Homily: February 1, 2023, Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

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 “A prophet is not without honour except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”

This is so true. I experienced the same. The most challenging place for me to preach is my home parish. In that small parish of 194 families, more than 30 families are my cousins and uncles. There are also my childhood friends from the same village, who knew me very well when we were all kids. And of course, my six siblings, who are always eager to find a discussion point from my homilies to tease me.

I can understand, because it is difficult for them to take anything I say seriously since all they remember of me were naughty times and childish years. Everything about me now, gets filtered through their memories of my past.

Only my late papa, he was the only one from home who appreciated my homilies and encouraged me, because he had always chosen to see the deeper beauty of me, and everyone else.

If we follow the lives of the Old Testament prophets, it can be heart-wrenching. Most of them were killed by their own people, not outsiders.

If we think about it, do we also find that it is much easier for us to talk about faith matters and share spiritual stories with people outside of family, to strangers rather than friends, because they seem more open to listen to us?

Our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified by His own people, the Jews. Prophets warn, correct and even reprimand the people, to turn them away from sin and guide them back to God. They stand for the Truth and speak the Truth. And these are often not the nicest things to hear. Many choose to reject such messages especially when delivered by people whom they are familiar. Instead, they prefer to believe messages that appeal to their likes. They prefer to follow and trust social media, even if those are fake news and negative feeds.

What should we do?

We should be brave. We too are called to be prophets of this world, to deliver the message of God faithfully, to witness to the Truth fearlessly. And that includes preaching to our own families, the ones closest to us. It would be our big regret if we saved others but not our loved ones.

So let us pray that the Holy Spirit will strengthen and grace us to be true prophets of Christ, to the world and to our home.

Amen. 

Fr. Nivin Scaria 


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

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Homily: March 10, 2022, Thursday of the First Week in Lent

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Homily: March 25, 2024, Monday of the Holy week (Servant songs).

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

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 The Lord God took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”  “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.” God made these two promises to Abram. For the people in ancient times, and for many even in modern times, having children as heir and owning land as property are two most important possessions in life. Abram had been leading a nomadic life for many years and his wife Sarai, already in her old age, was still childless at that time. So, Abram doubted and questioned, “how am I to know…?” Have you been praying for something important, bearing heavy burdens while waiting, trying to keep hopeful but still you received nothing? Would you also doubt and question God? In response to Abram’s doubt, God assured him by cutting a covenant with him, known as a covenant of the pieces. In ancient times, when people entered a treaty, a contractual agreement, they wo
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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: 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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Homily: May 10, 2023, Wednesday of the Fifth week of Easter (Holy family School Mass)

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We heard in the Gospel today, Jesus is telling His disciples, "Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine." How many of you enjoy gardening? Have you ever noticed what happens when you cut off a branch from a plant? What will happen to that branch? It will dry up, wither and die after a short time, right? Some of you don’t do gardening so you may not be familiar and may not understand. What about this - how many of you use a mobile phone or tablet? What happens when the battery is used up and you don't charge it? Yes, it shuts down and stops working. You can’t play on it, can’t send messages, can’t make calls, you can’t even switch it on. The mobile phone or tablet is dead! So what should you do to revive it? Yes, you connect it to the power source to charge it, either plug in to the electrical outlet or to a power bank to power up the battery. Only then does the phone become useful again, right? Our spiri
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