In the Sight of the Angels! Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures,
which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation
through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is inspired by God
and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.

St. Paul is quite clear about the value of the scriptures in his second letter to Timothy, a portion of which we read today. This has inspired many a Christian to pick up the Bible, and attempt to read it cover to cover. But they soon encounter verses like these from the first reading today:

 

In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.

…

And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people
with the edge of the sword.

Fed, since infancy, with the images of Christianity as a message of peace, they simply do not know what to make of the gore in the texts they are reading!

Perhaps this is because they lack the tools necessary to read, and more importantly interpret, the Bible. One reads the Bible not only literally, but also metaphorically, reading the text for the images that it generates. In this reading, we are helped by the traditions of the Church, which we inherit as part of our patrimony.

For example, the month of October, is traditionally celebrated as the month of the holy angels. Recognizing this custom, we can see how the psalm today has so much more beneath the surface, just waiting for the eyes of our heart to read them!

 My help is from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.

St. Augustine tells us that this verse is a reference to Christ, the Word of God through whom the Father made all things. And, as the creed tells us, these things include “all things visible and invisible”.

And so, my dear brothers and sisters, we are introduced to the fact that the world we inhabit is not just the physical, or natural, world that can be seen; but the spiritual, or supernatural, world that cannot be seen. This supernatural world refers to those of the angels, both good, and bad. To be a Catholic, is to believe in the existence of the angels, as a truth of the faith (CCC § 328). And here, we encounter the third dimension of our faith, the Magisterium, that helps us understand and interpret both scripture and tradition.

Let us return to the angels. Our help, from God, comes from the good angels, and particularly, or most intimately, from the guardian angels that are assigned to each and every one of us from birth.

May he not suffer your foot to slip;
may he slumber not who guards you:
indeed he neither slumbers nor sleeps

And how do the angels protect us? St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the angels enlighten us, communicating to us the superior form of life. In other words, they constantly guide us toward the Truth. And this presence is intimate and near. Listen to the words of the psalm:

The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade;
he is beside you at your right hand.

Those of you who are familiar with the Tintin comic series, or perhaps other cartoons - I can think of the famous Tom and Jerry series, will be familiar with the image of a good angel and a bad angel. And this is because these cartoons and comics are directly inspired by Christian belief that our guardian angel is at our right-hand side, guiding towards good. In fact, St. Padre Pio offered a very specific knowledge about the angels, asserting not only that our guardian angels are at our right, but that when a man is ordained a priest, the angel moves to his left.

God, in His goodness, however, does not only provide individuals with guardian angels, but also communities and nations.

indeed he neither slumbers nor sleeps,
the guardian of Israel

There is a belief in the Catholic Church that even nations are provided guardian angels. Once again, we see how popular culture faintly echoes Catholic scripture. Many of us would have heard of the popular video game – Prince of Persia. There is a reference to the Prince of Persia in scripture:

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me twenty-one days. So Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia (Dan 10:13).

The princes referred to here, as is also very often the case in the rest of scripture, are the guardian angels of the places, or other angels.

And this is not the only reference to angel guardians of places and communities, for in the book of Revelation (1:20) we read of the “the seven stars [who] are the angels of the seven churches.” Believe therefore, and petition, the guardian angel of your nation and region.

God in His wisdom, and His mercy, has ensured, therefore, and this we must believe as an article of faith, that we have guardians at every level – the personal, and the community. And it is for this reason that we can, in confidence, sing:

The LORD will guard you from all evil;
he will guard your life.
The LORD will guard your coming and your going,
both now and forever.

Our minds strengthened by these learnings from scripture, let us turn to the angels to help us on the true and narrow path.

Holy Mary, Queen of the Angels; pray for us.

All God’s Holy Angels; pray for us.

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful gathered in the Royal Chapel of St. Anthony, Old Goa, on 18 Oct 2025.)

(image reference: Illustration from Hergé’s The Red Sea Sharks, from the Adventures of Tintin series.)

Remember Jesus Christ! Homily for the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the first reading this Sunday we encounter the episode of Namaan the Syrian general who was healed of his leprosy by bathing in the Jordan seven times. Those familiar with allegorical readings of scripture, or reading the scriptures for the prefiguring of Christ and the sacraments, will recognize in this episode the prefiguring of the sacrament of baptism – which cleanses our spiritual body from the wounds of original sin.

After this baptism in the Jordan, Namaan returns grateful to the prophet Elisha and offers gifts which are refused. Finally, Namaan begs Elisha:

If you will not accept,
please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth,
for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice
to any other god except to the LORD.

St. Ephrem the Syrian, a fourth century doctor of the Church, suggests that this request from Namaan should have shamed Israel, since unlike them, Namaan believed that “even the dust of their land was filled with God.”

And this is the question that we, brothers and sisters, those baptized, whether in Goa, or elsewhere, but especially in Goa should ask ourselves; do we realise that with our baptism as a people, the land too was baptized? Along with our souls, our land was also claimed for Christ!

As the psalm today sings:

Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
his right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.

The victory that He won in Goa, was to not only claim a holy people for Himself, but to also claim this land as His; so that from this bastion of the faith missionaries – like St. José Vaz – would stream out to consecrate more nations to Him and to continually sanctify these baptized nations.

Indeed, entire generations of Goans, and other nations who were baptized before us, realized the immensity of the gift that they had been given. By committing themselves to the propagation of the gospel to other nations, and supporting the sacred cult here in Goa, they embodied the gratitude of the single Samaritan leper who we heard today returned to Our Lord to thank Him for being healed.

And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.

There is, however, something amiss in this Catholic project that Goans have been handed by Our Lord. Our thanksgiving no longer rings out in a loud voice. We are no longer committed to this project. And not only have we abandoned the project of the proclamation of the Gospel, but we are shamefully abandoning the land, and worse, selling it off to the highest bidder! One knows of cases of Goans in Canada, the USA, Australia, Europe, who think nothing of selling entire hillsides!

In this way we participate in the dechristianization of a land that was purchased for Christ not only with His precious blood, but the blood of his martyrs – think of those in Cuncolim – but the hundreds of missionaries who came to us via Portugal. Take the case of the reverend José Paulo da Costa Pereira d’Almeida, buried here in this cathedral. As his tombstone tells us, he came here at a young age, eventually becoming Dean of this Sé, and with the funds at his disposal founded, cultivated, and embellished the town of Quepem. All for the sake of Christ!

These men, our spiritual ancestors, took heart from the words we hear today from St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy:

if we persevere
we shall also reign with him.

This call to perseverance is also directed to us, my dear brothers and sisters. We should cherish the Christian soil of Goa and not let this hard-won earth be dechristianised. To do so would be shameful, and I dare say sinful! Be aware, my dear brothers and sisters, that I am not asking you to participate in a campaign of keeping people out. Rather, I am asking you not to sell the lands of your ancestors to the highest bidder; like some contemporary Judas selling our Lord for a meagre thirty silver coins!

Indeed, these lands do not even belong to us, but to the comunidades that gave them to us. These institutions may have preceded the Christianisation of these lands, but they were also profoundly altered by Christianity, becoming patrons of the cult and institutions that governed these territories along Christian principles. How else can we account for the profound difference that one could, and perhaps still can, see between Goa and the surrounding regions that are geographically not very different from ours?

Many of us claim that we leave Goa, which begins the process of our land’s dechristianization, because we seek better opportunities. One may have reasons. But do listen with fresh ears to the words of St. Paul today:

Beloved:
Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David:
such is my gospel, for which I am suffering,
even to the point of chains, like a criminal.
But the word of God is not chained.
Therefore, I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen,
so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus.

And therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, I too ask you, before you leave this land, before you sell your lands, “Remember Jesus Christ!” and may be suffer with Him, for the sake of the gospel, and eventually, salvation. For remember,

if we persevere
we shall also reign with him.

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful at the Cathedral parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Old Goa on 11 October 2025.)

(Image reference: Thirty pieces of silver, Gene D. Austin, undated.)

The Hot Seat: Lessons in Political Theory

Goamandal is an ancient land, replete with myths and legends. And because this ancient land is not stuck in the past, these myths and legends continue to grow. Not too long ago, a young man, socially conscious and responsible, a modern Shravan Kumar if you like, placed a chair in a pothole in a Parvarim road that was itself inundated with water.  This water hid the dangerously deep pothole that could potentially kill a biker or seriously damage a four-wheeler. Thanks to this chair placed within the immersed pothole, motorists could now avoid potential death.

Sometime after the chair was placed in the pothole, the people realized that this chair was no ordinary chair, but the very chair which had played an important role in recent Goan history. This chair had begun life within the hallowed precincts of the Goamandal Svasth College. The chair was prestigious, it was used by doctors to rest, or as they sat before their desks getting work done. Things changed, however, when one of the local politicians, charged with concern for the hospital and inflamed with this passion, upbraided one of the doctors of the college – while sitting in his chair. The doctor was humiliated, his colleagues felt the slight too, and they went on strike. They demanded an apology. The minister’s gesture in response, the striking doctors refused; seeing it as a meaningless token! The matter now spiraling out of control, was taken to the prince’s office. The prince pursed his lips and thought hard. He thought, and he thought some more. He looked at the problem from various angles, wondering how to resolve the matter, and eventually he pronounced his mind on the matter.

The matter was serious he proclaimed, an apology was in fact required. However, since the offense was caused not just to a single doctor, but to doctors in general, the apology had to be made not to the particular doctor, but to the chair in which the doctor, and then the politician, sat on.

The wisdom of Solomon! The heavens opened up and showered petals on the chair, as the apology was tendered, and on to the wise leader who resolved the problem!

As often happens in such cases, however, the chair was now too symbolically loaded, and too politically sensitive to continue in the Goamandal Svasth College. In a land where ethics and morals were compromised casually, it reminded too many people of their failings. Another role had to be found for it, and thus it was, that having been discarded, it was put to use, in the Parvarim pothole.

Like all tales, this legend has a moral to offer us. It allows us to grasp the difference between two Latin terms from Catholic political theory that while often used interchangeably, are, in fact, distinct. The first is auctoritas, the second potestas. Auctoritas translates to prestige, the influence that a leader has, that ensures that persons take what he says seriously. Potestas, on the other hand, is legal power, it could even be understood as the physical ability to get things enforced. Auctoritas is a manifestation of socially recognized knowledge, while potestas is a manifestation of socially recognized power. In Catholic political theory, both are necessary, to guide the res publica or the public realm. In other words, the ideal leader has both moral authority, and power.

What happens when a leader does not have both auctoritas and potestas? Where a leader has only auctoritas, the leader may simply give a word and it commands attention, respect, and is acted upon. Where this leader is working in a scenario where there are competing leaders, however, and where these leaders see him as a challenge, and command physical power – i.e. potestas – he may have to cede ground to these powerful men, even though he commands moral power. In the case where he only has potestas, the people he governs do not respect him, but only fear him. They do not willingly give their consent to his rule, and he gradually has to turn towards the greater use of brute force. There comes a time, however, when the brute use of force is simply too much for the body politic, and it simply snaps, leading to regime change.

In our legend, the chair while in the college and used by the doctors, was the embodiment of both auctoritas and potestas. It gained its importance from the fact that diligent doctors, sat on it while going about their task of saving lives and providing hope. When the minister sat on the seat, and more so when he upbraided the doctor, the chair was emptied of auctoritas and was the embodiment of potestas alone. The minister was simply exercising his capacity to command power, there was no moral value to his actions. This emptying of auctoritas was complete when the prince commanded the apology to the chair, now fully embodying potestas alone. In fact, the apology was due to the person who embodied the auctoritas of the healing physician – the doctor who had been insulted. But this was not where the apology was directed, because it was the minister’s potestas which was being protected.

In the legend, the chair regained auctoritas only when it was placed in the pothole. This happened not because of any particular merit of the chair, but because it was now hailed by critics of the prince’s regime, as the chair of humanity. This critic demonstrated that the regime of the prince was devoid of any respect for humanity. If he did respect the people, he would have ensured that the roads are not potential deathtraps for the citizens. In other words, the chair regained auctoritas only because of the actions of the anonymous activist, demonstrating how it is always persons, and because of persons, that things obtain respect. Things have no value in and of themselves.

Not a week ago, an ambulance overturned on the highway near Guirim. This was, of course, a mishap waiting to happen. After all, while building works have taken over the centre of the highway, traffic is forced to crawl on a road that is riddled with potholes. There can be no doubt that, had we lived in a civilized, and functioning, democracy, this incident of an overturning ambulance would have been recognized as evidence of the Chief Minister losing auctoritas, requiring him to tender his resignation, and hand over the reins to someone more competent.

We do not, however, live in a civilized and functioning democracy. Instead, we are on the road towards hell. But we can, thank goodness, still question! The current regime may have potestas – we know that they are very competent in acquiring power – but do they have the auctoritas?

(A version of this text was first published in the O Heraldo on 8 Oct 2025.)