REFLECTIONS TODAY The cold-shoulder treatment from Jesus in this reading is completely unexpected. The loving and compassionate Jesus we have known ignores the Canaanite woman! But she is unshakable. She prays persistently, confident that she will be heard. This woman is a foreigner, holding...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Gospel • Matthew 14:22-36 [or 15:1-2, 10-14] Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side of the sea, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone....
REFLECTIONS TODAY “The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle of Jesus that is recounted in all four gospels… it was seen as anticipating the Eucharist and the final banquet in the kingdom (Mt 8:11; 26:29)… it looks… to the feeding of Israel with manna in the desert at the time of...
BETTER DAYS On Aug. 9, 2023 we commemorate the 29th International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. The date was chosen by the United Nations General Assembly to mark the first meeting of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982. There are at least 110 indigenous cultural...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Matthew 17:1-9 Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them,...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Mark’s Gospel presents Herod as revering John to be a holy man. The Baptist’s execution is credited to Herodias’ own hatred and desire (6:19). In Matthew, however, the desire is Herod’s from the beginning. Herod Antipas received a quarter of his father’s (Herod the...
REFLECTIONS TODAY After hearing Jesus’ teachings, the crowds who came from all over the place are in admiring astonishment at him. In his hometown, however, the town’s folks could not believe that such powerful and gracious words come from an ordinary carpenter’s son who used to reside with...
REFLECTIONS TODAY With the use of images of what the world considers precious and worth spending one’s energy and resources just to gain them, Jesus tries to explain that the Kingdom of heaven is the greatest treasure one can find for oneself. It gives one the greatest of all joys. It even moves...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The disciples ask Jesus to explain the parable of the Weeds in the field. Jesus tells his disciples that the Devil, the enemy, is the one who sows the weeds. When it is harvest time, the weeds—sinners and evildoers—will be cut down, collected, and burned up. On the other hand,...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Though, strictly speaking, the mustard seed may not be the smallest, it is, proverbially speaking. Jesus contrasts here between the “smallest of all” (seed) and the “largest of plants” (shrub) (v 32). The shrub even becomes a tree that shelters birds in its branches. This...
REFLECTIONS TODAY First Reading • 1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12 The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” Solomon answered: “O Lord, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father David; but I am a mere youth, not...
BETTER DAYS Listening to the one hour and a half second State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., we looked back at what the administration has done in its first full year in office and its plans for the coming year. Emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, the start of the...
