Luke 4:31-37, Tuesday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time Did you hear of that story of a priest in Mindanao? He was exorcising a possessed man who was yelling profanities at him while he sprinkled him with holy water. “Pahawa! Pahawa dautang espiritu!” the priest said over and over again. Then at one point,…
Category: Author: Arnel Aquino, SJ
Cold as Hell – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 16:21-27, 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time You duped me, Lord, and I let myself be duped. Niloko n’yo ako, Panginoon; ako naman nagpaloko.” Imagine talking to God that way? Must’ve been one of prophet Jeremiah’s bad, bad days. Jeremiah means “Yahweh exalts.” But biblical tradition calls him “the weeping prophet”. God called him because…
Scraps of Love – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 22:34-40, Friday in the 20th Week of Ordinary Time As soon as the Uber driver knew that it was a seminarian who hopped into his car a few months ago, he started telling the Josefino his story. The Josefino told me the story from the Uber driver’s persona, so I’ll do the same with…
Behind – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 15:21-28, 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time Allow me to briefly explain tonight’s troubling Gospel. According to the commentaries, the Matthean community had two voices: the particularist and the universalist. The particularist voice in the community taught that Jesus came to the world to save first “the children of Israel”; so Jews first, then the…
Who’s Testing Whom? – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 14:22-33, 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time Have you ever drowned? I actually drowned when I was in grade 4. Our dad had bought us new diving goggles for an upcoming beach trip. So, kuya and I decided to try them out at a neighbor’s swimming pool. It was the first time I had ever…
Fixer – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 17:1-9, The Transfiguration of our Lord We had a Himig Heswita concert in Tokyo over two weeks ago. Out of the six singers who were supposed to perform, only two made it. The other four didn’t get their visas on time. It wasn’t really their fault. Last May, our very well-meaning secretary volunteered to…
Lit – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 13:1-9, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. With the help of brain imaging, neurologists can actually hook us up to a machine and see parts of our brain light up as they get activated by stimulus—like a picture of a loved one, a whiff of cologne, a song. What neuroscientists find fascinating is when someone…
Thaw – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 10:37-42, 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time You’ve heard of parents who would love for a son or daughter to enter the priesthood or to be a nun. My parents were like that. Funny how you remember some things like they happened only yesterday, but it was one rainy night when Dad and I sat…
Secrets – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 10:26-33, 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time A good friend of mine lost a little over P100,000 recently. Apparently, the ATM he had used was rigged. All the “secrets” kept in that magnetic strip were stolen. “Skimming” is what they call the scam. Banco de Oro said they’d been trying to get in touch with…
For-Whom – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 6:51-58, Solemnity of Corpus Christi When I was in 2nd-year college here, I lived with 12 other guys who were thinking of entering the Jesuits, like I was. We stayed in Arvisu House along Katipunan, and Fr Jess Lucas was our director. One Saturday, at the end of a two-day silent recollection, we gathered…
Person and Relation – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 3:16-18, Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Did you see the video showing the Maute savaging St. Mary’s Cathedral in Marawi? We hear about this all the time—ISIS or the Taliban or Al-Qaeda vandalizing holy places out there in the Middle East. But it doesn’t hit as hard and hurt as deeply until you…
Communion – Arnel Aquino, SJ
Matthew 28:16-20, Solemnity of the Ascension When I was in graduate studies, I lived with an American Jesuit who was a former US Navy soldier. He had been deployed to missions in Syria and Afghanistan, and was even briefly missioned in Subic. While fixing some lunch one day, he asked, “So, Arnel, how’s the interfaith dialogue with…
One Lost Sheep 