Feast of the Holy Trinity – Year C
Three Persons in One: The God of relationship
Social scientists these days are pointing out the increase of spirituality in the contemporary world, a spirituality that is not only distinct but often separate from institutional religion. According to one author, spirituality refers to individual and personal experiences that are related to “a search for meaning, for unity, for connectedness, for transcendence, and for the highest of human potential.” This spirituality may or may not include belief in a personal God. Some of the people, who follow this path of spirituality-outside-religion, consider ‘god’ in terms of an energy or a universal soul. What could be lacking in such a position is the belief in God who is a person!
The feast of today, once again reminds us […]
Author: selvam
Sermon for Pentecost – Cycle C Homily
Are we ready to be surprised by God, the Spirit?
Feast of Pentecost
Positive Psychology (PP), an approach in psychology, focuses on ingredients of human wellbeing and happiness. For instance, PP has a list of 24 character strengths and 6 core virtues that are said to play an important role in human wellbeing. This ‘catalogue of sanities’ – as they call it – is nothing but a list of the cardinal virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (similar to Gal 5:21-22; Eph 4:2-3). PP has a questionnaire to measure individual’s level of these character strengths. An interesting finding is that, in the present global population, ‘humility’ is one of the less developed character strengths. Some time last year I took the test and I must ‘humbly’ confess that humility featured as the least developed character strength even for me!
Today […]
Is your roadmap aligned to the compass?
God has created us in his own image, and has put a desire within us to know Him, to love Him, and to be with Him for ever. That desire is the compass in my heart.
God who has put the compass in my heart has not given me a roadmap. Roadmap is something I create through the choices I make in my life.
True happiness consists in aligning my roadmap to the compass of my heart!
Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension – Cycle C Homily
Eyes Fixed on Heaven and Feet Firm on the Earth
The Feast of the Ascension – Cycle C
Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:3) that Jesus was seen in his risen form for forty days. After those forty days, Jesus was no more seen in his risen body. The feast of today marks this stage of transition in the story of incarnation and resurrection – that Jesus is not visible in his earthly body as such. Luke describes this “withdrawal” of Jesus (Lk 24:51) in terms of being “lifted up” (Acts 1:9). And Mark describes it in terms of “being taken up into heaven” (Mk 16:19). Hence, “the ascension” of the Lord! However, with our modern familiarity with rocket science, we shouldn’t be led to think of the […]
Keeping His Word – Homily for 6th Sunday Eastertide
Keeping the Word of God
On account of the influence of some contemporary trends in Christianity, which have moved away from understanding revelation as including Sacred Tradition, which have also moved from the encounter with God in Jesus at the celebration of the Eucharist, when some Christians hear the expression, “Word of God”, their immediate assumption is that ‘Word of God’ equals solely to the Bible.
When John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” is it that Bible became flesh? Or when Jesus says, as in the gospel of today, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23), is he only talking about the […]