Homilies

Homily for the 1st Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2025

Today, the first Sunday of Advent, we begin a new year as a community of faith.    We are opening a brand-new chapter of our spiritual journal.    Yet, we realize that, most likely, what we are about to write might be a lot like some of our past entries.    For some it will be uneventful—again; for others boring, flat—again; still, for others, scary, painful—again.  Then, for the few lucky ones, it will be exciting, promising, successful, rewarding.  That’s life, we might say. That’s the way it goes:

Homilies

Homily for the Feast of Christ the King, November 23, 2025

On the solemnity of Christ the King seated on the “throne” of the cross, we shall try to look at pain and suffering from within the Church, the Body of Christ.  Looking at what unfolds on Mount Calvary, seeing three people suffering excruciating pain and dying in a most horrific fashion, all fair-minded persons would conclude that only the thief on the right and the thief on the left of Jesus are receiving retribution for their misdeeds and crimes.  However, they would be at a total

Homilies

Homily for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 16, 2025

There are several prominent Protestant leaders who believe that the Temple destroyed in the year 70 A.D. by the future emperor Titus, will be rebuilt.  However, the truth is comfortingly different. Jesus Christ is the New and Eternal Temple of God. This Temple was destroyed on the cross but rebuilt by God the Father on Easter morning.  And we, believers, are all living stones of this new and eternal Temple which has Christ as its capstone and the 12 Apostles as its foundation.  This is the context in which we ought to read today’s prediction by

Homilies

Homily for the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, November 9, 2025

Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 47:1-12) reveals to us the riches and the blessings that God makes available to us in his Temple.  There is an overabundance of life-giving water flowing from this mysterious Temple and spilling over the whole land. That overabundance must make us wonder about God’s intention.  As we reflect on this uplifting vision of water flowing from this mysterious Temple, we realize that, even as far back as at Ezekiel’s time, God had in mind his version of a 

Homilies

Homily for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, November 2, 2025

This memorial of the Faithful Departed should be seen as a grace-filled attempt at focusing on the Reality in which we are called to live: the Reality of the Mystical Body.  Unfortunately, the commonly used name we give to this day reflects some of the misconceptions of being in time and space while on this earth: All Souls.    Souls by themselves cannot exist and they are impossible to visualize. If you have seen a pictorial interpretation of “souls” in Purgatory, you saw naked bodies engulfe

Homilies

Homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 26, 2025

Reflecting on today’s readings, we learn that true worship keeps intact both God’s nature and ours.    Now, who would be so foolish as to either use God for personal gain or take the place of God?”  Ultimately, in our worshipping we shall keep in mind and be convinced that whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.  Luke 18:14  Let’s make no mistake about it: God does the exalting and the humbling.  If that exalting and humbling

Homilies

Homily for World Mission Sunday, October 19, 2025

Today’s readings show us that God calls us to celebrate World Mission Sunday within the context of prayer. Here are some challenging conclusions to be drawn from this statement.  At the 2nd Vatican Council, the Church wrote that she is by her very nature missionary. As a Church, to be missionary “immersed in prayer” must be as natural as it is natural to breathe.  “Pray unceasingly” we are told (1 Thes. 5:17). And he (Jesus) said to them, "The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so, pray the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his h

Homilies

Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 12, 2025

At least twice a year we are called to meditate on this miracle with which we are so familiar. Luke 17:11-19   We know that it is about the need for showing the type of gratitude which is due to Jesus for what he does in our life as our Lord and God.  However, if we remember that the original setting for just about any passage of the Gospel is Eucharistic, we might discover a new way of looking at this miracle and benefit from it when, in the past, we might have turned to the next page a bit too quickly.  We soon discover a story that fits wel

Homilies

Homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 5, 2025

Frankly, there are times when we get so aggravated with people or saddened by tragedies that we know exactly what we would do if we were God.  However, since we are not God, we do not factor in the near-impossibility of reconciling the immense need for healing, for restoration, for giving a second chance, for making things right again—with human freedom.  In our desire to play God, we would do away with human freedom to achieve our goal!  I mention this because there are pictures which hit us so hard that we either change TV channel, turn to th

Homilies

Homily for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 28, 2025

Here is an interesting clue to get to the message Jesus sends us today in this familiar story (Luke 16:19-31): he doesn’t mention a single good deed done by Lazarus in his whole life to deserve to go to heaven. Nor does he mention anything very bad done by the rich man, who was feasting every day, to wind up in hell.  The first thing that jumps right out at us is the fact that Jesus is addressing the “Pharisees” among us. (Luke 16: 19)  The Pharisees were notorious for two things: their love of money (Luke 16:14) as a sign of God’s approval of their good