Lifeissues is mainly concerned with publishing thoughtful articles directly related to issues raised in Evangelium Vitae. However, from the very beginning, we have also published a few related homilies, notably by Fr. Al Cariño, O.M.I., Fr. Tony Pueyo, and others.
Please use the pulldowns below to select a homily by Liturgical Calendar date.
There is a big difference between a person who has hope and a person who has lost hope. In his book Man's Search for Meaning, Dr. Viktor Frankl describes these two kinds of people among the prisoners in Hitler's concentration camps.
Advent is the time to go home - literally and figuratively. For many Filipinos who are living away from home, this is a time for family reunions. This is the time to renew familial bonds. This is a time of reconciliation and forgiveness. This is also the time to go back to the “home of the Father.” God is waiting for us. God is a forgiving God and it gives Him joy to see us back in the family.
Advent is a real rehearsal for Christ's Second Coming, unlike a theatrical rehearsal in which the actors prepare for the performance. In a theatrical rehearsal, each actor is still who he is; he's just playing a role, and he's rehearsing to play it well, while remaining who he really is. But Advent rehearsal involves a real change of heart, an ever-deepening conversion.
In the spiritual order a child may grow apart from his parents' faith for various reasons. It is not determined instinctively as in physical nature. We decide freely how we grow as children--in God's grace or not. Regardless, our children remain our children and God's, like marriage 'for better or for worse'. But by necessity of nature and by God's decree we complete his plan and purpose as fathers and mothers ordained long before Creation. Note in the creation story of Genesis, God said "it is not good for man to be alone" after he had first created man. Was God remiss in his remark, "it is not good for man to be alone", or was God drawing our attention to the two, male and female, becoming one in order to bear children.