Luke 7:36 – 8:3 (11th Sunday in Ordinary Time) A sinful woman enters the house where Jesus is, bathes his feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and anoints them with the ointment. In response, Jesus makes two statements which are related, yet different. The Lord points out that because of…
Category: Season
Bump With Love – Willy Samson, SJ
Luke 7:11-17, Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time People bump into each other everyday. According to one study, at an average of 78 years lifespan, and assuming that we bump three new people daily, at the end of our lifetime, we should have met a total of 80,000 people. Think about it. Just imagine the potential…
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…
Holy Food – Mark Lopez, SJ
Luke 9:11b-17 (Solemnity of Corpus Christi) When was the last time you tasted love in your food? Not during those rushed, 15-minute lunches at the office cafeteria, I’m sure. But maybe on your last visit to your favorite restaurant ? On an auspicious day, perhaps, when the chef felt more inspired than usual and added…
So what if God is Trinity? – Francis Alvarez, SJ
John 16:12-15 (Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity) Catholics and members of most other Christian denominations believe that there is only one God, and God is Father, Son, and Spirit. St. Augustine expressed this conviction in another way: The one God is Lover, Beloved, and the Love between them. So what? Revealed in these terms…
Inhale, Exhale – Ulysess Cabayao, SJ
John 20:19-23 (Solemnity of the Pentecost) One way to think about the Pentecost is to think about how we breathe. One of the biblical metaphors for the Spirit is breath—it is known as ר֫וּחַ (ruach) in Hebrew, πνεῦμα (pneuma) in Greek, and spiritus in Latin. The association of breath with spirit is not unique to…
Default – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 14:23-29, Sixth Sunday of Easter I once had lunch with a dear friend sometime ago. As we got settled in our seats, I asked her straightaway, “O, how’s name-of-husband doing?” See, a few weeks before that, I received a text from her that said, “Arnel, please pray naman for name-of-husband. He’s becoming really cranky….
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…
Knowing When to Quit – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 10:11-18, Fourth Sunday of Easter 2015 I’ve read this beautiful Gospel passage so many times in my life, I thought I would no longer find any new message in it, until I pondered over it again this week. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the phrase Jesus keeps repeating here is “lay down my life”….
Hungry – Arnel Aquino, SJ
John 21:1-19, Third Sunday of Easter The worst thing about religious life is being far from family. But the best thing about religious is being far from family—because when I visit, they share with me deep-down things that they’d normally keep to themselves if I were with them all the time. I was in Davao…
Heaven is Togetherness – Arnel Aquino, SJ
1 November 2015, All Saints’ Day Thanks to the stampitas that were so popular when I was growing up, for the longest time, my impression of the saints was that they were very solitary people with an uninterrupted line to God. I often envisioned saints on their knees, and their fingers interlocked in prayer, and…
The Gentle Rain of Mercy – Norlan Julia, SJ
John 20:19-31 (Second Sunday of Easter/Feast of Divine Mercy) The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I This year’s Divine Mercy Sunday takes…
One Lost Sheep 