Matthew 16;13-20, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time The person who has keys is someone who can open many doors. Keys signify power, the power to open and close doors, the power to give or deny access to what lies inside. We keep valuable things under lock and key. We sometimes think of heaven as a…
Category: Author: Jett Villarin, SJ
Priceless – Jett Villarin, SJ
Matthew 13:44-46, 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time When I was small, I once wanted a bicycle so much I hounded my parents for it. Understandably my parents did not grant my dearest wish right away, not wanting perhaps to spoil me, perhaps also out of concern for safety. Anyhow, finally, my father told me, if…
Imagine – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 6:51-58, Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) Christ is here present as bread and wine, as something so ordinary yet essential as food. Of all the sacred signs and symbols, why this? Why not an exquisite jewel, a diamond? An ancient scroll of sacred words or a precious…
Intimior – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 20:19-23, Pentecost Sunday It is common practice in our Jesuit communities to sign out whenever we are out of the house for more than a day. When I was in Cagayan de Oro, Fr Terry Barcelon SJ of happy memory and I used to tease each other about who was out of the house…
Unstrange – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 10:1-10; Fourth Sunday of Easter The universe is about 93 billion lightyears wide. If the universe were as big as this wall behind me, our solar system would be smaller than an atom. That’s how small and insignificant we are, physically. Makes you wonder how we in our microscopic smallness could even grasp or…
Train – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 11, Fifth Sunday of Lent The artist David Medalla once asked me, “Father, why do we go on living if we know we’re going to die.” I don’t remember what my answer was, except to suggest that life is like riding a train. We don’t just get off the train even if we could,…
Magnets – Jett Villarin, SJ
Matthew 4:1-11, First Sunday of Lent Magnets are fascinating objects. The natural ones (like magnetite) have electrons spinning about all in the same direction, giving rise to force fields that either attract or repel other objects. We even give labels such as “poles” (north or south) to explain that like poles repel while opposite poles…
Blessed – Jett Villarin, SJ
Matthew 5:1-12a, Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time To be alive is to be fed at varying frequencies. Take breathing. We need to bring in fresh air every few seconds or so. We cannot skip breathing for longer than several minutes. After an hour or so, we need to drink water. After a quarter of a…
Galilee – Jett Villarin, SJ
Matthew 4:12-17, Third Sunday in Ordinary Time The first time I went to Disneyland, I was a young adult. This was in the mid-80s. There were the usual rides but the one that has been memorable is the refrain of the song, “It’s a small world after all”. It’s a world of laughter, a world…
Family – Jett Villarin, SJ
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23; Solemnity of the Holy Family The Holy Family is Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and not just Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Holy does not mean flawless and so holy is for every family. Our parents are not perfect any more than we children are saints. And speaking of saints, in the words of…
Prepare – Jett Villarin SJ
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…
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…
One Lost Sheep 