zacchaeus-the hidden man

The person hiding in us - Zacchaeus 

Good morning/evening every one. Our special welcome to all our parishioners, visitors and every one here today. Friends in Christ, let us thank God almighty for bringing us all here to this beautiful church of St. Jean de Brebeuf/St. Paul the Apostle. Let us thank Him for sending His only Son our Lord Jesus Christ to be with us for ever. Let us thank Him for showering upon us His countless blessings each and every day. 

Now let us take a moment to prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries of our Lord Jesus Christ, calling to mind our sins, short-coming, weakness, failure, pain and sufferings, asking divine assistance and Christ our Lord's mercy, compassion and forgiveness. 

You know the best way to punish a priest? Tape his homily and make him listen over and over again. 

Once a school principal phoned one of his teachers' home to find out why she didn't come to school that day.  

A little child answered the phone. The principal said, "Who is this?" The child whispered saying, "It is Jimmy". How old are you Jimmy? I am four. Can I talk to your mom? She is busy. What about your dad? He is busy too. Is there anyone else at home? Yes.. The police officers and there are busy too. "Jimmy, who else is there?" There are fire-fighters too. They are also busy? Is your house on fire? What is going on? Then the little voice giggled and said, "I am hiding and they are all busy looking for me". 

Today there are so many people hiding from God and His compassion and love. They all have different reasons. Some are angry with God and others are mad at themselves. They are people who are not happy with others and with the world. They all have so many reasons to go away from Christ and His forgiveness. But one of the major reasons why we hide is, we did something wrong.  

Once two boys named trouble and shut-up were playing hide and seek. Shut-up was the seeker. As they were playing, a policeman looked at the boy and said, "What is your name?' The boy said, "shut-up". What? I said, "shut-up". The police officer looked the boy and said, "Are you looking for trouble, boy". The boy said, "yes, of course. But don't tell me where he is. We are playing hide and seek. 

Hide and seek game started at Eden. After their fall, Adam and Eve were hiding. When God asked them where they were. They said, "we are afraid and we are hiding". 

Sin and hiding are inseparable. That is our story too. At one point in life, We all try to run away from God and His graciousness thinking that He is going to punish us. He is going to bring something terrible to us because we sinned and thus we run away and hide from Him. 

In today's gospel, we see the hide and seek story of Zacchaeus.  The man who was a tax collector and sinner. He had a bad reputation and people kept away from him. They hated him so much because he was serving only the higher authority. Though he was a bad man and gained so much enmity from others, there was a deep longing to find God. The goodness in him pushed forward to find meaning in life.  Life without God is wasted one.  

When he heard about Christ's going through his town, wanting to see him, he claimed up on a tree and waited to see him. Zacchaeus was hiding in a tree and there comes Christ the Lord. 

When we pray to God...we always look up stretching out our hands. When we talk about God, we again look up. And this is the first time, we see in the divine history, God is looking for man looking up. Yes, Christ comes to the sycamore tree and looks up and says, "Come down Zacchaeus. I am going to stay at your place today... 

Most of the time we search God looking up not knowing that He is with us. Yes, He is with us listening to our prayers and needs. 

When Zacchaeus came down, came to his senses. Something new happened in him and without any hesitation he said, "I will give a half of my possession to the poor and if I have defrauded anyone, I will give four times as much..." 

That day, Salvation came to Zacchaeus. He was born again. He was renewed in Christ our Lord. 

Conclusion: There is a Zacchaeus hiding in us all wanting to come down. As we come to Church, as we receive any of the churches sacraments or put our faith into practice, that Zacchaeus comes down from the tree of hatred and anger, the tree of judgment and gossip and we become new in Christ and then Christ looks at us and says, "Salvation comes to you today and you are also child of Abraham". Amen. 

Mission Sunday

World Mission Sunday 

Good evening/morning every one. I am so happy to welcome you all for today's Holy Mass. Our special welcome to all our parishioners, visitors and every one here today. Friends in Christ our Lord, let us thank God almighty for bringing us all here to this beautiful church of St. Jean de Brebeauf/St. Paul the Apostle Church. Let us thank God for sending His only Son our Lord Jesus Christ to be with us for ever and let us thank Him for showering upon us His countless blessings each and every day, 

Now let us take a moment to prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries of our Lord Jesus Christ calling to mind our sins, short-comings, failures, pain and sufferings asking divine assistance and Christ's  our Lord's forgiveness, mercy and compassion. 

Good evening everyone, our special welcome to all our visitors today. 

After animal blessings, someone asked me...O Father, will dogs go to heaven? Not only dogs, so are the fleas. 

Once a missionary went to a distant land to preach the Good News of Christ our Lord. While he was walking with the guide, he asked about the people, culture, food and so on. And at one point, the missionary priest looked at the guide and said, "What about cannibals? Do you have cannibals in the community?' The guide laughed and laughed and said, "O Father, we do not have any cannibal because the last one we ate him yesterday". 

Today our Holy Catholic Church celebrates 'Mission Sunday'. Today we in a special way, pray for all our missionary priests and people who dedicate their lives to promote justice and peace and who preach the good news of Christ our Lord namely love and forgiveness to all. 

We are by the very nature of the sacrament of Baptism are called to become missionaries at home and missionaries abroad.  

There is a non-canonical story of our Lord Jesus Christ that after His ascension...the angels met with Him and looking at his feet and hands, they said, you suffered a lot to bring love and forgiveness among people and Lord, who is going to preach your mercy, compassion and love now? Jesus said, "My followers because I asked them to go everywhere to preach the good news. What would happen after they die? Do you have any other plan? Jesus said, "My only plan is after my apostles, my disciples, people who were baptized will carry on the message". Yes, we are His plan. We are called to bring the Good News of love and forgiveness to all.  

In the Old Testament time, people did not go out to preach the message of God. They spread the message of God within the community but in the New Testament time and after His glorious Ascension, we are called to go everywhere to preach the Good tidings. 

Once a man came to a spiritual master and offered him two gold coins and said, "Master, I would like to be a missionary and thus go everywhere and preach the good news and what should I do? The master without answering the man picked up one of the gold coins and threw it in the river.  

The man right away jumped in the water looking for the gold coin and upon not finding it asked the master, where did you throw my gold coin?  For that the master took another gold coin and threw it in the water and said, "Right there". Then the master with compassion looked at the man and said, "Son, if you want to be a missionary, you should know how to unbind yourself from material things and hold on to Christ the way. 

Every time Christ our Lord sent His Apostles on mission to preach the Good News, He clearly told them not to take anything with them. As they went, the power of Christ was with them. They preached the message of Christ according to their needs and gospel helped people to look at their culture, custom and traditions differently. 

Once I went to visit a priest friend in Manitouwadge near Thunder Bay and he said that in his mission Church as he was doing a funeral Mass, right after homily...everyone of  them left the church and he didn't know what was going on. They all came in after ten minutes and thus he finished the Mass. Afterwards he asked one of the parishioners why people left right after homily. Do you know what he said? "O Father, this is our tradition. Right after homily, we always go out for ten minutes smoke-break. 

As St. Paul went to different communities to preach the Good News, so many people tried to stop him and so many went against him because they were so afraid to change. They were people who like the Pharisee in today's gospel standing in front of the temple and screaming and proclaiming their righteousness. But Christ's Good News invites us to be like the sinner humbling ourselves before God and others. St.  Paul in order to preach the Good News not 30 thousand kilometers but 30 thousand miles walked. He was given the power and stamina by Christ our Lord. And we all know how St. Jean de Brebeuf did the mission work in Canada. 

Once there was a fight between two African tribes in Niger and a man from one tribe killed his neighbor who belonged to another tribe. When the tribe won, they wanted to take revenge of the killer and they called the  wife who witnessed her husband's death and asked her to point out the killer but she refused saying , "The missionaries who were here taught us how to forgive and accept others like Christ". Once Gandhi said, "Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind". 

Even today there are so many priests, nuns and lay people are going to different countries to preach the good news of Christ our Lord. They build schools and hospitals; they build churches and orphanages. They are doing wonderful job in the name of Christ our Lord. And let us remember them all and pray that God may continue to bless them.  

Today we are also called to become missionaries. We are called to preach the Good News to all. Yes, it's our duty to tell them all about God's love and Christ's forgiveness. Let us preach the Good News and as St. Francis of Assisi says, "Let us preach the Good News to all and if it's necessary, let us use words.... yes let our life preach to the them all the unconditional love and unlimited forgiveness of Christ. Amen.

Persistent Widow

29th Sunday-Persistent Widow 

Good morning/evening every one, I am so happy to welcome you all for today's Holy Mass. Our special welcome to all our parishioners, visitors and every one here today. Let's thank God almighty for bringing us all here to this beautiful Church of St. Paul the Apostles. Let's thank Him for sending His only Son our Lord Jesus Christ to be with us for ever and let's us thank Him for showering upon us His countless blessings each and every day. 

Now let us take a moment to prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries of our Lord Jesus Christ, calling to mind our sins, weakness, failure, pain and sufferings, asking divine assistance and Christ our Lord's mercy, compassion and forgiveness. 

Once a little boy asked his mother, "Mom, where did people come from?"  

Mom said, "God created Adam and Eve and they had children and thus mankind was made". 

Few days later, the boy asked the same question to his dad. 

The dad said, "You know what many years ago, there were monkeys and which human race evolved from". 

The boy was so confused and said to the mother, "Mom, you said...God created us and dad says that we came from monkeys". 

The mom said, "It is very simple son, I told you about my side of the family and he told you about his". 

In today's gospel, we come to know three important characters that help us to be with God and receive His countless blessings namely patience, persistence and perseverance in prayer. 

1. Like the old poor widow who had so much patience, going to the unjust judge and looking for justice. Though he did not recognize her in the beginning she was so patient and was keep going to Him. 

There an old Jewish traditional story that goes like this. One day as Abraham was sitting outside of his tent, he saw an old man coming toward him tired and hungry and was shivering in the cold. Abraham right away invited him into his tent and washed his feet and served his delicious food. As the man was eating, he noticed that he did not say his prayer of blessing to God and even while eating, he began to curse and blame God. Abraham the father of faith who immediately obeyed the will of God, got so mad and threw him out in the cold dark night. That night God appeared to Abraham and said, "Abraham...Abraham...where is the old man came to your house? Where is the old man who did not any place to go and was hungry? Abraham said, "God...he talked against you and I threw him out". Then God looked at him and said, "Son, I put up with him, I accepted his curse and blames for eighty-five years and how come you could not accept him for a night and how come you did not be patient with him?" 

And unless a person has so much patient, they say that he can not be a bamboo tree grower. After sowing the bamboo seeds, a person has to wait and wait for not one or two but four to five years and on the fifth year, it begin to grow so fast. Even in a day...it will grow one foot tall. But to see the gigantic growth, the farmers have to wait patiently for many years. 

Yes, as we pray to God and we have to be patient and wait. God knows how to give good things to us. Great things will happen to those who patiently wait. 

1. In today's gospel we see how the poor old lady kept going to the judge. She was so persistent and never gave up. At one point, the judge himself began to say, "I neither fear God or people and yet this old lady keep bothering me and I will grant her justice so that she will not wear me out by continuously coming". 

There is a story about King Robert the Bruce of Scotland. After he was badly defeated in battle, was hiding in a cave thinking of give up. That time he noticed a spider how it was carefully and painfully making its way up a slender thread to its web. The king watched as it made several unsuccessful attempt and how it finally made its way to the web. That inspired him so much and got courage and persistent and he finally won the battle.  when everything else tells you to quit and if you still keep going that is called persistence. 

It is easy to give up. We should know that our ways and doings are not His. God does everything in His own time. All we have to do praying. As St. Paul says, we have to pray without ceasing. 

3. Perseverance: 

Theologically perseverance means continuance in a state of grace to the end. 

I remember an elementary school story of the crow and the pitcher. The crow that was dying of thirst and it finally saw a pitcher with water at the bottom. In order to get that water, with perseverance, the crow took a pebble and dropped into the pitcher. One after another, it dropped  so many pebbles into the pitcher and finally the water mounted up near him and the rest of history. 

Conclusion: 

Every time we talk about persistence, patience and perseverance in prayer, we right away think about the mother of St. Augustine, St. Monica or St. Mother Teresa and so many saints. When we pray without ceasing like St. Paul or St. Jean de Brebeuf we too like receive the highest gifts of all. Yes, God himself will come to us. Amen.