Mark 1:40-45; 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time If Jesus was a devout Jew, an dhe was—why did he obey some rules but violated others? He observed feasts and fasts. He attended synagogue and taught there every day. He prayed a whole lot. And in today’s Gospel, he even told the leper to go to the…
Author: ninangdeb
Voice – Jett Villarin, SJ
Mark 1:21-28, Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Are you afraid of God? Israel was. They were deathly afraid of God, afraid to hear his voice directly, afraid to see the “great fire” of his presence. They had had enough of these direct encounters and they somehow sensed that any more face-to-face meetings with the divinity…
Dependent – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Mark 10:-13-16; Feast of the Santo Niño As soon as dad turned 80, which was seven years ago, I’ve been flying home to Davao first thing every January to visit him and my family. Thank you, God, that dad is still with us. He’s relatively healthy. His blood chemistry is better than mine, kuya’s or…
FOMO – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 1:35-42; 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time This little phone in our pockets reminds us that we are always on call. It need not always be a person that wants our attention. It can be news or pictures or short movies or whatever. It is hard to resist the buzz that signals a call. Hard…
Grow – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 2:22-40; Feast of the Holy Family The first 20 years of our life is the time of foundations and roots. We do not lay those foundations ourselves. We learn to eat and walk and talk from others. We are trained for toilet and manners and autonomy by someone else. This is the time we…
God naman – Arnel Aquino SJ
Christmas Day 2023 Could God have been entirely luminous, mystical, and otherworldly in his coming into our world? He could’ve, couldn’t he? I mean, he created everything from absolutely nothing. He unleashed plagues, parted the Red Sea, rained fire down from heaven to clobber King Ahab’s false gods. He sent for a flaming chariot that…
Immeasurable – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 1:18-25, Simbanggabi Alam n’yo po, lahat ng naging kakilala kong karpintero, tahimik. I can still name all of them: Manong Imo, who lived with us for a long time; Mang Rudy, when I was in the Novitiate, Mang Remy and Kuya Teodor, fantastic craftsmen in San Jose Seminary. And today, we have Kuya Loloy…
Grounded – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Mark 1:1-8. Second Sunday of Advent From 1968 to the 1990s, archaeologists dug up several purification pools around wherethe Temple of Jerusalem once stood. Mikvoth, they were called, the precursors of our holy waterfonts today. For the Jews, the Temple was the holiest place on earth. You didn’t just waltz into itlike you and I…
Power – Jett Villarin, SJ
Matthew 25:31-46, Solemnity of Christ the King In electricity, power is energy per unit time. It is usually measured in watts. A two horsepower air conditioner, for example, is about 1500 watts or 1.5 kilowatts (kw). The electricity we pay for however does not depend on power. It depends on energy, which is power multiplied…
God’s – Jett Villarin, SJ
Matthew 22:15-21, 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time A musical instrument such as a violin makes its unique sound from waves of air that ripple from the action of the bow on its strings and the echoes from its wooden body. Another instrument, the flute, pipes its sound by creating a different set of waves from…
Love Never Passes Away – David Xu, SJ
Matthew 21:33-43, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us a parable about a landowner and his vineyard. The landowner leaves the vineyard in the hands of his tenants to tend. However, the tenants behaved far from expected. They seized, beat, stoned, and even killed, the landowner’s servants. This happened again and…
Cornerstone – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 21:33-43, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time You know how difficult it is to enter Ateneo, right? It’s legendary now. These past months, there’s been a regular turnover of new guards at the gates. So, all faces are unfamiliar to them including ours, campus residents. So, whether we’re in a car or on foot, we…
One Lost Sheep 