Ross Dizon

Sap of Life, Strength and Fruitfulness

Jesus is the true vine.  He gives the branches that remain in him the sap that gives them life and strength and makes them bear plenty of fruit. Jesus uses the allegory of the vine and the branches. He does so since he wants to make clear how his disciples should...

Ruler and Savior, Lord and Messiah, Good Shepherd

Jesus is Ruler and Savior, Lord and Messiah.  Yet he lords over no one; he serves and is the Good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. A ruler among Jesus’ own should not at all be like a ruler among the Gentiles. The latter lords it over others. The former, on...

Catch the Good News of Jesus Christ

The one who has risen is the same Jesus of Nazareth that the disciples have known, loved and followed on the roads of Galilee.  To be his witness means to see to it that other folks catch the Good News.  Those who make up a group can easily catch each other’s fears or...

Read the Signs of Jesus in Our Midst

Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.  To believe in him means to know how to read, to grasp, his many signs in our midst.  We read, as we come to the end of today’s gospel, “Jesus did many other signs.”  So then, we can take it that his rising from the dead is one of...
Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Jesus is “God-with-us.”  And that is why disciples should not cut off God and their neighbor from their lives. The man whose life is one of luxury and show is very rich:  stylish clothes, lavish banquets.  He is cut off, for sure, from the beggar; the two are worlds...

Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Money That Is Not Deemed Righteous

Jesus teaches us to worship the Father in Spirit and truth.  He also warns us that we cannot serve God and money. Jesus frets till he serves to the utmost and gives up his body and sheds his blood to save us.  Those who trample on the poor, on the other hand, fret...

Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Bother Those of Strict Observance

Jesus shows us God who is rich in mercy.  He welcomes sinners and eats with them.  This does bother not a few folks. Maybe the Pharisees and the scribes think Jesus likes to bother them since they are the guardians of the law.  For he stands up to them when they tell...

Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Followers of Jesus, Thinking, Wise

Jesus embodies what he teaches on being thoughtful and purposeful.  He asks all his followers to be so, and thus the success of the cross will be theirs. Great crowds go with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem (see Lk 9, 51; 13, 22).  He turns and tells them that to be his...

Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Lowliness, Simplicity, Truth and Freedom

Jesus is the poorest of the poor on whom God looks with favor due to the simplicity, lowliness and awe of him that they show. Does it bother Jesus that his fellow guests, leading Pharisees, and maybe the host, too, watch him closely?  If he shows that it does, it may...

Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Meal of Salvation, Meal of Judgment

Jesus is the meal to which we are all invited, so that we may not perish but have eternal life.  Do we come to it wearing the proper attire? To enter God’s kingdom, it is not enough to be in a meal with Jesus, once, twice or more.  He says so as he answers one who...

Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Burn with Zeal for the Kingdom of God

Jesus cannot but burn with zeal for God’s kingdom.  For he has come to proclaim it, to bring it in, and to bring it about to the full. In many places, trees, houses and other things burn in fires.  We are sorry, of course, for the deaths, losses and harm that fires...

Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Alert to the Dangers the World Poses

Jesus is the cry that seek to alert us of the risks that we run.  For we live in a world that fosters individualism and hoarding. Not a few of Jesus’ teachings, the paradoxes in particular, raise eyebrows and puzzle.  Through them, he holds those who hear him...

Cut off from Us All Self-Sufficiency

Vanity of Vanities, All Is Vanity

Jesus is clear-headedness in person.  He brings to light the vanity, the emptiness, of the life of those who love and serve money. Jesus grants and does not grant what a man who feels disinherited asks him to do.  For, in the first place, the Teacher says  “no.”  He...

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