Daily Reflections
When I was still in the minor seminary, there was a song I loved so much, and we used to sing it often at Mass during the Communion. The title of the song is “Come Down Lord.” It was written by the Medical Mission Sister, Miriam Therese Winter, and was…
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Growing up in a Hindu family, I went to the temple once or twice a year and was perplexed by the large idols I saw there. They loomed silently over the people like alien figures, expressionless and unfeeling. The silence I felt there was deafening. In stark contrast, the Cross…
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With a largesse of poetic license, the mathematician Edward Norton Lorenz presented the metaphorical example of a distant butterfly flapping its tiny wings, weeks earlier in Brazil, leading to the formation of a tornado, weeks later, in Texas. The Butterfly Effect has come to mean that in a complex system,…
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In the Gospel of today (Mark 12, 28b-34), one of the Scribes, namely, one of the most learned in the context of the Jewish law, approached Jesus and demanded an answer from him to the question: Which is the greatest commandment of the law? Jesus gave the best and shortest…
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Sts. Perpetua and Felicity are two of the saints honored to be named in the RomanCanon. This prayer, now commonly called Eucharistic Prayer I, used to be prayed atevery Mass and formed the heart of the entire liturgical act. It is so revered by theChurch that it has hardly changed…
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The precepts of the Lord are rooted in God’s undying love for His people. His intention with these precepts is to ensure the happiness of the people who He created in His own image and likeness. He created them and endowed them with freedom, which underscores the dignity of their…
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When I was in the parish, serving as parochial vicar, I used to go an hour before Mass to the Church, to be available for confessions. Once, a man I did not know came in and asked me if he could talk to me. He opened his heart to me,…
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Priest, Prophet and King: By our baptism we Christians are called to be priests, prophets, and kings. Whether we were baptized as unaware infants or as fully consenting adults, the priest’s words “Just as Jesus was anointed priest, prophet, and king, so may you live always as a member of…
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A number of years ago, when the Communists invaded China, they imprisoned a certain priest inside his rectory. After locking him up, the soldiers proceeded to desecrate his church which included throwing the thirty-two consecrated hosts contained in the ciborium onto the ground. Over the course of the next thirty-two…
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I noticed a word used in the parable of the prodigal son that I should have paid more attention to. Many Bible translations say the prodigal son’s Father divided his “property” among his sons. The word translated as property is “βίον” from the word “βίος” (life, living). This word, “living”…
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