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Miraculous versus Fidelity (Wednesday, 10th Week, Year II)

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Today's readings ask very important questions as far as our relationship with God is concerned: Do we need to see or experience miracles and spectacular events before we can believe in God and keep His commandments? Or do we just have to believe in God, and consequently obey and teach His commandments in response to our belief? It seems we, humans, have been made to believe that God can only be found in spectacular, extraordinary events. And that's why we are strongly drawn to places where "miracles" happen and to persons who supposedly "perform" such miracles. Possibly, it was such a tendency in humans that made the people of Israel to drift away from the True God and embrace Baal worship, as it reflects in the first reading (1 Kings 18:20-39). It will not be out of place to believe that eerie events and weird religious practices must have characterised the worship of Baal. And those activities and rituals must have strongly appealed to the curiosity and se...
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The Future Glory versus the Present Suffering (Transfiguration of the Lord)

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To imagine or think about the BEAUTY OF WHAT LIES AHEAD is enough to help us endure the PAINS of what currently obtains. The JOY of being successful in exams is enough to motivate a student to apply himself or herself to studies, not minding the rigors and the stress. The BEAUTY of promotion in the workplace and the JOY of laughing all the way to the bank at the end of every month are enough to motivate an employee to work harder, despite the pains and difficulties he/she may be going through. The Transfiguration of Jesus was a very auspicious moment of encounter in which the future leaders of the early Church (Peter, James and John) had a faint idea or a foretaste of the glory that awaits them in the world-to-come. This encounter must have prepared them for the agony in the garden and must have given them strength and courage to go through the grinding and bitter experiences of witnessing to their faith while on earth. The vision of Daniel in the first reading (Daniel 7:9-10.13-14...
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What is in My Heart (Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Year A)

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The heart is the seat of all emotions, actions and inactions. Everything begins in the heart: thoughts are conceived in the heart; and then churned out as actions or inactions. A little analogy can be of help. If you add some ink to the source of any water, the entire water will obviously be coloured and what comes out at the other end for collection is coloured water not pure water. The heart is, if you like, the origin or the source of our thoughts and imaginations. But it must reflect on or think about something, not just on itself. If what we inject into the heart is unwholesome, our thoughts will be polluted and consequently our actions will be reprehensible. If it is something good, then our thoughts will be good and our actions commendable and admirable.  We are celebrating a heart that is filled with love, not hatred; a heart that is filled with compassion, not animosity; a heart filled with optimism, not pessimism; a heart laced with sacrificial love, not with selfish am...
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