Homily for 3d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
3d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Jan. 25, 2026
Matt 4: 12-23
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

The Triumph of Christianity
(Gustave Dore')

“The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light” (Matt 4: 16).

In our Lord’s time, Galilee had a large Gentile population of Greeks, Phoenicians, Syrians, and Romans in addition to the Israelite population.  St. Matthew singles out that population, referring to “Galilee of the Gentiles” as he adapts the quotation he takes from Isaiah (8:23—9:1), part of our 1st reading.

Strange, then, that the Jewish Messiah should emerge from that context rather than from Judea or even Jerusalem.  But Matthew sees God at work.  He sees Jesus fulfilling what Tevye calls “God’s vast eternal plan.”  So here, as in numerous other instances, Matthew cites the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, to explain or comment on Jesus’ life.  God has planned this all along.  God wills from the start that his Messiah redeem not only Israel but all the nations.

Matthew tipped his interpretive hand when he included in Jesus’ genealogy several Gentile women (1:1-6) and when he narrated the story of the magi (2:1-12).  Then he finishes his Gospel with the Lord’s command to “go and make disciples of all nations” (28:19).

The magi, those foreigners from the East, were led by a star, by an extraordinary light, to him who is the light of the world.  Now, as Jesus begins his ministry, the light bursts upon the world—for both Jew and Gentile:  “The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light; on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen” (4:16).

The definitive darkness of humans created originally in God’s image—whether Jew or Gentile—is separation from eternal light, from God.  In the 2d Eucharistic Prayer we pray that God welcome everyone into the light of his face.  In the 4th Eucharistic Prayer, we give thanks to our “Father most holy” who dwells “in unapproachable light” (Preface) before asking to be granted a share in his glory “freed from the corruption of sin and death.”

Sin is the 1st form of darkness, and it leads to the dark grave.  Therefore Jesus begins his preaching with a summons to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (4:17).  The kingdom is present in him, light personified—“Light from light,” in the words of the Creed, “a light that shines in the dark, … the true light that enlightens everyone,” in the words of St. John’s prolog (1:4,9).

This true light will conquer the darkness in our hearts, forgiving our sins and remedying our separation from the eternal light.  Finally, he’ll conquer even death.  He’ll do this for all whom his apostles snag in their gospel nets (Matt 4:19).

Jesus’ ministry includes not only the verbal forgiveness of sins, but also what St. John calls “signs.”  His healing of disease and illness are visible, physical signs of the light he bestows on our souls.  His driving out demons is a sign of his power over the Prince of Darkness.  His nature miracles are signs that every form of darkness in our lives, even death, is subject to him.  Jesus “went around all of Galilee … curing every disease and illness” (4:23), casting out demons, salvaging a wedding disaster, walking on water, calming a storm, forgiving sins—all signs of the kingdom of light, of “unapproachable light” bursting into Galilee and into the whole world.

The “fishers of men” whom Jesus chose and continues to choose, preachers and practitioners of the Gospel, continue to bring his light into the world, the light of his truth and goodness.  So the Church preaches the Gospel and teaches the Gospel’s application to our lives in a world struggling against darkness.  Christians bring the light of healing, education, and mercy to the sick, the poor, the bereaved, the afflicted, the frightened, the oppressed, the hopeless.  We oppose every form of darkness—moral, spiritual, physical, and psychological—that the Prince of Darkness and his minions thrust upon us.  We work and we pray that the kingdom of heaven, eternal light, may reign in all parts of our lives.

Pope Leo XIV to Visit Sacred Heart Basilica

(ANS – Rome – January 23, 2026) – The diocese of Rome announced on January 23 that Pope Leo XIV will make his first pastoral visit to the basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Castro Pretorio on Sunday, February 22. The event is expected to be a historic moment of grace for the parish community and for the entire Salesian Family.

The visit is part of the Holy Father’s Lenten program, which includes meetings with 5 parishes representing the different pastoral sectors of the diocese of Rome, in keeping with the tradition of Popes visiting the communities of their diocese personally during Lent.

Commenting on the announcement, the pastor, Fr. Javier Ortiz, emphasized the profound ecclesial significance of the event: “The Holy Father’s visit represents a historic moment of grace for us, coming shortly after the Jubilee Year and prolonging its fruits of spiritual renewal, hope, and ecclesial communion.” Welcoming the Pope, he added, “is a strong sign of closeness and encouragement for our entire community.”

According to the Vicariate of Rome, the visit will be a true pastoral visit. Pope Leo will meet with parish organizations, pastoral workers, and some youth groups before presiding over the Eucharistic celebration, the culminating moment of the meeting with the entire community.

Fr. Francesco Marcoccio, the rector of the basilica of the Sacred Heart, also highlighted how the presence of the Holy Father in the basilica, built by Don Bosco himself and entrusted to the Salesians, “confirms the importance of pastoral commitment to young people, families, and those who live or pass through this central area of Rome,” inviting the community to renew its missionary zeal in the light of the Heart of Christ.

For the parish of the Sacred Heart and for the Salesian Family, Pope Leo XIV’s first visit to the basilica is thus a sign of communion, renewed pastoral responsibility, and trust in the journey of the Church of Rome, guided by its bishop.

New Exhibit at Mission Museum Focuses on Indigenous Communities

New Exhibit at Misiones Salesianas Museum Focuses on Indigenous Communities

(ANS – Madrid – January 22, 2026) – The Misiones Salesianas Museum presents the second phase of the commemorative exhibition entitled La aventura valdrá la pena: 150 años de las misiones salesianas (“The adventure will be worth it: 150 years of Salesian missions”). This new stage of the exhibition offers a critical look at the relationship between Salesian missionaries and the indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego, particularly the Selk’nam people, with an emphasis on historical memory and current processes of reparation and recognition.

The exhibit runs across 2 rooms. The 1st traces the changing mindset of the Salesian missionaries who arrived in Patagonia at the end of the 19th century, influenced by a colonial vision. Contact with the reality of the indigenous populations gradually transformed this view, dismantling prejudices and revealing the cultural, social, and spiritual richness of the Selk’nam people.

Some Salesian missionaries actively denounced the injustices suffered by these communities during the colonization process. Among them were figures such as Dominic Milanesio, an inter-ethnic and cultural mediator, and Albert Maria de Agostini, whose photographic, scientific, and pastoral work marked a profound change in the missionary sensibility of the time.

The 2d room brings together more than 30 photographs taken by De Agostini at the beginning of the 20th century, documenting the traditions, beliefs, clothing, and social organization of the Selk’nam people. The exhibition is completed by an excerpt from the documentary Terre Magellaniche (1933), one of the first film recordings of the indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego and southern Patagonia, as well as a selection of Selk’nam arrowheads belonging to the museum’s founding collection, unique vestiges of a millennial culture that was on the verge of disappearing.

The inauguration of this 2d phase took place on January 15, with a conference entitled “Reparación y revitalización de la memoria Selk’nam de Tierra del Fuego” (“Repair and revitalization of the Selk’nam memory of Tierra del Fuego”). The conference was attended by Margarita Angelica Maldonado, a descendant of the Selk’nam and cultural transmitter from Rio Grande, Argentina; Manuel Peris, a Chilean visual artist, graphic designer, and art professor; and Alejandra Muñoz-Tapia, a Mapuche social psychologist and doctor of psychology.

This meeting offered insights into the cultural, social, and legislative processes that today allow for the recovery of the collective memory of a people who for decades were considered “extinct” and who today are reclaiming their identity and rights in both Argentina and Chile.

With this 2d phase of the exhibit on the 150th anniversary of the 1st missionary expedition sent by Don Bosco, the Misiones Salesianas Museum reaffirms its vocation as a cultural and educational space at the service of memory, intercultural respect, and the construction of a more just present by listening to the past.

The exhibit can be visited free of charge until April 11 at the Misiones Salesianas Museum (Calle Lisboa, 4, Madrid), from Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and on Fridays also from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Homily for Thursday, Week of Ordinary Time; Day of Prayer for Human Life

Homily for Thursday
Week 2 of Ordinary Time
Day of Prayer for Human Life

Jan. 22, 2026
1 Sam 18: 6-9; 19: 1-7
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

Saul Threatening David
(by Jose Leonardo)

“Saul discussed his intention of killing David with his son Jonathan and with all his servants” (1 Sam 19: 1).

Several chapters of 1 Samuel narrate Saul’s jealousy and paranoia, often interpreted as schizophrenia or some other mental imbalance.  Thruout, David, the Lord’s chosen one, enjoys divine protection and Jonathan’s steadfast friendship, and he acts uprightly while protecting himself and his family.

Today the Catholic portion of our nation observes a day of prayer and penance for the protection of human life.  Another portion of the nation acts or at least thinks more like Saul—moved by fear, self-interest, or grossly misguided “compassion” to seek the lives of the innocent or to defend those who do so; not only unborn human life, but lives perceived to be painful or just useless.

If we perceive that it’s acceptable, even healthy, even necessary to make some humans disposable, we’re as sick as Saul was.  Iceland proudly asserts that it has eliminated birth defects.  They’ve eliminated the “defective” before birth.  That attitude affects our entire “enlightened” society—“enlightened” like the Third Reich.  That attitude, I think, is at the root of a great deal of the violence we lament in society:  random, senseless assaults in the subways, gang violence, carefully planned assassinations and mass shootings, revolutionary terrorism, and the invasion of territory.  If life is cheap, disposable, and subject to one’s feelings or national aspirations, why are we shocked?

David models patience and dependence on God.  Jonathan models defense of the innocent.  Many of the psalms attributed to David are pleas for God to uphold him and all who are upright.  So we speak up for the unborn, the ill, the elderly, and the refugee.  We persist in marching, lobbying, and weighing the moral character of candidates for public office.  And we pray. 

March for Life, Jan. 19, 2018
Washington

Homily for Tuesday, Week 2 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Tuesday
Week 2 of Ordinary Time

Jan. 20, 2026
1 Sam 16: 1-13
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, N.R.

Samuel anoints David
(Church at Dura Europos)

“Not as man sees does God see …” (1 Sam 16: 7).

One of the themes of the set of OT historical books we’re reading is quite simply that God’s in charge.

When the people demand that Samuel—whom they recognize as a spokesman for God—appoint a king for them, he does so reluctantly and only when God give him the OK, telling him, “It’s not you they reject; they’re rejecting me as their king” (8:7).

So long as Saul does what pleases the Lord, he and Israel do well.  When Saul disobeys, as we heard yesterday (15:16-23), he’s finished.  In the wider context of the books of Samuel, we may suppose that if Saul had repented immediately, as David did later when Nathan confronted him, instead of justifying himself, God would have welcomed his admission of guilt, as he did David’s.

But lacking that, God moves on to Plan C.  Rule by judges was Plan A, and Saul was B.  Now God chooses David.  It’s more than evident that God’s calling the signals from the moment he sends Samuel to Bethlehem, an insignificant town, and there chooses the least likely man, a mere shepherd boy, to anoint decisively with “the Spirit of the Lord” (16:13).

It remains true that individuals, the Church, and nations fare well when they let the Spirit of the Lord guide them.  Pope Leo recently reminded the diplomatic corps of that.  Yesterday 3 cardinals reminded the President of that, citing Leo as well as traditional moral teaching.

Today, here, we’re praying for and, in a sense, honoring a longtime friend[1] of Bro. Charles[2] who—so far as we can judge—sought always to follow faithfully the Holy Spirit’s lead.  External evidence is that Walter’s heart belonged to Christ.  May it be so for eternity.

And may our Lord Jesus always be pleased when he sees our hearts.

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[1] Walter Lau of Honolulu, †11-20-25.

[2] Bro. Charles Avendano, CFC, 100-year-old resident of St. Joseph’s.

Fr. Elijah Comini to Be Beatified

Fr. Elijah Comini, priest and martyr, 

will be beatified on September 27

(ANS – Vatican City – January 19, 2026) – On January 2, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, substitute of the Vatican Secretariat of State, informed Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna, that Pope Leo XIV had accepted the proposal to celebrate the Rite of Beatification of the Venerable Servants of God Ubald Marchinoni, diocesan priest, Elijah Comini, Salesian priest, and Martin Capelli, Dehonian priest, on September 27 in Bologna. The representative of the Supreme Pontiff will be Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Fr. Elijah Comini was born in the locality of Madonna del Bosco in Calvenzano di Vergato (Bologna) on May 7, 1910. Msgr. Fidenzio Mellini, a former pupil of Don Bosco in Turin, directed him to the Salesians of Finale Emilia. Elijah became a novice on October 1, 1925, made his first profession on October 3, 1926, and his perpetual profession on May 8, 1931. Ordained in Brescia on March 16, 1935, the Servant of God lived in the Salesian houses in Chiari (in the province of Brescia), until 1941 and Treviglio (in the province of Bergamo), from 1941 to 1944.

In the summer of 1944, Fr. Elijah returned for a few periods to the Bologna Apennines to assist his mother, who was now elderly and alone, and to help Msgr. Mellini in his pastoral work. He arrived in Salvaro on June 24. He remained there for just over three months, until his death.

Fr. Elijah helped the population with their many practical needs dictated by wartime, animated the liturgy, and promoted the reception of the sacraments; he supported the consecrated women and lived an intense apostolate in the exercise of all works of corporal and spiritual mercy. He also mediated between the opposing sides: the population, the partisans, and the Germans soldiers who were stationed in the rectory for a month (August 1 - September 1, 1944).

Fr. Elijah established a priestly fraternity with the young Dehonian Fr. Martin Capelli, which united them in ministry and martyrdom. On the morning of September 29, 1944, Fr. Elijah rushed with Fr. Martin to Creda, a village where the SS of a battalion of the 16th Armored Division had just perpetrated a massacre: their stoles, holy oils, and ciborium with some Eucharistic hosts clearly identified them as priests in the exercise of their ministry of comforting the dying. Captured, stripped of their priestly garb, and used as pack animals to transport ammunition, Fr. Elijah and Fr. Martin experienced intense suffering that day. Transferred in the evening to the “house of the carters” in Pioppe di Salvaro, they lived through 2 intense days, convinced from the outset that they were destined to die, yet remaining close to the prisoners. On the evening of October 1, they were killed in the group of “unfit” prisoners at the spinning mill in Pioppe di Salvaro, at the end of a surreal liturgy in which the SS had paraded the prisoners along a walkway before mowing them down with machine guns: Fr. Elijah intoned the Litany and finally cried out “Pietà!” (Mercy!). The bodies couldn’t be recovered because the spillway was opened and the impetuous current of the Reno River carried away the remains.

Fr. Martin Capelli, ordained in 1938, was a seminary professor. He moved with the students to Burzanella, in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. In the summer of 1944, he came to Salvaro to help the elderly parish priest of San Michele in the pastoral service of the village, despite that the area was at the center of armed clashes involving German and Allied soldiers and partisan groups. After the massacre perpetrated by the SS in the nearby locality known as “Creda,” like Fr. Elijah, Fr. Capelli rushed to bring comfort to the dying and was seized, abused, and executed.

Monument to Frs. Comini and Capelli at Salvaro

Fr. Ubald Marchioni was an exemplary priest, faithful to his community even in the most tragic moments of World War II. After years of formation and deep friendships in the seminary, he became a priest in 1942 and was pastor in San Martino di Caprara and Casaglia from May 1944. During the Nazi massacre of September 29 of that year, he remained with his parishioners until his violent death on the steps of the altar in Casaglia. It was among the rubble of that altar that a bullet-riddled ciborium was found, a symbol of faith and martyrdom.

Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, Salesian postulator general, states, “Fr. Elijah Comini, Fr. Martin Capelli, Fr. Ubald Marchioni, together with Blessed John Fornasini are young priests who embodied the charity of the Good Shepherd, giving their lives for their flock and with their flock, faithful ministers of the mysteries of redemption, artisans of peace, justice, and reconciliation.”

Homily for 2d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Jan. 18, 2026
John 1: 29-34
The Fountains, Tuckahoe
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

“John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’” (John 1: 29).

Last week we celebrated the feast of the baptism of Jesus, and we heard God the Father’s recognition of Jesus as his beloved Son and witnessed the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus in the form of a dove.

Today John the Baptist testifies that he has witnessed this event.  It seems that John doesn’t immediately recognize who Jesus is; but when he sees the Spirit descend on Jesus, then he knows who he is:  “He’s the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit” (1:32-33).

John’s recognition goes further:  “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”  This man Jesus, by giving the Holy Spirit to people, takes away sin—not just sin of some vague sort, but “the sin of the world.”  In another place, St. John tells us “the whole world is under the power of the Evil One” (1 John 5:19).  All the power and glory of the kingdoms of the earth belong to Satan (Luke 4:5-6).  This is that collective which John the Baptist calls “the sin of the world.”

It’s more than that; each of us bears the baggage of sin.  Each of us is weighed down by degrees of pride, greed, lust, anger, and a pile of personal sins.  All of that is encompassed when John announces the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

John the Baptist identifies Jesus as “the Lamb of God.”  He’ll repeat that identification the following day for the benefit of 2 of his disciples (1:35-36), who will proceed to follow and stay with Jesus.  So do we identify Jesus at Holy Communion when we echo John’s acclamation, “Behold, the Lamb of God” and he invites us to come to and stay with him.

What does “Lamb of God” mean?

It evokes the Passover.  The Hebrews in Egypt were spared when the angel of death passed over the land and slew the firstborn sons of all the inhabitants except in those houses where the doorposts had been painted with the blood of the passover lambs.  We are saved—John is crying out prophetically—by Christ’s blood, which marks our souls as belonging to God’s people.  This Lamb’s blood washes away our sins.  John points to Jesus so that we may go to him and claim his protection from the Evil One, so that we may be filled with the Holy Spirit, so that we may be saved.

So we come to Jesus.  We come every Sunday to be cleansed anew in the blood of the Lamb.  We come to the Lamb in the sacrament of Reconciliation, so that he may wash away our sins, all our words and acts against charity, our words against the Lord’s holy name, our unfaithfulness, our impurities, our lies, our impatience, our greediness.  We come to follow the Lamb; he leads us to the Promised Land where he dwells, as God led the Hebrews out of Egypt into the land he’d promised to Abraham.

 

Homily for Thursday, Week 1 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
Week 1 of Ordinary Time

Jan. 15, 2026
1 Sam 4: 1-11
Ps 44: 10-11, 14-15, 24-25
Collect
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

                                                                                    Philister pentapolis.gif

Ekuah at German-language Wikipedia

“After a fierce struggle, Israel was defeated” (1 Sam 4: 2).

The books of Samuel and Kings continue the history of Israel narrated in Judges, wherein the pattern is:  Israel sins against the Lord, suffers some kind of oppression, repents and calls upon the Lord, and the Lord raises up a champion to rescue Israel.

In these early chapters of 1 Samuel, Israel incurs guilt thru the sins of Eli’s sons and Eli’s failure to correct their behavior; that’s detailed in ch. 2.  Disaster follows, culminating in the capture of the ark of the covenant.  Israel is utterly humiliated.  O Lord, “you go not forth with our armies; those who hated us plundered us at will” (Ps 44: 10-11).

We don’t adhere to what’s called the “prosperity gospel,” viz., that material welfare surely follows from our faithfulness and virtuous lives.  On the other hand, it’s observable that a family or a society that’s not centered on God suffers from the effects of their own selfishness and belief that “the real world is governed by strength, governed by force, governed by power.”[1]

This week’s collect proposes to us a wiser way.  We plead for the Lord’s “heavenly care,” for the wisdom to “see what must be done” and the “strength to do what [we] have seen.”  The strength and power of God is our path to virtue and a happy community life—religious community or political community.

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[1] Trump official Stephen Miller speaking to CNN on Jan. 5.

A Baptism in Zaporizhzhia

A Baptism in Zaporizhzhia

From the darkness of imprisonment in Russia to the light of God’s love

(ANS – Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine – January 14, 2026) – “This Baptism has an important meaning not only for the personal life of the person who received it, but for the entire community of Zaporizhzhia. It is a sign of hope: the evil that tries to envelop our lives and extinguish the light of God’s love in our hearts is, in reality, powerless. Whatever evil we may encounter is never stronger than God’s love, which attracts, accompanies and guides man.” With these words, Bishop Maksym Ryabukha, Salesian of Don Bosco, bishop of the Greek Catholic Exarchate of Donetsk, recounted the Baptism he celebrated a few days ago in Zaporizhzhia: the recipient was a Ukrainian soldier, a former prisoner in Russian jails who had been freed. The Salesian prelate spoke about it on the occasion of the liturgical memorial of the Baptism of Jesus, last Sunday, January 11.

The “story” features a soldier who was defending his homeland and who, at a certain point, became a prisoner of war. “After months of torture and after experiencing all the drama that this experience entails,” says the Greek Catholic bishop of Donetsk, “it is inevitable that a person begins to reflect on the meaning of life, on the meaning of sacrifice and suffering. All this often leads to a search for a higher power, a search for God, someone who is beyond and above the human drama of existence.” The search for God becomes particularly intense when one is experiencing great suffering. “I believe,” Bishop Ryabukha notes, “that his interest in God was born precisely during his period of captivity.”

“After the grace of being freed following a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, he returned home, but that deep search for God remained in his heart,” the prelate continued.

At that moment, something in his life had changed. He began to seek out other people who had experienced imprisonment, those who had the courage to speak about that drama and the strength to promote a rediscovery of God. His search is intertwined with another story, that of Fr. Bohdan Heleta, a Redemptorist religious who, together with another confrere, Fr. Ivan Levytskyi, was imprisoned in Russian jails for a year and eight months, sharing that tragedy with many others, military and non-military. In short, “a prisoner among prisoners.” After that experience, Fr. Heleta became the promoter of an initiative: a program of help and support, including spiritual support, for those who had lived through the same experience.

The soldier found the announcement and decided to participate. And, upon returning home, he contacted the parish priest of one of the Greek Catholic churches in Zaporizhzhia and asked to be baptized, as he had never been baptized. He had grown up in an atheist family of Soviet tradition and had never asked himself the question of seeking God. For two months, Fr. Oleksandr Bohomaz prepared him to receive the sacrament. It was a journey of light and inner liberation. “Through reading the Holy Scriptures,” says the bishop, “he discovered the wonderful plan that God has for humanity and the paternal love with which he accompanies every step of man throughout millennia of history. All this made him fall even more in love with God and gave him the courage to say “yes” to becoming a Christian, to recognizing himself as a child of God and to the desire to follow in the footsteps of Jesus from now on.”

His Baptism becomes a message of hope for the whole community. Bishop Ryabukha therefore describes it as “a small sign of victory: God’s victory over the evil we experience in our daily lives. A victory that brings strong hope which gives meaning to life and even to suffering. I believe that Jesus has never abandoned any of us. What we sang and experienced a few days ago at Christmas, proclaiming that God is with us, Emmanuel, has become alive and present in the life of this man. And for all of us, this is also one more reason to feel and express gratitude to God.”

Source: SIR

Salesian Missions Comes to Support of 800 Flood Victims

Salesian Missions Comes to Support of 800 Flood Victims

Photo ©: Salesian Missions

(ANS – Lahore, Pakistan – January 14, 2026) – Salesians working in Lahore, Pakistan, received donor funding for flood relief thanks to Salesian Missions of New Rochelle. The funding helped support 800 people, most of whom are from large families with children and include pregnant women. Nearly 40% of the beneficiaries are under 16 years old.

“This helped us support families impacted by intense flooding,” said Father Noble Lal, director of Don Bosco Lahore. “Now that the emergency phase is over, we are in contact with some families who will soon send some children to our boarding school for a more stable educational path.”

One of the recipients is Danish, a 13-year-old boy. His house was damaged, but after repairs, his family was able to move back. Danish had attended grade 5 in Pasrur, but his school closed due to flood damage. Danish, along with some of his cousins, will now be attending the Don Bosco Youth Center and stay in the Salesian boarding house in Lahore.

Salesian institutions are open to youths of all faiths. The schools provide economic benefits, scholarships, and accommodations for students from the families most in need so that education is not only accessible but the aid also is an incentive for parents to send their children to school.

Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in South Asia at less than 50%. Although the country’s constitution acknowledges free and compulsory education between the ages 5-16, the rule is often not followed in rural areas for those over age 13.

Homily for Tuesday, Week 1 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Tuesday
Week 1 of Ordinary Time

Jan. 13, 2026
1 Sam 1: 9-20
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, N.R.

“Hannah rose after a meal at Shiloh and presented herself before the Lord” (1 Sam 1: 9).

Hannah’s miserable.  Family members mock her.  Altho he feels for her, her husband doesn’t understand her.  God’s high priest misjudges her.

But she prays.  She prays ardently.  She puts herself and her hopes into God’s hands.

Hannah’s faith and openness to God enable her to become God’s instrument, to become Samuel’s mother.

Our own ardent, trusting prayer allows God to work in us, and thru us to benefit his people.

Homily for Feast of Baptism of the Lord

Homily for the Feast of the
Baptism of the Lord

Matt 3: 13-17
Jan. 11, 2026
Is 42: 1-4, 6-7
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

Baptism of Jesus (Giotto)

“A voice came from the heavens, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3: 17).

At Jesus’ baptism, God the Father confirms his identity and his standing as beloved and pleasing.  During his public ministry, people would say of Jesus, “He’s done all things well” (Mark 7:37).  Human approval is nice, but far more important, satisfactory, and necessary is God’s approval.

This approval of Jesus refers to his humanity, which he shares with us.  Obviously, as the eternal Son of God he didn’t need to be approved by the Father because he’s the very image of the Father, “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God” (Creed).  But as a mortal man, he began to exist in Mary’s womb when she gave her consent; he was born like us, grew in wisdom, age, and grace, and experienced everything that goes with being human, including emotions, hunger, thirst, weariness, and temptation.  He had to learn to walk, to read and write, and to handle the tools of the carpenter’s craft.

God the Father voices complete satisfaction with Jesus, Mary’s Son:  he’s beloved and fully pleasing.

What is it that makes Jesus of Nazareth so pleasing to our heavenly Father?  Listen to what he told John the Baptist:  “It’s fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15).  “Righteousness” means being in a right relationship with God.  To be fully righteous, a man or woman’s heart and soul, mind and will, must be completely aligned with or in harmony with God.

Jesus is so aligned, so harmonized, with his Father.  The Father acknowledges that with his proclamation, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  That’s signified further by the descent of the Spirit of God upon Jesus (3:16).  Jesus the man is filled with the Holy Spirit and will be empowered to do the work of the Spirit in his public ministry and in all who receive the gift of the Spirit.

Bernini's Glory (detail)

That Holy Spirit is given to us at Baptism.  The sacred water of the sacrament makes us, like Jesus, beloved children of God, well pleasing to him.  And it commissions us to walk in the Spirit and do the Spirit’s work, as Jesus did.

Our 1st reading, from Is 42, announced the presence of a servant of the Lord “upon whom I have put my spirit” (42:1).  In the light of what happened at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, we recognize him as that servant of the Lord.  The Lord’s servant is to “bring forth justice to the nations” (42:1) to “establish justice on the earth” (42:4).  The Lord has called his servant “for the victory of justice …, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement” (42:6-7).

That justice may be read as a just or right relationship with God, and certainly that was Jesus’ mission, thru his forgiving sins and empowering us to live virtuously.  Opening blind eyes may be read as enabling us to see the presence of evil in our hearts and in how we live, so that we can choose to walk in God’s light.  Jesus sets us free from the prison of our sins.

But the Spirit of God in Jesus did more than spiritual work.  He healed people.  He welcomed outcasts and foreigners as children of God.  He called upon his followers to care for the poor and to forgive offenses.  This is a different form of justice and liberation.

We who follow Jesus, we who claim that his Holy Spirit is alive in us, also have to forgive, to welcome, to heal, to set people free—first of all, within our own families, then within our communities, such as our parish, our workplace, and our school, and finally within our wider society, our culture, and our politics.  The Spirit of God, the Spirit of justice, the Spirit of liberation, has no room for prejudice, for exclusion, for divisiveness, for character assassination, or for violence (“A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench” [42:3]).  As Christians, we are called to bring the Spirit of Jesus into our real lives by caring for the needy, welcoming strangers, healing the sick, and advocating for justice for everyone.

“It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness,” to bring God’s own Spirit into our families and our society.  If we try to do that, at the end of our lives, we’ll hear God’s voice from heaven, “You are my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.”

Salesian Missions Funds Clean Water and a Chapel in Africa

Salesian Missions Funds Clean Water
and a Chapel in Africa

Source: missionnewswire.org

Don Bosco Novitiate gains clean water access

(ANS – Morogoro, Tanzania – January 9, 2026) – Salesians at the Don Bosco Novitiate in Morogoro, Tanzania, have access to clean water thanks to funding from Salesian Missions of New Rochelle. The project is part of Salesian Missions’ Clean Water Initiative. Close to 1,500 people are benefiting from this project, including those in the surrounding community who are able to access the water.

The area is semi-arid at the foot of the Uluguru Mountains. Most families rely on subsistence farming or trade, and they face frequent water shortages in the dry season. Many homes lack electricity or piped water, and droughts and erratic rains make life challenging.

The project involved the construction of a new water system, including a submersible solar-powered pump inside the underground tank to push water up to a new 50,000-liter plastic header tank. Solar panels and an inverter power the pump, ensuring an independent energy source. In November, the reservoir, pump, and header tank were fully connected and delivering water by gravity to all taps across the novitiate and youth center.

All 350 people on site now have a dependable daily water supply without interruptions, allowing residents to bathe, cook, and clean without rationing. This uninterrupted access has improved daily living conditions and hygiene.

The Salesians also offer free water outreach to the surrounding community. In the past, the public tap often ran dry by midday. Now water is available all day, even at peak demand. Women and girls benefit from shorter lines and are able to access water when they need it.

Deusdedit K. Julius, coordinator of youth activities, said, “Now the tank is finished, and it has changed our lives. We no longer need to ration water. There is enough for the novices, the oratory youths, and even the neighboring families who come to our gate.”

Julius added, “Health and hygiene have improved. The children at the oratory can wash their hands or even take a quick shower after playing. This is a luxury we couldn’t afford before, and the novices can keep themselves and their clothes clean without stress. Our whole community is now optimistic. This gift of water has given us our life back. The time we spent searching for water, we now spend on productive work and with our youths. God bless everyone who made it happen.”

Community in Kapesa has new chapel

(ANS – Kapesa, Zambia – January 9, 2026) – Salesians in Kapesa, located in the Kazembe Mission in Zambia, have completed a new chapel thanks to donor funding from Salesian Missions. Work included clearing the land and construction of the building, which is also equipped with a new water system. 

The Catholic community of Kapesa is happy with the new chapel. For years, people had been praying in a nearby school classroom. Having a church of their own has brought a deep sense of pride in their freedom of worship. 

One of the elders in the community, Benedict Chitundu, said, “In the beginning we did not have a proper established church. The late Father Gotter, a Polish missionary, had established this center in 2005 without a proper structure. For so long, we had wished to have a place of worship of our own. Our former parish priest, Father Gabriel Mwenya, saw that our situation was not conducive for prayer. We had to use a classroom on Sundays, and sometimes the head teacher would refuse to give us the keys. This left us without a place. We people are very proud and grateful for this great gesture, recognizing us with a beautiful house of God, a place of worship, and a place of refuge in terms of distress.”

Salesians in Zambia provide a range of social development programs and education to aid youths who are poor and at risk so they can have a healthy, productive life. Early education helps youths gain a foundation to allow them to advance later to skills training for employment. Basic needs are met along the way, ensuring that youths focus on their education.

Pilgrimage to Rome Concludes the Holy Year

A Pilgrimage to Rome for the Conclusion of the Holy Year

(L-R: Frs. Rich Alejunas, Dieunel Victor, Augustinian friar,
Jim McKenna, Steve Ryan, & Rich Crager after a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica)

(ANS – United States – January 9, 2026) – A group of Salesians from 5 communities in the United States began a ten-day pilgrimage to Rome on December 25, to experience the final days of the Holy Year. Carrying the prayers and intentions of all their confreres, the pilgrims embarked on an intense spiritual journey with enthusiasm and faith. They visited the papal basilicas in Rome, celebrated Mass at the tomb of St. Peter, climbed the Holy Stairs, prayed in Assisi and venerated the relics of St. Carlo Acutis, visited the Catacombs of St. Callistus, attended an audience of Pope Leo XIV, and prayed the Angelus with him on the first day of the year. They were welcomed with great hospitality at Salesian Headquarters in Rome, where the rector major, Fr. Fabio Attard, was waiting for them. They also celebrated Mass in the place where Don Bosco wrote his famous “Letter from Rome” in 1884. The pilgrimage was organized by the treasurer of the Salesian Province of the Eastern United States and Canada, Fr. Rich Alejunas, with the support of the treasurer general, Fr. Gabriel Stawowy.

January Message of the Rector Major

THE MESSAGE OF THE RECTOR MAJOR

Fr. Fabio Attard, SDB

A CHALLENGE TO OUR HUMANITY

Wealth that risks making itself blind and deaf

The rich man and Lazarus
(Gustave Dore')

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus, found in Luke’s Gospel (16:19-31), isn’t simply a story about the just distribution of material wealth. It’s a story that penetrates the heart of the human condition, confronting us with a disturbing question: who/what truly owns whom? Did the rich man own his wealth, or did wealth own him, turning him into its slave?

This reversal of perspective opens a space for profound reflection. The man in the parable was condemned not for stealing or exploiting, but for becoming blind and deaf. His tragedy lay not in having, but in not seeing and not hearing. He lived in a world reduced solely to the sphere of his home, his possessions, his immediate well-being. At the door of his house lay Lazarus, covered in sores that the dogs came to lick, but that poor man had become invisible, his silent cry inaudible.

Existential wealth

When we talk about wealth, we tend to think immediately of money, material possessions, and financial success. But there’s a more subtle and pervasive wealth: existential wealth. It’s the wealth of those who are comfortable, who’ve found their own comfort spot, who live surrounded by positive relationships, rewarding experiences, and reassuring certainties. This is the wealth of a functioning community—a group where one feels welcomed and an environment where everything goes along nicely.

This existential wealth is a gift, there’s no doubt about it. It’s right to enjoy it, celebrate it, and realize the beauty of what we experience. But it’s precisely here that the most insidious danger lies: that of closing oneself off within this abundance, of transforming the space of well-being into a gilded ghetto, cut off from one’s surrounding reality.

The rich man in the parable lived like this. He lacked nothing, yet he lacked everything: he lacked the ability to see beyond himself, to notice others, and to allow himself to be touched by the reality that was pressing at his door. His wealth had become an invisible prison, with bars made of habit, indifference, and self-absorption.

The blindness and deafness of comfort

The “comfort zone” is one of the most dangerous concepts of modernity. It deludes us into thinking that well-being is a right to be protected rather than a gift to be shared. It convinces us that maintaining our equilibrium is more important than opening ourselves up to the cries of others. It whispers to us that we’ve already done enough, that we can finally relax, that other problems don’t directly concern us.

The rich man’s blindness wasn’t physical but spiritual. He saw his own palace, his own clothes, his own lavish table. But he didn’t see Lazarus. Not because Lazarus was hidden, but because the rich man had developed that particular form of blindness that filters reality, allowing only what confirms his own vision of the world to pass through.

And there was also deafness. The text reveals this second flaw when the man, from the afterlife, begs Abraham to send someone from the dead so that his brothers will listen. But it was he himself who hadn’t listened! He was deaf to the silent cry of poverty, to that suffering that doesn’t scream but persists, that doesn’t disturb but exists, that doesn’t demand but waits.

Interior listening as the indispensable condition for exterior listening

How do we overcome this double paralysis of blindness and deafness? The answer lies not in a simple effort of the will or a program of social activities. The answer lies in a deeper conversion: we can’t see Christ in the poor if we don’t contemplate Christ within ourselves. We can’t hear the cry of the vulnerable if we aren’t attuned to the voice of God in our hearts.

The great witnesses of charity—from Don Bosco to Mother Teresa of Calcutta—did not begin with a sociological analysis of poverty, but with a mystical experience of God’s love. Their ability to see, hear, and respond externally was born of an intense interior life, a contemplation that was not an escape from the world but a preparation for an encounter with the world.

This is the paradox: the more we descend into the depths of our own hearts to recognize God’s love, the more we acquire the capacity to reach out to encounter others. Spiritual life isn’t a narcissistic withdrawal, but the training necessary to develop the sensitivity that allows us to perceive Christ wherever he manifests himself.

The mission as a sharing of wealth

Every person is a mission. This statement doesn’t mean we all need to become frenetic activists or commit ourselves to grandiose projects. Rather, it means that the wealth we have received—material, cultural, spiritual, existential—isn’t our exclusive property but a gift meant to be shared.

Those who love get moving, go outside themselves, allow themselves to be attracted and attract in return. Love is dynamic by nature: it can’t be accumulated, preserved, locked away in a comfort zone. Either we share it, or we lose it. Either we circulate it, or it becomes corrupted.

The challenge, therefore, isn’t to give up existential wealth, but to possess it differently: not as jealous owners but as generous stewards, not as final recipients but as channels of transmission, not as a point of arrival but as a starting point for new paths of sharing.

Creative minority and signs of hope

In a world marked by growing inequality and structural indifference, those who choose not to become blind and deaf necessarily become a minority. But this is a creative minority, capable of kindling glimmers of hope, even small ones, but certainly contagious ones.

Hope is neither naive optimism nor passive resignation. Hope is a person: Christ, who continues to challenge us through every Lazarus lying at the door of our existence. Recognizing him there, in the disfigured face of the poor, in the silent cry of the excluded, in the ignored suffering of the vulnerable, is the only way to avoid becoming slaves to our wealth, to avoid being consumed by our own well-being.

The parable leaves us with an urgent message: today, now, before it’s too late, to open our eyes and ears to the reality that surrounds us. Because tomorrow, on the other side, it’ll be useless to regret not having seen and listened.