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HOMILIES

ON FIRE

This reflection, based on Luke 12:49-53, is a collaboration John, a childhood friend who offered to help when he found out I was down with the flu.

Have you ever gone somewhere where you had to get something done, but there was a line ahead of you and the people in-charge were moving much too slowly? Didn’t you feel like lighting a fire under them to ignite them and get them moving?

That’s how Jesus must have felt. That’s why in today’s Gospel he gives us a line that you wouldn’t exactly expect from the Lord: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”

A-Globe-On-Fire

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HOMILIES

RUDE AWAKENING

This reflection is based on Luke 12:35-40.

I’ve been obsessed with sleep lately.

sleepapneafairy

It all started when I flunked my sleep test two years ago and was diagnosed with a common sleeping disorder called apnea, for which I needed a sleep apnea mouth guard soon after. Apparently, like a lot of people, my breathing would stop for a few seconds during my sleep–except that in my case, it happened too often. No wonder I always woke up fatigued–a strange phenomenon for a morning person like me who’s most productive in the morning and usually brain-dead by 8 pm.

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HOMILIES

IGNACIO DE LOYOLA, BUILDER OF BRIDGES

This reflection is based on Luke 12:13-21 for the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

What will you build in your life?

That’s the question that our simple but profound parable in today’s Gospel asks us. It’s also the perfect question on the day we honor the saint who spent his life wrestling with that question. In a sense, everything in our life boils down to this one question.

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For one, we could choose to spend our lives building barns as the man in the parable does. He decides to store all his riches exclusively for himself so that he can enjoy them all for many years–to “rest, eat, drink, and be merry.” But as fate would have it, the very night he completes the last of his barns, he dies, leaving his hoard behind.

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HOMILIES

SNAKES AND SCORPIONS

This reflection is based on Luke 11:1-13.

This Sunday’s Gospel has much to teach us about prayer, but it’s our Lord’s explanation of his parable of the desperate friend that struck me:

“Knock and the door will be opened to you…
What father among you would hand his son a snake
when he asks for a fish?
Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

 

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HOMILIES

EAVESDROP

This homily, based on Genesis 18:1-10a and Luke 10:38-42, is for the Church of the Gesu, Ateneo de Manila University.

We’re all familiar with the story of Martha and Mary–not only because we’ve heard this Gospel story before, but also because most of us have wrestled with the issue it raises in our own lives.

Martha_and_Mary_by_He_Qi_China

Martha is frantic in the kitchen, concocting whatever she could to serve their special guest and friend, Jesus, who, because he’s very close to them, has probably shown up unannounced. She’s doing what she must, but her dear sister Mary isn’t. Needing help, Martha calls for Mary, but gets no answer. She peers through the smoke rising from the stove, and of course, there is Mary, sitting idly at the feet of Jesus, a special captive audience of one. If this had happened today, Mary probably would have already posted a couple of selfies with their celebrity guest on Instagram.

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