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 […]
Year A
Year A Sunday Sermons
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 were […]
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 […]
Sermon for 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Homily
If you want to be a follower of mine…
An online dictionary offers four possible meanings for the word ‘devotion’. I would reduce the four definitions to two:
(a) earnest attachment to a cause, person, etc.
(b) a form of prayer or worship for special use.
My reflection this morning is on the significance of these two points for our Christian life journey – being disciples of Jesus wholly ‘devoted’ to him, and living the Christian spirituality in our daily lives. In classical Christian literature, the word ‘devotion’ is often used in place of the more contemporary word ‘spirituality’. For instance, the classical work of St Francis de Sales is entitled, Introduction to the Devout Life. By ‘devout life’ he simply means spirituality and fulfilling the universal call to holiness. In short, my reflection is about spirituality – based on the Liturgy of the Word on this 22nd Sunday in ordinary time. What is spirituality?
Spirituality is letting ourselves be […]
Sermon for Cycle A – 21st Sunday Homily: Who is Jesus?
But you, who do you say I am? (Mt 16:13-20)
21 Sunday – Year A
In my mother tongue, Tamil, while speaking about great people, speakers and writers often refer to: “the Buddha, Jesus and Gandhi”. These three persons are mentioned as a matter of fact in the same breath. We Christians may feel proud that even non-Christians refer to Jesus as a great man. Looking at it at a deeper level, this expression may not reflect the authentic experience of Jesus.
Who then is Jesus for you? Is he merely a great man? The gospel text of today once again invites us to reflect on this question.
This event – of Jesus asking his disciples – “Who do people say the Son of man is?” and “But you, who […]