The Underpinning

By Fr. Roy Cimagala That’s what the story of the blind man, Bartimaeus, teaches us. (cfr. Mark 10:46-52) As the gospel narrates, when he heard that Christ was passing by, he immediately called for Christ. In spite of being told by Christ’s disciples not to disturb Christ, he just went on calling for Christ. And …

By Fr. Roy Cimagala The gospel (cfr. Mark 11:11-16) shows us Christ showing two apparently contrasting qualities of anger and mercy. When he got hungry and saw a fig tree that did not have any fruit, he got angry and addressed the tree, “May no one ever eat of your fruit again!” And the tree, …

By Fr. Roy Cimagala What a very good deal Christ is giving us! When Peter told him, “We have given up everything and followed you,” Christ immediately reassured him — and us — “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father …

By Fr. Roy Cimagala That’s what Christ told those Jews who could not believe that he was the Son of God. “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy,” those Jews said. “You, a man, are making yourself God.” (John 10:33) That’s when Christ told them directly, “Is it not written …

By Fr. Roy Cimagala “You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world.” (John 8:23) Words of Christ addressed to those who did not believe him. With these words Christ is telling us that if we do not believe in him, we would be stuck in the world instead of heading …

By Fr. Roy Cimagala The parable about the ungrateful tenants (cfr. Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46) somehow reminds us about the importance of being thankful by reciprocating what we receive from God and from others. It keeps our relation with them alive and vibrant. Taking this duty for granted would actually alienate us from them, and thus …

By Fr. Roy Cimagala Yes, our true unity can only be achieved when we are with Christ, when we have the same spirit of Christ. It’s a unity that is not uniformity and can be lived even amid our unavoidable differences and conflicts. In his priestly prayer as narrated in the Gospel of St. John …

By Fr. Roy Cimagala That gospel episode where Christ in the synagogue in Nazareth faulted the people for their lack of faith (cfr. Luke 4:24-30) reminds us that we have to learn how to live by faith, with our thoughts and intentions and everything in our interior world mainly inspired and directed by faith rather …

By Fr. Roy Cimagala Yes, there is such thing as our objective self as contrasted to our subjective self. The former is who we truly are, while the latter is what we make of ourselves that may contain some truth, but it most likely will miss the most essential part of who we really are. …

  By Fr. Roy Cimagala The reason can be found in that parable Christ told his disciples about the rich man, dressed in purple, and the poor man, Lazarus, who was lying at the rich man’s door, covered with sores and waiting to get even the scraps of food that fell from the rich man’s …