Matthew 3:1-12, Second Sunday of Advent Let’s try not to short circuit Advent to get to Christmas. The four candles here are for the four weeks of Advent. We are now entering the second quarter of this time of preparation. Listening to John the Baptist is part of this preparation. He tells us today to…
Category: Author: Jett Villarin, SJ
Powers – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 23:35-43, Solemnity of Christ the King First we learned addition, then subtraction. After that, multiplication, then division. Then we learned exponents, the so-called powers. That little superscript to the right of a number we soon learned was a power. It had power to make any number big. And so two raised to the power…
Chasm – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 16:19-31; 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time In today’s parable, the rich man has no name. Right there and then we sense from his namelessness that he might be someone less than a person, someone heartless, without remorse. He is not known to God. The poor man has a name, even while he was full…
Last – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 13:22-30, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time The crisis over flood control is very much in our news these days. A flood happens when there is much coming in and very little going out. We will not dwell on why so little is going out except to say that the outlets are constricted because of…
Heavenward – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 24: 46-53; Solemnity of the Asencion Fr Vic Badillo SJ, of happy memory, was our resident astronomer at the Manila Observatory. An asteroid is named after him. We used to say that of all the Jesuits working at the Observatory, Fr Vic had the best job of all. He spent his evenings looking up…
Moving – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 24:23-29, Sixth Sunday of Easter Nothing in this world is ever still. Everything is moving all the time. When something moves, we say it is alive. When it is motionless, we say it is lifeless. Motion is life. Life is motion. Even things that seem dead to us are not without motion. The…
Credo – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 20:19-31, Divine Mercy Sunday “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. (Jn 20:29)” If I told you that I have seen the Lord, would you believe me? Thomas wouldn’t. The doubters would say, fake news, hallucination, cultural conditioning, psychological projection, superstition,…
Chance – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 13:1-9, Third Sunday of Lent I once missed the last bus to Davao from CDO that was scheduled to leave 12midnight. Arriving about 15 minutes past departure, there I was trying to figure out how on earth I was going to get to Davao where I was supposed to speak the next morning. Along…
Remainder – Jett Villarin SJ
Luke 6:27-38, 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you (Lk 6:38).” Five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year? … How about love? Well, how about love? How do you measure love? Do we measure it: In daylights,…
Inaugural – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21, Third Sunday in Ordinary Time As far as inaugural speeches go, how I wish (wish ko lang, sana all) that every leader would take after Jesus and begin their term of service by making their own the mission of our Lord, the program of action he sets about to do in our…
Smitten – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 1:1-18; Christmas Eve To grasp the very gift and meaning of Christmas, I often turn to this story that is really a parable by Soren Kierkegaard. Once upon a time there lived in a great castle a king so powerful and wealthy he was adored and feared by all in his kingdom. Alas, in…
Gracious – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 1:57-66; Last night of Simbanggabi “Goodness gracious, great balls of fire” is a song sung by rock and roll singer Jerry Lee Lewis in 1957. “Great balls of fire” is an old American southern exclamation of surprise (or dismay). The modern equivalent is OMG. Or SMY (SusMarYosep). I don’t know how the expression “great…
One Lost Sheep 