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).

Rejoice in the Lord! Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

Through this entire period of Lent I have tried to demonstrate that Lent may be a period of fast and abstinence, but it is not, by any means, a period of glumness. Christian life is about love and joy, and these sentiments must animate us always. This fourth Sunday of Lent, when we are more than halfway through Lent, Holy Mother Church makes precisely this point, when while designating this day Laetare Sunday, She asks us to rejoice!

If we rejoice, however, it is, to quote from the prophet Nehemiah, in the Lord that we must rejoice, and the parable of the prodigal song, which we encounter in the Gospel today, teaches us just how!

Relying on patristic readings, that is, the interpretations by the Fathers of the Church, we realise that the parable of the prodigal son offers us a quick review of salvation history. Central to this reading of the parable of the prodigal son is to understand the son as the figure of Adam and his offspring – that is us, the human race. We were in the Father’s house, until through Adam’s desire to be independent, and not have to listen to God, we left the Father’s house. In other words, we left Eden, for this earth, where we often spend the graces that we are given from the Father in pointless ways, or as Or Lord puts it, “in a life of dissipation.”

The life spent away from the Father, is a life without grace. All too often, relying on the graces that we may have inherited or have, we believe that we can rely without the Father – in other words, we do not need to go for Mass, to participate in the sacraments. But, as the parable demonstrates, there is only so long that we can last without getting a refill on grace.

Once the prodigal son has spent what he gathered from the Father, he then turns to a local who makes him herd his pigs. Building on the fact that the local makes the son herd pigs, the Fathers of the Church point out that this man is a reference to the Prince of this world, the devil.  And if we think about it, we realise that very often, after we have spent our graces, rather than turn to the Father, we turn to the various false gods: we seek solace in money, power, fame, pleasure. The “the pods on which the swine fed” are the cheap thrills that the devil provides us to distract us from recognizing who we are, and from our destiny to return to the embrace of the Father; and shamefully, rather than return to a grace filled life with the Father, we often long to eat our “fill of the pods on which the swine fed”.

Fortunately, however, there is always the stirring of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. I believe it was the stirring of the Holy Spirit that made the son come to his senses, to repent for his behaviour and to then turn to the Father.

In the son’s soliloquy, where he practices the little speech he would make to his father, we see also the common attitude we often have when we go to confession. We may confess our sins, but we are not sure if God truly forgives us. The parable should be a wake up call for us, however, of the attitude of God to our every confession:

While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.

The Father is always waiting for our return, and the moment we make the first move, He rushes to embrace us!

And then, what I think is the pièce de résistance of the parable: the father takes the fatted calf and slaughters it to mark the reconciliation. My dear brothers and sisters, we eat meat so often today that we forget that in the old days, meat was reserved for the rich and for special occasions. When the father slaughtered the calf it was a big thing, and a way to bring dignity back to this reconciliation of the son with the father. And according to Peter Chrysologus, the slaughtered calf is in fact a reference to the Son of God who was slaughtered on the cross so that the sons of Adam could be restored to the dignity which they had lost thanks to the original sin.

My dear brothers and sisters, the parable ends with the father saying:

we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.

Indeed, as Our Lord teaches in the Gospel according to Luke (15:7), “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.” Let us, therefore, this Laetare Sunday, be the cause for rejoicing in Heaven, when inspired by this parable, we become the prodigal son who returns to the embrace of the Father through recourse to the sacrament of reconciliation, or confession.

(This homily was first preached to the faithful at the parish church of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fatorda on 30 March 2025.)

(Image reference: “The Prodigal Son”(detail), Albrecht Dürer, c.1496, The Met, New York.)