Feast of St Ignatius de Loyola, 31st July 2024 There is an interesting article on the website of the British Province, Thinking Faith, which is entitled “My own personal Ignatius.” Ten persons–Jesuits, lay people, religious women–share who St. Ignatius is for them, what it is about Ignatius that inspires or touches them most. A former…
Author: ninangdeb
Bounty – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 6:1-15; 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time Is it not wondrous that from one seed alone you can get more seeds later? Is it not a miracle that this one seed can grow to become a plant which flowers into fruit that bears even more seeds? We can sort of explain away this biological miracle…
Trinity – Jett Villarin, SJ
Matthew 28:16-20, Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity We commonly think of an object as either here or there. It cannot be here and there and everywhere at the same time. In the quantum world of the very small however, things get weird. Surprisingly, a single particle (such as an electron) can bi-locate. It can…
Irrepressible – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 20:19-23, Pentecost Sunday The New Testament Greek word for soul or spirit is pneuma. But that’s only the translation of the Old Testament Hebrew, ruah, breath or air or wind. Hence, when used of God, ruah & pneuma and mean breath of life, or an atmosphere or ethos of sacredness, or the unstoppable force…
Air – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 20:19-23; Pentecost Sunday The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once compared the Blessed Virgin to the air we breathe. Today, Pentecost, in celebration of the Holy Spirit coming into our lives, we will compare the Holy Spirit to the air that surrounds and sustains us. Like the atmosphere, the Holy Spirit helps us listen,…
Gone But Not Absent – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Mark 16:15-20, Feast of the Ascencion of the Lord Mom’s parents didn’t want her to move out when she and dad got married. Their house was large enough to fit us all, especially since mom’s siblings were migrating soon. And dad’s family was poor. I grew up in a very emotionally complex house, especially because…
Vine – Jett Villarin SJ
John 15:1-8, 5th Sunday of Easter I’ve always wondered about seedless grapes or seedless watermelons. I mean, they’re convenient and nice, but how do you keep them going? It must be by some biological magic that they keep showing up on our tables. I would think that seedless fruit are like celibates. They’re a dead…
Reason for Living – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 10:11-18; 4th Sunday of Easter If mom and dad initiated me into Sunday mass, it was my Uncle Will who initiated me into spirituality. He was the kind of Catholic who constantly pursued deeper knowledge and wisdom in faith, prayer, and church life. So, he read inspirational books and saw spiritual directors like Frs…
Palms – Jett Villarin, SJ
Mark 14:1-39, Palm Sunday It was a head-turner. This scene of Jesus entering Jerusalem. The people were there for the big feast and they had heard that Jesus was coming. They had heard about Lazarus. They wanted to see Jesus. Even the Greeks who had come for the feast went to Philip, asking him, “Sir,…
The Jesus We Come to See – Nemy Que, SJ
John 12:20-33; 5th Sunday of Lent “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” The Greeks, who made this request in our Gospel reading, were surely not expecting amessiah. But they had heard about this man, Jesus, and wanted to see him forthemselves. They had no doubt heard about how he had healed the sick, raisedLazarus from…
What Needs to Die – Karel San Juan, SJ
John 12:20-33, Fifth Sunday of Lent “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Jesus compares us to a grain of wheat. If it falls to the ground and dies, it…
A Whole New World – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 3: 14-21, 4th Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday) When I was formator in San Jose Seminary, we had seminarians from a college seminary in the province, run by very traditional priests. The priests themselves were trained in Europe by a group of clerics we Pinoys would call katoliko-sarado-de-candado; Roman Catholics of the strict persuasion….
One Lost Sheep 