Homily: Tuesday, January 4, 2022, Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious.

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 Two things Jesus said in today’s gospel struck me. First, “How many loaves do you have?” and second, “Give them some food yourselves.”

Today’s miracle event reminds me of another parallel event, the miracle of water-turned-into-wine at the wedding feast in Cana.

Both situations started with a problem which was brought to Jesus – running out of wine for wedding guests and having no food for the crowd. In both situations, Jesus asked for contribution to the solution. At the wedding event, He asked for six jars of water. At today’s event, He asked His disciples to provide whatever food they had.

He then transformed and multiplied these. For the wine, He presented the new wine to the master of the banquet while the servants distributed it to all the guests. For the loaves and fish, Jesus gave the multiplied food to the disciples who distributed to the crowd. In both these miracles, Jesus did not work alone, He involved others. God works through us.

These miracles teach us that we cannot be simply recipients, we are also called to be participants. There are many miracles in daily life if we learn to see God’s hand in everything.

In this parish, we too have experienced a miracle of multiplication and transformation recently. For the first time, we were sending 20 students for the NCYC. We needed 13,000. So, the teens asked for sponsorship. Within just two weeks, we received 18,000, more than what we expected. Now we have that excess amount to send some younger ones to CYC this summer. That was a miracle. But it did not end there.

Soon after coming back from NCYC, the youth came to me to propose three things they wanted to do at St. Ambrose. They want to start youth adoration, Bible study sessions and a youth choir. Wow! Can you see the miracle here?

There was first a problem, then people gave their share, the Lord multiplied it with excess leftover, our youth received and now they want to participate in giving to other youth. One miracle leads to more miracles.

And the greatest miracle that happens every day is the Holy Mass. At every Mass, God takes the bread and wine we offer to Him and transforms them into Jesus’ most holy body and blood. Because of love. As we receive, we are also called to share His sacrificial love with others whom we encounter after Mass.

Let us reflect then, how we can participate fully in the miracle of life we receive at every Eucharist. Let us not be observers, let us not simply be recipients, let us participate and help to distribute the gifts of the miracle to others.


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Homily: February 27, 2022, Eight Sunday in the Ordinary Time

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For readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022722.cfm There were two brothers who lived debauched lives engaging in terrible deeds. They were notorious yet not at all ashamed. Then one brother died. The surviving brother asked the local pastor to preach at his brother’s funeral. The pastor, aware of the brothers’ background, was reluctant to do it. The brother then promised to donate a big sum of money to the church and begged the pastor to preach with a special request. “Father, in your homily, you just have to say that my brother was a saint.” The pastor thought about it and agreed. The funeral day came. The pastor began his homily, “The man laid in the casket was a rotter; he led a horrible and debauched life. He was truly rotten to the bone. But compared to his brother, he was a saint.” Saintly life or shoddy living – Would the priest at our own funeral have to be paid to tell a lie? It all depends on what kind of fruit we produce from the way we live. Usually, we cannot
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Homily: March 13, 2022, Sunday of the second Week of Lent

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 The Lord God took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”  “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.” God made these two promises to Abram. For the people in ancient times, and for many even in modern times, having children as heir and owning land as property are two most important possessions in life. Abram had been leading a nomadic life for many years and his wife Sarai, already in her old age, was still childless at that time. So, Abram doubted and questioned, “how am I to know…?” Have you been praying for something important, bearing heavy burdens while waiting, trying to keep hopeful but still you received nothing? Would you also doubt and question God? In response to Abram’s doubt, God assured him by cutting a covenant with him, known as a covenant of the pieces. In ancient times, when people entered a treaty, a contractual agreement, they wo
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Homily: May 4, 2024 Saturday of the fifth week of easter (Align to the Holy Spirit).

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“Day after day the churches grew stronger in faith and increased in number.” This was the observation made by the author of today’s first reading, reporting about how St. Paul and companions went about preaching the good news, teaching the faith and building the church communities. If the same author were to be here today, looking at what is happening in the church communities now, how would he report? What would he say about the churches here? Churches are closing, religious vocations are decreasing, few people are sharing faith, young people in the families are not attending Mass, people are choosing churches that align with their ideologies not based on truth. It looks like the first 300 years in the history of the Church were the most glorious and productive. What happened thereafter? Why such a great difference? What is missing? What went wrong? Is this the same situation in churches around the world? Is there any hope that the church will grow again, in strength and spirit? Yes,
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Homily: September 28, 2022 Wednesday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time (For children)

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“God is wise in heart and mighty in strength; who has withstood him and remained unscathed?” How many of have visited another state in the USA? Have you visited another country out of the USA? Do you know how many countries are there in the world today?  The answer is: 195 countries! When we travel to different places, we would realize that the world is so big. If you were to visit my home country India, you may have to take three flights and travel about 30 hours to arrive. The world is so huge, isn’t it? And the whole world is far bigger and beyond this earth, the sun, the moon and the stars. Can you imagine it? I can’t. And who created all these? God. With His wisdom and mighty strength God created all these. Everything is so organized with their own characteristics and structures, it cannot happen by accident nor by chance.  Is there anything or anyone stronger than our God? No, definitely not. But I found that many children think Spiderman is stronger than God. Recently a 4-year-o
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Homily: July 12, 2022, Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time.

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 “Will you be exalted to heaven?” How many of us are sure that we will be exalted to heaven if we had died today? Yesterday while driving along road, I checked that the traffic was clear and was about to turn left into a small lane, when another car appeared from nowhere and sped past right in front of my car so fast. I didn’t have time to react but thank God, I was turning very slowly and managed to stop just in time with shock. When I realised what happened, I knew I would have been hit if I had just turned a bit faster. From the speed of that car, I am sure I would have died instantly. Fear ran through me. I am not afraid to die, but I am afraid to die now. I am not ready, not prepared to meet the Lord, not worthy to be exalted to heaven yet. And I would like to skip purgatory if possible. Are you also afraid to die unprepared? In the first reading, King David was afraid of the kings of Aram and Israel. But God had His plans. It was not time for David to die yet. So, through prophet
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Homily: September 26, 2022, Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time.

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We heard in the Gospel today: "Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." We all have been to grocery stores. You see shelves and shelves of everything you need, rows and rows of vegetables and meat, packed, weighed and priced in advance, so you can just pick up what you want.  Back in my childhood, there were no grocery stores in the local village. So to buy vegetables, we go to the vegetable market on Sundays. For meat, we go to the butcher. Every Saturday, they would slaughter a buffalo and sell the meat. Once, my mummy sent my brother and I to buy some meat from her regular butcher. We didn’t know how to choose the best meat but we thought, the butcher would help since he knew my parents very well. Instead, he cheated on us, and packed bad quality meat for us to bring home. Mummy was very upset. The butcher knew we went to buy on behalf of our mummy, his regular customer, but he did not respect that. When he
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Homily: March 23, 2022, Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent.

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 “However, take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children’s children.” This morning I did reconciliation for the Holy family school. For the children’s penance, I would usually ask them to recite one or two Hail Mary or Our Father prayers. Easy right? Yes, and yet, some of the students told me they do not know how to say the prayers or where to find these prayers. I was surprised the very first time I did reconciliation for children in this country, but now I realized it is a common situation here. I remember in my time, before receiving first communion, we had to memorize thirty-three Catholic prayers and recitations like the angelus, Hail Mary, all mysteries of the Holy Rosary, the ten commandments and so on. Anyone who could not recite from heart all these thirty-three items, will be denied receiving first communion. Till toda
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Homily: June 30, 2023, Friday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time.

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 “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said…” This was how our first reading began today. God promised Abram when he was already 99 years old, that he would have a son with his 89 year-old wife, Sarah. I kept thinking to myself, “why did God wait till Abram was 99?” God could have appeared to him much earlier and given him a son when he was in his 20’s or 30’s. Why so late? Similarly with Moses. Why did God wait till Moses was 80 years old to call him into the mission of delivering the Israelites out of slavery? Moses could have done a much better job if he was younger in his 30s or even 40s. Another one is St. Paul. He was persecuting the Christians for so long before his conversion. If he had had that powerful encounter with Jesus earlier, many Christians would not have suffered so much, and Paul would have been less of a sinner. Why did God take so long to act? Honestly, I do not know the answer. I don’t think anybody knows. None of my seminary professo
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Homily: July 11, 2023, Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Namesake)

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 "You shall no longer be spoken of as Jacob but as Israel."  Jacob was well known for giving new names to places where he had a memorable experience. In yesterday's first reading, we saw how he changed the name of the place where he had his beautiful dream of angels and stairs to heaven, from Luz to Bethel. Today, he wrestled with God’s angel, and he named the wrestling place Penuel. In the chapters that follow, we will see him name another place Manahaim and so on. The names of these places carry the memory of the event that happened to Jacob. Interestingly, in today’s reading, we see God's angel changing Jacob's name to Israel, because now, the person of Jacob was what carried the memory of the event. ‘Israel’ means ‘the one who wrestles with God’.  What is the significance of a name? Many roads and streets are named after people who contributed to the history of the land, this ensures that their names and the events of their time will not be forgotten. Jesus sa
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Homily April 29, Memorial of Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

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 “And all day long, both at the temple and in their homes, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Christ, Jesus”. Even after being flogged, all day long, the disciples continued teaching and preaching everywhere… Amazing, isn’t it?  These past few days, we have been reading from Acts of the Apostles. We see how the Jewish leaders and high priest tried to stop the apostles from preaching in the name of Jesus. But they failed. The Pharisee Gamaliel rightly said, “if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them; you may even find yourselves fighting against God.” How true. The church is from God. The disciples did not stop teaching and proclaiming. They even rejoiced at being flogged for what they were doing. They were on fire for Jesus. They were so eager and excited to tell everyone about Jesus. What about us? If there is a new restaurant serving delicious food or a store is having a great end-of-summer sale, we would hear many people talking about it. Some would even
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