Homily: March 25, 2024, Monday of the Holy week (Servant songs).

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“A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench, until he establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for his teaching.”

There are four passages in the book of the prophet Isaiah known as ‘Servant Songs’, or ‘Songs of the Suffering Servant’. 

Today’s first reading is taken from the first song. The next two days we will read from another two songs. These are prophecies about Jesus, written 700 years before His birth, and they reveal the mission and disposition of the Messiah.

This first song describes the most important disposition of Jesus and His very purpose on earth. A bruised weed is a stalk of grain which is crushed and broken in such a way that it will never produce any grain again. It is a dying stalk. This refers to the poor and oppressed, so miserable is their life such that they can never on their own, rise above their poverty and neediness. Their only hope is having someone to lift them out of their situation.

A smoldering wick might look like it’s dying but is not, given a bit more time to continue smoldering and the right amount of air, its flame may burn brightly again. 

This refers to the weak and meek, given the right opportunity they can have a brighter future, they need someone to lead and guide them.

Jesus will not break the poor and oppressed, He will not snuff out the weak and meek but through his compassion and mercy, He will uplift them and guide them. 

Jesus does not judge them to be unworthy or useless as the world judges but sees everyone as valuable and good enough for redemption. Our Lord looks at the broken hearted and the sinners with love, compassion and mercy.

That is His mission and purpose, as declared in the synagogue when Jesus read from the passage of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”

That is why tax collectors and sinners follow Him. That is why people who are wounded emotionally, spiritually, and physically come to Him. They are the reason He came to earth. They are the object of His suffering and death, that they may be saved, lifted up from their misery and sin.

How far will Jesus go to be with us? How much will Jesus suffer to save us?

As far as from heaven to earth, as much as to die on the cross.

We are in the holiest time of the year, when God fully empties His divinity unto humanity, when the graces that pour forth from His intense suffering will one day bring us beyond death into eternity. Amen.


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Homily: March 24, 2022, Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

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Homily: March 6, 2022, First Sunday of Lent

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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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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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Homily: May 10, 2023, Wednesday of the Fifth week of Easter (Holy family School Mass)

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We heard in the Gospel today, Jesus is telling His disciples, "Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine." How many of you enjoy gardening? Have you ever noticed what happens when you cut off a branch from a plant? What will happen to that branch? It will dry up, wither and die after a short time, right? Some of you don’t do gardening so you may not be familiar and may not understand. What about this - how many of you use a mobile phone or tablet? What happens when the battery is used up and you don't charge it? Yes, it shuts down and stops working. You can’t play on it, can’t send messages, can’t make calls, you can’t even switch it on. The mobile phone or tablet is dead! So what should you do to revive it? Yes, you connect it to the power source to charge it, either plug in to the electrical outlet or to a power bank to power up the battery. Only then does the phone become useful again, right? Our spiri
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Homily: October 31, 2022, Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time (Vain Glory).

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In St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he instructed them, “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vain glory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.” Is it possible to regard others more important than ourselves? Is it possible to be selfless? Yes, highly possible, but highly difficult too. With God’s grace, we can. When I was serving at one parish in India, parishioners would give donations on the parish feast day. We would publish the names of donors in the parish bulletin board to acknowledge their generosity. One day, a lady came, gave her donation and said she prefer to be anonymous. Then she thought about it and gave her first name. After a short pause, she said again, “Father, then you must put my last name as well because there is another lady with the same first name.” For a moment before that, I thought she was a humble and modest donor, not seeking any glory for herself. But the final twist revealed that she did want to be acknowledged and made s
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sermon: April 7, 2023, Good Friday.

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 “Whom are you looking for?” Jesus knew the Jewish guards and Roman soldiers were coming to get him, yet he asked them this question. Why? If the police set out to arrest someone, they would have in mind the name of the person and the crime. Jay the murderer. Joe the thief. Jake the robber. So, whom were they looking for when they went to arrest Jesus? Jesus the Nazorean. There was no crime to His name. They went to arrest Jesus like a criminal, but He is not. They arrested Jesus because He is the Son of God. The Jews expected Jesus to be a political hero, but He is not. They rejected Jesus because He is the lamb of God. Jesus was not who they were all expecting. They could not see who He really is, they could not accept Him because He was not what they wanted. What about you? You come to church, you pray, you worship, you even sacrifice your time and money – what are you expecting? Whom are you looking for? Is He Jesus, the slave who will answer all your requests? Or the servant who w
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