God is a gambler! He takes risks with me.
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
(Prov 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1The 5:1-6; Mt 25:14-30)
Not long ago, I was at HeathrowAirport, London, waiting to be called for boarding. With all the war against terrorism, air-travelling is becoming increasingly annoying these days. I had to throw away my cherished bottle of water at the point of security check! I needed another bottle to survive the long flight. So I went to buy it from one of those kiosks near the boarding gate. I picked up a one-litre bottle that was priced at £1.20p (one pound and twenty pence). When I went to pay at the till, the woman there told me with a smile: “We have a special offer today. If you bought The Times newspaper the water is for free. It costs £1 (one pound)!” Is it a way of forcing […]
Sunday Sermons
Sunday Sermons and Homilies
Sermon for Cycle A – 2nd Sunday of Lent
Towards an experience of Jesus
For almost five years I was privileged to live at the foot of Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa. Every morning we looked up with a great expectation if the snow-capped peak would show itself. When it did, my day would begin by spending a few minutes just admiring its grandeur. For the Chagga people of Tanzania, who live around Kilimanjaro, this once a volcanic crater is the abode of God: ‘Kilima cha Ruah’ – as they called it! 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 […]
Sermon for Cycle A – 4th Sunday of Lent: Light of the World
The Light of the World
4th Sunday in Lent – Cycle A
The three Sundays before the Palm Sunday in Cycle A of the liturgical year are special. The gospel passages from the Gospel of John develop three central themes relevant to our experience of Jesus:
Jesus, the Living Water (Jn 4: the Samaritan woman) – 3rd Sunday of Lent
Jesus, the Light of the World (Jn 9: the man born blind) – 4th Sunday of Lent
Jesus, the New Life (Jn 11: raising of Lazarus) – 5th Sunday of Lent
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, 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 […]
Sermon for Cycle A – 4th Sunday of Easter Homily
Jesus, the Shepherd, is the Gate to Abundant Life
(Jn 10:1-10)
As we turn the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), we see that God has an uncontested predilection for shepherds: Abel, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Prophet Amos, and the list can go on. John Bosco, the founder of my religious order also was a shepherd boy! You see, God seems to have a predilection for the shepherds, because shepherds make very dedicated leaders. When it comes to taking care of their flock – their people – they can even put themselves at risk.
Today is the 4th Sunday of Easter. Every year, this Sunday is celebrated as the Good Shepherd Sunday and Vocations Sunday. Each year, for the gospel reading, we hear one part of John 10. This year, being Year A, we listen to the first part of […]
Good Friday Homily: Why did Jesus Die?
Good Friday
Why was the Son of God crucified?
Why was Jesus of Nazareth killed?
In an attempt to interpret history we can say that Jesus of Nazareth was a victim of one of the methods of capital punishment in the Roman Empire: crucifixion.
The build-up to this mishandling of justice was marred by the interplay of institutionalised religion and corrupt politics.
Jesus of Nazareth had gone around the land of Palestine stretching from Galilee in the North to Judea in the South, and across Samaria, for a period of three years, proclaiming a new message – the good news of the Kingdom of God! God is here and now! God can be called, ‘Our Father’. This was the core of his message. This carpenter from Nazareth had gathered a band of disciples who called him, ‘rabbi’. Some people thought he was a prophet – […]