Homily: January 18, 2025, Saturday of the first week in Ordinary Time (High-Priest)

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"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin."

When someone is diagnosed with a major illness, they often turn to others who have gone through a similar experience. They seek advice about doctors, treatments, and coping strategies.

Why? Because those who have been through the same struggles can empathize and possibly share insights about the situation, better than someone who has not been through it.

They know the pain, the challenges, and the fears, the journey. Of course, not everyone’s experience will be the same, but the reference can be useful. I remember when my mummy was diagnosed with cancer, we asked many people who had cancer before which helped us understand some things about the condition. 

In today’s first reading, we hear about Jesus, our High Priest, who sympathizes with our weaknesses and knows what we go through in life, because He has gone through it all.

Throughout His life on earth, Jesus’ ministry was marked by compassion and mercy. At the very beginning of His mission, He proclaimed: "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, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord."

His very mission is mercy.

But Jesus doesn’t just sympathize; He reaches out to help. He walked the path and showed the way, and He sent the Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us along.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus said: "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."

He came specifically for us, sinners.

So, let us always turn to our merciful High Priest, who understands our struggles and walks with us in our journey of faith. When we have Jesus, we never walk alone.

Amen.

 


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Homily: August 15, 2026, Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Sin-death)

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Homily: August 14, 2026, Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe

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Today we celebrate the memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a saint whose life teaches us what it means to say a complete and generous “yes” to God. Most of us know the final and heroic chapter of his life. At Auschwitz concentration camp, a prisoner escaped, and as punishment, ten men were chosen to die by starvation. One of them cried out in anguish for his wife and children. Fr. Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward and said, “I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place.” His offer was accepted. He entered the starvation bunker with the other prisoners. But even there, he continued to be a priest. Instead of allowing that terrible place to be filled only with despair, he prayed with the prisoners, encouraged them, and helped prepare them to meet God. One by one they died. Maximilian survived longer than the others, and finally the guards killed him with a lethal injection. We know that St. Maximilian Kolbe is in heaven because the Church has canonized him. But I like to think that those p...
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Homily: May 11, 2026 Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter

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Homily: May 9, 2026, Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter (Visions)

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 “During the night Paul had a vision. A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these words, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’” One of the mysterious ways God speaks to people in the Bible is through dreams and visions. I am always fascinated by that. In the early chapters of Genesis, we already see visions and dreams. Abraham looked at the stars, and God promised him descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. Jacob saw a ladder between heaven and earth. Joseph had many dreams. Moses, the prophets, St. Joseph in the New Testament, all received guidance from God through dreams and visions. The prophet Joel describes the messianic age with these words: “Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” And throughout the history of the Church, many saints received mystical visions, saints like Gemma Galgani, Padre Pio, Teresa of Ávila, and Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. Personally, I do not think I have ev...
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Homily: August 11, 2026, Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Sweet as Honey)

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 “Feed your belly and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you.” Ezekiel tells us, “I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.” Sweet as honey! Is that really how we experience the Word of God? For many of us, the Word of God can actually be very challenging. It corrects us, directs our conduct, and forms us in Christian discipline. Beginning with the Ten Commandments, we hear many “You shall nots.” Do not do this. Do not do that. Forgive your enemies. Love those who hurt you. Be faithful. Be honest. Carry your cross. Deny yourself. Sometimes God's Word may feel less like honey and more like medicine—something good for us, but not always pleasant to take. So was Ezekiel simply using beautiful symbolic language when he said that God's Word was sweet as honey? Our responsorial psalm today tells us the same thing: “In the way of your decrees I rejoice.” “How sweet to my taste is your promise!” And again, “The law of your mouth is to me more precious than thousan...
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 “And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.” I have always wished to experience similar impact and intensity of the Holy Spirit. But I wonder if I wish because I need the gift of tongues in my ministry? Or I wish because I am interested in being part of the excitement? Being inflamed by the Holy Spirit does not always end up with these dramatic outward results. Yet it seems to be happening rather often in the conversion experiences of the early Christians and hardly in these later times. Perhaps we do not have the same deep hunger the early Christians had for the sacraments. In the face of persecution and uncertainty, knowing their lives were always on the line, their desire for the grace of God was thus very intense and strong. They also lived in a world with possibly less distractions, so the Gospel of Jesus could enter more deeply into their hearts. In contrast, we live now in a society where life has become c...
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Homily: May 2-2026 Memorial of St.Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church.

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