Homilies

Homily for the 25th Sunday in Ordinal Time, September 18th, 2022

I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Luke 16:9 What could possibly be the meaning of such an obscure phrase? Evidently both back then and nowadays, dishonest, and heartless people are not heeding Jesus’ advice. They are totally focused on making money in any possible way, unmindful of how many people’s lives they might destroy in the process. In today’s gospel passage we are confronted by an unusual way of creating a relationship with others. We receive a strange sugges

Homilies

Homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinal Time, September 11th, 2022

Today’s readings, obviously, deal with losses: how we handle our losses vis-à-vis how God handles his losses. Personally, my heart breaks whenever I see on TV the anguished faces of those struck suddenly by natural calamities, or fire. Perhaps clenching a few pictures in their hands, they face the camera and say something like: “We lost everything. This is all we have left of our life.” What we feel in similar circumstances is compounded by our ability to do very little to help them. We feel almost as powerless as when we are confronted with a mother who has just

Homilies

Homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinal Time, September 4th, 2022

Today’s gospel passage illustrates plainly how the Bible needs to be interpreted correctly by the Magisterium (teaching authority) of the Church and how fundamentalism, prevents people from learning what God is truly revealing us through Holy Scripture. Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:33 In the same way anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple. Concerning the 1st statement: What about the fo

Homilies

Homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinal Time, August 20th, 2022

The image of a grandiose, endless banquet is the most common image used in Holy Scripture to describe heaven. It is the lavish wedding feast of Christ, the Lamb of God, and his Bride, the Church. It is meant to have all nations and all peoples as wedding guests. And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the Kingdom of God. Luke 13:29 With hope-filled hearts we should long incessantly for admission into that heavenly banquet hall. Yet, we need to be deeply startled by the warning which Jesu

Homilies

Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinal Time, August 13th, 2022

Chances are that today’s gospel passage forces us to toss aside any syrupy picture of Jesus and, consequently, it might take awhile for us to come up with a more accurate one. For starters: we have to accept the fact that the glorified body of Jesus, as he made himself present among his disciples locked in the Upper Room on Easter Day and which was taken up to heaven on Ascension Day was, still is, and will forever be the body of a Jewish man. No blue eyes, no flowing blond locks, no sugary, (bordering on effeminate) features and no weakling affected by a langui

Homilies

Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinal Time, August 6th, 2022

He will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. Luke 12:37 As promised, in heaven, our triumphant and most glorious Lord Jesus will wait on us!  Scholars call this the eschatological reversal. It is God serving his people, or more precisely, Christ serving his Body. Heaven is all about love and service, eternally, with infinite care, without growing tired, without being bored, without fear that something will go wrong. The author, whom we call Luke, wrote his gospel for the grandchildren of those who had physically seen Jesu

Homilies

Homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinal Time, July 17th, 2022

Whenever life gets to be too heavy, the world proposes its ways to lighten it up and unwind: drugs, alcohol, speed, travels, a change of pace, trying something totally new or extreme or wild and so on. We, of course, have our own ways, tested over time, and in different settings. By now, we know what works for us somewhat and what doesn’t work. However, today we are invited to consider how we can refresh our soul by introducing God into the equation. By looking at what happened in the life of Abraham we might realize that God desires to visit us whenever our da

Homilies

Homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinal Time, July 10th, 2022

Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on all facets of human interaction: emotional, psychological, moral, economical, and spiritual; all these affected facets have contributed to a slow, general dehumanization of society. To a different degree we have all been impacted by the forced isolation, the restrictions, the contradicting guidelines, and by the way so many aspects of our life have been controlled by others. In this painful context, awareness that especially children, teenagers, and young adults need more sincere, selfless love, accompanied by warm human to

Homilies

Homily for the 14th Sunday in Ordinal Time, July 3rd, 2022

We are given a lot of orders at this Holy Mass: we are ordered to rejoice with Jerusalem (a figure of the Church); to be glad because of her; to pray the Master of the harvest to send laborers for his harvest; to be on our way; to carry nothing extra like money bag, sack, sandals; we are to remain focused on our task; we are also ordered to say to each visited household: “Peace to this household”; we are told to stay in that household; not to move around unless necessary and so on. Why? Why is the Lord giving us so many and so precise, detailed orders? And why all

Homilies

Homily for the 13th Sunday in Ordinal Time, June 26th, 2022

“For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1) St. Paul writes to us of a type of freedom loftier than the one guaranteed us by the Constitution. It is the freedom for which Christ died and rose from the dead to give us so that we, believers, may not use this to freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. (Gal. 5: 13) Alas, individualism, the haughty child of relativism, has been pushing the irrational impossibility that everyone is entitled to do as he/she pleases, as it is convenient to hi