Homilies (Page 45)

This is all God wants of you at the End of Lent – To Be Born-Again! Genesis 4:1-4a; 2 Timothy 1:8b-10; Matthew 17:1-9 Two indispensable elements to every journey are start and end points, two terminals that co-exist. A time to be born and a time to die; a beginning to a visible and mortal existence and a time for immortal life; a time to care for the body and a time to nourish the soul; a time of exile from God and a time to reunite with God; a time to transcend the physical in order to reveal the metaphysical; a time and periodRead More →

Stop Tempting Temptation: Turning our Temptations into Strengths Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11 When I listen to homilies, these days, the emphasis on the damnation of sinners tromps that on the salvation of sinners; but then, Jesus didn’t come to condemn sinners, he came to save sinners. When “prosperity gospel” is not preached, on a Sunday, “end times prediction” is the next viable topic of interest among evangelists and prophets, but that topic didn’t preoccupy Jesus during his earthly ministry. All in all, one gets the urgency of repentance and the acute ascendancy of sin in the world, painted in the most apocalypticRead More →

Bringing God Back into our Lives Isaiah 49:14-15; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34 Our topic for this eighth Sunday sounds ironic, “Bringing God Back into Our Lives.” Our topic sounds like the statement of a woman who kept saying to her husband, “God is the answer,” and her husband said to her, “what is the question”? Good enough for us, we have the question of the week, from our first reading: “Sion said, the Lord has abandoned me.” This sounds like an old marriage, when the memories of honey moon, the nuptial guests and the gifts are all gone. It sounds like a woman inRead More →

God made you in order for you to Create yourself! Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18; 1 Corinthians 3:16-23; Matthew 5:38-48 Every student of political theory knows the importance of social contracts and laws. Laws come from a society’s decision that there are some things individuals cannot do for themselves, and that there things that are better achieved and achievable as a group than individually. For instance, human beings have realized that they have to live with other human beings, and in order to live together, laws are necessary so that the strongest will not prey on the weakest. In this regard, laws are the building blocks ofRead More →

The Intelligence of the World and the Wisdom of God: Love is the only Law! Sirach 15:15-20; 1 Cor 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-35 There are many ways to kill a rat, the saying goes; today, there are humane ways of doing it and a reckless way. All roads lead to Rome, according to the Romans, but all rails lead to the sea, according to the Africans’ experience of colonial railways. All peoples have their wisdom, but there is only one Wisdom of God that leads to God – the Wisdom revealed by Jesus Christ. This Wisdom of God is our subject. The combination of two GreekRead More →

Isaiah 58:7-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16 Be who you are – Light of the World and Salt of the Earth A hunter went hunting and came upon an eagle’s nest with eggs in it. He took the eggs home and mixed them with those of an incubating free range hen. The innocent hen hatched all her eggs, thinking she had only chicks. One day, while she was foraging with her chicks, one of them, an eaglet, asked her about those creatures flying up in the sky, and why shouldn’t he do the same. The hen said, those are birds, they can fly, we can’t.Read More →

Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; Matthew 5:1-12a Beatitudes Building the Kingdom of God on Earth In an age of democracy, three elements are indispensable for the building of the human polity: 1) party-politics, 2) manifestos, and 3) capitalism. Individuals join different political parties on the basis of their philosophies and conviction; worse case scenario, politicians join the winning party or the political party that guarantees thievery as part of its unwritten laws. From these political parties emerge beautiful and hopeful manifestos, even though delivering on those manifestos is a different question. Finally, the deification of money or capital is key to democracy. Beautiful slogans,Read More →

Isaiah 8:23-9:3-1; 1 Cor 1:10-13, 17; Matthew 4:12-23 “Come follow me . . . ” One thing is sure: God’s call to discipleship has no age limit. Samuel was called as a young kid to serve the Lord. In today’s gospel, adults and parents were called to follow Christ. The unanimous message to be proclaimed by those called is the proximity of the kingdom of God. Also, some sacrifices are expected of all those called: “abandonment” of one’s job and loved ones, in order to be available for evangelization! What kind of God asks his followers to “abandon” their families and jobs to follow him? Is GodRead More →

Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34 Being Ordinary in “Ordinary Time” of the Church The partying and festivities are over, it’s time to start working again, no wonder it is called the “Ordinary Time”: it will take a while before (Extra-Ordinary Time or Festive Time) Easter and Christmas come around again and, then, we can party and celebrate. Even at that, my favorite part of partying and celebration is not the clean-up after the party, like the sweeping and rearrangement of the house after Christmas or wedding. I would rather be the guest the travels back to town and leave behind the cleaningRead More →