Category: Lifestyle Columnists

A CHARMING legend about the birth of Jesus relates that the shepherds hurried to the stable with their gifts. Each one brought what he had, some brought fruits of their labor, others…

AS we bid goodbye to 2022, the infamous year of this COVID-19 devastating pandemic and preparing to welcome a more hopeful and brighter new year of 2023, it reminds me…

Have you ever gone through a “winter of discontent” and wondered quietly if you could trade your life for someone else’s? If you have, don’t flog yourself silly. You don’t…

One of the things that make living in this land exciting is coming to an appreciation of the culture, the language and the origins of certain phrases that are repeated…

It’s that time of year again. And every year, whether we like it or not, we go through the same rituals. This is a time of winnowing and thinning, just…

Everything in life takes time to grow, flourish, and bear fruits.  It’s true in any relationship, whether it’s marriage, family, or friendship.  It’s also true in community and nation-building, Healing…

I like rerunning this story during Christmas. It is is pure fiction. It grew out of my curiosity about the forgettable, minor characters I identify with and their viewpoint of…

NOT a well-known entity even to many physicians is the Overlap Syndrome. One example of this is the combination of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea),…

This is culled out from the series “The Bucket List” written in 2018. Travel is a pure metaphor for our life’s journey. There are two choices in the way we…

Here we are at the start of the Advent season! So naturally, as we celebrate this season, we think of Christmas. The Church, however, reminds us not to focus our…

GUANGZHOU, one of China’s largest and busiest cities, is locking down as it battles a major outbreak of COVID-19. Lockdowns are truly effective and less cumbersome, a lot simpler to…

“You shall shepherd my people Israel and shall be commander of Israel.” (2 Samuel 5:2) In my prayerful moment, I often think of our political leaders and those running for…

“Society works best when we can take its functions for granted. It works best when we can trust that our personal safety is never in doubt. Trust, often unseen, is…

THIS is culled out from the series, “The Bucket List” written in 2018. You have become a collector over the years. Memories, good and bad, you have them, by the…

IN my homily last Sunday (November 6), I spoke about courage. I said that courage is the ability to express one’s mind from the values, beliefs, and genuine intentions we…

THE one thing that differentiates a life of deprivation from a rich one is the availability of choice. And making wise choices from the array made available to us, is…

November is the month dedicated to remembering our deceased relatives, friends, and parishioners. I’d say it’s also a month of deep reflection about life—of how we live it. Do we…

IT is November. And we are coming full circle. Again. A circle is perhaps the perfect geometric structure there is. Although some would claim the triangle or a square to…

Everyone suffers from large and small ailments during their lifetime. In particular, cancer has long been a terrifying disease that has long been thought to be an incurable disease, with…

Greetings! The Book of Wisdom (11:22-12:2) in our First Reading, this Sunday’s Mass, states: Before the Lord the whole universe is a grain from a balance or a drop of…

RESEARCHERS studied autopsy findings on 24 brains, 5 of them people called “SuperAgers,” those who are 80 and over. I refer to them as “TeenAged,” individuals whose cognitive ability, alertness,…

THE judge in last Sunday’s (October 16) parable on prayer and the Pharisee in this Sunday’s (October 23) Gospel had a similar attitude. They were both arrogant toward “the rest…

We’ve got to keep moving, trusting, and persisting amidst life’s difficulties and challenges. We’ve got to continue believing in the capacities and graces that God gives us, and we’ve got…