Opinion

On the evening of Easter, Jesus appears to the apostles gathered inside a locked room for fear of the Jews. He greets them, “Peace be with you!” Peace is the first gift of the risen Lord. It is the first fruit of the resurrection.Peace is the one thing that Israel had always yearned for throughout their history as a people. Peace is what humanity ceaselessly seeks and which remains elusive to this day. Peace, in truth, is the deepest desire of every human heart.Today the risen Christ offers us peace - his peace. Earlier, he had told his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.” (Jn 14: 27) What is this peace?After greeting his apostles Shalom, Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The peace that J...

Early in the morning, Mary went to the tomb of Jesus and found it empty. Anxious, she ran to Peter and John and told them that they had taken the Lord’s body away. The two disciples immediately ran to the tomb. John arrived first but did not enter. He did only when Peter arrived and entered first. Both disciples found the tomb empty but had different reactions. While Peter was simply perplexed, John “saw and believed.” John saw the fulfilment/fullness of Jesus’ promise in the emptiness of the tomb for “his is the love that sees through the dark.” (Denis McBride)What enabled John to recognize the risen Christ in the empty tomb was John’s love. “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." (The Little Prince) Pope Benedict XVI is more di...

Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday marks the start of Holy Week when we reverently remember the last days of the Lord.Palm Sunday recounts the triumphant entry of Jesus to Jerusalem, as he rides on a colt (traditional royal procession) and is welcomed by the crowd with palms, branches and shouts of hosannas. Holy Week closes with an even more glorious event - the Lord’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. In the days between, Jesus goes through his passion and death on the cross.The enthusiastic reception of Jesus by the people on Palm Sunday manifests their high expectation of him as the long-awaited messiah who would free them from Roman subjection and restore the kingdom of Israel. Instead, Jesus enters Jerusalem with a higher purpose of accomplishing the Father’s will to save humankind f...

Today’s gospel incident took place in the last days of Jesus’ life. Earlier, the people of Jerusalem welcomed Jesus triumphantly with palms and branches. His fame as a powerful preacher and wonder-worker had preceded him. Just days before, he made news when he raised to life Lazarus who had been four days in the tomb. The question growing increasingly in the mind of many was: could he be the messiah?While the ordinary people held Jesus in high esteem and with great expectation, the Jewish leaders were intimidated and were plotting his downfall. Jesus was definitely the man of the hour, the talk of the town and the new celebrity (and controversial, too).It was in this context that some Greeks came to Philip and asked “to see Jesus.” When they were finally brought to Jesus, they were...

Today, the liturgy breaks away from the usual mode of Lenten sobriety and penitence and opens the Mass with an exuberant antiphon, “Rejoice, Jerusalem… be joyful, all you who mourn… exult and be satisfied…” Hence, the 4th Sunday of Lent is also called Laetare (Rejoice) Sunday, and fittingly so because the readings cannot but evoke sentiments of great rejoicing.“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that those who believe in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” A favorite of everyone, this verse is often called “the gospel within the gospel.” It summarizes the whole history of salvation and encapsulates all the revelation contained in sacred scripture. It articulates the meaning and the reason of God’s action in regard to man - love, his ineffable love for man w...

Bishop Gerardo A. Alminaza is the convenor of the, Pilgrims for Peace, One Negros Ecumenical CouncilLet the spirit of EDSA People Power ignite our unity to rise once more.So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)There are days in public memory that begin to take on a life of their own: the EDSA people’s uprising is one such time. From Church people staving off tanks with flowers and rosaries to a sea of ordinary citizens with yellow waves gathered in protest of a stolen election and unwanted dictatorship, there is no doubt that the 1986 People Power was an outpouring of discontent with what was and of daring to rise for something better. We often speak that it was a day to reclaim our freedom, our de...

Every second Sunday of Lent, the gospel reading tells the story of the Lord’s Transfiguration. This event happens six days after that deciding moment in Caesarea Philippi when Peter confesses his faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and in turn, Jesus proclaims Peter as the “Rock” on which he will build his Church. Having elicited the first explicit profession of faith in him as the Christ, Jesus tells his disciples for the first time of his passion and death. Later, on two other occasions, he would reiterate the same prediction of the tragic fate awaiting him in Jerusalem. From here on, he makes it clear to his disciples that he is not only the glorious Messiah (preacher, miracle-worker, exorcist); he is also the Suffering Servant, foretold in the scriptures.It is in this context that Jesus...

Every year, the gospel reading on the First Sunday of Lent is about the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Allow me just to share a few random thoughts on temptation.Temptation is part of life. It is a given. It is not meant to pull us down; on the contrary, it meant to propel us higher. St. Augustine once said, “Someone who is not tempted is not tested; someone who is not tested cannot progress.”This is exactly how our educational system works. Before the students move to the next level or grade, they undergo examination or a series of tests. The same is true in work application, career pursuit, even priestly formation.In one of the CBCP plenary assemblies, the bishops discussed the need to revise the English version of the Our Father. No less than Pope Francis pointed out tha...

For the past Sundays, we have seen Jesus healing all kinds of diseases. Today a leper approaches him and asks to be cured. Leprosy is considered among the most serious and dreaded illnesses then. It disfigures the body and causes it to disintegrate, reducing the victim into a veritable “walking dead.” More than the physical suffering, it is the psychological pain that devastates the leper as he grapples with feelings of shame, bitterness, anger and loss of self-worth. Because the disease is highly contagious, he is banned from the community and is forced to live in isolation as a social outcast. Worse still, he is barred from participating in religious worship since he is considered ritually impure. Finally, there is a common belief is that leprosy is a punishment and curse from God.It...

“Is not man's life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of hirelings? He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages.” In today’s first reading we hear Job lamenting his unbearable suffering despite his unquestionable faithfulness to God.At times, we too feel like Job when our “nights drag on” and our “days end without hope.” In such times, we do not so much engage in big philosophical or theological questions like “Why do bad things happen to good people?” or “Why does not God prevent evil when he is all-powerful?” We simply grapple with real personal issues that cause us deep pain and leave us powerless. I personally have been through such experience which literally gave me sleepless nights and drained every confidence left in me. In the end, I found...