Uchenna C. Okpalaunegbu Reflection

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion With the Christ­mas and New Year fest­iv­it­ies over, the liturgy returns to the Ordin­ary Time of the year, with this Sunday, being the second Sunday in year C. The Sunday read­ings will be…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion The feast of Christ­mas is just at the corner. This Sunday Gos­pel read­ing under­lines the joy that will accom­pany the memori­al of the birth of the Mes­si­ah. Mary’s vis­it to Eliza­beth is an…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion After his invit­a­tion to the way for the Lord by mak­ing His paths straight, filling in every val­ley and lay­ing down every moun­tain, John goes on to explain the prac­tic­al mean­ings of such…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion If a per­son is expect­ing someone in his/her house, then, that per­son must ensure his/her house is in order. Since Chris­ti­ans cel­eb­rate the memori­al of the birth of Jesus the saviour on the…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion   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 III…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion The feast of Christ the king is a right way to con­clude the year. Today, Cath­ol­ics in Niger­ia pro­claim and remind Nigeri­ans that Jesus is the king of Niger­ia and of the universe.…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion This Sunday is the pen­ul­tim­ate Sunday of our litur­gic­al year. As the Church year draws to an end, the Gos­pel invites us to con­sider Jesus’ pre­dic­tions and teach­ing about the end of time.…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion After his won­der­ful teach­ing and cla­ri­fic­a­tion to the ques­tion of the scribe con­cern­ing the greatest com­mand­ment, the pas­sage con­cludes with Mark’s obser­va­tion that no one dared ask Jesus any more ques­tions (cf. Mark…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion If there is one skill that we all can get bet­ter at, to become bet­ter lead­ers, entre­pren­eurs, friends, and human beings, it is listen­ing. Have you noticed how the word listen con­tains the…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion To be determ­ined is to make up one’s mind for some­thing. It is firm­ness of pur­pose. That is, the qual­ity of being determ­ined to do or achieve some­thing. Gen­er­ally, determ­in­a­tion requires con­cen­tra­tion and…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion In this Sunday Gos­pel read­ing, we con­tin­ue to read from the sec­tion of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mark’s Gos­pel that reports Jesus’ jour­ney to Jer­u­s­alem. Last week we heard Jesus lament the particular…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion The ques­tion on etern­al life is an exist­en­tial and per­en­ni­al ques­tion. Even the so-called athe­ists and agnostics can­not avoid won­der­ing the ‘how’ of life after this earthly sojourn. It is in this context…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion After his teach­ings on the import­ance of becom­ing great by serving, Jesus left Caper­naum and trav­elled to the region of Judea and bey­ond the Jordan. As usu­al, Mark says “crowds gathered around him;…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Last week, we reflec­ted on indif­fer­ence and its effects. This week, the Gos­pel mes­sage presents to us oth­er evils afflict­ing our world. Recall that last week we heard Jesus chas­tise his dis­ciples for…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion Even the most dis­trac­ted per­son must have noticed the alarm­ing rate of selfish­ness and indif­fer­ence in our soci­ety, pre­cisely on the part of the vari­ous civil and reli­gious lead­ers espe­cially, in Niger­ia. After…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Today’s read­ing is the turn­ing point in Mark’s Gos­pel. In the present­a­tion of the life and min­istry of Jesus found in the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mark, the deeds of Jesus have shown Jesus…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion In the Gos­pel read­ing of last Sunday (Mark 7:1–23), we saw how Jesus silenced the Phar­isees and the Scribes, and dis­tanced him­self from their unne­ces­sary dis­crim­in­a­tion due to their undue obed­i­ence to human…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion “This Sunday Gos­pel read­ing is taken from the Gos­pel accord­ing to John. This Gos­pel will accom­pany us until the 21^st Sunday of the year. This means and implies the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mark,…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion ‎From Jesus the liv­ing bread to Jesus the mes­sage of etern­al life. Gradu­ally, the circle is clos­ing in. The sheep is slowly being sep­ar­ated from the goat. Judg­ment is gradu­ally being delivered. It…

Read­ing Time: 4 minutesIntro­duc­tion Accord­ing to the litur­gic­al arrange­ment of the Cath­ol­ic Church, every August 15 is the feast of the assump­tion. And what is the feast of assump­tion non-Cath­ol­ics might ask? Accord­ing to the beliefs and…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion  The hatred on Jesus is gradu­ally gain­ing momentum. The Jews are com­plain­ing and mur­mur­ing. Their reas­ons include the fol­low­ing words of Jesus: “I am the bread that came down from heav­en”; “No one can…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion As explained in the intro­duct­ory part of last week reflec­tion that, “…although Mark (6:35–44) con­tains the same epis­ode as in John 6:1–15, the entire chapter six of John dwells on the body and…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion This Sunday Gos­pel read­ing is taken from the Gos­pel accord­ing to John. This Gos­pel will accom­pany us till the 21^st Sunday of the year. This means and implies the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mark,…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Between the send­ing of the apostles on mis­sion (cf. Mark 6:7–13), and their return (cf. Mark 6:30–34), Mark inserts the story of the behead­ing of John the Baptist by King Herod (cf. Mark…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Beloved brother/sister, wel­come to anoth­er week ordained and blessed by God just for you and for us all. Still in this Sunday, we con­tin­ue our reflec­tion on the sixth chapter of the Gospel…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Wheth­er we reside in our land or not, we can nev­er sup­press the burn­ing zeal and love of our pat­ria. It was this zeal and love for his coun­try that took Jesus to…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion One out­stand­ing fact from the Scrip­ture is that it reveals to us that people have always been afflic­ted with series of prob­lems and dif­fi­culties. As the author of Qoheleth/Ecclesiastes rightly observes, there is…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion After the par­ables of the king­dom expressed with the seed that grows auto­mat­ic­ally (without human effort) and the mus­tard seed, Mark con­cludes this sec­tion thus “with many such par­ables he spoke the word…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Dur­ing his earthly mis­sion, Jesus went about heal­ing people of vari­ous infirm­it­ies. One of those infirm­it­ies was ignor­ance due to lack of adequate inform­a­tion con­cern­ing cer­tain things espe­cially as regards spir­itu­al and religious…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion God loves the entire Cre­ated Order that He takes care of the mater­i­al and spir­itu­al life of His handi­work, espe­cially of human beings. Jesus recalled the atten­tion of the dis­ciples, when they wanted…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Since Monday of the Sev­enth Sunday of Paschal, Chris­ti­ans espe­cially, Cath­ol­ics have been pre­par­ing for the com­mem­or­a­tion of the des­cent or gift of the Holy Spir­it on the Apostles, on all believ­ers and…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Depend­ing on their litur­gic­al arrange­ment and agree­ment too, for some Cath­ol­ics, this Sunday is the Ascen­sion Sunday, while for oth­ers, it is the Sev­enth Sunday of the Paschal cel­eb­ra­tion. Since Niger­ia observed the…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion This Sunday is a con­tinu­ation of the Gos­pel of the last Sunday. If Jesus is the good shep­herd and the true vine, then, Chris­ti­ans have no option than to remain in him. In…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesIntro­duc­tion    Last Sunday, John presen­ted to us the image of Jesus the good shep­herd. A good shep­herd who lays down his life for the sheep because he sin­cerely cares for them and loves…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion         Among his vari­ous descrip­tions or present­a­tions of Jesus, the author of the Gos­pel accord­ing to John views Jesus as a good shep­herd. He rightly dis­tin­guished and dif­fer­en­ti­ated him from the hired work­er, who…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Although in a dif­fer­ent con­text and dif­fer­ently too, Luke presents the account of the resur­rec­ted Jesus present­ing him­self to the dis­ciples. This happened after appear­ing to the two dis­ap­poin­ted dis­ciples on their way…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Again, happy feast of the resur­rec­tion of Jesus! I hope you are still enjoy­ing the bless­ings and grace of the resur­rec­tion? As the psalm­ist says, it is the Lord’s mak­ing. It is marvellous…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion After the Len­ten peri­od, here comes the Palm Sunday that marks the begin­ning of the holy week. I wish to focus my reflec­tion on Judas Iscari­ot who betrayed Jesus. Jesus called him but…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion When we remem­ber that this Sunday is the last Sunday of lent and, that next Sunday (March 25 2018) will be Palm (or Pas­sion) Sunday, then, we will not be sur­prised by the…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion In the First Sunday, we read about Jesus being led to the desert by the Holy Spir­it, in pre­par­a­tion for his mis­sion. Dur­ing this retreat, Jesus pre­pared and for­ti­fied him­self.  The Second Sunday…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Hav­ing pre­pared and for­ti­fied him­self, and hav­ing taken pos­ses­sion of the Laws and Proph­ets, Jesus can now head towards Jer­u­s­alem. Gen­er­ally, there are things we do espe­cially with­in the realm of wor­ship thinking…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion With the cel­eb­ra­tion of the Ash Wed­nes­day, the Church (Cath­ol­ic Church) begins an import­ant and unique moment in her litur­gic­al cel­eb­ra­tions – the sea­son of Lent. The Len­ten sea­son recalls the bib­lic­al period…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesWhat is lep­rosy? The World Health Organ­iz­a­tion (WHO) explains lep­rosy (also known as Hansen’s dis­ease) as a chron­ic infec­tious dis­ease caused by Myco­bac­teri­um lep­rae. The dis­ease mainly affects the skin, the peri­pher­al nerves, mucos­al surfaces…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Jesus fame spread every­where but he did not sit still as many would. Instead, he ‎con­tin­ued to spread the Gos­pel, for that was his aim, not his own hon­our. If your ‎repu­ta­tion is…