Come and Worship: Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter

Just a few weeks ago, at the reading of the Passion of Our Lord we encountered the negation, or the denial, of Peter. Three times, Peter denied Our Lord and today, on the third Sunday of Easter we see that Peter, is offered the opportunity to affirm his love for our Lord three times.

Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"
Simon Peter answered him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."
Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs."

And then to subsequent confessions of his love, Our Lord says to Peter, "Tend my sheep," returning after the final confession to: “Feed my lambs.”

Brothers and sisters, I feel particularly grateful to be able to reflect on these words at my first public mass of thanksgiving because in a way it sets the tone for what my priestly ministry must be: Feeding, and tending to, God’s people. Feeding, must of course, refer to the gift of the Eucharist, the bread of angels and food from heaven, and tending refers clearly to the sacramental care that flows from the Eucharist. St Bede, the patron of the seminary at which I received priestly formation, says “To feed Christ’s sheep is to feed the faith of those who believe in him by exercising proper pastoral care.” Too often in our times, pastoral care is understood to be making the person feel comfortable. Love is mistaken for being cute all the time. But Saint Bede allows us to understand that pastoral care is primarily about feeding the faith to those who believe in Our Lord, and I would add bringing Him to those who do not yet believe.

And in this way, my dear brothers and sisters, the Gospel today can be read in a way that is not limited to freshly ordained priests; on the contrary! If the denial of Peter is a useful location from which to think about our own denials, I would suggest that Peter’s affirmation allows us to contemplate how we can confess our love for Our Lord.

One of the great fruits of the Vatican Council II was that it made us aware of the fact that by virtue of their baptism, the laity too share in the priesthood of Christ (Apostolicam Actuositatem §2). As in the words from the book of Revelation (5:10):

you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God,
    and they will reign on earth.

This verse from Revelation makes it very clear, we are here, called to serve our God through worship, and being worship due to a king, must be noble in every way.

This quality, and indeed the scale, of worship is made very clear to us in the second reading today, also from the Book of Revelation.

every creature in heaven and on earth
and under the earth and in the sea,
everything in the universe

Gives praise to God in the act of celestial worship that John witnesses in his vision. And then, after this act of praise, “the elders fell down and worshiped.”

Too often in our times, my dear brothers and sisters, our worship is casual, and sloppy, if not marked by the vice of sloth. My dear brothers and sisters, we are called to be noble, not just in our worship, but in our every action. Indeed, work and worship exist in a tight relationship with each other. One cannot be noble in worship, if one is not noble in our daily life, and inversely, without nobility in our daily life there will be no nobility in worship.

But our life must begin with worship, and this obligation is made obvious also by today’s Gospel. A question that seems to have exercised, and bothered, several early Christian commentators on the Bible was what were the apostles doing fishing? What were they doing, when they should be out proclaiming the Gospel! And so, dear brothers and sisters, we could consider it telling, that they did not catch any fish on that night expedition. And now listen to the words of Our Lord from the shore:

"Children, have you caught anything to eat?"

Note, the word, children, as if to suggest, you innocents, have you learned nothing? And to their negative response he then replies

"Cast the net over the right side of the boat
and you will find something."

My dear brothers and sisters, the message that Our Lord intended for the apostles, and for us, should be clear. You are not called to be immersed in the world. Hence forth, spend your lives in nothing but the service of the Church. You have been called to be fishers of men, to proclaim the Gospel to the farthest ends of the earth. And, more importantly, without Him we can do nothing, and more particularly, without worshiping Him, we can do nothing.

Our Lord, in His infinite wisdom follows up this lesson by pointing the apostles in the direction of worship. He gives them bread and fish, echoing not only his miracle of the multiplication of bread and fish, but also of the miracle of the Eucharist. In other words, when lost in the world, return to the Eucharist, and throw yourself down before Him, be fed and then strengthened, proclaim the Gospel.

But let our worship, dear brothers and sisters, be noble. Like the Magi, let us bring our finest gifts to the altar, silks and gold thread, silver and gold, incense and the finest music. Let us wear our finest clothes, genuflect in respect, kneel in worship, and receive communion in a way that acknowledges that it is the most important thing in the world. Let us pursue beauty in our every action, so that this beauty can then be offered to Our Triune God in worship that imitates the worship that is going on in heaven all the time.

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful gathered at the parish church of Our Lady of the Rosary, Caranzalem on the occasion of my First Mass of Thanksgiving on the 4^th of May 2025.)

(Image reference: “Adoration of the Magi,” Gentile da Fabriano, 1423, The Uffizi Gallery, Florence.)

Make the Dough Rise! Homily for Easter Sunday

Alleluia dear brothers and sisters! As the response to the psalm this morning puts it: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.” Indeed, the Church celebrates the next one week as a single day of Easter! It does so because, alleluia, this is the day above all days! The day when, alleluia, it was shown as fact that death is no longer the final barrier of human life. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead, demonstrated His glorified body to his disciples, and ate and drank with them, gave us bodily and undeniable proof of this fact. And this fact changed the lives of his friends altogether! No longer were they afraid of what the power and principalities of the world could do to them because they knew that something greater and bigger was in store for them. To rephrase a little saying:

            Sticks and stones may break my bones,I shall not die, but live,
            But the power of the world will never hurt me.

It was this knowledge of life after physical death that, as we heard in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles today, gave the apostles the power to go out throughout the world and proclaim the Good News, such that not social ostracism, nor torture, nor martyrdom could dissuade them anymore. Bear in mind that every single apostle of Our Lord, except St. John the evangelist, died a martyr. They did not fear this bloody end because, as the psalm sings today, they knew that:

I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the LORD.

This knowledge of life after death, this faith in the resurrection, should animate our own lives and the way we live it.  In this matter, St Paul in the second reading has some very useful advice:

Brothers and sisters:
… let us celebrate the feast,
not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

A friend of mine was recently bemoaning the fact that he all he sees is wickedness and malice growing in Goa – and he was referring to the growth of this yeast among Catholics. It pained me to agree with him, because this is the sad fact of Catholic life in contemporary Goa. We may come to Sunday mass, we may go to a variety of devotions, but after all of that is done, our ways are often wicked and malicious as we try to get ahead in the wicked and malicious world that we live in. And this is just for those who fulfill the external obligations of being a Catholic. What of those who bear Catholic names, profess themselves as Catholics but do not in fact practice the faith?

My dear brothers and sisters, the task of the Catholic is to be the yeast of sincerity and truth. As I contemplated this fact sometime ago the following verse from St Paul’s letter to the Galatians (5:9) came to mind:

A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough.

My dear brothers and sisters, it is not uncommon for us Catholics in Goa to moan (and mourn) as in this verse from the book of Daniel (3: 37-38):

For we, O Lord, have become fewer than any other nation,
    and are brought low this day in all the world because of our sins.
In our day we have no ruler, or prophet, or leader,
    no burnt offering, or sacrifice, or oblation, or incense,
    no place to make an offering before you and to find mercy.

Indeed, this was once my own attitude, until I realized, that in fact, we do have a ruler, a prophet and prince. We have a sacrifice and a place to make offering. That ruler, prophet and leader is Our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, who is Himself the sacrifice and the altar of sacrifice. And he has assured us that we are the leaven. And it is for this reason, to show His power, that he permits us to be a minority in Goa today.

The Catholic has been in a minority in Goa since at least the nineteenth century when the New Conquests were added to the Old Conquests. And yet, despite all this time, it is clear that what is good in Goa comes from the goodness of Christianity. The gentleness, and honesty, of its people is the result of the Christian virtues that were practiced and became the social norm. The little yeast was able to leaven the whole batch of Goan dough.

This is, unfortunately, no longer the case because in many ways, we, who are obliged to bring goodness to the whole of Goa, have resigned ourselves to worldly thinking. We now believe that we need to accommodate ourselves to the wickedness that we see around us. My dear brothers and sisters, the message of Easter is that Christ will triumph in the end, when He comes in glory. If we are to triumph with Him, and live forever in our glorified bodies, it is necessary that we must not accommodate ourselves to the world, but empty ourselves every day. Doing what is good, doing what is right, doing what is just, bringing beauty to the world around us, because as St. Peter says “He commissioned us to preach to the people.” If you fail in your practice of the faith, go confess, because as Saint Peter assures us “everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.” And then, with the grace you have received through absolution, start again. Being the yeast your life may be one of constant martyrdom, but like the apostles, at the end of your life here on earth, you will be able to say:

I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the LORD.”

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

(A version of this homily was first preached at the parish church of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fatorda on Easter Sunday 20 April 2025.)

(Image reference: “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” from the Ghent Altarpiece, Hubert and Jan van Eyck, mid-1420s – 1432, St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent.)

Proclaim His Kingship! Homily for Palm Sunday

 

The lectionary of Palm Sunday offers us the opportunity of two Gospel readings; the first at the blessing of the palms, and the second at its usual place in the Liturgy of the Word. The first Gospel reading, which recounts Our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, ends with Our Lord responding to those who would have had Him rebuke those who were acclaiming Him:

I tell you, if they keep silent,
the stones will cry out!

In other words, Our Lord is encouraging all of us to proclaim the nature of His kingship;

Blessed is the king who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest.

In the face of the kingship of Our Lord, even the stones, may not keep silent, but must proclaim the Gospel.

How do we proclaim the Gospel? There is a line often, and erroneously, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi; “preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary, use words.” It is first through our actions that we must preach, and in this strategy, Our Lord Himself, offered us an example. As we heard in the first reading today:

I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.

We are all today, children of the French and subsequent revolutions, which have normalized revolt against authority. If those charged with authority are in error, or simply disliked, we feel it acceptable, or necessary to overthrow them, challenge, or disobey them. This has not been the Catholic way, however, and Our Lord showed us the way of humility before power. We submit to lawful authority and suffer, because it offers us the potential to unite ourselves with the passion of Our Lord – think back to St. Paul’s beautiful prayer: “In my flesh I take on what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of His body the Church” (Col 1:24).

But Our Lord is not advocating cowardice. As the first reading indicates:

The Lord GOD has given me
a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.

The Gospel today demonstrates that Our Lord had the courage to rebuke those in power:

Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs?
Day after day I was with you in the temple area,
and you did not seize me;
but this is your hour, the time for the power of darkness.

Or when questioned before the Sanhedrin:

If I tell you, you will not believe,
and if I question, you will not respond.

It takes courage to be this bold before rogue authority. And so should it be with us, standing boldly before authorities who are abusing their power. We stand before them not to overthrow them, but, as Our Lord did, to rebuke them, and then boldly bear the consequences.

Brothers and sisters, one way in which we in India, and Goa, particularly dodge our Christian obligations in a society that is losing all sense of justice and the rule of law, is by accommodating ourselves to the madness around us. If we are to enter heaven, we must confess Our Lord in deeds, not just in words. To acknowledge Him in word, and not deed, would be to emulate Judas who betrayed “the Son of Man with a kiss.”

It is my firm belief that we must not begin our confession of Christ in social activism. If our activism is not firmly grounded in piety, it will eventually be overtaken by the perverse logic of revolution. This week Saint Paul instructs us that:

at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Hidden in this text is at least one bodily action that too many of us have given up; bending the knee. Brothers and sisters, I urge you to resume the practice of genuflection before the Blessed Sacrament. Here in Fatorda you have a particular opportunity; the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the oratory can be seen from the main road. Should you pass the oratory, genuflect in the street. Confess Christ as Lord in public, and grow in piety! It will stand you in good stead in your social activism. Kneel, don’t sit, after receiving communion. One cultivates piety only through pious actions, and our Christianity – indeed the body of Christ! – has suffered much from the tendency from the past few decades to make everything about the head, or about discourse! Let the others scoff, mock, wag their heads at you. Proclaim, through your actions, his name to your brethren in the midst of the assembly!

My dear brothers and sisters, Holy Week offers us great opportunities to grow in piety through the public demonstration of our faith. This week, DO NOT sit at home and settle for quick services. Go to the processions, Way of the Cross, attend on Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament on Holy Thursday until midnight. And when you do, whisper under your breath,

Blessed is the king who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest.

(This homily was prepared to be preached to the faithful at the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fatorda on Palm Sunday, 13 April 2025.)

(Image reference: Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, Anthony van Dyck, 1617, Indianapolis Museum of Art)

Order Your Lives to Christ! Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent

The second preface of Lent (we can get into what is a preface at Mass at some other time, in short, it is the prayer offered by the priest just prior to the Sanctus), which has the theme of Spiritual penance has this penetrating insight to offer us:

For you have given your children a sacred time

for the renewing and purifying of their hearts,

that, freed from disordered affections [italicized emphasis mine],

they may so deal with the things of this passing world

so to hold rather to the things that eternally endure.

Disordered affections, this is precisely what St. Paul is getting at in his letter to the Philippians, which we read today, on Passion Sunday, when he says:

Brothers and sisters:
I consider everything as a loss
because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things
and I consider them so much rubbish,
that I may gain Christ and be found in him

Brothers and sisters, this attitude of St. Paul, is the attitude that we should adopt during our Lenten fasts and abstinence. We fast and abstain from things because we recognize that at some level these things that we otherwise hold affection for – whether chocolate, or alcohol, or films and television, music, or parties, are all disordered. They are disordered, because it followed mindlessly, they do not lead us toward Christ, but away from Him. When we give up these things for Lent therefore, our attitude ought not to be to wait for the forty days so that we can just go back to them with gusto, but to realise that, in fact, we can live without them! Living without them may open up one more way in which we can draw ourselves closer to Christ by learning to live without the things of this world and live with the one thing that gives us (eternal) life; Our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, and to go back to second preface, the point of Lenten abstinences is that we may be freed from disordered affections.

One of the features of contemporary life is to mistake the object of our affections, and the sentiments that we feel when in the presence of these objects, as the reason for our living. To repurpose a silly line from a TV comedy, St. Paul says wrong! Accept the loss of all things that keep you from Christ, accept them as so much rubbish, and you will be well on the way towards the goal of the Christian life. In other words, order your life to Christ and His Cross, and you will win!

St. Paul can sometimes use strikingly contemporary language when he speaks about the Christian life. Take, for example, these words in his letter to the Corinthians (9: 24-27) that those of us involved with healthy lifestyles, exercising and the gym, will readily get:

Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

The Lenten fasts and abstinences are spiritual exercises so that we can limber up for the race toward the final prize. They are merely the warmup, so that the following Lent we can do better, and then the following year even better. As someone who has lived, and loved, the fast life, may I suggest to you, that as you take up these fasts and abstinences, your life opens up to the beauty of other things are more ordered towards Christ.

There will be many of you who will have started Lent with determination and verve and are now tired and have fallen away from your fasts. Buck up! So you’ve slacked off! No matter! Pick yourself up and get back with the programme! Some of you may not have started at all! No matter! There is someone I know who would start late, but his fasts would get more and more rigorous as he approached Good Friday. This could be you too! As the Gospel acclamation reminds us:

Even now, says the Lord,
return to me with your whole heart;
for I am gracious and merciful.

Even now, says the Lord! Bretheren, I leave you with the first verse of a beautiful hymn written in the fifth century, which you could well turn into a personal prayer, and even sing it, for the remainder of Lent;

Lord Jesus think on me

and purge away my sin,

from earthly passions set me free,

and make me pure within. 

May you have a blessed Passiontide.

(Image reference: Adoration of the True Cross by St Helena and the Emperor Heraclius, Jimenez Bernalt, 1480s, Saragossa Museum).