Homily: April 28, 2025, Monday of the Second Week of Easter (Power Prayer)

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 "As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." 

How powerful! Signs and wonders were happening possibly every day for the first Christian community. Peter and John were fearlessly proclaiming Jesus. No compromises, no watering down the teachings of Christ, no opposition could stop them. 

Even in prison while they prayed, the prison doors unlocked miraculously for them. They truly lived their faith in perfection and the Holy Spirit manifested His effects powerfully through them.

And yet, at our baptism, we all received the same Holy Spirit. Here is the question: Do we experience the same powerful effects of the Holy Spirit in our lives?

The Apostles prayed without fear, worked without hesitation and suffered without the slightest reluctance.

Are we also fervent in our prayer, courageous in our work for the Lord and fearless in facing the challenges that come with living our faith?

As St. Anthony Mary Claret said, “Christian perfection consists in three things: praying heroically, working heroically, and suffering heroically.”

Although I believe I work sometimes like a brave hero, and I do bear certain sufferings with determination but honestly, I think I pray like a mouse in the presence of a cat.

I sometimes fear, doubt, and lack faith when I pray.

St. Teresa of Jesus said, “Prayer is the only channel through which God's great graces and favors may flow into the soul; and if this be once closed, I know no other way He can communicate them.”

I lack trust that God can do the impossible, the invincible, the unimaginable, and this lack is blocking the flow of great graces and favors from God.

He wants to pour them down like a thunderstorm, He wants to send them over like a Tsunami, but I doubt, and I am afraid my prayers will fail. So, I don’t receive.

What about you?

Today, let us ask for the grace to pray, work and suffer like our Christian superheroes, the Apostles of Christ. Let the floors shake and the walls crumble when we pray. Let the devil tremble and flee when we pray.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill us with great courage and make us superheroes of prayer, so that you can work wonders and miracles through us.

Amen.


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Holy Family School Mass Homily.   “At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him. He laid his hands on each of them and cured them.” In today’s Gospel, we hear about Jesus healing many people with different diseases. The passage begins with the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, who was very sick in bed with a very high fever. She was not merely resting, in fact her fever was so bad that she was unable to get out of bed. I am guessing it could be 103 or 104 degrees! Normally, if we get such a high fever, it would take us days to recover with strong medication. But when Jesus visited Peter’s mother-in-law, He simply stood over her, rebuked the fever, that means He scolded the fever, and it left her!  Instantly, she was well again and was able to get up and serve Jesus and His disciples. Wow! Jesus is the King of the Universe, He has power over everything in the world, if you would only believe in Him and trust Him. Even today, Jesus continues ...
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 “He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” These powerful words from St. Paul to the Ephesians remind us of a truth that should fill our hearts with great joy: we are chosen. We choose or nominate someone because we see great value in the person. It is an honor to be chosen, especially for something great. But today, St. Paul tells us something far greater: You and I have been chosen by God Himself the Creator of the vast universe, the Lord of galaxies and stars, the One who holds everything in existence. And God chose us, long before the world began, long before our birth, before we could do anything to earn His love. Why? Because God has a divine purpose for all of us. The blessed virgin Mary was chosen too, in an extraordinary way. God chose her and granted her a unique grace: conception without original sin. Mary’s soul was untouched by any stain of sin from the very first moment of her existence. God has a plan of salv...
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 “The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you.’” As a young man, Joseph must have had beautiful dreams about his future family. He could have imagined a helpful and capable wife, children playing around the house and growing up to be well respected people in the community, a vision of a stable and peaceful life. When he got engaged to Mary, it seemed like his dreams would become reality soon. Many of us, married or not, can identify with the dreams that Joseph could have had. Yet like Joseph, the realities of our lives would have unfolded quite differently from how we have dreamt it. Joseph’s family life turned out totally unlike his own dreams, yet he continued to dream, now with God’s will revealed and God’s plan unfolding in the reality of his life. The hardship he went through in Bethlehem, with the birth of Jesus, did not end there. Today’s Gospel shows another unexpected cha...
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 “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” These words were spoken by God was not meant to be a private revelation. It was heard by everyone present on that day, all who witnessed Jesus being baptized by John.  These words were blessings from God, springing forth from His heart. Before Jesus preached a single sermon, before He healed anyone, before He suffered persecution and death, His Father in heaven proclaimed the Truth over Him: This is my beloved Son. Jesus lived His entire life grounded in that truth. He never struggled with His identity. He never doubted His mission on Earth. He knows who He is and why He has come. His purpose is to do the will of the Father, to reveal to the whole world who God is, to show to all generations how God loves and thus save all of humanity. Let us look again at where Jesus was baptized, the River Jordan. Its waters flows from near Mount Hermon, in between Lebanon and Syria, runs through fertile land, carrying nourishment for t...
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