​12th Sunday – Cycle A
Do not be Afraid! (Mt 10:26-33)
One of the explicit characteristics of Matthew is that it was written in and for a Jewish community. Hence to understand that Gospel we need to be conscious of the Jewish background. Flowing from this setting, an interesting detail in the Gospel is that Matthew collects various sayings of Jesus delivered at different contexts into a compendium, breaks them into five parts, and places them at five locations, demarking the Gospel into “five-books” symbolically representing the five books of the Torah! Have a look at this:

Part 1 – Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:1-7:29), at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus;
Part 2 – Missionary Instructions are collected in chapter 10;
Part 3 – Parables of the Kingdom in chapter […]

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Reflection for 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Can you recall an occasion in the recent past when you were moved with compassion for someone or for a group of people. What did you see? How did you feel? And what did you do about it?

Did you stop with just seeing? If you just saw someone in difficulty and did not feel anything and did nothing about the situation, then you did not even feel a sense of compassion or empathy. If you did feel something, but didn’t do anything about it, then you felt an empathy and that is it. But if you did feeling empathy and reached out to them, then, you were “moved” by compassion.

The Gospel today tells us, “When Jesus saw the crowds he […]

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How real is your God?
 I once had a spiritual director who was fond of asking the question: “What is your God like?”  She would then challenge me to go even deeper as she would continue to ask: “What does God feel like for you? What does He smell like? What does He taste like? What does He look like? What does He sound like for you?” Initially these questions seemed silly, and even difficult to answer.  Eventually they opened up for me a whole new way of perceiving God.  For instance, if you were to ask me: “What does God smell like for you?”  I might say something like: “He smells like the fragrance of a cool evening in a hilly area after some showers; the air is fresh; there is […]

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“Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22)
 In the recent years I have been travelling across continents and living in different cultural contexts.  The question, “Where do you come from,” has become so difficult for me to answer.   I am grateful to God for the variety of cross-cultural experiences that I have had, and I feel I am a citizen of the world.  One thing that has made this possible, easy, and enjoyable, is the fact that I am a Christian, and a Catholic!  Today we celebrate the birthday of this Church – the universal church.  The liturgy of the Word on this day suggests the theme of unity of the Church. Our reflection focuses on three possible meanings of this feast.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Risen Lord: The evangelist Luke considers the event of the resurrection (Easter) and […]

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