Homily: September 27, 2025, Saturday of the Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary time (SVDP)

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 “But I will be for her an encircling wall of fire, says the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst.”

This is such an assuring powerful message from God, from today’s first reading. Our God is fiercely protective of us, His beloved creation. I am sure some of us may have personally experienced God’s protective love, His wall of fire encircling us, defending, guarding, sheltering us from harm and hurt that may destroy our souls.

His goal is to save humanity, and in response, in line with His love for us, we are called to be His hands and feet, to extend His protective love towards others.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Vincent de Paul, a saint who made God’s love visible in concrete ways. He fed, clothed and sheltered the very deprived and forgotten people, especially the imprisoned slaves with generous charity, providing for their very basic needs of a human person. His mission continues, through Vincentian priests, sisters, brothers, and lay members who serve the in nearly every corner of the world.

I remember from my childhood how the Vincentians were active in my village. They had a simple but practical arrangement with the parishioners. Families who were able, were asked to set aside just one handful of rice for a poor family, whenever they were cooking rice for themselves. My family participated in this arrangement too. We ate rice twice a day, so by the end of the week my family would have set aside about one and a half kilos of rice for another family who had nothing. And every Sunday, a Vincentian member from our parish would come by to collect all the rice kept aside for the poor. We never knew who had received it, but we knew surely it went to some families in need.

That was the only activity our Vincentians could manage, because the simple but effective project took up all the time available, as they had to walk miles to collect the rice from various families who contributed and then walk miles again to distribute it to families who need. But through that simple, charitable and generous act, they became God’s protective fire defending the very poor from starvation.

St. Vincent reminds us that holiness is not about doing big, extraordinary things, but it is about being faithful through simple loving and giving.

So today, let us ask the Lord to soften our hearts and expand it to become generous instruments of loving and giving, without counting the cost or weighing the sacrifice. May we become His “encircling fire” for those who feel abandoned, His protection for those who are vulnerable, and His comfort for those who are broken.

St. Vincent de Paul, pray for us. Amen.


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

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 “Keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In this month’s Catholic Mirror, Fr. Ron Rolheiser shared a story about a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. At the celebration, the husband said: “When we got married 50 years ago, we didn’t have much. But we had an unconscious trust that if we lived by the Ten Commandments and the laws of the Church, then things would turn out all right, and I think, they did.” Fifty years of marriage is not just “all right”, many of you who are married would know, it is hard work. And truly, very often God’s grace is at work harder than the couple. So fifty years of marriage is a testimony to a life of faith and full of God’s grace. The Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses and the Israelites thousands of years ago are still relevant for us today, guiding us every step of our faith life. The challenge is that human nature resists compliance and obedience to commands. We don’t like r...
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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 h...
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Homily: September 22,2025, Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time (Temple)

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 “The LORD, the God of heaven, has given to me, and he has also charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.” Somehow, priests in general have a special sub-vocation for building projects. Ezra was a priest, and he too was rebuilding the temple which was destroyed by the Babylonians; thus, this book of Ezra paid much attention to this concern. Back in my home diocese, there was a parish priest who decided to build a new church for his parish which was in a very poor area. He knew his parishioners couldn’t give much money, so he gave each family some banana seedlings according to the size of their farms. Some got only two, some got up to fifty. And he told them: “Grow them, harvest them, sell them, and bring the money back to build the church.” That was indeed “seed money”. When the people saw the results and how they could further contribute to building their new church, they became more involved and creative. The mothers started making mango pickles and other v...
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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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Homily: August 10, 2025, Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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 “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Do you like surprise visits? Some of us do. Recently, I went again to visit my sister and her family. Since the last visit, my 4-year-old nephew had been calling me almost daily and asking me to visit him again. So, this time, I told my sister to keep my trip a secret, I wanted to surprise the little boy. When he saw me finally, his eyes were wide open with disbelief, and his mouth too was wide open in surprise! I will never forget that look on his face, and the exuberant joy of the moment when I hugged and carried him. But not all of us like surprise visits, especially when the visitors come at the wrong time, and we are caught unprepared. When I was in high school, our principal, Fr. George, was very strict. He didn’t talk much, but he knew every student. Occasionally, he would walk along the school corridors, surveying every corner and if he caught any student misbehaving, he would carry ou...
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Homily: September 12, 2025, Friday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time(Ignorance)

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 “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief.” St. Paul, after his conversion, admitted that all the persecution and executions he carried out before he knew Christ, were done out of ignorance and unbelief. He thought Jesus Christ and His followers were a threat to the Jewish community, he thought Jesus was a fake, and so for the good of the Jewish people, he sought to eliminate them. Paul persecuted Christians because of he did not believe that Jesus was truly the Christ, the Messiah. Jesus Himself was unjustly accused, tortured, and killed although He was spreading His Father’s love to the world because the authorities misunderstood Him and saw Him as a threat to their society and community. Thousands of early Christians were martyred for similar reasons. They held on to their faith, they did not budge when told to deny the Lord, they did not water down the Lord’s teachings under...
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Homily: June 2, 2023, Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time (Fruitless fig tree).

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"When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves…” A fig tree with leaves usually indicates the presence of ripe fruits since the fruits appear before the leaves. Therefore, a tree full of leaves should have many ripe fruits, but not this tree which Jesus approached in today’s Gospel by St. Mark. It had many leaves but no fruit at all. What was wrong with this fig tree? Did Jesus’ curse cause the tree to wither the next day, or was it a prophecy? This incident is highly symbolic. The fig tree is mentioned about thirty times in the Old Testament, and about twenty-seven times in the New Testament. In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover up their nudity, an attempt to hide their sin of disobedience and rebellion. And now in this Gospel, St. Mark mentions the fig tree event right before the cleansing of the temple event. What is the parallel? The temple in Jerusalem was a remarkably beautiful building. Though it was a grand structure fit for the highest worship t...
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Homily: April 27, 2025, Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy )

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Jesus said to the disciples, “Peace be with you,” and then immediately showed them His hands and His side, His wounds. Even in His glorified, resurrected body, Jesus bears the nail wounds of the crucifixion. When it is our turn to see Him face to face, we too will still see His wounds. They are important to Him. To us, they are proof of His sacrifice, a permanent reminder of His love, the pain He endured for us. To Jesus, they are physical signs of His full obedience, even unto death. We too have our own wounds, sufferings we experienced which leave behind scars: physical, mental, emotional and social. These scars can be manifested in the form of physical impairments and imperfections, anger temperaments, deep bitterness and sadness, or even intentional avoidance of social situations which could trigger the painful memory. But we don’t always show these openly, we tend to hide these painful, hurting part of us from others, we try to look ok on the outside. Most of the time, only those ...
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Homily: September 9, 2025, Tuesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time (Pray)

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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: November 25, 2025, Monday of the Thirty-Fourth week in Ordinary Time (Giving)

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“For those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.” How much do you love God? How grateful are you to God who has given you everything you need, including His own life? When we love someone deeply, we would be more than willing to give everything we have for the good of the person we love, right? And if we are truly grateful to someone, we would show appreciation in the most sincere and respectful way, wouldn’t we? Recently, a friend told me what one priest shared in his homily: “Don’t give to God as you would give to a homeless beggar.” That struck me. God does not need our sympathy, He does not need our money, He wants our love and gratitude. But church needs money to function, to accomplish God’s mission, so when we give to church, we are giving to God. So how much does the church need, how much do we give? Some general statistics look alarming. Typically, only about 30% of parishioners are supporting a p...
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