One of the faithful religious nuns who was present on my farewell day from a mission experience I took part in during 2010 dropped a card into my hands which is for me an all-time inspiration: “Life is a journey consisting of different steps of staircases.

Whenever you get to one set of stairs, there will always be a platform leading to another. Don’t get discouraged on the way. Take every step as a challenge and move forward”. These words of encouragement and zeal kept me going even when the going got tough.

As last Sunday, there are three parables in today’s gospel. The third one reminds us of the teaching in the first parable of last week’s Gospel – that there will be good and bad in the Kingdom of God – and in the Church.

The Gospel text for this Sunday is a long one. It is taken from the section of Matthew’s Gospel that presents the “wisdom teaching” of Jesus. It contains three parables about the kingdom of heaven ...

My dad used to eat papaya and one day he decided to throw the seeds on the lot near our house. Then he was surprised one day when the seed that he threw grew and soon enough it was producing fruit and my mum didn’t have to buy papaya anymore.

In the 80s, there was a famous Protestant pastor in Manila named Ronald Remy. He was a very charismatic preacher. However, he made a stir one day when he declared publicly that he loved Jesus more than his wife. 

There are two connected themes in today’s Gospel: don’t be afraid to witness to your faith in Christ – because God loves even the sparrows.

 May the Loving Creator Spirit, who has given life and faith to each one of us, sustain and guide us on our way through life so that each of us may truly give glory to God.

In the second reading in today’s Mass St Paul writes to the Ephesians: May he (Jesus) enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit and how infinitely great is the power that he has exercised for us believers.

Imagine there are two people having this conversation, “If you really love me, then prove it!” A girl asks her boyfriend. The boyfriend responds, “Let’s go outside and let’s watch your favourite movie, ‘Godzilla’! The girl responds, “Yeah! You really love me!!! I can’t imagine you who love watching rugby, would join me watching a movie about a giant lizard!!!”

The very comforting words of Jesus in today’s Gospel give us some hope, dear friends, in our challenging world of today. The rapidly changing times and situations make us realise that nothing seems to be the same every day.