Category: First Week

⏰Friday of the First Week of Advent (07 December 2018 – Memorial of St. Ambrose) 📖Isa 29:17-24; Ps 27:1, 4, 13-14, (R.v.1a); Matt 9:27-3 The transition from darkness to light is one of the phenomena that is often used to describe the messianic era in the scriptures. The prophet Isaiah used it to describe the events surrounding the birth of the Child, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. A light has dawned upon those who lived in the land as dark as death” (Isa 9:2). The evangelist Matthew also borrowed that passage to describe the...

⏰Wednesday of the First Week of Advent (06 Dec. 2017) ????Isa 25:6-10a; Ps 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 (R.v.6cd); Matt 15:29-37 My dear, our journey of hope continues with the prophet Isaiah in a setting on the mountain of God (cf. Isa 25:6-10). Remember that the mountain is a place of encounter with God. Isaiah gives us a picture of what comes out of that encounter: our hunger is satisfied, our thirst quenched, and our tears wiped away. Does that not fit into the attitude of the Shepherd as the psalmist depicts in Psalm 23? Notice that the psalmist stated from...

⏰Thursday of the First Week of Advent (07 Dec 2017) ????Isa 26:1-6; Ps 118:1 and 8-9, 19-21, 25-27 (R.v.26a); Matt 7:21, 24-27 My dear, in borrowing the ideas of St. James in the above quotation, instead of using work merely in the context of charity and generosity, we shall extend it here to also mean our active response to our faith in God. We are often distracted from that focus by many worries. Whichever way our worries come from, the prophet Isaiah reminds us that in God, our security is ensured. For them who trust in the Lord, the Lord...

⏰Tuesday of the First Week of Advent (05 Dec. 2017) ????Isa 11:1-10; Ps 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17 (R.v.7); Luke 10:21-24 My dear, yesterday, the prophet Isaiah informed us that the coming Messiah shall purify the land and save his people. Today, in Isa 11:1-10, he reminds us of the promise of God to establish a kingdom of justice and peace for his people. To be just to the text, it was a reaction against the moral bankruptcy of the leaders in Israel, hence God’s promise of an ideal leader who would uphold justice and righteousness. But there is something very...

⏰Monday of the First Week of Advent (04 December 2017) ????Isa 4:2-6; Ps 122:1-2, 3-4ab, 4cd-5, 6-7, 8-9 (R.v.1); Matt 8:5-11 ????YOU TOO CAN BE AMONG AMONG THE SAVED Have you heard of this thing called the remnant theology? The prophets in Israel used that to talk about the ones that would be survive among the people, through whom God shall continue and actualize his promises to Abraham. These remnant ones often come from the righteous ones. So, at the beginning of this new working week, and just as we kick off the advent period to the fullest, we are...