Homily: November 15, 2025, Saturday of the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time (Preserverance )

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 “Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.”

It is very easy to get discouraged in our spiritual life. Many of us become discouraged by our repeated sins and weaknesses. Another area where discouragement often enters is in our prayer life.

Sometimes, after praying for a long time without seeing results, we grow weary or lose hope.

That is why Jesus gives us today’s parable the story of the unjust judge. The judge was not a good man. He had no fear of God and no compassion for people. And the person who came to him for help was a poor widow. She had no power, no social standing, and no one to defend her. In that time and culture, widows were among the most forgotten and neglected people.

Yet this widow received justice. Why? Because she refused to give up. Her persistence and perseverance won the judge’s attention. If a heartless judge can respond to persistence, how much more will our loving Father in heaven respond to the prayers of His children!

When we pray, we must pray with hope surrendering our hearts to God’s holy will, trusting that He knows what is best for us. Sometimes His answer is yes, sometimes not yet, and sometimes I have something better for you. But He always listens.

We can take inspiration from those in Scripture who persevered in prayer. Abraham and Sarah praying for a child, Hannah praying for Samuel, Elizabeth and Zechariah praying in their old age, and St. Monica praying for the conversion of her son Augustine. None of them gave up, and God did not disappoint them.

Let us pray with that same perseverance.  Amen.


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Homily: July 19, 2026 Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Holy Spirit -Praying for us.)

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 "The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings." Today's readings remind us of two truths: first, that we are weak and do not even know how to pray for ourselves, and second, that God comes to help us in our weakness, interceding for us. These truths are so comforting and assuring, we really have nothing to worry. Even St. Paul - the great apostle and missionary - admitted that he did not always know how to pray. If St. Paul could say that, I can certainly say it about myself: I am weak, and I do not always know how to pray. Are you also the same? We are all different, and are brought up differently, and so we pray too in different ways. Growing up in a household of eleven family members, I saw that clearly. My grandfather loved reading the Bible. He had a Bible that was published in 1939, and he spent many hours reading it daily. My grandmother was blind during the l...
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 Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’  St. Mary Magdalene is known in the Church as the “Apostle to the Apostles”, a privileged and beautiful title. Even Peter, the head of the apostles, or John, the beloved disciple, were not entrusted with the first announcement of the Resurrection. Instead, Jesus gave that mission to Mary Magdalene. She was the first to proclaim the central truth of our faith: Christ is risen! He has overcome death, and because of that, we live with hope and our faith is strengthened. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Death has no power over us too, because the One who conquered it, has the power to resurrect us as well. For over 2,000 years, since Mary Magdalene’s first announcement, Christians have continued to proclaim the Good News of Jesus’s resurrection. It is our call, our mission, to echo Mary Magdalene’s joyful ...
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Homily: July 18, 2026, Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

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Today’s first reading from the Prophet Micah reminds us that God hears the cry of the poor. Micah begins his prophecy with a fierce rebuke of rulers, corrupt priests, and false prophets who exploited the poor, seized land by violence, and accepted bribes. God is never indifferent when justice is denied to his people. In the Gospel, we hear these words about Jesus: “I shall place my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.” One of the missions of Jesus was to establish justice—not merely according to human laws, but according to the heart of God. Justice means giving to each person what is due to them: their dignity, their rights, their worth as children of God. When Jesus came, the poor and marginalized were already suffering under oppression. Sadly, many of the religious and social leaders who should have consoled them only made their burdens heavier. Jesus came to restore their dignity, to heal, to welcome, and to proclaim God's love for them. Even today, th...
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Homily: July 21, 2026, Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Forgiveness)

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 In today's Gospel, Jesus says, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”  These words invite us to ask an important question: What is the will of our heavenly Father for us? Jesus gives the answer in other passages of the Gospel. He says, “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect,” and “Be holy, for your heavenly Father is holy.” God's will is not simply that we avoid sin, but more that we become holy. The Christian life is not merely about avoiding evil; it is really about growing in virtue and becoming more like our heavenly Father each day, in what we think, say and do. Today's readings point us to one of the most difficult yet most beautiful virtues of Christian discipleship - forgiveness. In the first reading we heard, “Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt and pardons sin... who does not persist in anger forever.” In the Responsorial Psalm we prayed, “You have for...
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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: May 16, 2016 Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter (Ask)

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“Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.” What do you ask God for? When I was little, I asked God for many small things. One of them was the snacks from a tea shop on the way to school. Once in a while, my parents  would buy them for me, and I loved them. I even wished sometimes that I had been born as the tea shop owner’s son, so I could eat those snacks every day. Years later, one of my friends whose father owned a tea shop told me that he was tired of those snacks because he had them every day. He wished he had grown up on a farm like me, with fresh food and fruits. Very often, we ask for small and temporary things, thinking they will make us happy. Even now, as adults, many of our prayers are like that. We ask for things that are passing, things that do not truly satisfy the heart. But Jesus says: “Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.” Not temporary happiness—but complete joy. So maybe today we should ask for something greater: A joyfu...
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Homily: Wednesday of the sever

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 "If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that." One expression I learnt in Spanish is “primero Dios.” Literally, the words mean ‘God first’, which is used like the American expression, ‘God willing’. Some of my Mexican friends would always add “Primero Dios” in expressing their thoughts about the future. It must be uniquely Mexican because I have not heard it used in other Spanish-speaking countries. There is also no similar equivalent in my native language or other Indian languages.  I think it is a beautiful expression! Knowingly or unknowingly, they are expressing an attitude which is deeply rooted in their faith culture, that is to always surrender everything to God, to His most holy will. It is an attitude of recognizing that things may not always go according to our plan, and of accepting God’s plan above their own. St. James, in his epistle, exhorts us to have the same attitude: "If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that."  We all have...
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Homily: June 30, 2026, Tuesday of the Thirteenth week in Oridnary Time (God's Favorite)

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"You alone have I favored, more than all the families of the earth." Through Amos, God is reaffirming His covenantal relationship with Israel as His chosen nation, as promised to Abraham. It is an affectionate expression of God's faithful love. The rest of this reading is about Amos warning Israel the consequences of turning away from God, intending to bring them back to faithfulness. Despite all the disobedience and unfaithfulness, God loves Israel and continues to favor them specially. He has chosen them and will not back out of His choice. This is truly how God loves. Faithful, unwavering, unchanging. I heard that when someone spoke with Mother Teresa, she would ignore everything else around her and give her full attention to that one person. She remained fully present for as long as that person needed her. St. John Paul II was also well known for giving people that same kind of attention. They did that well because they were really giving God their undivided attention...
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Homily: July 26, 2025, Saturday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Weeds-Wheat-Blood)

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“While everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.”  The parable in today’s Gospel warns that we live in a world where sin has entered through the works of the devil, disguised to look like wheat. Good and evil are thus left to grow side by side, because it is hard to tell the difference at this point. We experience this confusion every day and now with technology, it gets harder to distinguish real from fake, good from evil. Think about the phone calls we receive, many of us hesitate to answer unknown callers because we don't know if it is a genuine call or a scam. Health products and medications proposed to help us get better could be found later to cause more problems or threaten our well-being. Parents might think cartoons or children’s games are suitable for children but might contain inappropriate content that could contaminate or mislead innocent minds. Sin often disguises itself as something good, poison is sometimes package...
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Homily: March 25, 2025, Solemnity of the Annunciation ()

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 "Therefore, the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel, which means 'God is with us!'"  One book I read during my school days was titled: ‘The God of Small Things’. The book has nothing to do with God or religion, but I like the title because it reminds me that our God is also a God of small things. He appreciates and takes pleasure even when we offer Him the littlest effort or prayer or joy of our day. And He too often shows Himself in simple, silent humble signs. In today’s first reading, King Ahaz was given the opportunity to ask for a great sign from God, but he rejected, claiming to not want to test the Lord. Still, God chose to give him a sign anyway - not in a big way, but something simple yet powerful: "A virgin shall conceive and bear a son." This sign is simple yet powerful because while it is normal for a woman to bear a child, it is impossible for a virgin to do so. Only ...
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