Making Friends With The Lord Jesus

We celebrate this dogma today in the entire Church of Jesus Christ. We unite ourselves to praise and thank God for His work in her. Mary is brought up to Heaven in body and soul. The Church is silent about whether she died or she simply slept. In fact, what seems more appropriate is that she perished but was resurrected immediately and assumed into Heaven. This is so because as she was so united t...

Jesus expounds on the practice of helping the others who may be wrong in something important. We all experience this because we cannot possibly see ourselves in the mirror all the time. We need someone else to have an objective look at ourselves so that what we miss detecting as mistaken could be addressed. Of course, we need to have this disposition of letting the person concerned know of such mi...

The spiritual life consists in becoming more and more like little children, especially in the sense of getting naked without qualms. They are still too young that they do not have a sense of shame yet. So, they easily go naked and don't mind being such in front of the others. God asks us to become like children, not childish. Such immaturity is nowhere to be found in Heaven. But we find there thos...

Today, Jesus tells His apostles about His impending suffering and Death and Resurrection. Whenever we read about anything happening in His life as narrated in the Gospels, we need to get used to understanding that that is what God wants to happen in each of our lives. This is so by virtue of the fact that each of us received the life of Christ via grace when we received Baptism. This influx of mor...

Jesus continues His discourse on the Holy Eucharist as the Bread of Life by identifying Himself to be that Bread of Life. The Jews were having difficulty in grasping this because they knew His background of having grown up in Nazareth and that they knew His parents. But now, Jesus was claiming that He was the Bread of Life that has come down from Heaven. We need to remember that the Israelites had...

Jesus teaches this principle in today's Gospel to celebrate the feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon, and Martyr. He died in the name of Jesus Christ by being roasted alive over a grill. His death made him a martyr. When this way of behaving was imitated by many other individuals throughout the history of the Catholic Church, we witness a resurgence of the faith and practice. More become Catholics. More...

After announcing to His Apostles that He was going to undergo His Passion and Death on the Cross and then resurrect from the dead, He prodded His apostles to imitate Him, i.e., each of them would have to deny himself, carry his cross each day, and follow Him. He will go ahead and lead. Then, we need to follow His steps. He further says that we need to lose our life so that we could find it. If we...

Jesus asked what the apostles thought about Him. Simon replies that He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus is God too. Jesus acknowledges that this declaration could be possible only by a singular grace of faith from His Father in Heaven. Then, Jesus renames Simon as Peter, recognizing him for his future role in His Church as the Rock on which Jesus would establish His Church. He then...

We can learn this from a Canaanite woman who wanted Jesus' help to cure her daughter suffering from torments from the devil. Note that she was a Gentile. She had it clearly in her mind what she needed. So, she launches herself to meet Jesus and, in a manner of speaking, debates with Him about getting what she wanted. He objected that He was sent to focus on the lost sheep of Israel. She persists b...

The Gospel today narrates the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Thabor because it is commemorated as a feast in the Catholic Church today. We go through this scene at least once a day, if we contemplate or pray the Luminous Mysteries. One of the things we can focus on is that Jesus and company went up a high mountain to be alone by themselves. To be alone at times is also important as a Christian...

It would be a great idea to imitate our Lord Jesus Christ as always. Jesus wanted to grab some rest and quiet, and He moved by boat with His disciples to the other shore. But the people were there already waiting for Him. They looked for Him and found out where He was going. What great detectives they were, don't you think? But this is what we need to learn to do, namely, look for Jesus, everywher...

Jesus is pursued by the people He just fed in the miraculous multiplication of bread and fish. They find Him near Capernaum. But He invites them to think more clearly about why there were looking for Him. That offers Him the opportunity to elevate their considerations. He asked them to go beyond thinking of goals limited to this world and resources. True, He just fed them bread and fish. Think abo...

Jesus in the Gospel talks about the plight of Herod. This latter stole his brother's wife, to make her share in his bed. John the Baptist kept telling Herod that that arrangement was immoral. But he liked listening to John preach. Herodias, who was Herod's brother's wife, had the chance to eliminate the person who reminded them of their sin. Her daughter danced during the king's birthday and pleas...

The town mates of Jesus in Nazareth were astonished by what He did in their midst as He visited His hometown. His Wisdom, His miraculous powers, etc., were incongruent to the Jesus they knew from childhood. He was not like this. This person may be another person altogether. Then, they would not accept Him. What a humiliation for Jesus! They rejected Our Lord as one among them because of the dispar...

Our Lord Jesus Christ comes up today in the Gospel of the mass another imagery that the kingdom of heaven is like. It is like casting a dragnet into the sea catching all kinds of things, like fish, nails, styrofoam, squid, jellyfish, and so forth. When the net fills up, the fishermen bring all that to the shore for sorting. The good items and kept, while the useless and not good items are disposed...

Jesus enunciates today in the Gospel the characteristics of Heaven. To invite us to go there, He'd have to describe it. A salesman needs to show and describe the product he is peddling around. Heaven is like a treasure... Heaven is like searching for fine pearls... To acquire them, one needs to sacrifice certain things to make way for them.

St. Matthew narrates what he alone among the different sacred writers of the books of the New Testament. He writes about the explanation of Jesus about the parable of the darnel or weeds and the wheat. Matthew underlines the punishment at the end of time. That is the first thing he puts down. The other writers position the reward ahead of the punishment. He describes that punishment as follows: fi...

That is the definition Jesus gives of Himself. Isn't that amazing? He owns life. Death has nothing that defeats Him. Death can happen. No problem! God resurrects us, as He did several times in the Gospels. Today, we celebrate the feast of Sts. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. The two sisters had sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was sick. Jesus had tarried wherever He was and purposely arrived late. Lazar...

We read in the Gospel today about the introduction Jesus made about the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Previous to this, we read about the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. They had talked about the absolute need for the sacrament of Baptism for salvation. That was the first sacrament. Now, St. John tells us about the other necessary sacrament, and that is the Holy Eucharist. Its introduc...

We are struck by the mystery of good and evil together in the world. There is a certain mixture of them in different degrees of proportion depending on the place and culture. Jesus explains in the Gospel today why this is so. Moreover, the good and evil are mixed not only outside of us, but also within us. There are elements of what is good and there, alas, is the presence of certain evil. Jesus e...

The Lord explains the parable of the seed and the sower today in the Gospel. We also celebrate today the parents of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. I know a lot about Mary but practically almost nothing of Sts. Joachim and Anne, her parents. But I could guess their sanctity, genuine holiness, just by looking the child they raised. The Immaculate Conception happened in the womb of St. Anne! Imagine t...

Our dear Lord proposes to James and John whether they are able to drink the cup He was to drink from. If they wanted those powerful positions in His Kingdom, it seemed that they needed to do that. They eagerly reply in the affirmative. Jesus confirmed they would share in that cup. But about the positions of power, He corrected their view because in His Kingdom such positions were to be seen as ser...

Between sowing seeds and bearing fruits is something so significant as it is also not so much appreciated. It is the quality of the soil that receives those seeds. Depending on our dispositions to those seeds of God's Word shall the fruits of sanctity and virtue come.

Jesus' mother and brothers came to Him one day. They met the difficulty of having to go through an impenetrable, dense crowd around the Teacher. They sent Him word of their intention to have a moment with Him. The messenger informed Jesus about the matter. Jesus replies in strangely by asking, rhetorically, who His mother and brothers were. Then, He extended His hand to the crowd, affirming them t...

St. Mary Magdalene was the first person asked by Jesus to announce to the others that she has seen the risen Lord. That makes her an Apostle.