11 March 2022 – 1st week of Lent (Year C) [Way of the Cross & Mass]

by Bishop Sebastian Francis

Dear friends,

Jesus never gets tired of inviting us, the disciples, his disciples, to go deeper. To go deeper than where the scribes and pharisees dare to go. They dare not go there. The scribes and the pharisees remain with superficial religion, with superficial faith, with superficial religious practices, with superficial virtues, mostly for show.

And Jesus invites His disciples to go to a deeper place. And where is the deeper place? the Book of Psalms calls it the hiding place. The Gospel of Matthew on Ash Wednesday called it a secret place, a private place. Not public. Secret, private, a hiding place. A little like your bedroom. And what goes on there?

Only two people are allowed there. Only two and nobody else allowed. Not your boyfriend, not your girlfriend, not even your husband or your wife, or whoever, or your best friend. Only two people are allowed there in these forty days and that is your Father, Abba Father, the Father of Jesus and yourself. No entry for everyone else.

And what is going on inside that hiding place, that secret place, that private place? Known only to your Father, no one else. You are engaged in prayer. You are engaged in fasting. You are engaged in abstinence. You are engaged in alms giving, in good works. But known only to two people, your Father and yourself. And it is in that hiding place, in that secret place, in that private place.

I hope you get to go there as soon as possible before Easter.

Click below to listen to homily and watch video:-

Click to live-stream Mass on 11 March 2022