The universal judgment Tglory

HE Gospel of last Sunday Mateo 25:31-46 said: “When the Son of Man comes in his

with all his angels, he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be brought before him, and as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, so he will do with them, placing the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left….” We know that Christians are a minority in the world.

As we do know, the Jews wondered about the majority of nations in the world, who were not among the Chosen People and did not know about God or his promises. The Jews envisioned a huge multitude, ready to ‘devour them’ a restless world where God should one day impose his Law. They used to call them the nations.

Jesus goes beyond these narrow perspectives because he is already insured, may become too careless, knowing that the insurance will take care of the damage anyway.

In relationships, this can be illustrated when two people enters a relationship and commits to love each other, be faithful and honest with each other. However, when one leaves, say for another country and their relationship becomes a long distance relationship, the other person will now be abusing the other person whether and shows how he will judge everyone, making no distinctions based on origins when he comes as king of all nations.

All those who, without knowing Christ, have shared in the common destiny of hu- mankind, will be judged by him. In fact, he never abandoned them, but placed at their side ‘those little ones who are his brothers and sisters’, as his representatives.

See, Christ reveals the innumerable human deeds that have built what is best in our civilization, and people brought before him with amazement at the God whom they loved. Although the majority of them never thought of the afterlife,

and brother's units in our compound in Camp Allen, we were doing well. 2 cars, travel, money in the bank, lots of shopping.

And then the fire. After that, we built our house. On the advise of a friend, we took out a commercial loan. A month after we moved into the house, the 1997 crisis exploded, and commercial interest rates skyrocketed. From paying about 12k for interest, we were now paying up to 36k a month just for interests alone. This went on for many months.

We sold both cars. Booksale, which I held the franchise to at that time, was also affected by the crisis and could hardly deliver new merchandise. They could only send children's coloring books for a while!

Business got so bad I couldn't buy Chiara new shoes when hers got damaged because I had to pay the bank first.

And then, right before Chiara's elementary graduation, the bank told me I had to come up with a substantial deposit before the end of the month, or they would take our house. We hadn't even lived there for a year!

I remember being in a daze that night, looking for a solution. I was surfing the channels on

financially, when the one abroad sends remittances, or emotionally, when the one left here becomes unfaithful or dishonest, just because the one abroad cannot see him/her.

In both cases, the bottomline is there is imperfect information that is being relayed, encoded and decoded. Relationships, per se, is already difficult as it is, knowing that there will always be asymmetric information.

It can be particularly difficult when the two parties are apart from each other. There is never a guarantee that one will take advantage of the situation where he/she has the kingdom of God is presented to them with its only law: Love. There is no neutral place. The fire means the torment of those who condemned themselves by closing and freezing their hearts so that they became incapable of love: now the splendor of God, who is love, burns and pains them.

Whenever you did this to these little ones who are my brothers and sisters (v. 40). Jesus speaks of looking after our neighbor, be he friend or foe, not of serving the community, or a class, or a nation in general, because using these words, we often exclude a group of our brothers and sisters, who do not belong to our nation or to our class.

On the other hand, one who really loves, acknowledges his sisters and brothers without giving too much importance to any labels: it is the person who exists and lives for God. SSCagayan tv when I chanced on Joel Osteen, saying something about lifting all burdens to God.

I literally broke down, asked God in all humility to help me. I had been so proud in the past, thinking I could yes-- reach for the stars on my own-- but I knew that only He could bring us out from our predicament.

A week later, a group of gentlemen from Manila came up to Baguio with the idea of holding a book fair. I introduced them to my mom because of my Booksale franchise.

The long and short of it, we were able to exceed the bank's requirement, and we were able to hold on to the house.

When I wrote the 2nd song, we weren't totally out of the woods yet, but I knew God had my back. I kept going back to that time I prayed, with all humility and sincerity and surrender, and to the gratitude and relief I felt when I received my divine solution. Thank you Lord, for loving me. I remember Meister Eckhart's quote: "If the only prayer you said in your life was thank you, that would suffice."

See us at #29 Sari-sari Section, Baguio City Market, 4:30 to 6:30 pm, Monday to Saturday. more relevant information over the other, choosing what to divulge and keeping the other person in the dark.

Because again, each one is a rational economic being where one’s best self-interest takes precedence over others, even if the other person is one you are in a relationship with. Sad, but there is truth to this. So, may forever ba sa LDR? Well, if true love have made us irrational, that’s the time LDRs and relationships, in general would really work. As of now, since we are still rational, WALANG FOREVER!!!