1. 24th Sunday (Year B)
    Isaiah 50:5-9a;  Ps 34; James 2:14-18; Mark 8:27-35

    Theme: Discerning the Will of God; learning to think as God thinks

    My dear People of God, our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah talks about The Servant of God, Jesus, who was never put to shame because always checked in with the Father, listened to the voice of his Father before he acted.The second reading from James tells us that we, who profess faith in Jesus, must to be servants who transform our faith into actions that are pleasing to God. This calls for discernment because if we do not know what God’s will is, we will not be able to please Him.
    Something happened right after my ordination that I will never forget. I lived 40 blocks from the college where I used to teach so I drove to work everyday. One day, I saw an old man who was walking and limping so I stopped and asked if he wanted a ride. He said yes, so I picked him up and dropped him at his house. The next day, I saw him again, and did the same . It continued for a week but I never asked the man where he was coming from everyday at that same hour. After two weeks, I was in my office and two people came to me very angry and asked if I was the one giving their father a ride everyday. After they had described him, I said, “Yeah, but what is wrong with that? I was only helping”. Then they told me the the man had been asked to do physical therapy that he did not want to do so the children would put him in a car and drop him off at a place that he would have to walk home. So my ride was rather not helpful to this old man at all. Then I apologised. Since then before I give a ride I make sure the person is not avoiding some physical therapy.
    I think St. Peter in our gospel reading today made a similar mistake. In the story, Peter has just professed faith in Christ and, based on that profession, Jesus tells him,  “You are the rock upon which I will build my Church...... and I will give you the keys of the Kingdom, what you bind on earth will be considered bound in Heaven and what you loose on earth will be consider loosed in heaven.  Beloved in Christ, let’s face it, if you had such power to bind and loose won’t you use that to save those you love most from suffering and from all the troubles on the world?  That is what  Peter was trying do; to use his power to bind and loose to save Jesus from suffering and death. It is important to note that Peter was not using his power to do anything evil; actually, he wanted to use it to do good. But Jesus rebuked him. Why? Jesus rebuked him not because of the good Peter wanted to do but because the good Peter wanted to do was not what God wanted him to do at that particular moment in his life.
    Beloved in Christ, sometimes our greatest struggle is not so much how to choose good and avoid evil, but how to discern the will of God. How to think as God thinks. The question becomes among all the good things you can do, which one is the will of God for that moment in your life. That was the struggle of St. Peter in our gospel.  Because Peter did not consult with God to discern God’s will for the moment he was trying to save the the Savior. And then Jesus tells him NUP! Peter, you are wrong, that is not how to be a servant of God. If you base your decisions and actions on what looks good to you or what makes sense to you, or what you feel to be right, you will destroy rather than build God’s Kingdom.  You will be standing in God’s way instead of promoting his plans.
    Beloved, even though Peter failed in this gospel, if we end our reflection on how Peter failed, we will miss the point of the gospel reading. This story is meant to teach us that the success of the Christian life is not about how many times we fail but how many times we can turn to the lord and correct our thinking in order to think like God and be able to please God. It is about the strength of Peter, that no matter how often he failed he always turned back to God. He never gave up learning to think like God thinks. Turning to Christ is what Peter did best.  The more he failed, the more he spent time with Jesus. That is why he succeeded in forming many Churches for God and was transformed from somebody who wanted to save his life to a man who  laid down his life as a martyr to glorify God.
    In 2003, the Holy Father Blessed John Paul II published a letter on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucharistia. In that letter, he revealed how he was able to identify the voice of God, discover the will of God for the Church, for his personal life, and how he found strength and consolation in his struggles to do the will of God. The Holy Father explains his secret as spending time in Eucharistic Adoration. Spending time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament: “How often, dear brothers and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation and support” (para. 25). My prayer is that we shall learn from St. Peter to spend time with Jesus and never give up learning to think like God. I pray that we shall learn from John Paul II and spend time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacraments so that we can discern the will of Christ, think like Christ, and act like Christ.
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  2. 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

    Dt 4:1-2, 6-8; Ps 15; Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27;  Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

    Theme:  Freedom Without Christ Brings Destruction

    One of the things that almost everybody who visits the USA wants to see is the Statue of Liberty in New York. If you pay close attention to this statue, you will notice that it has a crown with seven arrows that symbolize the seven continents of the world, God’s gift of freedom to human beings; and the dignity of every human being in the world.

    The statue also holds a torch in its right hand, which is a symbol of the light that human beings need so that they do NOT destroy the freedom and dignity that God has given us. Beloved, that light, which the world is looking for is Jesus, true light that shines in darkness and brings light to every human being (John 1:4-9).

    In addition, the statue has a tablet in its left hand. That tablet symbolizes the importance of law. That without laws, human beings will destroy themselves. Indeed, without God's law, the whole world will be destroyed. As, a Christian, when I think about the tablet in the hands of the statue, my mind goes right back to Moses holding the tablet of God’s law in his hand. That law which Moses in our first reading says makes a nation great, wise, and intelligent.
     
    So, for us Christians, the three symbols on the statue of liberty should remind us of the relationship that must exist between our freedom, Jesus the light of the world, and His teachings of loving God with all our hearts, our minds, and our souls; and loving one another the way He has loved us.

    Unfortunately, we live in a world today where people talk about freedom but they do not want to talk about Jesus, the Light, and they do not want to talk about the tablet, His teachings, God's law. No wonder 2012 years after Jesus laying down his life so that the world will not remain the same, our world today is still less than perfect.  There are still wars around the world, in Syria, Afghanistan, and some countries in Africa. There are economic problems, political problems and many social evils in our world today. The result is that people get fed up with life and kill themselves or kill others. We are destroying the freedom God gave us because we are neglecting the light and the tablet.

    However, all is not lost. We can wake up from our slumber, arise from our sleep, and rebuild the city of God. God is always ready to give us a new day. There is hope. Our readings today teach us how we can reshape the world into the way God created it. Moses tells us in the first reading that if only we can return to the tablet, we shall once again become a nation that is truly great, wise and intelligent. In the gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ tells us if we stop replacing God’s law with human teachings, and rather begin to think as God thinks and live as God teaches us, things will change; and we can build a better world. St James, in the second reading, re-echoes the voice of Christ and call on us to accept humbly the Word of God that has been implanted in our souls so that we can become doers of the Word not just hearers.

     Let us continue to pray for all nations in the world that as we seek freedom, we may also seek Christ, the light  of the world, and return to God’s law.  Let us pray that our nation, America, will return to Christ and help other nations do the same.


    Let us pray with the Choir in the following video that God will continue to lead us!
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  3. 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

    Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b;  Ps. 34; Eph 5:21-32; Jn 6:60-69


    Theme: “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD” (Jos 24:16)

    Like those disciples who decided to walk away from Jesus because of his teachings, there are many people in our world today, who still have issues with the Real Presence of God in the Eucharist. We, Catholics who do not have any problem accepting the Holy Eucharist as the true Body and Blood of Christ, must continue to pray for the grace of God to guide all humanity to this Divine Truth.
    Beloved, Jesus did not come into the world to seek popularity but to do the WILL of The Father. After Jesus had revealed the Divine Truth that the Eucharist is his real Body and Blood, many of his disciples left him because they found this teaching too hard to accept. Even when his disciples are leaving him, Jesus does not back down on revealing the Divine Truth. He would rather lose all followers, including the 12 Apostles (if they find his teaching unacceptable) than to teach anything contrary to the Will of his Father. Why? Because Jesus believed that the words the Father makes him speak are “Spirit and life”. He had no problem submitting to the will of the Father and speaking exactly what the Father wanted because he knew that his Father is nothing but absolute love; and that love cannot contradict itself. Therefore, every word from the Father can only bring life. That is what the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church believes, as our first Pope, St. Peter, professes in our gospel today: “ You have the words of eternal life”.
    My dear reader, do you believe that every single word of God can bring nothing but love? Or do you have issues with God’s teaching on abortion, war, contraceptives, euthanasia, In-vitro fertilization, divorce, gay-marriage, cohabitation etc?
    Do you have a problem with our second reading of today, God’s word through St. Paul “ Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ......Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.......Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church”? Do you think God has gotten it all wrong and that you need to help Him understand the life that He created? It is important to remember that every word that God speaks is spoken out of love and for our salvation. Indeed, if husbands learn to actually die for their wives the way Christ died for the Church, then the call on a wive to submit to a husband (somebody who will actually die for her) will not be a problem. After all, submission to true love can produce nothing but more love and a life that radiates God’s love for humanity. Therefore, instead of seeing these words of God as dated, we need to see them as a call to live marriage as a true sacrament of God’s love.
    I pray that all Christians will attain a more authentic relationship with God, a relation in which every word of God is seen as “Spirit and Life”. May God give us the grace to say with the Israelites in our first reading today: “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD”
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