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HOMILIES

THE ART OF UNDERLABORING

This Gospel reflection is based on Matthew 13:1-23.

Sower-farmer

Because we must’ve heard this parable thousands of times before, more often than not, we fail to notice the somewhat questionable agricultural method used by the sower in the parable. He goes out to the field, we are told, and scatters seed in every possible direction and–soon enough we find out–on every possible type of soil. What kind of farming is that?A line from an old hymn that alludes to this parable goes, “We scatter seeds with careless hand.” So true! When we think about it, that’s exactly what this sower looks like he’s doing: scattering seed carelessly, with utter disregard for something as basic as soil quality. 

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HOMILIES

MEN OF EXCESSES

875px-Greco,_El_-_Sts_Peter_and_PaulThis reflection is based on Matthew 16:13-19 on the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul.

At first glance, lumping Peter and Paul together in one feast in the Church seems pretty strange. After all, there was a time in history when these two Jews, who could not have come from more different backgrounds, found themselves on opposite sides of a conflict.

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HOMILIES

BODY AND BLOOD

nail-pierced-handThis reflection is based on John 6:51-58 for the Solemnity of the Most Precious Body and Blood of Christ.

My first thought whenever I hear of the Solemnity of the Corpus Christi is the Mass bread and wine. And why not? We Catholics believe that at the Consecration, the bread and wine are transformed not just into a symbol of Christ’s presence, but to His actual body and blood. You may not understand it, or you may even choose not to believe it, but it’s not a shocking idea at all.

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HOMILIES

POETRY, PENTECOST, AND THE PAINS OF THE PASSING YEARS

GMHThis reflection was made on the occasion of Pentecost Sunday, which this year falls on 08 June, the death anniversary of the English Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

I read my first Hopkins poem as a freshman in high school. The poem was “God’s Grandeur” contained in an anthology of poems carefully selected and compiled for us by our English teachers.

But between me and Hopkins, it wasn’t a case of love at first sight. An adolescent who had barely learned to appreciate any kind of poetry, I found his language and style too alien. And for some reason, the verses he wrote were much less accessible to me than the better known and more frequently quoted poems about roads less taken, tigers burning bright, and even that one creepy raven.

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HOMILIES

LAST FOOTPRINTS

This reflection on the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord is based on Matthew 28:16-20.

There is a special slab of stone found in the Chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. That rock has been revered by Christians for centuries since it is believed to bear the right footprint of our Lord right before he ascended to heaven (the half bearing the left is housed in a mosque). Hence, its name: the Ascension Rock.

ascension rock

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