Carry the Grief Together - November 10, 2024
May God take all our loved ones to himself for all eternity. And one day, we will join him as well. Together we will be one in heaven. Until then, we will ask those clouds of witnesses to witness to us their love and help us to carry our grief and each other’s grief. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary time. Please feel free to pass it on.
Magnifying Glass of God - November 3, 2024
Every time we come to the Eucharist God says that he loves us completely. So much so that he gives us Jesus Christ in his person. I want to quote Thomas Merton. Let me explain first. When the sun is shining bright, you can take a magnifying glass, focus the sun and you can set a piece of paper even on fire. Thomas Merton says that Jesus Christ is the magnifying lens which God gives us so that he can focus his love onto our hearts and set our hearts on fire with his love. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary time. Please feel free to pass it on.
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PS - for some awesome time of prayer and reflection, take a look at the streaming sessions of our 2024 Seeds of Contemplation Retreat.
Open The Eyes Of My Heart - October 27, 2024
What are we blind to? We often suffer from a number of blindness in three areas. We are often blind as to how God has worked in our lives. This is a real blindness of hindsight. Then in foresight, unless we embrace our faith and the faith of a intellectual ascent to God, recognizing that God is always beyond us. But the greatest traction we can get is in insight. Because if we can sit in prayer and reflection, (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary time. Please feel free to pass it on.
Love One Another - October 20, 2024
We should understand the context of today’s reading. This is Mark’s gospel, the very first gospel to be written. And remember it is a continuation from last week’s gospel, where the rich young man comes up to Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit kingdom of of heaven?” And he says to him, “Give away everything.”
Then James and John come along. They have given up everything. So they are thinking, I got it. We have given up everything. We are following you.” And so John asks, “Can you give us a place one at your right and the other on your left, key places of honor?” (Read More…)
Here is my homily from the Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary time. Please feel free to pass it on.
Letting Go - October 13, 2024
Today there are so many things that draw our attention, distract us from even our own goodwill. We may not even want to be a certain way, but because we send so much time with those things. The question is what do we treasure the most? If somebody were to take away something, we would go, “Oh, no, no, no, no. Not that.” (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Twenty-Eighth Sunday of Ordinary time. Please feel free to pass it on.
ACL, Awe, Curiosity and Love for Christ - October, 6, 2024
I just returned last night from our pilgrimage and I had a long trip home. I finished the pilgrimage in Greece and Turkey and then I flew to Vienna for a Stanford class reunion. Then I flew from Vienna to San Francisco last night.
One of the things I love to see while traveling is how children and parents interact. God bless the parents; it is a lot of work! You guys know when you are traveling with kids, they push all your buttons. (Read more..)
Here is my homily from the Twenty- Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Life is More Poker Than Chess - September 15, 2024
You are not going to win every hand in your plan, in your life. That is just the way it is. You get some really doozy hands sometimes when you are sick and when you are suffering and you have gotten a bad hand, you still have to play the hand. Pick up your cross and come and follow me. You can not just fold the hand every single time. And that is what the Lord is trying to tell us, that he is in every single hand. He will help us play the every single hand. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Twenty- Third Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Ephphatha! Be opened - September 8, 2024
In today’s gospel, Jesus moves in close with this deaf and mute man. He moves in real close. And Jesus just does not say be healed or be opened in this case, he sticks his fingers in his ears. He puts his spittle on his tongue. I mean, that is moving in pretty close. He is intimately engaged. It is ultimately what Jesus did in becoming human. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Twenty- Third Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Doers of the Word - September 1, 2024
Henry Nouwen, the great Catholic priest and theologian of modern times, explains this reconnection concept using four words: taken, blest, broken and given. These connects us back to God as his beloved. When we truly discover that we are the beloved of God, that changes everything. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Twenty- Second Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
To Whom Should We Go? - August 25, 2024
We come to church not just for ourselves. We come for the sake of others. If there was only one person here, it would not be a celebration. It is a celebration because so many of us have made the decision to come here. That is what makes church. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
True Food for the World - August 18,2024
I want us to understand what we need to do because the whole world needs this nourishment so desperately. We are the remnant few who come to church. We need to be the bread of life for the world. If we do not do it, then who is going to do it? There is no one else out here. It is just us guys. It is up to us to live what Christ gave to us and to become that in the world. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
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Taste and See the Goodness of God - August 11, 2024
Watching the Olympics was such a wonderful counterpoint to so much we listen to in the news. It is such a relief for the human spirit. Because all we ever seem to see or hear is all bad news. But it is such a relief to watch this, the best of humanity. And it is such a relief and joy to watch. I cannot help but think of that phrase from St. Ireneus. “The glory of God is man, fully alive.” (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Become the Bread of Life - August 4, 2024
What we can do is share the nourishment we receive from here. And what does that mean? It is exactly what Paul says in the letter to the Ephesians. He said, “We shed the old self and we put on new self.” We need to become different when we come back from here. We need in some way to be nourishment for the world. We need to be the bread of life for the world. That is what will convince people, it is the deeds that we do. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Thank you for the prayers as I rested and relaxed during my vacation. I had a wonderful time but am very glad to be home.
Jesus Sent Them Out - July 14, 2024
Jesus sent out the apostles, the twelve. In Mark's gospel, it depicts as just the twelve. But in the other gospels he sends out all his disciples. He sends all of us out to share the good news of the gospel with others. How we do that is incredibly important, but more important is that we do something to spread the good news. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Finally, I will be on vacation for the next two weekends, so there will not be any homily emails during that time. Thank you for the prayers as I rest and relax.
Familiarity Breeds Contempt - July 7, 2024
Let us open our eyes and see what is among us and see if we can participate. At least recognize them for the gifts that are here, that are the ordinary being turned into extraordinary. That we can be grateful for the gift among us and be part of it, maybe to be willing to step in and to help in some way. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Humble and Faith-Filled - June 30, 2024
What does it mean then for us to be faith-filled? And what does it mean for us to be humble as disciples? The lesson of the woman with the hemorrhages gives us is to reach out and touch his garments, if I could just reach out and touch God. Our constant sort of mode is to always be looking to touch God in our lives. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Jesus, Our Chief Meteorologist - June 23,2024
There is something consoling about knowing when the storms will come and go. It does not take away from the fact that storms are there and they are coming and the damage that they are going to do, But it does sort of help to get ready for it. That is kind of the way it works. I find it very helpful, very consoling. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Little Things - June 16, 2024
It is true that the little things are what matter in our own lives as well. It is the little things we will become known for. The little things that we do or say that matter the most. That is what Christ is saying in today's gospel with this parable of the kingdom of God. A mustard seed is the smallest of seeds, but yet when it grows, it becomes the largest of plants. (Read More…)
Here is my homily from the Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Happy Father's Day to all fathers or father figures out there.
The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive - June 9, 2024
Today, I do not want to focus on the fall of humanity. I want to focus on the rise of humanity that will return to being fully human, fully alive, by seeing with new eyes, by hearing with new ears, by tasting and touching and smelling with new vitality so that we want to drink in the whole world and give glory to God. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. Please feel free to share with others.
Open Hands, Open Heart - June 2, 2024
Henry Nouwen, the great theologian and Catholic priest wrote in a book called Open Hands, Open Heart, “Most Catholics, when we come to church on Sunday, in fact, do not have open hands or an open heart. When we come, our hands and our hearts are full of many other things, and they are not open.” He challenged us in a very strong way. He said, “many of us have fists clenched tight, full with many things that keep us from in fact receiving the Lord in fullness.” (Read more…)
Here is my homily from The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. Please feel free to share with others.
Look At Me. Listen To Me - May 26, 2024
A lot of ink has been spilled over the mystery of the Holy Trinity for the past many years. Indeed, actually sadly, even more blood has been spilled over it. Even now, the East and the West Church are still split over a single word called the Filioque. This means that the spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The gospel today brings us back to the core of the Trinity and t is more about mission than mystery. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from The Feast of the Most Holy Trinity Sunday. Please feel free to share with others.
Mission Not Absence - May 12, 2024
The message is God loves us. The good news is that God loves you completely. The bad news, he loves everyone else completely too. But it is not really bad news. Of course, it is good news all around. The challenge then is, where we are called to be the church in the world where we are called to share this love where we are called to witness this love in the world, where are we called to do it to every corner of the earth. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from Ascension Sunday. Please feel free to share with others.
This Sunday was also Mother's Day. I wish a Happy Day filled with many blessings to all those mothers and mother figures in our lives!
Love One Another - May 5, 2024
God loves us not for what we have or what we do, what we own or what we look like. God loves us for who we are. We know that intellectually, I guess we know that, but we need reminders of it. And in this world, there is so much coming at us that we need reminders often for that purpose. Sometimes there are things in our life that will illustrate the love that God has for us, that breaks it open for us. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Sixth Sunday of Easter. This was First Communion Sunday, so the first part of the Homily was interactive with the children . Please feel free to share with others.
Moutain Behind the Flowers - April 28, 2024
“I looked out upon my window and I saw the leaves and the flowers falling from my beautiful tree outside my window. And I lamented as I saw the barren branches appear, and I lamented the beautiful flowers and leaves I had. And then I noticed, as I looked through the tree with its barren branches, the stunning mountains behind the tree that I had not seen.” (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Fifth Sunday of Easter. Please feel free to share with others.
Alleluia He is Risen !
Chickens or Eagles - April 21, 2024
Over the last few weeks, we have been reading from the Gospel of John and it hammers away at this metaphor of the Good Shepherd. And today’s version is a powerful one about how a good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. That is the image, a good shepherd. But I sometimes wonder if we really internalize that message? Do we really understand what he is trying to say? (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Fourth Sunday of Easter. Please feel free to share with others.
Alleluia He is Risen !
Tell And Live Our Story - April 14, 2024
Our faith is all about God as love and how we are called to be love to one another. And we are called to bring that story alive. We gather every Sunday to tell this story but sometimes I fear that we do not really believe the story, I am not sure we are convinced about the story we tell. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Third Sunday of Easter. Please feel free to share with others.
Alleluia He is Risen !
Wounded Healers - April 7, 2024
We often name the gospel from this Sunday as “Doubting Thomas." One of the things that has always struck me about this particular gospel passage is that Jesus has now risen from the dead, glorious victory over death and he has wounds. Why does he have wounds? Is this what it will be like when we all are raised? We will have all our wounds or broken legs, and our bad hips. We will all have the same old things we had when we were living. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from the Second Sunday of Easter . Please feel free to share with others.
Alleluia He is Risen !
Resurrection is For Real - March 31, 2024
Our role is to witness to love in the world so that others will come to know and experience the joy of eternal life. In the gospel t we get a hint of what the disciples found it hard to do it. Jesus says, “Go to Galilee.” Galilee was not just a physical location, it was much more. It was where they first met Jesus, where they first fell in love with Jesus. (Read more…)
Here is my homily from Easter Sunday. Please feel free to share with others.
I hope you had a blessed Easter - Alleluia He is Risen !