Homily: December 10, 2023, Second Sunday in advent (Renewal)

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 But according to his promise, we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

How many of you change your mobile phones about once every one or two years?

How many of you change your car once every five years?

How many of you change your spouse once every seven years?

Thanks be to God!

We live in a world of disposables, and they say, ‘change is the only constant’. Many of us prefer new stuff, when something is used or old, we discard and get a brand new one. Some of us prefer the old stuff, we try to repair or renew the existing one.

God is the perfect Constant, He does not change, He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Yet, He is also the perfect Renew-er, He is constantly renewing us, renewing the earth, renewing His creation. St. Paul says that those who are in Christ are a new creation. Are you really in Christ and is Christ fully in you?

I just learnt that our human cells renew or regenerate on average every 7-10 years. And do you know that our skin cells are renewed or replaced every few weeks, and the cells in our skeletal muscles regenerate every 15 years?

Every day we wake up somewhat newer than the previous day. Every morning is a new beginning; every season is a new start; every year is a new cycle of life.

Life in Jesus is a life of renewal. When we stop renewing, we stop growing, we begin dying. Jesus heals and renews us.

I like a phrase from the Eastertide prayer in the Roman Missal which prays that 'the renewal constantly at work within us may be the cause of our unending joy.' Because we are constantly renewed by God, our joy never ends.

In the first reading, the Israelites who were in exile, wanted a new life. In the second reading, the persecuted Christians were waiting for new life in Christ. The gospel reading declares the beginning of the renewed life as God has promised the Jewish people – the coming of the Messiah, who will liberate them and deliver them from the slavery of sin.

John the Baptist suggests three things to renew their lives: repentance of sin, baptism and reception of the Holy Spirit.

Almost all of us here are baptized and would have received all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and many of us do go for confession, but why is it we do not experience any powerful renewal of faith or spirit in our lives?

Imagine a glass half filled with dirty water. When clean fresh water is poured into this glass to the brim and mixed with the existing dirty water, will the mixture be clean or dirty?

Yes, it remains dirty.

Yes, the dirty water must first be completely poured out before the glass can be filled with and full of clean fresh water.

It is the same with our spiritual life. We cannot be fully renewed no matter how often grace is poured into us, if we do not get rid of all our sins.

We receive baptism only once in our lifetime, but we can receive the sacrament of reconciliation as many times as we need. Advent is a good time for spiritual cleansing, to empty ourselves of all sins and be prepared to receive the full goodness that God wants to pour into our lives with the coming of Jesus. When we confess completely, we receive fully the mercy and forgiveness of God. We will be totally renewed, refreshed, and liberated.

Christmas is God coming to be with us. How well will you be receiving Him this Christmas?

A good confession is the best way to prepare our heart, our mind, our body and our soul for the Lord. The most powerful renewal is the renewal of the spirit. Made pure in spirit, we become the perfect place for the birth of Jesus. Our heart is His favorite dwelling place.

Prepare the way for the Lord, make clean and get ready His dwelling place. Amen.


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Homily: May 6, 2024, Monday of the sixth week of Easter (Lydia)

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 “One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying.” The Easter readings are truly remarkable. We witness how the Holy Spirit did amazing works through the acts of the apostles. The apostles simply went about sharing about the life of Jesus and spreading the good news. They were unperturbed by rejections or persecutions, and their persistence and bold proclamations won more hearts than objections. And we also see how the Holy Spirit converts not always in the same way but through many ways according to the charisms of the preachers as well as the unique situations of the listeners.  On Pentecost day, we saw a massive conversion of three thousand people all in one day through one event. Today we encounter the story of a single conversion: that of Lydia, a woman from Thyatira. We are told she was a dealer in purple cloth, that meant she had dealings w
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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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Funeral Homily: William J. Baum, June 8, 2023

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 The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. The soul of Bill is in the hand of God, no torment shall touch him. We are here to bid our final farewell to Bill, our beloved brother, grandpa, dad, husband, friend. I feel privileged to have known Bill these last two years and honored to preside over this Mass for his sending off. Many of you would have known him much longer and much better than I. I wish I had more time with him. I was awed when I read his obituary, his life story is inspirational. I know from my encounter with him that he was a dedicated husband, a loving and caring father, the greatest fan to every one of his grandchildren, and an incredible friend to countless people here and around the world. His going would surely leave a void in our lives. It is only natural that we grieve this loss. Bill was a man of remarkable character. His love for life, his sense of humor, and his thoughtfulness for others were the hallmarks of his personality
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Homily: May 4, 2024 Saturday of the fifth week of easter (Align to the Holy Spirit).

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“Day after day the churches grew stronger in faith and increased in number.” This was the observation made by the author of today’s first reading, reporting about how St. Paul and companions went about preaching the good news, teaching the faith and building the church communities. If the same author were to be here today, looking at what is happening in the church communities now, how would he report? What would he say about the churches here? Churches are closing, religious vocations are decreasing, few people are sharing faith, young people in the families are not attending Mass, people are choosing churches that align with their ideologies not based on truth. It looks like the first 300 years in the history of the Church were the most glorious and productive. What happened thereafter? Why such a great difference? What is missing? What went wrong? Is this the same situation in churches around the world? Is there any hope that the church will grow again, in strength and spirit? Yes,
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Homily:" May 7, 2024. Tuesday of the Sixth week of Easter (praise and worship in Prison)

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 "About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God…” I cannot even imagine this scene. How could they still pray and sing in such a situation? Whenever I have a slight headache, ear infection, or a little upset stomach, I would already be very disturbed. I would not even want to talk to anyone during those moments. If I had something worse, I might not even be able to pray. If you look carefully at my left eyebrow, you will notice a scar. During my seminary days in Rome, there was once when I was late for class, and I ran so fast into the classroom that I crashed into the glass door without realizing it was closed. I shattered the glass and a piece of it cut deep across my eyebrow. Thankfully it missed my eye. I was so in pain, shock and bleeding that I could not talk to anyone for a while, and I definitely was not in the mood to sing or pray. But look at Paul and Silas. They had just been attacked by a crowd, were then stripped, and beaten with rods. Aft
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Homily: February 3, 2023, Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

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 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Amen! I remember very vividly seeing this Bible verse written across the outer wall of a Pentecostal church in the neighbouring town of my village. I was a child then and did not fully understand it. Now I am an adult. This verse is now firmly written in my heart and mind, I can’t claim to understand its full effects, but I know this is the truth about Jesus. He is the same then, now, and forever. He has not changed and never will. In contrast, we are the ones who have changed, and will continue to change, in our thoughts, views, values, beliefs and behaviour. Our emotions also change. And that affects many relationships. Think about your relationships with your parents, children, spouses, friends – have they changed in the way they treat you, love you, connect with you? Have you changed? For better or for worse? We change because we are not consistent. We change because we grow. We change because we are not yet the full version
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Homily: April 18, Monday in the Octave of Easter.

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 Last night, while preparing this homily, I was reading the Collect of this Mass and this phrase struck me, “O God who give constant increase to your church by new offspring”. The words ‘constant increase’ and ‘new offspring’ made me think deeper. Around us, we do hear of people who leave the church or stop practicing the faith. There are still many who do not know God and do not believe in Christ.  Yet, around the world, the Holy Spirit is working wonders. 2019 Vatican statistics recorded an increase of 16 million baptisms in that year. And on Saturday, during Easter Vigil in our little parish community here, we witnessed 9 baptisms and 13 confirmations. Out of these 22 catechumens and candidates, 18 are from Eritrea. Some of them could not even recite the profession of faith because they have never had any formal education. They were born in the refugee camps and lived some 20 to 25 years there. But deep within their hearts, and within the difficulties of their lives, they knew God,
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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: Thursday, June 9, Thursday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

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 Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of God.” How were the scribes and Pharisees righteous? For them, being righteous meant to be obedient to the law and the prophets, to the letter. They followed the law literally. In other words, they were legalistic. They were righteous, externally. How then can anyone surpass their righteousness? They were exact and accurate in everything the law prescribed. Can anyone do more than them, more than the law required and go the extra mile? What does Jesus mean? What is the purpose of the law? St. Paul had the answer. In his letter to the Ephesians, he wrote, “…to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…” Yes, we are to seek love above knowledge. St. Paul continued, “…so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” And this is the purpose of the law, that we may be full of God, that means full of love. So, the only way to s
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Homily: August 21, 2023, Monday of the twentieth week in Ordinary Time.

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 “The children of Israel offended the LORD by serving the Baals.” We often say that "experience is the best teacher." However, this holds true only for those who are open to learning. It seems that humanity has never learnt from experience and so history repeats itself. If we had learned the lessons from World War 1, there would never have been World War 2, and the world thereafter would have been free from all wars as well. The Israelites were foolishly guilty of the same. While in the desert, they worshipped other gods and suffered the consequence of being bitten by snakes, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of people. That was not the only experience they had for being unfaithful to God. Did they learn their lesson? No. What are the baals? They were names given to deities, commonly referred to the Canaanite-phoenician god of fertility and rain. Rain was necessary to bring about a bountiful harvest in a fertile land, it was a symbol of fertility. Fertility was a sym
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