To borrow a story from a good friend of mine, Fr Bel San Luis, SVD, there was a man who wanted to have a lot of money so badly that he promised the devil to do his work in exchange for a copy of the newspaper a day ahead before it was published so that he could get the winning Lotto number in advance.

This Sunday’s Gospel is surely at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. It begins with Jesus instructing his followers how to pray. He says those words that Christians cherish, the Our Father, and then he talks about asking for things and receiving what we need.

A contractor needed one more man to chop down trees for export. One day, two men appeared willing to do the job but only one could be employed so what the contractor did was to put the two men to a test, they were to chop down as many trees as they could in an eight-hour shift and the man who chopped down more trees got the job.

When I was still a seminarian, I was in Surigao City, a city northeast of Mindanao Island in the Philippines and one day as I was walking around a corner a car nearly sideswiped me.

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is one of those passages of Scripture that is very hard to understand. Jesus seems to be contradicting himself. 

This Sunday, we celebrate the feast of The Most Holy Trinity, one of the most foundational doctrines of Christianity. This is a celebration not as a theological discourse to be understood completely, but rather good news to be celebrated and enriched by.

With the arrival of Pentecost Sunday, our Easter journey is almost over. The concept of Pentecost as a culmination of the spiritual journey from Resurrection to the gathering in the upper room, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the reluctant disciples, rather than simply an awe-inspiring theophany, is intimated in John’s Gospel as the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to the disciples, that The Advocate will come and remain with the fledgling Church for all time.

One summer I spent a few days in Darwin as part of my summer break. While I was walking on the streets of Darwin, I happen to pass by the Cathedral of the Diocese of Darwin. Outside the Cathedral, there was a statue of the crucifix mounted on the wall.

Since the celebration of Easter, the Church has invited us to reflect on the origins of the Christian community.

Love is a word that we always hear. Every time we hear the word ‘love’ our eyes light up and somehow our heart beats just a little bit faster. However, the word love is one of the most misunderstood and one of the most abused words, in my opinion.