Four minute homilies Joseph Pich

Holy Trinity When Jesus came, he revealed to us the mystery of the Holy Trinity. It was his most important secret, his gift to us, which had been guarded for many centuries. In the Old Testament God didn’t want to show us this truth about himself, because he was afraid the Israelites would worship multiple gods. They did it regardless. The first time we hear about the Trinity is in the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel mentioned the three pers...

Pentecost A young man was walking down the street and came across a shop with a sign that said: Happiness. He came in and saw that angels were serving the customers. He was very surprised and asked one of the angels: “What do you sell here?” He answered: “Anything that brings happiness to humans.” The young man got excited and began to ask a list of things: “Give me the end of wars, communication between husbands and wives, wealth for the poor, health ...

Love one another Today in the Gospel Jesus lifts the level of his message to an impossible height: love one another as I have loved you. God loves us with divine love, without measure; his love is infinite. He even gave his life for us. But how can we love others with his love, if we are not God? Precisely, when we love God, he lends us his love. God is love and any love is a participation in his love. We cannot love others as he does, but we can love ...

The Ascension The church that marks the place where tradition says Jesus left the earth flying up to heaven has an octogonal shape, with a circular dome. In the old days the roof was open and you could see the sky. On the floor there is a glass covering the rock where Jesus’ feet touched our ground for the last time. It is a reflection of how we should live our lives: with our feet firmly anchored on earth and our eyes constantly fixed on heaven....

The Vine and the Branches Jesus loves to talk in parables. He finds us a bit slow to grasp things and tries to find comparisons for us to understand better and deeper the things of God. It is not easy for him to talk about the other life. A vineyard was very precious in the ancient world. People risked their lives to possess them. For us it is just a business. But for them it was their livelihood. It produced wine, grapes and raisins, fruit and d...

The Good Shepherd Today we look at Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It is a beautiful image that comes from the Old Testament. King David was a shepherd before he became a king, and Jesus called himself the son of David, because he was a direct descendant. The Gospels give us plenty of details about who the Good Shepherd is. Jesus says of himself: “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.” We...