Association Of Catholic Bloggers

True story. Hand to God. An acquaintance was having neighbor trouble. As often happens, things escalated rather quickly. What had begun as an issue where two sides were taking tough stands and no one was willing to budge swiftly careened into a legal battle. The acquaintance—a woman of great faith who diligently tried to live out her life as a disciple of Christ—was deeply troubled by the chain of events which left her with an impending court date. In the meantime, her young grandchild was in a school play and the play was scheduled for a date very close to the court date. The play was about different virtues or characteristics that are good to practice and to have: things like perseverance and kindness. The grandchild’s role in the play was to carry a placard for one of these virtues—marching around the stage with others holding similar placards with letters boldly proclaiming this characteristic or that trait. With the play and court date fast approaching, all

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who had been slapped was hurt but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: Today my best friend slapped me in the face. They kept on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning. The friend saved her. After she recovered from the near drowning, she wrote on a stone: Today my best friend saved my life. The friend who had slapped and saved her best friend asked: After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on stone. Why? The other friend replied: When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness and waters of love can easily wash it away. When someone does something good for us we should engrave it in stone where it can remain for years to come. From this wonderful tale of two friends w

The Holy Gospel according to John: 15: 12-17 This is my commandment:  love one another, as I have loved you .  A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends, if you do what I command you.  I shall not call you servants any more, because a servant does not know his master's business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father.  You did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last;  and then the Father will give you anything you ask him in my name.  What I command you is to love one another . Source: The Jerusalem Bible How should we love one another? At this morning's daily Mass, our parish priest, Fr. Walter Tabios, preached about the quality of love that God asks of his friends.  He cited four types of love, all of which are anything but egotistical or self-serving. You may read the rest

Sitting in the Adoration Chapel recently, my eyes were continually drawn to a print of The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt. There is much to contemplate within the scene, but on that particular day it was the prodigal himself I returned to again and again. Broken, dirty, battered, he’d been shamed and brought low. And yet there is yielding peace in his very bones as he accepts his father’s embrace. He has surrendered. He knows who he is and where he belongs. Every line of his body, the very profile of his face is eloquent with that acceptance. He makes no excuses for his tattered clothing, the hole in his shoe, his bare head. Rather, he is open, and receives his father’s healing touch, his father’s blessing. The beauty of this parable is that we see fragments of ourselves in each of the characters: the father who hopes, trusts, and forgives; the faithful son who questions the justice of the rebellious son’s welcome – and perhaps to some extent also questions his

 St Peter in Penitence , El Greco, painted c.1605 Readings   (New American Bible, used in the Philippines and the USA). Gospel Matthew 18:21-35 (Jerusalem Bible, used in Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, Scotland). Peter went up to Jesus and said, 'Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times?' Jesus answered, 'Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.   'And so the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who decided to settle his accounts with his servants. When the reckoning began, they brought him a man who owed ten thousand talents; but he had no means of paying, so his master gave orders that he should be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, to meet the debt. At this, the servant threw himself down at his master's feet. "Give me time" he said "and I will pay the whole sum." And the servant's master felt so sorry for him that he let him go and canc