Team Jesus

December is the season of Advent. It is the time of waiting for the coming of the Lord. The second Sunday of Advent tells us to be prepared for his coming. Today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew talks about John the Baptist proclaiming a baptism of repentance in the wilderness of Judea. He introduces Jesus to the world. He appeared and started preaching in the desert of Judea saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” He tells them to prepare the way of the Lord and make his path straight. The liturgy of today speaks of repentance, change of heart, a transformation or conversion. Repentance is merely turning away from sin and turning to God. It is to change for the better. In this season of advent, as we prepare to welcome Christ on Christmas, John the Baptist tells us to prepare the way of the Lord by repenting from our sinful ways. During Advent, we are called to be repentant of our sins, to pray constantly, to make penance and to prepare charity acts toward

The gospel reading is taken from the book of Mathew chapter 24, verses 37-44. This Sunday, December 1 is the start of advent. Jesus said to his disciples “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the son of Man. In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking… “ The gospel is telling us that God is coming in an unexpected moment and we should be prepared on when this will happen.  The Gospel is also reminding us the story of Noah, when God spoke to him and told him to build an ark. The ark will be used during a flood which will wash everything up. As what happened to the story of Noah, he was able to save the lives of animals and also his family. “ In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark.”  In this line, it is stating on what other people was doing before Noah enter the ark.  As you can see, they don’t care and unable to prepare of the coming. S

            This is actually my first time to reflect about a gospel reading and to read it out loud in front of certain people I know. When asked to make a reflection, I actually thought that making one out of bible readings would be a piece of cake but it got me wrong. It took me time and effort to know the real meaning of the passages I was reading.  Though it was short, it was actually conveying multiple messages for all of us. I have come to realize that just like an ordinary teenager— I know little about the bible. It actually felt good that for once, I took a break from my usual reading of novels and series to reading the bible instead.             So getting to the point, today’s gospel reading is about love, mercy and humility. Based on my understanding, Luke’s gospel allows us to reflect on our lives and see that we too, just like the two sinners on the cross, need to take the consequences of our actions and that our actions will lead us to a just punishment. Once we beg

Have you ever felt like giving up? Like everything doesn’t go the way you wanted it to be no matter how hard you try and the saddest part is the only thing you can do is wait until everything falls into place. In times like this, do we consider God as our lifeline? A problem-free life doesn’t exist. New day means another lesson learned. There are times when we learn things the hard way. Sometimes there are problems that is too hard for us to carry but giving up should never be an option. Life can be pretty messed up but when you think about giving up does it also mean that your trust in God is not that strong? God may not be by our side physically but he finds ways to talk to us to give us words of wisdom. It may be through prayers or it may be from the people around us. And we should remember that we have this life because we’re strong enough to live it. God tells us not to be afraid of tomorrow. Our strong faith in him is enough to face today. Yes, tomorrow might be a scary pl

“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.” -Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.           In all of the lessons you have learned about Jesus, in the faith you have accepted and have grown into, how far would you live up to His name and call yourself His? The first reading talks about seven brothers being tortured by a king, forcing them to eat pork in violation of God’s law. But even in great pain they endure, even with life at stake, they refuse not to let go of that faith they have in Jesus. For they believe that there is greater life after death given to the one who believe in Jesus. In taking up Jesus in our life: There is faith and there is life. Like the seven brothers, we must have faith and believe that God

The gospel talks about Zaccheus. A tax collector and a rich man. The Jews considered the tax collectors as "sinners" because tax collectors became rich by getting more money from people than they were supposed to. Zaccheus heard that Jesus was coming so Zaccheus was very eager to see Jesus. But he had a problem... he was a short man. Because of this, Zaccheus cannot see Jesus passing because of the crowd who was also waiting to see Jesus. What he did was he climbed a sycamore tree. When Jesus reached the place where Zaccheus was, He asked him to come down because Jesus will stay in his house. People who heard Jesus grumbled and said "Jesus is going with a sinner." Zaccheus has seen Jesus' kindness so he decided to make things right in his life. He told Jesus that he would give half of everything he owned yo the poor and he would pay back by giving 4 times the amount he had taken. Jesus replied, "Salvation has come to this house today, because this man too

The Gospel reading for today is about a Pharisee and a tax collector. Jesus describes the Pharisee as a good person. He follows the ten commandments of God. However, God was not happy with him because of the way he treated other people.   He is only concerned with his own desires, needs and interests where he does not care about others.   He was religious but the way he carry out his religious attitude was because he loved himself and not God or anyone else.   The tax collectors in the Gospel were considered as the sinners where they collected money from the community and have a share of it.   However, God accepted and loved one of the tax collectors because of his honesty, courage and humility to confess his sins to God. The tax collector asked God for his forgiveness for all the bad things he had done. The Gospel reminds us that even if we have done a lot of bad things to other people or even to ourselves, God is always there listening and will always forgive us as long as

Whenever I stand in front, seeing all of your happy faces, I feel blessed. Honestly, sometimes I wonder how, for all of my inadequacy, I’m chosen to be here. I have always put it upon myself that I am unworthy and I tend to think that I’d rather leave the task of proclaiming God’s goodness to other people, whom I think are capable and know better than me. I never thought I’d be strong enough to speak in front of you, let alone deliver my thoughts about God’s words in the Bible. Before getting my point across, I just wanted to say after all that, I’m just grateful. After everything that happened before the first semester came to a close, aren’t we glad that are here? I am happy to be here, with all of you, with God as the center of everything that we have pulled through before arriving in this moment. From the start of the school year, or the onset of a career, or any new beginning we had, we became nourished by God’s word. Coming into this community, we are blessed to have each othe

“We are all wounded. But wounds are necessary for his healing light to enter into our beings. Without wounds and failure and frustrations and defeats, there will be no opening for his brilliance to tickle in and invade our lives. Failures in life are courses with very high tuition fees, so I don't cut classes and miss my lessons: on humility, on patience, on hope, on asking others for help, on listening to God, on trying again and again and again.” ―Bo Sanchez, You Have The Power to Create Love: Take Another Step on the Simple Path to Happiness We all have those times that we feel down, tired, stressed, exhausted, fatigued, drained, wearied, worn-out, injured, wounded, damaged, hurt and all other synonyms you could think of. Human as we are, we all had felt those things before and will still be feeling those things once in a while as long as we live. It’s inevitable. It’s basically a human experience we all have to face occasionally. As youth , I think all of us have exp

“Faith is a jump into the arms of God, even when all odds are against us, and if this faith is put into practice and tested in the fire of afflictions, it will steadily turn us into better persons and even give us power to work for a better world” The readings today teach us about faith. In the Gospel, Jesus compared faith to a tiny mustard seed. The power of the seed doesn’t depend on its size but on the life it may create. Also, the power of our faith doesn’t depend on its quantity but on its quality. We would be fooling ourselves if we think that the more prayers we say, the more faith we have. True faith is more than that. In the 2 nd reading, St. Paul tells us, “But with the strength which comes from God bears your share of the hardship which the gospel entails” (2 Tim 1:8). Through our hardships our faith is best tested. When we have problems, sometimes we tend to think that we can’t solve it or it’s impossible. For the past months, I kept whining about my studies. “Ka

In the first part of our Gospel reading for today Jesus talks about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. The rich man had everything he could ever wish for. All the material things that a normal person could ever desire for. But these material things blinded him from seeing what are the reason why did he ever had these blessings. One reason might be is that he was given these things to know God and to humble himself. He was given these things to see Him and thank Him for every little thing he received but what happened was he was selfish that he used all these blessings for himself This lead to blindness of seeing the existence of other people. What I mean about the existence of other people is the existence of the poor man, Lazarus. The rich man never saw that Lazarus was there in his doors and that he would only eat those pieces of food that would fell on the rich man’s table. The rich man never saw that Lazarus was sick, weak and dying near him because of the wealth that he has

The reading for tomorrow reminded me so much of what Mother Theresa once said, “We are called to be Holy, not to be successful.” The first thing that came into my mind when I first read this somewhere was the time when I cheated big time in a major subject examination. I felt like it was my dramatic SOS moment. I was very preoccupied by the feeling of “Nah! Dapat mapasa jud nako ni para dili ko ma-taichi!” True enough, the number that I have cheated made me survive. I got an average of 80%, just enough to make me pass. Now this should be good news, right? But not quite. I imagined myself in a job interview being asked by the same question on that exam. And the answer was not really tattooed in my mind because I only memorized it for about 5 seconds just enough for me to write it on my paper. My point is, some people are too driven to do something, whether right or wrong, to reach their goal. With this “too driven” attitude, we tend to get blinded that we actually have the wrong mot

Often we go astray from God and the people around us. Often we become too succumbed into our work that we don’t even bother to spare even a minute for talking to others, let alone God. Recently, I’ve been working too much, all my energy and time taken up like a sponge by school and studying. I wake up at 6 am, just giving 30 seconds to Thank God for another day. Is that even enough? No. I realize now that it’s insulting to God to just give him 30 seconds of your time when He gave you one lifetime. Then everyone sits at the table and takes breakfast. Everyone stirs up a healthy conversation but then I’m too preoccupied by what’s gonna happen on that day, thus I don’t get to take part in the conversation. I leave, go to school for 12 hours and go home at night. I take my dinner with the family, still preoccupied of the things I have to do. After accomplishing on my list, I go to bed, try to sleep. But then the feeling of loneliness engulfs me like a tidal wave. I realize that for t

Jesus went through towns and villages teaching and making his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, is it true that few people will be saved?” And Jesus answered, “Do your best to enter by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has got up and locked the door, you will stand outside; then you will knock at the door calling: ‘Lord, open to us.’ But he will say to you: ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will say: We ate and drank with you and you taught in our streets! But he will reply: ‘I don’t know where you come from. Away from me all you workers of evil.’ You will weep and grind your teeth when you see Abraham and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves left outside. Others will sit at table in the kingdom of God, people coming from east and west, from north and south. Some who are among the last will be the first, and others who were first will be last!” So w

The gospel for today speaks mostly about division and Jesus being the cause of division. It's really quite a shocker isn't it? To be honest, this gospel really got me vexed for the entire week. I couldn't quite grasp it and I've spent countless hours just trying to get to the core of it. I mean, JESUS BEING THE CAUSE OF DIVISION...?? Wouldn't that be contrary to His other teachings? You would think that Jesus would be the cause of unity, peace, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, etc... but DIVISION? It's a bit hard to believe isn't it? "Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division." It may be hard to believe but it is what Jesus said. It is in the Bible, it is the Word of God, and we have to deal with it. The thing is, Jesus would never sugarcoat things for us. He will never just tell us what we want to hear, instead, He will tell us exactly what we need to hear. And we NEED to hear the truth whether we like it o

 The readings focus on the theme about faith in God and desire for his Kingdom. In the first reading it talks about wisdom that the people of God agreed to the pact by which they would share blessings and dangers, There are a lot of circumstances that involves faith. Just like answered prayers from him, the blessings that has been bestowed upon us. We the servants of God even if we have done a lot of things that may hindered to  believe in his faith but still we knew that God will always be with us through our prayers he will always forgive us each and every day in our lives and through that our faith with him will be more stronger.                 Sometimes we became unfaithful l to him,  ‘’kasi, DI  NARINIG PRAYERS NATIN, DAMING PROBLEM  DUMADATING SA SARILI, FAMILY, SCHOOLS ETC “ through that we always say “ di ka totoo, bakit ako magkakaroon ng paniniwala sayo kung di mo naman ako pina kikinggan” diba ang pangit pakinggan? Let me share one of my experience of being faithful ser

As I have gone on today’s readings it only implies one thing which is striving for God and God alone. And that it is important to store up treasures in heaven so that we would inherit eternal life. Let us fully understand the message with these questions. WHAT AM I STRIVING FOR EVERYDAY? It should be Christ who we need to seek for everyday, for he is our fulfillment. He turns our sorrow into joy, our weaknesses into strengths and he is our way to the Father. How to do so? We must have that desire of waking up every morning for the purpose of thanking God for the life that he gave us. On the first reading he points out vanity which brings anxiety to men. Let us abolish vanity which is an excessive pride in one’s appearance, qualities, abilities and achievements and rather rely on him let him govern our life because we all know that he only thinks of what’s good for all of us. And always remember that pride is the most treacherous of sins because it blinds our understanding, and if

It is human nature that we always want something for ourselves. We all have dreams, wants, needs and others of the same kind. And at some point in our lives, we come to God asking, begging, bargaining for that request to be granted. God is a compassionate God. I think we all know that. In the first reading, the Lord was very angry that he decided to destroy Sodom. But here comes Abraham, asking and bargaining God. “Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city; would you wipe out the place, rather than spare it for the sake of the fifty innocent people within it?” Then Abraham continues until the last part saying, “Please, let not my Lord grow angry if I speak up this last time.   What if there are at least ten there?” If God was like an ordinary person, I don't think he would answer him until the end. But God is not just a mere person, nor is He anything close to ordinary. That is why till the very end He answered, “For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy it.”

Good evening. J The readings we have for tomorrow’s mass is very special, and if I might say, sakto, for us who are here in this praise and worship, in this youth ministry, in this church. Our readings for today basically has one predominant theme. Service. In just three small stories, we have been shown, basically, a guide, to service. We have been shown who to serve, why we should serve, and how to serve. First. Who to serve. In the first reading, we saw how Abraham really volunteered and begged to clean and bathe their feet, make rolls out of the finest flour, and picked out a tender, choice steer, and serve it to them. And what’s even funny is, ni-agi lang man sila. Kato sila tulo. Diba? Abraham just saw them standing there by the gate, and he asked them na, “let me bring you food, that you may refresh yourselves; and afterward you may go on your way.” You may go on your way. Sino sa inyo ang nakatry na manghagad ng someone just passing by to eat, na lutuan ninyo’g bacon, pas