Homily: January 3, 2023, Tuesday, Christmas Weekday.

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 “If you Consider that God is righteous, you also know that everyone who act in righteousness is begotten by him.”  The church on earth is mourning the loss of her beloved shepherd Pope Benedict XVI. The church in heaven is rejoicing to welcome his soul into the saintly community of apostles.

Born Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict the XVI was a righteous man like St. Joseph. He was a man for jjustice, he stood firmly for what is right and defended the truth fearlessly. He was steadfast in upholding the doctrine of the church and never allowed anyone to water down the teachings. Many within church opposed him, but he stood his ground. Even in interreligious dialogues, he was never shy in proclaiming Jesus is the truth for the world, regardless of religion. He fought against secularism, relativism, and the culture of death.

In his speech at World Youth Day, Sydney 2008, he said, "Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has made 'experience' all-important. Yet, experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair."

Beneath his no-nonsense demeanor is a man who truly understood the God-man relationship.

In his encyclical Spe Salvi, 2007, he wrote, "God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us."

He is a true, begotten son of God who acted in righteousness. He has arrived at the Kingdom of God. As we bid farewell to this beloved pope and great theologian of our time, let us humbly ask God for the gift of fortitude to give witness to the Truth, to proclaim it fearlessly, and to attain genuine freedom from it. Amen.


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Homily: March 24, 2022, Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

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Homily March 20, 2022, Third Sunday of Lent Year A Readings (For RCIA)

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  Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032022-YearA.cfm “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” We all love a good story, especially true stories that start with challenges, but end good. My grandfather used to tell us many stories about his life. My siblings and I never get bored hearing about his adventures with king cobras and tigers.  He would always end by praising God for leading him to safety in all his encounters. I would often imagine myself in those same exciting situations. Today’s Gospel is about a beautiful story of a woman, with a dark past, living with rejection in her life, who heard her life story retold by a holy man she met, in an unlikely situation. Nobody draws water at noon time, no Jew talks to a Samaritan.  But that encounter changed her life totally. Her darkness was dispersed into bursts of joy and hope. ‘Jesus and the Samaritan woman’ is a story about God breaking barriers – social, physical and spirit
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Homily: March 10, 2022, Thursday of the First Week in Lent

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Homily: October 31, 2022, Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time (Vain Glory).

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In St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he instructed them, “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vain glory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.” Is it possible to regard others more important than ourselves? Is it possible to be selfless? Yes, highly possible, but highly difficult too. With God’s grace, we can. When I was serving at one parish in India, parishioners would give donations on the parish feast day. We would publish the names of donors in the parish bulletin board to acknowledge their generosity. One day, a lady came, gave her donation and said she prefer to be anonymous. Then she thought about it and gave her first name. After a short pause, she said again, “Father, then you must put my last name as well because there is another lady with the same first name.” For a moment before that, I thought she was a humble and modest donor, not seeking any glory for herself. But the final twist revealed that she did want to be acknowledged and made s
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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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“A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench, until he establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for his teaching.” There are four passages in the book of the prophet Isaiah known as ‘Servant Songs’, or ‘Songs of the Suffering Servant’.  Today’s first reading is taken from the first song. The next two days we will read from another two songs. These are prophecies about Jesus, written 700 years before His birth, and they reveal the mission and disposition of the Messiah. This first song describes the most important disposition of Jesus and His very purpose on earth. A bruised weed is a stalk of grain which is crushed and broken in such a way that it will never produce any grain again. It is a dying stalk. This refers to the poor and oppressed, so miserable is their life such that they can never on their own, rise above their poverty and neediness. Their only hope is having someone to lift them out of their situation. A smoldering wick mi
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Homily: June 19, 2023, Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time (parish Treasure)

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"As unrecognized and yet acknowledged; as dying and behold we live; as chastised and yet not put to death; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things." In today’s first reading, we see St. Paul’s wisdom as he writes to the faith community in Corinth. He is teaching them to see positivity in every hardship, every problem, every suffering. To him, every situation, seemingly good or bad, is a blessing, if we have eyes of faith to see it. A good example is our St. Ambrose parish. In the diocese, we are one of the poorest parishes, despite being the Cathedral. Seventy percent of our parishioners are refugees, living every day in survival mode, working hard to build a basic home, to educate their children, simply to live in peace. They left their war-torn country to find a new home, starting from zero. They brought nothing with them, only faith and hope. Materially, they have next to nothing, so they are not able t
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Homily: April 11, 2023, Tuesday in the Octave of Easter (Ignorance)

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"Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." We heard this from the first reading today, St. Peter made this declaration in his first preaching, on the day of Pentecost. Many of the Jews who demanded that Jesus be crucified were ignorant that Jesus was truly the Christ, and now Peter is declaring, so they will ‘know for certain’. Because they were unaware of scriptural prophecies about the Messiah which Jesus fulfilled, they blindly believed the false accusations made against Him by the Jewish leaders. Their ignorance led them to become co-conspirators of murder. St. Paul rightly said, "None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (1 Cor. 2:8) Yes, if they had known for certain, they would not have killed Jesus. Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ. Ignorance of Christ is ignorance of salvation. This ignorance is
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