This Sunday’s Gospel Reading is set at the Last Supper. Yet Jesus speaks in veiled terms about His Ascension to the Father, which of course took place less than seven weeks after the Last Supper. In Sunday’s Gospel Reading, we hear Jesus proclaim: “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father”. But how could we expect the apostles to rejoice over Jesus leaving them?
In statements to a journalist from the Fides news agency, Father Stephen Alathara, Deputy Secretary General of the Latin Rite Bishops’ Conference of India and Founding Director of “Communio” – an initiative of the Latin Episcopate of India (CCBI) to support dioceses and religious congregations in rural areas – recalls the pastoral activity of Father Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, in India. As Superior General of the Augustinian Fathers, that North American cleric visited the gigantic Asian nation on two occasions, where he is still remembered today as “a simple man” who knew how to adapt to the local context “with an attitude of listening and dialogue”, without ever neglecting “his spirituality rooted in an intense life of prayer”.
Today, as we reflect on John 13:31-35, we are invited into the mystery of Jesus’ glorification—not through power, wealth, or worldly success, but through humility, sacrifice, and love. In a world where many leaders choose destruction and war, Jesus offers a radically different path. He does not seek to annihilate his enemies. Instead, he builds bridges. As Pope Leo XIV reminded us in his first speech, we must pursue a peace that is both disarmed and disarming—a peace that does not merely silence conflicts for a time but heals wounds, reconciles divisions, and prevents future hatred.
The Gospel of this 4th Sunday of Easter presents to us the Good Shepherd. Some people might think that this Gospel message is addressed only to priests. It would be like saying that they are shepherds and the people are their sheep. While this is true, we are all called to become pastors and shepherds. The ideal of life is not to remain like “sheep”, but to become good shepherds, according to the Heart of Jesus. Regardless of our vocation, God gives us responsibilities, and we will all have our own flock to take care of, whether in the family, at work or in society. If we reflect on chapter 10 of the Gospel of St. John, we can see that for someone to be a good shepherd, or true leader according to the evangelical model, five conditions are evident in the example of Jesus:
Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday, brought synodality back to the heart of the church. During his pontificate, Jorge Mario Bergoglio consistently upheld the Church’s priority of addressing the needs of the poor and invited Catholics worldwide to fully embrace a new theological paradigm, that of pastoral theology. Francis’s time at the helm of the Church was marked by two fundamental characteristics: a deep connection to the Second Vatican Council and the desire to bring the Church closer to the people. The Argentinian pope’s pontificate cannot be understood, Sigrid Müller claims, without seeing it as a continuation and development of Vatican II. The German theologian, teacher of Moral Theology at the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Vienna, spoke exclusively with “O Clarim” about Pope Francis’ theological legacy.
The sorrowful news of Pope Francis’s passing took me by surprise at the Bangkok airport last Monday as I was traveling to India. Though I knew the Pope had been weak, I believed he had passed the most critical stage and was on the path to recovery.
In Malaysia, the Gospel has been attracting more and more young people and adults, who, after reading the sacred texts, seek baptism, thus embracing Christianity. Several official statements from the local Church have informed us that the Catholic community in Malaysia received – during the Easter Vigil of 2025 alone– more than 2,000 new faithful: 1,047 in Peninsular Malaysia and an equivalent number in the Malaysian provinces of Borneo.
We all generally prefer to see ourselves as smart, generous, kind, patient, and forgiving people most of the time. But the truth is that we aren’t. Life isn’t ideal. We aren’t perfect. We simply cannot be nice and ‘good’ 100% of the time. If we’re honest with ourselves, we actually have some pretty scary and embarrassing flaws that we prefer to avoid at all costs.
In the Communicantes of the First Eucharistic Prayer (Roman Canon), the names of some popes are mentioned: Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus and Cornelius. Linus, Cletus and Clement are the immediate successors of Saint Peter and were ordained bishops by Peter himself. Some scholars suggest that ‘Sixtus’ refers to Sixtus II (257-258) and Cornelius was pope from 251 to 253.
Sin is moral evil, a bad human act, a failure in human self-realization, undue attachment to things and consequent detachment from God. Sins may rule our life and make us like slaves (Rom 3:9; 7:14). Indeed, “Everyone who commits a sin is a slave of sin” (Jn 8:34). Sin, grave sin is bad use of freedom. St. Augustine tells us in his Confessions that when he was in sin – when as a young man lived a loose life – , he had “the freedom of a run-away slave.” Sin is a betrayal of love that disrupts our relationship with God, with ourselves, with others and with nature (Vatican II, GS 13). From the sin of Adam and Eve, sin presents itself as promise, but it is no more than an illusion and a lie (A. Peteiro).
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