Homily: November 28, 2022, Monday of the First Week of Advent.

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“When the LORD washes away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purges Jerusalem's blood from her midst with a blast of searing judgment.”

Sounds like a deep cleansing and purification process.

Have you done real laundry washing before? Not sure how many of you here recall the days before the washing machine existed, but I do. My mommy used to bring all our clothes to the nearby creek to wash. My siblings and I helped.

We would wet the clothes in the flowing waters, then fling them hard onto nearby rocks a few times. These beatings actually got rid of mud, dirt and sweat effectively. I am sure the bacteria and viruses would not survive the violent beatings either.

After that we would hang them all up for a good drying in the strong sun. Our clothes would end up wonderfully clean and even smelled fresh from the sun.

I wonder if that is how the Lord purges and purifies Zion and Jerusalem? In the book of Sirach 2,5 it says, “For Gold is tested in the fire and worthy men in the furnace of humiliation” or “furnace of suffering” in other translations.

For 40 years, the Israelites wandered in the desert. It was a difficult time for them, but God was with them day and night, despite their disobedience.

Then they were exiled in Babylon for 70 years. God was preparing to bring them back to Jerusalem despite their continuing unfaithfulness.

All through these times, God never gave up on them and allowed the difficult times, the sufferings to humble and purify their thoughts, intentions and life purpose.

Without going through the beatings in life, the dirt in us will stay on, we will not be cleaned or made pure again.

The sufferings in life are not punishment but penance. Punishment is a beating we deserve for doing wrong and a painful warning not to do it again. Penance is a process to help us realize our wrongs and a reminder that we can do better with God’s grace. It is an act towards sanctification, a progression towards holiness.

Punishment works on fear. Penance works on faith.

Human sufferings are meaningful and valuable if we offer them to God and unite them with others who suffer the same or more than us. 

Let us use our sufferings as our penance towards holiness, purification towards sanctity. If we don’t complete our purification here on earth before we die, we will continue in purgatory before getting to heaven.

Once we are washed clean and purged holy, we will sing with joy, “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord”. 

Amen


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Homily, Wednesday,January 5, 2022, Memorial of Saint John Neumann, Bishop

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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 w...
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Christmas Homily 2021,

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