Four minute homilies

Pontius Pilate               Today the Gospel brings to us the conversation between Pilate and Jesus about his kingship. Pilate was the governor of Judaea for ten years, the time of Jesus’ passion and death. His name appears in the Creed to place Jesus in a particular time of history. Tradition says that he became a Christian and died a martyr. We don’t like kings in our present time. We either se...

Second coming             We are now to the end of the liturgical year where we get these apocalyptic Gospels, which talk about the end of times. Apocalypse means unveiling, to lift the veil and to reveal what is going to happen, what is behind the curtain that separates us from eternity. We know that Jesus is going to come back one day, every day a bit closer, to end our time and to begin his eve...

The widow’s mite             Today the readings of the Mass present to us two widows. In the first reading a widow from Elijah’s time and in the Gospel a widow going to the temple. Widows had a hard life, with no husband to look after them, and it was especially tough if they didn’t have grown up children. Both were generous, giving out of their poverty the last resources they had. And both got mu...

Love of neighbour             We are travellers, pilgrims on this earth. We come from God and we are going back to him. Today Jesus in the Gospel tells us what are the two most important commandments for us to follow, to reach the kingdom of heaven: to love God above everything and others as we love ourselves. They are the summary of our Christian faith. Today we can check if we are following them...

All Saints             Once a year in November the Church on earth as a good mother helps us to remember our brothers and sisters who have made it into eternity. On the first of this month, the saints in heaven; on the second, the souls in purgatory. They say there are around 10.000 saints recognised by the Church. It is impossible to count all the saints in heaven. We don’t have time to canonise...

Bartimeus             Today we come across Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, a blind man, outside the city of Jericho. They say that Jericho is the oldest city in the world still functioning. Timaeus must have been a well known person. His son was begging for money at the road side. We are like Bartimaeus, blinded to the spiritual things, sitting on the road side of life, waiting for Jesus to pass b...

The sons of Zebedee             The readings in the past few Sundays come from chapter 10 of Mark’s Gospel. We see Jesus going towards Jerusalem, walking with his disciples, talking to them, taking advantage of this walk by forming them. Jesus is also walking with us and we need to be aware of his presence. We are accompanying him towards the heavenly Jerusalem. They sat down to rest and the sons...

The rich young man             Today in the Gospel we meet a fellow who we call the rich young man. We don’t know his name. All we know is that he is rich and he must be young, because he runs towards Jesus. He was in a hurry as young people always are. He must have been a good looking guy. All of us would like to be young, rich and beautiful. If we are young in our spiritual life, we can run towa...

Matrimony              In the first reading we see that at the beginning God created Adam, the only human being. Adam didn’t need anybody else because he was with God. But God thought he needed a companion to begin to generate other human beings. And then, transforming Adam, he created Eve, and marriage began. In the book of Genesis God reminds us that in marriage men and women become one flesh. F...

Temptations             Today in the Gospel Jesus warns us of what makes us sin, causes us to lose heaven and sends us to eternal damnation. The devils hate hell, the place God has created for them, and try with all their might for us to follow their fate. We must not be naive about the possibility of losing our soul. We don’t see temptations but we do feel them all the time. We do what we shouldn...

Arguing along the way             We normally imagine Jesus walking with his apostles through out the Holy Land, going from one place to another, meeting people, performing miracles. When you walk in a large group, there are people in front, some at the centre and others right at the back. Different conversations develop and you can hear a bit from here and there. You change groups and catch up wi...

Who do people say that I am?             In today’s Gospel as usual Jesus is walking with his disciples. Suddenly he turns around and asks them a question: “Who do people say that I am?” He wanted to know what people said about him, the gossip around town. “They said in reply, John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” People didn’t know who Jesus really was and they had a...

Our Lady of Sorrows             Standing at the foot of the Cross is our mother. She is standing, not crying or fainting; she is there supporting her son with her presence. Silent tears run down her cheeks. And Saint John is also there, the celibate apostle, the one Jesus loved. Other women are there too. Women are stronger than men. Many artists tried to capture this moment but with different res...

Be opened             In the first reading of today’s Mass Isaiah prophesied that when the Messiah arrives, the blind will see, the deaf will hear and the tongues of the mute will be made loose. This is what happens in today’s Gospel, Jesus helping a deaf and mute man to hear and to talk. Normally the deaf don’t talk because they cannot hear themselves. The Gospel uses the Hebrew expression, Ephat...

True purity             Today Jesus in the Gospel talks about the importance of having a clean heart. This is the right condition to approach God and to have a good and happy life. It also helps us to have healthy and fulfilling relationships. Our heart is the centre of our desires, dreams and actions. You can measure the worth of a person through his or her heart. From a pure heart, plenty of goo...

Hard teaching             Today we finish chapter 6 of Saint John’s Gospel with a sad ending. I prefer movies with happy endings. Life is hard, and we priest constantly touch human weaknesses. People bring to us their pile of rubbish and leave it with us. We try to take that manure and leave it at Jesus feet, for him to fertilise the soil. Movies help us to escape, to dream of another world, to ho...

The Assumption             Once a year we are allow to look at heaven through a peephole. Today our mother asks us to accompany her and to have a quick look to our destination, at least with our imagination. It is important for us to fix our eyes on heaven, to connect with eternity, because we are too concern about the things here on earth. Social media makes us to lose perspective of what’s reall...

The bread of life              We continue reading today chapter 6 from Saint John’s Gospel. It is the third Sunday on a row and we have two more Sundays to go. Jesus slowly goes deeper in his explanation of the Eucharist. We can look at this mystery from different angles, manly as the Mass, the sacrifice of the Cross, as communion, nourishment for the soul, and his presence in the tabernacle. Tod...

Give us this bread             On these Sundays, the Gospels are interrelated; they follow each other. Last week we saw the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. We are now in chapter 6 of Saint John’s Gospel, where Jesus is going to touch the most difficult topic of his teaching: the Eucharist. It was very hard not only because of the topic itself, but also because of the trad...

A boy with food             Last week we saw Jesus arriving at a lonely place to spend time with his apostles and instead found a great multitude of people. He had compassion on them and began to teach them many things. When Jesus finished talking to them the apostles hoped that he was going to send them away. But instead, Jesus told them to feed the whole crowd first. After looking after their so...

Come away by yourselves             Last week we saw Jesus sending the apostles two by two to preach the Gospel, to announce the kingdom of heaven. Today we see them coming back, excited by all the good things that happened to them, the people they healed and the devils they cast out. They couldn’t stop talking about their adventures. They were all talking at the same time. Jesus realised that the...

Two by two apostles             Last week Saint Paul told us about the thorn in our flesh, a reminder of our fallen nature. This week in his letter to the Ephesians he tells us about our dignity: “He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” There is always the danger of falling into one extreme or the other: to think that either we are hopele...

Thorn in my flesh             Today, in the second reading, from the second letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, the Apostle talks about a thorn in his flesh. After talking about his vision of heaven, he says that God gave him a thorn not to become proud. Even though he managed to have a glimpse of eternity, he couldn’t forget about his human nature. He says of himself: “it kept me from being...

Sick woman             We can imagine the scene. We have seen it on the tv news from the Middle East, a religious leader surrounded by men, people trying to touch him, to get some power from him. The apostles were shielding Jesus, pushing people away. They say that when people try to touch a person in this way, the arms and hands are scratched, specially by women with their fingernails. It must ha...

Calming of the storm             I love this Gospel. We can see ourselves in the boat with Jesus, surrounded by a beautiful lake. It is still there; these natural elements don’t change. But it can become ugly. It is our experience of life. The sea in the Bible represents man depending on God’s mercy; anything could happen, we are not in control. We all have experienced good days and bad days. Why...