Presentation: Feb 2 and 4 Sunday: Beatitudes Homilies

Stories from Fr. Tony Kadavil's Collection:

1: "Would you hold my baby for me, please?"

Years ago a young man was riding a bus from Chicago to Miami. He had a stop-over in Atlanta. While he was sitting at the lunch counter, a woman came out of the ladies' restroom carrying a tiny baby. She walked up to this man and asked, "Would you hold my baby for me? I left my purse in the restroom." He did. But as the woman neared the front door of the bus station, she darted out into the crowded street and was immediately lost in the crowd. This guy couldn't believe his eyes. He rushed to the door to call the woman, but couldn't see her anywhere. Now what should he do? Put the baby down and run? When calmness finally settled in, he went to the Traveler's Aid booth and together with the local police, they soon found the real mother. You see, the woman who'd left him holding the baby wasn't the baby's real mother. She'd taken the child. Maybe it was to satisfy some motherly urge to hold a child or something else. No one really knows. But we do know that this man breathed a sigh of relief when the real mother was found. After all, what was he going to do with a baby? In a way, each of us, is in the same sort of situation as this young man. Every Christmas God Himself walks up to us and asks, "Would you hold My Baby for Me, please?" and then thrusts the Christ Child into our arms. And we're left with the question, "What are we going to do with this Baby?" But an even deeper question is just, "Who is this Baby?" If we look at Scripture, we find all kinds of titles and names for this Baby we hold in our arms: Emmanuel, "God-with-us;" Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Christ the King, Jesus. In today’s Gospel describing the presentation ceremony, Simeon asks Mary the question: "Can I hold your Baby for a few minutes, please?" (King Duncan). 

Does Evil Exist? Ppt

Influence of Foreign Languages on Indian Languages

Priests are like Aeroplanes -----

On Empathy - A Moving Personal Experience

By Rebecca Rogers:

St. Agnes - Jan 21 - Homily

Homily from Father Joseph Pellegrino

St. Agnes and the Victory of Christ’s Peace

                      
I want to begin by telling you about a little girl, most likely 12, possibly 13 years old,  who took on a mighty empire and won.  The little girl was named Agnes.  At least that is the name she is remembered by.  Agnes means lamb.  She was like a little lamb. Agnes was a child of a noble family in ancient Rome, and lived around the year 300 AD.  She was a Christian in the  last decades of Rome’s persecution of the Christians. At that time, more and more members of the empire were becoming Christian including the noble families and even members of the royal household.  The Emperor Diocletian decided to put an end to these Christians once and for all with one of the worst of all the persecutions of Christianity.  Anyone caught being a Christian would lose all their possessions and be given the option of renouncing Christ or being put to death.

Audrey Hepburn and Real Beauty-ppt

Compassion - Joan Halifax - Video

World's richest 85 have same wealth as 3.5 billion poorest

From ET by: Li Anne Wong | Senior Digital Editor, CNBC International

Frank Bienewald | LightRocket | Getty Images

The combined wealth of the world's richest 85 people is now equivalent to that owned by half of the world's population – or 3.5 billion of the poorest people – according to a new report from Oxfam.

3 Sunday A - Reign of God - Come, Follow Me!

Fr. Bill Grimm:

From The Connections:

‘My Monastery Is a Minivan’

When asked our religion, most of us would describe ourselves as “Catholic” or “Christian.”  But we would tend to back away from daring to call ourselves “disciple” or “follower.”  That description rightly belongs to the great heroes of our faith: the apostles and holy men and women of the Gospel, the saints and martyrs, the Francises of Assisi, the Mother Teresas, the Thomas Mertons, the Dorothy Days, the Albert Schweitzers.  Our lives are too ordinary, our professions too worldly to dare imagine that we are doing the work of the Gospel Jesus.