Matthew 21:28-32, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Pictures are cheap nowadays. You see this when photographers just click away with abandon. It is no longer enough to just have one photo; there has to be a “safety” one as well. This inflation is easily explained by the law of supply and demand. Lots of supply…
Month: September 2017
Do you sometimes feel that God is unfair? – Francis Alvarez, SJ
Matthew 10:1-16, 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time A landowner goes out at dawn and hires laborers to work in his vineyard. He does the same at 9:00 am, 12:00 noon, 3:00 pm, and 5:00 pm. That evening, those who started working at 5:00 pm are given a full day’s wage. Those who started working at…
Just Imagine – John Foley, SJ
Matthew 10:1-16, 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time I taught religion in grade school for a short semester when I was about 22. By accident I discovered a great trick of teaching—and I needed one very much. You see, the class was in complete chaos each time I arrived at mid-day. Chaos. If I started telling…
How I Almost Flunked My Oral Exam Because of Today’s Parable – Johnny Go, SJ
Matthew 10:1-16, 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Many years ago I was a student in a class called “Homiletics.” Maybe you can’t tell, but people training to be priests take a class to learn how to preach, and our final examination is an actual homily that we deliver before our professor. I had very mixed feelings…
Grumbling or Grateful – Willy Samson, SJ
Matthew 10:1-16, 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Our Sunday Gospel today brings us to the reality that God is looking for us. He wants us to work for Him. The reading is divided in to two major parts: Responding to the call and purifying my selfish desire. RESPONDING TO THE CALL. He wants us to…
Forgiving 77 Times – Manoling Francisco, SJ
Matthew 18:21-35, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time Our readings today invite us to be merciful toward others as God is merciful toward us. Indeed, to forgive is one of the most difficult virtues to live out. Fr. Bill McGary once shared when we were young scholastics that the mark of a genuine Christian community is…
The Art of Forgiveness – Mark Aloysius, SJ
Matthew 18:21-35, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time Just a couple of days ago, I witnessed something that made me think even now of how limited our capacity to forgive is, and how much our readings today want to expand our capacity for forgiveness. Outside an apartment building, I saw a young mother screaming at security…
The Two Things We Need to Know about Forgiveness – Johnny Go, SJ
Matthew 18:21-35, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time Today’s Sunday Gospel is about forgiveness: Peter, on the one hand, monitoring his quota on forgiveness, and our Lord, on the other, tossing all that accounting out the window by reminding us that by the way, we all of us are recipients of the Father’s boundless mercy, remember? Forgiveness is…
We Forgive because We have been Forgiven – Fr Harold Parilla
Matthew 18:21-35, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time Our Readings for this Sunday center on the theme of forgiveness. This theme is ever-relevant, sometimes too relevant that it makes us all uncomfortable. We are imperfect, and we are surrounded by others who are similarly lacking in perfection. Expectedly, we offend people and people upset us. It…
Breaking the Chain – John Foley, SJ
Matthew 18:21-35, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time This Sunday is all about forgiveness. The Gospel illustrates in stark terms what this word means. First, look at the initial readings, which are preliminaries. The First Reading, from the Book of Sirach, tells how awful wrath and anger are, but how the sinner “hugs them tight,” a…
77 Times – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 18:21-35, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time From my own life and from the life of people I have accompanied through the years, I observe three reasons why we find it so difficult to forgive: (1) We don’t say “I’m sorry” enough; (2) we remember past hurts like they happened only yesterday; and (3), we…
Sinless and Sorrowful – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 19:25-27, Friday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time, Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows I had very bad attacks of asthma when I was a child. If it weren’t for dad who’d stay up all night to rub my chest and my back, I wouldn’t have slept at all. Dad never had asthma. But…
One Lost Sheep 