This homily is based on Luke 15:1-32.
Today’s Gospel is about the one that got away.
We all have such a person in our life: Somebody we used to care for deeply, someone somehow entrusted once to our care, someone who inhabited our universe once upon a time and–for just that brief fairy tale moment–made all the difference .
This reflection is based on Luke 14:25-33 on the day of the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
In today’s Gospel the Lord Jesus utters a word that we don’t expect to hear from him: “Hate.”
He tells us, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
This homily, based on Luke 4:1-14, was delivered in the Oratory of St. Francis Xavier on the Xavier School Nuvali campus.
The Gospel message of the Lord Jesus struck me pretty loud and clear. Today he tells us: “Dethrone yourself!” He sends this invitation to us all because just like the wedding guests in his parable, even the most introverted among us wouldn’t mind getting a seat of honor. It’s simply in our DNA; we all have a need for honor and social approval. The only problem is, sometimes we get carried away, and honor and social approval become addictive drugs, and we can’t get enough of them!
This reflection is based on Luke 13:22-30.
There’s something paradoxical about the Gospel reading today. On the one hand, we’re encouraged to “strive to enter through the narrow gate,” but that not all will succeed and many of us will, in fact, have the door of the kingdom shut before our very faces. In almost the same breath, however, we are told that people from every possible direction will “recline at the table of the kingdom of God.” It sounds suspiciously like there’s another access to the kingdom that isn’t as narrow and selective as the front door!
So, what’s going on here? Either the Lord has, in spite of himself, gotten self-contradictory here, or heaven simply has a blatant set of double standards. Is there actually a wide-open backdoor to heaven?
This homily was delivered at the Mass of the Holy Spirit at the Church of the Gesu.
You may have heard this riddle before…
Suppose you decided to have an intimate little birthday party. You invite exactly four guests: (a) your best friend, (b) a humble Atenean, (c) a poor La Sallite, and (d) a UP student who graduated on time.
Suddenly the lights go out and when it goes on again, your cake is missing. The million-dollar question is: “Who took your cake?”