Your faith has saved you... (reflection for October 29, 2006)

In today’s Gospel, a blind man named Bartimaeus called out the name of Jesus in a large crowd, he asked Jesus to cure him of his blindness. After asking Jesus to cure him, Jesus said, “go, your faith has saved you”, then Bartimaeus began to have sight.

Today, we hear our Lord say, “Your faith has saved you”. This statement is similar to the other miracles performed by Jesus. The similarity is within the word “faith”. When you have faith, you can achieve anything.

Every person that Jesus performed a miracle on had faith, and that faith helped the miracle to be performed. If the people did not have faith, they would have not been healed of their illnesses.

A lot of people today got healed by just having faith. I’ve read stories wherein a person got sick and did not took it into any medical practices. He got through his illness by just praying and having a little faith.

My friends, we are all sick, and just as every other sick person, we aim to be healed. Like in today’s Gospel, we need to have faith to be healed. Jesus needs our help in curing us. Why don’t we give him a hand in doing it? Let us be more faithful to Him, and by doing that, we will be healed.

Ahead... Reflection for (October 22, 2006)

In today's Gospel, James and John wanted to be the right and left hand of Jesus in His throne, yet Jesus asked them to be humble if they wanted to be first, cause it's obvious that James and John wanted to be ahead among the apostles.

It's deafening to hear the similar things in the Gospels of Christ. Even in life, when you hear the same or similar things again and again, you tend not to listen anymore, which is actually one mentality of people nowadays especially the youth.

Parents or elders seem to scold their children again and again because they keep on doing the same mistakes. That's why children tend not to listen cause they hear the same things from parents. My fellow youth, they will keep on scolding us again and again with the same issue if we will keep on doing the same mistakes. May i suggest that when you make a mistake, improve by it. People may admire you for it.

So anyway, I'm getting far from the Gospel, people might think that this entry is a complete nonsense cause its not anywhere near to the topic in the Gospel.

Everyone wants to be powerful, and being powerful today means that you have the ability to be a leader, which is contradicting to the teachings of our Lord. Jesus teaches us that to be a leader, you must first be a servant. For being a leader means serving the society and not the society serving you. This is the kind of leadership that Jesus teaches. This is often being neglected by the leaders today. They forgot the fact that being a leader means being humble and serving.

My friends, being a leader doesnt mean that you have to be powerful, a leader must be servant.

Living with Christ... (reflection for October 15, 2006)

Like I said in my previous entries, it is never easy to follow Jesus. In today’s Gospel, Jesus said that to inherit the kingdom of God, you have to give up everything that you have, give them to the needy and follow Christ. Jesus never stopped challenging us to become good followers.

If you were to read some lives of saints, you would see that their lives have never been easy. They faced crosses that no ordinary person would carry. Yes, no one could ever carry the crosses that saints faced, so the big question is, how did they do it?

My friends, now I tell you that it is easy to go to the kingdom of God. When you are alone, of course, it will be difficult, but when you travel with Jesus, everything is easy. No man can withstand the crosses that the saints carried, but since they have Jesus in them, the word ‘impossible’ has never existed.

Detachment from our things is hard, it means letting go of what you wanted the most, of what you most loved, and of the luxury that leads you to sin. Nevertheless, all of this is not even close to enough of what you will receive when you enter the gates of Heaven and be able to touch the face of God.

Pogi points kay Lord (a memorable experience with my cousins)

Last August, my cousins from Orange County, USA came here to the Philippines for a vacation. When my mom told me that they were coming, it placed a smile on my face cause it has been almost 7 years since I last saw them and I was just a very small kid back then so i couldn't actually remember the last time I saw them. So anyway, I was shocked on what they are right now, cause i was expecting the wrong things from them. Yes, they are good people, with a good sense of humour, but I can't deny the fact that we are different, cause I remember before that we used to like the same thing, hate the same thing. We all look the same and think the same, but as I've interacted with them, things have changed.

It only shows that the environment is a big deal for the molding of ones maturity. I come to think that if we migrated to America before, I would behave like them too (which, i don't want to happen). When they left, I realized that God indeed wanted me to be holy, cause before, my dad had the option to migrate to America and start a living there with the whole family family of Escobar's, but no, my dad chose to stay here. If it wasn't for his decision, i would not be this holy at all, instead, i would be like my cousins.

You might be asking what it is about my cousins that i don't like, well, there is nothing that I don't like about them. I don't have the right to say the things that I like or dislike about a person, I'm not God, He's the only One who has the right to do that. I was only shocked on how they behaved.

During their stay here in the Philippines, I asked Mikee (the youngest of my 3 cousins) to come with me to the church, he looked at me with a strange facial expression, and asked, "are you joking?" then I said, "no, come with me to the church and help me CONVINCE your brothers to come too". Mikee did not want to go but he said yes because I asked him to. Migui, Mikee's twin was a hard one, he really did not want to go to church, he'd rather sit on a chair and listen to his iPod rather than attend a mass. He kept on asking me questions like, "why should I go to mass?", "what will i benefit there", "what good it will do to me? I can pray and talk to God, what's the point in attending mass?"... In the end, he did joined us cause i told him that i'll "introduce him to some of my beautiful Filipina friends" (that's practically the reason of why he joined me). That was actually "pogi points kay Lord" cause I was able to convince him to go to church. They said that it has been months since they attended mass.

Then a week later, I asked them again to come with me to attend a mass, but this time, I entered the "next level". I wanted all of them to come with me, and hear mass together with my mom, dad, and ate. I first asked my tita (aunt) to join us but she said, "ayoko mag-simba, wala ako sa mood" (i'm not in a mood to hear mass)... I suddenly cracked, my heart broke, and out of frustration I said, "kailan ba nawalan ng mood sayo ang Diyos?" (when did God did not have any mood for you)... It slipped off my mouth, and my mom was there beside her, I was expecting my mom to scold me cause I delivered my words disrespectfully, but instead my mom just kept the silence and decided to talk. In the look of my mom's eyes she was like cheering, "go Diego! tama ka! your right!). Then after that I walked away, and tried to asked my tito (uncle) to come with us. When I asked my tito to come, he first laughed and then eventually he said yes. When my tita heard that her husband was coming, she came with us too, and that made me kinda happy.

Inside the church, I did not stop smiling. I was happy because I was able to convince a whole family to go to church and worship God. My mom was saying that it was a "dag-dag pogi points mo kay Lord".

I miss my cousins, and I hope that I may see them again within 5 years cause the last time I saw them was about 10 years ago.


Keep Smiling... :)

The married life... (reflection for October 8, 2006)

I can't understand the fact of why celebrities and TV personalities find it hard to maintain a stable and decent relationship. Every now and then, you'll hear in the news 2 celebrities filing an annulment case to each other knowing that they have only been married for about a year or even months. It's common to hear that when celebrities and TV personalities gets married now and then a few months or years later, they'll be on the front page of a showbiz newspapaer saying that they have been divorced. One of the most famous annulment cases was with the famous pop star Britney Spears, wherein she's only married for a day. I really can't understand the fact of why most celebrities get married and then separates. Sometimes I think that maybe it's just for show to make them more famous.

But come to think of it, the problem lies within their hectic schedules. They tend to focus more on their careers rather than spending it with each other. That's why they give up so easily. As said in today's Gospel, "what God has joined together, no human being should separate"

In a married life, having a misunderstanding or a quarrel is ordinary, no relationship has never had one, but in a relationship, both male and female must be strong to whatever obstacles that they may encounter. If you choose to have a married life, then you must ready, ready to choose the right person for you.

As my mom always say, "you'll never know the true attitude of a person once you've been with him for years"

Instruments to sin... (reflection for October 1, 2006)

It is normal for people to sin. Even the most holy and virtuous person is prone to sin in a single day. No matter how hard we try not to commit it, we still do. We can hurt people physically, emotionally and spirituality and by that we commit sin. In today's Gospel, Jesus asked us whenever a part of our body causes us to do evil, we must detach it and throw it away.

Of course this is not intended to be literal. What kind of person would cut his own arms and legs and pluck off his eyes because of sin? As some of the great saints say, "following Christ is not easy". Yes, indeed that being a Christian is not easy. It means offering your life. Good thing I've never heard of a Christian who would take the words of Christ that serious.

Whenever we do sin, we do not need to cut off our limbs and pluck off our eyes, repentance from what we did is already enough and I think that He would be happy to hear someone who repents on the sins that he has commited.