Homily for the Missionary Families for Christ National Singles Meet - Feast of St. John Chrysostom

Today we celebrate the feast, the memorial, of St. John Chrysostum, Bishop and Doctor of our Holy Church. The word Chrysostum comes from the word Chrysostomos, "golden-mouthed." St. John was so called because of his eloquence. I pray that some of his eloquence may be mine this afternoon, as I meditate on the sacred scripture we have just read, and our tradition.

There is one particular verse from St. John’s many homilies that I have read and has stayed with me, which I would like to share with you.

God has no need of golden vessels but of golden hearts. I am not saying you should not give golden altar vessels and so on, but I am insisting that nothing can take the place of almsgiving. The Lord will not refuse to accept the first kind of gift but he prefers the second, and quite naturally, because in the first case only the donor benefits, in the second case the poor gets the benefit. The gift of a chalice may be ostentatious; almsgiving is pure benevolence.

My dear brothers and sisters, we – especially we in India – are not unfamiliar with the suggestion that we must first take care of the poor, and that we should not spend money on ritual ostentation. And St. John seems to be saying the same thing! But is he? I don’t think so, because you see, the Catholic way is not one way or the other, but often both. And so, listen to this sentence from St. John again:

I am not saying you should not give golden altar vessels and so on, but I am insisting that nothing can take the place of almsgiving.

In other words, almsgiving is fundamental, but golden altar vessels are also important. In other words, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we must start taking the liturgy seriously. What are the objects we use for worship? Are they worthy of being present before God, or not? One often sees cheap synthetic materials on the altar, steel vessels, instead of silks, cottons, linens, silver and gold. Surprisingly, however, our own bodies have no such aversion to simplicity!

In fact, a desire for a noble liturgy, could well be a form of almsgiving! The crafting of fine products for worship, must often rely not on simply going to a shop and picking up something. Rather, it involves creating a relationship between a designer, a patron, and at least one artisan. Through investing our liturgy with riches, as was done in the old days, we – especially those of us in India – may well be aiding the livelihoods of artisans in need of support.

The liturgy, my dear brothers and sisters, should be the most important thing for a Catholic, for it resolves around the Eucharist, the source and summit of the Christian life. Make our lives liturgically centered, and we will start rearticulating our entire lives! We will treat people with the same respect that we use for the Eucharist, recognizing in them the unseen Christ.

Speaking of the unseen Christ, you should know that Our Lord manifested Himself in this very space. This church of the Holy Cross is so-called because of a miracle where Our Lord appeared on a cross, which caused the cross to grow! In the Cathedral of this Archdiocese we celebrate a Triduum of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross to venerate the Holy Cross of Christ which is now in the cathedral. Brothers and sisters in Christ, Our Lord calls you, not just to take up your cross and to follow Him, but to proclaim His cross with your lips and your actions! St. John Chrysostum, whose feast we celebrate today, was called golden-mouthed because of his eloquence. I pray that the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ may similarly shine on your lips, and the members of your bodies, and that the radiance of the Cross, through you, may draw more to Christ.

St. John Chrysostom, pray for us.

(This homily was preached on Saturday 13^th Sept. 2025 at the Church of the Cruz dos Milagres, Old Goa.)

(image reference:Crucifixion, anonymous author, mid 13^th cent., Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai.)

Ave Crux Spes Unica: Homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Today is a doubly auspicious day, for not only is it the day of the Lord, but we also have the privilege of being able to celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on a Sunday, which happens once in about seven years. This feast originates from the time when the relic of the true Cross – discovered by St. Helen, mother of the emperor Constantine – was first exposed for veneration in 335 A.D. in front of the newly constructed church of the Holy Sepulcher.

This is the historical context of this feast, but how do we exalt the Cross, and why should we?

My dear brothers and sister, the ancient Fathers of the Church loved Our Lord, and the Cross, so much that when they read the Old Testament, they looked everywhere in it for a prefiguring of Our Lord, and in some cases, His Cross. Before I move on, let us pause and think for a second, they looked for Our Lord and His Cross everywhere! If only our hearts and eyes were filled with such fire my dear brothers and sisters.

It is because the Fathers read the scriptures with this eye, and of course, because Our Lord himself made the analogy, that we read about the episode of the bronze serpent on the cross raised by Moses, from the book of Numbers.

"And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

But why a serpent? Is the dying, or dead, body of Our Lord to be compared to that of a serpent? The answer in someways, is yes! Listen to St. Paul in the second letter to the Corinthians (5: 21):

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The human body, after the Fall, the same fall engineered by the ancient serpent, is sinful. This is not say that there is no good in our bodies, but that it is also the storehouse of much that is ill.

What was nailed to the cross, therefore, was not just the body of Our Lord. It was also our sinful nature, tied to this flesh, that was nailed to the cross. We were rescued from the second, spiritual, death because even in pain, when temptation is greatest, Our Lord resisted temptation, and triumphed. In so doing, He, “who knew no sin”, and who willingly took on sinful human nature, but did not sin, also ensured that it was human nature that triumphed with Him.

It is through the death of this man on the cross that we know that there is life after death, and we know how to resist temptation, why we must resist temptation, and to what end to put suffering, which is the product of sin. Accept suffering, embrace the cross and we will triumph with Christ.

Listen to the exultation of St. Gregory Nazianzus, the first two sentences of which we often hear at Easter time:

O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? You are overthrown by the cross. You are slain by him who is the giver of life. You are without breath, dead, without motion, even though you keep the form of a serpent lifted up high on a pole.

As Saint Bede, patron of the seminary I was sent to, teaches;

Because death was from a serpent, it was represented by the brazen image of a serpent in the account in Numbers.

In other words, what was nailed to the cross was not just a sinful body, and human nature, but death! The snake represents the reign of the serpent, the Evil one, who introduced death into the world. His eventual death, through the cross, is foretold, through this episode in the book of Numbers and realized eventually by the sacrifice of Our Lord on the Cross.

And so, the Cross does not exist for its own sake, as a pretty marker of our sect. But, as in the words of St. Andrew of Crete:

It is raised, not to receive glory (for with Christ nailed to it what greater glory could it have?) but to give glory to God who is worshiped on it and proclaimed by it.

So should it be with our lives, where we not just embrace the cross, but seek it, desire it, and love it, accepting our suffering because as in the words of St. Andrew the apostle, it is the cross which will carry us; no (!), restore us, to our maker.

O Bona Crux (O Good Cross), made beautiful by the body of the Lord, long have I desired thee, ardently have I loved thee, unceasingly have I sought thee, and now thou art ready for my eager soul. Receive me from among men and restore me to my Master, so that He, who redeemed me through thee, shalt receive me through thee. Amen.

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful gathered at the Royal Chapel of St. Anthony, Old Goa, on 14 Sep 2025.)

(Image reference: Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Luigi Gregori, late 1870s, Basilica of the Sacred Heart, University of Notre Dame, Indiana.)

Foundation: Homily for the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

The two parables offered by Our Lord in the Gospel today offer us a way to deepen our appreciation of the spiritual life.

after laying the foundation
and finding himself unable to finish the work
the onlookers should laugh at him and say,
‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’

The question, of course, is; why should anyone spend one’s own resources to lay the foundation of a tower, when the foundation of our tower ought to be Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself? As Saint Paul teaches us in his first letter to the Corinthians (3:11),

no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.

In fact, Our Lord asks that we consider His words our firm foundation:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock (Mt 7: 24-25).

If we found our lives on the rock which is the confession that of Peter – “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16) – we will be able to build a tower that reaches up to heaven. Unlike the tower of Babel, which aimed to give glory to its builders, a tower of virtuous living, built on the living foundation of the Son of Man who died, and was resurrected, will give glory to Our Father in heaven (Mt 5:16).

The fact is, that Our Lord does not expect us to build the tower by ourselves, but offers to do so much of the heavy lifting for us. As He promised in the Gospel according to John (14:2):

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

In other words, if we accept Him as our foundation, and work with Him by leading a holy life on earth, He will work with us to ensure we have a place in heaven. And this is important, my dear brothers and sisters, for heaven is the only club which is worth getting into.

Getting into this club, however, involves certain renunciations, the conditions for holiness. As Our Lord continues to teach us today,

anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
cannot be my disciple.

Friends in Christ, when we hear these words, our minds are often taken to the episode of the rich young man who “went away grieving, for he had many possessions” (Mt 19:22). We think instantly of the material goods we may have, and we viscerally understand how that young man may have felt. Our Lord, asks for too much.

However, it is not only the material renunciation that Our Lord is thinking of, and in fact, He is thinking of much more! What Our Lord asks of us is to recognize that everything we have has been given to us by Him, and we should, considering Him our foundation, return them back to Him, and follow Him.

Pray the Suscipe prayer of St. Ignatius, dwell on it for a while, and you will realise how great is the leap of faith Our Lord expects us to make.

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given 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.

If everything that we have is God’s, and we are only the servant who takes what the Master gives him and then works to increase it (Mt 25:14-30), we have really nothing to fear. Easy to say, and as I myself confess, not so easy to put into practice. We can try though!

This urging to build our foundation on Christ makes more sense when we see who are the enemies that are ranged against us. As St. Cyril of Alexandria teaches:

We do not wrestle against blood and flesh, but against governments, empires, the world rulers of this present darkness, and wicked spirits in the heavenly regions. We also have a crowd of other enemies. They are the fleshly mind, the law that rages in our members, passions of many kinds, the lust of pleasure, the lust of the flesh, the lust of wealth, and others. We must wrestle with these. This is our savage troop of enemies. How will we conquer? “We will conquer believing that in God we shall do courageously”… “and he will bring to nothing those that oppress us.

None of these enemies we can hope to fight by ourselves. We need grace. The grace of a solid foundation, and the infusion of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. These, my dear brothers and sisters, we are provided weekly in the Eucharist, so that our foundation may be Christ.

May God bless you.

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful at the anticipatory Mass on 6 Sept 2025 at the Sé Catedral, Old Goa.)

(Image reference: The (Great)Tower of Babel (detail), Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1563, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.)