A Mother’s Prayer

Matthew 15:21-28 Once in a wake, our group was talking about death and the difficulty that the family deals with. One commented which everyone agreed – the most difficult thing is when it is the parents who bury their children. That is why even the Irish has a saying, “May you never bury your children.”…

Life is Given

Matthew 10: 17-22 Last Friday, we just celebrated Christmas day. Very interestingly, in our Church calendar, we celebrated the feast of the first martyr – St. Stephen. Three reflections on these two celebrations: Christmas is about the birth of our Savior – God was brought to man. “Because God so loved the world that he…

God is Faithful

A Christmas carol says that this is “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, but for those who have attended the Simbang Gabi Masses, the many Gospels tell us that the lives of people who were related to Jesus were affected and disturbed. Their lives have been altered to the point of a crisis. There…

Christian Unity

There is a story of St. Peter touring a new soul who just entered heaven. He first showed the soul the room of the United Church of Christ. They were feasting and praising. Then they visited the room of the Reformed Church. They too were feasting and praising. Then they went to the room of…

God’s Time

One thing technology has brought us is that we can do things in an instant: Once when one had to do research, one had to go to the library. Now, just go to the internet. Once it would take hours to prepare one’s favorite food, now just dial a number and order it. Once to…

Eternal Life

In an article at the Philippine Daily Inquirer written in 2012, it stated that the Philippines leads the world in believing in God – 94 percent. This is followed by Chile at 88 percent and then the U. S. with 81 percent. Belief was lowest in former East Germany (13 percent) and in the Czech…

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Seemingly, many people nowadays experience fear, anxiety, worry, and depression. Further, how many people do we know that have suicidal thoughts or have actually committed suicide? Why are these experiences getting prevalent? It could be that there is so much uncertainty, it could also be that because we have lost our moral compass as there…

John of the Cross

If one would study the history of the Church, one would realize that there were moments in her long history that the Church went astray. God in his goodness and in his love for the Church would send reformers to renew the Church. Today we celebrate the memorial of one of them – John of…

What Shall We Do

In a retreat that we attended, the retreat master gave us two hours to reflect on the question: “If you had twenty-four hours to live, what shall you do?” After two hours, we shared our reflections and it all boiled down to one thing: Despite differences in the stories and experiences of all the people,…

Words to God, Words from God

Words are very powerful. Notice when one is down and a friend or a loved one utters kind and inspiring words, how it lifts us up, how it gives us strength, and how it gives us comfort. On the other hand, when people who we do not know say something nasty or unkind, we continue…