Four minute homilies

Joseph Pich

0.0 (0)
Christianity
Weekly

Short Sunday homilies. Read by Peter James-Smith

1d ago

32 Sunday A Parable of the foolish Virgins

Parable of the foolish virgins It is difficult for us to understand this parable because we are not familiar with the customs of Jewish weddings. The bridegroom would go to the bride’s house to fetch her and take her to his home. The bride would be accompanied by her maiden friends with their lamps on, to light the way. To be waiting for the bridegroom with lamps and no oil was silly. It is like going to a birthday party with no gift, a dinner with no wine, or to a church with no money for the collection. We are waiting for the Lord who is coming to meet us, with the lamp of faith in our hand, lighted with the oil of charity, and holding it up high, to be able to see when the bridegroom is coming, awake with hope. No faith, no lamp. We need the lamp; if we don’t have the lamp, we don’t have a place to contain the oil. But the lamp is not enough. It has to be lighted, and for that we need oil; no oil, no light. Love is the all purpose oil that lubricates everything. A lamp without oil illuminates nothing. Faith without love is useless. The devil believes in God but has no love. Hope is what keeps us awake, waiting for the Lord that is coming. When we are asleep, the light eventually goes off. There is a famous painting, “Jesus, the light of the world”, depicting Jesus holding a lighted lamp, in the midst of darkness, knocking on a door. The flame lights the beautiful face of Jesus and you can see that he is very keen to open the door. But the door has no handle. He is knocking at our door and the lock is on our side. We are the only ones who can open that door. We have the key which is the right shape to go through the keyhole. We don’t know when he is coming; what we do know is that he is coming. Sooner or later he is going to knock at the door of our life. If we are asleep we are in for a surprise. This parable teaches us not only to be waiting for the Lord, but also to be ready for when he comes. Christian life doesn’t mean just to be part of the Church, like to having a card that shows we are members. To be baptised, to have received our first communion, having been confirmed, is not good enough. We need to be an active member, a Christian who is alive, who adds to the life of the Church, who gives light to others. An Irish man was on his dead bed surrounded by his family. He asked his wife: Mary, are you here? Yes honey. To his daughter: Rose, are you here? Yes dad. To his son: Patrick, are you here? Yes dad. Then, opening his eyes said: who is looking after the shop? The Church is in our hands and we need to feel the responsibility of looking after it. Two questions Jesus is going to ask us when he comes: Do you have oil? Did you give light to others? It is not enough to have the lamp, to believe, but we need also the oil. It is a small thing but it is very important. How sometimes small things make a big difference. If there is no oil, there is no light. We cannot be in darkness when Jesus comes to pick us up, otherwise we are not going to see him coming. How do we get this oil? Through the sacraments, mainly communion and confession, our prayer life, our charity, our good deeds, the things we do for others. Our love of God and the love for others are the olives where we can squeeze the oil for our lamps. We need to make sure we have enough oil to keep the lamp burning until he comes. Be awake and waiting. josephpich@gmail.com
6d ago

All Saints

All Saints Once a year in November the Church on earth as a good mother helps us to remember our brothers and sisters who have made it into eternity. On the first of this month, the saints in heaven; on the second, the souls in purgatory. They say there are around 10.000 saints recognised by the Church. It is impossible to count all the saints in heaven. We don’t have time to canonise every person who enters into glory. There are millions of them. We call them anonymous saints, which means saints with no names; not for God, because for Him all of us have a hidden name. At least once a year we remember them and hopefully one day it will be our feast day. Today it is the biggest celebration in heaven regarding the number of celebrants who are celebrating their dies natalis, their birth into heaven. The remembrance of the saints helps us to lift up our eyes to heaven. It doesn’t make any difference to them, because they are already immersed in God; they don’t need our prayers. But we need their example, their model of life, their inspiration, their intercession. Not to copy them, because every person is unique, but to reassure ourselves that we all have the necessary graces to make it to heaven, that the ball is in our court, that God is willing, and it is up to us to make it there. What’s holiness? It doesn’t mean to be perfect. It means that when we die, we go straight to heaven. It is impossible to be perfect, but we could make it to heaven thanks to God’s grace. We all feel that if we die now we can hardly make it to purgatory. How can we reach heaven? Through the mercy of God. It is so powerful that it can make us holy. And it is there, up for grabs. The Church wants today to remind us that we are made for heaven, that we come from God and we are going back to him. It is possible for us to become holy. It is good for us to remember the famous question saint Ignatius asked himself, when he was reading lives of saints, and experienced a peaceful feeling in his soul, in front of those beautiful examples: “If they could do it, why not I?” The devil is trying to discourage us; he wants us to be convinced that it is very difficult to reach heaven. Once saint Thomas Aquinas’ sister asked him a very difficult question, maybe the most important question of our lives, the same question the rich young man put to Jesus: What do we have to do to go to heaven? Thomas, who was a man of few words, and he was very precise with his explanations, answered with two words: “velle illud”. It is a Latin expression that means: to want it. It is not a matter of conviction but of desire. God will open the gates of heaven if we want it, if we push them open with our struggle, with our desires to be with Him. We need to remind ourselves of the power of God. Saint Josephine Bakhita, at the end of her life, expressed in these simple words, hidden behind a smile, the journey of her life: “I travel slowly, one step at a time, because I am carrying two big suitcases. One of them contains my sins, and in the other, which is much heavier, are the infinite merits of Jesus Christ. When I reach heaven I will open both suitcases and say to God: Eternal Father, now you can judge. And to Saint Peter: Close the door, because I’m staying here.” josephpich@gmail.com
Oct 27

31 Sunday A The greatest among you

The greatest among you We all have desires of greatness, of leaving a mark behind us, of inscribing our names in the golden book of history. It is very human to try to do something that it is going to outlive us. But today Jesús is telling us the opposite: “The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” We think that fame and glory are going to make us happy, but they don’t. It is a quick passing moment of joy and satisfaction, but it is very flimsy, like the wind that constantly changes direction, or like a bubble of soap that lasts a few seconds. Saint Thomas Aquinas argues that fame doesn’t have the capacity to satisfy us. He says that honour comes from happiness, from something we already have, an excellence we possess. That’s why happiness cannot come from honour. Happiness comes from within us, not from outside. Things outside of us are not under our control, and many depend on other people’s appreciation. Deep down what causes our happiness is God’s knowledge of our worth, mainly that we are His children. We do a lot of things to encourage what people are going to think about us. Our prestige is very important to us, so much so that many times it conditions our behaviour. We are very outward looking. We don’t think much about the other life. We forget that people around us are going to die, and we shouldn’t care too much about what they are thinking. What is important is what God thinks about us. This is completely crucial because one day we are going to have to face Him, and we will have to explain few a things. How are we going to justify many of the things we have done? We won’t be able to excuse ourselves talking about others. It is our personal responsibility. Just see what people do to get other people’s attention on the internet! The comments they make, the photos they post, the videos they upload, the faces they enhance. We all would like to be influencers, with thousands of fans following us. But they burnt out very easily, with the pressure of needing to keep posting things all the time. They don’t have a life of their own. It is like the vice of avarice: you are only happy when you make more money, not when you spend it. Influencers are only happy when they increase their following. Resist the temptation of posting something personal. Don’t take the photo of the sunset. The camera will never be able to capture all its beauty. Leave it for you and for God. The photo cannot produce what you are contemplating. Deep down we want to show off, to impress other people. Most of our photos will disappear when our computer crashes, or the cloud gets destroyed by the next world war. Success is not a name of God. In God there is no measure of success because he is perfection, always achieving what he wants to do. Success is a human measurement. We don’t need to be successful people to become holy. It is the other way around. Success can make people lose touch with reality. They fly on a cloud, without a real base, and the higher they go the more painful is going to be the crash. If you were a multimillionaire you wouldn’t be here listening to me. From fame and success deliver us O Lord! josephpich@gmail.com
Oct 20

30 Sunday A You shall love the Lord Your God

Shall love the Lord your God Chapter twenty two of Matthew’s Gospel is question time. We saw last week about the tribute to Caesar, then a question about the resurrection of the dead and today about the greatest commandment. It is a lawyer who asks to test him. He wanted to know how much Jesus knew about the law. Be careful with lawyers. Don’t forget Jesus is the one who made the law. The Pharisees loved to fulfill the law but had 613 commandments. There were endless arguments about their importance, because some of them were not easy to live by. Jesus gives us a simple answer: love God above everything and others as yourself. It is a simple commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” It is the core of the Gospel in a nutshell, it’s a summary. It is very demanding, not easy to put it into practice. If you do it, you’ll become holy. We heard this many times and we would like to do it. But, is it possible? It is; God cannot ask us something we cannot fulfill. The saints have done it. We can do it, but do we want to do it? We are created to love God. It is the only way for us to be happy. The Old Testament says that Moses was very much loved by God. He talked to Him as a man talks to his friend. After conversing with God he had to cover his face because it shone like a powerful light. The Israelites couldn’t look at his face. Moses wanted to see God’s face. But man cannot see the face of God and live, so God in his merciful love promised to place Moses in a cleft of a rock. “There I will station you while my glory passes by, and cover you with my right hand till I have gone past. So, when I take my hand away, then you shall follow me with your eyes, but my face you cannot see.” Thus God allowed Moses to see his back. We cannot imagine what he saw. We too want to see God. But our love for Him is not strong enough. At the end of our lives we are going to be measured by our love of God. Jesus, our judge, is going to hold a scale with two plates: one with our sins, and on the other with our love for him. We already have our sins; the plate is full of them. We need to make sure our love is heavier. Look at big sinners who became great saints: Mary Magdalene or Saint Augustine. They eventually loved God above everything. They give us plenty of hope. We are small sinners, but we can become small saints. Don’t worry too much about your sins; make sure we keep growing in our love of God. There is a secret: we love him with his love; therefore ask Him for this gift. How much do I love God? It depends of how much I am ready to do for him. Are we ready not to offend him? How do we grow in our love of God? In the same way we love people: doing things for them, trying not to offend them, thinking about them. Our mind goes to the people we love. We have five main languages of love. Acts of service: we need to serve God, doing things for him alone. Words of praise: we adore God mainly going to Mass. Quality time: we should spend more time with him in prayer. Physical touch: the best way to touch Him is to receive Him in Communion. Offering gifts: we should be generous with Him, giving Him whatever He is asking from us now. josephpich@gmail.com
Oct 13

29 Sunday A Giving to Caesar

Giving to Caesar The Pharisees wanted to catch Jesus. They planned a clever trap. How silly! Sometimes we think that we can fool God. Other times we get upset with Him. We blame Him for things that are our own doing. We bring God down to our level to wrestle with Him. If we knew the infinite difference between us and God, we wouldn’t dare to mention even his name. When we place God in the proper context, we realise our nothingness. Thanks to Jesus, the Son of God who became man, we can become closer to Him. It was a good trap, a catch twenty two. There was no way out. Whatever Jesus said, it would had upset one side. Even though both sides were against each other, they both hated Jesus, and they were allied against him. The Herodians were pro Romans, supporting Herod who was a puppet of the authorities; the Pharisees were Jewish nationalists. If Jesus had said no to paying taxes, the Herodians would have told the Romans. If he had said the opposite, the Pharisees would have had something against him in front of the people, to discredit him. It was a brilliant answer from Jesus, a good come back, one of his most famous one liners, like the one with the adulterous woman. This allowed him to walk the thin middle line, avoiding both extremes. So many times in our faith we take sides, either or, black or white, and we fail to keep the balance. Heresies normally emphasise one side of the question, falling down through the gap. The truth is trying to keep both together, showing the mystery in all its splendour: grace and freedom, man and God, one and three, virgin and mother, body and soul, sinner and saint. What Jesus is telling us today, through the trap that was put to him, is that we need to give to Caesar what is his due, but no more, because to God we must give everything. God and Caesar are on two quite different levels. We need to provide for the common good, help society in the way we can, but we cannot forget that we are passing by, that we come from God and we are going back to Him. Everything we have comes from Him and we need to recognise this reality in our own lives. Jesus asked the Pharisees to show him a coin, not to keep it, but to ask them what was the image on the metal: the face of Augustus. It is a good reminder of what it is inscribed on our bodies: the image of God. Our bodies carry the most lovable face of Jesus Christ. We need to preserve His image, make it shine, portray it in the best possible way. It doesn’t belong to us, it’s not ours; don’t try to appropriate it; give His image back to Him. They say that Saint Francis of Assisi was the most perfect image of Jesus Christ. We can all be a special image of Jesus in our own way. Blessed Carlo Acutis used to say: “we are all originals, don’t become a photocopy.” We try to copy the people the media presents to us as role models. If we could meet them, we would realise their lack of virtue and holiness. We Christians, because of our Baptism, we have a special character inscribed in our soul, that enables us to become what we are: an image and likeness of God. You are the only one who can make it so. josephpich@gmail.com
Oct 6

28 Sunday A Parable of the marriage feast

Parable of the marriage feast God has invited us to a wedding banquet in the kingdom of heaven. We are all invited; he wants all us to be saved, to be with him. No one is left out of his invitation. But He respects our freedom; it’s only an invitation, it is not compulsory to accept, even though it is for our own good. It is a wedding banquet. For the Jews it was the highest degree of happiness. It lasted for few days. For us a wedding reception is also a big celebration, but only lasts for few hours, where everything has to be perfect and normally it costs a lot of money. We all love going to weddings. But this is a special wedding. It is the wedding of Christ and his Church. Christ is the bridegroom and we are his bride. He is not only inviting us to his wedding as guests, but as his bride. He is proposing a union with us, a union more intimate than the marriage union. Marriage is only for this earth, where we need to generate children. Jesus says that in heaven we won’t get married. The union that Jesus is proposing to us is an everlasting union, a union for the whole of eternity. He wants us to be so united with him, that we become more like him. Now here on earth Jesus is already offering us his engagement ring. This engagement normally lasts for the years we live here. But for the saints, the wedding banquet begins here. If we want to, we can also have it here. But most of us don’t want to go to his wedding. It is silly but we don’t know much about it; we are not sure. We invent plenty of excuses not to go: “I have a business to attend, I just bought a new gadget, I am watching tv, listening to music, resting in my bed, doing my own thing.” Every time we don’t follow his will, every time we sin, we are telling him that we don’t accept his engagement ring, or we are throwing the ring back in his face, breaking the engagement. We fail to see the beautiful, precious stone in the ring. It has more power than the ring of “The Lord of the Rings”. It is the ring that opens for us the gates of paradise. It is impossible for us to imagine what heaven is like. That’s why we reject the invitation. This rejection can be so blatant that it merits eternal punishment. Both, the no to God and the existence of hell puzzle us. I’ve heard a man saying that he doesn’t believe in a God that created hell. We are the ones who have created it with our evil deeds. God on the contrary wants to be with us for ever. People in hell don’t want to leave, they won’t ask God for forgiveness. We should better concentrate in our yes to God and to the amazing place he has prepared for us. One of the guests at the wedding banquet is thrown out because doesn’t have the proper dress. Saint Gregory the Great says that the wedding garment is the theological virtue of charity, our love of God. It is the only virtue that perdures in heaven. If we are not dressed with this garment, we are going to be thrown out from the banquet hall into the outer darkness. We have our whole life to weave our wedding dress. We cannot do it in one go; it is a long life task. We do it every day, one step at a time, one thread a day. Sometimes we are like Penelope, who weaved during the day and unraveled it at night. We need to renew our love of God every day. josephpich@gmail.com
Sep 29

27 Sunday A Parable of the wicked tenants

Parable of the wicked tenants Today’s readings talk about how much God has done for us and our failure to correspond to his love. The first reading from the book of Isaiah is a song exulting the vineyard. An orchard with vines was very precious in the Mediterranean area. It produced grapes, fruit for the time, wine, a good healthy drink with no bugs, and dried fruit, raisins, for the months ahead. It required a lot of work to keep the vines healthy, and to learn the art of winemaking. The parable of the wicked tenants highlights our responsibility in looking after the vineyard of the Lord and the duty to produce a good spiritual wine in due time. It is also a reminder of our history of salvation. God first entrusted his vineyard to the chosen people. He gave them what they needed, a promised land, a land of milk and honey; he dig a trench around it, making sure they lived in peace and prosperity, getting rid of all the enemies surrounding them; and built a watch tower in the middle of it, giving them prophets and kings to lead them. But they were unfaithful to him and adored the neighbor’s gods. God tried everything with them and forgave them when they repented. But they kept rebelling against him and in the end He sent them his only Son as the last resort. They seized him, threw him out of Jerusalem and killed him. Today is good day to examine ourselves. How are we taking care of the vineyard, of the piece of the kingdom God has entrusted to us? It is not ours, but we should take care of it as if it was ours, our personal responsibility. We should make sure we yield the fruit God is expecting from us, not our personal product; it should be something for others, not just for ourselves. It will be a pity if we were to hear the admonition of Jesus at the end of the parable, directed to the Jews: “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.” What sort of fruit are we producing? Are we only collecting wild, sour grapes? Is our life worthwhile, full of beautiful sweet grapes? God has been so good to us. He has given us all we need to look after his vineyard. And we, like the chosen people, are often ungrateful, we are lazy, we don’t put the time and dedication our job deserves, and we let the vineyard to go waste. Instead of looking after what God has given us, we look over our neighbor’s fence and we envy him his vineyard. We think that his grass is greener. At the end we fail to produce the wine God is expectimg from us. A friend of mine, a winemaker, told me about this famous winemaker who makes only five hundred bottles a year, mixing with art good vintages, and sells them in the US for a thousand dollars a bottle, a wine only for the rich and glamorous. He makes half a million dollars. I asked him if it is a good wine. He said: “It must be a good wine, but I don’t know if it is worth a thousand dollars. I cannot afford the test it.” This is the wine we need to produce, a wine worth a million dollars, worthy for the table of the Lord, a wine to be tasted for eternity, that will last for ever. josephpich@gmail.com
Sep 22

26 Sunday A Parable of the two Sons

Parable of the two sons Last Sunday, today and next Sunday we have the parables of the vineyard. Israel is described in the Old Testament as the vineyard of the Lord. It represents the care God has for his people. A vineyard demands a lot of work to produce the right wine. The first miracle Jesus performed was to convert water into wine. Wine is compared to the grace God gives us to make us happier, to become more like him. Saint John of Cross says that “The cellar is the highest degree of love to which the soul may attain in this life.” We cannot forget that which becomes the blood of Christ during the Mass is wine. God allows us to help him to produce a good vintage. He sends us into his vineyard. It is important to consider that the vineyard is our own inheritance. The wine we are producing is for our eternal life: this is the wine that we are going to drink for all eternity, and we need to make sure it is of the best quality. A king once asked his son to build a castle. He gave him a lot of money for the project. The son, who was a greedy man, kept most of the money and built a cheap castle. When he finished, he gave the keys of the castle to his father. The king gave the keys back to his son saying: “This is precisely your inheritance.” We should be very interested in working in the vineyard of the Lord, working hard and well, because we are directly interested in producing our best. When God asks us to work in his vineyard, sometimes we say yes, sometimes we say no; sometimes we go, sometimes we don’t go. We are sinners and many times our first reaction is negative. But afterwards we change our minds. We shouldn’t be too concerned about our first intention, many times a product of our selfishness or pride, but make sure we change our minds and we do what God wants us to do. What’s important is the end result. The parable of today was proposed to the Jews who rejected to work in the vineyard of the Lord and therefore God gave his vineyard to all of us. We should be grateful that we are allowed to make wine, a marvelous privilege, a wine that is going to last for ever. When we obey, we conform our will to God’s will. God prefers our obedience rather than heroic acts which maybe product of our selfishness. Saint Teresa of Avila was jealous of a famous nun who was doing a lot of penance. Her spiritual director didn’t allow her to imitate this nun. When she complained to Jesus, he told her that he preferred her obedience rather than the penance of this nun. We can do a lot of good things out of pride, but obedience always brings about humility. The second reading of today’s Mass, from the letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul proposes the example of Jesus, who humbled himself and became obedient unto death and death on the cross. The crucifixion was considered the most degrading form of execution. It was reserved for the worst criminals. Jesus gives us a lesson in obedience, following the will of his Father, to give his life for us in a most cruel way. When we find it difficult to do what God wants us to do, we can look at Jesus dying on the cross. josephpich@gmail.com

Short Sunday homilies. Read by Peter James-Smith

Creator

Joseph Pich
Years Active

2022 - 2026
Episodes

260
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2026 Four minute homilies
Show Website

Four minute homilies

Christianity

Christianity

Updated Weekly