Making Friends With The Lord Jesus

St. Paul tells his Colossian converts that since Our Lord Jesus Christ is in Heaven, they needed to spend their thoughts on matters of Heaven. Thus, we have another reason to take care of our prayer life. If we are to spend eternity in Heaven, we would need to start practicing prayer life here on earth. We should not keep our hearts rooted here since we are only passing through.

That is the message of St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians in the first reading of today's mass. He graphically uses the phrase "You must be rooted in him". As the tree gets its nourishment from the ground through its roots, we need to get our sustenance from Our Lord Jesus Christ's life.

The text of today first reading teaches us the why of our suffering, even though Jesus Christ had already suffered and died on the cross for all of us.

The readings in the mass today, the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, encourage us to face our serious responsibility to help others through this Christian and Evangelical means of fraternal correction. Our Lord will hold us responsible if we keep our mouths shut and mind our own business. As they say, Hell is full of closed mouths. It is a grave duty of charity. We all make mistakes. We impl...

St. Paul points out to the Colossians that they were redeemed by the sacrifice of the Lord's Body's death on the Cross. However, much still needs to be done since in the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, we need to persevere to the end when the Lord returns in His Second Coming. The Apostle from Tarsus encourages listeners to look forward and not simply celebrate being saved by Our Lord's deat...

The one most special lesson we need to learn and keep on learning about is that God's favor is won by the humble. Mary was an ordinary young girl. Her one quality, among the many gifts she enjoyed, that caught God's eye was her humility. She saw herself to be a handmaiden. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to your word." The ones who enjoy God's favor are the humble. He...

Today, the Lord tells us through the letter of St. Paul to the Colossians that we need to do God's will and not waste God's gifts in what brings us away from Him. Otherwise, we waste our time and efforts. Accomplishing what is good is not enough. Receiving our reward on earth would not be enough. Our Happiness would only be limited to this life. How about the life eternal? For this to happen, we n...

Let's observe how the Apostle of the Gentiles greets the Colossians in opening his letter to them. He mentions his title as an apostle of Jesus Christ. One could find it unusual to do that, but after following the customs of the time, St. Paul made it his practice to keep in mind his identity as such. This facilitates many things in one's living each day in his activities. For instance, if we keep...

This sums up what St. Paul tries to tell the Thessalonians in his first letter tl them. We all need to struggle to heaven but we are not to struggle alone. We have the help of the communion of saints, i.e., the others. How are our concerns for the others? Are they effective and creative? Or do we give in to mediocrity and discouragement?

We practice our faith when we use it to answer questions about death and what happens after it. As long as we are with Christ we can expect the same things as what happened to him, i.e., we will resurrect and we will still be with Him after death. If we have not been striving to be with Him while here on earth, we may expect that we will not be with Him in the afterlife. What a terrible prospect!

The readings in the mass today bring us to consider the plight of Jeremiah, who despite working for God was persecuted by the same people who were recipients of the word of God passed on by this prophet. Since the news Jeremiah brought was negative to his listeners, they condemned him. Jeremiah was also called by God to become a sacrifice too for God in this harrowing experience for him. St. Paul...

St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians to love one another. He was elated by the fact that they learned it from the Lord himself. Such loving the others is how their love for God would be verified. It is easy to claim we love God as required by the Shema of Israel. But we learn to assess its veracity and solidity from how we care for the others around us.

Holiness means to live the life of Christ. This is the life that Jesus died to get us to enjoy. It is a participation in the life of God through grace. We should grow in the likeness of Jesus. This is the fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit, not our work but His. All we need to do is to get close to Him by frequenting the sacraments, especially of Penance and the Eucharist. Thus, we receive all t...

We learn impressive things from St. Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians chapter 3 in the first Reading of today's mass. First, the blessed communion of saints. We may have to ask the Holy Spirit to deepen our awareness of a great many others who are even unknown to us and who are suffering greatly but keeping in the faith. This must be an encouragement to us to pray for them and to see o...

St. Paul clearly states what he did as he went about preaching the Word of God. He worked at his profession--which was to be a tent maker-to support himself, although he could have asked the Thessalonians to help him since as an apostle he deserved such treatment. But St. Paul did not make use of this privilege. He worked hard. This we need to imitate and examine our conscience about. We should no...

The temptation of preaching ourselves, or preaching only what our listeners would like to hear without regard for the Will of God that sent us to share the Good News is powerful. St. Paul in the first reading of today's mass. St. Paul defends his rectitude of intention in his fulfillment of his mission. We imitate him necessarily by not only being superficial in how we serve the recipients of the...

In the First Reading of today's mass, we read from St. Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. He delivers his subtle congratulations to these people because they lived their faith in action. Faith is not something we only think about, speak about, or discuss. Faith is a Life. Faith is lived out, not only thought about. Hence, we need to ask ourselves about how we practice what we believe in.

It is rather unfortunate that the name of God is used haphazardly nowadays, as an expression of surprise, shock, disappointment, etc. Today's Gospel should remind us about what and who God is. St. Peter declares that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. He is the Anointed One, the One promised by God to save mankind from sin and death. He is God since His Father is God too. How much of...

The First Reading of today's mass taken from the Old Testament Book of Ruth tells us of Ruth who accompanied her mom-in-law back to Israel. She was loyal to her. And so Ruth met Boaz taking care of his land. They married and they bore a child who was Obed. It turned out that Obed was the father of Jesse, who in turn was the dad of King David, the illustrious ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus Christ....

The First Reading of the mass today, Friday of the 20th week in Ordinary Time tells us of the loyalty of Ruth to her mother-in-law. She went with her anywhere she went. She became like an assistant who took care of Naomi. It is worth mentioning that Naomi was a Jewess while Ruth was a Moabite, a gentile. Naomi returned to Israel, since her husband Elimelech and her sons had passed away already. Sh...

St. Bartholomew gave us a good example in giving his life and became a martyr of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, he became a pillar and foundation of the Church spawning more conversions to the Church of Jesus.

Being a leader should mean that we listen first to God and carry out His wishes. Then the in our care will listen to us. If we make as king a certain creature to the detriment of the real Kingship of Jesus Christ we will certainly be in the wrong.

What Gideon did is typical of any one of us who is called by God to do something for him. We give excuses so that we be excused from following his Will. Moses did it. Peter tried to cite his being a sinful man. But to this God always says, "Do not be afraid."

We should not be shocked at ourselves when we experience ups and downs in our Christian struggle to be saints. Our individual stories are just like what happened to Israel. The Chosen people also went through a roller coaster of a history in their relationship with Adonai. They would be faithful to His Word and then become unfaithful especially in falling for the idolatry practiced by their neighb...

We are created in order to fulfill a mission on earth. St. Paul wrote the Romans about this and explained to them and to all of us that although we may be unfaithful, although we are sinners, He does not depend on our vacillations in life. He calls us to existence to accomplish a role and an objective for which He does not repent of. Let us constantly look for our calling. Having this sense of mis...