John 14:1-12; Fifth Sunday of Easter Ever heard the word, “cathoholic”? I chuckled the first time I heard it a few years ago. I kinda suspected what it meant before I looked it up. Cathoholic: a Catholic who’s drunk with Roman-Catholic beliefs, traditions, rituals, morals, but misses out on the Christic values, like option and…
Category: Author: Arnel Aquino, SJ
Scars – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 20:19-31, Divine Mercy Sunday On my left wrist is a scar shaped like a J, what’s left of four stitches from when I was in third grade. I was carving soap for a project when I mindlessly slammed my arm down a carving tool. It cut my wrist open, bad enough for dad to…
Empty Jars – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 4:5-42, Third Sunday of Lent In Jesus’ time, the village well wasn’t just a water source. It was the “singles’ bar” back in the day, if you will. Among many, shepherds, travelling merchants, and unmarried daughters stopped by the well to water their flock, get a drink, or fetch water for the house…and also,…
More! – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 4:1-11, First Sunday of Lent If we still believe that Genesis 3 is a literal story of moment number one of sin number one, how do we account for the following difficulties, like – did snakes really talk in the beginning of time? Why was the snake malicious if God created everything good? If…
Soggy Cereal – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Luke 9:22-25, Thursday after Ash Wednesday When I was on graduate studies abroad, my turn came to be community grocer. I made sure we had bread, milk, eggs, cheese, and cereals. One afternoon, an American scholastic, heavyset and hairy, waddled into the TV room where I was watching the news. Without excusing himself, he asked:…
Opposites – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Mark 8:14-21B, Tuesday of Week 6 in Ordinary Time Don’t you find it interesting that into that ark Yahweh asked Noah to build, walked opposites. Not just opposite genders, mind you, but also opposites in purity and impurity. “Of every clean animal, take seven pairs; and of the unclean animals, one pair. Likewise, every clean…
All About Freedom – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 5:17:37, Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Imagine a former slave of Pharaoh saying: “We’ve recently been freed from eight generations of slave life, thanks to Moses and his awesome God! Before them, we had no idea what freedom felt like. Well, now we’re free! No more slave drivers, whips, or clubs. We have a…
Fixer and Feeder – Arnel Aquino, SJ
12th January 2023 For a long time, like many religious men, most of my own difficulties in my personal life sprang from my hunger for fatherly love. Many religious men have “lost father syndrome.” Our fathers were either physically or emotionally distant. My dad was a strange combination. He was mostly emotionally distant. But when…
John and Maria – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 3:1-12; Second Sunday of Advent The other night, I was astounded to see Maria Ressa appear on the Late Show with StephenColbert. Then, yesterday morning, she appeared on NPR news with veteran journalist JudyWoodruff. And last night, she was on MSNBC news! “How to Stand Up to a Dictator”, the bookshe had written, was…
Thankful – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Luke 17:11-19; 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time What we consider leprosy or Hansen’s disease today might not exactly be the same disease the Bible calls “leprosy.” In Scriptures, “leprosy” was really a catch-all term for disease that made skin dry, crusty, scaly, and well, unsightly. Back then, water was scarce and unfiltered from dirty wells….
Sorry, not Sorry – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Luke 15:1-32, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time When we think of mercy, awa, we often think of the object of mercy as being the poor, the oppressed, the helpless, the api. Which is okay because they do need mercy. But strangely enough, notice that the parables of mercy are not about the poor or the…
Agapasme – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 21:1-19; 3rd Sunday of Easter You’ve probably heard this interpretation of John’s Gospel before. But it’s just so rich that it bears repetition. John’s Gospel was written in Greek, and with Greek sensibilities. The Greeks had four words for love: eros, storge, philia, & agápe, two of which appear in today’s Gospel. Eros is…
One Lost Sheep 