Making Friends With The Lord Jesus

Our actions have great consequences. One of them is that they give us an indication of how we will be treated in return. This requires us to be more personally responsible for them.

Perhaps what we could learn from our Muslim brethren, who are so radical that some are willing to blow themselves up with so many others as suicide bombers. What motivates them to go to such extremes? The carnal reward that is promised to them! While this arrangement and assumption is antithetical with real religion, what we could learn to do is to think more of the reward God has in store for us. Is it selfish to think this way and to motivate ourselves to reach Heaven?

Our Lord in the gospel chooses His Apostles. All of them deserted Him when He most needed them. One of them betrayed Him and committed suicide. What do these details have to do with us, modern apostles of His?

Let us celebrate the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary!

There is no such thing as Christianity Lite or Catholicism Lite. Jesus makes it clear in the gospel of today's mass.

Today, we listen to a familiar story of the New Testament about a discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees. This latter group questioned the lawfulness of Jesus' disciples picking and eating grain on a Sabbath. They characterized the action as unlawful. Jesus ended the argument by saying that He is Lord of the Sabbath. He is the Law's Author and therefore the authority to interpret the Law properly. This is based on His divinity. He is God in flesh!

Today, we are given the opportunity to check how we practice fasting according to Catholic tradition. This ascetical means is not to be limited to matters of food and drink, but to all kinds of tendencies we easily indulge in, like worrying, being pessimistic, complaining, saying hurtful words to the others, vengefulness, etc.

Today, the Lord calls us like He did in the gospel. He called Simon, whom He renamed Cephas, Andrew, Simon's brother, and James and his brother John, all of them fishermen. With the miraculous catch of fish, Simon sees himself unworthy because he was a sinner. All the same, Jesus confirms his choice. He encourages us not to fear. He is greater than any sinfulness. We only need to trust Him.

Today, Jesus reaches out to people. However, when we try to find a place where He could rest, the people continue looking for Him. This behavior is what we need to emulate and foster throughout the day: in happy times and in sad times, when we feel we are at the top of the world and when we feel we are at the bottom, etc.

Since we are in the business of dealing with God, we need to read Him correctly. But we go about this in exactly the way we look at Him. If we look at Him like the demon does in the gospel today--that is, he is fearful that God would destroy him--we should understand that that is because of his bad dispositions. His dispositions basically are described best by saying that he wants to displace or replace God. He likes to think that he is God, although this sounds quite ridiculous. But this was how he tempted Adam and Eve. He wanted them to fall for what he did when God required them a test regarding whether they, the angels, would serve Him or not. Lucifer and his companions didn't. Hence, they became devils. Because of his dispositions with regard to God, he rightfully feared God destroying Him. What if we had better dispositions, like that of trusting Him and loving Him, etc?

Many times we are baffled by the presence of evil. If God exists, why does evil exist? It is obvious that there is another source to account for evil and that is created freedom. Anyhow, Jesus in the gospel today reads an ancient text of sacred scriptures in the synagogue of Nazareth where it was prophesied what the Messiah would do when he does come. Jesus reads those deeds in book of Isaiah. He sits downs and avers that that scripture was being fulfilled by his coming. Good is being accomplished even when there is much evil around.

One of the greatest temptations we may get in this life and one of the greatest successes of the demon is to have convinced some of us that we need to focus only on this life here on earth, i.e., we should live thinking only of the success of this present life. Forget about the future life, i.e., eternal life in Heaven or Hell. The Lord in the gospel tries to dispel this shortsighted outlook.

We read about the famous parable of the talents that Jesus speaks to us today in the gospel of the mass. Believe it or not, these talents provide us with certain hope to reach Heaven.

The Lord criticizes the hypocrisy of the scribes and pharisees because they were more concerned about demanding from the people great fidelity to God and His injunctions. They, however, let themselves off any responsibility to follow those same demands. So, Jesus, condemns such superficiality in their religious practice. Hence, He tells the people to listen to what their religious leaders teach and not follow their example.

The gospel today tells us about another parable of Jesus where He teaches us about the Last Things, namely, heaven, hell, death, judgment. Jesus portrays heaven as a wedding feast. Our being to go to heaven is shown as the invite the king extends to his guests to attend his son's wedding. The story describes the reception of such an invitation. Find out what that is for we are all invited by God to Heaven. Some reject the invite. Others eliminate the emissaries of the king bringing the invitation. No one turned out to accept the invitation. So the king expands the invitation to anybody. They filled the wedding venue but the king found a guest not properly dressed for the occasion. He commanded his servants to throw that man out. That is hell!

Today, the Lord makes it plain to us that he demands from us everything and that we trust Him absolutely. We cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time. We cannot have our cake and eat it!

We expound today a couple of Virtues needed for another living together with the others, namely, gentleness and Flexibility. We do so in the context of the young man's question to Jesus narrated in today's gospel.

The title to today's homily points out the Lord's words declaring to us that we need to reach peace through struggle to do all the good that we are capable of doing. I emphasize that we are not here in this world simply to fight against temptations to commit sin. We need to do better than that. We are supposed to struggle also to do all the good that we can do. Hence, many of our sins involves sins of omission.

Today, the Church proposes for our consideration Jesus' teachings about becoming like a child in order to belong to the Kingdom of Heaven. This carries certain consequences in how we live our lives as adult Christians. Listen to the homily.

Jesus points out to us today in the gospel of the mass the obligation to mind the lives of the others. A concrete manifestation of this is the duty to show concern for them by giving them fraternal corrections and suggestions.

We will hear Jesus emphasizing again the need to forgive the others, since God forgives us our sins and faults. That is the bottom reason for the Christian duty of charity to forgive and excuse the others. The Lord points out that there should be no limit to having to do this. Our divine Redeemer narrates the story about two servants. The first experienced being forgiven of the great debt he owed the master. The second one suffered not being understood and forgiven of his small debt to the first servant. The master reprimanded him especially because he was forgiven himself.

Jesus shows us today His idea of being humble. He connects it to becoming a child. Hence, He expresses His concern for the child, who shouldn't be despised or harmed. The other lesson is that He elucidates what to be the greatest in His Kingdom consists of. It is in becoming a child.

Today's gospel shows us an intimate picture of how Jesus treated St. Peter. Our divine Redeemer paid the required Temple tax for Himself and Peter.

The Lord's message is simple and direct. We must be prepared for the transition to the next life. We need to be because this life on Earth is merely a preparation for the definitive life in eternity.

The apostles were not able to cure the lunatic so of a man who approached Jesus for help shutter His disciples were unable to be of help for lack of faith. We need to rush to Jesus for help when we also experience our own version of "lunacy", in that we behave differently from what we need to be or do.

Jesus does not hide the need to follow Him in denying oneself and carrying our Cross daily. He makes it plain and clear. However, Peter is not in the same wavelength as Our Lord. Thus, He reprimands him by calling him Satan. Peter at that point had still much to learn.

Jesus is transfigured in today's gospel to celebrate the feast of His Transfiguration. What can we learn from this Luminous mystery of the Holy Rosary?

We celebrate today the memorial of the dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major. It is the largest church in the world dedicated to God in honor of His Mother. It was constructed in the early 4th century on the spot where our Heavenly Mother let snow fall in the middle of the Roman summer. F for our gospel text we are brought to contemplate the interaction between Jesus and St. Peter.

Today, we celebrate the memorial of St John Vianney, patron saint of priests. We give thanks today for our priests in a special way. But why do we have priests? Take a listen to today's homily.

Little did the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary know that their daughter would become the Mother of Jesus. They simply did their duty as good parents. If we fulfill our ordinary everyday activities to the best of our abilities for the love of God, we would change the world for the better!

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. James, Apostle. The gospel brings to our attention the conversation between the mother of two apostles, James and John. She requested Jesus to install her sons in the highest positions of His kingdom. Listen to the homily about the vision Jesus has of the leadership roles in His kingdom.

Today's gospel enlightens us about our relationship with the Blessed Lord. Find out about it in the podcast.

We are called by the gospel today to be good ground for the seeds God does in our souls.

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle. That's right! She is the first one asked by Our Lord to announce the Good News of Jesus' resurrection. He has triumphed over sin and death. This is totally unprecedented. She is a woman!

The gospel today tells us about signs. There were people, the scribes and pharisees, who asked our Lord for a sign. Check out His reply.

Today, we meet Martha and Mary at their home with Jesus as their guest. The two present to us two different ways of living our lives here on earth. We know that our stay here on earth is a preparation to be with God for eternity. Martha felt harassed and anxious about her working compounded by being alone without Mary not realizing she could be helping her. She asked Jesus for help. But the Lord helped her realize that Mary was fine listening to Him. He pointed out that Mary was agitated because she was missing something essential which was what Mary was doing, namely, her awareness of being with Jesus and listening to Him. That was the only thing necessary, that she in her concern shown in preparing to be hospitable with the Lord, she was not praying like her sister was.

Today's gospel reveals the difference in the words we utter in response to different circumstances that happen to us. With bad things, we can curse. With good things, we react differently. The last line of the text tells us about reacting with hope. Listen to the homily to check this out!

Today, Jesus clarifies who is the Lord! This term was employed by the reverent Jews with respect to God's name. They preferred not to pronounce His Name and use another term. They applied the word the Romans used to refer to their Emperor. Thus, what the Jews did was actually subversive in the Roman Empire because Yahweh was the Lord. Anyhow, on the occasion of the controversy the Jews began about their criticism of Jesus' disciples who picked on grain to eat it to satisfy their hunger. After alluding to a couple of justifications for that behavior that were about the commandment of the Sabbath being trumped by other commandments, Jesus concluded with the final justification, namely, Jesus is Lord even of the Sabbath.

Jesus invites us in today's gospel to rest, and to rest in Him. He described how this looks like. We should imitate Him, in being meek and humble of heart.

Today's gospel message is too significant to overlook or to miss. It is so because we all want to become friends of Jesus Christ. For that to happen, we need what our Lord reveals today. We need to be childlike. Listen to the homily.

Today's gospel reveals to us a certain frustration of Jesus. Capharnaum became His second residence, after Nazareth. He adopted the city as His HQ for His public phase of His stay on Earth. He performed many miracles there, but still its population resisted Jesus and His message. So, our Lord makes it plain that they would suffer more than what Sodom and Gomorrah underwent when God sent fire and brimstone from Heaven to destroy them. This episode should spur us to wake up our sense of responsibility to respond generously to Our Lord's invitation to conversion and more self-giving.

Jesus explains clearly today what He wants from His followers. He does not mince words. He does not hide behind euphemisms. Nobody will be able to say that any of His demands or requirements were not clearly made plain. He employs strong words. His standards are clear. He demands that He is above every consideration: above family, above parents or any creature we may take fancy with.

The gospel today addresses these two very important questions, namely, eternal life and the identity of our neighbor. Let us be open to the words of Jesus so we could adopt whatever measure or make necessary adjustments in our lives to incorporate Jesus' commands in our circumstances.

Be not afraid! We address those bad fears in today's gospel!

The Lords sees us all as sheep without a shepherd. We tend to be defenseless when facing the enemies of our soul, especially the devil and his two allies, namely, worldliness and our fallen nature. Hence, He reveals to us today that He is the shepherd of us sheep. We might fall prey to deceptions and lies the devil expertly spreads around disguised as ideologies, wokeness, materialism and consumerism, etc. Shall we permit Him to shepherd us by faithful to listening to Him in prayer, in getting regular instruction in our faith and morals, in going to frequent confession and spiritual direction and the like.

The Lord asks us to be generous since He has been generous with us. His gifts are totally gratuitous. He was never obliged to give us anything, least of all to award us the gift of existing and is that of being destined to be with Him for eternity. The reality is obvious, namely, that He has given us so many things that we absolutely do not deserve having and that we are totally obliged to be thankful to Him for. Then, we need to be generous also with our neighbor.

Being summoned by God is something we need to get used to. Today's gospel particularly illustrates this. Jesus called some of his disciples and sent them as His apostles. He calls us all the time because He is always in touch with us. Our problem is that we are not disposed well enough to be sensitive to His summons consciously. We are His creatures. In man's case, each man is specifically and individually summoned by God from nothing. He thought and freely willed each of us to existence, when we were conceived and from then on for eternally, in whatever circumstances that happened, whether by the marital embrace, or by rape, or by a lab technician in a petri dish.

Haven't you experienced those moments when you felt that you needed help, or you had questions, or felt that you needed to accept or acknowledge responsibility for something, etc? We all have gone through them. We actually continue to experience those occasions when we omitted to say something when we should have. The gospel reveals to us today the existence of kinds of devils. Today, we are introduced to the mute and dumb devil. He prods us to shut up, hide certain things inside our hearts or minds. Practically, this is all about keeping secrets the devil. This arrangement is dangerous.

Our relationship with God boils down to trusting Him. The gospel today provides us two miracles-both happening to women-where trust in Jesus is highlighted. Explore this in the homily.

Today, the Lord tells us about our role in the Church. We are like ambassadors of Christ. We are the face of Christ to the others. They will be attracted or repelled by Christ depending on each of us showing the face of Christ to them.

The gospel today sends us to contemplate Jesus explaining to the Jews the reason why His disciples did not fast just like them. They were proud about themselves being able to fast so much, such that they were critical of Jesus' followers who did not fast. Jesus clarified that He was still around. Only when He is gone when He dies on the Cross will they begin to fast. But as it is, He was still with them. Those Jews were envious of them because they thought themselves better being able to fast much.