Homily: October 24. 2025, Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time (Sin)

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 “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.”

Honestly, this is me. And this is many people too. It captures so perfectly the weakness of our human condition. Deep in our hearts, we want to do good, to be good, to please God. We want to live according to His will. 

We want to stay close to Him and live holy lives. Yet, the sin that entered the world through Adam and Eve still acts up within us. Our human nature is wounded, and even when our soul longs to do good, our worldly desires and habits pull us in the opposite direction.

It is interesting to note that it is St. Paul who wrote this line. Paul was one of the greatest apostles and missionaries in history, it is hard to imagine that even the great St. Paul had struggled to do good and fight evil, what more could be expected of us?

This is comforting. It reminds us that we are not alone in our struggles. Even the saints, the apostles, the holiest men and women, had wrestled with sin and temptation.

Spiritual life is not about being perfect, but it is about persevering in the struggle, never giving up. The saints were not perfect people; they were people who never stopped trying. They fell, but they got up again and again, trusting in God’s mercy.

Yes, the battle against evil is lifelong. But as St. Paul and the saints remind us, those who fight well will one day receive the crown of glory, let us not be discouraged by our weaknesses, but rather, let us depend more deeply on God’s grace. For where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.

Amen.


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Homily: February 22, 2025 Feast of the chair of St. Peter.

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 “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”  Our Lord founded the Church and handed over its growth and development into the future, to Peter. Note that the disciple is Simon, but the pope is Peter. Thus, this appointment to build the church, an appointment so solid like a rock, will be so strong and firm that not even hell could ever overcome it. Simon Peter was not perfect; he had his human weaknesses. It is written that he had cowardly denied Jesus three times, and at one point, Jesus even rebuked him, “Get behind me, Satan” (Matthew 16:23). Christian Tradition also tells that during the time of persecution in Rome, he had tried to escape and flee from Rome. The story continued that on his way along the road outside the city, he met our Lord Jesus where he asked, “Quo vadis, Domine?” - “Where are you going Lord?” To which our Lord replied, “Romam eo iterum crucifigī” – “I a...
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Homily: February 20, 2026 Friday after Ash-Wednesday (Fast)

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 “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” People fast for various reasons. Many people fast for health, fitness and vanity reasons by doing intermittent fasting, detox diets, or weight loss programs. Some prominent figures use fasting as a form of silent protest. Leaders like Gandhi used hunger strikes to fight injustice. And sadly, some people are simply not eating, they are starving not by choice but because of poverty. Christian fasting is different. It is spiritual fasting and is not primarily about the body. It is about the spiritual heart. Jesus’ disciples were not fasting like the disciples of other preachers, and He told them that when the bridegroom is taken away, they will fast. Because their fasting will be an sign of longing, a spiritual desire to be re-united with their master, it expresses the deep sorrow of separation. Later, when the disciples could not cast out a demon, Jesus reminded them: “This kind can only come ...
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Homily: February 22-2026, First Sunday of Lent (Angles)

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 As I was preparing this homily, I first thought of preaching about the three temptations of Jesus. Then I changed my mind and thought of focusing on the first reading, and then perhaps the second reading. I couldn’t get the right inspiration, so I went through the readings several times over the past days. Finally, I noticed one phrase which stayed with me quietly but firmly: “The devil left Him, and angels came and ministered to Him.” It was a reassuring resolution to an intense build-up of temptations. Jesus had fasted forty days. He endured hunger, thirst, solitary living and silence. At the end of it when he was at his weakest, tempting offers to satisfy His possible needs and wants were presented to Him. He was at His weakest, physically, but he was also at His strongest, spiritually. As He overcame the temptations and defeated the devil, heaven responded - not with applause, but with accompaniment. Angels came to minister to Him. We see the same later in the Gospel of Luke. ...
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Homily: February 18, 2026 Ash Wednesday (Return to God)

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 “Return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is He, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.” If you were to choose someone to be your BFF – Best Friend Forever - what qualities would you be looking for? For me, one of the first qualities I would look for is kindness. I do not want someone who will be cruel and rough with me, or someone who would bully me or always get angry with me. I am sure you would agree that it is easy to be long-time friends with someone who is patient, slow to anger, gracious, and merciful. We are drawn to people who forgive quickly, who do not keep scores, who love generously. And today the prophet Joel tells us: that is exactly who God is: Gracious. Merciful. Slow to anger. Rich in kindness. Yes, we are sinful people, we have done and might continue to do many things which are not pleasing to God. But the good news is God is not waiting to punish us. In fact, He is waiting for our friendship. Many of us feel ashamed of ou...
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Homily: February 24, 2026, Tuesday of the First Week of Lent (God's Word)

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 “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me void.” Today Prophet Isaiah reminds us that God’s word is powerful. It is not empty. It goes forth and it returns. And it accomplishes God’s will on return. It does not fail. From the very beginning, creation itself was born from God’s word. He commanded, “Let there be light.” And there was light. And till today, light continues to do what God wills it to do. Everything we see and depend on - the vast universe, the galaxy, the earth, everything born of earth, and life itself - exists because God spoke. God speaks and it is fulfilled. And God breathes into our life; He speaks His life into ours. His life becomes ours; His promise is to be accomplished through our obedience; His will is to be fulfilled by our submission. Even as we struggle to cooperate with God, deep in our being, our souls want to be one with God. Because our very existence comes from Him. He has a plan for each of us. Long before we wer...
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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 y...
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Homily: January 11, 2026, Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (Beloved)

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 “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” These words were spoken by God was not meant to be a private revelation. It was heard by everyone present on that day, all who witnessed Jesus being baptized by John.  These words were blessings from God, springing forth from His heart. Before Jesus preached a single sermon, before He healed anyone, before He suffered persecution and death, His Father in heaven proclaimed the Truth over Him: This is my beloved Son. Jesus lived His entire life grounded in that truth. He never struggled with His identity. He never doubted His mission on Earth. He knows who He is and why He has come. His purpose is to do the will of the Father, to reveal to the whole world who God is, to show to all generations how God loves and thus save all of humanity. Let us look again at where Jesus was baptized, the River Jordan. Its waters flows from near Mount Hermon, in between Lebanon and Syria, runs through fertile land, carrying nourishment for t...
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Homily: February 17, 2026 Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time (Desire)

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 “Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity, it gives birth to death.” St. James gives us an important teaching today. Desire, he says, can conceive and thereafter give birth to sin. If allowed to grow, it can reach a point of maturity, with the ability to take control and set direction, leading to death. The consequence of sin is death. Are all desires sinful or evil? 2,500 years ago, Buddha taught that desire is the cause of suffering. Because people almost always desire what they do not yet have. To be able to achieve the object of our desire, will sometimes bring us satisfaction, but when unable to achieve what we desire, will cause a sense of failure, a feeling dissatisfaction, the beginning of suffering. Many Buddhists today desire freedom and justice, in places which do not have freedom and justice. The desire stems from a real need, and that is nothing bad or wrong. What could go wrong is the way such a desire is pursued. To desire is a norma...
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Homily: December 28, 2025, Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph (Dreams)

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 “The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you.’” As a young man, Joseph must have had beautiful dreams about his future family. He could have imagined a helpful and capable wife, children playing around the house and growing up to be well respected people in the community, a vision of a stable and peaceful life. When he got engaged to Mary, it seemed like his dreams would become reality soon. Many of us, married or not, can identify with the dreams that Joseph could have had. Yet like Joseph, the realities of our lives would have unfolded quite differently from how we have dreamt it. Joseph’s family life turned out totally unlike his own dreams, yet he continued to dream, now with God’s will revealed and God’s plan unfolding in the reality of his life. The hardship he went through in Bethlehem, with the birth of Jesus, did not end there. Today’s Gospel shows another unexpected cha...
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Homily: February 15, 2025 Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Yes or No)

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 “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.” Every one of our Christian journey begins with a very simple thing: “Yes”. At baptism, the priest asks the parents or the candidates three questions: Do you renounce Satan? Do you reject sin? Do you reject all that leads you away from God? If the answer is Yes, Yes and Yes, then he asks three more questions to confirm our belief, the profession of our faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yes, Yes and Yes. And from that moment, we belong to God totally. Our new relationship with God, our new life as a Christian begins. Do we then live happily ever after? Realistically, this is where the struggle also begins. Growing up, I have said many “Yes’s” to God. Often, I have also said “No” to Him. But more often, My Yes’s were compromised, unaccomplished, unreliable. Often, they were conditional “Yes’s”. I negotiated and bargained with God, I procrastinated and made excuses. They would so...
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