IT’S worthwhile noting that even Christ had to spend the night praying before he made that big decision of choosing his 12 apostles among the many disciples that he had at that time. (cfr. Lk 6,12-16) This could only mean that for Christ to be completely in union with the will
October 28, 2024
THAT’S what we can learn from that gospel episode about the blind man Bartimaeus begging Christ to cure his blindness. (cfr. Mk 10,46-52) More than anything else, it was actually Bartimaeus’ faith that did the trick, as Christ himself testified: “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” In our life,
October 26, 2024
WE have to learn how to properly deal with the rapid developments of our times. We should avoid getting stuck with some system that may have been effective sometime ago, but is now increasingly showing irrelevance or inability to cope with the new demands that the evolving times are presenting. In
October 25, 2024
THAT’S practically what Christ wants of us as he said: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Lk 12,49) Obviously, we can only manage to do that if we truly identify ourselves with Christ. Let’s remember that Christ left us with
October 24, 2024
THAT’S the lesson we can draw from that gospel parable about the faithful and prudent steward. (cfr. Lk 12,39-48) We should know how to make all our temporal affairs—from our family life to our business and politics—serve to pursue our ultimate and supernatural goal of our own salvation. It is the
October 23, 2024
THE simple reason is that Christ has done everything to assure us of our earthly victory so we can enter heaven where we are meant to be. We need to strengthen this truth of our faith so that whatever happens—and there will always be some kind of heavy drama involved in
October 22, 2024
WE have to be most careful with our tendency to be too attached to the material and temporal dimensions of our life such that we may consider them to be our end-all and be-all. We have to learn to go beyond them, always affirming our faith that we are meant for
October 21, 2024
THEY, of course, are reasons to be happy. But, given our wounded condition, we should also be wary of their tendency to spoil us. Thus, whenever they come into our life, we should exert effort to intensify our will to be humble and to make use of that fortunate status to
October 19, 2024
THE gospel reading on the Feast of St. Luke, the Evangelist, celebrated on October 18, talks about Christ appointing 72 disciples and sending them in pairs to places where Christ intended to visit. (cfr. Lk 10,1-9) What we can immediately gather from this gospel is that the main job of Christ’s
October 18, 2024
WE can get an inkling of the answer to that question from some words of St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians. He said, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity. He has predestinated
October 17, 2024
IN his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul makes this distinction between life in the flesh and life in the Spirit, something that is very important to know if we want to abide by our true dignity as children of God, created in his image and likeness, and sharers in his
October 16, 2024
WHEN Christ complained against the Pharisees about their hypocrisy with these words: “Now you Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inside is full of rapine and iniquity,” (Lk 11,39) we are strongly reminded of the danger of hypocrisy that can easily enter into
October 15, 2024