Homily: April 24, 2023, Monday of the Third Week of Easter. (Angel Look)

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 "All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.”

St. Stephen, one of seven selected deacons in the early Christian community, was standing in trial before the Sanhedrin, the supreme rabbinic court in Jerusalem. He was being accused of blasphemy, for his powerful preaching in Jesus’ name.

According to the Jewish authority, he had offended the law of Moses. Stephen knew the sentence for blasphemy was death. Yet he did not look downcast, nor fearful. Instead, his face was like an angel. What look is that?

After vesting for mass, I would always look in the mirror to check, today I did too and checked my face, I definitely do not look like an angel at all.

I have seen many whom I think look like angels. They were all little children. On Saturday, I had 3 baptisms and all those babies looked just like perfect precious angels. Innocent, pure, at peace. Even when they cried, they were still angelic.

We were all like that when we were babies. So, what happened?

Our angelic look disappeared gradually as we sin more and more. We are no longer innocent. But soon we will have the saintly face.

Max Lucado said, “The sinless one took on the face of a sinner so that we sinners could take on the face of a saint.”

Yes, we will look more and more saintly, like an angel, as we become Holier. As we near heaven, we will look more radiant, like Stephen as he faced his death and became the first Christian martyr.

A few days ago, in a conversation with Msgr. Bognanno, He asked a question,  "Why do we receive a glorified body when we go to heaven?” 

And later he gave this answer.  “God is so so beautiful. when we look at Him, we will need a body that shines likes his, a body pure like his, when we meet Him.”

Through God's love, grace and forgiveness, we will become like angels. We will have a radiant face and glorified body when we enter heaven and see the beautiful face of God. Thanks to our Lord who takes away our sins, which dull our look and dim our lives. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

Fr. Nivin Scaria 

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Homily: April 5, 2025, Saturday of the Fourth week in Lent (The crowd and Pharisees)

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 “But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.”  Poor Pharisees. They held onto an unrealistic dream that all Israelites would know the law as well as they did. But the reality was that most people were living in poverty, under oppression, and with fear. They didn’t have the same access to education or religious instruction. Sometimes, I feel something similar in my own life. People often talk to me about TV shows, baseball, or football, assuming I’m familiar with what they enjoy. But the truth is, I don’t even know the basics of those games, I don’t follow any American TV shows except The Chosen.  I live in America, and many assume I share the same interests. But just like the Pharisees in Jesus’ time, it’s easy to forget that not everyone fits into the same mold. In today’s Gospel, the people including the guards were amazed by Jesus’ words. They praised Him for His miracles. But the Pharisees? They weren’t interested. They were so focused on studying the L...
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Homily: November 27, 2023, Monday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time (Fear of the Lord)

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 “In any question of wisdom or prudence that the king posed to them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his kingdom.” One of my favorite books in the Old Testament is the book of Daniel. The stories of Daniel and his friends inspire me a lot. I enjoy reading how God was always with them and blessed them with great wisdom and a unique gift in interpreting visions and dreams. In today’s first reading, we see how King Nebuchadnezzar tested and then invited these three young men, Daniel and his two friends, to serve him. It was an honor and seen as a great fortune to be trusted by the King, to eat and converse with him while all other Israelites were living as slaves. But Daniel and his friends did not once forget the God of their ancestors. Even though they had privileges from the King, they did not disobey God’s laws. They feared the Lord in all their days, they loved God in all their ways. And for that, they had great wisdom and understanding. An...
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“He shall bring forth justice to the nations, not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street.”  Throughout Holy Week, we will be reading from the Book of Prophet Isaiah. 700 years before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah had prophesied about the coming of the Messiah, not in a grand arrival, neither would He leave earth in a dignified departure. The image of Christ described by Isaiah is that of a humble suffering servant of God. His mission is to ‘bring forth justice to the nations’, by taking on injustice on Himself. He will carry the sins of the world through pain, yet He will not cry out, nor shout, He will bear all these in a meek, mild and humble way. Isaiah’s prophecies were all fulfilled by Jesus, particularly in the days of Holy Week. This week’s readings invite us to look to Jesus, no to pity and pain for Him, but to learn from Him, to straighten up our spirit to imitate Him, and to follow His example. All through Jesus’ trial, His great sufferings on the...
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Homily: July 18, Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time.

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“She came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.” Queen Sheba went from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to see and hear for herself the famous King Solomon. Do you know how long did it take Queen Sheba to travel to Jerusalem in those times? She probably took three months to get there, and with a large group of servants, guards and advisors, taking with them not just the essentials for their daily needs but also loads of valuable gifts to present to the King. Would you be so well prepared and travel with so much conviction far away to see and hear someone great? We do see many people putting aside school, work and spend lots of money, even travelling far, to attend concerts, watch ball games and see their idols. Some of these events are often marketed as the ‘event of your life’ and not to be missed. Do we see the same interest and excitement for faith events?  Oh yes! Many people attended the Christ Our Life Conferences. They were all eager to hear the gifted speakers and ...
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Homily: July,14, 2023 Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Final resting place)

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 "Not only will I go down to Egypt with you; I will also bring you back here, after Joseph has closed your eyes." With this promise of God, Jacob was greatly comforted and confident to follow God’s direction to leave the land of Canaan and move to Egypt. Why so? In Oriental cultures, it is a tradition for people to be buried on their family property, within their home ground. You can imagine there could be generations of forefathers buried in the backyard of every house, resting in peace.  Thus, people would never sell their property nor move out of it because their forefathers were buried there, and it would also be their final resting place. Many people who went overseas to work would insist on being sent back to their home countries and be buried in their home ground when they die. Jacob had that same concern. He wanted to be buried in the same cave at Machpelah where Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebecca were buried. Otherwise, he believed he would not rest in peace....
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Homily: June 20, 2022, Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time.

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 “The king of Assyria took Samaria, and deported the children of Israel to Assyria”. The northern kingdom, Israel, had been captured. Israel turned against God’s law, forgot all that He had done fore them and worshipped idols. That resulted, living in exile, homeless and with great suffering. That was one of the darkest episodes in the history of Israel. The chosen people of God were scattered from the exile and never returned home to the promised land given to Abraham and his descendents. Only the southern kingdom, the tribe of Judah, returned after their exile to Babylon. Why was God merciless? Why did He punish His people? We understand God to be loving, compassionate and merciful. So, does God punish us when we do wrong? Does He turn a blind eye to our sorrows and sufferings? The good news is God never punishes. We chose to punish ourselves, by choosing sin, choosing wrong, choosing evil. Each cause has an effect, every sin has its consequence, its effect according to the gravi...
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Homily: October 27, 2024, Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (I want to see)

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 "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you." Bartimaeus was blind and a beggar, someone whom society had ignored, forgotten and cast aside. Bartimaeus had no status, no rights, nothing. But Bartimaeus had faith.  He believed that this Jesus whom he had heard so much about, could do for him what others could not do. He was so sure thus he did not hesitate to call out to Jesus who was walking by. Not once, but repeatedly. Even when others told him to stop, to keep silent, he cried out louder. Jesus heard his cry, his desperate plea for mercy. Jesus saw his sincere persistence and responded to him. "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you." And what Bartimaeus do? “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.” Bartimaeus was spontaneous and immediate in his response. His cloak was the only thing he had, which gave him protection and security. But at the call of Jesus, he threw it aside and came to Jesus, he did not hesitate at all to detach from his one...
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Homily: October 20, 2023 Friday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time (Secrets).

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 "There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known." Do you have secrets? Are you worried about your secrets being revealed? Do you keep secrets for someone else? Have you been tempted to leak out the secret to another person? Something I realized growing up in a large family, is that in big families, there are no secrets, there is no way to hide any secret, not for long. Someone will somehow find out something. When I was in school, the period after exams is the secretive time. The teachers would enter our examination results in our school journal, to be shown to our parents for their signature, then return to the teachers next day. My brother and I would always get poor grades, and we would hide our school journals, with a plan to only show to our parents the next day just before leaving for school, so that there would not be much time for them to scold us, they could just sign and we would run off quickly to school. The plan never wor...
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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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Homily: 4-15-2023, Funeral, Joesph Vanlent

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 Joseph Vanlent, a faithful friend, a beloved brother, a holy man. Mother Angelica said, “Where most men work for degrees AFTER their names, we work for one BEFORE our names: 'Saint'. It's a much more difficult degree to attain. It takes a lifetime, and you don't get your diploma until you're dead.” In my opinion, our dear Joe has surely attained the saint title to his name, don’t you agree? All of us gathered here are truly blessed to have known and shared life with him. And it is an honor for me to preside over this memorial mass. I have only known Joe in the past two years, but I have learnt a lot from him. Joe lost his mother when he was only four years old, and as a little boy, he was very much attached to his elder sister who was like a mother to him. He enjoyed helping her in the kitchen and doing household chores. Then at 15, he was diagnosed with diabetes, and at the age of 30, he started losing his sight. He had to give up the family farming operations and...
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