Trinity Sunday – Year B
God in Three: Our experience of the Divine
At the recommendation of a friend of mine, some years back, I ventured into reading The Shack. With over 10 million copies in print, and raising a lot of questions among the churches, the book had become controversial. Here is the story-line in brief:
Mack, the main character of the story, receives an invitation from ‘Papa’ to visit the shack – a hut in the forest. From his scanty religious background, Mack knows that Papa is God himself. Four years prior to this invitation, Mack had lost his daughter Missy from a camping site. Since then he had been overcome by, what he calls, “The Great Sadness.” He decides to respond to the invitation and spend the weekend at the shack. […]
Month: May 2021
Sermon for Pentecost Sunday – Year A, B, C: Receive the Holy Spirit
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 sure, these days many people are in similar situation, thanks to the opportunities that the contemporary world offers. 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! Catholicism stands for universality.
Today we celebrate the birthday of this Church – the universal church. We celebrate the presence of the Spirit in this believing community today, just as it was present among the community in Jerusalem. In some countries this day is […]
Sermon for the Ascension of the Lord – Year B Homily
Feast of the Ascension of the Lord – Year B
“Proclaim the Good News to all creation” (Mk 16:15)
Today is one of those days when across the globe, in the Catholic Church, people may not be listening to the same readings. In many countries, on this day we celebrate the feast of the Ascension of the Lord. In some other countries, however, this feast might have been already celebrated last Thursday, marking the 40th day after Easter. As we heard in the first reading of today, 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 […]
Sermon for 6th Sunday in Eastertide – Year B Homily
6th Sunday in Eastertide – Year B
Love one another, as I have loved you (Jn 15:12)
From the Golden Rule to a Programme of Life
Many Diocesan Catechisms, after listing the Ten Commandments would immediately add, “And these can be summarised in two Commandments:
‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (from Deuteronomy 6:5), and
‘You must love your neighbour as yourself’” (from Leviticus 19:18).
The official Catechism of the Catholic Church (1993) does not add this appendage, but it groups the Ten Commandments in two sections using the two quotations (from Deuteronomy and Leviticus) referring to the Love of God and the Love of Neighbour as titles for the two groups. For the purposes of teaching it is useful to group the Ten Commandments in the two tablets of Moses: […]