Homilies (Page 59)

Wisdom 7:7-11; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30 Theme: Wisdom versus Intelligence? Prayer is the Answer! Life is a journey, which needs a compass or guidance. Normally, the two poles of this journey are birth and death. The book of Wisdom sees it differently: there is an after-life, which needs attention as well! The journey of life speaks to virtues and vices as the determinants of what an after-life will look like – recompense or compensation for a good or bad life. A “compass” is a human machine, which helps navigate human journeys on different fronts – land, sea and air. Interestingly, human beings need to inputRead More →

Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16 Theme: With love, just like with God, everything is Possible! There was a story told of little John, attaining school age, his parents sent him to a public school. At the end of the school year, John failed all his exams and came last in his class. His parents reasoned that John was not happy at his first school, so they sent him to a different public school. At the end of the school year, John failed all his exams and came last in this his second public school. At cross-roads, John’s parents decided to send him to aRead More →

Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-48 We are One, despite our differences – Let us Build our Oneness! One Hallowing night, a lady who thought she had had enough of her alcoholic husband, set out to teach him a lesson of his life. She wanted him to quit drinking by scaring him to death. So, she bought bright-shining dresses for Hallowing; and, on Hallowing night, she hid herself in the hedges by her home, waiting for her drunken husband to return from his usual drinking spree. In the dead of the night, behold he comes staggering home; and she jumps out of the bushes andRead More →

God’s Law, NOT Human Laws, lead to Wisdom! Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; James 3:16-4:3; Mark 9:30-37 In the West, for traveling purposes, GPS is a useful tool to have: it helps one to navigate one’s path. A humanly built machine circumvents the guidance of other human beings for directions, which is considered a dependence on other human beings, but increases individualism, called independence from others. A choice is made for a machine over human beings because human beings have abdicated from helping other human beings because it is now considered a discomfort! This is the death of the society – each person for themselves and GodRead More →

24th Sunday Year B (13/09/2015) (Isaiah 50:5-9a – James 2:14-18 – Mk 8:27-35) God is a person – Christ Jesus – to be loved in our Neighbors! The Flemish theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx, radicalized Catholic Sacramentology – the understanding of sacraments – with his book, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God. We approached the divine from “thing mentality” rather than relationships and personalism. But God is a person – Christ Jesus – and not a thing! We need to encounter him. When do, an “encounter” frees God from being a thing and makes him a person we meet and relate with; in fact, heRead More →

No God, No Identity! Advent is the period when we prepare for the coming of Christ as a child at Christmas. It is also the time in which we remember that Christ did come, once upon a time, as a child born in Bethlehem, around 2000 years ago. These two dimensions of preparation and remembrance will be incomplete if we failed to realize that Jesus will also come back to us as judge either at the moment of our death or at the end of time, if we happened to be alive during his second coming. The attitude of preparation rather than waiting is whatRead More →

If this website is up and running, it is thanks to Fred and Marianne Holtslag, who updated my website ignoramus to a mini-expert within hours of generous sharing of intelligence! To them I say: Merci beaucoup!Read More →