First Sunday in Lent

First Sunday of Lent

Good morning every one, I am so happy to welcome you all to celebrate first Sunday of Lent. Dear friends, every time we come to Church, we celebrate God, who sent His Only Son Jesus to be our Savior and good shepherd, every time we come to Church, every time we come to Church, we celebrate Christ in the Holy Spirit who willingly suffered for our salvation and every time we come to Church, we renew our baptismal promises that give help us to say “No” to evil and “Yes” to God alone.
“The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the Good News”

These forty days of Lent invite us to explore ourselves in the presence of God and others. We begin a humble journey today like our Lord Jesus Christ who after His baptism, though heard His father’s voice from heaven, “Son, I am so happy that you accepted to be human and suffer for their sins and experience their weaknesses. Son, you are mine and you will do it” Baptism at Jordan shows how our Lord humbled himself before His Father and gave Him divine energy to accept sufferings. Yes, the sacrament of baptism makes us children of God and invites to accept suffering for others. Christianity is all about neighbor. When we help others and wipe their tears, we become better followers of Christ.

Right after baptism, the Spirit took Christ to wilderness where He spent forty days and forty nights in prayer and fasting. The Lord was tempted by Satan in the wilderness asking Him, “if you are the Son of God, change this stone into bread” Jesus said, ‘we do not live on bread alone but every word that comes from the mouth of God” yes, we live, move and have our being because of God. Taking Him to a pinnacle of mountain, the devil asked Him to jump to prove that He belonged to God and Jesus said, “do not test the Lord your God and then the Satan began to beg Him saying, “I will give you everything. I will make you king of the earth, adore me” Jesus said, ‘get away from me Satan”.
Once a devil, transformed into a beautiful angel of light, appeared to one of the holy fathers of the desert and said, “I am the Angel Gabriel and I have been sent to you by the Almighty”. The monk looked at the angel and replied, “you must have been sent to someone else. I have done nothing to deserve the visit of an angel”

With that very word, the devil vanished and never came to the monk at all.
Our prayer, fasting and other means of Lenten disciplines help us to discover ourselves and thus we put God first. We will have enough grace to say to no to our tempter. We then hold on to Christ our Lord.
Jesus, after His forty days and forty nights prayer and fasting, began His public ministry. He came to Galilee and proclaimed the Good News saying, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the Good News”
Dear friends, on Ash Wednesday when we received the holy ashes on our foreheads, the church used the words saying, “repent and be faithful to the Gospel”. Being faithful to the Gospel means loving God and others. It means trusting in His love and accepting His forgiveness. As we celebrate the first Sunday of Lent let us renew ourselves in the presence of God and be faithful to the Gospel. Amen.

paralytic man

TAKE UP YOUR MAT AND GO HOME




Good morning every one. I am so happy to see you all and welcome you all for today’s Holy Mass. My special welcome is to all our parishioners, visitors and every one who is here today. Dear friends, every time we come to Church, we hear Jesus saying to us, “pick up yourself and be strong; I am with you”. Every time we come to Church, we hear Jesus saying, your sins are forgiven and be happy and every time we come to Church we experience His love and kindness and say, “we have never seen anything like this”.
One day a dad was talking to his son about the miracles and wonders of Christ our Lord. The son said, “Dad, what is your favorite gospel story?” The dad said, “There are so many my son, so may. The one we heard today in the Church is also my favorite”. The son said, “Dad, tell me the story of the gospel?’ The dad said, “It is the story about the paralyzed man”. Every time I hear about the story, I think about our neighbor Joe because Joe was exactly like the paralyzed man. When his wife died last year, he felt so abandoned and stopped doing every day thing. He even stopped going to church and then his friends like the four people who carried the paralyzed person to Jesus went to Joe and said, “we are here to support you. We are going to pray for you” They supported him spiritually and emotionally and then Joe came out of his pain and suffering.
Today we meet with so many paralyzed people. They may be paralyzed because of lose or some failures or anything else. All they need is people to help them.
What do we see in today’s gospel? Jesus is healing the sick and talking to people. People from every walk of life surrounded him. It was impossible to reach Him. But because of the friends and neighbors; because of relatives and family members who wanted to help the paralytic person, he could reach Jesus. They did not give up instead they went up the roof and from there they let the man down to Jesus. Jesus was so amazed at their faith and healed the man.
Today the question is do we have friends, family members, relatives and neighbor who have strong faith. Do we have people who can help us to experience Jesus and His healing? It is not about the faith we have, it is also equally important to have friends and family members who have stronger faith because when we lose hope, when we lose faith and love, they might extend their help and they might say to us, “it is o.k. Do not be worried. God will never abandon you. He will protect you and He will heal you and strengthen you.
I know that we all meet people or have people who will come to us and say, “ it is because of what you did, you are sick and God punished you. It is not going to be fine. You should learn to live with it” There are people who will constantly discourage of what we are going through.
Conclusion:

Today we need strong spiritual guide and friends to whom we feel comfortable to share our suffering and pain; with whom we might open ourselves knowing that they might help us to experience the unconditional love of God in Christ and it is also important to be a good neighbor, friend, family member and relative to others who struggle spiritually, emotionally and physically. Amen.

Six Sunday in year A

Martin was a young soldier in the Roman army. Elegantly dressed, he was mounted on his horse one day when he was accosted by a leper begging for alms. The sight and the stench of rotting flesh was so repulsive to the sensitivities of young Martin that his first instincts were to ride off on his horse. But something inside him made his walk up to the beggar. Since all he had was his military coat, he cut it in two and gave half to the leper while he wrapped himself with the other half. It was a very cold winter day. That night in his dream he saw Christ clothed in a half coat saying to the angels around his throne, “Martin has clothed me with his garment.” This event was the turning point in the life of him who was to become St Martin of Tours.


Good morning every one. I am so happy to see you all and our special welcome to all our parishioners, visitors and every one who is here today to celebrate love. Dear friends, every time we come to church, we are given the divine gift to experience the healing power of Christ our Lord. Every time we come to church we are asked to be healers of others especially those who are away from the divine love of God and every time we come to church we ourselves become the healing of Christ.

The misery of the leper
One day a man saw a little white spot on his hand and then he showed to his wife saying, “this is strange and I washed and washed, it still stays on my hand. What is this?” His wife looked at the white spot on his hand and said, “my dear husband, it is nothing. God is always good to us and He blessed us with beautiful children. You have a good job and we practice our faith and nothing will happen to us. Let us bless the Lord always but the husband was not happy so the wife said to him, “let us give few more days and see” a week later, they noticed so many white spots on his hands and they even began to oozed fluid.

She then said to her husband, “Go to our priest and show to him because in those days priests were also health officials. The priest quarantined or separated him from the rest of the community and kept him for fourteen more days to see what kind of skin disease he had. Then on the fourteenth day, the priest called the man and every one from the community and said to the man, “you have leprosy. You are banished from the community because you are unclean and thus he gave him a bell saying, anytime you see a person you have to scream ringing the bell, “I am unclean, unclean”. So the man was removed from the society and was put in an isolated place to die.
The mercy of the Lord
In the leper colony, he heard people talking to each other about a holy man saying, “His name is Jesus. He heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, makes the lamb walk and even He raises the dead to life” when he heard the miracles and wonders of Christ, the leper developed a deep faith in Christ and then he began to look for him. But many years went by, but Jesus never showed up. Nevertheless the man never lost his faith; he strongly believed that Christ would one day pass that way. As he hoped Christ the Lord was passing through that region and he rushed to Christ. This time he did not say, I am unclean, unclean or he did not ring the bell instead he cried out with the loud voice and said to Christ, “Lord, Jesus heal me” Jesus our Lord stretched out His hands and touched him physically, emotionally and spiritually and said, ‘Be made clean”
The man never lost faith in Christ. The man never lost hope in Him and thus he who experienced the healing power of Christ went everywhere to proclaim the good news of love.
Conclusion:

Today we are asked to preach the good news of Christ our Lord, today we are asked to stretch out our hands and touch people who are in need and thus they may come to know that they are not alone but Christ is with them. Amen.