Keeping hope alive

For this year's World Youth Day, Pope Francis gave the theme "Young man, I say to you, arise". In his message, Pope Francis launches an appeal to young people to have the ability to see pain and death - to look at pain and death in the eye. We live in a society where the reality of death, pain, suffering, poverty is camouflaged in different ways because we want to give an idea, or at least an image, of a perfect life. We are often afraid to express our weaknesses and failures because society gives us a subliminal message that there is no room for weaklings in the world. But the covid-19 situation has brought us face-to-face with the reality of sickness, death, poverty, misery, incompetence, injustice, desperation, and insecurity. We see images every day and there is a danger of getting used to them. So Pope Francis asks us: "All around us, but at times also within us, we can see realities of death: physical, spiritual, emotional, social. Do we really notice them, or simply let them happen to us? Is there anything we can do in order to restore life?
Our Christian faith is founded on Christ's resurrection. This is what inspires us to act proactively, to give our own concrete contributions, no matter how small they may be. We believe that we are part of and are weaving history. We learn from those who have gone ahead of us and we hope that with our good choices we leave a better world for future generations. Our Christian faith is personal, but it is not individualistic. It acknowledges that we are part of history. It acknowledges that we are part of a community.

When good people do nothing

Still missing you

I still miss you. It's almost twenty years since you've passed on, but I still remember your quiet and contagious laughter that came from your simple soul. Your laughter came not from the fact that everything was okay, but because you believed that God takes care of everything in His own time, even if that time didn't come according to our program. You were happy when we were together as a family, including the extended one, again, not because everything was perfect but because that is what a family is about.
From heaven, continue to watch over us. Pray for the world, that we may all rediscover that it is in the simple things in life, lived in authenticity that we truly find joy.
Happy birthday in heaven, nanay.

Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit, who is greater than our hearts, exposes us to our true selves, not for judgment and condemnation, but for understanding and compassion.
The Holy Spirit helps us not to run away from our weaknesses but to look at them as opportunities of grace.
The Holy Spirit helps us to rejoice for the good that is in us and for the good that we accomplish, seeing in them our participation in God, who is "the Only good" and from whom all good things come.

Lost without a shepherd

I imagine Jesus looking at the world right now with the same sentiments he had two thousand years ago! We are like sheep without a shepherd.
Many of those who are supposed to take care of the sheep are like mercenaries who take advantage of the sheep and use them for their own gain.
The sheep are scattered, each one fighting for its own survival and look at the others as rivals. Without a point of communion, the law of the jungle prevails, the survival of the fittest!
What is the way out? Awareness, and for awareness to arise, we must have the courage to let things 'hang in there' for a while, that is, not have the hurry to resolve everything; rather, take time off to sort of 'regroup' and get in touch with the deepest truths in our hearts. The only ones that will matter to us at the end of our life.
To take time off is necessary for the salvation of our soul, otherwise, we become gobbled by the chaos within and outside of us.

True leader

Seduced by a dance

Today's Gospel narrating the circumstances of John the Baptist's death reminds us of a truth all of us share. Without a strong center, it is easy to be seduced: by power, by beauty, by money, by short-term success, by practicality and convenience.
Herodias' daughter's dance played to the basest instincts of Herod - human respect, the desire to show-off one's power.
Without a firm and more stable center, it is easy to vacillate and to be seduced even by a dance.
Every day we are faced with decisions to make. Whatever our choice may be, they show what we hold dear in our life.
But there are bigger moments when our decision is a matter of life or death. What or who is the center that will eventually decide the life and death of our soul?