Feast of Transfiguration

August 4, 2023August 5, 2023 selvam Year A

Transfiguration: Experience of God in Jesus
Mountains are seen as locations of God-experience in many traditional cultures, and in many of the world religions. 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 narration from Matthew describing the transfiguration clearly has three parts:

Going up the mountain
The moment of grace (experience of God in Jesus) on top of the mountain
Coming down the mountain with the fruits of that experience

Let us reflect on these three aspects of the gospel story and see what they could mean for us today:
Going up the mountain: the stage of preparation
What does the gospel text of today tell us about going up the mountain, more precisely, about our desire for the experience of […]

Sermon for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Homily: The Yoke!

July 3, 2023July 7, 2023 selvam Year A

yoke My yoke is easy and my burden light
While talking to young people, it is not rare to hear this sort of expression: “Oh, I cannot engage in premarital relationship, just because I am a Christian.” The subtext of this line is a perception that Christianity restricts me, it controls me, it is a burden! If some pastors of the Church have given the followers of Christ such an image of Christianity, it is a pity really!
Joy of the Gospel:
Surely, Pope Francis would not like to burden the followers of Christ with the nitty-gritty details of moral casuistry. The Pope said in an interview during the first year of his pontificate (Sept 2013): “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The Church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with […]

Sermon for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Homily

June 28, 2023June 30, 2023 selvam Year A

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Discipleship (Mt 10: 37-42)

We continue to listen to the “Missionary Instructions” of Jesus (Mt 10) addressed to his apostles as he sends them out on their mission to the Jewish villages. These instructions also capture elements of discipleship that feature more explicitly in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. There are two important themes, that are related to each other, that emerge in the gospel of text of today. The first part is an invitation to surrender, and the second part is a promise of reward. Let us reflect on these two themes.
An Invitation to Surrender

Discipleship is marked by a sense of clinging to something beyond ourselves. To be able to cling to the master, the disciple has to go through a process of self-emptying. […]

The Role of University President in Institutionalisation of Service Learning

May 12, 2023May 12, 2023 selvam Articles/Chapters

The Role of University President in Institutionalisation of Service Learning in Higher Education
Citation: Selvam, S.G. (2023). The Role of University President in Institutionalisation of Service Learning in Higher Education. In Chantal J., et al. Institutionalization of Service-Learning in Higher Education, (pp.199-219). Buenos Aires: CLAYSS.
Abstract
Service Learning (SL) is understood as a reciprocal relationship between the learners and the beneficiaries of a social engagement initiative run by the learners, in which the learners are accompanied by the lecturer to integrate the encounter into their mainstream learning by means of systematic reflection. This method of teaching and learning is becoming a common phenomenon in institutions of higher education across the globe. In order to make it sustainable, the initiatives and processes around SL need to be institutionalised. The aim of this book-chapter is to reflect on the role of the University President in […]

Sermon for 5th Sunday of Easter – Year A Homily

May 4, 2023May 6, 2023 selvam Year A

open-bible-man-walking1sm 5th Sunday of Easter – Year A
Service at Table and Service of the Word (Acts 6:1-7)
In the first reading of today we have an interesting story of conflict resolution in the early church. Earlier in the Acts of the Apostles we read (Acts 4:32-35): “The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, as everything they owned was held in common.”
Soon, this ideal communal life was threatened by selfishness of individuals and clannish mentality among groups (see Acts 5). In Chapter 6, as we heard in the first reading of today, we have a story of neglect of the minority group in the access to the resources of the community. Hebrews, of course, being the majority in the community in Jerusalem, and […]