Solemnity of the Birthday of John the Baptist
24 June
This Sunday is the Solemnity of the Birthday of John the Baptist. Being a solemnity, it replaces the liturgy of the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Usually, feast days of saints mark their death anniversary, rarely do we celebrate their birthdays. John the Baptist is the only saint besides the Blessed Virgin whose birthday is celebrated in addition to his martyrdom. And John the Baptist also gets mentioned much during the season of Advent. The liturgy of today gives me many thoughts, I would highlight two of them.
His name will be John
The major focus of the gospel text of today revolves around the naming ceremony of the John the Baptist. What’s in a name? Why the fuss around his name? […]
Sunday Sermons
Sunday Sermons and Homilies
Pentecost – Feast of the Holy Spirit
Pentecost: The Feast of the Holy Spirit
The reflection below consists of some straight-forward points. For some of my other sermons for this feast and on the Holy Spirit, click on the links below:
Feast of Pentecost as a celebration of unity in diversity
The Holy Spirit as the God of Surprises
A Reflection on the Holy Spirit within the Trinity
A personal experience of the Trinity
Who is the Holy Spirit?
Holy Spirit is one of the persons of the Trinity who mediates the experience of God in Jesus. Since the enactment of the paschal mystery in the passion, death and resurrection of the Jesus, the Holy Spirit is actively present when a believer has an experience of the Risen Lord. Often this experience may be in the context of the community.
This is what we see […]
Sermon for Cycle A – 28th Sunday Homily: C’mon and Celebrate
“My banquet is all prepared”: Come on and Celebrate!
Speaking about food and cultures: an African lady, who used to work for an ethnic Indian family in East Africa, once told me: “You Indians take so much time to cook, but you eat it all so quickly.” As an Indian, I had never thought of that! Come to think of it, it seems so true. Our women spend most of their day cooking – despite the grinding machines and ‘mixies’ these days! Traditionally and even now in most Indian families people squatted on the floor while eating, and used their fingers. Both these factors could be accelerating the speed of eating. Yet, in the Indian culture, people sit and talk for long before and after the actual hurried eating. In most cultures a meal […]
Sermon for 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Homily
LOVE
It is said that at the time of Jesus the rabbis could count up to 613 commandments contained in the Law: 365 were prohibitions (don’t do this!) and 248 were prescriptive (do this!). Some of the rabbis considered all these commandments to be equally important, while others continued to debate to identify the most important commandment. That is why the Pharisees and Sadducees had reasons to ask Jesus, “Which is the greatest commandment of the Law?” even if their intention was only to put Jesus to the test. Apparently Jesus gives an answer that is similar to those given by some of the rabbis. For instance, there is a story about one rabbi Hillel, who lived a few years before Jesus. A ‘pagan’ went to rabbi Hillel and challenged him, “I will believe in the value of Torah, if you […]
Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Trinity – Cycle A Homily
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 a […]