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 cheated us the children, he was in fact cheating mummy. We didn’t buy from him anymore after that.

In the same way, God sent Jesus to bring the good news to the world. One of the mysteries of our faith is that we have never seen God. Jesus told us “No one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is the same as God … he has made him known”.

Jesus came as a little child and from the very beginning of his earthly life, people have tried to eliminate Him. Then Jesus sent his disciples, and the same happened. Many did not listen to the good news preached by Jesus, His disciples, now His church.

Till today, we see people choosing to believe in bad news, fake news, media and political lies, instead of the real, good news. They choose to ignore and reject the teachings of church, the traditions of the disciples, the way of Jesus, thus they are rejecting God.

God’s ways are simple and straightforward, not packaged to tempt our vanity nor seduce our lust, like an innocent child, pure and authentic. 

If we have wisdom, we will see how God is reaching out to us. Let us be humble and seek Him, welcome Him, receive Him who comes to us through the small, simple moments of our daily lives. 

Amen 


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“He shall bring forth justice to the nations, not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street.”  Throughout Holy Week, we will be reading from the Book of Prophet Isaiah. 700 years before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah had prophesied about the coming of the Messiah, not in a grand arrival, neither would He leave earth in a dignified departure. The image of Christ described by Isaiah is that of a humble suffering servant of God. His mission is to ‘bring forth justice to the nations’, by taking on injustice on Himself. He will carry the sins of the world through pain, yet He will not cry out, nor shout, He will bear all these in a meek, mild and humble way. Isaiah’s prophecies were all fulfilled by Jesus, particularly in the days of Holy Week. This week’s readings invite us to look to Jesus, no to pity and pain for Him, but to learn from Him, to straighten up our spirit to imitate Him, and to follow His example. All through Jesus’ trial, His great sufferings on the...
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Homily: July 18, Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time.

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“She came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.” Queen Sheba went from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to see and hear for herself the famous King Solomon. Do you know how long did it take Queen Sheba to travel to Jerusalem in those times? She probably took three months to get there, and with a large group of servants, guards and advisors, taking with them not just the essentials for their daily needs but also loads of valuable gifts to present to the King. Would you be so well prepared and travel with so much conviction far away to see and hear someone great? We do see many people putting aside school, work and spend lots of money, even travelling far, to attend concerts, watch ball games and see their idols. Some of these events are often marketed as the ‘event of your life’ and not to be missed. Do we see the same interest and excitement for faith events?  Oh yes! Many people attended the Christ Our Life Conferences. They were all eager to hear the gifted speakers and ...
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Homily: July,14, 2023 Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Final resting place)

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 "Not only will I go down to Egypt with you; I will also bring you back here, after Joseph has closed your eyes." With this promise of God, Jacob was greatly comforted and confident to follow God’s direction to leave the land of Canaan and move to Egypt. Why so? In Oriental cultures, it is a tradition for people to be buried on their family property, within their home ground. You can imagine there could be generations of forefathers buried in the backyard of every house, resting in peace.  Thus, people would never sell their property nor move out of it because their forefathers were buried there, and it would also be their final resting place. Many people who went overseas to work would insist on being sent back to their home countries and be buried in their home ground when they die. Jacob had that same concern. He wanted to be buried in the same cave at Machpelah where Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebecca were buried. Otherwise, he believed he would not rest in peace....
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Homily: June 20, 2022, Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time.

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 “The king of Assyria took Samaria, and deported the children of Israel to Assyria”. The northern kingdom, Israel, had been captured. Israel turned against God’s law, forgot all that He had done fore them and worshipped idols. That resulted, living in exile, homeless and with great suffering. That was one of the darkest episodes in the history of Israel. The chosen people of God were scattered from the exile and never returned home to the promised land given to Abraham and his descendents. Only the southern kingdom, the tribe of Judah, returned after their exile to Babylon. Why was God merciless? Why did He punish His people? We understand God to be loving, compassionate and merciful. So, does God punish us when we do wrong? Does He turn a blind eye to our sorrows and sufferings? The good news is God never punishes. We chose to punish ourselves, by choosing sin, choosing wrong, choosing evil. Each cause has an effect, every sin has its consequence, its effect according to the gravi...
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Homily: October 27, 2024, Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (I want to see)

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 "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you." Bartimaeus was blind and a beggar, someone whom society had ignored, forgotten and cast aside. Bartimaeus had no status, no rights, nothing. But Bartimaeus had faith.  He believed that this Jesus whom he had heard so much about, could do for him what others could not do. He was so sure thus he did not hesitate to call out to Jesus who was walking by. Not once, but repeatedly. Even when others told him to stop, to keep silent, he cried out louder. Jesus heard his cry, his desperate plea for mercy. Jesus saw his sincere persistence and responded to him. "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you." And what Bartimaeus do? “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.” Bartimaeus was spontaneous and immediate in his response. His cloak was the only thing he had, which gave him protection and security. But at the call of Jesus, he threw it aside and came to Jesus, he did not hesitate at all to detach from his one...
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 "There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known." Do you have secrets? Are you worried about your secrets being revealed? Do you keep secrets for someone else? Have you been tempted to leak out the secret to another person? Something I realized growing up in a large family, is that in big families, there are no secrets, there is no way to hide any secret, not for long. Someone will somehow find out something. When I was in school, the period after exams is the secretive time. The teachers would enter our examination results in our school journal, to be shown to our parents for their signature, then return to the teachers next day. My brother and I would always get poor grades, and we would hide our school journals, with a plan to only show to our parents the next day just before leaving for school, so that there would not be much time for them to scold us, they could just sign and we would run off quickly to school. The plan never wor...
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Homily: January 10, 2023, Tuesday of the first week in Ordinary Time.

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In today’s first reading, St. Paul is writing to the Hebrews to tell them about the dignity with which God created the first man, “You crowned him with glory and honour, subjecting all things under his feet.” This was our original state. We were subject to God only, and all else, the whole of creation, were subject to us. But with one fall, a single sin, we lost our glorious state, and became subject to many other things, even to nature and its forces.  In today’s world, we are still enslaved. The greatest slave master is the social media. Many children are addicted to it and can’t live without their gadgets. Through easy access to social media and its influences, these children are also exposed to drugs, alcohol, pornography, promiscuity and other illegal and immoral activities easily. Many adults too are vulnerable to these. Who introduced gadgets and social media to the children? Their parents, the adults. Slavery is passed down from one generation to another. It all began with ...
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