Msgr. Anselm Nwaorgu

SOLEMNITY OF CHRIST THE KING READINGS: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112220.cfm On the last Sunday of each liturgical year, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christ the King. This solemnity was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925, in response to the then growing nationalism and secularism that sought to thrust Jesus Christ and religious spirituality out of public life. The Pope was alarmed by this trend, and saw in it, a big threat to human civilization and relig

THIRTY THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME READINGS: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111520.cfm The gospel of this Sunday speaks about the inevitability of suffering in the life of a Christian. So, I would like to turn my radar on the role of suffering and adversity in our lives. Sir Edmund Hillary made several unsuccessful attempts to climb Mount Everest and failed. After one of those failed attempts, he stood at the base of the mountain, shook his fist at it, and shouted:

TWENTY EIGHT SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME READINGS: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101120.cfm This week, my attention is drawn to the Responsorial Psalm on this 28th Sunday in Ordinary Times because it is such a powerful prayer of confidence and trust in our God. It is taken from Psalm 23; a psalm that states that we should not be shaken by adversities in this life because we worship a God who is the Lord of deliverance; a God who can save, no matter how desperate the situ

TWENTY FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME READINGS: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092020.cfm The gospel reading for this 25th Sunday in ordinary time is about a master who went out to the market place, at different hours of the day, to hire laborers for his vineyard. What struck me, in that story, is the fact that when the master went out around 5:00pm, an hour before the end of the workday, he saw some laborers still standing and waiting to be hired. Guess what? They wer

TWENTY FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY READINGS: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091320.cfm As we celebrate the 24th Sunday in ordinary times, the readings return to a critical issue Christ often spoke about—Forgiveness. In the book of Sirach 27:30 and 28:1-5 we read: “Anger and unforgiveness are abominations, yet the sinner hugs them tight. The vengeful will face the Lord’s vengeance; for He will remember all their sins in detail. Forgive your neighbor the wrong done to you

TWENTY THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME READINGS: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090620.cfm In the second reading of this Sunday, the Bible enjoins us to owe nothing to anyone except love—the duty of care (Ref Roman 13:8). That is to say, no matter the nature of the relationship we have with people, there are certain things we owe them as a matter of divine obligation. One such debt that we owe is the duty to pray for others. You see, where we are today in life is not ju

TWENTY SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY READINGS: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/083020.cfm Over time, I have come to realize that if you don’t climb a mountain, it is very difficult for you to view the plains. Yet climbing a mountain is never easy. There will be challenges to deal with, obstacles to overcome, and stones thrown from left, right and center that must be dodged. In the past few months, Coronavirus has tried to stop us from our ways of life. It has brought so ma

TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME READINGS: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082320.cfm In reading the lives of some very famous people, I am amazed at how so many of them were told, in their childhood, that they would amount to nothing, simply because they showed no promises earlier in their lives. Take a look at Winston Churchill, who in his junior years seemed so dull that his father thought he might be incapable of earning a living in life. How about Charles Dar

EIGTHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME READINGS: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080220.cfm “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here,” said the apostles, that is to say, how far can that go in feeding these five thousand people? What the apostles forgot was that the bread was going to be put in the hands of Jesus; the only things needed to have over 12 basket-full of bread crumbs leftover after the people had eaten to their fill. We so often underestimate what God

READINGS SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME A manager went out to lunch with his sales rep and store manager. On their way to the restaurant, they saw an antique oil lamp by the roadside. They picked it up and as they rubbed at it, a Genie jumped out and, looking at the trio, said: “I’ll give each of you just one wish, so ask for anything you want”. The store manager shouted, “Me first! Me first!” and went on to make his wish. “I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedbo

READINGS FOUTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME As we celebrate the fourth of July this year, let us remember the important role that “Prayer” played in the American struggle for independence. On that first day, when The First Continental Congress gathered on September 5th 1774, the suggestion to start the Congress with prayer was met with opposition because (as John Adams reports in his letter to his wife) “we were so divided in religious sentiments—some Episcopalians, some Quake

READINGS Our Responsorial Psalm, for this Sunday, the 13th Sunday in ordinary times, is: “Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord”. What a beautiful acclamation, and yet, what a difficult time to appreciate it, living, as we are, in this pandemic environment that is marked with racial tensions, sickness and pain, loss of loved ones, anguish, bigotry, desperation, poverty, unemployment, and sorrow. It is fairly easy to trust in God's love, to rejoice in his salvation, and

READINGS: Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ This Sunday, we celebrate “Corpus Christi”, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ; the One Bread and the One Cup that we share, even though we are so many—“Gentile or Jew, servant or free, woman or man”—all in the one Lord, Jesus Christ. This is the will of God for humanity. But just as in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve followed the counsel of Satan, not to worry about what God has said but to be their own g

READINGS One the most beautiful statements in the readings of this Pentecost Sunday, is from the 2nd Reading which is taken from 1 Corinthians 12:7 where Paul says: “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good”. This passage reveals a beautiful truth—that God did not send us into this world empty handed but rather, equipped us for the work we need to do so that creation may be completed. That is to say, God sent us here fully equipped and i

READINGS From the questions people are asking me and their thought processes, I get the impression that there seems to be an underlying assumption that coronavirus is, somehow, a punishment from God for what our world has turned into—another Sodom and Gomorrah where all kinds of behavior and acts of the immoral order are judged to be okay; where liberty has turned into libertinism and whatever feels good and appealing to the individual is okay to do; a total rejection of the

READINGS The first reading on this 5th Sunday of Easter touches on something that is so real to life, and to our Church community, that it is worthy of some reflection even as we are dealing with, and living in this pandemic times. The reading brings out a basic truth about life—be it individuals, families, Church, organization, etc.—the more you grow, the greater your challenges and struggles. Unforeseen challenges are part of what we must live with, deal with, and hopefully

READINGS: As the impact of coronavirus COVID-19 begins to unfold in all its present and future dimensions, the one thing we need right now, I believe, is some light in the darkness of this moment. The experience of darkness seem to be all over us; it seems to be one darkness after another—mass shootings, hurricanes, fire outbreaks, storms, ecological disasters, virus pandemics; you name it. Each darkness brings along with it all levels of brokenness—broken people, broken fami

READINGS My dear people of God, a pandemic has befallen us. In Old Testament days, this would qualify as a plague, something that calls for deep reflection on who we are and how we are with our God and with our neighbor. With our society more secular and our advances in science far more sophisticated, we may easily fall into the temptation of seeing this pandemic with purely humanistic eyes, without much regard to its spiritual implications. More still, we may be tempted to l

READINGS Last week, we began reflecting on the powerful spiritual exercise of Eucharistic Adoration. Here, I would like to recall the words of Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical “Redeemer of Man” where he said that our communal worship at Mass must go together with our personal worship of Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration in order that our love may be complete." In an apparition to Catalina, Jesus said: “I promise to the soul that visits Me frequently in this Sacrament of Love

READINGS The adoration of the Holy Eucharist is a devotion we have instituted in our parish for the past two and half years. It is a powerful devotion designed to grow us, both as individuals and as a parish, spiritually. I therefore want to reflect on this devotion, as a means of educating our parishioners about Eucharistic Adoration, and thereby encouraging all of us to fall in love with it. You know, one of the most prominent declarations of the Council of Trent (that is t