9th Sunday ordinary

Doing the will of God

My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
After Sept. 11th, one company invited the remaining members of other companies who had been decimated by the attack on the Twin Towers to share! At a morning meeting, the head of security told stories of why these people were alive... and all the stories were just the little things.
As you might know, the head of the company survived that day because his son started kindergarten.
One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike because of an auto accident.
One of them missed his bus.
One spilled food on her clothes and had to take time to change.
One’s car wouldn’t start.
One had a child that dawdled and didn’t get ready as soon as he should have.
One couldn’t get a taxi
One man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning took the various means to get to work but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid.
Yes dear brothers and sisters when we are stuck in traffic(God alone knows what all things come out off our mouth), miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone…at all the little things that annoy us. Think to yourself this is exactly where God wants us to be at this very moment. God is at work watching over you. Just follow his will.
Make Jesus as our Rock and hang on to Him doing His will. The story is told about a shipwreck. One of the sailors, thrown from boat, flailed about in the water, thinking he would surely drown. As he moved his arms, trying to stay afloat, he felt something solid about a foot below the water level. He grabbed it and, even though the sea was churning around him, he managed to hold on. When dawn finally arrived - and the tide had gone out - he realized he was holding onto a rock some distance from the shore. A boat came to rescue him. They asked him, "Didn't you shake with fear when you were hanging on that rock."
"Yes," he replied, "but the rock didn't."
In today's responsorial psalm we prayed, "Lord, Be my rock of safety." You and I are like that sailor - tossed about on a dark sea. Like him, our one hope is reaching out for that rock - and holding tight when we find it. There will ship wreck even if we are doing the will of God, but God will be there as the rock. Morning will arrive.
It is not enough that we hear God's Word, but that Word must touch every element of our life. We can prophesy and that is not enough! We can do might deeds and that is not enough. True conversion means that our actions, our thoughts, our feelings—everything about us—must be firmly and clearly formed by God's Word.
Through the Gospel Jesus is asking us to do the will of God the Father. In Matthew 6:10 Jesus taught us to address the Father in these words” Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in Heaven” And Jesus is the real example of His teachings. In Luke 22:42 in The Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to His Father in these words” Not my will but yours be done”.
Jesus did not say that no one who says "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom. He said, rather, that not all who say that will enter.
So, who among those who say "Lord, Lord" will enter? Answer is very simple; those who do the will of the Father.
What does God want us to do?
First and foremost, God wants us to follow the teachings of His son Jesus. At the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”(Luke 6:27-28). In his sermon on the Last Judgment, Jesus tells us; to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked.”(Mat. 25: 31-46)
Mahatma Gandhi once compiled a list of the seven sins of the modern world. Those sins are: wealth without work, business without morality, science without humanity, pleasure without conscience, politics without principle, knowledge without character, and worship without sacrifice. We know that there is nothing fancy there, just the basics.
Secondly God wants us to live out the plan he had in mind for us when he created us. To use the talents God gave us, not for our own selfish interests and pleasures, but for the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth.
It is not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who does the will of God the Father.
Let us end this reflection today with the famous prayer of St. Ignatius. It has to do with God’s will. “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will- all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Feast of Visitation May 31

My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Our heavenly Mother Mary is the woman who was always there where she should have been: in Bethlehem, when the shepherds or magi came to adore the new born child (Lk 2, 16; Mt 2, 11), in Cana (Jn 2, 3) and on Calvary (Jn 19, 25). She would also be in the cenacle, beside the community being born (Lk 1, 14). She who said Yes to the Lord at one time maintains this Yes at all times: in happy and difficult times.
She is the woman of service. Her cousin was more in need than she and she didn’t hesitate in placing herself at her service (Lk 1, 39. 56).
we are shown, side by side, the two women, one seemingly too old to have a child, but destined to bear the last prophet of the Old Covenant; and the other woman, seemingly not ready to have a child, but destined to bear the One Who was Himself the beginning of the New Covenant. The Visitation is an anticipation of the final happiness of the encounter. Elizabeth was pregnant with two thousand years of waiting; Mary bore the hoped-for Eternity in her womb. The Old and New Testaments embraced in the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth.
It is this meeting that we celebrate today.
Mary visiting with Elizabeth. What gift did Mary bring to Elizabeth? We are not told that she brought foodstuff, although she might as well have brought some. We are told she brought just one thing: herself. She gave Elizabeth the gift of her very presence. And, dear friends, this is the best and the hardest gift of all. It is easy to send flowers, it is easy to send a parcel, but to give the gift of ourselves, to make out the time to be with somebody, that is the gift that many people long for but do not receive.
Another point we can make out of Mary's gift to Elizabeth is that one should give not according to one's convenience but according to the needs of the receiver. It was not convenient for Mary to travel the lonely, dangerous road from Galilee to the hills of Judea. It was certainly for her an uphill task. But Elizabeth needed a helping hand. She was six months pregnant and would no longer be able to go and draw water from the village well, to look after the crops in her garden and the animals in her farm; she would no longer be able to go to the market to do her shopping. So Mary, as soon as she learned that Elizabeth was six months pregnant went with haste and stayed with her for about three months, meaning, until she gave birth. Mary gave to Elizabeth what she needed when she needed it. That is the perfect gift.
Do you know one thing everybody needs today? Everybody needs encouragement. Everybody needs the interior peace and joy that comes from the Holy Spirit. This is what Mary's visit did for Elizabeth.
This is what we are asked to impart to one another as Christians, as the Temples of Holy Spirit. That is what we need to pray today through the intercession of Mother Mary, to impart joy and peace in our places.

Corpus Christy
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
If you wonder, what is the most precious gift that Jesus Christ gave to his church? The most precious gift that Jesus gave to his church is that which we celebrate today, the gift of his own body and blood in the form of bread and wine.
Flannery O’Connor, the noted writer of the mid-twentieth century, tells a story. She took a Protestant Lady friend with her to Mass a few times and after a short time the Protestant decided to become a Roman Catholic. She asked why she reached this decision. The Lady answered, “Well, the Priest is horrible and the sermon is so terrible, I knew there must be something else there to make all these people want to come.”
For us believers, this power of the Eucharist to attract people is justification enough to believe in the Real Presence.
Most of you may remember that in 1985 every television in the country showed footage of a woman who got pinned beneath a falling crane in New York City.
The TV cameras showed a team of paramedics fighting to keep her alive until a large crane could be brought in to lift the fallen crane from her.
The medical people gave her fluids, blood transfusions, and massive doses of painkiller. Then came the dramatic moment. The woman had a request of her own. She asked for the Body of Christ in Holy Communion. This too, the television cameras caught in all of its moving drama. It was a beautiful witness to the woman’s faith in the Eucharist.
Eventually, the woman was freed and rushed to a hospital, where a team of medical people saved her life.
Because we usually receive the Eucharist each time we go to Mass, we can tend to fall into the habit of receiving it routinely. As a result, we can tend to lose our appreciation of it.
Let me make this suggestion today. As you walk down the aisle to receive the Eucharist later on in Mass, focus your thoughts in a special way on who it is that you are to receive into your body.
A man who had had a few too many drinks stumbled across a Baptism service on a Sunday afternoon down by the river. He proceeded to stumble down into the water and stand next to the Minister. The Minister turned, noticed the man and said, "Mister, are you ready to find Jesus?" The man looked back and said, "Yes sir, I am."
The Minister then dunked the fellow under the water and pulled him back up. "Have you found Jesus?" the Minister asked. "No, I didn't!" said the man.
The Minister then dunked him under again, brought him up and said; "Now brother, have you found Jesus?"
"No, I did not!" said the man again. Disgusted, the Minister repeated the dunking, brought him up and demanded, "For the love of God, have you found Jesus yet?" The man wiped his eyes and said, "No sir I have not, but are you sure this is where he fell in?"
Many of us, when we hear the name of the feast that we celebrate today, the Body & Blood of Christ, think of the consecrated bread and wine. And, on one level, our thinking is true. If, however, our experience stops with this understanding and goes no further, then we miss something that is most significant. It is true, as I said, that the consecrated bread and wine are the Body & Blood of Jesus, but equally important, so are we. This is what happens when we celebrate the Body & Blood of Christ, that we are the Body & Blood of Christ.
St Thomas who composed Lauda Sion (Laud, o Zion) teaches us “The purpose of the Sacrament of the Eucharist is to achieve unity among the members of the Body of Christ.
In other words that Body on the Altar is for the sake of this Body in the pews. All of us, rich, poor, black, white, whatever our ethnic background, whatever language we speak, are united in Christ because we are caught up into his Body and Blood when we receive him in Holy Communion and he receives us.
Pope Leo I, who lived back in the fifth century says, "The effect of our communion in the Body and Blood of Christ is that we are transformed into what we consume." Do we realize this? My dear brothers and sisters!
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, our Pope Benedict XVI, who we might call "the theologian of the Church," says, "The Church is the celebration of the Eucharist; the Eucharist is the Church; they do not simply stand side by side; they are one and the same; it is from there that everything else radiates."
Yes dear brothers and sisters, this great feast invites us to ask ourselves, what does Holy Communion mean to us? If we do not appreciate it as much as we did the first time we received Jesus, then something is not right! Today when we come to receive Jesus, try to receive Jesus as if we were doing so for the first time- or for the last time- in our lives. Only a loving God could have given us such an unimaginable gift. The greatest gift ever we can receive when we are alive.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

photo of my previous parish St Stephen church 29th street :view from Empire State

Mission Appeal and the Trinity Sunday
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
I am Fr Sunny John, a Carmelite priest from India. I am coming from a country where there are more than 1.1billion people and there are 23 official languages. India is a federal republic of twenty-eight states and seven Union Territories.You May not fully understand me, you know why, because English is not my language.
On this Sunday every year we remember that God is our Father, our Daddy or Abba, and our brother Jesus who is Immanuel, God with us and nothing can separate us from his love except sin, and God is also the Spirit who helps us in our weakness.
The doctrine of the inner relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in such a way that each of them is fully and equally God, yet there are not three Gods but one, cannot be fully comprehended by the human mind. It is a mystery.
A story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, a great philosopher and theologian who wanted so much to understand the doctrine of the Trinity and to be able to explain it logically. One day as he was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on this, he suddenly saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a whole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup, came and poured it into the hole she had made in the sand. Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came and poured it into the hole. Augustine went up to her and said, "Little child, what are you doing?" and she replied, "I am trying to empty the sea into this hole." "How do you think," Augustine asked her, "that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?" To which she replied, " And you, how do you suppose that with this your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?" yes dear brothers and sisters Trinity is a mystery and we can’t fully understand it.
As we heard in our Gospel,
“God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost.”
Because God loved everyone, it is our duty to love our brothers and sisters who are in need. last Friday’s First reading from St James 2:15 we heard that “if a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “ go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?’
As John Lennon said: Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
We are called to be missionaries going out to the whole world and spreading the good news. We can never help anyone in this world when we are fully equipped or wealthy. God is asking to show our love towards others. By the fact we are helping the people who help the people we are becoming part of that universal mission of Christ. There are millions of people who have nothing to eat a day. Whatever you wanted to do for the people in the third world countries you need financial help, if you want to teach them you have to provide food clothing and transportation.
God is not asking us to be a mother Theresa but he is giving you and me a chance to do what we can do to help at least one family or a person to lead a life worthy of human being.
There are many events occurring in our world that disturb us.
This May 12, 2008 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck near the major city of Chengdu China's biggest killer since 1976's Tangshan quake, conservatively estimated to have taken 250,000 lives. This killed more than 78,000 lives leaving many as orphans.
On Dec 26, 2004 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. This is the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900. The earthquake generated tsunamis which swept across the Indian Ocean within hours. Millions of people lost their lives in this disaster. You have shown your love and concern to them and still people are not recovered from these calamities.
There is nothing big or nothing small in giving, even a small sacrifice you make today for the Missions in the world will prayerfully be remembered by someone who is in utter need of your help.
One evening a mother and a child were coming back home after a long evening walk and on the way they got into a restaurant and picked up their dinner package. While they were walking this little child saw a poor man in the nearby waste barrel searching for his daily food. This child remembered the catechism class where she learned about the loving God. She hold tightly on her mothers’ arm and asked Mammy, mammy let me ask you a question. Is God alive, yes, is our God is a good and loving God? Yes. Mammy my teacher told me today Our God is a good and loving God and wherever you are in need you pray to God and God will send angels to help you. Is it True Mom? Yes indeed. If that is right why didn’t God send and angel to help this poor man to find a meal a Day?
Wow that is a real aching question. Mammy just paused a moment. And said “honey, who told you that God did not send an angel today. He did send you. Take our dinner packet and go and give it to that poor man and be an Angel of God Today. Yes dear brothers and sisters. By helping the Mission you are becoming an angel of God for someone. I thank most sincerely Bishop William Murphy and your loving and caring Pastor Fr George Michelle and all parishioners of St Patrick Church for your love and support. As 2 Corinthians 13:13 says “The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” Amen.

Pentecost Sunday
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Let us begin with the prayer by Cardinal Mercier to the Holy Spirit: O Holy Spirit, soul of my Soul, I adore You. Enlighten, guide, strengthen, and console me. Tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it. I promise to be submissive in everything that you ask of me, and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Only show me what is Your Will. Amen.
Today we come to the high point of our Easter celebration, the Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost, meaning "fifty days" after the Passover -- was the feast day in which the Jewish people celebrated the Giving of the Law on Mount Sinai.
As we celebrate the Pentecost day, the birthday of the Church, we think of Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity. Holy Spirit is the God of Unity. Wherever there is spirit of Unity and Love there is the Presence of Holy Spirit.
I wish to focus today on two readings. One from the first reading of the Vigil Mass from Genesis 11: 1-9 and second passage is from Today’s’ first reading from Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11.
When we study these two readings we see two different experiences. One is the Experience of Tower of Babel and the Experience of Pentecost.
Whenever human beings forget how limited we are and try to take the initiative in our dealings with God, what inevitably follows is disaster. In the story of the Tower of Babel in Gen 11 where human beings decided to build a tower that would reach to heaven. In this way they would have access to God whenever they wanted, in this way they could manipulate God. But in the process of building the human bridge to heaven God came and confused their languages. They began to speak different languages, there was no more communication, no more understanding among them, and they could no longer work together. The result was the proliferation of languages and human misunderstanding. Of course the lesson we are suppose to get from the story of the Tower of Babel is the effect of human pride and arrogance, thinking that we can reach God all on our own effort.
Where there is no Spirit of God there is confusion, misunderstanding and disaster.
In the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus speaking in other languages? They heard the Apostles speaking in their own language. Yes dear brothers and sisters, where there is Holy Spirit, There is Unity and understanding. When you hear people complain they cannot understand each other pray for them for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Parents say they don’t understand the Children; children cry out they cannot understand the parents and the parents don’t understand them; then it is the right time to kneel down together and pray for a Pentecostal experience and an out pouring of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s have a closer look at these readings:
1. At Babel human beings decided to build a tower to God by their own effort; at Pentecost it is now God who decides to build a bridge to humans by sending the Holy Spirit. Babel was a human initiative, a human effort; Pentecost is a divine initiative, a divine activity through the Holy Spirit.
What God asks of us as believers always seems impossible. And it is indeed impossible if we rely on our own initiatives and will power alone. But if, like the disciples, we realize that godliness is above us, at the opportune time God will send the flame of the Holy Spirit to invigorate us, and change us from lukewarm to zealous, fervent, enthusiastic believers. And our God will make it possible.
2. Babel was a requiem of misunderstanding; Pentecost is a chorus of mutual understanding. The miracle of Pentecost is very different from the miracle of Babel. At Babel, the people came together with one language, understanding themselves. After God's intervention they dispersed no longer understanding each other. At Pentecost, on the other hand, people of different ethnic backgrounds (Persians, Asians, Romans, Egyptians, Libyans, Arabs, etc) came together unable to communicate, but after the miracle of Pentecost, they said, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear them, each of us in our own language?" (Acts 2:7-8).
Now, you may ask, is there such a language that one could speak and everybody would understand in their own mother tongue? The answer is yes. And the name of that language is LOVE. Love is the language that all women and men understand irrespective of ethnic background. Everybody understands when you smile. Love is the language of the children of God, the only language we shall speak in heaven.
Our dear Savior has given us the Holy Spirit and His seven-fold gifts. (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). We all know that 7gifts of the Holy Spirit:
Wisdom – gives us a relish for the things of God; directs us to love Him above all things.
Understanding – enables us to know more clearly the great mysteries of our faith.
Counsel – alerts us to the deceits of the devil and dangers to our salvation. Fortitude – strengthens us to do the will of God; even to die before sin. Knowledge – equips us to know the will of God in all things. Godliness (piety) – inspires us to love religion and its practices; stirs us to obey out of love.
Fear of the Lord – fills us with a dread of sin.
These are the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the apostles as much as to us. Paul says those who have the Spirit have these twelve fruits of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22-23) and goodness, modesty and chastity. And today my dear brothers and sisters,let Us ask the Holy Spirit to fill us with His gifts and fruits. Amen.

Mother’s Day
There is probably no more unsung a hero than a true mother.
Tomorrow our nation takes an opportunity to celebrate our mothers. We put aside a day for Mother's Day. Mother's Day actually did not begin in America, but it began almost a couple of millennia ago. It began by people coming back to the church where they were baptized. They recognized that the Church was their mother at the baptismal font. So the idea was that they would celebrate a day when they would all go back to their mother church. All the converts would be there together, the ones from over the years, and they would all be together in the place where they were baptized. They would celebrate their faith and life that they had learned and received in that church.
There would be no putting love into practice if we did not have a means to be able to learn it in the first place, and that comes from our mothers. That is the commandment that Jesus gave us: We are to love one another as He had loved us. Where do we learn that except from our mothers? More than any place, for most people, they learn love from a mom. All of us, every single one of us, learned love at its beginning by dwelling for nine months listening to the beautiful sound of a heartbeat, the beating heart of our own mother. That was the sound that permeated our life more than any other for nine full months. Every single second of our existence for nine months, we heard constantly that rhythmic beat.
If a mom brings all of her babies to the doctor and they all put the stethoscope on, they hear the baby's heart and they can hear the mom's heart. When doctors would say a mother's heart sounds like lub-dub, lub-dub, but from a child's point of view they would say it sounds like love-you, love-you. That is what we grow up with. That is how we begin our life: with that constant reminder of love that a mother gives to her children. She conceives that child in love. She bears the child in love. She raises the child in love.
Just step back and consider again what a mother does, pouring herself out entirely for that baby. She has to do things for a child that normally none of us would like to do. Yet, how a mother rejoices even in that. We know that we don't always rejoice in some of those things even as moms, but for the most part, a mom accepts with peace and with joy in her heart even some of those things which are so unpleasant. She is full of love even when a child is sick and makes a mess all over. On a natural level, we would walk away from that. But out of love for a child, a mother enters right into that, not only to clean up the mess, but more than anything to be able to care for her child.
This weekend as we meditate upon this mystery of life we consider our first mother, Eve. We consider our spiritual mother, the Blessed Mother Mary. We consider the Church, Mater and Magister (Mother and Teacher). And we consider the most beautiful woman in our lives, our own mother, the one who gave us life, the one who taught us to love. She is the one who gave us to love GOD, so that even in the newness of life all things would be new once again. Our mothers, out of love for us, wanted to give us not only natural life but they wanted to share with us eternal life. They have taught us to love so that we would be saints. They have brought us to the baptismal font so that we can get to Heaven. They teach us by word and by example what it means to follow the commandment of love. Thanks be to God for moms. They are the ones who teach us the love of God in human form.
If we consider what she has done for us, what she is doing for us, what she will do for us... and compare this to what little thanks she receives in turn …Please…Let us not make the same mistake. The book of Ecclesiaticus (17:24-30) states, “Honor thy father and mother and forget not the groaning of thy mother. Remember that thou hast not been born but through them: and make a return to them as they have done for thee.” Let our Mothers know dear brothers and sisters, that we love them in whatever way it is possible now. Happy Mothers Day.