Homily: November 18, Monday of the Thirty-Third week in Ordinary Time (Love)

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“Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first.”

Love is the greatest Christian virtue. Without love, Christianity is meaningless. Without love, salvation is pointless. Without love, our life is aimless.

We are created by a God who is love, saved by His Son out of love and called to imitate Him in love. He created us to accept His love, to love Him, and to love others. Therefore, a life without love is empty.

The greatest love ever is Jesus giving his own life completely to us. Our response to this is to love Him back all our mind, heart and soul.

In today’s first reading from the Book of Revelation, God’s angel rebukes the church in Ephesus for having lost the love for Jesus they had when they first embraced the faith. The Ephesians fell passionately in love with Jesus at the beginning. They surrendered totally to Him, obeying His teachings fully. They left all their old ways to follow Him.

But now God’s  is warning and reminding them, because they have become worldly and were attracted by wealth and success. They began to love the world and forgot Jesus.

This same situation could happen to us too – if we lose track of the Gospel truth and become more concerned about, more in love with worldly issues and practices. When we get caught up with politics, career, entertainment, even academical success, when we become so focused on arguing who’s right, who’s wrong such that we forget to love one another but begin to spiritually, socially, psychologically and even physically attack others who disagree with us.

God desires one thing from all from us: love. He doesn’t seek grand gestures or achievements; He seeks our hearts.

Let us take a moment to reflect and ask ourselves: How much do I love my Lord?

It is when we love God truly, then we know how to imitate Him in loving others. Let us never lose this love.

Amen.


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Homily, Wednesday,January 5, 2022, Memorial of Saint John Neumann, Bishop

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Readings:  https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010522.cfm In the first reading, St. John writes, “Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God”.  Do you truly and fully believe that Jesus is God? Do you know someone who does not believe so? Many, I am sure. Similarly in St. John’s time, there were many early Christian communities who questioned the divinity of Jesus. They followed Jesus’ teachings but regarded Him as simply a human person with the special power to perform miracles. They did not believe He is God. The disbelief stemmed from the humanity of Jesus. He was born from a woman like any other human, he grew from infancy to adulthood in the same way as the rest of humanity. He experienced hunger, pain, emotions and temptations like anyone. But He did not sin. Jesus was indeed fully human, so how could He also be fully divine? Human logic cannot explain it. Science cannot prove it. Thus, many could not accept it. God came to sav...
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Homily April 29, Memorial of Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

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 “And all day long, both at the temple and in their homes, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Christ, Jesus”. Even after being flogged, all day long, the disciples continued teaching and preaching everywhere… Amazing, isn’t it?  These past few days, we have been reading from Acts of the Apostles. We see how the Jewish leaders and high priest tried to stop the apostles from preaching in the name of Jesus. But they failed. The Pharisee Gamaliel rightly said, “if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them; you may even find yourselves fighting against God.” How true. The church is from God. The disciples did not stop teaching and proclaiming. They even rejoiced at being flogged for what they were doing. They were on fire for Jesus. They were so eager and excited to tell everyone about Jesus. What about us? If there is a new restaurant serving delicious food or a store is having a great end-of-summer sale, we would hear many people talking about it. Some w...
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Christmas Homily 2021,

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Homily: November 2, 2024, The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls); Pleanary Indulgnce.

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