2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Finding our space in the Universe:
The Life Journey of John the Baptist (Jn 1:29-34)
Christmastide is now over and retailers have special Sales. Because, retailers hate ordinary time. They try to make even ordinary time into something special. Hence the reduced prices!
In the liturgical calendar, we are back to the ordinary time. But even in our gospel reading there is an attempt to make the liturgy of today special too. Perhaps it is just to remind us that every Eucharistic celebration is special! As we are in Year A, we should have been listening to the Gospel of Matthew. But our gospel text for today came from the Gospel of John, as is the case every year on the 2nd Sunday […]
Year A
Year A Sunday Sermons
Feast of the Precious Body and Blood of Jesus
Eucharist: Mystery of Incarnation Enacted
Why did Jesus use bread and wine – mere objects of food – to institute the Eucharist? I offer two possible reflections on this mystery.
The enactment of the Mystery of Incarnation: In the gospel of today, in the discourse that follows the multiplication of loaves Jesus would say,
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51).
As we know, this passage has clear allusion to the Eucharist. Earlier in the same passage Jesus compares the Eucharist to the manna that the people of Israel ate in the desert (Jn 6:49-50). Though Jesus says analogically, Eucharist is bread that came down from heaven we know that the Eucharist does not fall from the skies as manna […]
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 […]