GRACE. FORGIVENESS. LOVE

11^th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

June 19, 2013

GRACE, FORGIVENESS, LOVE

I was reminded of that movie some two years back: Eat, Pray, Love …  It is a story of a confused woman who went around the world trying to rediscover herself, and eventually came home to herself, and to relative peace of mind and heart by eating well in Italy, praying deeply in India, and finding what was supposed to be true love in Bali, Indonesia.

So, what does this have to do with today’s readings? Not much, you say? But my Catholic, sacramental imagination shows me some important connections … Allow me to explain …

Well, for a start, it was a woman that was behind the indiscretions of David. He wiggled his way to be able to do what he desired – and sinned – big time! Enough connection for you?

But the gospel speaks of another woman … confused? Probably! … sinful? Definitely! In search for something great and noble? Absolutely! There you have it! Connections galore!

But today, chauvinism is not my topic. Woman or man, servant or free, child or adult, Jew or Greek, Filipino or Indonesian … it doesn’t matter one wee bit. We all have fallen short of the glory of God. We all have sinned. Big time!

This is why I love the response … After getting convicted and being reminded just how wicked we all could be – whether woman or man – we all prayed: “Lord, forgive the wrong I have done.”

“I have sinned against the Lord!” That was David’s laconic understatement of the century! But laconic or not, David did tell the truth. He sinned big time and caused big trouble for Uriah, who even suffered an untimely death, for being an obedient soldier loyal to his King!

But today is not a day for us to gossip about David’s indiscretions. Today is not a day to glorify Aries Rufo’s “scoop” about the sins of the Fathers in the Philippine Church, never mind if the stories he says are old stories being rehashed one more time for the nth time. Today is not a day to focus on the sordid, the obvious, and no doubt pathetic and lamentable.

Today, the readings talk about grace. Today, the readings focus on forgiveness. Today, the readings pore on hope, as much on the pain of sin, as the possibility of grace and new life!

St. Paul puts it so nicely … a former persecutor, sinner and everything else in between, he now says with pride … “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me!”

That sinful woman with a flask of perfume in hand, was in search. I don’t know whether she was confused, but she definitely had focus. She knew what and whom to aim for. “She stood behind him,” the gospel says and began bathing the Lord’s feet with her tears, and wiping them with her hair. That has nothing to do with confusion, but with personal consternation for her own sins, for which she is now repenting! She must have sinned big time, to do something even bigger – to barge into a dinner party of the Lord and do the unthinkable!

Again, my Catholic, sacramental imagination runs wild … What could the chauvinist men of the times and of the place have thought and said?

Never mind the intrigues! Never mind the potential disbelief and surprise of whomever! Never mind the telenovela-like details of this surprising story!

Let’s focus on the great lesson of the story … the same lesson that David the big sinner learned, the same lesson that Paul, the big persecutor also learned, the same lesson that now this woman of ill-repute, but repentant as one could be, teaches us … the lesson that Pope Francis has been telling us since he became Pope … God never tires of forgiving us. It is us who tire of asking His forgiveness.

Sweet words of comfort, these are … as real as they are reassuring … “Your sins are forgiven” … “your faith has saved you; go in peace!”

Who needs to go to Italy, to India and to Bali? We can have them right here. Right now. Grace. Forgiveness. Love!

GOD CARES; GOD CALLS!

 

10^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

June 9, 2013

GOD CARES; GOD CALLS!

We are back to good, old ordinary time, the longest “time” of the liturgical year. But it is anything but ordinary. In these so-called “ferial” days, extraordinary things can – and, in fact, do – happen!

Take it from the distraught widow of Zarephath with whom the prophet Elijah was staying. Curiously, the boy grew sick “until he stopped breathing,” as the first reading says. Right on the days when a prophet was in the house, staying as guest! Thw widow complains, “Why have you done this to me, o man of God?” The prophet complains to God in his turn, “O Lord, my God, will you afflict even the widow with whom I am staying by killing her son?”

God knows how many times I have complained to the Lord! How many times I have lamented this or that! It makes for good prayer, I tell you! When one is in front of undeserved suffering, I become prayerful. I don’t know about you, but even Pope Francis says the same …  “lamenting is a form of prayer.” “It is not a sin,” he says.

But then again, I don’t know about you … But the more one prays; the more one laments to God; the more one begs God to take away this or that, the more He intervenes in our lives!

Take that once again, from Paul, who complained about his “thorn in the flesh.” The first reading tells us how God cares, how God is moved to help a woman in distress, a widow, at that.

Oh, yes, God cares! See what happened to the saints like St. Teresa of Avila. At a very difficult moment in her life, she complained, “If this is how you treat your friends, then I am not surprised you have so few friends!” God cares, indeed! And see how He has afflicted me. See how He has intervened in my life. I have suffered so much for the Church, and because of the Church … for the congregation, and on account of the same congregation.

Let me put it bluntly. God cares … But in the same breath, God calls! God comforts the afflicted, but God afflicts us in our short-lived comfort!

I complain all the time. I lament each time the afflictions come … once too often, I guess! But behind all these laments, all these complaints, I hear a call … a call to probe into the deep … Duc in altum! … a call, too, toward the heights … ascende superius! … a call to greater love, to greater generosity, to a more authentic spirituality.

I still suffer for the Church and on account of the Church. The most uncaring people could come from religion and religious life. But the most loving people could also come from where my afflictions originate!

I just came down from a hike up Mt. Pulag, up  in  the Cordilleras, my fifth climb in that beloved mountain. Our obligatory guide (even if we needed no guide!) was an old man in his 70s. I pitied him as much as I admired him. I was elated to know he was related to the fabled “Apo Usok” of decades ago, who was chieftain up on that mountain village near the equally fabled mountain. He did his role dutifully, even religiously! Old men like him should be living a life in relative comfort, I thought!

But no … being myself no longer a spring chicken, I cannot be comfortable. In a world where God is being eclipsed by hedonism, materialism, and runaway materialistic, mainstream media enveloped in an equally runaway culture of show business, where God is by no means featured, let alone, accepted, I cannot be comfortable. God continues to afflict me. God cares, but God calls, too. He beckons us all to engage in new evangelization, to help Him save a world now sold out to the good news of consumerism, comfort and cold godlessness.

The son of the widowed woman of Nain represents the world of young people who now are for all intents and purposes, dead – dead to God, dead to higher values, dead when it comes to a culture of life and a passionate dedication and commitments to things that are above.

When God cares, He calls – to life! “Young man, I tell you, arise!

ALL WE HAVE AND ALL WE NEED!

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Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord – Year C

June 2, 2013

ALL WE HAVE AND ALL WE NEED!

Today is a day of miracles. I know it sounds far fetched, but I mean it. Everyday when Mass is celebrated counts as a day of miracles. Bread and wine are changed into Christ’s Body and Blood … that’s for sure! … sure enough for those who have faith, those who believe, those who take God seriously, and take Him for His Word.

We all take some things very seriously. There are those of us who believe everything that mainstream media says, or all that our favorite celebrity endorses. There, too, are those who believe all survey outfits, or even any charlatan, “celebutante” or “cewebrity”  who happens to be “popular” enough to have a digital following. I have no problems about whom you believe or follow with dogged devotion. But I do propose to fellow believers to believe more on what God teaches us today.

We have no less than God’s Word today to hold on to. And this is what He says: “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (2^nd reading).

Just about the only time Melchisedech the priest was mentioned in the OT is on the occasion when he did something prophetic. He offered bread and wine, quite unlike the other prophets and other figures then.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the “house of bread.” He who was going to offer Himself as the “bread of life” and the “bread come down from heaven” was born in the house of bread.

Later, when he was gradually revealing himself and his mission for humanity and the world, he did the miracle that both pointed to the past and the future, at one and the same time – the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves! He fed everyone, with only five loaves and two fishes! The miracle pointed to the past – and alluded to Melchisedech’s offering of bread and wine. The same miracle pointed to the future – and foreshadowed the total self-immolation that He did when He died on the cross and shed His blood, but not before offering Himself first as the Bread of Life, the bread come down from heaven, at the Last Supper!

In life, in reality, many times we only have “five loaves and two fishes.” … We don’t have all we want. We may lack in many things and may not have everything we really pine for. The Lord knows that. The Lord knew that “all we have” is really those five loaves on many occasions.

Today, feast of his perfect self-offering to us as food that leads to eternal life, He reminds us, that all we have is all we need. But there is something we need to do. “Do this in remembrance of me.”

That is, make of your lives a memorial, a testimony, a witness to the one important thing in life – that having God, having Christ in Word and Sacrament, in flesh and blood, under the appearances of bread and wine, is all we might have, but all that we need.

Praised and blest every moment, be the Most Holy and Divine Sacrament!

RECEIVE! RESPOND! RETURN!

Pentecost Sunday (Year C)

May 19, 2013

RECEIVE! RESPOND! RETURN!

I would like to summarize today’s great feast in three words: received, responded to, and returned in kind.

Pentecost is all about receiving. The Gospel passage is very clear. The Lord says, “receive the Holy Spirit.” Let us go direct to the point. Christian life is such because we are gifted. Christian life is characterized primarily with receiving something that is not ours by our own merit, but by grace.

Today, the so-called birthday of the Church, we focus our sights on being gifted, on being recipients, on being enriched by the same God who created us, the same God who saved us, and the same God who now calls us to return what we received in kind.

The internet world is awash in articles that point to a growing narcissism epidemic. More and more people, young and old alike, are  becoming self-centered and spoiled brats who think they are burgeoning “cewebrities” or “celebutantes.” People’s profiles in facebook now are “picture perfect,” ideal, creaseless, ageless, and problem-less fairy tale existences. If one goes by the number of pictures of what they ate here or there, or the places they have visited, or the “languages” they speak, and the “achievements” they have done in the two decades of existence in this world, you would think everyone had a perfect childhood.

But nothing is perfect in the world. Let us name some, just in case we forget. First, after the Lord had been put to death, the disciples were not exactly moving up and about. They were cooped up somewhere “for fear of the Jews.” With their Master gone, despite the reported sightings of his Risen Body, the early band of believers were not exactly busy with what they were called to do. They were literally in hiding.

Second,  the Corinthians were exactly like us now … fragmented, disunited, and caught up in so much infighting and petty intrigues. Life was not rosy at all. Paul had to talk to them about being “one body with many parts,” about being different individuals yet belonging to the same community of believers.

Third, they probably each had some kind of talent and special skills which each one guarded very jealously. It was impossible, perhaps, to make them get their act together.

Fourth, and now this sounds very close to home base … Paul, in his letter to the Romans says that the believers, like us all, were continually drawn and pulled by the siren song of worldly flesh, instead of living in the Spirit. We are torn inside … and all of us, at one time or another, are behaving like “carnal Christians,” instead of “spiritual” ones, weighed down by lust, by thirst for creature comfort, and earthly concerns.

Today, though, all this, and more, was dramatically transformed, changed, renewed, and refashioned! How? Simply put, the promised Paraclete came down on the fearful, timid disciples. Today, we remember how we received the Spirit.

But history is not just about receiving. Today, we are told how those who received eventually responded. They were renewed! “The Spirit enabled them to proclaim.”

And so, the Church was born! They received gifts. They responded to those same gifts. And they what return did they make? They gave of the same gifts they received. They spoke in tongues, in different languages, and each one understood them in his own language! Those gifts sure were double-edged, double-bladed!

Last week, we were kind of scolded by the angel. Remember? “Men of Galilee, why are you staring up in the sky?” Don’t just stand there! Do something!

Today, we are given more than just a gentle nudge … Don’t just sit there. Don’t just be complacent knowing that you believe. Believe and belong! Receive. Respond to what you receive. And return in kind! Deep is calling on deep … love for love … faith for faith … Behave more than just disengaged believers, but more like empowered, enabled, and dynamic Christians!

So what are you waiting for? Don’t just sit there. Proclaim and stand proud of your faith!

HE, GOING AWAY; WE, KEEPING TO HIS WAY!

Ascension Sunday

May 12, 2013

HE, GOING AWAY; WE, KEEPING TO HIS WAY!

From the human viewpoint, Jesus’ death was a failure, a defeat. But God’s viewpoint, not ours, had the final say in the end. He rose from the dead. Today, God puts a definite period to this saga of seeming defeat. He ascends into heaven. In glory. In triumph. In joy. The Gospel of today tells us thus: “They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.” (Lk 24:53)

This image of disciples going their merry, grateful way is a far cry from the two disciples dejected and destined toward their Emmaus of despondency, no more than 40 days before.

I would like to think of the Ascension of the Lord, among other things, as an image of the Lord’s going away … He takes leave of his beloved disciples. Physically, that is, not not much more. He says good-bye to them, but this is one good-bye that is not associated with sadness, and definitely not one that puts a definitive stop to whatever He taught, shared, lived, and showed.

What did he teach? What did he share, live, and show? Let us hear it direct from him: “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

Now, this is getting interesting. Is he going away or not? Obviously, he is … to sit at the right hand of the Father, and to prepare a place for us. But will he really go away and be lost, for as they say, “out of sight is out of mind?”

Today’s feast – together with all three readings – show us that he is going away, yes … but there is something that will continue to take place till the end of time. His absence does not mean being totally and fully away and distant from the people that he journeyed with, that he became a man for. His absence, really, is a new form of presence – a presence that now takes place in and through the hearts and minds and hands of us believers and disciples. For God “put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.”

Ascension has nothing to do with absence, but with presence. In a new way. In a different level. In a new mysterious, but no less real, way.

I would like to think that this is what the Acts of the Apostles is telling us. He may be away, but we are told to keep to his way: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This is one good-bye that is true to its name – good. This is one parting that entails no permanent departing. This is a taking leave of someone in which no one is asked and expected to leave all hope outside the door. On the contrary, it is a going away, so that we all could keep to his saving and salvific ways, as we journey on toward heaven, our only true home. Amen!

PEACE, YES! TROUBLE, NO!

6^th Sunday of Easter Year C

May 5, 2013

PEACE, YES! TROUBLE, NO!

A decade ago, I was deep in study once again, somewhere in the US East Coast. It was supposed to be a Catholic institution, but I soon found out that most students were not only not Catholic. Some were even anti-Catholic! One day, there was an imam who came to talk about his religion. Of course, he did talk about it, and in the process also talked against my religion, ever so subtly. I wouldn’t have minded that one, coming as it does from someone like him. But when a “Christian” deridingly asked me whether Catholics were Christians, I was definitely incensed.

I wasn’t in the mood for peace at that moment. I was seething … like I was on so many other occasions in my life when my ego was stepped on, hurt, abused, or otherwise put down.

It is hard to be at peace when being a Catholic nowadays is equated with so many unsavory terms … when being orthodox means you are the object of the derision of so many politically correct, but intolerant and noisy minorities who accuse us of intolerance. (Look who’s talking!).

But today, whether I like it or not, I will have to talk of the peace that comes from the Lord … the only one who really can give it honestly, sincerely, truly, and fully!

Why, you might ask? Because He himself suffered violence … against his person, against what he taught, against what he stood for and paid for dearly with his life!

This is the only convincing peace that can only be given by him who was made to suffer immensely for it … the peace that the world cannot give … No … not even the Romans with their proverbial pax Romana that really meant fear, control, and weaponries.

But the gift of peace from the Lord is associated with three other powerful concepts to consider: love, keeping the Lord’s words, and the coming of the Advocate.

Now that is reassuring. The peace that He gives is not the peace that the world gives. It is the peace that is proven by deeds, by love and by adhering to his words. More than anything, it is a peace that comes along with a more important gift – the gift of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father sends in the Lord’s name.

Even now, I am often not entirely at peace. I am troubled when that cult founded in the Philippines, designed to destroy the Catholic Church … that cult whose apparent vision and mission and raison d’etre is nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else but to talk against us Catholics continues to attack us. But the worst is this … when fellow believers who claim to be catholics, too, take the podium and say nothing positive about the institutional Church, the Holy Father, or the official teachings of the Church, especially in the area of morals. Sometimes I am outraged.

But today, I am convicted. And I am sorry not to be at peace. For trouble is not what He has come to bring me and you, but peace. “Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid.”

I would suggest we all claim this peace, this gift, this promise. He is the only One who can talk convincingly of peace. But in the meantime, there is one thing we can do – live on in His love, and adhere to His words, and accept the gift of the Advocate. Anything less than this will mean trouble for me and you.

Now, do you see why we are so troubled?