"Kudumba Jebam" (Family Prayer) - Audio CD

I have released an audio CD on "Family Prayer".

This is just a recitation of Holy Rosary.

This is a good tradition of Catholic Church and my intention is to revive this tradition.

Every family should sit together in the evening and recite Holy Rosary. Parents should call their children and sit with them to recite Rosary everyday. This is how the parents can teach Catholic Faith to their children and younger generation.

Mother Mary has asked us to recite Rosary to save the souls falling into fire of hell.

The family that recites Rosary everyday, stays together.

Fr. A. Christopher, HGN

4 THINGS YOU PROBABLY NEVER KNEW
YOUR MOBILE PHONE COULD DO

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival.
Check out the things that you can do with it:

FIRST
Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialled even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

SECOND
Have you locked your keys in the car?

Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday.
Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

*Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!'

THIRD
Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your mobile battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370#
Your mobile will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your mobile next time.

FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can’t use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

ATM - PIN Number Reversal - Good to Know

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse. For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321. The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location.

This information was recently broadcast on CTV by Crime Stoppers; however it is seldom used because people just don't know about it. Please share this information along to everyone.

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

Power of Examples

When I was little, Dibby's cousin had a dog, just a mutt, and the dog was pregnant. I don't know how long dogs are pregnant, but she was due to have her puppies in about a week. She was out in the yard one day and got in the way of the lawn mower, and her two hind legs got cut off. They rushed her to the vet and he said, "I can sew her up, or you can put her to sleep if you want, but the puppies are okay. She'll be able to deliver the puppies."

Dibby's cousin said, "Keep her alive."

So the vet sewed up her backside and over the next week the dog learned to walk. She didn't spend any time worrying, she just learned to walk by taking two steps in the front and flipping up her backside, and then taking two steps and flipping up her backside again.

She gave birth to six little puppies, all in perfect health. She nursed them and then weaned them. And when they learned to walk, they all walked like her.


I always thought the story was a little exaggerated, yet I believe, it has a strong lesson to impart – the tremendous influence parental examples, both good and bad, have on their children. How awesome!

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

Take time to think

Take Time To:

Take time to think ~ It is the source of all power

Take time to read ~ It is the foundation of all wisdom

Take time to play ~ It is the source of perpetual youth

Take time to be quiet ~ It is the opportunity, to seek God

Take time to be aware ~ It is the opportunity, to help others

Take times to love and be loved ~ It is God's greatest gift

Take time to laugh ~ It is the music of the soul

Take time to be friendly ~ It is the road to happiness

Take time to dream ~ It is what the future is made of

Take time to pray ~ It is the greatest power on earth

Take time to give ~ It is too short a day to be selfish

Take time to work ~ It is the price of success

Today , take time or rather make time for what's really important in your life.


Remember to share a smile , give a hug, hold the door open for another person,
be courteous when driving , call someone you, haven't talked to for awhile ,
write a letter to a loved one and tell those close to you that you love them...

Life is too short to go around living it with Anger or Hatred.
Live your life with malice towards none, but with love and respect for all the living.

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

"Sink or sail, we are in it together"

In the Same Boat

Two men were out on the ocean in a boat.

One of them began drilling in the bottom of the boat as he wanted to do some ‘hole fishing;’ and the other, aghast said "What are you doing? Stop drilling!"

And the first man replied: "It's all right. I'm only drilling on my side."

The next time you want to tell someone that what you do is not anybody else’s concern, remember that being social beings, your actions could affect many others around you. When one of us is threatened, all of us are at risk. If the boat takes in water, it is not just your side of the boat that sinks.

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

"Train yourself well to confront the vicissitudes that life throws up before you"

Marathon of Life

“Who do you think I am?” In 1896, after fifteen centuries, Athens renewed the Olympic Games, thus fulfilling the dream of Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France. You can imagine how proud the Greeks were to host the first modern Olympics. You can also imagine how disappointed they were at their athletes' lack of success in event after event.

The last competition was the marathon. Greece's entrant was named Louis, a shepherd without competitive background. He'd trained alone in the hills near his flock. When the race started, Louis was far back in the pack of marathoners. But as the miles passed he moved steadily up.

One by one the champions began to falter. The Frenchman dropped out in agony. The hero from the United States had to quit the race. Soon, word reached the stadium that a lone runner was approaching the arena, and the emblem of Greece was on his chest! As the excitement grew, Prince George of Greece hurried to the stadium entrance where he met Louis and ran with him to the finish line.

In the ‘marathon of life’, which university you attended, who your coaches were, which elite club you belonged to, or what your credentials were, etc. have very little bearing. All that matters would be how well you have trained yourself to confront the vicissitudes that life throws up before you.

Fr Chris...

23rd Sunday of the Year - A
Ezekiel 33:7-9 Romans 13:8-10 Mathew 18: 15-20

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

A drunk decides to go ice fishing; so he gathers his gear and goes walking around until he finds a big patch of ice. He heads into the center of the ice and begins to saw a hole. All of sudden, a loud booming voice comes out of the sky. "You will find no fish under that ice." The drunk looks around, but sees no one. He starts sawing again. Once more, the voice speaks. "As I said before, there are no fish under the ice." The drunk looks all around, high and low, but can't see a single soul. He picks up the saw and tries one more time to finish. Before he can even start cutting, the huge voice interrupts. "I have warned you three times now. This is not a lake and there are no fish!" The drunk is now flustered and somewhat scared; so he asks the voice, "How do you know there are no fish? Are you God trying to warn me?" "No," the voice replied. "I am the manager of this ice hockey rink." Today’s readings are about correcting our brothers and sisters with loving concern for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the community.

The common theme of today’s readings is the impact of our membership in the Church on our “private” lives. Being a member of the Church means we belong to a community of brothers and sisters in Christ. We are, therefore, the “keepers” of our brothers and sisters, for each one of us is important to all others in our faith community. That is why we have to be meaningfully present to, and take responsibility for, other people. Inhuman behaviour against defenceless people, like child abuse, elder abuse or spouse abuse, is something about which we need to be really concerned, to the point of taking appropriate action to protect the victims. This individual responsibility in a Christian society includes, as today’s readings remind us, our responsibility for each other. Perhaps the most painful obligations of watchful love are fraternal correction and generosity in forgiving and forgetting injuries.

Matthew expands a saying of Jesus, originally concerned primarily with forgiveness (compare the shorter version in Luke 17:3-4), into a four-step procedure for disciplining members in the new eschatological community of the church. In the seventeenth century, the great Anglican priest and poet John Donne reminded us, “No man is an island, entire unto himself.” In today’s gospel, Jesus instructed his disciples about relationships among members of the church, because through baptism we assume a serious responsibility for our fellow-believers. Suppose a son or daughter, friend or acquaintance, relative, neighbour, even parent or teacher, does “something wrong,” whether the sin is of commission or omission. By outlining a four-step process of confrontation, negotiation, adjudication and excommunication, Jesus tells us how to mend a broken relationship within the Christian fellowship.

1) Confrontation: The worst thing that we can do about a wrong done to us is to brood about it. Brooding can poison our whole mind and life, until we can think of nothing else but our sense of personal injury. We mustn’t gossip either. Hence the first step proposed by Jesus to the one who has been wronged is that he should go to meet the offender in person, and point out lovingly, but in all seriousness, the harm he has done. This first stage is designed to let the two people concerned solve the issue between them. If it works out at that level, that is the ideal situation. "You have won back your brother."

2) Negotiation: Suppose the first step does not resolve the situation and the person refuses to admit wrong, continuing in a behaviour bad for him or her as well as others. This creates a problem, for example, among young persons where a friend steals or shoplifts, uses drugs or drinks excessively, hangs around with a bad crowd, plans to run away, contemplates suicide or abortion, or just "goofs off" in school. Here, the second step is to take one or two other members of the church along with the wronged person to speak to the wrongdoer and to act as confirming witnesses. The taking of the witnesses is not meant to be a way of proving to a man that he has committed an offence. It is meant to assist the process of reconciliation by emphasizing and explaining calmly the gravity of the situation. Nowadays, we call that an “intervention” and the group may also include a qualified third party - counsellor, teacher, priest or physician. The Rabbis had a wise saying, "Judge not alone, for none may judge alone except God."

3) Adjudication: If the negotiation step does not resolve the situation either, the third step is to have the whole church or community of believers confront the wrongdoer. The case is brought to the Christian fellowship because troubles are never amicably settled by going to a civil court of law. Further, the Church provides an atmosphere of Christian prayer, Christian love and Christian fellowship in which personal relationships may be righted in the light of love and of the Gospel. Finally, in matters of honour and shame, the community is the final arbiter, for the community as a whole suffers from the wrong.

4) Excommunication: If the offender chooses to disregard the believing community's judgment, the consequence is “excommunication.” This means that if none of the three steps has brought a resolution of the situation, then the wrongdoer should be treated like "a Gentile or a tax collector." That is, the wrongdoer should be put out of the church with the hope that temporary alienation alone may bring the erring person to repentance and change. The sinner is expelled because every obvious case of un-repented sin denies the Gospel's power and the Church's mission of reconciling sinners to God and to the community. But the excommunication should be carried out with genuine grief (1 Cor 5:2), not vindictive glee over another's "fall" or self-righteous pride.

Jesus concludes the action plan by stating that all his disciples have authority to “bind or loose,” that is, to settle conflicts and legal cases between community members. In addition, Jesus gives the assurance that when the Church community gathers in Jesus' name, in the spirit of prayer, to hear a legal case, Jesus is there to guide and ratify the procedure.

LIFE MESSAGES:

1) We are our brother’s/sister’s keeper. Modern believers tend to think that they have no right to intervene in the private lives of their fellow believers; so they pay no heed to the serious obligation of encouraging an erring brother or sister to give up his or her sinful ways. Others evade the issue saying, “As a sinner, I don’t have the moral courage or the right to correct someone else.” But Jesus emphatically affirms that we are our brothers' keepers, and we have the serious obligation to correct others in order to help our neighbours retain their Christian faith and practice, especially through our model Christian lives. Have we offered advice and encouragement to our friends and neighbours and coworkers when it was needed, and loving correction in private where that was possible? Let us admit the fact that a great degree of indifference to religion shown by our young men and women is due to lack of parental control, training and example. If the children of Christian families grow up as practical pagans, it is mainly because the Christian faith has meant little or nothing to their parents. It is a well known fact that when parents are loyal to their faith in their daily lives, their children will, as a rule, be loyal to it.

2) Gather in Jesus’ name and work miracles: Today's Gospel reminds us of the good we can do together, and of how we can do it. Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” If any group of us will gather, work, and act with the Holy Spirit guiding us, we become much more than simply the collective number of people we are. Two becomes more than two, and three becomes more than three. The sum of our individual ideas, resources and abilities becomes much more because of the synergy that God’s presence provides. In our faith community, we act together so that we may help one another in God’s name, thereby multiplying our resources and ability to do what God calls us to do. Today, Jesus makes it clear how important we are, one to another. Through our links to one another in Christ, there is a capacity in our community which enables us to use God’s power to make healing and life-giving love more effective among His people. We come together, we stay together, we work together—in our Lord's name, bringing to focus the presence of God and unleashing the power of the Spirit – to transform our lives and the lives of all God’s children.

We do gather in Jesus’ name and invoke his presence, and that makes him a part of us and of what we do. That is what we experience at each Eucharist—we in him and he in us.

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

“Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

The Circus

Once when I was a teenager, my father and I were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus. Finally, there was only one family between us and the ticket counter.

This family made a big impression on me. There were eight children, all probably under the age of 12. You could tell they didn't have a lot of money. Their clothes were not expensive, but they were clean.

The children were well-behaved, all of them standing in line, two-by- two behind their parents, holding hands. They were excitedly jabbering about the clowns, elephants and other acts they would see that night. One could sense they had never been to the circus before. It promised to be a highlight of their young lives.

The father and mother were at the head of the pack standing proud as could be. The mother was holding her husband's hand, looking up at him as if to say, "You're my knight in shining armor." He was smiling and basking in pride, looking at her as if to reply, "You got that right."

The ticket lady asked the father how many tickets he wanted. He proudly responded, "Please let me buy eight children's tickets and two adult tickets so I can take my family to the circus."

The ticket lady quoted the price. The man's wife let go of his hand, her head dropped, the man's lip began to quiver. The father leaned a little closer and asked, "How much did you say?"

The ticket lady again quoted the price. The man didn't have enough money.

How was he supposed to turn and tell his eight kids that he didn't have enough money to take them to the circus?

Seeing what was going on, my dad put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a $20 bill and dropped it on the ground. (We were not wealthy in any sense of the word!) My father reached down, picked up the bill, tapped the man on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, sir, this fell out of your pocket."

The man knew what was going on. He wasn't begging for a handout but certainly appreciated the help in a desperate, heartbreaking, embarrassing situation. He looked straight into my dad's eyes, took my dad's hand in both of his, squeezed tightly onto the $20 bill, and with his lip quivering and a tear streaming down his cheek, he replied, "Thank you, thank you, sir. This really means a lot to me and my family."

My father and I went back to our car and drove home. We didn't go to the circus that night, but we didn't go without.

Many a time charity robs its beneficiaries of their dignity. A simple example could be the public way in which free books or scholarships are distributed exposing the ‘poor children’ to the rest of their class or school mates. Organized charities claim that otherwise they would not be able to collect the necessary funds.

People would sponsor any project, big or small, if they would be remembered with a public record like an announcement in the ‘Bulletins’, declaration from the pulpit, ‘plaque’, etc. But imagine for example the negative exposure of a ‘poor’ family living and growing up in a house with a clear, decent ‘plaque’ – much like branding with a burning iron. When there is no advantage of public acknowledgement there would be very few donors. For this reason Christ would condemn the Pharisees and say, “Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!
Care to share

Share Your Little Blessings

Thou shall not forget to share your material and spiritual blessings, such as, joy, peace, faith etc., with those around you. Those who choose to live in peace must help their neighbors to live in peace. Those who choose to live an upright life must help others to do the same, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, because the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all. Care to share.

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

“Do as I have done”

An article in National Geographic several years ago provided a penetrating picture of genuine ‘love’.

After a fire in Yellowstone National Park , forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno's damage. All the birds had flown away. But one bird did not. Later, one ranger found a bird literally burnt into ashes. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. When he did that, three tiny chicks were found under their dead mother's wings. The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring down to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings, instinctively knowing that the toxic smoke would rise.

She could have flown to safety but had refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze had arrived and the heat had scorched her small body, the mother had remained steadfast, because she was willing to die, for the little ones under her wings to live.

What a contrast to the news that appeared in a daily news paper. Husband had a heated argument with his wife about something; and he throttled his two year old son to death. Genuine love is altruistic and it knows no limits. It does not count the cost. “Greater love than this no man has; to lay down ones life for another.” Dear Friends we are safe under His wings, and His love for us is unchanging and everlasting. He exhorts us; “do as I have done.”

Fr. Chris...

Thought for the day!

Be a bit curious!


Be a little curious. Learn something new. Every little knowledge, even those that may seem irrelevant at the moment, will become handy some time or other. As a matter of fact there is nothing insignificant or useless.


Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

What does it profit?

Live and Work

Father was a hardworking man who delivered bread as a living to support his wife and three children. He spent all his evenings after work attending classes, hoping to improve himself so that he could one day find a better paying job. Except for Sundays, Father hardly ate a meal together with his family. He worked and studied very hard because he wanted to provide his family with the best money could buy.

Whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he reasoned that he was doing all this for them. But he often yearned to spend more time with his family.

The day came when the examination results were announced. To his joy, Father passed, and with distinctions too! Soon after, he was offered a good job as a senior supervisor which paid handsomely.

Like a dream come true, Father could now afford to provide his family with life’s little luxuries like nice clothing, fine food and vacation abroad.

However, the family still did not get to see father for most of the week. He continued to work very hard, hoping to be promoted to the position of manager. In fact, to make himself a worthily candidate for the promotion, he enrolled for another course in the open university.

Again, whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he reasoned that he was doing all this for them. But he himself often yearned to spend more time with his family.

Father’s hard work paid off and he was promoted. Jubilantly, he decided to hire a maid to relieve his wife from her domestic tasks. He also felt that their three-room flat was no longer big enough, it would be nice for his family to be able to enjoy the facilities and comfort of a condominium. Having experienced the rewards of his hard work many times before, Father resolved to further his studies and work at being promoted again. The family still did not get to see much of him. In fact, sometimes Father had to work on Sundays entertaining clients. Again, whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he reasoned that he was doing all this for them. But he often yearned to spend more time with his family.

As expected, Father’s hard work paid off again and he bought a beautiful condominium overlooking the coast of Singapore. On the first Sunday evening at their new home, Father declared to his family that he decided not to take anymore courses or pursue any more promotions. From then on he was going to devote more time to his family.

Father did not wake up the next day.


Having got all the promotions his heart desired, what did it profit him?
It's just a short reminder to all of you working so hard. We should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts. If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family and friends we leave behind will feel miss us for the rest of their lives. And come to think of it, we pour ourselves much more into our work than into our family.

Thought for the Day

Thought for the day
A Short Course in Human Relations

The six most important words: I admit that I was wrong.
The five most important words: You did a great job.
The four most important words: What do you think?
The three most important words: Could you please. . .
The two most important words: Thank you.
The most important word: We.
The least important word: I.

Exaggerated or swollen consciousness of “ego” or “I” is the worst enemy of human relationships.

Thought for the day!

Power of Examples

When I was little, Dibby's cousin had a dog, just a mutt, and the dog was pregnant. I don't know how long dogs are pregnant, but she was due to have her puppies in about a week. She was out in the yard one day and got in the way of the lawn mower, and her two hind legs got cut off. They rushed her to the vet and he said, "I can sew her up, or you can put her to sleep if you want, but the puppies are okay. She'll be able to deliver the puppies."

Dibby's cousin said, "Keep her alive."

So the vet sewed up her backside and over the next week the dog learned to walk. She didn't spend any time worrying, she just learned to walk by taking two steps in the front and flipping up her backside, and then taking two steps and flipping up her backside again.

She gave birth to six little puppies, all in perfect health. She nursed them and then weaned them. And when they learned to walk, they all walked like her.


*** I always thought the story was a little exaggerated, yet I believe, it has a strong lesson to impart – the tremendous influence parental examples, both good and bad, have on their children. How awesome!

Dear Friends,

Sorry for not uploading anything in my blog for quite a while. I am now back in India, and will not return to Canada.

My Blog will be updated only from May, 2011. You can expect my Sunday Homilies from May 2011 onwards.

With love and prayers,
Fr.Chris...

Christmas Wishes - Dec 25, 2010

Digital greeting card made with Smilebox

Sunday Homily - 33rd Sunday - C

33rd Sunday of the Year – C
Malachi 4:1-2 2 Thes 3:7-12 Luke 21:5-19

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I heard a story once that reminded me of today’s readings – especially our first reading. A man was living in the Canadian prairie with his daughter, and one of the great problems about living on the prairie was the fear of prairie fires which rage through and destroy everything in its path. Well, their fears became real when a huge prairie fire broke out, and the father realized that there was nowhere that they could run because they were surrounded by fire. So the father started his own fire with his frightened daughter, and watched as the area burned, and then he took his daughter into the centre of the area that had been burned already. He knew that the approaching fire would not touch this area because there was nothing left to be burned. He spoke gently to his very frightened daughter and told her not to be frightened, that the flames could not get to them because everything combustible had already been burned.

If we look at the first reading today, it is a lot like this story.

“See, the day is coming, burning like an oven when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up.” Malachi sees what the father had seen and warns the Jewish people about the impending fire. But then Malachi, like the father, tells the Hebrews that they have nothing to fear: “For you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” By their faithfulness to the Lord God, the Hebrews would be protected from the fire.
We, too, as followers of Jesus, are burning our field, protecting ourselves from the larger disaster which is to come. We will have nothing to fear.

Unfortunately, these readings today have, of course, inspired fear for many people as well. Protestant churches have tended to preach about the Second Coming and the end of the world far more than it has been stressed in Catholic churches, but even so, each year as we approach the end of the church year, our readings always reflect the end of time, the second coming of Christ, and always with the imagery of fire and destruction.

What we need to know about Luke’s Gospel, however, is that when Luke wrote, all of the predictions of Jesus had already come true. When Luke was writing his Gospel, he portrayed Jesus most often as a prophet, and this section is one of the times when Jesus is most strongly seen in his prophetic guise. A prophet is someone who has been given sight by God to see things in the future, and the only way we can know if one is a true prophet is to wait for the prophecy to come true. Luke wrote this Gospel after the destruction of the Temple, and so the words he puts in Jesus’ mouth, which may or may not have come from Jesus’ mouth originally, are there to show that Jesus is a true prophet since the things he prophesied have come true.

We have tended to look at these words and apply them to our own time, and I think that is probably easy to do in any time period. In our own recent times we have had incredible physical disasters – earthquakes, tsunami’s, cities lost to water, the September 11th attack. When we read the prophecy of the end of time, it is easy to fill in the blanks and see what is happening in our own time as the approach of the end of things. The same thing was true in the 1930’s with the stock market crash, the World Wars, and so on. I suspect that each age has its disasters aplenty which can be applied to Jesus’ prophecies. But for Luke, these had already happened. Even more, Christians were being put to death for their faith. Families were broken apart by the beliefs of the Christians. Christians were hated by many. All this was true in Luke’s time, and all this is true in our own time.

But these readings are not here to inspire fear. Like the father who calmed his daughter by saying the fire couldn’t touch her in the burned area, Jesus tells his disciples: “Not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.” This is a positive message; this is a message to inspire Christians to stay steadfast; this is a message that brings peace to people! What a shame that it has been turned around, and by using guilt, has made people fearful of the end of time coming – fearful that they will be judged by Christ in the Second Coming, and will be burnt in the everlasting fire.

We must always remember when we hear these words, when we hear people frightening us with the hell and damnation, when we interpret signs that the end may be near, that Jesus ends his prophecy with an incredibly optimistic vision of our salvation because we have been true to him.

So, what is the message for us today? You notice there are two important contrasting images in the Gospel today, one at the beginning - the Temple, and the other, at the end - the hair on your head.

This is an interesting contrast. One will be completely destroyed, the other, not a single one will be lost. Ultimately God doesn’t care too much for buildings and ‘things’; God is more into people, his children. God is not too much concerned with the preservation and restoration of Church buildings; he is more concerned with us – the living Church, built of living stones. He wants his people to be living truly. He wants us to live the Catholic faith truly. He wants us to live the gospel virtues and His teachings truly. Only then we can be called as living people.

St. Paul in the second reading today exhorts all the people who are living in idleness, mere busybodies, and not doing any work to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. He clearly says that living here on earth is temporary one; whereas living in the Kingdom of God is the permanent one. So, we need to work in this world to earn the living in God’s Kingdom. Let us not forget St. Paul’s words, “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat”; which means, “Anyone unwilling to work in this world to earn the everlasting life in God’s Kingdom will never, ever receive everlasting life”.

Yes, there will be an end of time. Everything passes away. I suspect that most of us will have passed away before that end of the world ever comes, anyway. But Jesus came to bring us peace, take away our worries, let us experience the kingdom here and now, not to make us panicky or frightened. We need, however, not to live in idleness, as Paul suggests to us today, but to go about our own work quietly, earn our own living and trust in Jesus. If we do this, we will be like the girl and the father surrounded by fire, but untouched by it, because there is nothing there to be burned. We have already burned away the things that can cause us to burn, and can relax in Christ Jesus who came to show us a new way, no matter what is going on around us in the world.

And this is the peace we find in the Good news today!

AMEN.

Fr. A. Christopher, HGN

Ministry of Fr.Chris

Click on the Photo to view the entire album

Some of the ministries that Fr.Chris did & doing:

1) Charismatic preaching and healing ministry
2) Music ministry
3) Social work - helping flood-affected people
4) Taking faithful for Lenten Pilgrimage
5) Organizing children's Christmas to increase their faith
6) Conducting awareness programmes
7) Organizing rallies to protect the rights of Christians
8) Organizing rallies to support the Christians affected by Hindu fanatics
9) Reach-out programmes
10)Media Ministry

News Article

GOD HAD A PLAN FOR HIM
A coma, a bomb blast and a tsunami were all part of Father Antony’s preparation for the priesthood
Friday, 27 August 2010 12:23

By Angelyn Dee
Special to The B.C. Catholic
Photo by Vincent L. Chan
Invisionation Photography

Close calls with death have occurred all too frequently in the life of Father Christopher Antony, HGN.

In 2003 he survived a three-day coma that lasted from Good Friday until Easter Sunday. He has twice been held at gunpoint by terrorists, survived a bomb blast and even the deadly tsunami of 2004 that wiped out everything and almost everyone on India’s Andaman Island that he called home.

Each brush with death has only strengthened the conviction within Father Chris that, in his own words, “God has a plan for me. I am called as a priest, but there is something special He wants me to do in my priesthood. I am still trying to discover what it is.”

Born in India as the eldest of three sons, Christopher could not consider the priesthood. Eldest sons were expected to help support their families and parents, and it was unlikely a seminary would accept him.

During his childhood, his grandfather would take all the grandchildren to 5:30 Mass each morning and would always tell Christopher’s mother, “Make Victor a priest.” Even when his family moved to their island home in 1982, Grandfather’s last words as they boarded a bus were, “Make Victor a priest.”

At age 11, Christopher was sent to a Catholic boarding school along with Victor. There, various priests recognized a priestly vocation in him, but Christopher’s response was always to point to his brother: “Not me, but him.” As he always ranked first in his studies, Christopher’s father wanted him to be a doctor. His brother, Victor, was to be the priest.

However, God’s plan prevailed and Christopher did eventually enter the seminary. For the first three years his father discouraged him and pleaded with him to leave and even kept him home for two years. But Christopher was determined and eventually his devout father came to realize that it was him, and not his brother, who had a priestly vocation.

Ordained in 2003, Father Chris is a member of the Heralds of Good News. Founded in 1984 with the specific aim of promoting vocations and sending out saintly and hardworking missionaries to places where there is a shortage of priests, Father is one of four HGN priests who arrived in Vancouver in July last year.

Assigned to St. John the Apostle Church in Vancouver, where his humble and quiet presence is felt, Father Chris assists Msgr. Mark Hagemoen with the daily life of the parish. His special love is Holy Mass. “Everything I prayed for during the intentions of the Mass, I have received, even little things. I realize the importance and the effects of Holy Mass. I try to follow the words of Mother Teresa, ‘Say every Mass as if it were your last’.”

Described by Msgr. Hagemoen as “a gentle pastor of souls … a humble priest who desires to serve Christ and his Church”, Father Chris hopes to dedicate himself to parish ministry for the next several years, after which his superior would like him to study for his doctorate degree in Mass Media Communications.

It is Father’s dream to one day evangelize through the media in his native India, where he earned the Gold Medal Award for his Masters degree in Communications and founded the Heralds Animation and Social Communication Center. For now, Father Chris is in Vancouver, where God’s plan for him continues to unfold.

(This article was published in BC Catholic on Aug 30, 2010 - page 2)

22nd Sunday of the Year – C
Sir 3:17-18,28-29 Heb 12:18-19,22-24 Lk 14:1,7-14

Introduction: The common theme of today’s readings is the need for true humility and the blessedness of generous sharing with the needy. The readings warn us against all forms of pride and self-glorification. They present humility not only as a virtue but also as a means of opening our hearts, our minds and our hands to the poor, the needy, the disadvantaged and the marginalized of society. For Jesus, the daily human needs of the poor are the personal responsibility of every authentic, humble believer. The first reading, from the book of Sirach, reminds us that if we are humble, we will find favour with God, and others will love us. The second reading, from Hebrews, gives another reason for us to be humble. Jesus was humble, so his followers are expected to be humble, trying to imitate his humility. Paul reminds us that Jesus was lowly, particularly in his suffering and death for our salvation (Heb 2:5-18), so we should be like him, that we may be exalted with him at the resurrection of the righteous. Paul seems to imply that we have to follow Christ’s example of humility in our relationships with the less fortunate members of our society. In today’s gospel Jesus explains the practical benefits of humility, connecting it with the common wisdom about dining etiquette (see Prov. 25:6-7; Sir. 3:17-20). Jesus advises the guests to go to the lowest place instead of seeking places of honour so that the host may give them the place they deserve. Jesus’ words concerning the seating of guests at a wedding banquet should prompt us to honour those whom others ignore, because if we are generous and just in our dealings with those in need, we can be confident of the Lord’s blessings. On the other hand, if we act out of pride and selfishness, we can be sure that our efforts will come to nothing.

Most Rev. Paul-Émile Léger served as Archbishop of Montreal from 1950 to 1968, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1953 by Pope Pius XII. He was one of the most powerful men in Canada and within the Catholic Church. He was a man of deep conviction and humility. Then on April 20, 1968 he resigned and laid aside his red vestments, crosier, mitre, and pallium in his office at Montreal and disappeared. Years later he was found living among the lepers and disabled, outcasts of a small African village. When a Canadian journalist asked him, "Why?," here is what Cardinal Léger had to say, "It will be the great scandal of the history of our century that 600 million people are eating well and living luxuriously and three billion people starve, and every year millions of children are dying of hunger. I am too old to change all that. The only thing I can do which makes sense is to be present. I must simply be in the midst of them. So, just tell people in Canada that you met an old priest. I am a priest who is happy to be old and still a priest and among those who suffer. I am happy to be here and to take them into my heart." (Barry Robinson, http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/a-or09-2-keeping.php.) Is that your calling? Is it mine? Probably not. Today’s gospel says: “Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Dear Friends, there is a journey we all have to make, the journey from pride to humility. Genuine humility is not something forced from outside. True humility is one’s own personal recognition of one’s true status before God. It is wise to stay humble, lest we stumble. But most often many of us lack this true humility.

Let’s probe this lack of humility a little more. Why would someone want to exalt himself/herself or, in the language of Jesus’ parable in the Gospel today, want the best place at table? One reason could be feeling inferior to others or lacking self-confidence. They try to compensate by exalting themselves. A proverb from somewhere in Asia is good; it says, “Don’t make yourself so high, you are not so low.” In other words, “Don’t boast or be snobbish, you are not so inferior that you have to compensate by looking down on someone else.”

The solution to the problem of feeling inferior to others or lacking in self-confidence is not in boasting or behaving like a snob or demanding the top place at the table. The solution is in recognizing that we receive our value from God and not from others’ opinions of us.

So the problem of pride or lack of humility is not really the problem. The problem is one layer deeper, forgetting that since baptism we are all sons and daughters of God, forgetting that we, by ourselves, are not capable of saving ourselves and are saved only by the death of Jesus. We have all been purchased by Jesus for the Father at the greatest price. We all cost the greatest price; that price is the life and death of Jesus. That is the only thing we can boast of, and nothing else. We are worth the life of Jesus! And so also is the person next to you, behind you, in front of you. So we are all equally precious.

Our model in humility is Jesus. Let us look at him closely now. When God became man, he chose to occupy the lowest possible seat. Paul described in Phil. 2:7-8, the six steps in humility that God took in coming to this earth. "Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." Humility was Jesus’ favourite theme. "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." "Whoever humbles himself like a little child is the greatest in the kingdom of God." "Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart." Humility is a strange phenomenon. As a rule, when we discover we have it, we lose it. Humility is like a rare flower -- put it on display and it instantly wilts and loses its fragrance! St. Augustine said: "Humility is so necessary for Christian perfection that among all the ways to reach perfection, humility is first, humility is second, and humility is third." He added, "Humility makes men angels, and pride makes angels devils." St. Bernard declared, "Pride sends man from the highest elevation to the lowest abyss, but humility raises him from the lowest abyss to the highest elevation."

Dear friends, pride goes before destruction and hence must be kept deflated. A big truck got struck under a low overhead bridge. Nobody knew what to do, until a small boy suggested that they let the air out of the tyres. This done, the truck, now a couple of inches lower, grazed through. A bit of deflation can help us all at times.

There is a prayer that is a difficult prayer to pray. It is called the Litany of Humility. As it is a long litany the following are only excerpts:

From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honoured,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others,
Deliver me, O Jesus.

The litany continues

From the fear of being humiliated,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected,
Deliver me, O Jesus.

The second part of the prayer is even more difficult to pray:

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I go unnoticed,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

I am sure you will agree that it is a difficult prayer to pray if we really mean it. The Litany of Humility is a prayer that we could do with praying and practicing. Let us humbly accept that there is a little bit of the Pharisees in each of us, perhaps more in some than others, which we should really get rid off with the help of the grace of God.

Dear Friends, there is a journey we all have to make, the journey from pride to humility. Genuine humility is not something forced from outside. True humility is one’s own personal recognition of one’s true status before God. It is wise to stay humble, lest we stumble.
AMEN.

Fr. A. Christopher, HGN