First Impression is not good enough in the Kingdom of God
In your social interactions, have you come across individuals who make a very good first impression on you? After a few minutes of conversation with you, they address you by your first name; they talk as if you have known each other for years; and they look at you as if you are the only one who matters to them. And then, after a few months you come across this person and you approach them with the same spirit of familiarity that they exhibited to you in your last meeting, but alas, they don’t know you from Adam! And to add to your disappointment, they are embarrassed, or even show some annoyance that you want a favour from them!
On the other hand, there are others who might look grumpy, aloof […]
Month: September 2023
Sermon for 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Homily
God’s ways may not be fair, but they are full of love
It is not fair: At the Nairobi airport, I was once in the company of a large European family – the parents with seven children of varying ages – waiting to board a plane. At one point, the mother began to distribute chocolates to her restless children. Everyone was given a chocolate bar each. Finally, there was one left over. The mum gave it to the eldest girl. One of the other children, who might have been about four years old, blurted out in a spontaneous cry for justice, in a tone that was also uniquely childish, “Mom, that is not fair!” They all had a hearty laughter. While they admired the four-year old for her strong sense of justice, I suppose, […]
Sermon for Cycle A – 24th Sunday Sermon: Experiencing Forgiveness
The need to experience forgiveness (Mt 18:21-35)
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
When people (especially the young) ask me, why we Catholics have to go to a priest for confession, and why can’t we confess our sins directly to God, I try to offer them several reasons as to why I myself go for confession. One of the more meaningful answers that I give is: I want to hear through a human voice that God has forgiven me. This reason is consistent with the theology of sacraments – visible signs of internal grace.
When I was making the 30-day Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, one of the high points during that retreat was the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation. After the first eight days of silence and prayer, memories of hurt and guilt […]
Sermon for 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Homily
The Christian in Dialogue (Mt 18:15-20)
Faced with an enemy or an unjust aggressor, an animal has basically three possible responses (3 F’s): Flight, Fight and Freeze. Faced with an unpleasant situation we humans too have the these options. What do you do when we come across situations we don’t like in the street, or even in our parish community? But we humans have a fourth option: dialogue. We can use our gift of reason to appeal to others’ reason. We can appeal to the goodness of the heart of others. This presupposes a basic trust in the goodness of human nature itself, namely, that others are capable of reasoning and feeling just as I do.
In the gospel passage, Jesus tells us how we could be dealing with unchristian attitude and behaviour in our communities. It is interesting to note that, in the text […]