Homily: February 18, 2024, First Sunday in Lent (Repent and belive)

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 "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."

Jesus is crying out loud at the Jordan, the same place where John the Baptist was calling out to people before he was arrested.

There is sense of urgency in the message, a kind of ‘do it now’ warning, a very clear call for action, “repent, and believe…”

As we enter the first Sunday of Lent, this is the first call of Jesus to each of us.

‘Repent’ – have you?

‘Believe’ – do you?

If not, what are you waiting for?

This is usually the period when our catechumen and candidates go through their final stretch of preparation towards baptism, and this message of Jesus is also calling out to them to take action, to convert their hearts, to believe in Him, to wait no more.

Today, during this Mass, we will have the rite of sending, to dispatch them to our bishop for the rite of election at St. Francis of Assisi Parish. They have spent many months learning about the teachings of the Catholic Church, the sacraments, and the Bible. These upcoming weeks, they will dwell deep into salvation history, a journey back to the time before Jesus.

History reveals a lot. It is a memory storehouse.

Salvation History tells us why and how we are saved. We revisit the memories of the church’s faith journey.

The more we understand all that had happened, and why it happened the way it did, we begin to appreciate that our faith journey is essentially a journey of love, a journey that sets out in search of true love and circles back to the source, the origin, the beginning. It is a big discovery of the one and only true love – God and His call for us to go back to Him.

In the second reading, Peter taught that “Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.”

God loves us, every single one of us. This is The Good news. Our faith is all about love.

In the first reading, God sealed His covenant with Noah, and with us, to never again devastate the world through flood.

Would you ever seal an agreement with someone who cannot ever meet the agreed terms and conditions?

Would you ever seal an agreement with someone knowing you will be the one to fulfil your share of the deal?

You would never. I would never too. But God did.

Because God is love and mercy. He sealed a covenant with man who will break it but God will save it.

“This is the time of fulfilment,” says Jesus, because God will fulfil His part of the covenant, He will save us from the death that came with our unfaithfulness.

So we repent, because we want to respond in love.

So we believe, because we want to embrace love.

As our catechumens and candidates enter the final weeks of preparation for baptism, may we also enter this time together with them, into our own preparation for Easter.

Let us repent and believe in the Gospel of love. Let us love and be loved. Let us go back to God, who is love. Amen.


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Homily: December 21, 2025, Fourth Sunday of Advent (Joseph -Trust)

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“When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.” God chose Joseph, a simple carpenter, to be the foster father of His beloved Son. A man from Nazareth, an insignificant town. A man with no power, no influence, no recorded words in Scripture. Yet Joseph stands at the very heart of the salvation story. What makes him so important is not what he said, but what God entrusted him with. There were kings and scholars, priests and leaders, wealthy and influential men. But God entrusted His Son not to them. He entrusted Him to Joseph. That tells us something profound about Joseph’s character. If God trusted him with Jesus, then Joseph must have been a man of deep integrity, quiet strength, steady faith, and faithful obedience. He did not question God’s decision, did not demand explanation to be convinced, nor sought recognition for his sacrifices. He listened. He trusted. He obeyed. And he acted without delay. This Fourth Sunday of Advent i...
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“Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD. She left Samuel there.” How long did Hannah pray and wait for a child? Jewish tradition suggests that Hannah possibly waited about nineteen years. Throughout scripture, we understand that being childless in those days meant living like being cursed. There was no sympathy from others, only gossip and scorn. Despite carrying deep sorrow in her heart, Hannah did not give up, she kept praying and asking for God’s compassion and mercy. Finally, God answered her prayer, and the child was named ‘Samuel’ which means ‘because I asked God for it’. What would you do if you received a gift you have been longing for and waiting for years? You would hold on tightly to it and not want to lose it, right? Well Hannah was different. She was totally grateful that God has removed her shame and restored her dignity with the gift of a son, Samuel. But Hannah did not cling on to her gift, she readily dedicated her ...
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 "He will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold or like silver, that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD." There are usually five steps to refine gold or silver. The very first step is to melt it in a hot furnace, then the molten gold is cast into molds to separate it from base metals and other impurities. It is further refined through electrolysis and other refining processes. Today’s first reading tells us God will purify His people like refining gold. Isn’t it a lot of hard work for God the refiner and such painful process for us, the refined? Yes, but it is so that we will all shine bright and flawless. Yesterday, after Sunday Mass, I was standing near the baptismal font, talking to a parishioner who informed me that Afaf Bakal, a Sudanese parishioner, had just passed away. Two years ago, I baptized her at that very same font and administered her Confirmation and First Communion. I remember her baptism vividly because she was already very weak at the time....
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Homily: December 28, 2024 Feast of the Holy Innocents (Suffering).

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"Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you." Just three days ago, we celebrated Christmas - a joyful commemoration of the day God came to live among us in our world, it is a when divine light entered human darkness, it is a day for rejoicing. The Christmas season continues for the Church up until the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. However, if we read and reflect on the details of Christ’s birth and events surrounding this season of joy, we see poverty, simplicity and suffering. Just before our Lord was born into this world, His earthly parents went through hardship just to find a place to rest, He was then welcomed into physical and material poverty, the day after His birth, we celebrated the death of the first martyr, St. Stephen, followed by the feast of St. John the Evangelist who suffered persecution and isolation till a ripe old age. And now today, we observe the feast of the Holy Innocents — a sorrowful event when hundreds of...
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Homily: August 10, 2025, Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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 “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Do you like surprise visits? Some of us do. Recently, I went again to visit my sister and her family. Since the last visit, my 4-year-old nephew had been calling me almost daily and asking me to visit him again. So, this time, I told my sister to keep my trip a secret, I wanted to surprise the little boy. When he saw me finally, his eyes were wide open with disbelief, and his mouth too was wide open in surprise! I will never forget that look on his face, and the exuberant joy of the moment when I hugged and carried him. But not all of us like surprise visits, especially when the visitors come at the wrong time, and we are caught unprepared. When I was in high school, our principal, Fr. George, was very strict. He didn’t talk much, but he knew every student. Occasionally, he would walk along the school corridors, surveying every corner and if he caught any student misbehaving, he would carry ou...
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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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 “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” This arrangement, spoken from the Cross, may look like a simple and practical arrangement for the care of His surviving mother, but truly, it carries a deeper and profound truth. It is one of the ‘seven last words of Jesus’. Quite naturally and obviously, He entrusted the care of His beloved Mother to someone reliable and obedient. He gave her to John. And at the same time, He also entrusted the continued nurturing of John, His beloved disciple, to His Mother. Jesus had no earthly possessions which will wither and end to leave behind. What He left, as a lasting forever legacy to His disciples and as a gift of eternity to all believers to come, was the institution of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper. Now from the Cross, He is giving to the whole of humanity something personal: His own Mother,  whom He took His human flesh and blood from when she carried Him in her womb. Why John the beloved ap...
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Homily: JUne 28, 2022, Memorial of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr.

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 He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” There was a violent storm and the boat was going to sink. Naturally, anyone would be terrified. Why did Jesus continue to sleep when they were all in danger? Was it unreasonable of them to wake Him? Why did Jesus rebuke them? Well, Jesus rebuked them not because they interrupted his sleep but because of their lack of faith. They were calling, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” They were so sure they would die. They called out in fear. They have seen so many miracles from Jesus, yet they did not have any confidence having Him in the boat with them. Should they not wake Him at all then? I have a very good friend from Sri Lanka. During our seminary days together, I remember he struggled a lot with his studies, especially in the first year.  He was trying so hard but was feeling helpless and hopeless. One day, his spiritual director told him, “Jesus is sleeping in your boat, you have to call out to Him. He will wake...
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