Certificate in Theological Studies (CTS), Tagaytay City

📖 MONDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF LENT – February 23, 2026
Leviticus 19:1–2, 11–18 | Psalm 19 | Matthew 25:31–46

🌿 Today’s Gospel is familiar, yet it never loses its power.

Jesus makes a shocking declaration:

“I was hungry and you gave me food…
I was thirsty and you gave me drink…
a stranger and you welcomed me…
naked and you clothed me…
ill and you cared for me…
in prison and you visited me.”

And to others:

“I was hungry and you gave me no food…”

😮 What surprises everyone is this:
Jesus identifies Himself with the poor.

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📜 In the Old Testament, God speaks with authority:

“I am the Lord your God.”

Because He is Lord, He commands justice:
• Do not steal.
• Do not defraud.
• Do not curse the deaf.
• Do not put a stumbling block before the blind.

Justice is required because God is Lord.

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✨ But in the Gospel, something deeper happens.

Jesus does not simply command from above.
He identifies from below.

He says:

“Whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

This is not only justice.
This is charity with a divine face.

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⚖️ The Last Judgment will not only ask:
“What evil did you commit?”

It will also ask:
“What good did you fail to do?”

Sins of omission are real.

When we ignore someone in need,
we do not just ignore a person.

We ignore Christ.

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🔥 Two powerful examples:

1️⃣ On the road to Damascus, Jesus tells Saul:
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (Acts 9:5)

2️⃣ St. Martin gives half his cloak to a beggar.
That night he dreams of Christ wearing it, saying:
“Martin covered me with his mantle.”

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🙏 This Lent, let us ask for eyes that see Christ in the hungry, the lonely, the sick, the imprisoned, the unnoticed.

When we help them,
we are touching the Body of Christ.

And that changes everything.

📖 Temptation Sunday (1st Sunday of Lent)

Matthew 4, EDSA, and the Kingdom We Choose
🌵 I. The Wilderness Is Not Far Away

The Gospel brings us into the wilderness.

But the wilderness is not only sand and stones.
It is any moment when power is tested.
It is where identity is clarified.
It is where the question is asked:

👉 What kind of Messiah will Jesus be?
👉 What kind of nation will we be?

Matthew 4 is not only about personal temptation.
It is about power.

🍞 II. First Temptation – Bread

“Turn these stones into bread.”

The devil proposes economic power.
Feed the people. Deliver results. Solve hunger fast.

Bread is good. Development is good.
But the deeper question is: On whose terms?

History shows us seasons when infrastructure rose —
yet cronyism was the rule of the day; freedom narrowed; life is "salvaged.

When order was promised —
yet fear ruled.
When security was proclaimed —
yet blood flowed in the streets.

This is the first temptation:

🍞 Stability without accountability
🍞 Prosperity without conscience
🍞 Order without justice

Jesus refuses.

“One does not live by bread alone…”

A nation is more than GDP.
Peace is more than silence.

At EDSA, people did not gather for bread.
They gathered for dignity.

🎭 III. Second Temptation – Spectacle

“Throw yourself down…”

Now the devil offers spectacle.
Dramatic miracle. Instant applause. Public validation.

How often politics becomes theater:

🎤 Grand rallies
📸 Religious symbols for display
💪 Strongman imagery

But what was the image at EDSA?

Not spectacle — but simplicity.

🙏 Rosaries raised.
👩‍🦳 Nuns kneeling before tanks.
📻 The voice of Cardinal Sin inviting people peacefully to the streets (exactly 40 years ago, Feb. 22, 1986)
👩‍⚖️ The moral courage symbolized by Cory Aquino.

No fireworks from heaven.
Only conscience.

Jesus refuses to manipulate God for applause.
Authority rooted in truth does not need theater.

👑 IV. Third Temptation – Empire

“All these kingdoms I will give you…”

Here the devil offers total control.
Dominion without sacrifice.
Power without the Cross.

The condition?

Bow.

History teaches us:
When people grow tired — tired of disorder, tired of slow reform — they become vulnerable to the promise of a strong hand.

They make a "pact with the devil."

We are tempted to normalize violence.
To excuse impunity.
To trade dialogue for dominance.

The Gospel does not judge personalities.
But it judges patterns.

⚠️ When power avoids accountability
⚠️ When fear replaces dialogue
⚠️ When violence is justified for efficiency

We are standing before the third temptation.

The devil rarely invents something new.
He repeats what once worked.

Jesus refuses.

He will receive authority later:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Mt 28:18)

—but only after the Cross.

✝️ Power without sacrifice destroys.
✝️ Power with sacrifice redeems.

🇵🇭 V. EDSA – A Moment of Refusal

EDSA was not perfect.

But for a luminous moment, Filipinos refused to bow.

They said:

❌ Not dictatorship
❌ Not fear
❌ Not violence

But:

✔️ Conscience
✔️ Courage
✔️ Faith

It echoed Jesus’ words:

“You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve.”

🌅 VI. Our Wilderness Today

Forty years later, the wilderness returns.

Every election is a wilderness.
Every crisis is a wilderness.
Every generation must choose again.

Are we tempted by:

🍞 Economic promises without transparency?
🎭 Spectacle politics?
👑 Strong leadership without accountability?

The Gospel is not partisan.
It is prophetic.

It asks:

👉 What kind of power are we willing to bow to?

✝️ VII. The Shape of True Power

Jesus shows us:

✔️ True authority is cruciform.
✔️ True leadership protects life.
✔️ True power serves.

The devil offers shortcuts.
Shortcuts demand compromise.

The Cross demands fidelity —
but fidelity gives freedom.

In this Eucharist, we receive
not spectacle,
not empire,
not power concentrated in one hand,

but a broken Body.

And that is the only power that saves.

February 20, 2026 – Friday After Ash Wednesday
Isaiah 58:1–9a; Psalm 51; Matthew 9:14–15

💍 “The Bridegroom Will Be Taken Away… Then They Will Fast.”

📖 In Gospel of Matthew 9:14–15, Jesus says:

“Can the wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast.”

Jesus calls Himself the Bridegroom.
While He is present — it is joy.
When He is “taken away” — referring to His Passion — His disciples will fast.

👉 Christian fasting is not punishment.
It is love longing for the Bridegroom.

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📜 Friday Fasting in the Early Church

Already in the first century, Christians were fasting every Friday.

The Didache (c. 90–110 AD) instructs:

“Do not fast with the hypocrites…
They fast on Monday and Thursday.
You should fast on Wednesday and Friday.”

Friday — called the Preparation Day — was the day Jesus died.

From the beginning, the Church remembered the Cross weekly through fasting.

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⚠️ But There Is a Warning…

Jesus also warned:
• Do not fast to be seen.
• Do not compare yourself to others.
• Do not use religion to feel superior.

Fasting can become dangerous when:
❌ It feeds pride.
❌ It makes us feel “better than others.”
❌ It ignores the poor and the suffering.

True fasting is never self-regarding.

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🤲 Fasting Must Lead to Compassion

The Bridegroom we remember on Friday is the Crucified Lord.

And He identifies Himself with:
🍞 the hungry
🤕 the wounded
👥 the least

If our fasting does not make us more humble,
more merciful,
more concerned for others—

then we are only dieting, not disciplining the heart.

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💍 Friday fasting is love.
✝️ It is memory of the Cross.
🙏 It is longing for the Bridegroom.
❤️ And it must lead to humility and charity.

✝️ ASH WEDNESDAY: Acts of Justice, Not Just Piety

On Ash Wednesday, the Gospel comes from the fourth section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:1–18) — the three traditional Jewish acts of piety:

🤲 Almsgiving
🙏 Prayer
🍞 Fasting

But as Warren Carte (2025, 64 pages!) notes in his commentary on Matthew, these are better understood as acts of justice (dikaiosynē = righteousness/justice), not simply private religious practices.

Jesus is not talking about personal religiosity. He is speaking about living God’s justice in a world marked by inequality — and warning us against the trap of public applause (what we might call “going viral” today).

🤲 Almsgiving: Not Dole-Out, but Justice

Biblical almsgiving is not mere charity, not a publicity stunt, not a “pa-ayuda” system.

In the first-century Roman Empire — a highly stratified society that produced many poor — sharing resources was a matter of survival.

Almsgiving was:

A way of restoring balance

A concrete act of redistributing resources

A response to systems that created poverty

It was an act of mishpat and tsedaqah — justice and righteousness.

So when we give, we are not “being generous.”
We are participating in God’s justice.

And Jesus says: do it quietly. Not for praise. Not for likes. Not for applause.

🍞 Fasting: CBCP Reminder – Digital Media Fasting

In our time, fasting can also mean stepping away from digital noise.

🙏 Practical Ways to Fast from Digital Media
📴 Avoid phone use before sleeping and upon waking
⏳ Limit social media and streaming time
🍽️ Observe device-free meals
🗓️ Practice a 24-hour or weekend digital fast
🗑️ Remove distracting apps
📖 Replace screen time with prayer, Scripture reading, or meaningful conversation

📖 Spiritual Reading for Lent

A beautiful Lenten practice is lectio divina on the Passion and Easter narratives in the Gospels.

Read slowly. Pray. Reflect. Enter the story.

I recorded some introductory points as help in reading these Gospel texts during the pandemic period — I reposted them on YouTube. Links below.

This Lent, let us remember:

✝️ Almsgiving is justice.
🙏 Prayer is communion with the Father.
🍞 Fasting clears space for God.

Not for display.
Not for applause.
But for the quiet transformation of the heart — and the world.

1) Passion Narratives: https://youtu.be/-Og8e2CYpBg?si=EEQFEdoI10jMP5E7

2) Easter Narratives: https://youtu.be/Pg2tFBIpans?si=uTweAPOMmiOdt_oW

💖 Memorial of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
Thursday - October 16, 2025
🌹 Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

🕊️ Excerpts from Pope Francis’ Encyclical Dilexit Nos (He Loved Us)

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In the late 1600s, under the warm spirit of Salesian devotion, the Lord Jesus appeared several times to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in Paray-le-Monial, France.
Between December 1673 and June 1675, He revealed to her the burning love of His Sacred Heart.

🔥 In the first apparition, Jesus said:

“💬 My divine Heart is so inflamed with love for humanity—and for you in particular—that, no longer able to contain the flames of its ardent charity, it must pour them out through you and make them known to the world.”

Saint Margaret Mary wrote:

“💬 He revealed to me the wonders of His love and the secrets of His Heart, until He opened it to me so clearly that I could not doubt.”

❤️ Pope Francis, in Dilexit Nos, explains that these experiences show one simple truth — Jesus loves us deeply and wants us to trust completely in His Heart.
We may not need to understand every detail of her visions; what matters most is the core message of love:

“💬 This is the Heart that so loved human beings that it spared nothing, even to emptying and consuming itself, to show them its love.”
(Dilexit Nos §121)

🌟 The devotion to the Sacred Heart is not only about feeling — it is about allowing Jesus to change our hearts.

“💬 It is necessary that the Heart of Jesus replace our own; that He live and work in us, so that we can say with Saint Paul: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
(Dilexit Nos §122)

✨ Saint Margaret Mary once saw Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, shining with light and love:

“💬 He appeared resplendent in glory, His wounds blazing like suns, and above all His Heart like a fiery furnace—the living source of those flames of pure love that still meet human indifference.”
(Dilexit Nos §124)

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🙏 Prayer
Sacred Heart of Jesus,
💖 fill our hearts with Your love.
Make us gentle, faithful, and merciful,
so that Your Heart may live in ours.

💬 “Vivat Cor Jesu in cordibus nostris!” —
May the Heart of Jesus live in our hearts! o