Image by  Jill Wellington  from  Pixabay It seems to me that there is an intuitive sense within us fallen human beings to prioritize justice in a cold, blind sense before everything else. Yes, even before love or friendship, we aim to make sure that we are given our due and that people who have hurt us should be hurt as well, so that he or she can feel what we also felt. For instance, if we learn that a person we consider a friend is actually stabbing us in the back, the reasonable response seems to be to break the friendship apart and complain about this same friend to other people. This seems what is just in our eyes. And for us, as long as our sense of blind justice is preserved, all will be well. But for Christ, making things right does not mean prioritizing justice in the retributive sense of the word. Rather, for Him, justice is merely secondary to gratuitous, no-holds-barred Divine Mercy. Mercy always and everywhere is primary. Only when Mercy precedes justice can things be ma

  GOD’S UNEXPECTED PRESENCE IN A POP SONG The Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen has written in his book Life of Christ that “Divinity is always where one least expects to find it.” [i] Sure, one might think we can find God in prayer, or when we gather in church every Sunday, or when one reads his written word, but to find His presence… in a K-pop song?! Surely one has to be out of his mind to think so. But if God really is omnipresent, then He can use anything and everything to reveal Himself. I mean, He once spoke through an ass’s mouth (Numbers 22:21-39), so what’s stopping Him from speaking through Sana Minatozaki and Momo Hirai? Absolutely nothing, I would say. This (and I say this with full conviction) is what happens to me when I listen to a song by K-pop group TWICE called Alcohol-Free , a song they released just this year.  The song has proved the archbishop’s words right. I found Divinity where I least expect it to be in. The lyrics of the chorus is particularly str

  I liken you, my darling, to a mare      among Pharaoh’s chariot horses . Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings,      your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you earrings of gold,      studded with silver. - The Bridegroom to his Bride; Song of Songs 1:9-11 I saw you And knew what I was trying to do I had to play it real, real smooth And once I finally made my move I went crazy over you ( Ah, ah ) Over you, only you ( Ah, ah ) I went crazy over you - BLACKPINK, Crazy Over You           Catholic Biblical scholar John Bergsma, in a talk he gave on the Song of Songs, commented that the passage on the said book of the Bible quoted above is some sort of a joke said by the bridegroom. [i]   According to Bergsma, there are no mares (adult female horses) in the chariot of the pharaoh, only stallions (adult male horses). You do not put mares on the chariot for obvious reasons: because a mare will cause distraction to a stallion(s). Instead of being focused on going

  Note: This blogpost originally was written as a Facebook post in my page last October 22, Matthew's Intellectual Mosh Pit  here  . Have you ever felt before that, as you are searching into something, God is there helping you by revealing things about that thing EXPLICITLY? That's how I feel as I study Catholic Social Teaching (CST) now. It's so silly, I've been diving deep into CST for the past 3 weeks, specifically on the Church and its relationship to economic systems, and then videos like this show up. I'm convinced that God is indeed at work and is watching over me as I study the said subject matter.      First, a few days ago, I was doing something (I don't remember exactly) and then realize that an episode of a Filipino hit show, Pepito Manaloto, was playing on our TV. Specifically, it was the episode where Mimi (the character played by Nova Villa), after being elected as the home owner’s president (?), decided to let the security guards of the villa

Demi Lovato has released her own brand of vibrator called the “Demi Wand.” The Rolling Stone reports that Lovato has decided to have her own brand to “ (normalize) sexual needs :”  “We have spent far too long pretending we are not sexual beings  …  We are all deserving of orgasms.” [1] I would like to respond to this. And I thought I would be great to do this by writing an open letter to the pop star.   Dear Demi Lovato, I believe there was never a time in history when society never thought of humans as "sexual beings" or people gifted by God with sexual faculties. Even the Bible itself bears witness to this fact. As Dr. Peter Kreeft I believe has said, "When God said 'be fruitful and multiply', I don't think He meant 'grow pineapples and invent calculators.'" The only difference between the Biblical vision of sex and your vision is that for you, our sexual faculties are merely tools for one's own pleasures while for the Bible (and

Dear Shawn Willson, Just a few months ago, you uploaded a video of yours in your YouTube channel called “ Jesus and The Jewish Roots of the Eucharist Book Review ” wherein you – as the title suggests – review Dr. Brant Pitre’s book, Jesus and The Jewish Roots of the Eucharist . To be honest, I haven’t read that book yet, although I’ve read Dr. Pitre’s longer treatment of the Last Supper entitled Jesus and The Last Supper . Nonetheless, your critique of the Jewish Roots book seem to miss the point regarding the Catholic view on the Eucharist and its Biblical basis. Allow me to raise a few points about it: 1. The verses you cited in order to show that the wider context of John's Gospel support a merely allegorical reading of passages wherein Jesus speaks of having to eat His flesh to have eternal life seem to not support your reading at all. The immediate context of John 3:5 and 4:14 (being born of water and spirit and receiving living water from our Lord), for instance, can be