Making Friends With The Lord Jesus

St. John tells us in the first reading of All Saints' Day mass about what the saints are doing in Heaven. We need to practice these actions in this life to make it there too.

This is a matter of faith that St. Paul makes us face and exercise each time we suffer on earth for whatever reason. To make such pains worthwhile, God assures us of what He has prepared for us in Heaven. For starters, He offers Himself for us.

Our Spiritual Life is all about the Supernatural Life of God living in our souls in a state of grace. It is a life that is rooted and nourished by a sacramental life, i.e., a life that frequents the sacraments, especially confession and holy communion. A nonspiritual life is characterized by gravitating around worldliness and material considerations and attitudes. Thus, one is materialistic in his...

Our Lord enunciates in the Gospel today the commandment to love God above all with all our faculties. He adds the second that he put right beside this first of all mandates. He draws the two together. Loving our neighbor as ourselves proves that we have fulfilled the first one.

I had this podcast with two gentlemen guests who brought up with me different concerns and problems they experienced among their friends in handling situations of "failed marriages".

St. Paul invites us to use our powers to serve God and His purposes. What we had employed them for in committing sin, should now be directed to God's service.

St. Paul squarely faces the truth of himself. He brings us up to speed regarding how he saw himself. He admits that he had the fomes peccati, i.e., the tendency to evil. We will do well to imitate him in doing this. It takes humility and courage to do so. It challenges the hope that we should entertain in banking on Jesus Christ to beat these tendencies.

St. Paul speaks to us in the first reading of today's mass about slavery and masters. The one we obey is the one we are slaves of. So if we sin, we make ourselves a slave of sin. What we need to do is to choose carefully who our master is. The enemies of our soul's salvation are the Devil, the World, and the Flesh. These three connive and collaborate with the other two to bring us down by...

Because if you really do, then leave behind that creature and come to do His Holy Will. St. Paul continues in the first reading today to pound on the importance of faith. Our trust in God should be absolute and iron clad. That is the only way to deal with God!

The first reading of today's mass continues, quoting the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, insisting on the faith that justified Abraham and all those who believe the promises of God like he did. Abraham could surely entertain doubts to God's promise that he will have descendants as numerous as the stars in heaven. He was old and his wife, as old as he was, was barren. When they had Isaac,...

This was a totally unexpected reply of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the trap question of the Jews. They had asked him whether it was licit to pay the taxes to Caesar. Either of the two answers possible would catch Our Lord and provide material for accusation. If He says it is licit to pay taxes to Rome He would be called a traitor. If He says it was not licit to pay taxes to Rome, they would bring tha...

Today St. Paul continues to elucidate about the primary importance we need to attach to faith in Jesus Christ. Not by anything we do are we saved or justified before God. It is by sheer goodness and mercy of God that we are saved. We only need to have faith in that.

St. Paul explains in his letter to the Romans about our salvation. God sent His only-begotten Son to take up flesh. The Justice of God played through with regard to the sins of Adam and Eve and all the rest of the sins committed by man till the end of time. The price for sin had to be paid by man. At the same time, no man could foot the bill because sin's gravity was infinite. God had to come...

Today is the feast of the Evangelist St. Luke, a disciple of St. Paul. St. Luke is the third Evangelist, following Sts. Matthew and Mark. He penned those accounts of more intimacy and details about Our dear Lord's origin, virginal conception, birth, childhood and so forth. He was a practicing physician, much like Sts. Peter and Andrew and James and John were fishermen. They all had to have som...

In the First Reading of today's mass, we read from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans about the possibility of reaching certain and true knowledge of God. This can happen through His very creatures. They beg for a Cause. Otherwise, the universe would not be understandable. When man rejects the one and true God as God, he automatically makes some creature into an idol.

St. Paul tells us in the first reading of the mass today what we should do in relation to the others. The Church adopts his first lines in his letter to the Romans. We bring Jesus Christ in evangelizing the others. We do not propose some setup or understanding of things. Furthermore, we propose a Person! We are not a religion of the Book. We are a religion of a Person and through Him, we reach the...

The Prophet tells us in the first reading of the mass about that day. The Church wants us to grow our hope in going to Heaven and being with God as He makes judgment. We will sing and dance and plan in the banquet of rich food and the choicest of wines and so forth. Wow!

The Prophet Joel continues to tell us about this big Day when everyone will be gathered to witness the vindication of the good and the evil people vanquished. Joel describes the abundance of liquid from the wine press as the harvest is subjected to this treatment. Such Judgement will be like a purging of the world of all Evil because evil will be sent to its proper place.

The Old Testament prophet Joel describes in more detail the day of Judgment. And thus, we are encouraged to prepare for it. Repentance is asked of us before the Day of Reckoning comes. This repentance is shown on the outside by acts of penance, i.e., wearing sackcloth, fasting, and so forth. This consequence of internal sorry for our sins is most natural. Penance should emanate from the interior....

Pillar designates something of strength. When Samson was about to die, having been reduced to a circus entertainer since he had revealed to his lover Dahlila the secret of his superhuman strength, although blind placed his hands on the two main pillars of the structure over the Philistines as they feasted to their pagan gods. He pushed with a last push on these pillars and down fell the building,...

Today, the first reading of the mass presents to us again Jonah. This time he is furious because the Ninevites repented and God had mercy on them. What a position he has taken! God then teases him by sending him a castor plant that gave him shade at the place in the mountain he had positioned himself in to witness what God promised to do to Nineveh had they not repented. Then God let the castor oi...

Today's Our Lady of the Holy Rosary feast day was instituted by Pope Pius V to celebrate Christendom's military victory over the Ottoman fleet in Lepanto, Greece. The Turks were eager to include Western Europe within its borders but were stopped in their tracks on October 7, 1571. The Holy Father asked the Catholics to pray for that battle using the Holy Rosary. That praying of the Rosary...

The three readings of the mass I said today are taken from the mass in honor of St. Josemaria Escriva. The first one hails from Genesis chapter 2 where we learn of the reason God placed man in the garden of Eden, namely, to "cultivate and take care of it". Work then is not a curse for man. It is the reason why God put us in Paradise. Before original sin, Adam and Eve enjoyed every bit of...

We fulfill this duty by going to Mass on the Day of the Lord, i.e., on Sundays and holidays of obligation. We inherited from our Israelite brethren this part of our Mass. This part is called the Liturgy of the Word. We rise to listen to the Word of God in the Gospel of the day. Then, we should commit ourselves to living out the instructions of the Lord.

Such slavery indeed happens when we have difficulties in being attentive to the needs of others. We need to be attentive to them. This is hampered by our focus on material desires and possessions. It need not only be about things material but also non-material things, like our thoughts, our worries, our opinions, and so forth.