Homily: September 24, 2025, Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time (Prayer)

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 “At the time of the evening sacrifice, I, Ezra, rose in my wretchedness, and with cloak and mantle torn I fell on my knees, stretching out my hands to the LORD, my God.”

How do you pray?

Today’s first reading gives us a beautiful description of how priest Ezra prayed. He considered himself ‘wretched’, totally unworthy of God and His mercy. This expressed his deep reverence for the vast greatness and graciousness of God. He fell on his knees with outstretched arms. This expressed his total surrender, obedience and submission to the ultimate good and perfect will of God. Ezra’s humble prayer disposition is beautiful. He prayed with a deep, sincere, and remorseful heart, laid bare before God, bearing the guilt of his people, yet completely appreciative and grateful for God’s forgiveness.

He offered this prayer after the completion and dedication of the rebuilt Temple. The broken temple now rebuilt signified a reconciled relationship with God. Now the Israelites can worship in God’s house again.

This Temple remained a place of worship till the time of Jesus, after which it was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, just as Jesus had prophesied.

We see many models of such sincere and humble prayers in Scripture: the prayer of the tax collector in the Temple, David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51, Hannah’s tearful prayer for a child, Daniel’s prayer from the furnace, Moses’ intercession for Israel, Elijah’s prayer in the cave, and even Hagar’s cry in the wilderness. It is not the words that come forth, but the true contrition and deep reverence that would move God to pour out graces in abundance.

And what do you pray for?

Jesus Himself taught us: pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom, pray that His will be done on earth.

In today’s Gospel, He sends out His disciples not just to pray for the coming of Kingdom but to proclaim the Kingdom. When we pray for God’s will, it is immediately granted. The power of prayer is not in the one who prays, but in the One who grants.

Like Ezra, and many others before us, let us pray with an open, contrite, earnest and humble heart. May we know that while we who are sinners, are unworthy to ask, God who is holy, is never unwilling to grant.

And let us humbly ask for the grace and privilege to extend God’s Kingdom on earth through our words, deeds, and lives.

Amen.


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Homily: September 20, 2025, Saturday of the Twenty-Fourth week in Ordinary Time (Commandments)

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Homily: October 2, 2022, Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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“Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.” What a perfect example for us to follow! Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, prayed. He who is God the Son, prayed to God the Father. He spent the whole night in prayer before choosing His disciples. In His divinity, Jesus already knew the Father’s will. Yet in His humanity, He is just like us. He needed to spend time with His Father, to pray and to discern to be aligned with God’s will. Jesus shows us a powerful example: we too must pray before making important decisions, to ask God what His will is for us. Sometimes, when we act without consulting Him, we may find ourselves going against His will or going a wrong long way before reaching which lead us through unnecessary suffering or other unbearable consequences. So bring your plans to Jesus, tell Him your hopes, your preferences, your wishes, and He will bless you with the wisdom to choose wise and right. But what if we prayed, heard, followed a...
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Homily: September 23, 2025, Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time (Offering)

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 “For the dedication of this house of God, they offered one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, and four hundred lambs, together with twelve he-goats as a sin-offering for all Israel, in keeping with the number of the tribes of Israel.” That was quite a massive sacrifice! But if we check back, during the dedication of the first temple, King Solomon offered even greater numbers of sacrificial animals: 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep and goats. The Jewish historian Josephus recorded that during festival times, as many as 250,000 animals were sacrificed in the temple in a single day. But did God really delight in such sacrifices? Not in the way the people thought He would. Again and again, through the prophets, God reminded His people: “Obedience is better than sacrifice,” and “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Yet the Israelites convinced themselves that piling up sacrifices was the way to please God. Those offerings, by themselves, did not draw them closer to Him, and did not draw God clos...
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 “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” This arrangement, spoken from the Cross, may look like a simple and practical arrangement for the care of His surviving mother, but truly, it carries a deeper and profound truth. It is one of the ‘seven last words of Jesus’. Quite naturally and obviously, He entrusted the care of His beloved Mother to someone reliable and obedient. He gave her to John. And at the same time, He also entrusted the continued nurturing of John, His beloved disciple, to His Mother. Jesus had no earthly possessions which will wither and end to leave behind. What He left, as a lasting forever legacy to His disciples and as a gift of eternity to all believers to come, was the institution of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper. Now from the Cross, He is giving to the whole of humanity something personal: His own Mother,  whom He took His human flesh and blood from when she carried Him in her womb. Why John the beloved ap...
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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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