Homily: December, 13, 2022, Tuesday of the third week in Advent (Memorial of St. Lucy)

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 “Thus says the LORD: Woe to the city, rebellious and polluted, to the tyrannical city! She hears no voice, accepts no correction.”

Our Lord is giving a stern warning to those who are against Him, those who are arrogant. Most of us would have at least been through a rebellious phase or have met or lived with someone who is arrogant.

 Arrogant people do not listen to others, think highly of themselves, and expect others to listen to them and agree with them. Some of us may still be in such a situation and we ourselves have our arrogant moments too.

No one can deny, such characters are difficult to deal with, work with or live together. Thus God warns us against being arrogant and rebellious especially towards His teachings and commands.

By being full of ourselves and living as if we do not need God, by being overly self-confident and thinking we are the master of our own life, we will one day fall deep into helplessness and loneliness. 

Arrogance is destructive to others and to self. Truly, we are nothing without God, denying this truth is simply self-deception.

So what should we do? How should we live?

Jesus teaches us in Matthew 11:29, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.”

Let us learn from our Lord, be meek and humble, realize that what we have is a gift from God, and what we do with it is our gift to God, we own nothing in us, on us and around us. There is nothing for us to be arrogant about, but we have everything to be thankful for.

Yes, let us not be arrogant, rather, let us be thankful.

“Blessed are the Meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Amen 


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Homily: February 12-2024, Monday of the sixth week in Ordinary time (Preserverenace)

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Did you listen attentively to the Gospel reading? Yes? Let me test you… What did Jesus say? Did He say, “Whoever eats my bread and drinks my wine?”  No! He said, “Whoever eats my FLESH and drinks my BLOOD remains in me and I in him.” Yes, when you receive Holy Communion, you are receiving the real flesh and blood of Jesus. I am sure Fr. Roy, your catechists, parents and the whole parish community have prepared you well for this day, so you know what you are receiving today. But what I want to focus on now is the last part where Jesus says, ‘remains in me and I in him’. 29 years ago in 1996, I received my First Holy Communion. I was eight years old, but I still remember that day vividly. I remember the preparations, my First Reconciliation, and the excitement I felt when I lined up to receive Jesus for the very first time. I remember seeing the priest dipping the Precious Body into the Precious Blood, and then that precious moment – Jesus’ body and blood rested on my tongue. So swee...
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Homily: March 3, 2024, Third sunday in Lent (Foolishness of God)

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Homily: August 30, 2025, Saturday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time (Work Hard)

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Homily: Thursday, February 10, 2022, Memorial of Saint Scholastica

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Homily: September 10,2025, Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time (Thoughts)

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 “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” We might have heard of this phrase: “What you think, that you become.” This quote has often been attributed to Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, and I think there is a lot of truth in it. If you are constantly or regularly thinking about a certain thing, you will over time gravitate towards it, and bring it to reality, either in accomplishment or in imitation. There is a story about Napoleon Bonaparte. Once, he went to a palm reader and asked him to read the lines on his hand to foretell his life in the future. The palm reader told him the regular usual stuff, but Napoleon wanted to know something more important, he interrupted and asked: “Do you see any possibility that I could become a king?” The palm reader replied, “No. Every king has a special line on his palm, but you don’t have it.” Napoleon immediately took a knife, cut his palm, and drew out that special line in his palm for himself. The palm reader then said, “Yes, you wi...
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Homily: September 9, 2025, Tuesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time (Pray)

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“Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.” What a perfect example for us to follow! Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, prayed. He who is God the Son, prayed to God the Father. He spent the whole night in prayer before choosing His disciples. In His divinity, Jesus already knew the Father’s will. Yet in His humanity, He is just like us. He needed to spend time with His Father, to pray and to discern to be aligned with God’s will. Jesus shows us a powerful example: we too must pray before making important decisions, to ask God what His will is for us. Sometimes, when we act without consulting Him, we may find ourselves going against His will or going a wrong long way before reaching which lead us through unnecessary suffering or other unbearable consequences. So bring your plans to Jesus, tell Him your hopes, your preferences, your wishes, and He will bless you with the wisdom to choose wise and right. But what if we prayed, heard, followed a...
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 Grief-stricken in spirit, I, Tobit, groaned and wept aloud. Then with sobs I began to pray… We continue our reflections from the book of Tobit. In the first part of today’s first reading, we see how Tobit was ‘grief-stricken in spirit’ – he was devastated and desperate! His life saw misfortunes one after another, while he continued to keep faithful to God. But there is just so much a human person can withstand, so he took it to prayer, with groans and sobs, but if you read carefully his prayer, there was no complaints or anger against God. Only total surrender and giving up his life totally to the Lord. Then we read on to Sarah’s life. What a miserable life she had, losing one husband after another, seven times, all on the wedding nights. She was cursed indeed by the demon and ridiculed by others, she was helpless and depressed. What could she do? We see in the reading, “At that time, then, she spread out her hands, and facing the window, poured out her prayer…” She could take her...
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