Homily: June 14, 2023, Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time (Smallest Letter)

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 Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law.

What is the smallest letter of the law?

In my home diocese in India, the church belongs to the Syro-Malabar tradition and our liturgy is celebrated differently from the Roman rite we celebrate here.

The liturgical language used is East Syriac. Syriac is very similar to Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus and His disciples. Both languages share the same alphabet, and within it, the smallest letter is the Yod (^), which resembles a small upside-down "V". One of our seminarian friends was nicknamed "Yod" because of his small physical stature. 

Despite its size, this letter holds great significance in the language. Yod is used to form all the other letters, and since the Jewish tradition holds that God uses all the letters as the building blocks of creation, Yod points to God's omnipresence. And creation is natural law.

So when Jesus says ‘the smallest letter’ of the law, He could be referring to the foundation of natural law, pointing to God’s intention for the creation of the world, love.

Until heaven and earth pass away, love will never pass.

Today, one of the biggest challenges of the Church's mission is relativism. To many people especially the young ones, everything is subjective. To them, morality is subjective, everything is relative, nothing is absolute, truth is personal. God’s law is thus disregarded.

For a nation, the supreme law of the state is its constitution. For the church, her constitution is the Gospel. A faithful citizen of the state will give utmost respect to its constitution. As faithful Catholics, do we also give utmost respect to God’s law?

Do we truly understand God’s law in matters like Euthanasia, abortion, same-sex union?

Do we live in obedience to the Gospel?

Or do we question its truth and expect it to follow the ways of the world, to keep up with modern times as some people like to say?

Which do you follow?

Everything in the Gospel is founded on love, agape self-giving, self-emptying love. Until heaven and earth pass away, love will never pass. Amen


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Funeral Homily: William J. Baum, June 8, 2023

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Homily: January 30, 2023, Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

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Homily: February 17, 2023, Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time.

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“Let us then go down and there confuse their language, so that one will not understand what another says." If that did not happen at Babel, we would all be speaking the same language, I would not need to learn Spanish and you would understand me perfectly, right? Did you wonder, what was so wrong with building a high tower in Babel which would reach up to the sky? If we look around the cities in the world, we will see many huge and tall buildings. And many are so iconic, making the city they are located at famous and well known. Like the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy, Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, Petronas Twin Tower in Malaysia, Burg Khalifa in Dubai, Taj Mahal in India, just to name a few. Possibly, the question should be, why do people need to build such mammoth buildings? In the first reading, we are told that the people in Shinar wanted to make a name for themselves. So, it was pride. Their plan would need to use up lots of time and resources to build something which would
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Homily: November 20, 2023, Monday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time (Hope).

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Homily: July 23, 2023, Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Weeds- wheat)

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Homily: October 12, 2022, Wednesday of the twenty-eighth week in the ordinary time.

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 “If you are guided by the spirit, you are not under the law”.  From my kindergarten years to grade 4, I used to walk two miles to school and the same distance back home. I would always get really hungry on the way home. My friends and I would pick and eat whatever that was edible along the road. One of our neighbours grew a special cherry plant in his garden. We used to pick the juicy cherries to eat as we walked past. One day, he put up a handwritten sign on the tree which read, “Don’t pick the cherries”. One naughty kid continued to pick the cherries and even tore up that sign. Thereafter, the owner began to guard his cherry fiercely.  If we behaved right and showed respect for his property, there would not need the sign board nor the guarding, right? Similarly, if everyone in society knew how to behave and treat one another, we would not need to have laws. Those who are guided by the spirit of right behaviour will not need laws, because they are above the law.  Is it any wonder why
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