Friends,
As we enter this new year, I have been reflecting deeply on the virtue of trust. I believe it is something we all need these days—to trust in God’s providence, guidance, and healing grace.
To trust means to surrender our lives to Him, along with all our cares and concerns. However, to truly entrust everything to God, we must remember one essential matter: reflecting on our past to see how He has taken care of us and listened to our prayers. By doing this, we reach a moment of deep gratitude toward Him and cultivate within our hearts and minds the courage to trust in our Lord. Even the experience of a loved one’s death can lead us to feel gratitude for the strength to overcome grief.
In this Sunday’s Gospel, the disciples demonstrated this courageous trust in our Lord by following Him. They left their nets behind to become “fishers of men.” The Holy Spirit must have moved in their hearts to follow Jesus, as they had been hearing about His teachings and miracles. There was something about Jesus that strongly attracted them.
In our Christian lives, the ways we manifest love and concern for others can also draw people to follow Jesus. For example, this past week, I was moved by the story of two priests from the Diocese of San Francisco—Fr. Rey Reyes and Fr. Francis Garbo. Fr. Rey, along with his family, parishioners, fellow clergy, friends, and others, has been praying for a kidney donor who would be a match for his body. Dozens of potential donors have come forward, but none have been suitable until Fr. Francis Garbo, a long-time friend of Fr. Rey, offered to help. They are now preparing for the transplant and hope for a successful recovery. They are asking for prayers from everyone.
Their story is deeply moving and deserves to be shared widely. It exemplifies trust, answered prayer, friendship, and solidarity. It touches hearts and inspires people to have faith in God and to believe in the genuine faith of a community. Let us join their families, communities, and friends in praying for the success of Fr. Rey’s kidney transplant.
Let’s continue to sow seeds of faith, kindness, mercy, and love. Let’s be a community that responds to the needs of others. Our successful Advent Tree Giving campaign, which raised over $6,000 to support the nutrition program of the Sisters of Social Service for the impoverished children of Paliparan, Cavite, in the Philippines, demonstrates our parish’s generosity and inspires us on our faith journey. There are many more ways we can show ourselves as true disciples of Jesus.
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The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.
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Fr. Rodel “Odey” Balagtas is the pastor of Incarnation Church in Glendale, California
The article beautifully emphasizes that true trust in God is rooted in reflecting on how He has cared for us in the past, and that this reflection fosters deep gratitude and courage to surrender our lives, worries, and even pain to Him; by looking at the disciples’ response to Jesus and the modern-day example of priests whose community supported and prayed for one another, the author reminds us that genuine love, concern, and faithful living not only strengthen our own relationship with God but also attract others to Christ through compassion, solidarity, and lived example—encouraging believers to be a community that actively shares trust, kindness, mercy, and love in everyday life.