Homily: October 25, 2022, Tuesday of the Thirtieth week in Ordinary time (Subordination)

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We heard in the first reading, “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as the Lord.”

From where I came from, in the traditional Indian family, the wife and children live in subordination to the man of the household. Well at least outwardly, although mothers-in-law would have some influence over the sons and their households.

However, in this country, the idea of subordination is a real challenge. Not just for wives and husbands. People in America, generally, do not want to be subordinate to anyone. 

I see employees not wanting to be subordinate to employers. Even priests who pledged obedience to the bishop would sometimes challenge his authority too.

We all want to be the boss and expect others to listen to us, respect our opinions and consider our views. This attitude is often misunderstood as confidence and high self-esteem. Is it true?

The truth is pride makes subordination impossible.

So, what is the central idea behind this whole passage? It is love. Love brings about joyful, humble and willing subordination. It is not a sign of incompetence, weakness or lack of self-confidence.

Conversely, it is the one with true strength and grit who has the confidence to allow another person to lord it over him. God, who is the Almighty, chose to be born humble, poor and vulnerable, to become subject and subordinate to humans. He came as a helpless child and subordinated himself to the law.

Why did he do that? Love.

When a wife gives herself to the authority of her husband, it is not because she has no self-confidence or opinion of her own, but because she loves her husband enough to entrust her happiness to him. With the faith that her husband has subordinated himself to the Lord.

And the husband humbles himself to love his wife as his own body. Think about it, the body doesn’t take care of the man, but rather, the man takes care of his body. So should the husband take care of his wife.

The spousal love, the marital union, is a foretaste of the perfect love, the intimate union of God and man, Christ and church.

God is willing and confident enough to give Himself totally to us. Are we willing and trusting enough to give ourselves totally to God?

Amen.

Fr. Nivin Scaria


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Homily: December 25, 2025, The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas)

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 “The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you.’” As a young man, Joseph must have had beautiful dreams about his future family. He could have imagined a helpful and capable wife, children playing around the house and growing up to be well respected people in the community, a vision of a stable and peaceful life. When he got engaged to Mary, it seemed like his dreams would become reality soon. Many of us, married or not, can identify with the dreams that Joseph could have had. Yet like Joseph, the realities of our lives would have unfolded quite differently from how we have dreamt it. Joseph’s family life turned out totally unlike his own dreams, yet he continued to dream, now with God’s will revealed and God’s plan unfolding in the reality of his life. The hardship he went through in Bethlehem, with the birth of Jesus, did not end there. Today’s Gospel shows another unexpected cha...
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“Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you.” This sounds fine to me because I am not fussy with food and am happy to eat anything offered. I can’t think of any food that I will not eat. And it helps a lot in my ministry, especially in this parish since I get invited to homes of various cultures and different cuisine. So far, I do enjoy Eritrean, Burmese, Laotian, Sudanese, Mexican and of course, American food. Yes, it is easy to feed me but very difficult to slim me down. But why did Jesus give such a specific instruction to His disciples regarding eating and drinking? It may look simple for us, but it was challenging to His disciples. They were Jews and the Jewish law laid out very strict food practices and prohibitions. And now they were being sent out to Gentile villages to preach to them. They were to live in Gentile homes and eat as they eat, drink as they drink. The disciples probably had never done anything like that before. Can you imagine the cultural sho...
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"She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger..." This Gospel scene brings me back to one special day when I was in grade eight. My eldest sister was back at home from college for summer vacation. The rest of my family were out of the house for a parish event, and so it was just the two of us at home. Before leaving the house, my mother had pre-empted us that one of our she-goats on the farm was ready to give birth, although she did think it might happen in a few more days. However, shortly after my parents and other siblings left the house, the she-goat or doe went into labor and gave birth to three babies: two males, one female. The baby doeling was very weak and looked unhealthy, my sister and I did not know what to do. So we called our grandmother on the phone, and she explained to us how to take care of the newborn kids. Following her instructions, we used iodine to treat the navel cords to prevent infection, cleaned up the birth site, made a nice bed of...
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 Brothers and sisters: You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones.” Our true and permanent home is heaven. We are destined to be citizens of heaven. For now, we are just sojourners on earth, pilgrims making our way towards home. I enjoy reading and hearing stories of people who have had near-death experiences. One common thing they report is that heaven is beautiful, and it is familiar. They usually describe it as the feeling of returning home, surrounded by people they know, being totally at ease and at peace. This image of heaven is pure joy. Those who live a virtuous life on earth, who keep their hearts united with God, are already preparing to live in that home. Heaven is not a foreign place for the faithful; it’s the fulfillment of what we yearn for deep inside of us. If we follow Jesus closely, we are already learning to live the heavenly life, experiencing and sharing the love and mercy of God and being in communion with God al...
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Holy Family School Mass Homily.   “At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him. He laid his hands on each of them and cured them.” In today’s Gospel, we hear about Jesus healing many people with different diseases. The passage begins with the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, who was very sick in bed with a very high fever. She was not merely resting, in fact her fever was so bad that she was unable to get out of bed. I am guessing it could be 103 or 104 degrees! Normally, if we get such a high fever, it would take us days to recover with strong medication. But when Jesus visited Peter’s mother-in-law, He simply stood over her, rebuked the fever, that means He scolded the fever, and it left her!  Instantly, she was well again and was able to get up and serve Jesus and His disciples. Wow! Jesus is the King of the Universe, He has power over everything in the world, if you would only believe in Him and trust Him. Even today, Jesus continues ...
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 “For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.” These powerful words from the prophet Habakkuk point towards hope. Hope in the fulfillment of God’s promises, despite the people’s failures. Habakkuk is one of the twelve minor prophets in the Old Testament, a small book of just three chapters, but every line is theologically deep. Habakkuk lived in the 7th century before the Babylonian exile. He saw the kingdom of Judah sinking in moral decay, corruption, and spiritual emptiness. The kings were weak, the people disobedient, and the once glorious nation of Israel was on the brink of collapse. Meanwhile, nearby nation Babylon was rising in power and strength, and ruthlessness. Habakkuk could see what was coming, and it terrified him. He wrestled with God in prayer. “Lord, how long?” he cried. Why do the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer? And God’s answer was simple yet...
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