Luke 20:27-38, 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Play God for a moment and imagine you are pondering whether or not to bestow immortality on the crowning achievement of your creation, the human person. You consider the upsides and downsides of your move to grant eternity to humanity, and weigh these against each other. A lifespan…
Category: Author: Jett Villarin, SJ
wru – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 17 5:10, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time When our date does not arrive at the appointed time, we text or call. Before cellphones, what did we do? We waited. Now that email connects us almost instantaneously, we are pressured to respond just as instantaneously. What did we do before email, when we had to…
Cost – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 14:25-33, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Would you not follow the one who could walk on water, turn water into wine, and multiply five loaves to feed five thousand? There they were, the multitudes, following him to Jerusalem. He knew he was going to end up on Calvary. They thought he was going to…
Vigilant – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 12:35-40, 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time I have a theory that Filipino drivers are one of the most alert drivers in the world (with the Italians coming at a close second maybe). That’s because they never know what’s coming at them. The unpredictability sharpens their senses. When I was learning to drive, my father…
Harvest – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 10:1-9, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Sometimes I wonder what that means. I look at our own nation, and I say, indeed, the harvest is great, and yet the potential of…
Fullness – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 7:11-17, Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time “You haven’t lived.” That’s what I say to people when they tell me they’ve never climbed Mount Apo or done the whitewater of Cagayan de Oro. It’s only an expression I know but a line I hope that pauses people (including myself) and makes us ask about what…
Learning – Jett Villarin, SJ
John 14:23-29, Sixth Sunday of Easter We see things fall to the ground and we matter-of-factly say gravity. Think about it. What is it about the mass of an object anyway that attracts another object with mass, the way we were taught in elementary physics? What happens with “massless” and speedy stuff like light, which…
Easter Newness – Jett Villarin SJ
Easter Vigil 1999 Loyola House of Studies A parishioner once commented that their priest’s homily was like the peace and mercy and of God. Like the peace of God, it surpasses understanding. Like the mercy of God, it endures forever. J If this evening’s Easter homily endures beyond your endurance, please be merciful. * *…
Because of Easter – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 24:1-12, Easter Vigil 2010 One-dimensional. That was how Mayweather described Pacquiao’s fighting style. I guess it means a limited repertoire of moves, predictable, monotonous. Easter can be understood in a one-dimensional sense too. We can for instance reduce Easter to the afterlife (“pie in the sky when you die”). However, we do not really…
Live – Jett Villarin, SJ
Luke 24:1-12 (Easter Vigil 2016) Are we live? That was my question to the Arvisu pre-novices when I was giving a talk to them sometime ago. Yes, father, we are live. They were kidding of course even if the usual phone camera was trained on me. Those three monosyllables are a good way to start our…
This Easter Side of Eden: Our Story – Jett Villarin SJ
Easter Vigil 2007 Once upon a time, there was a garden, a beautiful garden. God was in the garden. A man and a woman were in the garden with God. They spent most of their days working the earth, tending the garden. There were days the ants would get the peanuts they had planted and…
Goodness – Jett Villarin SJ
Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion Lectionary: 40 Good Friday 2015 Somehow, somewhere there is goodness to be found in the ruins of today. In searching for that goodness, let us be honest. It is not easy to find goodness in the terrible things of today. It is not easy to draw clarity from…
One Lost Sheep 