Making Friends With The Lord Jesus

Mass readings today enable us to learn a couple of things. God tests us. He asks us to give up certain things. His tests do not aim at failing us. We may fail them, but this is not His intention. His tests only bring out our realization that we need to do more preparation. To pass His tests, we need to learn to give up what He wants us to do away with. This is especially about the bad things we do...

God's style has been to choose people who would enjoy his predilection. This turned out to be the Jewish people. From them would come forth the Messiah. The book of Ezechiel states that we are a consecrated people. We should be aware of this in our existence. Other creatures and forces are vying for our allegiance and to mollify the strength of our dedication to God. Hence, we should underline the...

While the Just who sins deserve to be punished.

Jesus asks Peter what he thought Jesus was. He confessed the divinity of Christ and thus, He is the Messiah. In response, Jesus renames him from Simon to Peter, which means rock. He tells him that he is the rock He was going to build the Church on.

Our Lord gave them the sign of Jonah. No other sign was to be given to them.

Punishment follows one who sins. Solomon marries foreign wives steeped in idolatry. Thus, Solomon receives those scary prophesies against Israel. This logical relationship between crime with punishment should be kept in mind before committing sin.

Do we work on it when we receive the Word of God. It is a direction given to us regarding what to do or grasp in our minds. Does God's Word bear fruit in our lives? These fruits are resolutions and changes in behavior.

The formulation of some of God's commandments in the first reading of today's mass strikes us as clarification. There is more detail regarding how to live the said commandment. Some of them even have a positive perspective too.

Holiness is all about following the commandments. These commandments could be elucidated in different ways. The first reading of the mass today provides another way.

The first reading tells us of God's requirement of radical change of heart as the basis and presupposition of the outward practices of piety and sacrifice.

The Gospel today tells about the Holy Spirit leading Jesus to the desert, where He fasted for forty days. We should ask ourselves what spirit leads us. The spirit of worldliness, the spirit of the devil and the spirit of our flesh may be the one and we are simply led to sin. If the true Spirit leads us we can expect a desert where we most probably with run into difficulties, but we can be sure to...

Today we read the continuation of the reading we had yesterday. From the Book of Isaiah, we read about the consequences of having genuine fasting, which would only signify a true and deep conversion of heart. The Lord enumerates the good things assured to those who are generous.

Moses presents this challenge to the Israelites on their way to the Promised Land. There were those in the group who wanted to return to Egypt where, they like to tell themselves, they will have food to their delight. So, Moses presented them with this choice. Love God and commit yourselves to following His Comnmandments. Love has consequences and commitments. The other choice is to perish, since...

God sends us trials since he is a good Father. My dad gave me a plan of tests: in mathematics, in the discipline of following a certain protocol in our home chores, reading aloud and analyzing how I pronounced words, how I emphasize certain words in different positions of the sentence. These trials help me very much to face the challenges out there.

Praying doubting that God will give us what we ask for is a good indicator that we are not praying properly. We need to pray trusting in God 1000%. How will God grant it to us when we doubt Him. We pray with complete faith when implicit in our prayer is the disposition of accepting whatever God grants us.

The Lord makes use of the disease leprosy that affects the body to give us an idea of what sin is like concerning the soul.

Unity is an attribute of God and each of His creatures. Unity is a sign of perfection. Unity is to be strived for in all groups and organizations. Disunity is something that the devil works so hard to attain to destroy God's works.

The story of the downfall of Solomon is illustrative. He fell out of his relationship with God. The problem began with his foreign wives who worshiped other gods. He was influenced and practically contradicted his earlier commitments to the living and true God. So punishment was on the way.

We should honor this simple worker very much since he fulfilled a most important role in the plan of salvation. He was so generous to accede to God's plans for him to be the foster father of Jesus, but the true husband of Mary.

Solomon pleased God with what he asked God for. He sought for wisdom and God praised him and awarded him with much bounty. The Queen of Sheba describes in the first reading of the mass today, Wednesday of the fifth week in ordinary time, her amazement at what Solomon was able to do. We should not forget that all this good and wonder originated from God. It was God who gave him all these beautiful...

Solomon prayed and we need to pray recognizing the majesty of God. This is the prayer of praise and adoration.

The Israelites revered so much their Temple in Jerusalem because it contained the Ark of the Covenant. That ark supposedly contained the tablets of the covenant that God drew up when he gave them to Moses to signify His commitment to His people Israel. That was all a symbol of His Presence. However, in the Catholic Church we have the sanctuary too but this time with the Tabernacle that contains th...

We need to realize the shortness of life on earth. We cannot put all our bets in this life. It would be unwise if we only thought of establishing our everlasting home in this life. What would we get in the next life? We need to prepare for that definitive life. Where will you go?

It is sad to witness the souring of relationships. David and his son Absalom were at loggerheads with each other. Absalom usurped the throne. He went after the life of his own father. One of the closest relationships, that of filiation and paternity, is not exempted from troubles like this. People who are supposed to love each other, become enemies. This need not be necessarily the case. Having di...

We read about David fleeing from his son Absalom who proclaimed himself king of Israel. He wanted to do away with his father since he was the sitting king. David was criticized as he passed by. One time he was up there. Now, he was at the bottom. He was humiliated. However, David was not bent out of shape because of the situation he was subjected to because of Absalom. People threw him stones and...