Homily: February 19,2024, Monday of the first week in Lent (Be Holy)

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Two phrases that struck me today are from the first reading. The first one is, “Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy,” and the second one is: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”

For a long time, I have always thought that holiness was something that I could never attain. I just felt it was too far and impossible for me to reach.

When I was little, all the saints I knew about were born in countries a great distance from India, like St. Anthony of Padua, St. Dominic Savio, St. Padre Pio, and so on. I believed that people from other countries were holy, and Indians can never be.

It is only recently that there are saints from India being canonized. I am sure there must have been many unknown, unnamed and uncanonized saints who lived and died in India throughout its history, but their cases were never brought to the Holy See for the canonization process. Similarly for many countries in Asia and around the world.

After my ordination, as I encountered more people who lived authentic Christian lives, I began to realize that there are many living saints. And the place I encounter most of them is usually in the confessional. They come to confess themselves as the worst sinners, but I see them as shining saints as I reflect upon my own sins in comparison.

What does it mean to be holy?

Often, we think that to be holy is to be perfectly good, and that is when holiness becomes impossible for anyone to attain. But if we understand holiness based on what the Lord told Moses, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD”, then we can see how we can be holy.

What do you do when you are hungry? Feed yourself.

What do you do when you fall sick? Take good care of yourself.

What do you do when you are thirsty? Yes, get water to drink.

In the very familiar Gospel reading, Jesus has given us the same instructions: love others as you love yourself. Just do the same things you would do for yourself in the same situation. In that way, you are loving your neighbor, and you would be loving Jesus.

Finally, the critical words that the Lord said to Moses, “I am the Lord.”

We cannot love our neighbor, we cannot do good, we cannot attain holiness on our own. We have to turn to the Lord all the time for the graces we need to be holy like Him.

The saints were holy not because they were born in holy countries, but because they were always receiving graces from the sacrament of reconciliation. Holy saints are born from the confessionals. From there, they emerge humble and full of God’s grace. They are then able to see the face of Jesus in everyone and are able to love and serve them sincerely.

Enter the confessional a sinner and emerge from there a saint. Holiness is born in the confessionals, through the graces received from the sacrament. No one can be holy without God, no one can be saint without forgiveness, no one can enter heaven if not a saint. Amen.


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Homily: April 6, 2024, Saturday in the octave of Easter (First five saturday devotion.)

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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: November 7, 2023, Tuesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time (Invitation).

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“Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame." Today’s gospel story really struck me deep. The poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame: who are they? At the time of Jesus, these were the people who were despised, considered imperfect and looked upon by society as people abandoned by God, cursed and thus without the blessing of wealth nor health. And because of their imperfections, being rejected by society, they can't do many things on their own, opportunities are blocked, doors are closed to them. They only have one hope - God. They have no one else to depend on. Conversely, those who were better off, those blessed with wealth and health, who were the first guests invited to the grand dinner, were so busy with their own affairs, and engrossed in their own world that they had little or no regard for the invitation.  They were independent, they did not think they needed to deepen their relationship w
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So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers confronted him, saying, “You entered the house of uncircumcised people and ate with them.” This incident happened soon after the Pentecost event. Peter was going around Jerusalem and its neighboring towns thus most of the newly converted were Jews, Orthodox Jews who were strictly faithful to the Mosaic laws and Jewish traditions and practices like circumcision, separating from the Gentiles, and even religious dietary restrictions. They wanted to follow Christ but were not ready to let go of their old way of life. They were not ready to live alongside the Gentiles who also accepted Christ and so could not include them into their community. They embraced Jesus’ resurrection but could not discard their deep rejection of the Gentile people. If the apostles and their successors had also maintained the same disposition, the church would not have grown. It was only when the good news spread to the Gentiles and non-Jews that the chu
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