Message for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

My dear friends,

I had planned to wish ALL THE FATHERS prayers and special blessings at the end of each Mass on Father’s Day. Please accept my belated wishes for “Happy Father’s Day.” I did pray for every head of the family, the father. I prayed that these fathers may fulfill their duties faithfully under the patronage and model of St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus.

In today’s meditation, “FOLLOW JESUS” will be our theme which means “…go and proclaim the kingdom of God” as Jesus did. So very specifically, we will focus our thoughts on how to follow/ imitate Jesus when we proclaim the kingdom of God.

This makes me think of our valued visitor Fr. David Paul Baltz, MCCJ, Comboni Missionary. Only for the first few years of his life did he enjoy the company of his father, mother, sisters, brothers, relatives and friends. He wanted to be a missionary. Probably at times, it might have come to his mind as if he missed something in life. He consoles himself with the words of Jesus: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Lk. 14:26) and “Amen I say to you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands for my sake and for the gospel’s sake, who shall not receive now in the present time a hundredfold as much, houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mother, and children and lands—along with persecutions, and in the age to come life everlasting.” (Mk. 10:29, 30)

This is exactly what we hear in today’s first reading from the first book of kings 19:16, 19-21 that God told prophet Elijah to give charge to Elisha. Elisha, without even kissing goodbye to his father and mother, takes charge from prophet Elijah. “Then Elisha left and followed Elijah as his attendant.” This is how we need to follow Jesus.

In the second reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Galatians 5:1,13-18 this following Jesus is simplified and magnified with the most important message, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The following and perfect imitation of Jesus finds its fulfillment in loving our neighbor.

The Holy Gospel according to Luke 9:51-62 finds still better explanation, which furthers our thoughts on the theme Follow Jesus is: “But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” This is the right way of following Jesus and loving our neighbor. We follow Jesus by loving our neighbor.

Message for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

My dear friends,

Our theme for today’s meditation is the answer of Peter to the question of Jesus, “But who you say that I am?"  Peter said in reply, “The Christ of God."

Let us try to see what is meant by "The Christ of God." The very word Christ means "the anointed one." The salvation history is full of prophets, kings and priests who are the anointed ones of God. But in the case of JESUS, it is an important and unique event in salvation history. He is the prophet about whom all other prophets prophesied. He is the king of Kings. Above all, He is the eternal priest in whom all other priests before and after Him share their priesthood. All other priests offered sacrifices of some other things, birds and animals. But Jesus is the priest and the Lamb of sacrifice. With this in mind, we will try to know how we could accept Jesus as “The Christ of God."

The first reading from the book of prophet Zachariah 12:10-11, 13:1 gives us the most powerful, most basic and most practical advice and that is:  accept Jesus as “...a fountain to purity from sin and uncleanness."  It must have been difficult for the Old Testament people and before the Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost, it was even difficult to accept Jesus as “a fountain to purity from sin and uncleanness.” In other words, His power to forgive sins. What difficulty should we have today?

The second reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Galatians 3:26-29 takes us still further in the mystery to tell us that, “Through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ Jesus have clothed yourselves with Christ.” So to accept Jesus as Christ of God, we only need faith and Baptism into Christ.

Peter rightly professed the faith, but Jesus immediately predicts the manner He is going to die, which was rather difficult to accept, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and the third day be raised.” Everything of this nature was not at all palatable to the listeners. They had different image of the prophet, king and priest.

What is preventing us today? Can we accept Jesus as

“The Christ of God?”

The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear friends,

We had great celebration of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Heart of Jesus. Good many people came to honor ‘The Sacred Heart of Jesus’ at the Church of Assumption and showed great love to the one who showed His great love first. The greatness lies in duly honoring the heart, which has so much of His love for us.

The celebration of the Immaculate Heart of His mother immediately follows. The heart of Mother Mary is a perfect example for all of us.  How do we show great love to Jesus? Love as Mother Mary loves. The consecration of the families, thereby giving the highest honor by enthroning Jesus at the highest place in the home and heart, is the outward expression of our love for Jesus. Hence our subject for meditation is "Show Great Love to Jesus."

The first reading from the second book of Samuel 12:7-10, 18 is an effort of prophet Nathan to convince King David that, though God has been so good to him, he has offended God. The moment the king is convinced and says, “I have sinned against the Lord,” the prophet assures, “The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die.” The great love of King David begins with this reconciliation with God and is the beginning of great blessings to King David. How great God made him!

Continuing the same thought, the second reading from the letter of St. Paul to Galatians 2:16, 19-21 tells us that , “…we are justified through faith in Jesus Christ.” He continues:  "I live by faith in the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself up for me.” The very basic way of showing our great love to our Blessed Lord Jesus is to express our deep faith in Him.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke 7:36, 8:3 describes for us how a sinful woman from the city shows her great love to Jesus. In spite of the objection, criticism and blame, she is unconcerned about what they think and say.  She simply shows her great love. Our Blessed Lord confirms with these words, “So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven because she has shown great love.”

To get great blessings from Jesus, we must show him our great love.

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ

"This is My Body" will be our theme for today’s meditation. It is enough to say "This is My Body" (meaning Jesus) because that statement includes everything and everybody. What does Jesus mean when He says,"This is My Body?"

The book of Genesis 14:18-20 tells us how ancient is the use of bread and wine by the priest Melchizedek to offer to Most High God a fitting sacrifice and bless Abram. This is pre-figuration of the sacrifice of Jesus. As bread and wine is for the basic nourishment of our bodily hunger, so also the body and blood of Jesus satisfies our spiritual hunger.

The Gospel according to St. Luke 9:11-17 is a beautiful example of Jesus' concern for the bodily needs of his followers: “Give them some food yourselves.” This is how Jesus expressed His concern for the people. "They all ate and were satisfied."

This is how Jesus has fulfilled the need of the people. We need to be aware of this fact that Jesus can and will fulfill all our needs.

The most important part of this nourishment of the Body of Jesus is very well understood by St. Paul as he writes a letter to Corinthians 11:23-26. The one who never saw Jesus during His life on earth in human body, but rather was persecuting His body, is able to tell us: "I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'”

I am sure St. Paul must had those words of Jesus in his mind, which he had heard from the very mouth of Jesus on the way to Damascus, “Soul, Soul why are you persecuting me?” After becoming Paul, the Apostle to Gentiles, he could very comfortably explain to us the mind of Jesus.

The words of Jesus “Do this in remembrance of me,” or “Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” give us the final message:  This is My Body, so take care of it.

In the most practical manner, this simply means that after offering the bread and wine, the Body and Blood, during the Holy Mass, when the priest or deacon tells us to "Go," we are still obligated to care for His Body.  We leave the gathering place of the church, parking lot, drive back home, pass all kinds of drivers, come in front of your pleasant or unpleasant neighbors’ houses, come to live with your grandparents, parents, husband, wife and children, go to the place of work, be in the company of pleasant or unpleasant friends and relatives and meet all kinds of people good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, acceptable or not acceptable.

Jesus says to us, "This is My Body." Whether you like it or not, learn to accept and live with every one and thus become a perfect part of My Body.