A Homily on the Transfiguration of the Lord There is a story about a 75-year old woman who spoke to God in a vision. She asked God, “God, how much time do I have to live?” God replied, “35 more years.” And so for one whole year, the old woman did everything to make her face look beautiful and her body more shapely. She underwent plastic surgery several times: she had a face-lift and had her nose reshaped. She underwent liposuction where her body bulged in the wrong places.

Life is beautiful. Yes, indeed . . . in many different ways. But it is far from perfect. There are events, people and things that contribute to making it happy and beautiful, but they can also at times make it sad, difficult or ugly, with or without our own choosing, or fault. This journey called life can be so engaging and our desire to get the most out of it so intense that we would like it to last forever. On the path of life, we tend to tarry a lot to enjoy the flowers an

Lent is a time when the Church reminds us to spend some time amid the cares and concerns of our everyday life and reflect on Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection with which He redeemed us from sin and spiritual death. Lent is ushered in by the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday and the reminder “ Remember man that you are dust and to dust you will return.” Now there is a new exhortation: “Repent and believe in the Gospel." (Mk 1:15). Our being dust in origin and end

The season of Lent commemorates the forty days and forty nights our Lord spent in the desert praying, fasting, and battling with Satan who tempted Him before His public ministry, culminating in His Passion, Death and Resurrection. These He underwent for all for us -- that He might save us from sin and bring us to the glory of heaven to last for all eternity. Speaking of eternity, the great saint, Bernard of Clairvaux, is known for his often-quoted question in Latin: "Quid hoc

The past week, snow has been intermittently falling in our area. Melting snow turns into ice when the temperature drops again to the freezing point. Icy, slippery roads are a nightmare even to skilled drivers who need to go out. Some of those with experiences of accidents in icy winters might have been tempted to wish canceling this phenomenon of Nature if possible. But obviously, they can't. The old-fashioned shoveling and plowing and spreading salt still need to be done. M

Long before my dad started his poultry business, we raised a few native chickens in our backyard. We started with a hen and a rooster my grandfather gave us. In no time the hen started laying eggs in a nest we carefully prepared. When the hen had laid a clutch of about 12 eggs, it sat gently on them, making them warm with its breast and wings for about twenty-one days until they hatched into chicks. During the brooding time, we stayed away from the nest so as not to disturb

If there were no hungry, no thirsty, no sick, no one needing clothes, food, drink, visits, shelter and caring in the world, what would Jesus say to each of us upon meeting Him on our particular judgment day? Would He still be able to say: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a strang

A favorite insightful Canadian blogger (David Warren - “Essays in Idleness”) I follow daily ended his today’s brief post announcing his temporary absence from his blog space thus: “Compose each one [of your blog posts] as if it were your last. Eventually, one will be.” This reminded me of a priest (Fr. Larry Richards - on YouTube) who recounted in a homily that he had seen a sign in the chapel of Mother Teresa of Calcutta which reads: “Oh priest of God, say this Mass as if i

Many were the things my friends and I did before we noticed girls. Aside from classes and homework, there were sports — softball, ping pong, basketball, etc. We even crafted our own boy toys like kites that gave us much enjoyment. We also made slingshots and traps for small birds. Making the slingshots and bird traps was by itself exciting. We hit a few birds with the slingshots and caught some in our traps. But what we did with the birds later we did not enjoy. Even then som

The first snow came late this winter in the Metro DC area last night after much anticipation from the weather forecast. But it fell just a little over a couple of inches on the car tops and the grass and did not even stick on the pavement. We barely had snow the past several winters. Many probably have gotten used to snowless winters, such that now we are afraid or lazy to deal with snow -- cleaning the cars, shoveling the driveway and driving on the wet roads. The church was