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This gospel of the Transfiguration is the one the Church always places for our consideration on the second Sunday of Lent. Why? So that we are comforted at the prospect of what God wants us to enjoy, so that we find God’s own vitality and grace filled presence renews and refreshes us and so that our hope is renewed.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Listen to news from and about the Church in Asia in a capsule around 10 minutes.This week, Asian nations have experienced a trampling of basic human rights and religious freedom amid an outcry from rights campaigners, civil society and church groups. Much more in the report.Filed by UCA News reporters, compiled by Rock Ronald Rozario, edited by Peter Hill, presented by John Laurenson, background score by Andre Louis and produced by Binu Alex for ucanews.comFor news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.comGlobal perspectives on religion, culture, politics, economy, science, technology and much more. Engage in compelling articles and unique insights into the Vatican and the Catholic Church. Click here to get the offer: international.la-croix.com/one-month-subscription

The gospel and the first reading too about that most intimidating of subjects - change. And the readings ask us whether we reread to change and to let God into our lives to have us grow and change? The answer is we are probably NOT ready for change. But God’s liberating grace can make us ready for it.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Praying is something that is very natural and normal once you know the first steps. When you know those first steps and take them, you and I can give ourselves into the hands of the Spirit and God leads us where God wants us to go. Abandonment into the hands of God is the richest, deepest and most consoling place to be.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Today is the Feast of the Chair of Peter and so today’s Gospel is especially important because it specifies just where and how this feast gets its bearings - Peter and his successors as bishops of Rome have no other significance beyond the way in which they testify to Jesus and lead the community of the faithful to deeper union with him and among themselves. The enduring scandal of disunity in the Church is especially apparent on days like today and we need to all work and pray that the disunity comes to an end.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com 

The Gospel text for today is apparently simple. But behind it sits the whole course of our journey in faith - close engagement with Jesus, the sharing of our lives with him and his life with us, the conflict and challenges following a crucified savior who dies in obedience to his Father’s will. Mark’s gospel is uncompromising: it’s the narrow gate and the straight path that Jesus asks us to follow.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

The Lord calls us to a change of life, a change we exercise in some small way in Lent as a means of recommitting ourselves at Easter to the big reform we accepted in our baptismal commitment.About the Speaker: Father William J Grimm is a Maryknoll Missioner of 40 year’s experience in Asia-mostly Japan, Hong Kong and Cambodia.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com 

Listen to news from and about the Church in Asia in a capsule around 10 minutes.This week, Asian Catholics joined the faithful across the globe on Ash Wednesday to mark the Holy Season of Lent ahead of Easter. Asian nations have continued their struggle for democratic and civil rights in repressive regimes including military dictatorship. These and more in today's Episode.Filed by UCA News reporters, compiled by Rock Ronald Rozario, edited by Peter Hill, presented by John Laurenson, background score by Andre Louis and produced by Binu Alex for ucanews.comFor news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

It’s difficult to give this Gospel story its full force because here is our Lord, the source and center of all that is good saying that his life is to be discovered among the broken, the fractured and the unfashionable. It is the most forceful statement of just how paradoxical his message is - the complete reversal of the oversimplifications that the “virtuous offer in understanding where truth and authenticity is to be found.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

The purpose of Lent is to allow us time and space to discover God in our lives and to through the power of the Spirit to allow God to be God, free of our rigid expectations. And if we feel that is a big challenge, we should just wait in God’s presence until we allow God to be God and assert that power and force in our lives that is our liberation.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

We all get faced with making choices all through our lives, sometimes every day of our lives. And every choice we make comes at a cost. Here at the beginning of Lent we are faced with that reality about our faith and Jesus specifies the cost: surrendering our lives to the control of the Spirit as we take up our cross in following Jesus.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Lent gives us a chance to taste the emptiness of their lives so that we will be better motivated to share the good news with them that they, like we, are invited to leave our ashes behind and take part in a glorious dance of joy and an unlimited future in God's love.About the Speaker: Father William J Grimm is a Maryknoll Missioner of 40 year’s experience in Asia-mostly Japan, Hong Kong and Cambodia.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Today is Ash Wednesday when we take the sign of the cross marked on our foreheads if we can to remind us just how simple and basic our being marked by God is. The ashes come from the burnt remains of the palms from last year’s Palm Sunday procession. They are a reminder of our mortality not because of any fear the terror of death but because when we recall death, we are driven to recognize that a deeper life comes with God’s gift of the resurrection - ours and that of Jesus.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Today’s Gospel offers Jesus to comment again on the feeding of the 5,000 and to appreciate how obtuse his followers are. This story, like the feeding of the 5000 drives the Christian imagination back to recognition of the providential care God has for his people and for us in all our needs and forward into an appreciation of the providential provision Jesus will make us ninth Eucharist from the night of the Last Supper.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Once more, we register just how frustrated Jesus becomes with the lack of faith and real obtuseness of his followers. They just don’t understand who he is or what his message is. It must be discouraging for Jesus to have as his closest followers people who might declare their belief in humans behave as if they have no such faith. They are a bit like us!About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

We followers of Jesus are called to be supernatural. In other words, we must be people noteworthy for our willingness to go beyond the natural in us. That means developing the ability to look upon others as the sons and daughters of God, our brothers and sisters.About the Speaker: Father William J Grimm is a Maryknoll Missioner of 40 year’s experience in Asia-mostly Japan, Hong Kong and Cambodia.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Today’s readings at Mass are direct treatments of different types of burdensome evil - physical evils that the disabled endure and which Jesus heals and the more sophisticated treatment that the writers of Genesis give to the challenging question of how God’s good intentions in creating a blessed world don’t end up with everyone enjoying happiness and satisfaction Both of these treatments need quiet, careful contemplation and neither offers simple answers to what are complex mysteries. What is so encouraging is that we are not left on our own to contemplate these at times painful puzzles. God is with us and the Spirit can guide us through then struggle if week for the light toes our way hometown deepen our union with God.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Today’s Gospel from Mark is another account familiar to us now of how we are cured and healed of the destructive effects of spirits and impulses and disordered movements at work in us that we need the healing power of Jesus to overcome. There’s echo of the same message in the first reading from the Book of Genesis which is a mature if also simple reflection on the origins of evil in our world. Evil comes through the misuse of the good gifts God creates and offers us for our happiness which then feed our disordered aspirations and ambitions. The resolution is the same for both: giving ourselves over the healing and transforming power of God’s love that takes hold of us and transforms us.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

Today’s gospel asks a question we should out to ourselves every day and several times through every day: who and what is in control how we behave and treat and interact with others Orm respond to our changing circumstances? If God is in command, we need not fear what will become of us because what and who is at work shaping us at our deepest point transforms us to be always creative and fruitful rather than counterproductive, destructive and futile.About the Speaker: Father Michael Kelly is a Jesuit priest and English language publisher of the respected Jesuit periodical, La Civilta Cattolica.For news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com

As  Christians we were hurt by the vehemence of their reaction to the mention of Christianity, even if that mention was a tasteless or even stupid one. But as a Christian, we also knew that the hatred the other kids were showing was not unearned. Father William Grimm, who lives in Japan,  shares some thoughts on this.Produced by Binu AlexFor news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com