Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Category: Ordinary Time

  • For GOD’S Sake

    For GOD’S Sake

    September 21, 2025 – 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092125.cfm)

    Once a promising young entrepreneur was asked about his secret of success in his business. His reply was like this: “I could have profit up to 30 percent from every transaction I make. But usually, I offer my costumers up to 25 percent discount, thus me only gaining at most, five percent. Yes, money-wise, it is bad business. However, I may have less profit from each transaction, but I have gained more business costumers, contacts, and friends, which thus offers me more business transactions and opportunities.” Clever, isn’t it?

    Amazing it is how clever, smart or sometimes even shrewd we can be when making business deals. Whether it’s buying a used car or selling a house or setting a building projects and programs, all of us learn how to get the most for our money and investments. This is not something new. It’s part of human nature to get the best deal possible.

    And Jesus is all aware of this. The parable he told us about the steward who had to think quick to get himself out of a financial jam, recognized our human resourcefulness, creativity and inventiveness in terms of our dealings with others in this life. The Lord’s point here is that we often demonstrate our intelligence, but we don’t apply this intelligence and shrewdness to the one thing that really matters: our Way of Life as Christian now.

    Consider the number of times we have sat down and worked out how we can use our talents, time, and treasure to be better Christians. Consider the number of times we have thought out how we can put ourselves in situations which would avoid moral problems we have had in the past & even now with blatant corruptions & stupidity around.

    Consider the number of times we have plotted out how we can implant and improve the practice of our Christian faith in our families, communities & society.  If we were to add up the minutes spent a month doing these for God and our Christian life; and then compare them to the hours a month spent working out our financial deals and business investments, would there be any comparison at all?

    Some leaders & people of today, like those in the first reading from the prophet Amos, may have perfected how they can outsmart others. They cheat with their scales. They inflate & launder money, design bogus & ghost projects & stage scams & fake news – or however, you call it nowadays.

    BUT, remember that is not why God gives us intelligence. For God endowed us intelligence & grants us opportunities in this life to make His PRESENCE & ACTIONS real in the world. We must make use of the same cleverness, skill, and plain nerve that the manager in the gospel used to save his skin, and the strategy and tactics that businessman used to secure more business contacts and clients, and all other ways and means to make God’s ways real in our world today.

    Jesus tells us today in our gospel, “Make friends for yourselves through your use of this world’s goods, so that when they fail you, a lasting reception will be yours.” In other words, Jesus is telling us “You have the intelligence, resources and opportunities… use it. Use all these to fulfill the mission you assumed and accepted when I called you to be my disciples. Be SMART FOR Me, then .”

    We thus must make use of our talents, money, and time not as an end but a means in attaining life worthy of God, and in sharing from God’s benefits given us through Christ. We must be as resourceful, and dedicated in the ways of God as we are in the ways of commerce, politics, governance, social relations, and public service.

    In other words, Jesus’ parable challenges us to be SMART FOR GOD’S SAKE, that is – to be as eager, clever, and ingenious for the sake of God’s kingdom; to be as ready and willing to use our talents, time, and resources to accomplish great things for the Gospels as we are to witness & prosper in our Christian faith & lifestyle.

    However, to those who are smart enough to use their intelligence & opportunities for their own personal sake & able to outsmart, corrupt & abuse others & God’s blessings, need not to remind you what Jesus warns us: “(cursed) Woe to you who are rich for you are receiving your comfort in full… to you who are well-fed now, for you will be hungry… to you who laugh now, for you will mourn & weep… to you when people speak well, for their fathers used to treat false prophets the same way”(Lk 6:24-26).

    Be reminded what our Lord also said: “If much has been given to you, much will be demanded; more will be expected of one to whom more has been entrusted” (Lk 12:48), as Scripture has it as well, “The most severe judgment will be set aside for those in high places”. (Wisdom 6:6)

    And so again, in whatever & however circumstances we find ourselves now & in the near future,  FOR GOD’S SAKE (beyond our own), may the Lord ever help us develop more our ingenuity, intelligence, and creativity to promote His Kingdom (not our own) here on earth and in our world to Come now & always.

    Hinaut pa unta. So May It Be. Amen.

  • A Touch that cares, heals and gives Life  

    A Touch that cares, heals and gives Life  

    September 16, 2025 – Memorial of Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091625.cfm)

    A parent’s touch truly brings relief and comfort to a sick child. A lover’s touch also brings affection and assurance of love. A therapist’s touch certainly brings healing to our aching muscles.

    There is, indeed, life in human touch. Yet, this only happens when our touch is gentle and expressed in kindness and love. When touch is filled with malice and bitterness, then, touch also becomes violent. This touch causes pain and could even abuse life, prevent life and take away life.

    In today’s Gospel reading, we are reminded of the wonder and power of a gentle touch. This is a touch that cares, heals and gives life. Jesus showed this many times in his healing miracles. Moreover, this time, Jesus manifested his gentle and powerful touch in a different level.

    Jesus, as he saw the grief and sorrow of a widowed-mother who lost his only son, was moved with pity. His pity was filled with concern and compassion to a woman who had become hopeless. In a patriarchal society, women had no rights. Her only son was her only hope in life after losing her husband. With both men dead, she was like a “double-dead” person, died twice over again.

    Jesus saw this and felt the seemingly hopeless situation of the mother. Further, Jesus also witnessed how things can be unfair. The young man, who must have died of an illness, lost hope towards maturity. He was deprived of the opportunity to discover and hone his potentials as a young man. He also missed the chance to live life to the fullest.

    The coffin was somehow the very box that deprived both the mother and her son of hope and life. This greatly moved Jesus. As a response, Jesus did not just remain a passerby. “He stepped forward and touched the coffin.”

    “Young man, I tell you, arise!” These words of Jesus renewed hope and life both to the mother and her son who was dead, but was given back the gift of life.

    Jesus touched the coffin! He dared to touch that box that tells us of the deprivation of life. Jesus touched the coffin to renew life and renew hope.

    We may not be dead yet, but, we too might be already in a coffin, limited in a box of pain and trauma, of loneliness and sadness, of anger and sin. Like the mother, we too might be grieving because of our frustrations and failures, unable to see hope and life. Life can be so unfair for us, leading us to our overwhelming burial of suffocation.

    Yet, life is not hopeless at all. There is always hope. Jesus sees and feels our own pain and difficulties. In the same way, the Lord desires to touch our own coffins. He wants to bring life to whatever is preventing and depriving us of living fully.

    Let us allow the Lord to gently touch us through the sacraments of the Church. These sacraments truly bring grace of peace, healing, and life. Allow the Lord to touch our hearts through the Holy Scriptures, through His words that will challenge and move us towards hope and life. We allow the Lord to continually touch us through the concern and love of our friends and family members.

    For each of us, once again, let us be more conscious that our own touch may always be gentle that definitely expresses care, brings healing and life. Hinaut pa.

  • ABOVE ALL, PUT ON LOVE  

    ABOVE ALL, PUT ON LOVE  

    September 11, 2025 – Thursday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091125.cfm)

    Our interactions with one another, whether with friends, family members and other people around us create potential friction and conflicts in our relationships. Relationships are strained and broken apart when we also lose the patience to listen and understand one another. When we too are trapped in the temptation to take revenge and generate violence in whatever form, the more we are buried into pain.

    Yet, when selfishness and hatred slowly fade, then, we also begin to repair and reconcile damaged relationships.

    Paul in his Letter to the Colossians expressed thoughtfully and wonderfully how our relationships must be taken cared.  He said, “put on… heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.”

    As a father and brother to the Christian Community in Colossae, Paul was very concerned how relationships among the Christians must be formed. Thus, Paul continued to remind them, “over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts.”

    The spirit of the relationship in our homes and communities, indeed, must be centered on love, of the love of Christ. This brings peace and healing into our heart troubled by hurts and pains, disappointments and frustrations.

    Jesus, in the Gospel, radically calls us as well, “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

    The call to love, to truly love, is first a transformation of our own hearts. This means that our heart, when centered on Christ and his peace, releases hatred and aggression. This heart embraces the courage to forgive and expresses kindness to those who have hurt us.

    This is truly difficult especially to a person bruised many times by others. Yet, true freedom lies in the heart that rests on Christ, for he is peace.

    And so we pray, “that in whatever we do, in word or in deed, we do everything in the name of Jesus our Lord, giving thanks to the Father through him.” Hinaut pa.

  • PUT ON THE NEW SELF         

    PUT ON THE NEW SELF         

    September 10, 2025 – Wednesday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091025.cfm)

    Are we really convinced and feel truly blessed when we are poor and powerless? Are we truly happy when we are indeed hungry, weeping and hurting? Do we rejoice for being hated and rejected by others because we live honestly and justly?

    It would truly be difficult to reconcile these contrasting life situations. A student once shared to me a conversation she had with her grandmother. In her innocence and directness expressed her anguish, “Lola, why are we so poor? It is so tiring to be poor. Will we ever be rich?” The Lola responded to her, “It’s okay. God loves and favors the poor.”

    To a child who does not have the perks and privileges of being born in an affluent family would surely begin to question the difficult life of being poor and underprivileged. Such response is surely difficult to understand.

    Yet, the response of her Lola is certainly the message of the Gospel. God loves and favors the poor. This is the reason why the Beatitude of Jesus begins with “Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours.” This first line of the Beatitude already set the favor of God upon those who are less fortunate such as the hungry, those who are weeping and hurting, and those who are rejected and insulted because of living the faith truly.

    From the perspective of wealth, comfort and power, God seemed to be unfair because the Lord favors the other. Yet, it is not that way. The Lord favors the poor and the weak because of what lies in the heart. Only when we are weak, poor, and powerless that the heart recognizes the need for God. The heart truly longs for God’s presence.

    However, when the heart becomes rich, powerful and comfortable, it also becomes self-contained, arrogant and indifferent. Hence, the heart does not need God and even rejects God. No wonder why Jesus’ words bring warning to those who have become rich, powerful and comfortable, “woe to you.”

    In a country plagued by plunder and corruption, dishonesty in public works and blatant abuse of power and public office, Jesus’ warning echoes to every generation. Woe to you for you will go hungry! Woe to you for you will grieve and weep!

    Yet, Paul calls us in his Letter to the Colossians, “Put to death the parts that are earthly; immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed…as well as anger, fury, malice, slander,
    and obscene language.    ” All of these make us separate from God and from others. What Paul calls us is to “put on a new self” in Christ and leave the old self that corrupts.

    Putting this new self in Christ, as St. Paul tells us, requires us to “seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” To seek what is above is to seek the Kingdom of God. And now we realize that the Kingdom of God rests in those hearts that embraces humility and vulnerability, in recognizing our poverty and powerlessness.

    This is how God favors the poor and the week, those weeping and hurting because the Lord is already in their hearts. This calls us to indeed “rejoice and leap for joy.” Hinaut pa.

  • WALK IN HIM, ROOTED IN HIM, BUILT UPON HIM

    WALK IN HIM, ROOTED IN HIM, BUILT UPON HIM

    September 9, 2025 – Tuesday 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090925.cfm)

    How do we make decisions? What are the things that we consider as we choose what is essential in life?

    Paul in his Letter to the Colossians, reminded the people not to be persuaded by selfish desires, “seductive philosophy” and perhaps appealing ideologies at that time. People might be tempted on impulse to choose and make decisions in their life based on what was popular and appealing to many.

    Hence, Paul said, “as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

    To walk in him, be rooted in him and be built upon him is to make Jesus Christ at the very center of our life, of the decisions we make and the things that we do and we want to be. This is how we share in the fullness of Jesus’s humanity and divinity.

    And the Gospel today gives us the invitation on how we will be able to remain in Jesus and share in the fullness of God’s grace. This is shown himself by Jesus, and that is through the basics of prayer. As Jesus chose his closest disciples whom he also called apostles, Jesus spent a night in prayer to his Father in heaven.

    Jesus prayed. In fact, he spent the whole night in prayer as an act of communion with the Father, He listened to his Father’s voice speaking in him. This means that he did not choose the 12 just out of compulsion or feelings. Jesus chose each of them according to God’s desire. This was how Jesus also saw something in each of them, including Judas. Jesus saw something very good in Judas. Yet, Judas failed to see and recognize what the Lord had seen in him. As a result, Judas betrayed Jesus because Judas failed to recognize God in the person of Jesus.

    The Gospel also tells us that the people who were gathered around Jesus sought to touch the Lord. They realized that by mere touching him, they were healed. Power came forth from Jesus himself. And Jesus allowed them to touch him. This expressed God’s desire that indeed we are welcomed to share in the fullness of God’s grace that brings healing and gives life.

    We too are invited to touch God. Because it is in touching God that we will become grounded in whatever decision we will make. In touching the presence of Jesus in our sacraments, in the scriptures and in the lives of others that we too are able to walk with Jesus. When we become more aware of God in our life, then, the more we become sensitive to God’s desire for us and be rooted in Jesus. So, let us seek God’s desire in prayer and be built upon him. Hinaut pa.