Homily: June 21, 2025, Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time (Sufficient Grace)

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 “Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’”

This sentence in today’s first reading is one of the most well-known and quoted lines in the New Testament. There are many interpretations about what could be the “thorn in the flesh” which St. Paul referred to and asked for the Lord to remove for him. No one knows for sure, and no one needs to know exactly.

What we do know is that it was something Paul believed the “angel of Satan” was sent to torment him. It was so bad for him that he wished and prayed for the Lord to take away from him. But Jesus did no, and told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Jesus is telling us the same: “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Are you struggling terribly?

Do you feel greatly tormented?

Are you facing huge troubles?

Do you feel like there is no way out?

If you are crying out to the Lord like St. Paul, know that you are not alone. God’s silence is not absence. He is with you, more closely than you will ever know. He is supporting you, more firmly than you can ever feel.

That is grace.

Unseen, unfelt, but real and ever present, in the sacraments and sacramentals.

Do you have holy water, blessed rosary, medals, statues, holy pictures?

Look at these, hold on to these, pray with these. They are signs that God is present, God wants to strengthen us through the effects of the ‘thorns in our flesh’.

Go do a good confession, continue to receive the Holy Eucharist. These are sacraments through with abundance of grace are poured into our hearts and uplift our souls even without us feeling it.

There are countless ways to receive grace, like daily nutrition supplements, they build us up silently. While they may not remove the thorns, they build up spiritual resilience.

Because seriously, the Lord’s grace is truly sufficient for us to walk through the valley of death and be unharmed. Believe it, claim it, receive it. Amen.


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Homily: July 20, 2025, Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary time.

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 “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing.”  What is the only one thing needed? In the first reading, God visited Abraham in the heat of the day. Abraham saw three men approaching his tent and sensed something special about them. In normal circumstances, Abraham simply could have acknowledged them and gone on with his work, but he did not. He dropped his work, ran to them, bowed before them, presented himself at their service, and got his household to prepare a good meal for them. He paid attention to their needs, and to what they had to tell him. In the Gospel, Jesus visits His dear friends Martha and Mary. Martha busies herself to prepare food to serve her special guest. While Mary chooses to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to Him. Mary is paying full attention to Jesus and enjoying His presence, while Martha is overwhelmed with perfecting her tasks, and then complains, in an attempt for Jesus to deny attention to Ma...
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Homily: February 13, 2022, Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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 In the first reading we heard, “Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD.” And then it continued with, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD.” It is very clear, isn’t it? That those who turns away from God will be cursed and those who trusts in God will be blessed. The gospel reading today is known as the beatitudes, in which our Lord Jesus also spelled out the curses and the blessings. But it seems much harder to accept what Jesus is teaching here. I too struggle with this. Let us try to understand it together. We have been told that we came from God, and after this life, we will go back to God. For a long time, I questioned the rationale. Why create me to throw me into this difficult life just to bring me back to Him again? Why not just keep me with Him from the beginning and save me the trouble of going through this life? This earthly life is not easy. I w...
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Homily: July 13, 2025, Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Broken- Healed)

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 “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off, leaving him half-dead.”  A few months ago, one member from Knights of Columbus shared a story of his recent experience with me: It was just before the Easter Vigil mass, he was handing out candles to parishioners coming for the procession. Without noticing it at first, he handed out a candle which was cracked. When he realized it, immediately he apologized, saying, “Sorry, this one is broken.” Without much hesitation, the woman smiled and replied, “Aren’t we all broken?” So true. We are all broken in some way, none of us have a perfect life. Whether it is emotional, physical, psychological or spiritual, every one of us would have experienced some setback, pain or suffering which were never fully healed, not resolved, not yet gone away. It broke us and stayed on in our lives. Finally, our own sins and sinfulness are our biggest brokenness. These break through our s...
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Homily: March 2, 2022, Ash Wednesday

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 Today begins another holy season of Lent. A time to turn away from sinful ways. To turn back to God. Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are from dust. Unto dust we shall return. God looked at dust and loved. He gave dust His breathe of life. God looks at us and loves. He gives us His body, blood and spirit. What can we give Him? “Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart”. God doesn’t want anything from us, He wants us. Live in God. Live with God. Live for God. In God’s ways. When I first came to this country, I saw crowds packing the mega churches. Non-Catholic Christian churches. I was really fascinated. Our Catholic churches are hardly ever filled. I asked an elderly priest, “why?” He replied, “Ours is a worship and sacrifice. Theirs is a show.” People like shows, performances, excitement. The world says, “be heard, be seen, be known, and be successful.” The Gospel says, “pray but don’t be heard, fast but don’t be seen, give but don’t be known, and be faithful.”...
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Homilía: Julio 17, 2022, XVI Domingo Ordinario

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Homilía: Marzo 24, 2022, Jueves de la III semana de Cuaresma.

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 “El que no está conmigo, está contra mí; y el que no recoge conmigo, desparrama”.”. El mensaje de Jesús es muy claro. No podemos seguir a Jesús parcialmente. Si no lo estamos siguiendo de todo corazón, no somos sus seguidores. Hoy es el vigésimo día de Cuaresma, sin contar los domingos. Estamos a la mitad. ¿Recuerdas lo que decidiste hacer especial para estos 40 días de Cuaresma? ¿Lo estás cumpliendo? Mientras nos esforzamos por fortalecernos espiritualmente, los demonios se esfuerzan más para mantenernos deprimidos. Me pregunto quién está a la cabeza en esta mitad de camino. En mis años de infancia, solo los niños ricos de mi pueblo podían tener bicicletas. Cuando estaba en quinto grado, mi hermano mayor y yo decidimos recolectar flores silvestres de nuez moscada del bosque cercano para venderlas y poder comprar una bicicleta. Nos despertábamos muy temprano en la mañana y corríamos al bosque para buscar y recolectar tantas como fuera posible. Muchos niños de otros pueblos estaban...
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Homily: March 20, 2023 Monday, Solemnity of Saint Joseph, spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

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 From the first reading, “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.” From the second reading, “I have made you father of many nations.” And from the Gospel, “Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.” Today we celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, not ‘St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus’. Yet today’s readings seem to focus on fatherhood, having descendants and heirs, being the head of many nations etc. Little is mentioned about being a husband, a spouse. So why does the church celebrate St. Joseph’s role as the Spouse of Mary with readings about fatherhood? We know for a fact that it is not possible for a man to have biological children without the woman, so no heir without the wife, no kingdom without the queen. From conception to birth, the woman bears the burden and delivers the joy. The man supports. There was a couple with two little kids, who went to the clinic one day. The wife was not feeling well. When the do...
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Homily: January 18, 2022, Tuesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time.

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 Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011822.cfm “Take no notice of his appearance or his height for I have rejected him; God does not see as man sees; man looks at appearances but the Lord looks at the heart.” These words of God are so assuring. If God were to choose based on appearances and height, I would never have made it to priesthood. But the world chooses differently. When I was doing my seminary studies in Rome, I used to go to Germany for summer jobs. I was poor and my home diocese could not afford to give seminarians who studied overseas any allowances, so I worked during the vacation to earn pocket money for my daily expenses. During my first vacation stint, I got a job with a car factory in Munich which produced the BMW cars. Our job was to do summer cleaning of the factory. On the first day of work, they lined up all student workers according to our heights and weights. I was so skinny at that time, so I was almost last in line. Then the work was assi...
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Homily: August 21, 2023, Monday of the twentieth week in Ordinary Time.

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 “The children of Israel offended the LORD by serving the Baals.” We often say that "experience is the best teacher." However, this holds true only for those who are open to learning. It seems that humanity has never learnt from experience and so history repeats itself. If we had learned the lessons from World War 1, there would never have been World War 2, and the world thereafter would have been free from all wars as well. The Israelites were foolishly guilty of the same. While in the desert, they worshipped other gods and suffered the consequence of being bitten by snakes, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of people. That was not the only experience they had for being unfaithful to God. Did they learn their lesson? No. What are the baals? They were names given to deities, commonly referred to the Canaanite-phoenician god of fertility and rain. Rain was necessary to bring about a bountiful harvest in a fertile land, it was a symbol of fertility. Fertility was a sym...
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Homily: December 27, 2022, Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist

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“We are writing this so that our joy may be complete.” Today’s first reading ended with these words. To St. John the Evangelist, his joy would never be complete if he didn’t write down all that he had seen, heard and learnt from Jesus. Imagine him heaving a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction when he was done writing these texts. What is the one thing that would complete our joy? What gives us joy in the first place? St. John the Evangelist is my patron saint. My baptism name is John. I have always wished I could be like St. John, the beloved Apostle of Jesus, to love the Lord and Mother Mary with the same devotion and affection.  He was the only disciple who was at the foot of the cross and stayed with Jesus in His dying. He was the one appointed with the responsibility to care for Mary. Other than Peter, John was the other disciple who ran to the empty tomb after Jesus was resurrected. He was the only apostle who lived long into old age. However, it was not a life of comfort. He...
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