Read­ing Time: 3 minutes Intro­duc­tion John, in his own style and lan­guage, presents fur­ther guid­ance on how to pre­pare for the cel­eb­ra­tion of the com­mem­or­a­tion of the birth of Jesus the Christ—the Anoin­ted One of God, hence, the saviour. The Phar­isees needed to know with pre­ci­sion the iden­tity of John the Bap­tizer so as to ascer­tain if he is the Mes­si­ah they were await­ing. The Jews who sent people to inter­rog­ate John the Baptist are the Jew­ish author­it­ies mostly con­cerned with ritu­al puri­fic­a­tions. The Phar­isees became more con­fused when…

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Read­ing Time: 4 minutes Intro­duc­tion Dear cher­ished read­er! Wel­come to the new litur­gic­al year! This is the first Sunday in the church’s new litur­gic­al year. Accord­ing to the Cath­ol­ic Church’s sys­tem of com­put­ing, this is Year II or Year B. This is also the first Sunday of Advent and the first Sunday in the month of Decem­ber. We thank God for guid­ing and bless­ing us dur­ing the last month. Always be grate­ful to God and to those who wish you well. This is the month of spe­cial joy because…

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Read­ing Time: 3 minutes Intro­duc­tion Dear friends, Wel­come to the last Sunday of the eccle­si­ast­ic­al year. Accord­ing to the eccle­si­ast­ic­al arrange­ment, the litur­gic­al year ends with this Sunday, the solem­nity of our Lord Jesus Christ, king of the uni­verse. After the teach­ings on wis­dom and fool­ish­ness (Matt 25:1–13), and on the adequate use of tal­ents (Matt 25:14–30), Mat­thew 25:31–46 is the con­clu­sion of the dis­course that will accom­pany the par­ousia, the judg­ment day when the entire nation will gath­er before the Author of life. Accord­ing to Mat­thew, on that…

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Read­ing Time: 3 minutes Intro­duc­tion As I noted in my reflec­tion last week, the 25^th chapter of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew con­tains at least three inter­est­ing and sur­pris­ing epis­odes. They are inter­est­ing and sur­pris­ing because they con­cern the events of the after­life, and Jesus appears to be speak­ing dif­fer­ently. The first epis­ode is about the wise and fool­ish brides­maids (Matt 25:1–13); the second is the Gos­pel read­ing of this Sunday con­cern­ing our vari­ous tal­ents and how we use them (Matt 25:14–30); and the third epis­ode is the event…

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Read­ing Time: 3 minutes Intro­duc­tion As the litur­gic­al year gradu­ally comes to an end, the read­ings also reflect such an end. In the pre­vi­ous chapters of the gos­pel, accord­ing to Mat­thew, Jesus used many and dif­fer­ent stor­ies to illus­trate what the king­dom of God looks like. Mat­thew chapters 21–23 con­tain spe­cif­ic ref­er­ences to the king­dom. In those chapters, Jesus reminded the reli­gious lead­ers (priests and eld­ers) that those they regard as sin­ners (tax col­lect­ors, pros­ti­tutes, and oth­ers) make it to the king­dom of God, while they them­selves do not…

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