Maunday Thursday

HOLY THURSDAY. 

Good evening everyone. Today the Holy Catholic Church celebrates Maundy Thursday. Mandate in Latin means to give. Our Lord Jesus Christ the only Son of God, the Alpha and Omega namely the beginning and end and it's because of Him, everything came into being and everything exists, gave a mandate at the Last Supper saying to His disciples, followers, apostles and to all of us..."Love one another as I have loved you". 

He asks us to love one another, it's because God created every one of us in His own image and likeness.  

In today's first reading the book of Exodus talks about the holy Passover. It talks about how God saved His chosen people from slavery and suffering. God will never let His people suffer and die. It's because they belong to Him and He is their God. He made covenant with Adam, Noah, Abraham and others to make His people a people of God and to prosper forever. Our God loves us so much and when we call on His in our distress, He immediately answers to our call. He is the God hope and love; happiness and joy. He saved us through His Son our Lord Jesus Christ. 

In the second reading St. Paul tell the people of Corinth what he received from the Lord, He is giving to them. And he continued to say that the Lord Jesus Christ on the night before His betrayal at the last supper took bread and blessed it and gave it to His apostles and said, "Take and eat" and like manner, He with His blessed hands took the chalice and blessed and gave it to His disciples and said, "This is my blood and drink it in remembrance of me". Dear friends, every time, we eat the bread and drink from the cup, we remember the great act of God that is sending His only Son Christ for our salvation. Without Him, we might have perished and gone but because of Him, we are holy and blameless. So, let us recognize the presence of Christ our Lord in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. 

In today's gospel, Christ our Lord as washing the feet of His own disciples and gives them a new commandment saying, "Love one another as I have loved you." You call me Lord and Master and if your master washes your feet, you ought to do too. He did not talk to them about serving others using many words, but He showed to them by His examples.  

Let us be like the Lord our God and love others as He has loved us and serve others as He served others and celebrate this Maundy Thursday with devotion and faith. Amen. 

Third sunday in lent -C

Third Sunday in Lent
A man who was driving without seat belt was stopped by the police, he grabbed for the belt and put it on. But it was too late.
I was visiting the school children and said, "We believe in one God and the Father is God and the Son is God and who is the other person?" One boy said, "You are God..." I said, "You got A+". And then they were asking more and more about Mummy. How mummy come back to life and so on. And at one point, I looked at them and said, "If you want to know more about mummy, just ask your daddy".
Once a police officer looked at a man and said, "You weren't wearing your seatbelt" and he said, "yes, I was" Then he said, "If you don't believe me, just ask my wife". The cop looked at the man's wife and said, "So, tell me, was he wearing seatbelt?" The wife looked at the cop and said, "I have been married to this man for forty years and there is one thing, I have learnt, never argue with him with he is drunk. Just give him a ticket.
Today we celebrate the third Sunday in Lent. During this holy season, we renew our traditional catholic disciples namely prayer, fasting and works of charity. Last weekend, we talked and reflected more about the power of prayer and how we could connect ourselves with God through prayer. We wanted to be like our Master the Messiah spending time with God alone.
Christ is the Messiah. He is proving Himself the Messiah by cleansing the temple. The people of Israel strongly believed that the Messiah would come and gather the twelve tribes of Israel. Yes, he would bring those scattered people to one place the holy city Jerusalem. Then He could cleanse the temple in Jerusalem. More than anything else, what made Christ to be crucified was the cleansing of the temple. Christ chased the sheep and the cattle, the money changers and others saying, "Do not make my Father's house a market place" That made the Pharisees and the Scribes, the elders and the people so mad and thus they found a way to crucify Him.
Once a man prayed to God saying, " God, I am a sinner and people don't let me in the Church". And god that night said to him, "What are you complaining about? They don't let me in either".
As Jesus saw how the holy temple of God was abused by the Pharisees and others, He made a whip of cord and chased them all away. He cleansed the temple saying,
"This is my Father's house...Yes, this is His house and we are called to keep it holy and clean.
Then Christ says, "Destroy this temple and within three days, I will raise it up..." He was talking about His body. He was foretelling His coming death and resurrection.
In his autobiography, Gandhi says how he was in his student years was deeply interested in the Bible, especially the Sermon on the Mount. But as he went to Church few times and saw the unchristian things, he changed his mind and said, "I like your Christ not Christians.
In order to experience the love and kindness of God; in order to know and love Christ in the Church, it's so important to keep our bodies which are the temples of the Holy Spirit pure and clean.
One of the Lenten disciples namely fasting helps us to keep our temples pure and clean. Fasting means leaving behind things that hinder us from loving God and others and fasting means say "No" to our physical, material and spiritual temptations. Fasting purifies our bodies and it cleans our minds.
We all human and we fall and rise, and we go away from God and do the same stupid things again and again and at the same time, as we come to know that Christ is our loving and forgiving Messiah and helps us to cleans our temples, we turn away from sins and shortcomings; pain and failures and come to Him. So, let us cleanse our temples even before coming to God's temple. Amen.

fourth Sunday in Lent-B

4th Sunday in Lent 

Once a man was taken before the judge and the judge asked him why he was mixing horse meat with chicken meat. The man said, "I did only fifty to fifty mixing and not that much". The judge warned him not to do so and dismissed the case. Then later that day, his friend asked him what do you mean fifty to fifty mixing and the judge let you go? The man said, " I told the truth". you mix horse meat with chicken meat and what do you mean fifty to fifty mixing. That man said, "fifty to fifty mixing means, One horse to one chicken". 

The Holy Season of Lent invites us to get closer to God almighty in Christ our Lord through the means of prayer, fasting and works of charity. Last weekend we met with Christ our Lord at the holy temple in Jerusalem, where He chased away people who were making the Father's house a market place, a den of robbers saying, "Destroy this temple and within three days, I will raise it up". Christ was predicting His glorious resurrection and the salvation of humanity. 

Once the daughter of Karl Marx confessed to a friend saying, "I was never brought up in any religion or had never been religious, but, she said, on the other day, I came across a beautiful little prayer that inspired so much. I wish that could be true. The friend said, "What prayer..." Then the daughter of Karl Marx began to say the prayer in German, "Our Father, Who art in heaven..." 

The whole Bible can be summarized with one word called 'Love'. The New Testament is hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is being revealed in the New. The Bible is all about God's love, kindness and forgiveness. Today's gospel verse, "God so loved the world that He sent His Only Son into the world so that those who believe in Him may not perish but may have eternal life". This verse is called the gospel of the gospels. The verse talks about the very purpose of Christ coming into the world. 

As St. John Fisher was on the way to be beheaded because his faith in Christ our Lord, he opened the New Testament, praying to Christ saying, "God, please give me some comforting words...when he looked at the page, his eye fell on the words of St. John: "God, so loved the world and thus He sent His only Son and those who believe in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. 

In today's gospel, Christ our Lord says as Moses lifted the image of serpent in the wilderness when people who murmured and disobeyed God and Moses and those people ,who were bitten by snakes as punishment of God, were forgiven and were asked to look up the image of snake to have life, the Son of man must be lifted up for the salvation of humanity. Those who come to Him with their sins, pain, failures and short-comings will not be punished but be forgiven and be given life that will never end. 

We are Eater people. We are people of God. Every time we come to Church, we are given the assurance to eternal life. Christ the light of world will shine before us and we do need to be afraid of anything anymore and all we must do is listening to His words and follow Him.  

Let us create more curiosity and doubts and let us approach our Lord God during this season and like Nicodemus ask Him and He will enlighten us with His words and love; He will take us to the Father in heaven. So, let us observe this holy season and get closer to Christ the only way to the Father, the light of the world through means of prayer, fasting and works of Charity. Amen.