I Prefer Heaven

Matthew 13:36-43 In medicine, they have a term known as NDE otherwise known as Near Death Experience. These are experiences of sick patients who have been flatlining for a while but eventually regain consciousness. Three things are typically experienced: They do not remember anything They were in a very nice peaceful place but were told…

Love for Children

During the time of Jesus, he had a preferential option for the disadvantaged: the poor, women, the widow, the sinner, the prostitute, and yes, the children. Children during the time of Jesus were treated as second class citizens. Hence, they were closest to the heart of Jesus. That is why he scolded his apostles for…

The World Needs God

Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the three children who witnessed the Marian apparitions at Fatima, died in 2005. Before her death, she predicted that the final battle between Christ and Satan would be over marriage and the family. Indeed, this is what is happening nowadays and it is called DEATH. DEATH is an acronym…

Holistic Healing

One day, I anointed two elderly women. The first one, the son said, “please keep open your evening schedule for mommy’s masses. The doctor says she can go anytime. It has been a month already and she is still alive. No respiratory, no dialysis, no extraordinary measures”. The second one just came from a stent…

Being Prepared

Some time ago I visited three wakes. The first was a 14-year old girl who died of leukemia. She finally rested after two years of in and out of the hospital. The second wake was an unexpected death of a 55-year old man who had a heart attack. Everyone thought he was fit and athletic,…

Gain and Loss

Although we came into this world with nothing and we are leaving this world with nothing, part of our humanity is that we experience grief when we experience loss. While material loss is difficult, more painful is a loss of a loved one. For those who are about 50 years old and above, going to…

Blessed

We Filipinos are very fond of having things blessed: from houses to cars, from offices to store. Once I was asked to bless a pencil. When I queried, “What for?”, the response was, “I will be taking the board exams.” When we request a blessing, typically the desire is for good fortune. Hence if the…

Signs

In the old testament, when Moses warned the Pharaoh to set the Israelites free, he showed him wonderful signs from God. Why was Pharaoh not impressed? Because he himself had a magician who could easily mimic or copy the signs that Moses did. Yes, the devil always tries to mimic the divine. Until it led…

Come and See

When I was going through the discernment process of whether to leave my work to enter the seminary, one thing that the seminary told us is that we would not be offered anything. All they had to say was “Come and See.” This was difficult because we were working. It is not uncommon to leave…

Divine Mercy

When people hurt us, we have the tendency to confront and give them a litany of the things that we have done for the person. “I did this… I did that…. I gave you this… I gave you that… I helped you with this… I helped you with that…. how can you be so ungrateful?”…