Uchenna C. Okpalaunegbu Reflection

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…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Hav­ing con­sti­tuted his group of Twelve dis­ciples, Jesus now moves with them to every place he goes. Jesus goes about teach­ing. Teach­ing which con­sists mainly in announ­cing the sal­va­tion and the king­dom of…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion The arrest­ing of John the Bap­tizer implies the end of his mis­sion and the begin­ning of the mis­sion of Jesus. John’s arrest also intens­i­fied the pro­clam­a­tion of the Good News. Put­ting John in…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the sin of unbe­lief, which char­ac­ter­izes the words and actions of men and women of the present time. At…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Accord­ing to the indic­a­tions of the Sunday missal, the First Read­ing (Isa 42:1–4.6–7), the respon­sori­al Psalm (Ps 29⁄28), the Second Read­ing (Acts 10:34–38), and Gos­pel acclam­a­tion giv­en for Year A, may be used,…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesWhat is epi­phany? Ordin­ar­ily, epi­phany refers to that very moment when a per­son sud­denly feels that he or she under­stands, or sud­denly becomes con­scious of some­thing that is very import­ant. On the oth­er hand, it is a potent reli­gious exper­i­ence. The Merriam-Webster…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Happy Christ­mas and com­pli­ments of the sea­son! The Church in her wis­dom ded­ic­ates the Sunday fol­low­ing Christ­mas to the fam­il­ies, rep­res­en­ted by the Naz­areth fam­ily, com­posed of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. That is,…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion With the cel­eb­ra­tion of the fourth and last Sunday, the peri­od of Advent comes to an end. In the first Sunday of Advent, Jesus exhorts the dis­ciples and the entire Chris­ti­an faith­ful to…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion John, in his own style and lan­guage, presents fur­ther guide on how to pre­pare for the cel­eb­ra­tion of the com­mem­or­a­tion of the birth of Jesus the Christ – the Anoin­ted One of God…

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 birth of Jesus the saviour on the Christ­mas day, the…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion 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…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion As the Litur­gic­al year gradu­ally comes to an end, the read­ings also reflect such end. In the pre­vi­ous chapters of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew, Jesus used many and dif­fer­ent stor­ies to illustrate…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion The com­mem­or­a­tions of mar­tyrs, com­mon to sev­er­al churches, began to be cel­eb­rated in the IV cen­tury. The first traces of a gen­er­al cel­eb­ra­tion are abut­ted to Anti­och, and they refer to the Sunday…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion In this Sunday Gos­pel read­ing, the Jew­ish author­it­ies con­tin­ue to look for a way to trap Jesus in his own speech. The twenty-second chapter of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Mat­thew is char­ac­ter­ized by…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesIntro­duc­tion Are God and gov­ern­ment in oppos­i­tion? The Jew­ish author­ity were determ­ined to elim­in­ate Jesus. Since their oth­er attempts failed, they now resor­ted to set­ting trap for him. They wanted Jesus to be the…

Read­ing Time: 3 minutesThe hour has come “Fath­er, the hour has come; glor­i­fy your Son so that the Son may glor­i­fy you” (John 17:1). In the pre­vi­ous chapter (John 16), Jesus informed the dis­ciples of his death and…

Read­ing Time: 24 minutesThis is a paper delivered on May 17, 2017, on the occa­sion of the Float­ing Insti­tute of Mis­si­ology (FIM), organ­ized by The Pon­ti­fic­al Mis­sion Soci­et­ies (PMS), Owerri Eccle­si­ast­ic­al Province, at BANPAC Umua­hia, Abia State.  “A fundamental…

Read­ing Time: 9 minutes“Wor­ry­ing is car­ry­ing tomorrow’s load with today’s strength, and that means car­ry­ing two days at once. It is mov­ing into tomor­row ahead of time. Wor­ry­ing does not empty tomor­row of its sor­row, it empties…

Read­ing Time: 6 minutesAs I was glan­cing through my Face­book page this after­noon, I came across this post by face2faceafrica.com “Whites-Only town in SA is a Sign of Con­tin­ued White Suprem­acy.” The town in ques­tion is Orania.…

Read­ing Time: 2 minutesNew Year – New Hope – New Begin­ning – New Enthu­si­asm – New Res­ol­u­tion. Janu­ary, Feb­ru­ary, March, April, May, June, July, August, Septem­ber, Octo­ber, Novem­ber and Decem­ber. This is the axis around which our…

Read­ing Time: 7 minutes22^nd Sunday of the year [C] – August 28, 2016 (Ref. Text: Luke 14:1.7–14) “The con­tem­por­ary soci­ety espe­cially, Niger­ia is struc­tured accord­ing to those the Phar­isee should invite and those he should not invite. The…

Read­ing Time: 10 minutes  21^st Sunday of the year [C] – August 21, 2016 (Ref. Text: Luke 13:22–30) Open­ing Words After last Sunday’s mes­sage which ter­min­ated in Luke 12:53, the twelfth chapter of the Gos­pel accord­ing to Luke…

Read­ing Time: 13 minutes  20^th Sunday of the year [C] – August 14, 2016 (Ref. Text: Luke 12:49–53) “The truth of the mat­ter is that the whole world has already been turned upside down by the work of…

Read­ing Time: 9 minutes  19^th Sunday of the year [C] – August 7, 2016 (Ref. Text: Luke 12:32–48) Intro­duct­ory Words After present­ing his con­vin­cing and theo­lo­gic­ally foun­ded argu­ment in defence of his stand that life’s worth does not…

Read­ing Time: 8 minutes18^th Sunday of the year [C] – July 31, 2016 (Ref. Text: Luke 12:13–21) Wel­come to anoth­er week of grace! Wel­come espe­cially to the last day and last Sunday of the month of July. To…

Read­ing Time: 6 minutes16^th Sunday of the year © – July 17, 2016 – (Ref. Text: Luke 10:38–42) In this Sunday Gos­pel read­ing, Jesus con­tin­ues his teach­ings on the king­dom of God and the con­di­tion for inheriting…

Read­ing Time: 6 minutes14^th Sunday of the year © July 3, 2016 – (Ref. Text: Luke 10:1–12.17–20) “Con­stantly expos­ing your­self to pop­u­lar cul­ture and the mass media will ulti­mately shape your real­ity tun­nel in ways that are not…

Read­ing Time: 7 minutes“The blessed ones who pos­sess the King­dom are they who have repu­di­ated every extern­al thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of pos­sess­ing. These are the poor in spir­it” (A. W. Tozer). The…

Read­ing Time: 21 minutesPaul VI Audi­ence Hall Thursday, 12 May 2016 First ques­tion For a bet­ter integ­ra­tion of women in the life of the Church Pope Fran­cis, you said that “the fem­in­ine geni­us is needed in all expres­sions in…