the way we think of the Eucharist. At the last Supper Jesus spoke of unity, of oneness, of intimacy with God.
   
• 6th Sunday of Easter - The Gospel gives us a new dimension of God’s love. It is full of assurances, warnings, instructions and promises. The assurance is that God has no favourites. If God does, then they are the “outsiders” – with whom we are not comfortable. They are the sinners, the tax collectors, the women caught in adultery. The warning is that, we cannot and should not exclude anyone from the church.
   
• 5th Sunday of Easter - I n the case of Jesus it is not because of the $s and cents, but rather because the symbol of the Vine can be such a powerful image of intimacy between God and us human beings. It puts flesh and blood into the well known biblical verse: “God so loved the world that God sent his only son.”
   
• 4th Sunday of Easter - We know that God does not go back on the Word of God. In fact God has said through his prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  I will be their God, and they will be my people. Jeremiah 31: 33
   
• 3rd Sunday of Easter - We seem to find it hard to keep the Easter joy and enthusiasm alive, it seems to be in inverse proportion to Peter’s proclamation in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles in today’s liturgy. Peter seems to go from strength to more strength and confidence with each of his kerygmatic speeches...
   
• Second Sunday of Easter - Like Thomas, we too must look for the sign of the nails and spear in our own lifestyles and behaviour. If we cannot find them, then a good place to start would be like the Early Christians –“with prayer”.
   
• Easter Sunday - Jesus rises from the dead, and give us hope: a new beginning. And so we have the doors opened to us for a New Life, a new life with a hope for a place in the Kingdom.
   
• Holy Thursday - Jesus is at the feet of his disciple. The master is at the feet of his pupils. How embarrassing! No wonder, Peter would say “never”. But what a blessing to he at the feet of Jesus, or Jesus to be at our feet!
   
• Palm Sunday - The narration of the Passion and death of Jesus existed in oral tradition. They were narratives told at different Christian Communities/Churches as they gathered each year for the Christian Passover Celebrations. They remembered the Death and Resurrection. They celebrated, they believed. Each community had its own emphasis and its own local flavour.
   
• Fifth Sunday of Lent - Covenantal Relationships - During the last few Sundays we have been listening to various covenants. First it was Noah and the destruction of the world through the flood. God made a covenant with the Rainbow in the sky as a sign. Then there was a covenant with Moses. This covenant was written on tablets of stone. We know them better as the 10 commandments. Even these were broken and are still broken in 2009...
   
• Third Sunday of Lent - If there is one thing we concentrate on in Lent, it is the cross and the One crucified on it.
   
• Second Sunday of Lent - The Mountain Offering. Lent is a time of penance and sacrifice. The readings of the second Sunday makes us take a look at the God who calls us to this discipline. What is the offering and to whom!
   
• Sixth Sunday - He touched me and made me whole.
   
• The Baptism of Jesus - The Readings for the feast of The Baptism of Jesus is rich enough for a whole week’s meditation. Example: Our baptism makes us free to enjoy the largesse of Our Heavenly Father as described in the first reading from Isaiah. We can taste and see the goodness of God. That reading is used in the Easter Vigil.
   
• The Epiphany - Today we have wise men who came from the East. They do not know the loving Father, but like the boy, they are moving from darkness into light. Their story like that of the little boy, grips the imagination. Wise men came from the East, they followed the star, they brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh...
   
• Feast of the Holy Family - The stable unit of our society is the family. It is also the strongest unit of society. During the sixteen and seventeenth centuries villages were raided in Africa and people were sold as slaves for plantations in North and South America. The slave owners realised that the two strongest urges of the human being was the urge for food and the urge for sex. Without food man would die, without sex, the human race would end.
   
• Christmas 2008 - We can take the title of an old song by Marty Haugen to make this Christmas memorable for each one of us this year:
• We remember,
• We celebrate,
• We believe.
   
• Fourth Sunday in Advent - The Spirit of the readings is summed up in the Response of the Psalm: My mouth shall sing of the faithfulness of the Lord.
   
• Third Sunday in Advent - Our Gospel starts with a dramatic scene. John the Baptist and the Priests and Levites from Jerusalem. This is not a hostile group. They are genuine interest. They have been expecting the Messiah.
   
• Immaculate Conception - In 1858, a little girl was gathering twigs for firewood on the slopes of a hill in a little French Village near Tarbes in Southern France. Suddenly she had a vision of a lady dressed in white and blue. She had several visions of this lady who kept on telling her to pass on the message: Pray, Pray. When the girl asked the lady her name, the Lady said in the local dialect “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
   
• Second Sunday in Advent - In the Wilderness, make a path for the Lord. Make a way in the Desert - Isaiah in our first reading and in the Alleluia Verse.  John the Baptist in the Gospel all tell us the same message ...
   
•