Father Weerackoon’s Homilies and Talks

21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

When Jesus says: "I don’t know where you are from. Depart from me, you evildoers!” He isn't speaking to murderers or sociopaths or big-time criminals. He says this about people who ate and drank with Him, because it's not enough simply  just to "do things" or even just to "go to Mass." It's about having a relationship with Christ and giving our whole life to Him. And when we open our hearts to Him and strive to enter through the narrow gate, He will open wide to us the gates of heaven.

20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

It’s so easy to live a life of mediocrity and just doing the bare minimum as a Christian, but Christ has to come to set us on fire with His divine love so that we may be His witnesses. When we do so, we won’t live for the peace of the absence of conflict that the world offers, but the true and lasting peace of Christ who divides us from whatever keeps us from Him because He promises: Peace I leave you; my peace I give you.

Assumption

Like the Prodigal Son who was "dead and had come to life again," and like Peter who saw the empty tomb and realized death could not hold down Jesus, Elizabeth recognizes Mary as blessed because she believed, and so neither could death hold down Mary. When we learn not to become bogged down by the things of this world - our phones, our plans, our "busy schedule" - then neither will death hold us down, and we will go up to heaven.

17th Sunday of Ordinary Time

We can come up with a lot of reasons not to pray. But Jesus dispels every one of those reasons in the parable about the man who asks for a piece of bread, because even if we don't feel like praying or don't get the answer we expect, we'll realize that if we are persistent in prayer, God has an even better ending in store.

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

We can often because distracted by the things in our lives that we feel busy and fail to notice God. But if we have eyes to see His blessings in our lives and we sit at Jesus's feet like Mary did, then we'll be able to pray "Wow!"

14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

God showed how important the Jews who returned from exile were to Him, as God is compared to a mother who comforts her child. The way we'll begin to make God a priority in our lives is by recognizing how important we are to God.

Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

If Peter or Paul asked others in their lifetime: "Who do you say that I am?", people could say: "You're a denier" or "You're a persecutor." But even though Peter denied Christ three times and Paul persecuted the Church, Jesus transformed these man. Christ. So too will He use our own personalities – with all our weaknesses and struggles – to bring other souls to Him, and if you allow Jesus to do so, then when you ask Him: "Who do you say that I am?", Jesus will respond by saying: "You are a saint."

Corpus Christi

Jesus asks the apostles to bring whatever food they can find to Him because He wants to receive a “yes” from us that we are willing to give to Him whatever we have, however little it might be so He can unite and marry Himself to us. And when we ourselves to Him as a gift, we'll realize that God wants to give us so much more.

Trinity Sunday

The whole mystery of the Trinity – the very central mystery of our faith – is that God is a family, and we are meant to join it. And so while God could have made the perfect world, He didn’t. Instead, He did something better. He rested on the seventh day so that He could be with us because God delights in you.

Pentecost

The Holy Spirit transformed the Apostles who were buried in the upper room on Easter Sunday evening so that they could fearlessly proclaim the gospel. That same Holy Spirit will open our minds to see the meaning of our past failures and transform them to bring good out of them.