So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.” They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?” He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.”
His disciples said to him, “If that is the
case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” He answered, “Not all
can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are
incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made
so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the
Kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
How’s your married life?
Every marriage relationship has its own imperfections and some passes though the severe test of fire. Ask any married couple and they will silently say that they have their own share of disagreements and issues.
If they have their problems why do they stay in their marriage covenant and try very hard to make it work? They stay and try hard to make the marriage work because they believe in the sanctity of the Sacrament of Marriage.
Problems and issues are part of the marriage journey but notice also that as you move forward with the married journey. You would also discern that problems and issues will start to dissipate until it eventually disappears. Therefore what will remain is your love for each other and your willingness to sacrifice for the marriage to be successful.
But reality bites, there really are unsuccessful marriages whether we admit it or not. In spite of this sad reality we still have to believe in the sanctity of the marriage covenant. When temptation lurks around like a shark eyeing its prey we have to try our best to avoid it.
How are we going to avoid being tempted? We have to strongly fight the tempter which is the devil and we have to vividly remember the marriage covenant that we promised before God. Otherwise the marriage might be torn apart.
Believe in the sanctity of your marriage
and avoid the devil like a plague and you’ll have a beautiful and peaceful life
ahead of you. How’s your marriage? –
Marino J. Dasmarinas
kaya't hindi na sila dalawa kundi isa. Ang pinagsama ng Diyos ay huwag paghiwalayin ng tao." Tinanong siya ng mga Pariseo, "Bakit iniutos ni Moises na bigyan ng lalaki ang kanyang asawa ng kasulatan sa paghihiwalay bago hiwalayan iyon?" Sumagot si Jesus, "Dahil sa katigasan ng inyong ulo kaya ipinahintulot ni Moises na hiwalayan ninyo ang inyong asawa.
Subalit hindi gayon sa pasimula. Kaya sinasabi ko sa inyo: sinumang lalaking humiwalay sa kanyang asawa sa anumang dahilan liban sa pakikiapid, at mag-asawa sa iba, ay nangangalunya. At ang mag-asawa sa babaing hiniwalayan ay nangangalunya rin." Sinabi ng mga alagad, "Kung ganyan po ang kalagayan ng lalaki sa kanyang asawa, mabuti pang huwag nang mag-asawa." Sumagot si Jesus, "Hindi lahat ay makatatanggap ng simulaing iyan kundi iyon lamang pinagkalooban ng Diyos.
Sapagkat may
iba't-ibang dahilan kung bakit may lalaking hindi makapag-asawa; ang ilan,
dahil sa kanilang katutubong kalagayan; ang iba, dahil sa kagagawan ng ibang
tao ay nagkagayon sila; mayroon namang hindi nag-aasawa alang-alang sa
ikauunlad ng paghahari ng Diyos. Ang makatatanggap ng simulaing ito ay
tumanggap nito."
Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full. Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe. Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back. But he refused. Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
When Jesus finished these words, he left
Galilee and went to the district of Judea across the Jordan.
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Reflection:
How do you feel after you’ve been through the Sacrament of Reconciliation? You feel light and free as if a big burden has been taken off from your back. This perhaps was the feeling of the servant in our gospel who asked forgiveness from his master/king.
But the irony is this: the servant who was forgiven by his master did not forgive a fellow servant who owed him a small amount of money. Something is terribly wrong here because the servant should have also forgiven his fellow servant. But he did not take advantage of the grace of forgiveness that was showered upon him by his master.
Do you always take advantage of the grace of forgiveness that is graciously given to you by God during the Sacrament of Reconciliation? God’s desire for us is to forgive as we have been forgiven. To forgive and forget the offense/s that is done to us as God has forgiven the countless offenses that we’ve done to Him. Think about if you don’t forgive, you’re imprisoned by your anger and you don’t have peace of mind.
You have everything to gain and nothing to
lose if you will forgive or if you become forgiving. – Marino J. Dasmarinas
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
Do you love your life in this world?
Jesus gives us today a contradictory statement by saying: “Whoever loves his life loses it and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” How could this be?
The simple answer to this paradoxical statement by Jesus is this: We love our life if we love the trappings of this world such as wealth, power and other worldly possession. It also includes other self-centered attitudes such as greed, lust, arrogance, egotism to name a few. We will certainly lose our life if we could identify to any of these characteristics.
We hate our life in this world but preserve it for eternal life if we have Christ like behaviors such as: Humility, Selflessness, Prayerfulness, Kindheartedness, Mercy, Forgiveness, Compassion and many more Christ like virtues.
Therefore we are given two choices: To love our life in this world or two hate it. Surely there would be those who would choose to love their life in this world but for what price?
The problem of loving our present life for the sake of this world is we are slowly but surely closing the door for Jesus to enter our life. Yet we open it widely for the Devil to enter and eventually drive our life.
Discover the true meaning of life by serving Christ or by loving Him. Discover the true meaning of life by denying yourself of the many useless and sinful excesses of this world.
Have you already discovered the true meaning of your life? – Marino J.
Dasmarinas
Ang
taong labis na nagpapahalaga sa kanyang buhay ay siyang mawawalan nito, ngunit
ang napopoot sa kanyang buhay sa daigdig na ito ay siyang magkakaroon nito
hanggang sa buhay na walang hanggan. Dapat sumunod sa akin ang naglilingkod sa
akin, at saanman ako naroroon ay naroon din ang aking lingkod. Pararangalan ng
Ama ang sinumang naglilingkod sa akin."
“See that you do not despise one of these
little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon
the face of my heavenly Father. What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred
sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the
hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he
rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the
same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little
ones be lost.”
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
The story is told about a man who was labelled as the black sheep of their family by his siblings. As such nobody amongst his siblings want to be associated with him anymore. Who would want to be associated to a so-called black sheep? No one among us want to be associated with a black sheep. Right?
How about Jesus? Oh, He loves dearly the black sheep and those who stray. He constantly searches for them wherever they may be until He finds them. This is the love of God for us, He will patiently look for us until he finds us. And when He finds us He will stop at nothing to bring us back to His loving embrace.
We always have to remember that Jesus’ mission is to bring back the lost, misguided and sinners. However, what if those who are lost do not want to renew their life and they want to continue on living their sinful life? What are we going to do? Should we give up on them and let them live their sinful life?
Of course not, because when we give up it’s like we already surrender to the power of the Devil. We let evil triumph over good and this must not be the situation. It must be the other way around, good should always triumph over evil. Thus, we must not give up on the lost we must seek them until we find them and once we find them we forget the past and we introduce Jesus to them.
Do you also seek out the lost?
- Marino J. Dasmarinas
When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said, “Does not your teacher pay the temple tax?” “Yes,” he said. When he came into the house, before he had time to speak, Jesus asked him, “What is your opinion, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax?
From their subjects or from foreigners?”
When he said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to him, “Then the subjects are
exempt. But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, drop in a hook, and
take the first fish that comes up. Open its mouth and you will find a coin
worth twice the temple tax. Give that to them for me and for you.”
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
To pay or not to pay the temple tax, of course Jesus did right when He decided to pay. What if Jesus decided not to pay the temple tax? He would have been a bad example to His followers and He would have given His opponents a window of opportunity to persecute Him earlier than expected.
For Jesus to do right is always His top priority to do wrong is never in His mind it’s always to do whatever is good and right. And we must always do good and do right also all the time.
Although we are not required to give a certain percentage of our income to the church. In hindsight this gospel invites us also to examine our generosity toward our church, how generous are we in giving to our church? For example, during Holy Mass, how generous are we during offertory? Do we give from the heart or we give out from our spare or crumbs?
We must give generously for whatever we
give generously to the church the Good Lord will give back to us a
hundredfold. We can never out give God for the more that we give Him the more
that we would receive from Him. – Marino J. Dasmarinas
As they were about to part from him, Peter
said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But he did not know what he
was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over
them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the
cloud came a voice that said, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”
After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not
at that time tell anyone what they had seen.
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
There’s a story of a man who wanted very much to discover deeper intimacy with the Lord in his prayer life. Whenever he prays he would always be distracted by other thoughts that disturbs his mind. He tried very much to focus on his prayer life to no avail. It has always been the case whenever he prays: There are always thoughts that disturb his attention towards God.
This man’s story of his prayer life could be ours too, we want to have deeper intimacy in our prayer life. But there’s always distractions that disturbs our concentration towards God. How can we discover this mind and heart intimacy in our prayer life?
The gospel reading for today gives us insight to discover that mind and heart intimacy with the Lord. Jesus went to the mountain with Peter, John and James to meet and pray before God. For a brief moment Jesus escaped to the mountain so that he would not be disturb by anyone. His heart and mind were totally focused on his desire to connect with God.
It helped also that Peter, James and John were taken over by their tiredness that’s why they slept. Suddenly Jesus’ face changed in appearance and His clothes became dazzling white: a sure sign that Jesus got what He wanted: Deeper intimacy with God thru intense prayer no less.
If we want to develop a deeper connection with God in our life. We need to make an extra effort to discover Him in prayerful silence. We need to climb our own mountain of silence so that we could connect with Him. We need to totally focus our attention to God and disregard for a moment the disturbance around us. And this deeper connection with God we can only find if we climb our own mountain of silence.
Do you always have your moment of silence before God? – Marino J. Dasmarinas
What profit would there be for one to gain
the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his
life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and
then he will repay each according to his conduct. Amen, I say to you, there are
some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man
coming in his Kingdom.”
+ + + + + +
Reflection:
What is a meaningful and well lived life? It’s a life lived for the greater glory of God not life lived for our own earthly glory. Many of us commit the mistake of living our life for the sake of this world only.
For example, we chase everything that this world offers us but when we have it already we still wonder why we are still not happy. Or worst is we end up empty and alone even if we have everything that this world could offer us! Why is this so? This is for the reason that we desired this world, what is in this world that many of us are so enslave by it?
All that we have in this world are temporary, even us who presently dwell in this world are also temporary passersby in this world. God created us not for this world but for His eternal home in heaven. Yet many of us still don’t get this that’s why we amass wealth beyond our simple needs. Many of us would even sell our very selves to the Devil so that we can have massive wealth.
In our gospel for today Jesus clearly
states that we can only discover the true meaning of life once we live our life
for Him. We can never find the true meaning of our lives if we live it inside
the wealth, power and glamour of this world. – Marino J. Dasmarinas
And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
From that time on, Jesus began to show his
disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the
chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such
thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me,
Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as
human beings do.”
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
Fourteen years ago, I would regularly go every Sunday to the house of a sick 85 years old former Eucharistic minister to give him Holy Communion. He was poor and was renting a small house with his children. He was suffering both financially and physically but he was always thankful for the blessings of Jesus every Sunday. I never heard him complain about his suffering.
When Jesus was giving some hints of His forthcoming sufferings and eventual death; Peter rebuked Him by saying: “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” (Matthew 16:22) Just like Peter many of us are averse with sufferings; we want to avoid it as much as possible. Perhaps this is our human nature; we don’t want to suffer for the simple reason that it’s difficult.
But sufferings are part and parcel of life. No matter how we deftly avoid it, it will eventually catch us along our journey in this world. However, if we have Jesus in our life we would never complain about our suffering we would simply accept it as part and parcel of our life’s journey.
How about Jesus? Is HE averse with sufferings? No, HE is not, in fact HE told HIS disciples that HE would be suffering greatly from the hands of elders, chief priest and scribes then eventually be killed by them. (Matthew 16:21) Why is Jesus not afraid of suffering/s? This is for the reason that Jesus knows that God is with Him.
Jesus embraced HIS sufferings for the reason that HE knew that it was part of HIS mission of salvation. HE let go of HIS life and HE entrusted it to almighty God.
Life is not always how we like it to be,
there would come a time that we will encounter hardships and sufferings. Let us
not lose sleep about this, let us simply trust our all knowing and all loving
almighty God. – Marino J. Dasmarinas
He said in reply, "I was sent only to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But the woman came and did Jesus
homage, saying, "Lord, help me." He said in reply, "It is not
right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." She
said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the
table of their masters." Then Jesus said to her in reply, "O woman,
great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And the woman's
daughter was healed from that hour.
+ + + + + + +
Reflection:
What is the meaning of the phrase Son of David?
The phrase Son of David means Anointed One, Messiah, Savior and Christ. Why is it that a non-Jew like the Canaanite woman knows the true identity of Jesus? The answer is this: The Canaanite woman is a believer or a follower and based on her actuations she is not just an ordinary believer she is a believer with deep faith!
Around that time Jesus was within her vicinity so she went to HIM to ask for His help for her daughter was being tormented by a demon. She wasn’t able to immediately catch Jesus attention for she was an outsider, aside from that; she was also being despised by Jesus’ disciples. But she persisted and she never gave up until Jesus heard her pleadings.
What are the three qualities that caught Jesus attention concerning the Canaanite woman? First was her humility, second was her deep faith and third was her persistence. A person with a very high regard of herself/himself, with feeble faith and impatient would have easily walked away the moment she heard the insults from the disciples.
But she is humble, persevering and has deep faith that’s why she remained and persistently begged Jesus to cure her daughter. What is the lesson for us in this gospel episode? Jesus’ love is for everyone of us; it doesn’t even matter who we are and how big or small our sins are.
For as long as we humble ourselves before Jesus, for as long as we never give up and for as long as we continue to have faith. Jesus would always be there for us, to help us in every way possible with our problems.
Never give up on Jesus no matter the
obstacles before you for He will never ever give up upon you! – Marino J.
Dasmarinas
