The Jail Shepherd

31/12/2025

Happy NEW YEAR! May the divine peace of our Lord Jesus Christ fill your heart and home with serenity and love this NEW YEAR.

05/12/2025

To stop nagging and complaining- a little reminder

30/11/2025

Advent Season

29/11/2025

How should I begin this Season of Advent?

The new liturgical year begins with this season of Advent. Today is a good day for us to show great affection towards our Redeemer and start again in our interior life. Yes, a new start, a new beginning. We should find ourselves starting again every day, every hour. Our ancient cry rises again today: “Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus.”

Advent teaches us two rhythms at once: we look back to Christ’s first coming in humility, and we look forward to His coming in glory. Between those two comings is our present moment—a sacred watch in the night. The summons is clear: “Stay awake.” Not merely with open eyes, but with awakened hearts.

Why this call to wakefulness? Because spiritual sloth is subtle. It doesn’t always shout; it often whispers. It tells us to drift, to delay repentance, to numb our hope, to grow cynical rather than prayerful. It trades the fire of love for a flicker of convenience. But Advent will not allow it. Advent shakes us gently and firmly: “Rise. Trim your lamps. Keep watch. The Bridegroom comes.”

We are not naïve about the world we inhabit. Many forces conspire to suppress joy—fear, fatigue, fractured relationships, and yes, the discouraging saga of corruption in our political arena. These realities tempt us to despair or apathy. But Christian vigilance is not denial; it is defiant hope. We do not close our eyes to darkness; we light candles in it.

Maranatha is both prayer and protest. It is prayer, because we cry to the only One whose coming heals the world at its roots. It is protest, because every “Come, Lord Jesus” refuses to worship power, lies, or greed. It declares: there is a King who cannot be bought, a justice that cannot be bribed, a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Advent people do not surrender their souls to cynicism; they surrender them to Christ.

What does being awake look like this advent?

1) Watch in prayer. Set a daily time, however small. Whisper “Maranatha” with every breath you can spare. Let that word till the soil of your heart.
2) Examine your life. Where has sloth dulled your love—toward God, family, community? Choose one concrete act of obedience and charity. Do it today.
3) Speak truth with charity and political neutrality. In a climate of corruption and confusion, refuse both silence driven by fear and speech driven by rage. Let your words be light and salt.
4) Steward joy. Guard against the relentless drip of negativity. Read a psalm each day. Share a meal. Offer thanks aloud. Joy is not escapism; it is resistance.
5) Act justly. Support what is honest. Refuse complicity. Small faithful choices—ethical work, fair dealing, generosity—become candles God multiplies.

Beloved, the Lord’s command to “stay awake” is not a threat; it is an invitation. The One who asks you to keep watch is the One who keeps watch over you. He does not slumber. He intercedes. He is at the door. Even now, He comes—in Word, in Sacrament, in the least of these, and one day in unveiled glory.

So lift up your heads. Let your soul stand on tiptoe. Trim the wick. Fill the flask with oil—oil of repentance, faith, and love. Refuse the lullaby of sloth and the hypnosis of despair. The night is far gone; the day is at hand.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus:And until You come, we will keep watch.Amen.

28/11/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C1Uc2JHv1/?mibextid=wwXIfr

27/11/2025

From ATOMIC HABITS b y James Clear

26/11/2025

Stop VAW

📢 Una de cada 3 mujeres sufre violencia a lo largo de su vida.
Hoy, , recordamos: la violencia contra mujeres y niñas sigue siendo la violación de más extendida, también en el espacio digital

En la AECID trabajamos para erradicar la violencia de género en todo el mundo y en todos los ámbitos
🔗 https://tinyurl.com/4krnw4cw

En todo el mundo el 38% de las mujeres han experimentado una situación de abuso en línea a título personal, mientras que el 85% han visto ejercer esa violencia digital hacia otras mujeres

🟠 Contra la UN Women

26/11/2025

Pano malaman na nasa tamang tao ka….

How can you tell if your relationship is on a healthy path—the kind God desires for you? This priest offers five signs to look for.

26/11/2025

St. Thomas Aquinas’ tips to conquer sadness.

26/11/2025

On wealth and possession

Friends, today’s Gospel (Luke 21:1–4) tells of the poor widow who gave her last penny to the temple treasury. Her behavior makes us consider our possessiveness. What do we tell ourselves all the time? That we’re not happy because we don’t have all the things that we should have or that we want to have. What follows from this is that life becomes a constant quest to get, to acquire, to attain possessions.

Do you remember the parable about the foolish rich man? When his barns were filled with all his possessions, he decided to tear them down and build bigger ones. Why is he a fool? Because (and I want you to repeat this to yourself as I say it) you have everything you need right now to be happy.

What makes you happy is always right in front of you because what makes you happy is love. Love is willing the good of the other, opening yourself to the world around you. Love is not a feeling; it’s an act of the will. It is the great act of dispossession.

25/11/2025

Does all my effectiveness come from God?
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” Christ, fully aware of our shortcomings, called us to his Church, within our particular circumstances. There are so many worthier people that Christ could have called. Yes, people who are simpler and wiser, more influential and important, more grateful and generous. And yet….

“God usually seeks out deficient instruments so that the work can be seen more clearly to be his.” How reassuring it is to know that it is God, and not our own poor strength, that enables us to do our work for others! This demands a great deal of humility from us, so that we do not place obstacles in the way of grace.

If we do not grow in humility, we will soon lose sight of the reason for our having been chosen by God: that is, to be holy.

“If we are humble, we can understand all the marvels of our divine Christian vocation. The hand of Christ has snatched us from a wheat field; the sower squeezes the handful of wheat in his wounded palm. The blood of Christ bathes the seed, soaking it. Then the Lord tosses the wheat to the winds, so that in dying, it becomes life, and in sinking into the ground, it multiplies.”

This calls for responsibility on our part, since we are not inert instruments, but intelligent and free beings who need to use our minds, hearts, and wills: “The instruments mustn't be left to grow rusty.”

While we have to be eager to improve, to deepen our formation, we should not forget that ours is a supernatural endeavor which goes forward only under God's almighty hand. This consideration should fill us with confidence, especially when we feel incapable of carrying out a task or overcoming an obstacle.

Seeing our own shortcomings is already a grace from God; it helps us grasp more clearly our need to be docile in God's hands. And “since we want to be good instruments, the smaller and the more wretched we see ourselves to be –with true humility– the more our Lord will make up for what we lack.”

“We have to work regularly, despite our shortcomings and errors, trying to overcome them little by little by our interior struggle.” It is God who really does it. Therefore, we have to be united to our Lord in the Eucharist, in prayer, and by responding to his grace.