Inspirations at your Fingertips!

Friday of the 3rd week of Lent Mark 12:28-34 God invites to a new life.  He calls us to forgiveness and conversion. However, we are not faithful to God.  We turn to our wealth, fame, and others for comfort and meaning.  These will not save us.  Only living in God would save us. When the good scribe affirmed Jesus' answer, he was truly speaking from his heart.  This is what it really means to be a good person: love God above all things and show that you mean it. So how do we show our love for God?  These three things are the consequences of God's love. First, We are led to love others with the love we treat ourselves.  All of us know what is good for us.  But to guide us toward the greater good, want we want should apply equally to what others want. Second, love others with the love God has for us.  Always bask in the sea of God's love.  How does God love?  Immerse in the stories of Jesus.  Ultimately, the more e...

Thursday of the 4th week of Lent John 5:31-47 This 30th day of Lent, we are confronted with a grim reality of our human nature - no matter how much God loves us, we still choose to love ourselves instead of him. In the first reading, God's disappointment is so overwhelming;  Moses' plea is not even enough to appease him.  There seems to be a deeper dearth here - the emptiness of love.  Still, God chooses to give man another chance. In the Gospel, what Jesus taught is actually a theology of who he is - the Son of God who testifies to the Father.  But his message was rejected by the Jews, for their hearts were far away from God. This is one of the greatest pains we can ever bear - when the other whom we love stops loving us.  What do we do? First, let our love be magnanimous.  Jesus testifies to the love of the Father.  There is no other love greater than that.  When we love, we give witness to the triumph of God's love even in failure...

Love! Matthew 11:25-30  As we celebrate the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus we are confronted with a heart that is overflowing with love that we need to cherish, meditate, and contemplate each moment of our lives.  It also reflects the process of our intimacy with Jesus, thus, inculcating his very own heart. The readings teach us the the various facets of God's love. First, that in the First Reading, Moses reminds the people on the very reason of God as he choose Israel as his son - it is simply because he loves. May this remind us to be moved in constant humility in this world; that we have nothing to brag about except being loved by God. Second, from the Gospel, let us choose Jesus' yoke, for his "yoke is easy and his burden is light."  His yoke is truly incomparable with the yoke of sin. Third, let us live out God's love in our bodies and souls by loving God above all things and loving our neighbors as Jesus loved us. God's love truly transforms ...

God's power of love Luke 13:31-35 The reading from the letter of Paul to the Romans speaks of a God who will connect with us no matter what.  Not even sin can penetrate that covenant of love. It is reflected in the words of Jesus to stay in Jerusalem till his death even though the Pharisees want him out of the place.  God's will will be fulfilled and Jesus is there to fulfill it. Our response to God's power is humble submission then.  Normally, we don't want to be tied to a particular person, power or ideology. The only thing that remains is our pride to stay put to where we are.  But know now that even this is useless against God's power of love. God's love can turn night into day; it can cure diseases; brings hope to the hopeless; restores sight to the blind; it can even raise the dead back to life.   If we are truly convinced of the power of God's love, then we should have changed our decision to fully committing ourselves to him an...

God's love and order Mk. 12, 28 - 34 Tobiah stood up to marry Sarah.  But before they went to bed to consummate their marriage, Tobiah prayed to God to bless their married life. In the gospel Jesus was confronted with the question, which is the greatest of all commandments.  He said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. People might hold a different opinion that relationships can exist without the grace and blessing of God.  But come to think of it:  God created man and woman so that they might be fruitful and producing more human beings and thus, the world should continue to exist. Such occurrence has the fullest blessing from God - the continuation of the whole humanity. Jesus enunciated the most important law - loving God with all one's heart.  To love God is to bring order to the entire human existence.  It is also to continue the next generation. ...

God's love rules our lives Mark 12:28-34 It is undeniable that God's love for us is extreme, unconditional.  He waits for our coming back despite our sinfulness.  That is how God loves us.. In the gospel, Jesus affirms the the highest command: love God with all our hearts, minds, being, etc. Then love our neighbor as ourselves. God's love rules above all things.  Consequently, our love cannot be lesser than God's love for us.  Otherwise, love would be imperfect and selfish.

His love Matthew 7:7-12 I also used to pray and ask for a million intentions.  I even memorized Jesus' words from my youth, "Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and it shall be opened unto you." I dreamt to receive all these graces with such fervor and commitment that I was not ready to let them go. But as time passed, I realized that indeed, God heard all my prayers, and much more.  He revealed himself to me as a friend that I can turn to.  At the core of all those prayers is an invitation to get to know Him who loves me through and through. Now, I still pray as I did when I was a child.  But these do are nothing compared to the real grace I receive every moment of my life - Jesus' very own heart that I desire.

Always love in our hearts It may seem impossible for us to think only of positive things that we can do for others, starting from our thoughts to our actions, considering that we are born in an imperfect world and concrete persons have done us more good than bad. In the world of movies, it is impossible that all characters appear good.  There will always be someone who would take the role of a contrabida. But loving our brothers and sisters is precisely what Jesus commanded us to do.  And we can start the ball rolling by not judging them.  We too have fallen short of the glory of God.  Thus, we have no right to treat others in a judgmental way. But the main reason is that Jesus has loved us and continues to love us, even our enemies.  This is the very source of our salvation. Thus, be preoccupied with repairing relationships rather than destroying ties, building bridges rather than walls, and healing rather than inflicting.  By this, we are shari...

To let God's love flow So far, we've been following the book of Hosea, the prophet.  Yesterday, his theme was the love of God in structure through the Christian community. It is a call to coversion because of the powerful and life-changing love of God vs. the hardheadedness of the people whom he loves. This flows in the very heart of Jesus who instructed his apostles while sending them on a mission to preach the Good News.  They shall not be exempt from the trials of this world.  Rather, they shall even be subjected to their violence.  But Lord reminds them, "By the time it happens, the Good News shall be preached through out the world." Clarify whether we are the apostles or the hardheaded people; the meek and humble victim  who loves or the persecutor.  Time will come when in our actions we shall know whether we have caused the Good News to run freely or hindered its growth.  Let God's flowing love be our guide in this world.