Fr. Nivin's Homily Blog

“Behold, I have given you the power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy, and nothing will harm you.” Last week, during one of my classes at Holy Family, I asked the 4th graders, “How many of you are afraid of the devil?” Every single one of them raised their hands. And so, I ask you too, how many of you are afraid of the devil? I suppose it is normal to fear the devil, thinking he has powers which we do not have. But do you know what the devil is afraid of? The next slide I showed the class was a quote from St. John Bosco: “There are two things that the devil is deadly afraid of: fervent Communion and frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament.” Isn’t that good news for all of us here? If we do these two things, the devil will be more afraid of us than we are of him. But note the emphasis St. John Bosco made, it is ‘fervent communion’ and ‘frequent visits’. The truth is, the devil is jealous of us because we are God’s beloved children. We are created...

 “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me.” When I was a seminarian studying in Rome, one difficulty I faced yearly was the renewal of the stay permit. It was to be renewed every year, but it required three months to process. So effectively, I had to send in a new application after nine months of getting the permit previously. The cycle repeats year after year. However, it was not a straightforward process. The office that processed those permits was notorious for rejecting applications. Every year, my application would be rejected once or twice for minor reasons. It was only years later that I discovered by chance, those applications which got approved immediately without any problem were not perfect applications, but had extra enclosures along with the applications, something like a €50 note. I could have done the same, but I didn’t. I took consolation then that the office was not rejecting me nor my applications. In reality, it was rejecting integrit...