Corpus Christi 2015

Understand the difference: Trans-substantiation; Trans-signification; trans-finalization; Catholic belief in Real Presence and transubstantiation (Term from St. Thomas Aquinas).

Why bread and wine:

1. Creator God is also the provider God, provide food and sustenance to the creation (also protector and the facilitator): in the desert: manna and water. Parents who bring up children have also similar responsibility.
2. Food; sacraments from bread, water, oil, wine; daily necessities; grace is built on nature
3. We never forget to eat: Nothing becomes so biologically part of us. We become what we eat. Junk food, not caring for God's creation. Bodies neglected. Abortion, old people, children abandoned. Our younger years are spent losing health to make wealth and our older years are spent losing wealth to get health.
4. Food is nourishment (energy), life, growth and gives joy and is eaten in fellowship, Companion = the one who breaks bread with me (Latin meaning) Food is best taken in fellowship: companion; sharing
5. Food should be eaten as a family. Unity
6. It takes sacrifice to prepare it
7. Many ingredients to make it; complementing
8. Food has to be broken down to assimilate or digest – process of breaking
9. How can we each become Eucharistic people? Don’t adore and worship hours bodies – naked, vulgar  - on the screens of computer and TVs, but a little time with the Lord in the Eucharist. What do we hunger for? What tables do we sit to fulfil that hunger?
10. Each sacrifice is an expression of becoming body & blood. We live by what we get, but we give life by what we give.
11. Social Dimension: Aren't we surprised on Holy Thursday to note that the reading was not the institution of the Eucharist, but washing of the feet. Again today, the context was the multiplication of the loaves. We become what we eat. We become part of the mission of Jesus. It's all about mercy and justice.

Tony Kayala, c.s.c.

Holy Trinity -2015

He recalled the husband, who said when he became a father, he better understood the Trinity. When he and his wife had their son, they had evidence of their love for each other. There was the lover, the beloved, and the love, each distinct and yet one.

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I enjoy the playful description of Daniel Durken of the Trinity. The Father played creator and was overjoyed that the world turned out so attractively. The Son played redeemer and put everything right again in the wounded world by stretching out His arms on a cross. The Spirit played sanctifier. He made room in the heart of each of us for the Trinity. "Today," says Durken, "the Trinity invites us to keep playing with them this delightful game of life and love." And why not?  We have nothing to lose but our chains. 

Pentecost - B 2015

Happy Birthday, Church

Starters from Fr. Tony Kadavil:
 
Pentecost  literally  means  50th.  It  is  a  feast  celebrated  on  the  50th   day  after  the Passover feast by the Jews and a feast celebrated on the 50th day after the feast of the Resurrection of Jesus by the Christians. The Jewish Pentecost was originally a post- harvest thanksgiving feast.   Later it was celebrated to remember God’s covenants with Noah after the Deluge and with Moses at Mt. Sinai
 
The event

On the day of Pentecost

1) The Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and Blessed Virgin Mary as fiery tongues.

2) The frightened apostles were transformed into fiery preachers and evangelizers by a special anointing of the Holy Spirit.

3) The audience experienced a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit with the gift of tongues, hearing Peter speaking in their languages.

4) The early Christians became powerful witnesses and brave martyrs for faith.

Ascension 2015

Starters: From Fr. Tony Kadavil:

Anecdote 1) God’s love in action: The disciples who completed Puccini’s opera Turandot. The Italian composer Giacomo Puccini wrote La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Tosca. It was during his battle with terminal cancer in 1922 that he began to write Turandot, which many now consider his best work. He worked on the score day and night, despite his friends' advice to rest, and to save his energy. When his sickness worsened, Puccini said to his disciples, 'If I don't finish Turandot, I want you to finish it.' He died in 1924, leaving the work unfinished. His disciples gathered all that was written of Turandot, studied it in great detail, and then proceeded to write the remainder of the opera. The world premier was performed in La Scala Opera House in Milan in 1926, and Toscanini, Puccini’s favorite student, conducted it. The opera went beautifully, until Toscanini came to the end of the part written by Puccini. He stopped the music, put down the baton, turned to the audience, and announced, 'Thus far the master wrote, but he died.' There was a long pause; no one moved. Then Toscanini picked up the baton, turned to the audience and, with tears in his eyes, announced, 'But his disciples finished his work.' The opera closed to thunderous applause, and to a permanent place in the annals of great works. Jesus instructs us in his Ascension message to finish his work of saving mankind by proclaiming His good news by words and deeds.

Easter 6 B - Love One Another

Starters from Fr. Tony Kadavil's Collection:
1) God’s love in action:
When Fr. Damien arrived in Molokai to assemble a prefabricated church for the lepers, he spent the first few weeks sleeping out under the trees, because he was unable to cope with the stench in the hovels of the lepers. He certainly wouldn't dare preach to them about God's love for them, because, as they saw it, that would be offensive. But slowly he opened his heart to the grace of God which enabled him to see the suffering Jesus in them. In no time, he was washing them, bandaging them, and burying them. He came to love them, and, through him, they came to believe that God loved them. He smoked a pipe to counteract the stench, but he soon was passing the pipe around for others to have a smoke. He ate food with them from a common bowl, out of which they scooped the food with hands that had no fingers. He caught the disease himself, and he was happy to be able to live and to die for them. Greater love than this no one has…

Easter 5 B - Vine and Branches

The Lord may find us as we search for him - Mary at the tomb (it's he who finds us even though it's we who search for him even as Zacchaeus). The Lord may give us a personal experience of him in our theological and ideological doubts (Thomas. That's another form of searching for him like Augustine and Thomas Merton). The Lord may open our eyes during the Eucharist and the breaking of the bread and word (Emmaus; the search continues). And if we are willing, he will lead us to the green pastures and refresh, guide and protect us as the Good Shepherd (he will search for us, he will search for our nourishment).

On the 5th Sunday, we are called to realize the symbiotic connection, communion with the Lord. He and we are connected. We really DO NOT have to search if we are connected. Beyond the emotions of Mary, beyond the intellectual uncertainty of Thomas, beyond the confusion in faith in our Emmaus journeys, beyond our waywardness, dangers of wolves and strangers, lack of pastures, the Good Shepherd providing and protecting, we now come as Christians to the realization that we are family, we have inheritance, the same DNA, we shall not be left out, starved....


The Lord meets us at our tombs (Easter-losses), at our locked rooms (Thomes - disappointments and doubts: second Sunday), on our journeys (aimless or disoriented: third Sunday), but more importantly when we do our work (4th and 5th Sundays). Whether our business is about sheep or vine, we need to remain faithful and committed and produce a 100 fold for the KOG and for our families.

Tony Kayala, c.s.c.

The Titanic Priest: Good Shepherd

The Untold Story of the Titanic’s Catholic Priest Who Went Down Hearing Confessions            

Amidst all the tales of chivalry from the Titanic disaster there is one that’s not often told. It is that of Fr. Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favour of offering spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down with the “unsinkable” vessel.

A 42-year-old English convert, Fr. Byles was on his way to New York to offer the wedding Mass for his brother William. Reports suggest that he was reciting his breviary on the upper deck when the Titanic struck the iceberg in the twilight hours of Sunday, April 14, 1912.

According to witnesses, as the ship went down the priest helped women and children get into the lifeboats, then heard confessions, gave absolution, and led passengers in reciting the Rosary.