World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
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Today in our gospel, a Pharisee invited Jesus to his home for a Sabbath dinner, and the Lord accepted the invitation. As we are aware, Jesus had a difficult relationship with the Pharisees. In today’s gospel, however, a Pharisee invited Jesus to dinner at his house, and the Lord accepted the invitation. As expected, there were other Pharisees at the dinner, and the gospel says “they were watching him” – every word Jesus said or every action he performed. The “watching” being described here can be translated as a “sinister spying” on someone. In other words, the Lord was under scrutiny.
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The vow of obedience for us religious is one of the three pillars, that define who we are as religious priest, besides, simplicity of life and Chasity. Basically, it requires us to surrender to the mission and vision shared by the Congregation through the voice of superiors. That implies that when you are transferred from one ministry and place to another, you must move.
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It must have been striking and confusing to the listeners of Jesus when He said that only a few people would be saved or that only a few would enter through the door. His statement on pious religious practices is not enough for someone to enter eternal life. However, this does not mean that eternal life is for the selected few. This is because at the end of the text, He says people will come from different parts of the world, east, west, north, and south, and be part of the Eternal Kingdom. We know that the symbolism of the stretched-out hands of the crucified Jesus is an invitation for all people to come to Him.
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Let me be honest with you: while preparing this homily I had to look up for more details about Simon and Jude the apostles. Not because I'm a terrible Catholic, okay, maybe partly that, but because these two apostles are essentially footnotes in the Gospel story. Simon gets just one description: "the Zealot." Jude gets confused with Judas Iscariot so often that he has basically spent two thousand years saying, "No, not that Judas. The other one." Yet here we are, celebrating their feast day. Not of the famous ones. Not just Peter and John. But Simon the political radical and Jude the perpetually mistaken.
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Every day we hear about or encounter the tensions that exist among family members, neighbors, co-workers, and even within our own hearts—one of these is the tension between trying to discipline the desires of the flesh and the presumption that we can do whatever we want because God is merciful. When Paul wrote today’s reading to the Romans, it was to guide two groups of people who were at odds with one another in following Jesus. At that time, there was a growing confusion in the Roman Church… a phenomenon that continues to occur in each generation, often revisiting the same topics.
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This is a very difficult question today. If you ask people what is true, they will ask you in return, in which context? Do you want truth in the context of politics, economics, socially or religious? The problem is relativism. Truth depends on me or what I belief. However, as Christian pursuit of truth is our goal and we always have the answer, Jesus Christ.
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