I am going away, and shall return
Have you ever felt that Jesus was absent in your life? Have you ever felt that God was far away?
Saint Mother Teresa (1910-1997) felt like this for five decades. In 1937, for the first time, she writes to her former confessor back at home:
Do not think that my spiritual life is strewn with roses—that is the flower which I hardly ever find on my way. Quite the contrary, I have more often as my companion “darkness.” And when the night becomes very thick—and it seems to me as if I will end up in hell—then I simply offer myself to Jesus. If He wants me to go there—I am ready—but only under the condition that it really makes Him happy. I need much grace, much of Christ’s strength to persevere in trust, in that […]
Month: May 2025
5th Sunday of Easter Sermon – Cycle C Homily – Love One Another
5th Sunday in Eastertide – Year C
Love one another, just as I have loved you
Allow me to begin on a political note. Politicians use the Scriptures and Catholic theology to support their arguments for political convenience. Therefore, it is also our duty, as pastors, to correct and offer more authentic interpretation of the Scriptures and theology.
Vice President of the United States JD Vance, on 30 January 2025, in an interview, referred to the concept of ordo amoris – misinterpreting St Augustine and St Thomas – in defending the foreign aid policies of the second Trump administration, saying, “We should love our family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world.” The controversy led […]
4th Sunday of Easter Sermon – Cycle C Homily: Good Shepherd Sunday
4th Sunday of Easter – Year C
I am known to the Shepherd (Jn 10:27-30)
With the increasing urban life, young people of today might think, oranges are just churned out of factories. The only fruits that they may be familiar with are: Apple products, Black-berries and Orange-mobile phone! And with new techniques of farming and animal husbandry, the image of the shepherd may become a by-gone figure.
Today, the 4th Sunday of Easter is celebrated as the Good Shepherd Sunday. We think of the ‘pastoral’ love of God, as we also pray for vocations to priesthood; priests are the ‘pastors’ of the church. Each year, for the gospel reading, we hear one part of John 10. This year, being Year C, we listen to the third part of that chapter. Today, Jesus says, “I know them and they know me; and […]
Sermon for 3rd Sunday of Eastertide – Cycle C Homily
Peter’s Mentor: The Beloved Disciple
3rd Sunday of Easter – Year C (Jn 21:1-19)
In the liturgy, since the beginning of the Easter Triduum (the three days before Easter), through the Eastertide we hear so much from the Gospel of John. In the passion narrative and in the resurrection accounts of the Gospel of John, suddenly we have a new disciple who is introduced as: “the one whom Jesus loved” (Jn 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20). He is unique to the Gospel of John, and he is unnamed. Being anonymous there is something mysterious about him; there is something mythical about him; and in fact, there is something divine about him. Interpreting this figure within the general style of the Gospel of John – that this Gospel is highly symbolic – I have always […]