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Gospel Reading for November 14, 2025 – Luke 17: 26-37
ACCORDING TO GOD’S WILL
Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all. So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, someone who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise one in the field must not return to what was left behind. Remember the wife of Lot. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it. I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. And there will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken, the other left.” They said to him in reply, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.”
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When Typhoon Uwan was approaching the Philippines, most Filipinos were so apprehensive because it was forecasted to be a Category 4 Hurricane with wind gusts of 259 km/hr when it makes a landfall in Central Luzon on the evening of November 9. The typhoon was one category less that of typhoon Yolanda which had wind gusts of 275 km/hr and which devastated Leyte more than the people there could have imagined, hence, caused the loss of more than 6,000 lives aside from great property damage. Uwan was still far, but Oratio Imperata was prayed in almost, if not all churches in the Philippines. Social media was full of supplications to Our Lady of Fatima and “what to do’s.” Local Government Units of areas forecasted to be affected, were all on severe alert.
If the people of Noah’s time knew that they would all perish in the floods, would they have stopped “eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building”? If the people of Sodom knew that they would perish with the rain of fire and brimstone would they have repented and changed their evil ways?
Typhoon Yolanda struck the Philippines on 8 November 2013. Is this a coincidence? Is the Lord telling us something? What happened these past 12 yrs? Did Typhoon Yolanda impact on us? When we look at all that’s happening in our country can we say that we deserve to be saved from devastation?
Now, we are thanking God for the Sierra Madre mountains that weakened the typhoon. Now, we have realized that we need to protect our mountains because they protect us. We do not need natural calamities to teach us how to live ACCORDING TO GOD’S WILL.
O Lord, teach us to do your will ALWAYS!
