The World's Logic

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

30 August 2026

 

First Reading: Jeremiah 20:7-9

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9

Second Reading: Romans 12:1-2

Gospel: Matthew 16:21-27

 

Reflection

By: Bernard Borja

 

In last week’s Gospel, Jesus named Simon as Peter, the rock in which the Church will be built. In the Gospel today, Peter immediately commits a deeply human mistake: he tries to write God’s plan using worldly logic. When Jesus foretells his own suffering and death, Peter rebukes him, triggering Christ’s piercing response: "You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." This kind of thinking – the tension between divine wisdom and self-reliant human rationality – sits at the heart of our most evident moral failures, both personal and societal. But as soon as Peter made a mistake of “thinking as human beings do”, Jesus immediately takes him back on how to discern God’s will, even before the Church is built.

We are often tempted to conform to the reasoning of what the world does, which is a mindset that St. Paul warns against in his letter to the Romans. The world’s logic is often practical. It prioritizes survival, comfort, and the preservation of power. When we fail to truly discern God's will, we easily fall into the trap of self-reliance, convincing ourselves that our personal ambitions or political loyalties are somehow aligned with divine favor simply because they are effective or popular.

This dangerous mindset is more visible in the current socio-political view of the world, especially in the Philippines. Over the years, the nation has witnessed a disturbing normalization of violence, where government officials promoted thousands of extrajudicial killings under the banner of public safety. The tragedy is not just the massive loss of life, but the moral reversal that comes with it. Many people blindly supported these brutal campaigns, persuaded by a twisted logic that sacrificing the marginalized, the poor, and the voiceless was a necessary trade-off, thinking that this is something "good for most people". This is the exact human thinking Jesus rebuked: the belief that a necessary end justifies a ruthless, bloodstained means.

The moral conflict becomes louder when those in power weaponize religion to shield themselves from accountability. We see leaders and their enablers facing severe domestic and international investigation, including those investigated by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, yet they shamelessly quote scripture, post themselves in social media attending mass or church services, and declare that God is with them. They use faith as a dramatic prop to maintain their grip on power and evade justice. It becomes a “poser” faith that demands divine blessing while strongly rejecting the cross of accountability and truth.

The experience of the prophet Jeremiah can be compared with this. In the first reading, Jeremiah cries out that speaking God’s truth has brought him "derision and reproach all the day." True prophets and genuine disciples do not inflict violence to maintain authority. They endure hardships to uphold the truth. They do not twist God’s word to justify the shedding of blood. They allow their hearts to be broken by the injustices of the world.

Jesus now asks us a question that breaks the mindset of self-reliance: "What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" When people blindly follow leaders who evade justice, and when officials use God’s name to sanction cruelty, they are forfeiting the soul of a nation. Genuine faith requires a radical renewal of the mind. It demands the courage to see through the propaganda and true intent of the powerful, to reject a false peace built on violence, and to take up the difficult cross of demanding justice, accountability, and the inherent dignity of every human life.

Prayer

Lord God, we come before You as we recognize how often we rely on our own flawed human logic rather than trusting in Your divine wisdom. Grant us the grace to renew our minds, that we may not choose comfort over truth and justice. We lift up our nation to You as we pray for healing and accountability. As we also remember the Passion of St. John the Baptist, inspire us with his courage to speak the truth to earthly authorities, even when it demands ultimate personal sacrifice. May we always choose to take up our cross to defend the dignity of every human life. We pray for guidance to live as faithful disciples who seek justice and mercy above all else. In Jesus Name, AMEN.  

Kristong Hari

Dakilang Kapistahan ng Pagkahari

Nobyembre 23, 2025

 

Unang Pagbasa: 

Salmong Tugunan: 

Ikalawang Pagbasa: 

Mabuting Balita: 

 

Pagninilay

Ni: Renato C. Vibiesca

 

Wala tayong malinaw o malalim na konsepto ng pagkakaroon ng hari dahil wala sa kultura natin ito o wala tayong karanasan na mapasakop sa isang hari bilang pinuno ng ating bayan, maliban noong panahon ng kolonyalismo na malupit at malungkot na kasaysayan naman ang naranasan. Madalas na nakikita lang natin ang anyong kastilyo sa mga resort o pasyalan bilang dekorasyon ng lugar upang magmukhang kaharian iyon. Ang Fantasy World sa Lemery, Batangas ang tanging kastilyong nakita ko sa Pilipinas na isang amusement park at tinaguriang Disneyland ng Pilipinas. Pero napakaliit nito kung ikukumpara sa Disneyland sa ibang bansa. Nagkaroon lamang ako ng mas malawak na pagmumuni tungkol sa kastilyo at sa kaharian nang bigyan ako ng grasya ng Diyos na makakita nito sa ilang mga bansa sa Europa. Una, hindi lang bakas ng kasaysayan ang ipinapahiwatig nito kundi ang kadakilaan at kabutihan ng isang hari sa kanyang nasasakupan. Isa sa una kong napansin sa mga kastilyo ay napalilibutan ito ng matitibay na pader o moog, ang istrukturang ito ng kaharian ay ibig patunayan sa nasasakupang mamamayan na magtiwala sila dahil ligtas sila sa loob at laging kinakalinga sila ng kanilang hari. Kapag may magtatangkang sumira ng kastilyo o manakop ng kanilang kaharian, ang hari ang nangunguna sa kanyang mga kawal upang ipagtanggol ang kaniyang nasasakupan. Sinisiguro rin ng hari na sapat at masagana sa lahat ng bagay ang mamamayan upang manatili silang masaya sa kanilang pamumuhay. Napapaisip ako na ang pagiging mabuting hari marahil ang dahilan kung bakit hanggang ngayon ay maunlad na mga bansa ang karamihang nasa Europa. Subalit higit pa sa lahat ng kagalingan ng kastilyo o anumang kaharian sa Europa o maging sa buong mundo ang nais ibigay ng ating Kristong Hari nang ipangako niya sa Ebanghelyo na isasama sa paraiso ang magnanakaw na nagbalik-loob at nanampalataya kay Hesus. Sapagkat ang Kaharian ng Diyos ay walang hanggan na hindi tulad sa anumang kaharian sa mundo na maglalaho at lilipas pagdaan ng panahon. Tanging ang Kristong Hari ang matibay na moog na nagliligtas sa ating mga kasalanan, ang tagapagtanggol ng tapat na sumasampalataya sa Kanya, ang Hari na nagbibigay ng kasaganaan, ang Diyos na nagbibigay ng walang hanggang kaligayahan. Ang matimyas na pag-ibig sa atin ng Kristong Hari ay biyaya ng kaligtasan ng mga tapat na sumasampalataya sa Kanya sa pamamagitan ng pagtakwil sa mga kasalanan at pagbabalik-loob, pagpapanibago ng buhay, at pagbabayad-puri sa lahat ng nagawang pagkukulang sa Diyos at sa kapwa. Amen.

 

Panalangin

Panginoong Hesus, nagsusumaamo kami na patawarin ang aming mga kasalanan, dulutan ng biyaya na makapagbagong buhay at manatiling tapat sa Iyo habang nagbabayad-puri kami sa lahat ng masamang aming nagawa upang maisama mo rin kami sa Iyong Kaharian. Amen.

God's Love for the World

Fourth Sunday of Lent

(Laetare Sunday)

14 March 2021 

 

First Reading:  2 CHR 36:14-16, 19-23

Responsorial Psalm:  PS 137:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6

Second Reading:  EPH 2:4-10

Gospel:  JN 3:14-21

 

Reflection

By: Emerson C. Maala

 

When I was a child, my mother would always bring me with her to the church. She was the one who taught me how to pray to God. By that time, I don't have any understanding of God or the church. I was just a happy and innocent kid asking for an ice cream or toys every after Mass. But who really God is?

It was High School when I joined the Ministry of the Altar Server. There, I was able to understand God; He was the one who created the world, He saved us from our sins, people talked to Him, and others. And what I only knew was that I believed and trusted Him. Being an altar server, I felt a greater attraction to the service. I loved what I was doing in the church. This led me to likely become a priest and enter the seminary. And it was through that greater attraction that led me to love God and understand my faith in Him.

The Gospel today speaks of the loving and merciful God  who sends His only Son. During His time, Jesus was rejected by the people as the Son of God. He was mocked by the Pharisees and other people who hated Him. However, there were people who got attracted to Jesus. At first, they do not really understand their faith in Him, but later on, their attraction leads them to love and follow Jesus. On the other hand, even though Jesus was hated and mocked by the people, He did not give up His love for us. He took up the Cross of salvation to save us from our sins. This was the purpose of God's love and mercy to us. He sends His Son for us to understand His love for us and for us to love Him back.

 

Prayer

 

God our Father, we thank You for giving us Your Son, Jesus Christ. Through Your goodness, we were able to understand Your love for us. By this, help us to show Your love and mercy to others so that they, too, may understand Your loving presence to them. We ask You to bless us always and keep us in Your love. We ask this through Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

 

 

Mundanity

2nd Sunday of Advent

December 6, 2015

First reading                                                                                                Baruch 5:1-9

Jerusalem, take off your dress of sorrow and distress,
put on the beauty of the glory of God for ever,
wrap the cloak of the integrity of God around you,
put the diadem of the glory of the Eternal on your head:
since God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven,
since the name God gives you for ever will be,
‘Peace through integrity, and honour through devotedness.’
Arise, Jerusalem, stand on the heights
and turn your eyes to the east:
see your sons reassembled from west and east
at the command of the Holy One, jubilant that God has remembered them.
Though they left you on foot,
with enemies for an escort,
now God brings them back to you
like royal princes carried back in glory.
For God has decreed the flattening
of each high mountain, of the everlasting hills,
the filling of the valleys to make the ground level
so that Israel can walk in safety under the glory of God.
And the forests and every fragrant tree will provide shade
for Israel at the command of God;
for God will guide Israel in joy by the light of his glory
with his mercy and integrity for escort.

Psalm                                                                                               Psalm 125:1-6

Second reading                                                                           Philippians 1:4-6,8-11 Every time I pray for all of you, I pray with joy, remembering how you have helped to spread the Good News from the day you first heard it right up to the present. I am quite certain that the One who began this good work in you will see that it is finished when the Day of Christ Jesus comes; and God knows how much I miss you all, loving you as Christ Jesus loves you. My prayer is that your love for each other may increase more and more and never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your perception so that you can always recognise what is best. This will help you to become pure and blameless, and prepare you for the Day of Christ, when you will reach the perfect goodness which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of God.

Gospel	Luke 3:1-6

In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar’s reign, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of the lands of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias tetrach of Abilene, during the pontificate of Annas and Caiaphas the word of God came to John son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. He went through the whole Jordan district proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the sayings of the prophet Isaiah:
A voice cries in the wilderness:
Prepare a way for the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley will be filled in,
every mountain and hill be laid low,
winding ways will be straightened
and rough roads made smooth.
And all mankind shall see the salvation of God.

Reflection

By Pam Manzano

The world today as we know it is extremely far from where it was, say, ten or 20 years ago. Man’s pursuit for excellence, thirst for knowledge and willingness to survive has put him into a pedestal where he himself claims that everything which is of ‘today’ is better than that of yesterday – but is it?

In a world run by technology and marked with non-stop advancements, our lives seem to be always on the edge. People are in constant move and one is expected to catch up with the speed as fast as light. One wrong move and you will be left behind. Nothing ever stays the same, no, not even change. Stars and planets light years away are now being explored. Illnesses we thought never could be cured are now curable with the field of medicine being advanced more than ever. Everything seemed to be automated – from voice-activated GPS to the personal assistant in your smart phone.

But what happened to us men?

We are left trying to cope with our own ingenuities. We strive to be at the top, to be the one in control – because that is what life taught us, you might say. We are almost always occupied with all things imaginable and what not. We are always in a hurry; always in a rush to get things done. We try to create short cuts only to find ourselves trapped in the end. We tend to be so eager and impatient for seemingly never ending tomorrows to come.

As if being in constant move is not enough, we plastered our smart phones to our hands. Social media sites became the embodiment of ‘friendship’. Today’s generation pioneered in giving ‘likes’ to the homeless yet leave them where they are. We are now predisposed to post status and shout outs whenever we feel like our rights have been violated, always in need to share our opinions and then hide in the guise of it being ‘just’ an opinion and nothing more. We started relying on everything that is of technology. We started to consciously forget how a genuine hug feels and turned to virtual emojis instead. We wholeheartedly chose to leave the art of letter writing behind and embrace electronic mails. We started loving “mundanity” with everything outside our routine being counted as threatening to our sanity.

We live in an era where schools are built and minds left empty; where food presentation is perfected yet ignore those who are dying of hunger; where the need to be heard is more important than to hear. We live today where lives and beliefs are protected by bringing others down; where honesty is being downplayed. We live now yearning for transformation when we, ourselves, are not willing to be changed. To live in the 21st century is to partake in both its glory and shame.

Saint John the Baptist announced in the Gospel the coming of Christ and asked everyone to make His paths straight. It would not hurt if we heed his call and examine how our lives have been. Are we ready to receive Christ this Advent season or are we going to let our complexities get in the way of us returning to the heart of worship?

Prayer

Father, we pray that we may be able to return to You this season of Advent. May we heed St. John’s call to prepare the way for the coming of Your Son. Teach us the path to living simpler lives with the goal of pleasing You alone. May You constantly remind us that we are only temporary dwellers of this world and that we are destined to be with You at Your kingdom forever. Amen.

Crazy Love

First Reading:  2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23

In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the LORD’s temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.

Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the LORD against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy. Their enemies burnt the house of God,  tore down the walls of Jerusalem, set all its palaces afire, and destroyed all its precious objects. Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to Babylon, where they became servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons until the kingdom of the Persians came to power. All this was to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah: “Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths,  during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest  while seventy years are fulfilled.”

In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD inspired King Cyrus of Persia to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom, both by word of mouth and in writing: “Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD, the God of heaven, has given to me, and he has also charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and  may his God be with him!”

Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 137:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6

Second Reading:  Ephesians 2:4-10

Brothers and sisters:

God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ — by grace you have been saved —, raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance ,that we should live in them.

Gospel: John 3:14-21

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world,  but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

Reflection
By Fidji Rivera-Sarmiento

“For God SO (super-dooper mega-over) loved the world.”

Imagine our God during that scene when Adam and Eve were blaming each other when they ate the fruit.

Now imagine our God when He sent Jesus to the world.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.

Let me give you a simpler analogy.

It is like I have a classroom of misbehaving students, the “black herd” of the school maybe. I must love them of course, having a big teacher kind of heart. Plus I am supposed to be their second mom, in loco parentis. But after all the behavior interventions, the constructive discipline I want to inculcate in them, still they misbehave. Repeatedly. So I pull out my guns. My A-HA moment, my grand finale strategy, my most outrageous technique is…

TO SEND MY ELDEST SON TO THIS CLASS!

Yes! Immerse him there! He will teach these students a thing or two about life.

Crazy, you say? Definitely. And for the life of me, I would never do that. Why, would you? They will eat my son alive! I would not throw my own son to the sharks. More so, it is like putting a drop of clean and clear water into the murky, stinky tubig-kanal. Simply futile.

But that’s how God loves this world. You call that CRAZY LOVE.

He was beaming with hope thinking that maybe, if He sends Jesus to earth, things will go better. He allowed His only Son Jesus to be human – to feel pain and anguish, to laugh with friends, to battle with temptations, to cry, to be crucified – because He loved us so well.

Crazy love. Because after all HE IS LOVE.

And He was perfectly right. Jesus made Him proud.

Immerse in that kind of love today. You have been gifted with the most precious gift. Don’t put it to waste.

Prayer

Father, today, we thank You for just being so awesome. Sorry if we set aside this sacrifice that Your Son Jesus had done for all of us. Sorry if we go about our day forgetting how much You have given up for our salvation. As the song goes, we WILL tell the world of this love; the greatest love the world has known. So we can search for those who have strayed and lead them back to You. Amen.