Making Friends With The Lord Jesus

Today we remember the Holy Guardian Angels and their essential role in our journey to Heaven. This is especially relevant when my listeners in Cebu have been affected by the recent 6.7 intensity earthquake that hit especially the north of the island. Let us pray for those affected and to their guardian angels and the guardian angel of the province.

It is easy to claim that we'd follow the Lord wherever He'd go. But many times we set a condition. Listen about it in the homily.

We learn today about St. Jerome and his struggles with his predominant defect. The gospel tells us about the determination of Jesus in going to Jerusalem, although it will be where He will meet His death. He freely wanted to show us His love by dying on the Cross. Are we as resolute in doing God's Will?

We have witnessed all kinds of matches in our lives, from boxing to all types of sports where the goal is to beat the other athletes and teams to win the gold medal or trophy. Today, our Mother the Church reminds us to complete our appreciation of reality. What is real is not only our material world. There is a more real world of spiritual creatures, of angels and archangels. Let us learn about the three most important ones in the homily.

Today, the gospel tells us of the fear of the apostles of Jesus in asking him a question to clarify their confusion. Since they feared asking, they did not learn anything. The offshoot of that fear was causing them more suffering than necessary. Find out more about this matter in the homily.

Today, the gospel tells us of the fear of the apostles of Jesus in asking him a question to clarify their confusion. Since they feared asking, they did not learn anything. The offshoot of that fear was causing them more suffering than necessary. Find out more about this matter in the homily.

WE need to ask this question many times. Otherwise, we might unconsciously treat Him as simply one of us or part of creation, when in fact is the absolute Other, beyond our universe. He is transcendent. But at the same time He is found so much in the interior of any creature anywhere in the universe because without Him that creature or creatures would fall into nothing. We need this reminder often. When we sin, we relegate Him many times to the corner, away from our concerns. He is God and we owe Him absolute obedience and attentionl.

We learn today about the terrible case of Herod the Tetrarchof Galilee when he coldly addressed the public “problem” of Jesus Christ. He wantedvery much to see Jesus. So, when they discussed him, people surmised that Jesuswas a prophet of the past arisen, even the recently decapitated John the Baptist.Herod acknowledged that fact. He had him executed. Interestingly, he never morallyevaluated his action. Learn more about it in the homily.

Today, we are reminded by our Mother the Church about each of us members of the Mystical Body of Christ that we have been sent. You read that correctly. As members of the Catholic Church, as Catholic Christians, we are essentially sent by Our Lord Jesus Christ, just like He sent the apostles to fulfill a mission. What does that mission entail? Find out in today's homily.

When I visited the Holy Land several years ago, one of the first sites we visited was the wall of Jerusalem. We saw the Golden Gate. Quite evident to us were the many graves lined up in front of that sealed gate, awaiting the second coming of the Messiah. The people on those graves wanted to be there, close to Him. It is difficult to find someone who does not want to sit or stand close to a celebrity or someone who is a VIP. If we want to be close to Jesus, then we need to hear His word and act on it.

Lamps are supposed to give light. Light is needed to see well our way. Jesus is compared to light. He is the Logos, or the Word of God. Hence, He is properly understood as Light. He is God's Wisdom to guide us to our proper destination. Without Light, we get lost and get misguided or deceived and get lost from the way.

Today, the Lord poses before us this choice between God and Mammon. He avers to us that we cannot serve them both. That is an either-or choice. But never both! The reason is that we actually do not get to give everything to God, who deserves and demands all of us to love and serve Him, because we will give something to mammon. What we tend to do is get the best of both, so to speak.

The seed is the word of God. In this particular moment of our salvation history, the word is the very only Son of God, the Logos, according to St. John's gospel Prologue. For Jesus to produce fruit, He needs us to be good soil.

The Lord normally asked men to follow Him. Today, the gospel tells us that those women mentioned followed and accompanied Jesus and His men to provide them with their resources. Those women had the bold spirit of initiative to attend to what they as women could contribute to help our dear Jesus and His Apostles focus on preaching and guiding souls.

Today, the Lord shows us a perspective we seldom appreciate. He reveals that those who have asked God to forgive their many sins and have been forgiven, will love Him most. The sinful woman in the gospel today poured on Our dear Lord so much affection showing she loved Him very much because of her many sins. Jesus forgave her on the spot because she loved much.

God is the Hound of Heaven. The analogy comes from a breed of dogs, legendary for their ability to look for items or persons because of their keen ability of smell. God keeps on searching for all of us till we heed Him and return to Him. He does so in so many ways, like when we are captivated by beauty, good, the rottenness of evil, etc.

Jesus resurrects this man to return him alive and well to his widowed mother. It is because of compassion that He did so.

The Church directs our attention today to the Mother of Jesus at the foot of the Cross. Because of what was happening to her Son she also suffered. The gospel brings us to reflect on the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary. There was this old man Simeon who prophesied about the Baby Jesus and His Mother.

Today, the Church reminds us about the Cross of Jesus Christ. It was the instrument He employed to save mankind from sin and death. From His death, Resurrection, and Ascension, we receive all the graces needed to help us get to Heaven. Hence, we appreciate the importance of the Cross as a ladder to climb to eternal life with the Blessed Trinity. Jesus converted this ancient symbol of torture, death, shame, and domination into a trophy to be desired because He sanctified it and made it desirable insofar as our personal salvation would require. It is a symbol of hope for us.

Our Lord calls each of us to seriousness in following Him. During His life here on earth, He constantly called out the hypocrites among the Jews who were shallow in their religious practice. Calling on the Lord is not enough. Knowing the Lord in His teachings is not enough. They won't do, until we practice what we know.

Today, the Holy Mother Church encourages us to call upon the Blessed Virgin Mary by using her name Mary much more. Let us call her, asking for help and her protection. Our problem is that we rely more on ourselves and our strengths. We imitate young teenagers who are embarrassed by their friends because of the presence of their moms when they go to school. We hate their teasing us because we look immature, still depending on our mothers. Even if that may be somewhat true, there is absolutely nothing wrong in flying to the Blessed Virgin Mary always. God wants it!

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!