REFLECTIONS TODAY One of the useful conventions of organized civil life is the creation of laws. Without them, perhaps life would be next to impossible, if not outright impossible. But our attitude towards laws at times tends to make them absolute, forgetting that, in the first place, they were...
REFLECTIONS TODAY 30068 Jesus’ coming brought joy to the world. This is what we sing at Christmas. Of course, his coming also implies that we make ourselves ready and fit for the graces that he brings—by penance, and fasting perhaps. But joy and celebration should be the prevailing mood, not...
REFLECTIONS TODAY 29837 Fishing is one of those types of livelihood where you really are at the mercy of God. For there are times when it seems the fish are just nowhere in sight. And so we imagine fishermen really praying as they go out into the sea that God bless them with a catch. The disciples...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Practically everyone these days says he or she is busy. Even those who have no jobs are still desperately busy looking. Of course, every one of us is busy with his/her gadgets on social media. But those who are really taking on many things find themselves at the end of the day...
REFLECTIONS TODAY Jesus’ power over demons is essentially a function of his place in the hierarchy of powers. He is higher than the demons. The demon claims to know who Jesus is—that he is the Holy One of God. This is not a confession but an attempt to gain power over Jesus through knowledge of...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The scroll of the prophet Isaiah handed to Jesus describes the deliverance of Israel (the inhabitants of Judah exiled in Babylon) as a “jubilee year” (Is 61:1-2; Lv 25). It is a moment of grace when debts are cancelled, slaves are freed, and properties returned to their...
REFLECTIONS TODAY MARK 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The parable focuses on the third servant who is condemned by his master as “wicked and lazy” and whose talent is taken away from him. Not a few people would say that it is he who does the honorable thing. The audience of Jesus may also have realized that what the third servant...
REFLECTIONS TODAY In Palestine, on the actual day of the wedding, the groom, along with his friends, goes to the bride’s house towards evening to fetch her for the wedding ceremony. The bridal party is awaited by young females with torches (the virgins of the parable). When the groom’s party...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The last of Jesus’ “five great discourses” in the Gospel of Matthew (24:36—25:46) has to do with the “end-time.” After finishing his work of salvation on earth, Jesus has returned to the Father, but he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. This...
REFLECTIONS TODAY The Law of Moses declares that everyone who in the open country touches a dead person, or who touches a human bone or grave, is rendered unclean, and needs to be ritually purified (Nm 19:16). It was then Jewish practice to whitewash tombs so that pilgrims to the Jerusalem Temple...
REFLECTIONS TODAY A harmonized reading of the Gospels tends to identify Nathanael in John with Bartholomew of the Synoptics. This is because in the Synoptic listings of the Twelve, the name Bartholomew comes after that of Philip. And Philip is precisely the one who brings Nathanael to Jesus. Jesus...
