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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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Converting Visions into Reality (Wednesday, Week 19, Year 2)

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Ezekiel was among the prophets that prophesied during the Babylonian exile when the people of Judah were languishing in a foreign land. In Ezekiel’s prophetic visions, just as in some other prophecies, were warnings, messages of woes, lamentations, hope and promises of a better future: all these were for good, to inject hope into the people and to inspire them to live more faithfully. In one of his visions (Ezekiel 9), he saw Jerusalem being destroyed because of the great sins of the people. In that same vision, he saw that those who have been faithful to God and to His laws, those who groaned over all the sins that were committed in Jerusalem, were being marked to be saved. In one hand, there would be destruction of the wicked and all structures of sin and on the other hand, there would be redemption and salvation of the innocent. This vision may serve as a foretaste or a reminder of what may happen on the Last Day, the Day of Judgment, after which the Kingdom of God would be fully es...
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