Episodes
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We read in the Gospel today about Jesus forgiving the sins of the paralytic brought to His presence. Perhaps what they were expecting was a physical cure only. Some scribes present, heard of these blasphemous words of this man called Jesus. So, they cried foul! Jesus challenged them by asking them which was easier to do, to forgive his sins, or to get the paralytic to get up and walk. Jesus got him to move again to prove the reality of having also the power to forgive his sins. Oh, the people were in awe, as we all should be! Curing the paralytic to walk again is miraculous. But even better was His forgiving his sins. If He can do both, there must be more to Jesus than meets the eye!
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St. Thomas surrendered his being before what he beheld of the scars of the nails and lance on His risen body. He exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!" He was able to prove his faith when he was martyred. Shouldn't we utter that act of faith many times a day when we behold God interfering with us so eager to get done what we want to do? It is the risen Lord seeking us out in those sacrifices during the day.
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Missing episodes?
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We read today St. Matthew's version of the calming of the wind and sea in the sea of Galilee. We read some days ago about St. Mark's version. They are practically the same but St. Matthew's version displays certain features. St. Matthew describes Jesus as standing up from sleeping, supposedly in a horizontal position. That conveys more authority. He commands the sea and wind as if they were His pets. He mentions to His disciples that have little faith. This is a realization we need to reach too. Hence, we should grasp God's Providence in subjecting us to a difficult situation so we can see how small we are. And there is nothing to be worried about. That is the truth about ourselves, anyway.
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Jesus enlightens us about discipleship, The standards are very high.
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The Gospel presents to us two miracles that involve women. Jesus shows us how He deals with them. They are also recipients of His favors. One was a woman suffering for many years from a hemorrhage, and the other was dead already. The former demonstrated her deep faith in merely having to touch His clothes for her to be cured. The latter simply followed Jesus' command to rise. He shows His care for them. These two miracles remind us of His associating with other women in the Gospels.
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Today, we celebrate these two saints. We learn from them by contemplating and imitating them. Peter was assigned to be just that, i.e., the rock foundation of the Church. The gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. Paul shows us his total self-giving to his call to be an apostle. Both teach us that our being founded on rock does mean that we as members are not to be static and remain only in place. We need to move around to evangelize the world.
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Jesus expresses His willingness to cure the leper. This poor man got our Lord to cure him by introducing his petition saying that He could cure him if He wanted to. That way seems to get Jesus to cure Him. His was an act of faith in that Jesus could cure him if He wanted to.
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Jesus explains to us today that to enter Heaven, we need to do God's Will. To know God's Will, we need to communicate with Him. This communication involves reading and studying His Letters to us in Sacred Scriptures. We need to discern His desires. We will fail in that if we do not pray, spend time with Him, and use our reason and other faculties in finding out what He wants. Wisdom is attained when we act on His Will. Otherwise, Jesus compares us to a man who builds his house on sand. That house will fall eventually. Our Christian life would only be like the life conducted by some Jews who Our dear Lord called as hypocrites.
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Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva, Founder of Opus Dei. During his canonization mass, St. Pope John Paul II referred to him as the saint of the ordinary. The gospel for the feast tells us about the miraculous catch of fish, where Jesus tells Simon Peter, and all of us, not to be afraid of Him because of our sinfulness. He will count on us to establish and spread the Church He was setting up. We live the Church in the ordinary life we all lead, through our work and life of fulfilling all our duties, made holy by God' action and our free collaboration.
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Our Lord Jesus winds down His monumental Sermon on the Mount with shorter teachings, but no less important ones. First, He commands us not to be wasteful of His Things, like the graces He gives us. We would have to answer for each grace He gifts us with. Then, the Golden Rule is given. This not at all unique to Christ. Other cultures also follow this principle, although they express it in the negative form. Jesus enunciates it in the positive form. In this way, He tells us to be creative in doing good to the others. In the negative way, one only avoids what is bad. Lastly, Jesus describes the path to Heaven as passing through a narrow gate, indicating its difficulty.
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We celebrate the Birth of St. John the Baptist today. His significance stems from his role in Salvation history. He was assigned to prepare for the arrival of the Savior.
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Our Lord asked His Apostles why they were frightened when He was there with them, only sleeping at the stern of the boat they were on to transit to the other side of the Lake of Galilee. An unforeseen gale began to blow, pushing up the waves so much that their boat was almost swamped. They feared for their lives that they woke Jesus up to plead for their safety. The Lord criticized them for their little faith. Then, He commanded wind and sea to calm down, and they went peaceful again. They were so awestruck by His power. They realized they need to trust in Him more.
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Worrying is part and parcel of daily living. That stems from our certain attachments to certain creatures like comfort, wealth, making an impression in the others, etc. As Jesus says in the Gospel today, we cannot serve two masters, i.e., a creature and God. He encourages us to follow God by trusting Him instead. He values us so much that He will not let something bad happen to us. But as St. Thomas More said to his daughter Margaret, even if it looks bad, he would still trust God because whatever happens would be the best for us. His head was severed from his torso, and he is a saint!
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Jesus challenges us today in the Gospel regarding where we put our treasure. He points out the seriousness of the matter. One's life is lived according to the treasure. If we keep our treasure only in creatures of this world, then you would run into problems, like exposure to rust, thieves, loss, etc. If we store our treasures in matters leading to Heaven, then we would be better off because our treasure would be truly secure.
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Jesus addresses today in the Gospel of the Mass the matter of how to pray. He criticized the multiplication of words in some prayers. He wants us to pray simply and to use the Our Father as a guide and preparation to pray for our needs. The Lord's Prayer is that pray. This prepares us for real prayer by going through each petition contained there.
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Today, Jesus elucidates on the intentions we may have in doing our good deeds. He reminds us that we should not want to simply attract men's notice. We need to rectify our intentions constantly so that we keep our intentions upright. That means we do things, so God sees us. Our dear Lord encourages us to offer our deeds to God, and not to garner men's attention. Naturally, our good deeds will attract their attention and they would recognize our good actions. But this ought not to be the main purpose for doing them. We should not promote ourselves. If we do, then we may just receive our earthly reward, and we lose the chance to win our eternal reward.
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Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us we need to go beyond what was practiced before Him, namely, Love your neighbor and hate your enemies. The Divine Lord requires us to love even those we deem unlovable, like our enemies who have hurt us in some way. He reasons with His listeners that His Heavenly Father makes His sun rise and set for everyone, even those who hate Him or do not follow or believe in Him. We should do more than what the Gentiles do in greeting those they like. This means Our Lord reminding us that He wants that divine life initiated in our souls in Baptism to grow and develop. It is a divine life, that is, the very life of God participated in in our souls. Loving our enemies is what God does. That is how He operates, not how our fallen human nature operates. But we have left that 'old man' behind when we followed Christ. It is His Life we want to live. Thus, we have to love everyone, even our enemies and those who prove to be unlovable.
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Jesus points out today in the Gospel that this principal enunciated in the title was development of Jewish law or the Mosaic Law. However, Jesus perfects it by saying that we should not even think about getting back at our opponents. We should expose our other cheek if he hits us on the other. This means that we need to forgive our offenders. The violence has to end in us. We should not spread the violence to others, beginning with the one who is our aggressor. This does not mean that Our Lord wants us to be like sitting ducks. We can defend ourselves, and we should fight back following justice and self-defense. However, in situations where we cannot achieve that, we need to learn to forgive the others and not spread the harm. We need to imitate Jesus during His Passion and Death on the Cross. He absorbed all of the cruelty of His enemies.
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Jesus illustrates to us through parables what the Kingdom of God is like. He uses today the images of seeds, plants, sowing and harvesting. He underscores the phenomenon of how these seeds grow and mature for the harvest. We do not know how it develops, but the seed does grow. And that is an image of the Kingdom of God growing in us and through us. We receive the seed first in Baptism and then in subsequent sacraments. How it grows we don't know how, but it is there growing and maturing. What we only have to do is not to pose obstacles to its growth. Returning to the analogy of Jesus, the farmer takes care of the growth of the seed and the plant. We, too, need to take care of the life of Jesus growing in us but defending it, nourishing it and taking care of it. Thus, when harvest time comes, we would find ourselves in the Kingdom of God!
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The Lord emphasizes simplicity in speech. We fall for egoism and primacy of selfishness when we lie and complicate our speech. Truthfulness is the best to follow. Making oaths need not be necessary just to assure the others that we are telling the truth and that one will fulfill his commitment. Ordinarily, what needs to be done is to say things simply and truthfully. Yes if we want to say Yes, and No if we want to say No.
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