Making Friends With The Lord Jesus

The Lord reveals to us a physical image about a supernatural reality. The allegory is the vine and its branches. He is the vine and we are the branches. It is clear that being connected to the vine will keep us the branches alive and fruitful. Not only that. Those that are fruitful are pruned by the vine dresser so that we bear more fruit. That means that God subjects us to tests, pain, suffering...

Jesus illustrates to us the meaning of the claim that we follow Him. Today, Jesus proposes certain comparisons and analogies about what it means to follow Him. The idea He wants us to grasp is that following Him is absolutely more demanding than any other earthly requirement. God must be followed first and foremost. We may need to drop everything else to follow Him.

Today's gospel reveals to us Jesus' revelation of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. It is God revealing Himself to us. He revealed He has a Logos of Himself, the Word of God, begotten by the Father. Those are two divine Persons. Then the third Person is revealed to us who proceeds from the Father and the Son by way of Love, that is, the love between the Father and the Son for each other.

Jesus called this commandment a new commandment, namely, love one another. It is not new because it just came out from God instructing us on how to deal with one another. It is new because we can always begin again. We find it to be difficult to love those who are hard to love. It is easy to love when the object of our love is pleasant. But this is temporary, gets outdated, or we are open to the v...

Today's gospel is most interesting! It consists of Jesus' revelation of His relationship with His Father. Philip, one of His Apostles, asks Him about showing the Father to them. Jesus replies that the Father and Him are one such that when you see the Father, you see the Son as well. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. There exists a mysterious union about the two Person...

Jesus speaks to us about our troubles in today's gospel. We all get troubled, one way or another. It is very proper of creatures because of our limitations that troubles assail us. We fuss about things too. Many times we get ourselves uselessly troubled. Jesus invites us not to be troubled. He assures us of reaching heaven, where He has something prepared for us. That's remarkable! Then, H...

We are situated by today's gospel in the sermon on the mount of Jesus. After He taught the Beatitudes, one of the things He was saying referred to two images that He identified Christians or followers of His should be like. Those items are salt and light. Jesus emphasized that, "You are the salt of the earth," and "You are the light of the world." Salt and light! Two realit...

Today, we celebrate the feast of an Apostle. Matthias is his name. He was chosen to replace the slot of the twelve--clearly taken from the number of tribes of Israel, i.e., twelve--vacated by Judas Iscariot. They cast lots and the lot fell on Matthias. This is the wonderful thing. It is God who calls, but the way He calls may be just like that, as casting lots. It is God who chooses always.

Today's gospel continues the Good Shepherd theme of yesterday's liturgy. Our dear Lord cautions us so we learn to discern good from bad, i.e., the good helps us to reach our true and final destiny, namely, heaven; but there are other actors in this theater of operations who are not interested in us getting there, but they exert their influence on us by wiles, deceptions, lies, etc., to get...

Who is the Good Shepherd? This is the 4th Sunday of Easter theme. The shepherd leads his sheep to clean waters and healthy grass. He protects them from dangers and predators. But the sheep need to learn to listen to him, and let itself be led by him. We need to learn to listen and then to listen to God.

The Lord's Eucharistic discourse winds up today in the gospel taken from St. John Chapter 6. It all comes to a head because Jesus proposes that we need to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood to have eternal life. Many of His followers found this shocking and unacceptable. Many of His followers left Him. He did not adjust His teachings. He challenged His apostles whether they would like to leave...

Jesus now goes full mode in revealing His doctrine about His Body and Blood being real Food and Drink. We need this nourishment to enter eternal life. His words indicate that this need is absolutely. Without this Food and Drink we will not have Life in us. The opposition to this doctrine is seen in the beginning of today's gospel. His listeners wonder how He will give His Flesh and Blood as Fo...

We continue with John Chapter 6 today in the gospel. We have our dear Lord reveal to us for the first time that the bread of life He was offering to the Jews was His very own Flesh. What that means remains to be seen in the next installments of this text from chapter 6 of St. John's gospel. The initial point of the text of today's gospel, however, lets us know the dynamics involved in this...

Today, Jesus reveals that Will of His Father and His role in getting that Will to be done. We pray quite often the Lord's Prayer, where we beseech our Heavenly Father to grant that His Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. That Will's contents will be revealed to us by the Lord. It will be through the taking in of the Bread of Life that that Will shall be done. Listen to the homily for...

The gospel today prods us to want this food from Heaven. Jesus invites us to this. If we want to enjoy Heaven, we need this kind of food He is offering. Jesus identifies Himself to be this Food from Heaven. If we eat this food, then Heaven will ours. Let us aspire to get this Food!

We continue reading today about Jesus and His Eucharistic Discourse. He had performed the miracle of multiplying the bread and fish. Now, He changed the setting to help us realize that He wanted to set the stage for the next step in His plan. In the end, He is going to reveal the promise of the Holy Eucharist, the Bread of Life, which is Himself. But He wanted to prepare the people for this doctri...

The Church presents to us the third appearance of the risen Lord to some of His disciples when they went fishing. He is only the fellow who happens to be standing by the sea shore near where they are fishing. He asks them about their catch. To their negative reply, He suggests they throw their nets to starboard. They catch a lot of big fish. Then, they realize that it is the Lord. It so happens th...

When the Lord resurrected from the dead, He instructed His apostles to spread out and reach all places in the known world to preach the Good News. The Greek term employed in this instruction is evangelion. The Romans used this word to refer to the announcement of a victory or huge development for the Roman Empire to the villages where the conqueror or hero would pass. It was the good news! But the...

What would you do if you're invited to have breakfast with the newly resurrected Jesus Christ, who was crucified and confirmed dead a couple of days before? The risen Lord appears to His disciples while they were fishing. They did not recognize Him. They had caught nothing and were again at their wits end about catching some fish. A certain individual at the shore shouted His suggestion to thr...

We today about the recipe of our Lord for our lives. He lived this recipe first, since He is our Leader in Life. He went ahead of us to suffer, die and resurrect from the dead. This is the paschal process we need to undergo also. Without the suffering, we cannot reach the resurrection. This is the ironclad lesson of Holy Week and our Jesus' life. Hence, we need to understand that God will send...

We read again about Judas Iscariot. But this time from the gospel of St. Matthew Chapter 26. We find him approaching the chief priests of the Jews asking how much they'd pay him if he handed Jesus to them. Wow! This shocks me. Imagine an intimate friend of Jesus, personally chosen by Jesus to be among the first twelve apostles, someone who enjoyed the teachings of Jesus and His special attenti...

Our dear Lord's Way of the Cross is very like our own journey in this Life.

We read in the gospel today about that Mary who "wasted" an expensive perfume used also for anointing corpses in Jewish culture, on the feet of Jesus. This gesture was evidently one of love and affection. Mary was the sister of Martha and Lazarus. Jesus frequented their home in the town of Bethany. Jesus praised her for that gesture, hence, the title of this homily. But He did that after...

Today, we join the entire Church with Jesus Christ to begin Holy Week. Today is referred to at the day of the triumphal entry into the ancient city of Jerusalem, where Jesus would triumph over sin and death. For Him to triumph over death, He needed to die. Only then, would He resurrect. Let us join Him with the entire Church in this swing of His Passion, usually referred to as His Paschal Mystery....

Our dear Lord is at the doorstep of Holy Week, i.e., the commencement of His Passion and death on the Cross. His sentiments and thoughts center on His mission to accomplish, and that is to save mankind, all men and women, from the beginning of time to the end of time. So many souls to save! So many also who would reject His plea to conversion! So much pain, sorrow, sadness, etc. Anyhow, He proceed...