Homily: March 22. 2025, Second Saturday in Lent (Bashan and Gilead)

-

 "Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old." 

I have always been curious about Bashan and Gilead. My curiosity increased when I heard an old but well-known hymn, ‘There is a Balm in Gilead’ just a few years ago. The song was so beautiful that I searched for more information about Gilead and found many fascinating references in Scripture.

Gilead is mentioned throughout the Bible as a place of refuge and healing. When Jacob fled from his father-in-law, Laban, he found shelter in Gilead. Later, when Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, they handed him over to Ishmaelites who came from Gilead on their way to Egypt, their camels were loaded with gum, balm, and resin for trading. The balm of Gilead was famous in the ancient world for its healing properties.

As for Bashan, Deuteronomy describes it as a land of fertile soil, abundant livestock, and prosperity, known for its fat bulls and strong cattle. If you attend our weekly Holy Hour, you may notice that in the Evening Prayer of every fourth Monday, we praise God in the Psalms for giving the Israelites victory over Og, the king of Bashan.

Gilead and Bashan represent places of refuge, safety, healing and lands of goodness, abundance, and prosperity, respectively. When God promises to restore His people, He is offering them both healing and abundance, mercy and restoration. He wants to feed them in Bashan and Gilead.

If we feel burdened and deep remorse for our sins against God, the first reading offers us deep consolation and encouragement:

"You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins; You will show faithfulness to Jacob, and grace to Abraham."

This promise is beautifully reaffirmed in the Gospel today -the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Jesus reveals the boundless mercy of the Father, who welcomes back His son even after he committed a grave and unforgivable sin. He even restores everything that his son gave up – his dignity, status and legacy of being a son.

This is the very heart of Lent; the call to “return to the Lord”, not because we are good, but because God is good over and beyond our bad.

• In the Lord, we find healing and restoration.

• In the Lord, we find refuge and security.

• In the Lord, we find abundance for all our needs.

As we journey through Lent, let us keep returning to the Lord, for in Him, we find mercy, love and providence.

Amen.


Comments

Post a Comment

Read

Homily: March 27, 2026, Saturday of the Fifth Week in Lent (Hardness of Heart)

-
 “So from that day on they planned to kill him.” These are very strong and shocking words from today’s Gospel. During this season of Lent, we have been praying often in the responsorial psalm: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Every morning, priests and religious pray this line in the Divine Office. It is like a daily reminder, a warning—to keep our hearts open to God. But in today’s Gospel, we see the opposite. The Pharisees and the chief priests witnessed so many miracles of Jesus. And the final one—the raising of Lazarus after four days in the tomb—is something truly extraordinary. That one miracle alone should have led anyone to faith. But instead of believing, they decide to kill Him. Why? Because their hearts had become hard. They chose not to see. They chose not to listen. They chose not to believe. They closed their eyes to the truth and shut their ears to God’s voice. And this is where today’s Gospel speaks to us. Hardness of heart does not happen in o...
Read more

Homily: November 17, 2025, Monday of the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time (Faith)

-
 “But many in Israel were determined and resolved in their hearts not to eat anything unclean.” These were people of true obedience to the faith. They were truly committed and disciplined to follow the teachings. The events we hear about in today’s first reading from the Book of Maccabees took place in the second century before Christ. It was the time when the notorious King Antiochus Epiphanes ruled over Israel. He was anti-Jews. Many among the Israelites began to follow pagan practices and false religion promoted by the king. This period in history is often called the “silent years” of salvation history, a good 400 years after prophet Malachi, before John the Baptist appeared. For four centuries, there were no prophets, no new divine revelations, and no visible signs from God. It seemed like God was silent. That is why the commitment of those who refused to eat unclean food was extraordinary. There was no prophet to remind or encourage them to keep God’s law, no miracles to susta...
Read more

Homily: January 28, 2025, Tuesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time (Do your will)

-
 “Then I said, As is written of me in the scroll, Behold, I come to do your will, O God.” When I was little and growing up on the farm, I didn’t know much about the world beyond my village and parish. I had imaginations about my future, but my dreams were simple and centered around my little village. I wanted to be a farmer, a successful one, to earn lots of money from my bountiful crops, I will buy more land, build a nice house, own a car, get married and live happily ever after. Yes, it was a fairy tale dream. It made me happy and hopeful every time I imagined this perfect life of my future. But one day, all my dreams were broken. God has another plan for me, He called, and I said yes. So no land, no farm, no house, no married life. But I believe this vocation will lead me to a happily-ever-after life after all. My vocation has taken me far away from the village and country where I thought I would live for the whole of my life. I’ve worked in and visited over 23 countries, taken ...
Read more

Homily: March 31,2026 Tuesday of the Holy Week (Light and darkness )

-
 “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Have you ever heard this quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "The nearer the dawn the darker the night." As we enter further into Holy Week, we are getting very near to Easter, and we see the events leading up are also getting darker and more intense. And today, we hear the words from the prophet Isaiah in the first reading, reminding us of our role in the salvation of the world, that He will make us a light in the darkness that is to come upon earth. He has chosen each one of us personally. He has called us by name. While the world is in darkness, we are not to be consumed by it. He has made us to be a light, to shine in this darkness, to break it. Our light does not just shine for others to see, it is a light of holiness, for others to reach to God. It is a light of grace, for others to receive God’s goodness. It is a light that reflects Christ to others, so that they can see c...
Read more

March 1, 2025: First Holy Communion Homily: St. Joseph's Catholic Church Seffner, Florida

-
Did you listen attentively to the Gospel reading? Yes? Let me test you… What did Jesus say? Did He say, “Whoever eats my bread and drinks my wine?”  No! He said, “Whoever eats my FLESH and drinks my BLOOD remains in me and I in him.” Yes, when you receive Holy Communion, you are receiving the real flesh and blood of Jesus. I am sure Fr. Roy, your catechists, parents and the whole parish community have prepared you well for this day, so you know what you are receiving today. But what I want to focus on now is the last part where Jesus says, ‘remains in me and I in him’. 29 years ago in 1996, I received my First Holy Communion. I was eight years old, but I still remember that day vividly. I remember the preparations, my First Reconciliation, and the excitement I felt when I lined up to receive Jesus for the very first time. I remember seeing the priest dipping the Precious Body into the Precious Blood, and then that precious moment – Jesus’ body and blood rested on my tongue. So swee...
Read more

Homily: September 2, 2025, Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time (Thief)

-
 “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.”  Have you experienced having a thief coming into your home, silently and unexpectedly, into your home? Imagine coming out of your room at night and seeing a stranger stealing your valuables. It will be shocking and frightening. Today’s reading described the day of the Lord coming like a thief in the night, silently and unexpectedly, because no one knows when and how the day will happen. Jesus will come at a time we do not expect, both at the end of our own life and at the end of time. Even though many people have analyzed the signs mentioned in the Bible, and tried to predict when the world would end, no one has gotten it right so far.  And anticipating the end of a person’s life is never accurate too, even for someone who seems to be dying, no one can know when exactly it will happen. Deaths that happen in the most unexpected situations are also common. We could be speaking wit...
Read more

Homily: March 23,2026, Monday of the Fifth Week in Lent (God's does not condemn)

-
 “Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? They said this to test him.” Today we heard two powerful stories - one from the Book of Daniel and another from the Gospel of John. In the first reading, Susanna was truly innocent but was falsely accused and about to be condemned for something she never did. She was used as a scapegoat to cover up for the sins of covetous men pretending to be righteous. In the Gospel reading, we see a slightly different situation. The woman caught in adultery was truly guilty of the sin. But similarly, she was used as a bait to trap Jesus, and Jesus cleverly diverted the tricks of those evil men pretending to be righteous. In both cases, God saved the victims. God is a defender of the innocent and savior of the vulnerable. In the Gospel, Jesus did not deny the woman’s sin, but he did not let that destroy her. He gave her a new beginning: “Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.” This is why Jesus says, “It is the will of...
Read more

Homily: July 9-2023, Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Yoke).

-
 "For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” A yoke is a wooden beam sometimes used between a pair of oxen so that they pull together a load, usually to till the land. The pair of oxen walks together so that the work is done with less effort. It was probably first used around 4000 BC, so the people listening to Jesus, who were mostly farmers, would understand what He was talking about. But what is this yoke that Jesus was referencing? Because the work done by the oxen was hard labour and the yoke restricted their freedom, the term ‘yoke’ had been used to refer to burdensome life, hardship and heavy responsibility. The Jewish people were at that time burdened by the law. The 613 sub-laws created by the Jewish religious leaders made life very difficult and burdensome for the people. They made it seem impossible to satisfy God’s expectations, no one except the Jewish leaders could fulfil all that the sub-laws prescribed. Here Jesus is saying that His yoke, His way of keeping the fait...
Read more

Homily: August 10, 2024 Feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyer.

-
 “Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” I am now eight years as priest, I love my ministry, I enjoy giving my time, my attention and energy to people who are need but there are a few tasks which I totally dislike and would try to avoid, if possible. One of these is fund raising. I detest having to ask people for donations. It could be my pridefulness, and my view that most people are not willing to give more. When I was sent to St. Ambrose, I thought God must be playing a joke on me. St. Ambrose, as you know, is always in financial difficulty and as rector, I am constantly trying to find ways to increase our funds. I thought God must be a joker, like St. Lawrence, whose feast we are celebrating today. St. Lawrence, deacon and martyr, who lived in the 3rd century, is the patron saint for comedians. During his lifetime, he made the people around him laugh. I am afraid I can’t retell his jokes, because I am the worst at mak...
Read more

Homily: August 15, 2024, Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

-
 “For he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed.” Indeed, two thousand years since then, over a billion Catholics and millions of Orthodox Christians continue to call her blessed. Blessed is she who said yes to God to be the mother of God’s Son, blessed is she who conceived and birthed the Savior into the world, blessed is she who cared for and raised the Messiah for all of us, blessed is she who watched in pain and stayed with her son as He died on the cross, blessed is she who accepted to be the mother of the church. Today, the whole Catholic church, every diocese in the world, is celebrating the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We celebrate this feast every year, and we already know it is to commemorate the belief that Mary was taken straight up to heaven, body and soul, because she lived and died sinless. What makes Mary so important to the Church? The Church honors her with many titles, because she ...
Read more