DAILY HOMILIES

Has the past been painful? Then why are you still holding on to it?

The Israelites allowed their hunger to get into them. They said they wished they had died in the hands of the Egyptians. They quickly forgot what God had done for them in the past. When we pray, it is important to remind ourselves of what God has done, Jesus taught us to start our prayer with praise.

Imagine you have only forty days left to live on earth? How would you spend your last forty days? Wouldn’t you rather seek reconciliation with God?

Prayer is not just about asking, it also involves doing. Jesus makes clear the point: “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Jesus is saying to us today: “Whatsoever you do to the least (the smallest, the unimportant, the poorest, the minority, the outcast), that you do unto me.”

Just as every sin begins with a temptation, the struggle against sin begins with the ability to know how to deal with temptations. Hence, on this first Sunday of Lent, our Gospel passage narrates how Jesus succeeded in overcoming temptations in the wilderness.

The honest truth is that riches bring a lot of happiness and security but there is a certain extent to which the continuous increase in riches no longer affects one’s state of happiness.

Aspire for sainthood. Place your trust in God. Be detached from worldly goods. God surely knows how to take care of his own.

Lent invites us to conversion, to a change in mindset, so that life’s truth and beauty may be found not so much in possessing as in giving, not so much in accumulating as in sowing and sharing goodness.

Fast from selfishness, fast from self-centeredness, leave your comfort zone, visit the poor, the lonely, the oppressed, those who have nowhere to stay or cannot afford to buy clothes, and help as much as you can.

Those who are good at pointing out the sins of others do not often give time to examining their own lives and as a result, they develop a false sense of self-perfection.