Homily: December 21, 2022, Wednesday of the forth week in Advent

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 Today’s first reading is from Song of Songs. This book in the Bible is also known as the Song of Solomon, or the Canticle of Canticles. It is a romantic poetry expressing the intense and intimate love of a young couple entering marital union.

Why would the Bible include such a romantic book? There is not even a mention of ‘God’. Anyone who has fallen in love before would be able to appreciate the celebration of romance in this book. But it may feel odd to imagine God’s love for His people is as romantic as a couple’s love, yet it is true. God yearns to be with His people more intensely than a loving couple for each other.

God’s love for us is very special, emotional and romantic. God loves deep and intense. He yearns to be close to us, so much so that He literally came into our world to live among us and at His death, continue to give of Himself, His body and blood, to dwell in our hearts. Day and night He looks at us, reaches out to us and waits for us to invite Him into our lives.

This is what we celebrate at Christmas, God’s great love for us, His yearning to be with us, and His coming: Emmanuel, God is with us.

So how should we respond to this romantic, self-sacrificing, eternal love of God?

The same way as we would respond to our beloved - accept His Love with joy and love Him in return. Love Him, love His way, love His plans, love His words, love everything about Him.

This Christmas, let us look at the baby in the manger and see God yearning for us, as a helpless baby yearns for constant attention, love and affection.

Jesus, Emmanuel, loves us. Let us love Him back.


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Homily: April 6, 2024, Saturday in the octave of Easter (First five saturday devotion.)

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Thank you all for continuing to come for Saturday morning Mass. When I was little, my family used to attend Saturday morning Mass together and will always end with the Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. To me, that is a beautiful devotion for the whole family. I have wanted to start Saturday morning Mass when I first came to SAC but didn’t know if it will catch on with the parishioners. Last year, I attended an evening talk about Our Lady of Fatima at St. Augustine Parish and came to know about the First Five Saturday devotion, and I was again motivated. Finally, today being the first Saturday of the month, we can begin. Let me share a bit more about this devotion. Sr. Lucia was one of the three shepherd children visionaries to whom our Blessed Mother appeared for six months in 1917 in Fatima. Later when Lucia grew up and joined the convent in Spain, our Blessed Mother appeared to her again on December 10, 1925, with this message, “Behold, my daughter, my Heart encircled with thorns
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Homily: March 6, 2022, First Sunday of Lent

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F or forty days and nights, satan was waiting, to strike when Jesus was most hungry, at His weakest. First temptation: “Command this stone to become bread.” Jesus needed food indeed. Satan did not give food, but suggested Jesus to abuse His divine power to create food for Himself. He makes us think our needs and wants are most important. And suggests shortcuts to satisfy ourselves. Selfish desires turn us away from God. Second temptation: “I shall give to you all this power and glory…worship me.” Jesus’ mission is to preach the good news to all nations. Satan tries to persuade Jesus to take the easy way, to receive power and glory from him. satan is the father of lies. Nothing belongs to him. satan tries to make us believe that money will give us power and earthly possessions will give us glory. He tempts us with quick and convenient ways to achieve our ambitions. Greed and vanity block us from holy virtues. Third temptation: “If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here…”
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Homily: April 10, 2024, Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter (Go take your place)

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"But during the night, the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, led them out, and said, “Go and take your place in the temple area, and tell the people everything about this life.” I love this scene from the Acts of the Apostles. You can almost feel the excitement and experience a jaw-drop reaction when you visualize the prison doors suddenly open wide and a bright light leading them all out of prison. Free again! To continue preaching and spreading the Good News with greater fervor and conviction! It was not yet time for the apostles to stay in prison, they still had more work to do, so God sent His angels to set them back to the temple area, to reinstate them from being prisoners back to being preachers.  This is not a legend, not someone’s imagination, but it truly did happen. The truth is, such divine intervention is still happening in our time. Have you heard about the story of the beggar priest? I will share the gist  of it here. There was a priest who did somet
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Homily: March 24, 2022, Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

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 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me, scatters.” Jesus’ message is so clear. We cannot follow Jesus partially. If we are not following him whole heartedly, we are not his followers. Today is the 20th day of Lent, not counting Sundays. We are halfway through. Do you remember what you decided you will do specially for these 40 days of Lent? Are you keeping up to it? While we are trying hard to grow stronger spiritually, the devils are working harder to keep us down. I wonder who is in the lead at this halfway mark? In my childhood years, only rich children in my village could afford to own bikes. When I was in the 5th grade, my older brother and I decided to collect wild nutmeg flowers from the nearby forest to sell, so that we can afford to buy a bike.  We would wake up very early in the morning and run to the forest to search and collect as many as possible. Many children from other villages were doing the same so whoever got there first would get
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Homily: May 3, 2022, Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles

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 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?” There is an excellent radio program on EWTN known as: “Called to Communion”. It is a live call-in show where non-Catholics and lapsed Catholics can ask Dr. David Anders all sorts of questions about being Catholic. And people really asked many interesting questions. I always wonder, if I were to be asked those same questions, would I be able to answer them? Even though I have been a Catholic all my life, and studied theology extensively, there are still many things I am ignorant of in my faith. There are still so much about Jesus that I do not know. Do you know everything about Jesus? I doubt so. Jesus lived with the disciples daily for three years and still they did not know him fully. While we have the benefit of hindsight and two thousand years of revelation, yet we can’t claim to know it all. I like drinking coffee. In my previous assignment, I used to drink coffee every day in the of
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Homily: February 26, 2024, Monday of the second week in Lent (God is mercy).

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 In the first reading, it was during the time of exile in Babylon, when Daniel pleaded with God, saying, “But yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness!” In the responsorial psalm, we prayed, “May your compassion quickly come to us.” And the gospel passage for today began with this verse: "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Our God is merciful, compassionate and always forgiving! How do you feel about this? I feel totally blessed and thankful. Because if our God is not, I would be condemned forever for my sins! Pope Francis published a book in 2016 titled, “The Name of God is Mercy”, reminding us to trust and always turn to God even in our unworthiness. The world exists today because of our God is loving, compassionate and merciful. If we look around and examine within ourselves, sin is everywhere. In this country alone, legal abortions would have hit 30 million since the turn of the millennium, not counting the illegal ones. Humanity continues to commit s
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Homily, March 19, 2022, Solemnity of St. Joseph

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 “Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame…” In India and most of the world, men are expected to be strong, powerful, decisive and outspoken. Oftentimes, quiet, meek and gentle men are considered weak. Are these qualities signs of weakness? Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” It is in quietness that we become more conscious of God’s presence. Jesus teaches, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” Meekness is humility before God and allowing Him to take over as Master of life. St. Francis de Sales said, “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.” To be gentle is to have self-control, real strength is to have control over self, not others. Yes, these describe St. Joseph very well. Quiet, meek and gentle. St. Joseph was a righteous man. Discovering that Mary was carrying a child from another, before he knew it was conceived from the Holy Spirit, Joseph had every right to expose he
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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: June 26, 2022, Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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From the first reading, we heard this opening line: The Lord said to Elijah: “You shall anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah, as prophet to succeed you.” Then: Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him. Finally, the reading ends with this: Then Elisha left and followed Elijah as his attendant. Wow. We see a radical conversion here, fast and effective. Elijah threw a cloak over Elisha, and his life changed in a big way, from being a farmer to being a prophet. And Elijah’s mission was accomplished, as God directed him to. Do you remember how and when you were converted into the faith? Here’s something I read from Reader’s Digest. A priest, a minister, and a rabbi were comparing whose method of conversion was best. They decided to challenge each other to convert a bear according to their own ways. Each of them went about to find a big brown bear and put their conversion powers to the test. After that, they got together to share their results. The priest told, “When I fo
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Homily, March 22, 2022, Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent.

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 “Do not let us be put to shame, but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy.” This is the prayer by prophet Azaria, pleading to God on behalf of the people. How do you discipline your children when they do something wrong? In India, caning is the norm. My parents did the same. Whenever we did something wrong, my mommy would grab the cane to give us a good beating. Of course, we knew what was coming and would run away fast. Mommy would then chase us around the house, trying to get us. Where could we go? The best trick was to run to grandpa. If we reached him before mommy got us, we will be safe! He would always protect us and plead on our behalf, “don’t cane them, just forgive this time”. How many times have we been saved by grandpa? I don’t know, maybe more than seventy-seven times. Peter asks in the Gospel, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him?” He is referring to offences between two persons. If seventy-seven times is how often we should forgive o
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