The Key to the kingdom of God

The key to the kingdom of God

Good morning/evening every one. I am so happy to welcome you all to celebrate today’s holy Mass. My special welcome to all our parishioners, summer parishioners, cottagers, visitors and every one who is here today, and I would like to thank you all for coming out today to celebrate Jesus. Dear friends, every time we come to church, we join the apostles and say, “Jesus you are the only Son of God. You are the beginning and end and everything comes from you and goes to you alone. We cannot live without you. Every time we come to church, we come to know the importance and value of the keys of the kingdom of God and every time we come to church we come to know that we ourselves are the key to the kingdom of God.



Once a priest went to give anointing of the sick to an old lady. Then the old lady thanked the priest and said, “Father, soon I will be rocking in the bosom of Moses”. The priest said, ‘It is not the bosom of Moses. It is the bosom of Abraham”. The old lady then said, ‘at this age, I do not care whose bosom it is”.

Then the next day, she saw her name of the local newspaper’s obituary. So she called up her friend and said, ‘did you see my name in the obituary”. Her friend so frightened and shivering voice said, ‘yes, I did. Where are you calling from, heaven or hell?’

When the old lady died, the funeral director looked at the man and said, ‘do you want your mother in law embalmed, buried or cremated? The man said, “Please do all the three and I do not want to take any chances.



1. Dear friends, in today’s gospel, Jesus who was at a non-Jewish place called Caesarea Philippi asked his disciples who did people say that He was and they told Him all about what people said about Him. Then the Lord looked at them and asked, “Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter who came forward in the name of all the other disciples and said, “Your are the Messiah, The Only Son of God. You are the saviour, the Lord. You are the beginning and the end. Every thing comes from you and goes to you alone. We will not have life without you”. Jesus then said, “you can not say on you own all these things unless you are given divine awareness from by Father. You are highly blessed by my Father. One day a man went to a spiritual Master and said, “Master, I want to be enlightened under your guidance, please help me”. The Master looked at him and asked, “By the way, before entering into the house, where did you leave your shoes, on your right or left?’ The man was confused and went away. Because he did not have full awareness or divine awareness to be enlightened. In today’s gospel, the apostles had the divine awareness and deep faith and thus they could courageously proclaim that Christ is the Messiah. Dear friends, these days we see the Holy Bible everywhere. There are more than two bibles at every home. But people can even open the bible only if they have divine blessings and divine awareness. One day I visited a family and they were using the Bible as the door stopper and the sad thing was I was the one who gave the bible to them. If we have divine awareness, then we too join the apostles and say, “Jesus you are the Messiah”.

2. When the apostles proclaimed that Christ was the Messiah. Jesus gave the keys to the kingdom of God to Simon Peter. Key means responsibility. It is a special call to suffering and difficulty. It is a special call to accept humiliation and criticism in the name of Christ and His kingdom. One day a spiritual Master went to a town to preach the good news. In the beginning, every one came to him to listen. When he preached with love and kindness, they clapped their hands and when he said jokes, they laughed and laughed. But eventually their enthusiasm and happiness disappeared. They one by one left him. He was alone preaching finally. Then one day a man came to him and said, “now there is no one here and why are you still preaching”. The Master said, ‘I preached before so that people would change and now I preach so that they would not change me”. I know a woman who went to talk to here grand child and bring her back to church but unfortunately the grand child changed here now this grand mother has more than 400 online friends via face book and she stopped coming to church and spent more time online.

3. Dear friends today we are the key to the kingdom of God. Every time people see they should come to know the love and kindness of God our father. They should come to know that they are not alone but Christ is with them. We should help them to unlock their divine grace and blessing. Amen.

We walk by faith

Walking on Water

Good morning/evening every one. I am so happy to welcome you all to today’s Holy Mass. Our special welcome to all our summer parishioners, cottagers, visitors and every one who is here today. I would also thank you all for coming out today to celebrate Christ. Dear friends, every time tough we come to Jesus with our fears and anxieties, He blesses us with love and kindness; though we come to Him with doubts and questions, He blesses us with faith and hope and though we come to Him with empty-handed, He fills us with unending joy and happiness.
One day a man sent a mail to his friend who was living outside of the county and wrote, “your cat is dead”. The man replied him saying, “You should know how to deliver bad news tactfully. You should first say, “your cat is acting out” then you might say “your cat is missing” and then finally “you should say that your cat is dead”. And a month later the man sent a mail saying, “Your mom is acting out”.
One day man’s house was on fire, so he ran up to his roof for safety. Then all his friends came standing in the street below holding a stretched-out blanket for him shouting, “jump…jump” The man said, “No, I do not trust you. If I jump, you will pull the blanket away to make a fool of me”. They said, “no, we will not. It is serious, please jump”. The man then said, ‘I do not trust you. Lay the blanket on the ground and I will jump”.
What is faith? Faith is complete trust in some one or something. To St. Thomas who doubted the resurrection, Christ our Lord said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.
When we talk about faith, the first person who comes into our mind is Abraham the father of faith. He was called by God at the age of seventy-five to leave behind everything and follow Him. Abraham without hesitation followed God. As God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac for him, He without any hesitation followed the will of God. Because of his faith, God abundantly blessed him, was filled with wisdom and understanding and thus he achieved enlightenment in God almighty. The difference between knowledge and enlightenment is when we have knowledge we use a torch to show the way and when we are enlightened, we become a torch. But Abraham too doubted, questioned and struggled with his faith.

We all know the story of Job the pious man who worshiped God five times a day and kept all God’s commandments. But when Job was older and was approaching his end, his faith was tested. He began to lose one by one everything that he had. Job who was a faithful man never cursed God instead he said, “I trust in God. Naked I came into this world and naked I shall return”. But Job too doubted, questioned and struggled with his faith.
One day a farmer forgot to take his prayer book with him. He said to God, ‘dear God, without my prayer book, I cannot recite any prayer. So now I am going to recite very slowly the alphabet five times and you who knows everything put the letters together and make a prayer’. That night God called all his angels and said, ‘today of all prayers I heard, this is the best prayer because he is a very faithful man and it came from his simple and sincere heart’.
All the apostles were called to follow the Lord in their older age. Though they were older, their faith was not stronger. They too doubted, questioned and struggled with their faith. In today’s gospel, Jesus who asked Simon Peter to walk on the water, says, “you of little faith, why did you doubt”.
But as they doubted, questioned and struggled with their faith, their search to find meaning continued, they struggled to find God continued and because of their unceasing faith, they did find God.
Dear friends, today when you see your children, grandchildren, friends and others do not practice their faith, you doubt, question and struggle with your faith and you begin to drown in doubt, there if we cry out to Jesus saying, “Jesus, save me… He will hold our hands tight and say, ‘you of little faith, why do you doubt. Trust in me and they will change. Walking on water happens when we have complete faith in Christ, we do need to change others but all we have to do is increasing our faith in Christ and everything will change automatically. Amen.

We become what we eat

WE BECOME WHAT WE EAT

Once former president of the united states George Bush said, “I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. Now I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli.
We all like some foods and avoid others. We become what we eat. Today every food industry tries its best to sell healthy food to people. And people do know their physical, mental and emotional health depend on what they eat. Even we do not hesitate to travel from place to place to find healthy and good food. Our approach towards life and living; happiness and joy; buying food and eating them are being changed. We are so aware of who we are and how we want to live.
Our Lord Jesus Christ in order to keep His disciples and followers spiritually and socially awakened and enlightened asked them to eat His body and drink His blood. When we eat His body, we become like Him. We begin to reflect His love and forgiveness in our every day living. Once before first communion, I explained to children the importance of receiving the body of Christ on Sundays. I showed them how to keep their left palm on their right and when the priest says, “The body of Christ” they had to say, not thanks or O. K but Amen, which means I believe. And then I asked them to come and receive the communion. I gave them non-consecrated bread. Then I asked them how it tasted. And every one of them said, “It tasted like cardboard”. Then I called their parents and seriously asked them not to feed their children with cardboard.
I heard a story that during Second World War time, thousand of children were orphaned and left to starve. Many were rescued and placed in special camps. But they had a big challenge of sleeping in nighttime because of the fear of waking up in the morning to find out that they were homeless. Then someone thought of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime, and they found children could sleep peacefully. During the dark hours the bread was a reminder that they had eaten and would eat again tomorrow. For those children, bread was a symbol of life and survival. The bread gave them hope and meaning.
Jesus the Messiah before His suffering at the last supper took bread and prayed to God and blessed it and broke it and gave it to His disciples saying, ‘eat it, this is my body. Do this in memory of me’. But after Christ was crucified and died and even when He came back to life, the disciples did not break any bread in His name. They completely forgot it and moved on with their lives. Since they did not keep His loving commandment of breaking bread in His name, they could not see His presence. Like the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, the disciples were confused and sad. They were almost giving up their hope but Jesus appeared to the disciples and took the bread, blessed and break and gave it to them. In the breaking of the bread, they again recognized Christ the Lord. They began to say to each other, were not our hearts burning within us, were not our minds filled with life and happiness.
Yes, dear friends every time we come to church and break the bread we too like the apostles; we too like the disciples and followers of Christ will begin to experience His presence among us.