We all need strength to carry out the essential activities that constitute and define human life and progress and growth associated with it. Every human person needs the strength of the mind and body to function maximally and to have the best of life. We do much to keep ourselves refueled when we run out of strength. Humans do not just want to live or survive. We constantly need daily strength of the mind and body to keep thriving and soaring in the domain of existence.  It is our prayers that may our strength never diminish or fail. Life as we know is not just about the body or the intellect. The human life has a principal element, that is, the soul that has the character of immortality and principally connects to God.

The Lenten season is here again, and we already connect ourselves to its rhythm and reality. A time to fast, to pray and to be charitable the more. A very wonderful time to pick up again favorite devotions and practices: reception of Ashes on our foreheads, journeying with Christ’s suffering through the stations of the cross, participating in meals that do not contain meat on Fridays, wearing purple fabric to go with the liturgical color of the season and greatly anticipating the Easter Liturgies. The Lenten season in the real sense has a lot of excitement about it and we greatly commend the various efforts people make to part of the practices of the season and we hope that God keeping us alive and strong, the Lenten journey with all its religious and social practices and devotion will greatly yield great fruits in our day to day experiences as we navigate life with the different challenges will confront.

We feel greatly blessed to be part of the journey of the year 2025, with all the good and challenging experiences associated with the year. As it is normal for all human experiences, there will be good days, and some days will show marks of negativity. Despite all we might have gone through, we just need to keep expressing our sense of Gratitude to God who is the author of all things and our key strength in the journey of life.

Mary being the mother of Jesus, conceived and gave birth to a divine person who assumed the human flesh. This is a very deep mystery of the incarnation that we will forever appreciate and cherish. In Mary, we see a grace bestowed on the human person to carry the divine person in the womb and to become the mother of a divine being who assumed the human nature for the redemption of mankind.

And the Word Became Flesh and He dwells among us. John1:14.

Here, we are celebrating the mystery of the incarnation of the second person of the Blessed Trinity into our world. At the fullness of time, Jesus Christ was born into our world for the purpose of our redemption. He came into world, identifying with our human struggles and challenges and bringing them to the path of liberation and sanctification. Christ was like us in everything except sin. He came into our world to become our true leader, the first-born Son, setting the pace for us to keenly follow for our liberation and our salvific experience.

The season of Advent is almost coming to an end. Advent will always remain a time of joyful preparation and joyful expectation of the king to be born into our midst again. By now, we should be fully prepared for His coming, knowing the benefits(numerous) that each of us and the whole humanity will enjoy at His coming: A life of renewal and liberation. A great openness to the unending presence of God-Emmanuel. The name by which he shall be known, God is with us.

Amid the experience of sufferings, or afflictions that may stem from different situations of life: enslavement by powerful individuals or social structures, pains of sickness disease, sorrows or of deprivations or pains of anxiety or panic triggering conditions, irrespective of the negative situations, what keeps us going forward is the strength of hope.

Gaudete Sunday: A Sunday specifically during this Advent season that we are called to great rejoicing, for the Lord’s coming is very near and by His coming, a new dawn of better and happy life of faith is ushered in for us. A dawn of a redemptive experience for those who have been battered negatively by the challenging and heart-wrecking situations they are exposed to, situations like, conditions of helplessness, hopelessness, servitude or finding oneself under the bondage of sickness, sin and death. The invitation to rejoicing is not just to give a false hope that makes people forget their bitter or painful experiences.