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Category: Weekday Homilies

  • Power that gives life and heals

    Power that gives life and heals

    January 13, 2021 – Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011321.cfm)

    How do we imagine a person having power? We usually understand that a person who has power over others exercises control and dominance. 

    In a community or society, people who have the power rule others into submission. People who are powerful are believed to have wealth which gives them influence, entitlements and high positions. Consequently, these powerful people may also tend to relate with those who are under them as their mere subordinates. Manipulation to advance the self-interest of the powerful and to stay in power is very tempting in this kind of relationship. When a powerful person submits to this temptation, then, most likely the powerful will use force, violence and incite fear towards others in order to preserve and even consolidate his or her power.

    Among couples, a husband who plays powerful may most probably relate with his wife in terms of control. It commonly happens in abusive relationships where a partner places the other into submission through manipulation, deceit, pretension and fear.

    However, all these forms of exercising power are filled with so much insecurity and evil. This kind of power destroys relationships and life of people. This is the power of death, of the devil that the Letter to the Hebrews was telling us about. This is also the power that Jesus destroyed in order to free us from fear and from slavery.

    Moreover, in today’s Gospel, Mark proclaimed to us the life-giving and healing power of Jesus. This power that Jesus showed us transforms life, heals the broken and frees the troubled. This was described to us in that scene when Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law. The power of Jesus was described to us three actions.

    The first action was when Jesus approached her. Jesus and his friends were received into the house of Simon and Andrew. By welcoming the Lord into their home, Jesus was also made aware of the sickness of Simon’s mother-in-law. With this awareness in Jesus, he approached the sick woman. This action of Jesus to approach the sick has the intention to manifest God’s presence.

    The second action was when Jesus grasped her hand. Jesus has manifested God’s presence, with this, Jesus also brought God’s touch to the sick woman. God touching her meant God’s compassion towards her. The touch of Jesus was God’s most abiding presence giving her the strength.

    And the third action was when Jesus helped her up. The strength from God was the gift of healing granted to the sick mother-in-law. Because she was lying down and her fever overpowers her, she needed help from another. This very action of Jesus helping her up tells us that God supplements and journeys with us towards our freedom and healing.

    From these three actions, Jesus showed us how our presence, our touch and our concrete action in helping another will manifest power that brings comfort, compassion, healing and even life.

    This is the very reason why after the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law, people with various diseases and those who are ill or possessed by demons flocked towards Jesus. Because the power of Jesus is not of force and violence, people begin to recognize God’s power. In Jesus what we really see is God’s power who wills our joy and desires our healing and to experience the fullness of life.

    For us today, let these three actions of Jesus be our invitations in our relationships. But first, let us welcome the Lord to come to us, to welcome him in our hearts. Then, let us allow the Lord through his instruments to approach us, to hold us, and to help us. They may be our friends or family members or even strangers who have the intention to love us.

    With that, we may also become God’s instruments who will manifest his power in our homes, workplaces and communities by approaching, holding and helping those who are sick, weak and vulnerable.

    May God’s life-giving and healing power dispel every fear, insecurity, selfishness, illness and evil in our hearts, through the intercession of Mary, Our Mother of Perpetual Help. Hinaut pa.

  • Words that Uplift and Inspire, Free and Heal

    Words that Uplift and Inspire, Free and Heal

    January 12, 2021 – Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011221.cfm)

    The words in the Bible uplift, inspire and give life to us because they are filled with the Spirit of God. In the same way, when our words are also filled with love, sincerity and honesty, words also bring inspiration and even life.

    Powerful and life-giving words are what we have heard in today. The Gospel of Mark tells us of the experience of the people from Capernaum. Jesus who taught the people in the synagogue found him different from the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus spoke with authority not just with knowledge and familiarity of his teachings. Jesus spoke from the heart, from the wisdom of God that intends to give life to the people.

    Hence, the people found life in his teachings, in his words. This was more manifested when Jesus encountered a man with unclean spirit. Through the words of Jesus, that unclean spirit was silenced and was commanded to come out of the man. That unclean spirit oppressed the man by taking out the voice of the person. The person was made a slave by that unclean spirit. Yet, through his encounter with Jesus, the man was given a chance to be freed and to be healed. This is the effect when words give life and freedom.

    Through the words of Jesus, the unclean spirit came out of the man without doing any harm to the person. This tells us again how those words of Jesus truly brought life, freedom and healing because Jesus’ intention was of kindness and his words were out of generosity.

    Today, Jesus also calls us to find healing, life, and freedom in his words and presence in the scriptures and in our Sacraments. Hopefully, what we find and receive will also be transmitted into our life that we ourselves will become life-giving and instruments of freedom.

    It would be good then to examine our words and our encounters with people today.

    Let these be our points of reflection today.

    Are my words and presence, life-giving or condemning? Are my words uplifting, inspiring, freeing and healing? Or, are my words filled with hatred, anger and bitterness?

    If we find our words and presence more of condemnation and judgments, of hate and bitterness, allow Jesus to transform us. Allow the Lord to cast out the unclean spirit in us that oppresses us and oppresses others. Allow Jesus’ words to make us free and make us at peace so that we too shall learn in giving words to others that are filled with love, life and freedom. Hinaut pa.

  • LISTEN. FOLLOW. LIVE.

    LISTEN. FOLLOW. LIVE.

    January 11, 2021 – Monday 1st Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011121.cfm)

    Our Christmas songs that filled the air have stopped playing. Most of our Christmas decorations were all kept and hidden. However, the spirit of Christmas lives on. Our liturgy portrays to us today  how the spirit of Christmas continues to call us towards God as we also begin the first week in Ordinary Time.

    Here in Ordinary Time, we do not celebrate any particular aspect of the mystery of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Rather, what we celebrate during this time, is the mystery of Christ honored in its fullness, especially on Sundays (from the Ordo 2021). This means that in Ordinary Time, we are called to listen, follow and live the invitations of Christ revealed in his public ministry. The mystery of the resurrection is also fully celebrated during the ordinary Sundays.

    Now, our Gospel today from Mark, begins with the invitation to listen and follow the Lord. This call ultimately brings us to live fully the invitation of Christ. Hence, Mark tells us how the Emmanuel, who is Jesus, walks and encounters people as he goes along in his journey. In those encounters of Jesus, the Lord calls and invites people to follow him.

    From what we have heard in the Gospel, we might have wondered if those men, Simon and Andrew as well as James and John followed Jesus immediately without any difficulty. Mark only described to us the symbolic change of ways in following Jesus by leaving behind their “nets” and their “father.”

    Moreover, Mark was actually trying to tell us about the attitude of these men by being able to change their way of life. This is what we have heard today in the Gospel, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” And so this was what these men did. They changed their ways by becoming fishers of men and women from being previously fishermen as Jesus invited them, “Come after me.”

    They abandoned their comfort zones in order to go beyond from themselves. They gave up their old attitudes that prevented them to go forward. These include accepting their sins and failures and accepting too that they were in need of God’s mercy.

    Their personal encounter with Jesus gave them the confidence in themselves and faith in the Lord who believed in them. They had been given the courage to believe in their capacities and potentials and to believe in God’s tremendous love for them.

    For us today, the Christmas Season was really an opportunity for us to encounter the Lord intimately in our life through our families and friends and through our Church and even through the difficult and dark situation that we have been through. We went through advent to joyfully wait for his coming and to be more vigilant of God’s presence. We have celebrated the Birth of Jesus to affirm that we are indeed loved beyond our expectation despite being unworthy.

    Hopefully, our Christmas experience had really given us that opportunity of intimate encounter with Jesus. Our encounter with the Lord, just like the first disciples, allows us to be more familiar with Jesus’ voice to follow him wherever he may lead us.

    Thus, allow Jesus to call us today, to motivate us, to inspire us, to give us courage and faith so that he may lead u to change our old ways that prevent us from going forward. Allow the Lord to challenge us and lead us to go out from our comfort zones so that we may become free and happier.

    In this way, we may discover more and more who Jesus is in our life and who we are before God. This is discipleship. This is following the Lord closely. In this journey, we may find more adventures and wonders to un-learn our selfish human ways in order to learn God’s ways. Hinaut pa.

  • Life is in Jesus

    Life is in Jesus

    January 8, 2021 – Friday after Epiphany

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010821.cfm)

    When many of us are confined at home because of the pandemic and restrictions in going outside our residence, the rise of the Plantitos and Plantitas (the popular name of those who develop the love of planting) also emerged. Our boredom at home wonderfully bore fruit by becoming more connected with the earth. When we learn how to plant, we also learn how to touch in order to nurture life.

    Touching with the motivation of caring brings wonder and joy in us. This is the reason why many of us find comfort and pleasure in nurturing the life of the plants. More than this, we too are called to nurture human life, to inspire life and heal life. This is what Jesus shows us today.

    Our readings today remind us of this. The first reading from the First Letter of John tells us that “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son, Jesus.” We find this life in Jesus, our Lord.

    John mentions two important and recurring words in today’s reading that tell us that life is indeed in Jesus. These words are testimony and possession.

    The word testimony refers to the witnessing of the Father in the life of Jesus. The testimony of the Father to His Son is the confidence of the Father. This also means that the confidence of God in us will be revealed in our life by having Jesus. This is not about giving testimony to God, but God giving testimony to us through the wonders that God can do for us.

    The word possession means our possession of Jesus, the Son of God in our life. Having Jesus is letting Jesus fulfill his promise to us. Having the Lord in our life is allowing the Lord to do what he desires to do in our life.

    Such testimony and possession of Jesus bring us into the Gospel story. A man full of leprosy fell prostrate and pleaded with Jesus. The man asked the Lord to reveal God’s testimony of bringing healing and fullness of life. The man asked, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” He allowed the Lord to work wonders in him and to let God give testimony through the gift of healing.

    In this way, Jesus touched the man to heal him and bring him that fullness of life. Jesus’ touch surely brought healing and life because his touch was motivated by care and compassion, by love.

    Today, let us be conscious of this invitation to have Jesus in our life and to discover that eternal life or the fullness of life is in Jesus. As we touch people through and by our life, always bring healing and bring life not corruption of life and not violence to life. Allow also the Lord to give testimony to us by making ourselves always open to God’s plan for us. Hinaut pa.

  • God first loved us

    God first loved us

    January 7, 2021 – Thursday after Epiphany

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010721.cfm)

    The very first time we realize that we are attracted to a person whether physically or emotionally, this gives us a chilling effect (kilig moments). When we are young, meeting and seeing that person gives us the excitement. Moreover, when we have reached a matured age capable of mature loving, the more we also feel the wonder when we also realize that we are in love. This drives us to express our love in concrete ways and leads us to commit that love in a life-long commitment.

    To be loved and to love is what really makes us human. In fact, when we do not feel that we are loved, this makes us also restless and empty. Then, our tendency is to look for ways where we could feel that we are loved. Sometimes, this leads us into unhealthy coping and even in abusive relationships just because of the need to be loved.

    When we are also not conscious of our ways of loving, sometimes it leads us into selfish ways of loving. We might think that what we do are ways of loving, but in fact, they may be ways of keeping others under our control or under our manipulation. These expressions are not God’s way of loving. God’s love for us does not lead us to violence or manipulation. God’s love liberates us and lets us experience the fullness of life.

    This is what John is telling us today. John has been proclaiming to us in the past few days the subject on love. John, today, reminds us that God first loved us. Because God first loved us, we all have the benefit of being loved and to enjoy that reality that we are indeed loved no matter what.

    John’s point is to make us confident that we are being loved first. There is no doubt in that. Take confidence in this! You are loved. I am loved. We are loved.

    Therefore, when we realize this, it moves us too, to love back. God’s love fills us and in our fullness, it naturally overflows in us. That is why, we are also capable of loving others because we are loved. John tells us that our way of loving is patterned from the source of love. Because God’s love does not control and does not do damage to others, our love also liberates others and rather brings healing to those whom we love.

    Be careful when our ways of loving is of control and doing harm to others, then, it is not love and not from God. It is motivated rather by hatred and by lies. The source of this is the evil one.

    Loving, as John also tells us, is not burdensome. That is why, keeping the commandment of God to love, is not heavy at all. How can it be heavy and oppressive when what we do is out of joy?

    Jesus in today’s Gospel expressed such joy in the Scripture that he read, “to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

    Love, then, brings healing, freedom and life. May this love fill our hearts today, so that our way of loving will also be transformed into God’s way of loving. Hinaut pa.