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 […]
Sunday Sermons
Sunday Sermons and Homilies
Feast of Transfiguration
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 God […]
Sermon for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Homily: The 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 […]
Sermon for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Homily
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. […]
Sermon for 5th Sunday of Easter – Year A Homily
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 […]