Team Jesus

“Very well, pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar -- and   God   what belongs to God.” In the gospel the Pharisees asked Jesus’ opinion about paying tax to Caesar but asking Jesus’ opinion was the way of testing him, but Jesus being Jesus the awesome one figured out what the Pharisees are doing so he said “You hypocrites! Why are you putting me to the test?” then Jesus asked the Pharisees for the money that they pay the tax with. The Pharisees handed him a denarius then Jesus asked “Whose portrait is this? Whose title?” then they replied “Caesar’s”. Jesus then told them “pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar -- and   God   what belongs to God” Sometimes, we doubt Jesus despite everything that he have given us and what does it make us? Hypocrites. Who are we to doubt and judge his intentions when the only thing he did was to give us what we need and more. There comes a time in our lives when we doubt his intentions because it seems like the bright side of life is now...

In our gospel, the king invited a lot of people to attend the wedding feast of his son but refused. Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. All of them have their own priorities so why would they go. Many are invited, but few are chosen. These chosen ones are the one who accepted and went to the wedding feast. It becomes very apparent that the Kingdom of God is a tangible manifestation of the relationship between God and those He calls. The wedding feast is likened to attending the Holy Mass. The king who invited is God. For instance, a friend would invite us to go to church for Holy Mass, Should we accept it or not? Admit it or not every so often we refuse our friend’s invitation. We would always articulate alibis to evade from going to Mass. However when they invite us to go to “gimik” or “laag”, we would straightaway say yes.  Do we see what we are missing once we refuse the invitation to attend the Holy Mass? It’s not our friend who...

Today's gospel talks how someone planted a vineyard. After, he put a fence around it, built a tower, and before going away, he leased it to his tenants expecting them to grow produce to collect. When the produce is to be collected, the owner sends his servant to collect what is owed, but they beat him and send him away with nothing. The owner sends more servants, who are treated the same way—some of them are even killed.  Finally, the owner sends his own son. And unfortunately, they kill him, assuming they'll receive his inheritance. We could relate the gospel to our lives in a way that the owner of the vineyard is God, the beloved son sent by the owner is Jesus, the vineyard is our lives in the world and the tenants are us. There is mention of a cornerstone is the gospel also. What is a cornerstone? A cornerstone is a stone that forms the base of the building, joining two walls. A foundation of some sort. In more ways than one, love could be our cornerstone. Be it love fo...

I always try to live by the words “Love is a verb”. A verb, simply put, is an action word. A word of action. It is not a possessive pronoun that aims to take possession of something, nor is it a noun that gives names to things, nor is it an adjective which is used to describe nouns. Love is a verb. It is a word of doing. Which of the two did the Father’s will? It is the first son, because even when he primarily said no, he eventually did what the Father asked of him. Sadly, most of the time, we are like the second son. We utter words of affirmation, of yes-es. But we do not follow up our words with actions. We say that we study, but go on for hours on social media. We say that we have a lot of work, but go on neglecting it until the last hour. We say that we love our loved ones, but do not care when one of them needs our help. Let our love be like the first son’s love, let it be verbs, let it be actions. When we do stuff out of love, our words of yes-es are unneces...

In our Gospel Reading, heaven is described as a landowner of a vineyard, who went out early in the morning to hire workers. After employing the first group at 6:00 in the morning, he returned at 9am, at 12 noon, and at 3 in the afternoon, hiring more workers as the urgency of the harvest increased. The scripture says he came back a final time about the “eleventh hour” that’s approximately 5pm, and hired a concluding number. Then an hour later, all the workers gathered to receive their day’s wage. Surprisingly, all received the same wage in spite of the different hours of labor. Immediately, those hired first were angry, saying, "The men who came last have done only one hour, and you have treated them the same as us, though we have done a heavy day's work in all the heat." When reading this gospel, perhaps you as well as those workers have felt that there was injustice done here. Well first of all no one has been treated unfairly here. The first workers agreed to the ...

Most of the time I tell myself to be humble always even in those times that I know I should be proud of myself for achieving something that’s difficult. But sometimes, no matter how I try, I can’t always resist to the temptation of boasting myself when someone displeases me or   when I know a person who I thought to be more skilled than me, but actually he wasn't.   Sometimes in our music class, when our professor discusses a simple topic and most of my classmates do not understand but I do, I couldn't help not to boast myself silently. (I’m not a very expressive person). I kind of brag because the topic for me was just easy to comprehend yet the others did not get it. There was also one time when I finished my recital last March. The piece I played was technically really hard to play but I managed to play it clean for I did my best in practices. When I finished, I stood up and looked to the audience with my head held high as I heard there loud applaus...

It’s been quite a while since  I've  first joined the youth ministry. Oftentimes I would think before Saturday activities, if not because of the ministry, where would I have been? Was I to become a constant melancholic being that never saw the light? Or perhaps a wanderer whose labyrinth is infinite? In pursuit of the answers, I tend to end up always in the same answer: I would never know what the future could have brought if I picked the opposite path. The only sure thing is that the Lord planned to put me in this state in life and the best thing I could do now is be grateful about that and as much as possible help others know God as well, in this early age. In today’s readings, we are reminded that even when life is like a battlefield, even when the wave of blues is never ending and even when it feels like it always gets harder every single time, God gave us a battalion of family and friends to survive the war, He gave us surfboards to continuously ride the waves a...