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.

Today as we celebrate the Good Shepherd Sunday, we are called to reflect on Jesus as our Good Shepherd. He knows us and we are called to follow him.

Peter is a colourful character with surprises, a man of all seasons. He showed courage in defending Jesus, but was also cowardly and ran away too. Swearing to stay faithful, even laying down his life for Jesus, shortly after that he denied Jesus three times. 

“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  (John 20:30-31) 

To borrow a story from my friend, Fr Bel San Luis, there was a man who was visiting a seminary. He saw a poster with a phrase in big letters, “Christ is the answer”. Puzzled he wrote at the bottom of the poster, “What is the question?”

Most of us have seen this scene in a movie: There’s a person who is strapped on an electric chair about to die. The police are just waiting for 3pm on the clock before pulling down the lever to deliver thousand of volts of electricity so that the prisoner who is condemned to die will be killed. And with just a few seconds before 3pm, the phone rings, the President is on the line and orders the police to give the prisoner a reprieve.

With the arrival of the Fifth Sunday of Lent, our Lenten journey is almost over. The concept of Lent as a journey, rather than a time of denial, has been frequently suggested and promoted by Pope Francis.

A few years ago a friend of mine,  a fellow priest,  shared this story with me: He and his brother were the joint heirs to their father’s estate. Several months before their father died, he called his son, the priest, saying he wanted to talk about something very important.

Suffering and tragedy are things that we don’t want to reflect on or think too much about because of the pain that it brings into our lives. If we look at the world today, there are so many natural and human made disasters.

Today we are invited to reflect upon the Transfiguration of Jesus. Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain to pray and when he was at prayer he is transfigured.

This Sunday the 6^th of March, the Universal Church enters the sacred time of Lent. Marked by the celebration of Ash Wednesday, we are reminded both by tradition and Gospel that this is a sacred time, a penitential time, to consider the beauty of humanity in God’s creation, but also to remember the limitations we have as human beings.

One of the mid- 20^th century’s most influential people was Helen Keller. Born in the USA on 27^th June, 1880, she went blind and deaf as a young child due to an incurable disease.

There’s this story about the US Civil War when President Abraham Lincoln was being briefed by his generals on the state of the war. His generals said to him, “In order to win this war, we must destroy our enemies”. The president replied, “I agree fully. We must destroy our enemies to win the war”. Then he added, “Let us make them our friends”.

Being a Christian, in this time, is not easy. To be a disciple of Jesus is very challenging, but not impossible. We call ourselves disciples because we have identified ourselves fully with Jesus’ mission; with His vision of life.

Over the past few Sundays, we have heard in the first readings a focused theme – that of ‘Hearing God’s Sacred Word’. On the Third Sunday, in the reading from the book of Nehemiah, we heard the prophet Ezra proclaiming God’s Word in the assembly of the people, after their return from exile.