Sermon thought - All Souls Day – Nov. 2 – B- 2012

Most of us have experienced some funerals. Or some of us may be mourning over our dead. But it is essential that we must say goodbye to a person whom we like much. Although we believe in God and the resurrection of the dead, we are sad in a farewell normally as we lose someone who loved us or whom we loved. This person is no longer here alive with us and this feeling of loss wins often our faith in the resurrection. I’d say it is quite normal. Today we are in this church and later we will visit the cemetery read more...-- Fr Thomas Kalathil

Sermon Thought - All Saints - 2012

Today we celebrate the feast of all Saints. We do not know all these saints in the Church. But by hearing this word, ‘Saints’, we usually associate with our patron Saints or patrons of the churches or popular saints like Francis Assisi, Teresa of Infant Jesus or St. Anthony of Padua, St. George, St. Hildegard, St. Elisabeth or even to some places of pilgrimage. On this day I want to deal with three questions: My first question is who are these Saints? We can explain it as easy: saints are those read more...
Fr Thomas Kalathil

30th Sunday in Ordinary time – B (Mission Sunday) – Mk 10, 46b-52

Some people are hesitant in helping others. They ask whether we should help others as we don’t know them. Or some are doubtful of the help itself. They claim, by helping, we are spoiling them. There are so many different opinions regarding helping others. Let me explain it through a small story. There was a young bird which was tied up to a branch. It tried to get free from the tie but was unsuccessful. As it was feeling tired, there came another bird and encouraged it by good ‘words’ and motivated it to do more for the freedom’. The young bird felt a special power in the presence of the other bird. It tried with its full energy and got freed from the tie. read more...

Sermon thoughts - 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – B (Mk 10, 35-45)

Most of us like to be at first or at least like to be placed or counted equal to others. We can see this mentality once you are in a queue before a theatre to buy a ticket or to pay the bills in a shopping mall… normally we won’t allow others to overtake us. John and James were smart: they had the name the "Sons of Thunder" (Mark 3,17). We read in Lk 9, 51-56 that Jesus was rejected by a Samaritan village and John and James ask our lord to “tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them “, which was rebuked by Jesus. This show their blind love to Jesus. read more...
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Fr Thomas Kalathil

Sermon thoughts – 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time B – Mk 10, 17-30

The Gospel of this Sunday is in the form of dialogue. A young man runs to Jesus very dramatically. He should be in some emergency – this is the first impression we get from his action. To the next step he addresses Jesus as the ‘Good Master’. Jesus is not at all appreciating this addressing. He expresses his dislike by saying: only God alone is good. Jesus wants to avoid possible conflicts with the Jews, by placing himself equal to the goodness God. The further dialogues shows that the young man really wants something – to inherit the Eternal Life. He is in need of this as, his observations of laws and rituals are not giving him complete joy and peace. Jesus has only one thing to advice the young man: if he wants to be complete, then he has to submit his life totally to God. read more...

- Fr Thomas Kalathil

Sermon thoughts - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B – Mk 10, 2-16

As children we have learned the Ten Commandments and there we learned: “you shall not commit adultery”. As children this commandment was not applicable for us, but when one reaches maturity and begins a family life, this small sentence becomes a serious rule in our life. The readings of this Sunday deals with the seriousness of this theme of Marriage and its divine nature… Disputes on this life style are seen not only in the scriptures but also in our modern life too. In this sense, we have to understand the readings well.read more...