Homily: June 4, 2023, The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinity-Love-Power)

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 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him."

When I was a child, I wished to be tall, strong and muscular; I dreamed of winning every fight and imagined myself being feared by others. But the truth is I was always thin and small in stature compared to my peers and was bullied by others. To compensate for my lack, I decided that my God is powerful and mighty and will defeat all my enemies. 

Growing up in a predominantly Hindu country, I was fascinated by the stories of Hindu deities who were victorious in every battle, they were superheroes. In school, my Hindu friends and I would argue whose god would win in a wrestling competition: Jesus or Krishna and Shiva the Hindu gods. But Jesus does not even possess any weapon, has never been in fights and would never kill, how could He win? I secretly wished that Jesus and His angels were powerful, invincible  warriors.  

So, what is our God?

Our God is unlike any other, distinct from all other gods. In truth, He is the one and only God. Yet He is not one singular, but a community of three, always united and eternally bonded in love.

Our God is a god of love.

In the first reading, God reveals Himself to Moses as “The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”

Yes, our God is loving, merciful, gracious, patient, kind, faithful. He is not a superhero to deal with our earthly enemies, but a Father to love His children, a Son to save His people, a Spirit to help His chosen ones.

His work is not to fight, kill and win battles. His work is to help, heal and bring home all His children. And He wants us to be like him.

When we look with frustration at the state of our world, our country, our people, it is natural and reasonable to wish for a world free from trouble, abuse and evil. But when we translate this wish into prayers asking God to punish, eradicate and condemn the people whom we think are the causes of all these troubles, then we have failed to understand who God truly is.

God is love. He desires the salvation of all His children. He does not wish for anyone to perish. Our prayers should focus on the conversion of those who do not yet believe, that they may come to believe in the name of Jesus and gain eternal life with God.

God the Father demonstrated His immense love by forgiving those who turned against Him and killed His only Son. God the Son gave His life willingly to save the world. God the Holy Spirit empowered His church to continue teaching this love and forgiveness. This is how our God works.

On this Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity, let us pray as Moses did, “This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own.”

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.


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Homily: April 23, 2024, Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter (Exciting news).

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

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Homily: September 25, 2022, Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Homily: March 13, 2022, Sunday of the second Week of Lent

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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: 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: Tuesday, January 4, 2022, Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious.

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 Two things Jesus said in today’s gospel struck me. First, “How many loaves do you have?” and second, “Give them some food yourselves.” Today’s miracle event reminds me of another parallel event, the miracle of water-turned-into-wine at the wedding feast in Cana. Both situations started with a problem which was brought to Jesus – running out of wine for wedding guests and having no food for the crowd. In both situations, Jesus asked for contribution to the solution. At the wedding event, He asked for six jars of water. At today’s event, He asked His disciples to provide whatever food they had. He then transformed and multiplied these. For the wine, He presented the new wine to the master of the banquet while the servants distributed it to all the guests. For the loaves and fish, Jesus gave the multiplied food to the disciples who distributed to the crowd. In both these miracles, Jesus did not work alone, He involved others. God works through us. These miracles teach us that we cannot b
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Homily: August 20, 2022, Saturday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

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“The angel led me to the gate which faces the east, and there I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east”.  These words in the first reading remind of the Orthodox and Oriental Churches. When they construct their churches, they would set their church altars to face the east, so that, when the priests celebrate Mass, they will be looking towards that direction. In India, especially in Kerala where I came from, all our church altars face the east. The concept is based on the expectation that Christ would come again, arriving from the east, and the priest is leading the community to the heavenly Jerusalem.  Interestingly, the Hindu temples also face eastwards.  And do you know, the houses in my village are built with the kitchens facing the east also. Why? It has nothing related to the coming of Christ. It has to do with the sunrise. The mothers of the households start cooking when they wake up, and the kitchens are open concept, so the rising sun will provide the much need
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