The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia!
‘Alleluia’ is one expression that we hear so often during Easter. And when we hear a Catholic shouting out ‘Alleluia’ we think, they have become a Pentacostal. What does ‘alleluia’ mean? It simply means, ‘Praise the Lord’! But this praise is also filled with thanksgiving, joy and triumph. Several psalms begin and end with this expression. This is one of those expressions that has come to be used in Christian tradition in its original Hebrew expression, like ‘Amen’ and ‘Hosanna’. ‘Alleluia’ is an apt expression in the context of what we celebrate during Easter – it is simply to praise the lord for his triumph over death.
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia!
The celebration of Resurrection is the first feast that early Christians ever celebrated. In fact it was such a powerful event that […]
Year A
Year A Sunday Sermons
Sermon for 5th Sunday in Lent – Year A Homily
Lazarus, Come Out!
Today, the 5th Sunday in Lent, we conclude the trilogy of instructions taken from the Gospel of John for Catechumens. The gospel readings of the previous two Sundays focused on water (Jn 4) and light (Jn 9). Today our focus is on life (Jn 11). These three narratives, centring on the three primordial elements, are a build up to the Easter vigil which will also revolve around water, light and new life. These three elements simply point to Christ, the source of life.
The gospel narrative of today is a sign performed by Jesus in order to reveal his identity: “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Jn 11: 25). It is also an invitation to participate in the promise of Jesus: “I came that they may have life, and […]
Sermon for 4th Sunday in Lent – Year A Homily
Coming to see Jesus, the Light of the World
The gospel reading of this Sunday (the 2nd in the sequel) invites us to reflect on the story of the encounter between Jesus, the man born blind, his parents, and the Pharisees, so that we may experience Jesus as the Light of the World. What does light do? It dispels darkness; it makes us recognise possibilities. In the context of the gospel of today, the light helps us recognise God in person of Jesus.
The gospel text of today offers us three possible attitudes: (a) indifference towards Jesus – the position of the parents of the blind man; (b) blatant denial of the true nature of Jesus – the position of the Pharisees because they are caught up in the web of their Sabbath laws; and […]
Sermon for 2nd Sunday in Lent – Year A Homily
2nd Sunday in Lent – Year A
Transfiguration: Towards an Experience of God in Jesus
Mountains are perceived to be locations of God-experience in many traditional cultures and in many world religions. This is true also in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is not by chance then that one of the classical works of St John of the Cross is called, The Ascent of Mount Carmel (1579); and more recently, Thomas Merton entitles his autobiography as, The Seven-Storey Mountain (1948).
The gospel readings of the first two Sundays of Lent follow a certain pattern in all the three year cycles. The first Sunday of Lent we always meditate on the temptations of Jesus, and on the 2nd Sunday on the transfiguration of the Lord. The focal point of the event of transfiguration is a mountain. The narration from Matthew describing the transfiguration clearly has three parts:
Going up the […]
Sermon for 1st Sunday in Lent – Year A Homily
Temptations: The Journey through the Wilderness
We say that the Season of Lent lasts forty days, as the Latin word, ‘Quadragesima” suggests. When I was a young seminarian – sceptical as I was – I took the calendar and wanted to make sure for myself if there were indeed 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. To my surprise, I found there are actually 47 days. I had reasons to be sceptical, after all! So I had a question for the teacher of liturgy, who, of course, was taken by surprise. Later he came up with a meaningful explanation: even on Sundays in Lent, we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord, and hence they are not counted as days of fasting and penance. So Lent does have forty weekdays of fasting and penance!
‘Forty’ is symbolic of a generation, a […]