Homily: July 30, 2025 Wednesday of the Seventeeth Week in Ordinary time.

Holy Family School Mass Homily.  

“As Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands, he did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant.” 

How many of you went to CYC?

Wonderful!

I helped to pick up some of you after the camp was over, and you know what? Many of you looked different after the camp. Because you spent a lot of time in the sun at camp. What happened to your skin?

Oh yes, many of you got sun-tanned! If you have darker skin like me, you might not notice much change, but if you were to compare the exposed areas with areas of your skin which were covered, you will see the difference clearly. That is what sunlight does, it darkens our skin.

But today’s first reading tells us that the skin of Moses’ face was different. It was not darkened by sunlight, instead he was radiant, that means looking very bright.

What happened to him?

Yes, he spent a lot of time with God on Mount Sinai. St. John tells us that God is light, not sunlight but pure light. So, if sunlight can change our skin color, imagine what God, who is pure light can do to our skin and our soul.

When Moses came down after spending much time with God, his face was glowing, not from the skin, but from his soul. He was radiating God’s light from within. He did not even realize it himself, but others could see it. God’s light had purified him and was shining through him. 

Have you ever noticed pictures or drawings of saints have little circles of light on top or around their heads?

Those circles are known as halos. It represents the light that radiated from the saint, symbolizing the holiness of the person who was known to have lived in a close relationship with God, spending much of their lives following Jesus.

Now many of you, especially those in third grade and above, are receiving Holy Communion at Mass. When you receive Holy Communion, you are not just eating bread, you are receiving Jesus, God Himself. Jesus, who is the Light of the World, comes into your heart.

So what happens? Would your face also glow like Moses’? Maybe not in a way that we can see. But you should definitely begin to glow within you. You begin to change from the inside. You become a child of light, and you carry that light with you in your soul.

Let me tell you a true story. There’s a book called Healing Through the Mass by Fr. Robert DeGrandis, and he shared many amazing things that happen with the Holy Eucharist.

One story was about NASA scientists who were studying the life energy of the human body. They used a special camera called a bio-well which detects the life energy of a person by measuring a certain light that emits from the human body, called the aura. They were observing on a computer screen in another room, the aura of a dying person lying in a hospital bed using this special camera. 

One day, they saw on their screen a visitor coming into the hospital room to visit the dying man. The scientists noticed that the visitor had a strong aura and an even brighter light shining from something in his shirt pocket. And when he took it out, the light from that thing was so bright that it filled the whole room and the computer screen became all white!

They were very stunned and wondered what it was that had such powerful aura. They checked and found out that the visitor was a priest, and the thing he took out from his shirt pocket was the Holy Eucharist. He had come to bring Holy Communion to the dying man.

The scientist who witnessed that amazing event, was not a believer of God at that time, but after seeing with his own eyes the unimaginable life energy emitting powerfully from the Holy Eucharist, he became a believer and later became a priest.

The Eucharist is real. Jesus is real. God is real.

The Eucharist is Jesus, who is God, who is true and pure light, the light which is life. And every time we come to Mass and receives Jesus in Holy Communion with faith and reverence, His light stays with us and shines through us.

Let us pray: Jesus, you are my light and my life. Let your light stay in me and shine through me, let my skin radiate your light of life for others. Amen.