30th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME-A

The golden commandments

In today’s gospel, Jesus gives us the golden commandments saying , ‘love god with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself’.
What about the ten commandments? If we keep these two commandments, then it is easier to keep all other commandments.

Once a mother’s three sons decided to something big for their mother and let her know that they love her so much. So the first son bought a beautiful house and the second son bought a big expensive car and a third son presented her with a parrot that could recite the whole bible.
Some days later, they all got a letter from their mom. For the first son, she said, “son , thank you for your love and since I am living alone, I can’t live in the big house . Please keep the house”. And for the second son, she said, “Son, I am getting old and I am not driving anymore and you may keep the expensive car“. Then she wrote the third son who gave her a parrot that can recite the whole bible, “son, thank you for your love and I love your present and you are the only son who know what the mother wants and by the way… the bird was delicious”.

Why should we love God? Because we belong to Him and He is our Father. We may go away from him like the prodigal son but when we come back, he is not going to say “no” to us but instead he will shower us with love and kindness. That is our God.

The Muslims pray to God five times a day and the Hindus p ray to God three times a day and Buddhists pray to God morning and evening and what about we who follow Jesus, we should make our whole life a prayer, and come to know that we belong to Him.

Once a mother said to her son who did not want to go to church. “son, I have three reasons to ask you to go to church. The first one is that all our ancestors practiced their faith and went to church so you should go to church and the second reason is your dad and I go to church, your siblings are going to church and you should too. The son who was annoyed at that asked what was the third reason, the mother looked at him and said, “you should go to church because you are the pastor of the church”

Dear friends, every time we come to church, we get closer to god and begin to know the love and kindness of god and we will become the god we believe, yes, we will love him totally.
Jesus asks us to love our neighbour as ourselves. Once Genie appeared to a man and said, “ask me anything you want and I will give you but with one condition, your neighbour will get twice as much, yes it will be doubled and what you want?” the man thought for a second and said, “Just beat me to half dead”.

It is very hard to love others. Once a man said, “I love humanity but hate individuals”. But Christianity is about prodigal sons and good Samaritans. We are social beings and we are called to realize Jesus’ love and forgiveness through others. Only by loving others, we can complete our Christian call.

Once a rabbi visited a Catholic monastery and while he was staying there, the head monk said to him, “ every body keeps leaving the monastery and people who used to come here for Mass are not coming anymore and we do not know what to do. We have only five monks are left here”. The rabbi listened to him and before he was leaving, he called the five monks together and said, “ by the way, I had a vision yesterday and there is a Messiah living among you and one of you is that Messiah”. when they heard that one of them was the Messiah, their approach towards each other changed. they began to respect others thinking he would be the Messiah and as well they treated themselves well thinking they would be the Messiah and thus things changed so fast. Many men joined the monastery wanting to become monks and people who stopped coming to the monastery began to come there. Yes, where there is love, there is God.

When we begin to respect and love others as though they were the Messiah, then the world will become a beautiful place to live. Let us keep the golden commandments of Christ by loving God and neighbour. Amen.

29th sunday in ordinary time-A

Let us leave behind what belongs to Caesar and take with us what belongs to God.

In today’s gospel, Jesus talks about every day things that we all face or deal with. We all struggle with worldly and divine things. Some times, we get attached with material things so much and other times vice versa. We, some times, struggle to balance ourselves with both worlds.
Once a man won million dollars in lottery and when his family that first came to know about that was so happy and at the same time, they were so afraid to let him know because he had a heart condition. So they called the parish priest and explained the situation. The priest said, ‘no problem, just bring him here and I will let him know and he would be fine”. So the family brought the man to the priest and the priest began to talk to him. The priest said, “Joe, If you , I suppose win million dollars, what would you do?”
Joe looked at the priest and said, “O Father, If I win million dollars, I will give half a million to the Church”. then the priest took a heart attack and died.
The question today is how are we going to balance ourselves by using the material things to get closer to God? By accumulating unnecessary things, we bind ourselves here and forget the love and kindness of god. We refuse to experience the kingdom of God.


Once a man visited a famous Rabbi. The man looked at the Rabbi’s house and was surprised because there were not many things just some books and a table and a chair. The man asked the Rabbi, “Rabbi, where are your furniture?” Then the Rabbi looked at him and said, “where are your furniture?” “I am just a visitor here--the man said. Then the Rabbi once again looked at him and said, “So am I my friend”.
Yes, we are all just visitors here and this is not our permanent home. As faithful people, we should know how to treasure things in heaven where they will multiply as hundreds.
In today’s gospel, Jesus says, ‘give it to Caesar what belongs to him and to God what is His. Yes, we should leave behind what belongs here. If material things help us to know god’s love and kindness, they may bring happiness and joy in one’s life, if not they can bring more stress and unhappiness. Material things can even destroy a person’s health and future.
Once a rich man from the north came to down south. While he was walking on a beautiful beach, saw a man resting by his boat. The rich man looked at him and asked, “how come you did not go fishing today?” I got enough fish for the day. Don’t ever say that you got enough, you should have got more.

The man asked, “what will I do then?” “you can make more money and then you can buy big motor boat with big engines and thus you can go into deep water and catch a lot of fish and make more money” The man asked, “then what will I do?” You will become so rich like me and then, o then you can go for holidays like me and enjoy on this beach. The man looked at the rich man and said, “ what are you thinking that I am doing right now?”.
When we know how to leave behind to this world, we come to know the secret of God. We come to know our image and likeness that is god. In today’s gospel, the Pharisees who condemned Jesus call him as just and good teacher. They say that Jesus never shows partiality and does everything right. And we should try to find that Just god in our life. It is easy to lose god in our material world.
Once a man was searching something under a bright light of a hydro pole. His friend who came that side asked, “what are you looking for?” “I have lost my key” so he too joined him and they began to look for the key and a hour later the friend looked at him and said, “where did you lose your key?” o lost it at home and then why are you searching here? “because it is brighter here”
Search god where you have lost him. We should learn to give what belongs to God. Do you know what belong to God? We belong to God. Let us learn to give god ourselves fully and completely to him alone. Amen.

Respect life Sunday

Respect life Sunday

Today our Catholic Church invites us to celebrate life and respect it with all possible ways. Life is a gift that is given to us all. When god created living things, he was not satisfied fully with them and at last as culmination of all life, he created human beings with his own image and likeness. Anyone who destroys life is an enemy of life and of all living beings.
Once a priest asked his congregation, “is there anyone here who does not have any enemy?” and no body answered and then again he said, “if you do not have any enemy, please raise your hand and I am going to let you pick three hymns for today’s celebration” and then an eighty-year old lady raised her hand. The priest invited her to the front and introduced to the congregation saying , “even Jesus had enemies and we are happy that you do not have any enemy and please tell us how. The lady proudly looked at the crowd and said, because I outlived all my stupid enemies. Then the priest looked at her and said, “do you want to pick three hymns today?” she was so happy and said, “yes, I will and then she looked at the congregation and said, “him..him..and him.”
Now you know why only the choir is allowed to choose the hymns.
Life is sacred and it should be protected from conception to natural death. Since it is a gift of god, no one has the right to take anyone’s life away for any reason. We who come to church and we who practice our faith know the important of life and living.
Information is knowledge and today we have so much information about life and its value. I have met mothers and fathers who said that they did not give much thought about anti-abortion those days and today we often hear about pro life. There are so many religious and non-religious movements that promote life and give us enough information to know the value of protecting life. No one can say that he or she does not know about pro-life and the god-given gift of life.
The bible contains god’s words and in the bible, god says that he knows us before we were born and he called us when we were in our mother’s womb. Once the children asked his parents, “mom, there is a commandment that says honour your father and mother and is there any commandment for siblings.
Their mother looked at them and said, “yes of course, “thou shalt not kill”
When we have faith in God our father through his son Jesus, then it is our duty to protect life. Faith in god opens our eyes wider to see the goodness in everything. It helps to differentiate things. Once a lady, every time came out of her house used to say, “praise the Lord, bless the Lord” and the next door neighbour who did not believe in god used to scream, “there is no god” and it went on and on. And one day, the lady stood at the entrance of the house and prayed aloud to god and said, “god… please bring me some grocery for tomorrow”
And the next day, she saw a big bag of grocery waiting at the door and she thanked god saying, ‘ thank you god for the grocery” and the neighbour who was hiding himself behind the bush came out and said, “I brought the grocery for you and there is no God” and this time she prayed to god saying, “god, thank you very much for the grocery and thank you very much for making the devil pay for it’
Even in today’s gospel, we heard Jesus saying that there will always people against life and living and they will constantly try to destroy and encourage others to do so. And Jesus says that the kingdom of god will be taken away from those people and be given to those who produce much fruit and as we celebrate respect life Sunday, let us actively participate to protect life and say no to abortion and all other ways that destroy life. Amen.