Follow the Kingdom with a Single-Minded Devotion
There are several films on Jesus. Each movie has its own take on the life and message of Jesus as narrated by the Gospels and, sometimes also, using extra-biblical sources. One of my own favourite films on Jesus is Jesus of Nazareth, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, and produced by Rai-Uno, the Italian TV Channel. In fact, it was originally produced as a TV serial in1977, and later distributed in film form in different languages.
There is one particular scene in that film, that is worth recalling here in the context of the gospel text of today. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” they say. Even with the limitation of words in comparison to image, let me attempt to describe the scene: one evening, Jesus and his first […]
Year C
Year C Sunday Sermons
Sermon for Pentecost – Cycle C Homily
Are we ready to be surprised by God, the Spirit?
Feast of Pentecost
Positive Psychology (PP), an approach in psychology, focuses on ingredients of human wellbeing and happiness. For instance, PP has a list of 24 character strengths and 6 core virtues that are said to play an important role in human wellbeing. This ‘catalogue of sanities’ – as they call it – is nothing but a list of the cardinal virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (similar to Gal 5:21-22; Eph 4:2-3). PP has a questionnaire to measure individual’s level of these character strengths. An interesting finding is that, in the present global population, ‘humility’ is one of the less developed character strengths. Some time last year I took the test and I must ‘humbly’ confess that humility featured as the least developed character strength even for me!
Today […]
Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension – Cycle C Homily
Eyes Fixed on Heaven and Feet Firm on the Earth
The Feast of the Ascension – Cycle C
Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:3) that Jesus was seen in his risen form for forty days. After those forty days, Jesus was no more seen in his risen body. The feast of today marks this stage of transition in the story of incarnation and resurrection – that Jesus is not visible in his earthly body as such. Luke describes this “withdrawal” of Jesus (Lk 24:51) in terms of being “lifted up” (Acts 1:9). And Mark describes it in terms of “being taken up into heaven” (Mk 16:19). Hence, “the ascension” of the Lord! However, with our modern familiarity with rocket science, we shouldn’t be led to think of […]
Keeping His Word – Homily for 6th Sunday Eastertide
Keeping the Word of God
On account of the influence of some contemporary trends in Christianity, which have moved away from understanding revelation as including Sacred Tradition, which have also moved from the encounter with God in Jesus at the celebration of the Eucharist, when some Christians hear the expression, “Word of God”, their immediate assumption is that ‘Word of God’ equals solely to the Bible.
When John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” is it that Bible became flesh? Or when Jesus says, as in the gospel of today, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23), is he only talking about […]
Sermon for 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C Homily
8th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
When it comes to conversion, it is I first!
In one of his daily sermons (on 19 May 2017), Pope Francis said, some people “use rigidness to cover weaknesses, sins, personality flaws, and they use rigidness to rank themselves above others.” The Pope suggested that people who are rigid about their faith tend to live double lives. On another occasion, the Pope said, concealed by rigidity there is always something else! That’s why Jesus uses the word ‘hypocrites!’ “They appear good because they follow the Law; but behind there is something that does not make them good. Either they’re bad, hypocrites or they are sick. They suffer!” he said.
In this context, someone recently drew my attention to the results of a research carried out by the Harvard […]