Homiles in 2024 (51)
There can be a certain temptation to idealize the Holy Family and think that as a family they never fought or misunderstood each other or failed to get along because of their own human frailty. To be completely clear, human frailties are not the same as sin. There can be …
Matthew’s gospel opens with a rather long and tedious genealogy of Jesus and we might wonder why we need to listen to such a boring list on a joyful night like tonight. Genealogies serve a number of purposes in the Scriptures. On the one hand, they serve to establish the …
With growing concern in recent years about the representation of minority groups in films, books and other works of fiction, a certain test was developed as a tool to measure the representation of women in a work of fiction. This test, known as the Bechdel test, has three …
Today is Gaudete Sunday, a Latin word meaning rejoice. In our second reading today, Paul even though he is in prison, is overflowing with joy and enjoins the same joy on the community at Philippi. Paul encourages the people of Philippi to rejoice always. We might think that …
Often when we attend ceremonies, those who are invited to make speeches preface their remarks with long formal acknowledgements of dignitaries both present and absent that go something like this: His Excellency, President of the Republic, in absentia, the Honourable Member …
Having just come out of a 30-day retreat, I had a rather jarring experience on Tuesday when I went into a mall for the first time in a month. But what added to the dissonance in my head was to see Christmas decorations all around the mall when we had not even begun Advent. …
If we observe the stories of people who encounter Jesus in the Gospel, they are by and large people who are seeking help from Jesus, normally in the form of some physical healing. Invariably Jesus provides them with the help that they are seeking and they depart from Jesus …
Since the dawn of civilization, human beings have been struggling with the question of how to justify the authority of one person over another. What gives one person the right to tell another person what to do? In other words what gives authority its legitimacy, where does …
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who has written a lot about male spirituality talks about how in the first half of his life, every man needs to build a tower, needs to achieve something, needs to prove himself to the world, make a name for himself. He needs to learn the …
It is noteworthy that the foundational and archetypal human relationship, as presented in our first reading today, is one of man-wife and not parent-child, or sibling-sibling. For the vast majority of us, the foundational relationship of our lives is mother-child. It is …
In today’s gospel, Jesus addresses some of his most demanding counsels to his disciples: “if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off!” While there have been Christians who have taken Jesus at his word, most notably the great Church father, Origen, who was rumoured to have …
Jessie Chan is a young Chinese woman who is trying to recover from a very painful breakup of her six-year relationship with her boyfriend. A shot of light pierces this darkness in the form of a witty, charming, sensitive fellow by the name of Will who waltzs into Jessie’s …
In order to understand what is going on in this story, we need to realize that it is to be read in the context of what has come just before it, namely the feeding of the 5000. It is no accident that purity laws in Jewish customs and traditions revolved around food and …
In 2018, Pete Davis a Graduate student at Harvard Law gave the commencement address at his graduation. He spoke of an experience that will perhaps be familiar to many of us of being up late at night looking for a movie to watch on Netflix. Even after watching numerous …
For the past 3 weeks, our gospel has come from the 6th chapter of John, the bread of life discourse, widely considered by many to have Eucharistic overtones. Today’s gospel is considered by scholars to be the most explicitly Eucharistic of all the sections in chapter six. …
In today’s first reading we see the prophet Elijah suffering from classic burnout syndrome. He is sitting forlornly under a broom tree and prays for death in these words: “This is enough, O Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” Many of us know all too well …
In my early years as a Jesuit, I had occasion to live in a rural mission in Zimbabwe. Being a rural mission, we were not a very wealthy community and had to live quite a simple lifestyle, there were not many luxuries in our diet and our fare was quite basic. There would …
In the wake of the Enlightenment, certain Protestant exegetes, eager to present Christian belief as entirely consistent with the rationalism that had come to rule the day in Western Europe, attempted to “demythologize” the gospels. They feared that presenting Jesus as …
A young and very successful executive was travelling down a suburban street in his brand new black Jaguar. Suddenly a brick was thrown from the sidewalk, thumping into the side of the car. Brakes slammed! Gears ground into reverse, and tires madly spun the Jaguar back to the …
In today’s gospel we see Jesus sending out his disciples with the instruction to them to take nothing for the journey. Through this instruction Jesus was highlighting the importance of enabling those who receive the Word to feel that they have something to give as well. For …
In the third season of the Chosen, there is a wonderful scene developed by the screen-writers of the show, which so accurately portrays Jesus’ theology and outlook on life that it truly deserves a place in the canonical gospels, even if it is the work of imagination. The …
The woman we meet in today’s gospel has been suffering from hemorrhaging for 12 odd years. This sickness would have rendered her permanently ritually impure. Anyone who came into contact with any blood whatsoever were considered ritually impure for a period of 7 days. This …
A newly-wed couple were crossing a lake in a boat, when suddenly a great storm arose. The man was a warrior, and remained unflinching in the face of danger, but his wife on the other hand became a ball of nerves and was petrified with fear. She turned to her husband and …
In 1876 the US Department of Agriculture imported a Japanese vine named kudzu to United States to help stabilize eroding hillsides. The vines grow exceptionally fast and produce dense vegetation that protects loose soil from water and wind but also blocks sunlight from …
Perhaps more than any other narrative in the Old Testament, the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden has exerted an enormous influence in shaping Christian ideas about sin, sexuality, shame and guilt. Down through the ages, this narrative has had a reception of being …
As human beings – we tend to value objects and items that are “polyvalent,” items that can mean and serve many different functions. This is why, perhaps, we have come to so value the little gadgets that we carry around with us everywhere in our pockets and purses, which can …
I was recently chatting with a friend who asked me if I believed in aliens. I told him that if, by aliens, he meant the intelligent, self-conscious life forms like the Wookies, Gungans and Tuskan raiders of Star Wars fame, then my answer would be no. Not a categorical “no,” …
As I child, I often heard the story of the tower of Babel, and took it as a nice story that explained the origins of different languages in our world. However, there is a much deeper meaning to this story which reveals itself if we pay attention to the stated goal of the …
In today’s first reading we are told that while Jesus was lifted up to the heavens a cloud took him from their sight. In the Old Testament, the cloud is a cultic symbol that denotes the hiddenness of God. The heavens was where God was thought to dwell, hidden away from the …
In our first reading today, Peter comes to the revelation that “God has no favourites.” This may seem obvious to us, but at the time it went against the very grain of the Jewish worldview, who regarded themselves as the Chosen people, the favourites of God. The Old Testament …
In her 2013 bestseller, Quiet, Susan Cain explores how the rise of what she calls “the extrovert ideal” has come to dominate our contemporary society, to the detriment of those of a more introverted nature. We live in a culture that hero-worships the extrovert. The media has …
In 2010, the BBC brought out a riveting TV series entitled Sherlock. The series tracks the adventures of Sherlock and Watson and is loosely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic figure of Sherlock Homes. Unlike the books, Mary, Watson’s wife gets a significant cameo part …
When we make major life decisions, like the choice of a certain career, or the choice of a life partner or the choice to have children, what we are essentially doing is taking a bet on our happiness and fulfillment. We are putting our happiness and fulfillment in life on the …
Anita Pearce was a single mother who lived in Brownsville New York with her three sons. Over a period of six years, all three of her sons were gunned down and killed in gang violence. Her youngest son was killed right on her doorstep. This was obviously a deeply traumatic …
I’d like to continue with the story about the bridge controller that I used in my Good Friday homily. As I said, when it is used as an analogy of our salvation in Christ, it has a number of shortcomings. On top of the ones I pointed out on Good Friday, another shortcoming is …
There was once a bridge which spanned a large river. During most of the day the bridge sat with its length running up and down the river paralleled with the banks, allowing ships to pass through freely on both sides of the bridge. But at certain times each day, a train would …
Imagine an entirely fictional character named Musonda, who is an influencer cum politician with a large following on social media. He is something of a firebrand, priding himself on his ability to speak truth to power, and roundly criticizing the government of Zambia for its …
Two rather elderly Jesuits were recently having a conversation about dying. One of them asked the other “Are you afraid of dying?” Confident of being able to stare death in the face unflinchingly, his friend replied unhesitatingly “No not at all, I don’t mind death at all – …
Fr. Greg Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, a highly effective program that is responsible for helping to transform the lives of thousands of former members of Los Angeles’ gangs. When Fr. Greg first came to Dolores mission, a Jesuit parish in the heart of LA’s most …
I don’t know about you, but when I go shopping, I get stressed – because I am usually trying to balance two things – I want to purchase good quality merchandise, but I want to find it within the limits of my budget. So I want to get as much quality as I can, and pay as …
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest and widely acclaimed spiritual writer, brought out a book a few years ago, entitled “Falling Upwards.” His main thesis in this book is that life is divided into two halves. The first half of life is all about building one’s tower. As you …
Some of you may know of the Pacific island just of the coast of Chile, known as Easter Island, which is known for its curious collection of great big stone statues, called moai that are dotted all over the island, numbering more than 887. What puzzled scholars for a long …
When I was a young Jesuit doing my philosophical training, I had a friend who would let me come over to his house and use his high speed internet connection to research my term papers. When he first gave me the password to his Wi-Fi: “End_2055,” I looked at him quizzically, …
In today’s gospel, a leper comes to Jesus and says: “Lord if you want to, you can heal me.” He was sure that Jesus could heal him, he just wasn’t sure that Jesus wanted to. Perhaps he had seen Jesus heal others – perhaps he had watched from a distance (for he was not allowed …
I have a friend, Roy, who at the age of 48 years old, contracted cerebral malaria. As you can imagine he became critically ill and was admitted to ICU where he spent several weeks. At a number of points while he was in ICU, it was touch and go. In fact the doctors told him …
The great English writer and wit G.K. Chesterton would often be seen squeezed behind a table in a London restaurant for lunch. He would often joke about his great bulk, saying that he gave him great consolation to be able to give up his seat on the train for three ladies. …
Have you ever had the experience of being approached by a born-again Christian and been asked the question “Have you received Jesus into your life as your personal savior?” It has happened to me a few times and I have been tempted to ask them where in the Bible does it tell …
In today’s gospel we see John designating Jesus as the Christ is the Lamb of God and takes away the sins of the world. But how precisely does Jesus take away the sins of the world? The image of the Lamb of God that we are given in today’s gospel is based on the Pascal lamb: …
The film, The Dark Knight, released in 2008 as part of the Batman franchise, has striking parallels with the story of our salvation in Jesus Christ. Harvey Dent, the new police commissioner has won over the hearts of the whole of Gotham and become for everyone the model of …
There is a story told of three farmers sitting around the fire one evening after a hard day’s work. Two of them were having an argument about what was the best way to plant their grain. After realizing that they were getting nowhere in trying to convince the other, they both …
We as Catholics often get a lot of flak from certain other Christians for according far too much importance and respect to Mary. What they don’t seem to understand is that Mary always points the way to her son, Jesus Christ. Focusing on Mary is a helpful way to gain new …