TO be truly Christian, we should really have the very heart of Christ. We should have his attitude toward all possible conditions our life can find itself in, irrespective of whether these conditions are favorable to us or not.   This can mean that in spite of doing a lot of good, we can still be misunderstood, unappreciated, contradicted and rejected. And yet we should never succumb to hatred and condemning people. Like Christ we should be willing to offer our life even to those who do us evil, even offering forgiveness to them. We have to go that extent.   Like Christ ..read more

WE need time and effort to develop a great love for the Eucharist. More than that. We need to rev up our faith so we can truly take seriously these words of Christ that refer to the Eucharist: “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has everlasting life and I will raise him up on the last day.” (Jn 6,53-54)   We need to rekindle our Eucharistic amazement and to intensify our Eucharistic piety, since in the Eucharist we really have Christ with us and he offers himself as food for our ..read more

THAT’S what we can gather from what Christ said about himself being the Bread of Life. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eats of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.” (Jn 6,51)   This gives us a great reason to be truly happy and confident in our life which will always be marked with all sorts of challenges, trials, difficulties, etc. Christ wants to give himself completely to us so he and us can be one as we should, since we are God’s image and likeness, despite our weaknesses, limit ..read more

THAT’S what we can gather from the readings of the Mass on Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter. (Acts 8,1-8; Jn 6,35-40) Whatever negative things we can encounter along the way, the good, which is a matter of believing in Christ, if not, identifying ourselves with him, will always prevail, if not soon, then in the end.   It’s amazing to note that, as narrated in the first reading, the still-unconverted Paul was one of the fiercest persecutors of the early Christians. And yet, later on, he became a most intense apostle.   Miracles indeed can happen. Extraordinary change ..read more

WE have to learn the art of how to stay on course in our life so that we do not get distracted, confused, entangled and lost. For this, we have to be clear about what the real and ultimate purpose of our life is, as well as know how to relate everything in our life—both the good things and the bad—to this purpose.   This, of course, would require us to undertake regular review and updating of our plans and strategies through practices like daily examinations of conscience, monthly days of recollection, annual retreats, etc. And even during the day, we should make a number of pit sto ..read more

IN the gospel of the Mass on Monday of the Third Week of Easter (cfr. Jn 6, 22-29), we are told about how more and more people, after learning about how Christ managed to feed 5 thousand people with a few loaves of bread, came looking for Christ. They were even willing to cross the water in boats just to find him.   This reaction of the people should also be our reaction to Christ. We should try our best to develop and keep our attraction to Christ as strong and abiding as possible. We have to convince ourselves that this is the ideal condition for us to be in, and thus, we have to ..read more

ACTUALLY, our whole life here on earth is a test God gives us, to see if what he wants us to be, that is, to be his image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature is also what we ourselves would want to be.   Thus, we are given intelligence to enable us to know this truth about ourselves, and the will to enable us to freely choose to follow God’s will and designs for us or not. We should therefore realize very deeply and abidingly that the main purpose of our intelligence and will is to comply with God’s will for us. Using them mainly for other purposes—personal, professi ..read more

WE should always feel the need to always strengthen our belief in Christ. That’s because with all the things that we have to grapple with everyday, there’s always the tendency to set Christ aside and to fall into depending on our own human estimation of things alone or to let ourselves simply to drift where the currents of world would lead us.   Let’s remember that as we are reminded in the gospel of the Mass on Thursday of the Second Week of Easter (cfr. Jn 3,31-36), “whoever believes in the Son (Christ) has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrat ..read more

THIS is a great challenge for us! Since we are God’s image and likeness, we should also try to assume the very same attitude God has towards sinners, or towards anyone with whom we have some differences and conflicts.   And what is this attitude? It’s spelled out clearly in the gospel of Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter. (cfr. Jn 3, 16-21) “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be save ..read more

THE readings of Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter (Act 4,32-37 / Jn 3,7-15) somehow reminds us of two things: we need to live Christian poverty which demands all from us, and for that to take place, we need to be “born again,” so that the spirit of Christ would truly animate us and not just our human spirit.   Christian poverty is no joke. As depicted in the first reading, the believers of Christ sold or turned over everything, created a common fund which was distributed to everyone according to their needs.   This is a big challenge for us, considering that we always ..read more