Working together for victims of Calamities:
Typhoon Ondoy
Typhoon Yolanda
How many of us have copies of the Bible? More importantly, how many of us read these copies of the Bible regularly or even everyday?
A survey conducted by the LifeWay Research some years ago indicated that 80% of Churchgoers do not read the Bible.
The Rasmussen Poll recently did a survey about Bible-reading in the US. According to the poll, 25 % of Evangelical Protestants read the Bible daily, as do 20 % of other Protestants. Only 7 % of Catholics read the Bible daily.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer last week reported, on the basis of the report of Nora Lucero, Secretary General of the Philippine Bible Society, that in the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country, “the Bible is not only facing stiff competition from romance pocketbooks, horoscopes, feng shui (Chinese geomancy), it also is facing the challenge of the Internet.”
According to another survey, many people spend at least four hours every day using the internet and other forms of modern communication and mass media, including cellphones. A daily prayerful reading of the Scripture may take only at least 15 minutes. What is 15 minutes of prayerful Bible reading everyday, which can help change our lives, compared to four hours of internet, text messaging, phone calls, TV and radio?
Is the Bible or the Sacred Scripture, which we consider as the living Word of God in human words, really important in our lives? I think we can only truly appreciate the value of the Word of God if we appreciate more the value of the human word.
From our day-to-day life experiences, we know the power and the importance of the human word. Words can build up or destroy. We can praise or curse others and these will have different effects on them.
When we make vows, we commit ourselves using words. Persons who are getting married say: “I take you as my wife or husband… I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health until death do us part.” We who are priests or religious also use worded formulas for religious professions and priestly ordinations. These are not just words. These are words that bind. These are words that must express our deep sense of commitment and our integrity to be true to ourselves, to others and to God.
Words also provide possibilities for us to encounter another person. This is what we experience when we read, for example, a letter from another person. The person becomes present in our minds and in our hearts.
Words form, challenge and transform. A child soaked with loving words will most likely grow into a well-adjusted and confident person. When a child always hears that he is good for nothing, he will most likely internalize this and will become truly a good for nothing person.
Those of us who are married, when was the last time you said, “I love you” to your spouse? Those of us who are parents, when was the last time you said, “I love you” to your children? “I love you,” when said with sincerity, right motivations and sentiments, are among the most powerful, if not the most powerful, words in the world. “I am sorry” are another very powerful words. They can melt an indignant heart. o we know how to say, “I am sorry!” to people we sometimes hurt or offend?
If human words are very powerful and important, how much more are God’s words. The Sacred Scripture has four main functions: fundational, sustaining, critical and contact point with God.
What do we mean by the foundational function of the Scripture? If a house is not built on good and solid foundation, it will not last. It will be shaky. It will collapse when it gets subjected to the forces of nature. The life of a person is the same. It has to be built on the solid foundation of the Word of God. If God’s Word is in the mind, the heart and the life of a person, the person will be strong and firmly grounded as he goes through the journey of life. To build one’s life on the Word of God is to build it on God who is Rock.
The Word of God has also a sustaining function. We need to be guided, strengthened, affirmed and assured as we go through life. In the face, for example, of life’s difficulties, the Word of God will remind us that we are not alone. Our God is a God who is with us and who promised to be with us until the end of time. The Scripture is filled with the reassuring and strengthening Word of God.
The Word of God also serves a critical function. The Word of God criticizes and challenges us when we go astray, when we become unfaithful to God and to His ways and teachings, when we neglect others, especially the poor and the needy. The Word of God can warn us of our own destruction if we persist in our wicked ways and continue to live lives that are apart from God. The Word of God can jolt and must disturb us to conversion and to a new and more godly way of living.
Finally, the Scripture is a primary contact point with God in Jesus. We encounter God in and through the Scripture. The Scripture brings God’s presence to us and it brings us to God’s presence.
In the Old Testament, creation came into existence because of God’s words. God said, “Let there be light and there was light.” This is what we mean when we say that God’s words are performative. They make happen what they say. When Jesus tells a sick man, “Be healed,” the man gets healed.
St. John tells us that the Word, referring to the Son of God, became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is God’s Word who became Incarnate in our midst. God sent His greatest Word of love to us in the Incarnate person of the Son of God.
God’s Word does not only communicate a message about Jesus. God’s Word makes present the very person of Jesus Christ. In fact, God’s Word is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is God’s definitive loving Word to us.
St. Jerome, who translated the Septuagint or Greek Bible to the Latin Vulgate and who is considered the father of Biblical studies, said, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Jesus Christ.” The Scripture, especially the Gospels, is our primary way of knowing Jesus. And knowing here does not only mean intellectual knowing. It means encountering Jesus and having a personal relationship with Him. Together with the Eucharist, the Real Presence of Jesus, the scripture gets a primary place through which we encounter the Lord.
In the Gospel today we see Jesus as a man of the Scriptures. In beginning his public ministry of proclaiming the Kingdom of God, he opens the sacred scroll of the prophet Isaiah and reads the passage that talks about God’s loving offer of total salvation and liberation for humanity and creation. God’s offer of total salvation is now taking place in the person, words and ministry of Jesus Christ.
In the first reading from the prophet Nehemiah, after experiencing captivity in Babylon, the Jews listen to Ezra as he reads and explains the Word of God. Through the preaching of the prophet Ezra, the people realize their infidelity to their covenant with God and are led to conversion.
The Holy Father talks about the Year of Faith as “a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the World.” Faith is not only about the beliefs that we need to believe in; it is, first of all, believing in and having a deep and personal relationship with God and following in his footsteps.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his document Verbum Domine (The Word of the Lord), highlights the centrality of Jesus in the life of the members of the Church and the role of the Scripture in having a personal relationship with Him. He writes: “With the Synod Fathers I express
my heartfelt hope for the flowering of “a new season of greater love for sacred Scripture on the part of every member of the People of God, so that their prayerful and faith-filled reading of the Bible will, with time, deepen their personal relationship with Jesus.” The
Holy Father clearly reasserts that the Scripture leads us to a deeper relationship with Jesus.
The logic is very clear. If Jesus Christ is the center of our Christian faith and if the Scripture is indispensable to knowing, loving and following Jesus Christ, then, as Christians, we must really take the Scripture seriously in order to grow in our
relationship with Jesus and in our Christian faith, to be truly transformed by him unto his likeness and to be instruments of transformation according to the Kingdom values.
As Christians, we are asked to be readers, hearers, doers and sharers of the Word of God. The Holy Father, in the same Verbum Domine document, states: “only those who first place themselves in an attitude of listening to the word can go on to become its heralds” (VD 51).
We end with the words of one of the first followers of St. Francis Assisi who also became a saint. St. Giles of Assisi said, “The Word of God is not in the person who preaches it or listens to it but in the one who lives it.” We should become what we prayerfully read.
May we truly become living Bibles in the world for we might be the only Bibles that other people may read in their lifetimes. As St. Francis said, “Preach the Gospel at all times and you must, use words.”
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus of the Church, who ended his papal or petrine ministry on February 28, has been called the Pope of the basics.
During his papacy, Pope Benedict invited and challenged the faithful to return to the fundamentals of our Christian faith. This challenge has been expressed, for example, in his writing of papal encyclicals and letters on the theological virtues of faith, hope and love and in the completion of his three-volume work on Jesus of Nazareth.
St. Paul in his Letter to the Corinthians, tells us that three things will last forever — faith, hope, and love–and the greatest of these is love.
Shortly after his assumption of the papal ministry after the death of Blessed John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI issued in 2005 the papal encyclical Deus Caritas Est (“God is Love”). That God is love is the most fundamental and basic reality that we must all truly embrace. God is love and this God loves us in an unconditional and boundless way. This God of love also challenges us to live lives of love.
In 2007, the Holy Father wrote another encyclical on the theological virtue of hope. The title of the document on hope is Spe Salve, which means “Saved in Hope.” In it he asserted that our hope, given to us by God, is key to our Christianity. In fact, for Pope Benedict, the great hope we all long for can only be God, “who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain.”
On October 11, 2011, to commence the Year of Faith, Pope Benedict issued the Apostolic Letter entitled Porta Fidei or “The Door of Faith” to challenge us to embark on “the need to rediscover the journey of faith so as to shed ever clearer light on the joy and renewed enthusiasm of the encounter with Christ.” (#2, #3).
But I think, the most important manifestation of this challenge to return to the basics is the Pope Benedict’s emphasis on the centrality of Jesus Christ in our Christian faith and lives. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the center of our Christian faith. There is no Christianity, no Christian faith and there are no Christians without Christ.
The call to turn and return to Christ has reverberated in his writings, admonitions, speeches and addresses. The Pope’s magnificent three books on Jesus of Nazareth can only be understood in this light.
One of my favorite messages of Pope Benedict XVI on Jesus was addressed to young people gathered at the 22nd World Youth Day on Palm Sunday, 1 April 2007. But this message, I believe, does not only apply to young people; it applies to everyone of us. The Holy Father said: “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.”
In the document Porta Fidei the Holy Father wrote, “The Year of Faith is a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord. In the mystery of his death and resurrection, God has revealed in its fullness the Love that saves and calls us to conversion of life through the forgiveness of sins (cf. Acts 5:31). (#6)
During this Year of faith, Pope Benedict XVI is asking us “to keep our gaze fixed upon Jesus Christ, the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2): in him, all the anguish and all the longing of the human heart finds fulfillment… The Holy Father has also prayed that this Year of Faith may make our relationship with Christ the Lord increasingly firm.”
The summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord is also what we hear in the Gospel reading today and in a special way during this Season of Lent. Turn and return to the Lord and you will live. Turn and return to the Lord and He will heal us and bind up our wounds. Turn and return to the Lord and He will renew us, our lives, our relationships, our families, our communities, our Church and our world.
In the Gospel passage on this Third Sunday of Lent, Jesus underscores the urgency and importance of conversion and repentance for all.
Two tragic incidents are mentioned in the gospel: the murder of Galileans by Pilate and the killing of 18 people due to the fall of the tower of Siloam. The first incident was due to Pilate’s willful action; the second was entirely by accident. What connects the two different tragedies is the common notion of punishment for sins. The Israelites believe that disaster comes as punishment for sin, a notion found especially in the blessings and warnings of Deuteronomy 28-30 and that appears in John 9:2.
Jesus does not dispute or affirm the connection between sin and disaster. In life, sometimes tragedies happen because of the personal faults of those who suffer or the faults of other people. But this is not always the case. We know that there are so many people who are innocent but who suffer.
What Jesus declares is that those who died were not more sinful than other Galileans or other Jerusalemites. Then he issues the warning, “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”
Aside from the fact that the two tragic events are interpreted by the people as punishment for sins, they are also incidents that happened quite suddenly with total devastation. Without warning, the Galileans were overcome by the power of Pilate. Without warning, the tower collapsed on the 18 people. These two groups of people never had a chance to repent. They were caught by surprise by the suddenness of the tragedies.
In this light, we find not only the importance of repentance or conversion but also its urgency. Repentance cannot be delayed or postponed as death may come at any time. Death, as we know from other passages, is described as a thief in the night that comes when you least expect it.
Thus, repentance must be embraced as an ongoing attitude and practice towards one’s life. Repentance can never just be an occasional or a seasonal act. Scott Hahn says that Jesus calls us today to “repentance” – not a one-time change of heart, but an ongoing, daily transformation of our lives.
It is in this light that we must say that Lent is more than just a season. Lent which promotes repentance, conversion and return to the Lord must be embraced as a way of life. We are given the special season of Lent so that we can more and more imbibe the penitential spirit that must characterize ever minute of our lives.
There is a story about a king who had to put down the rebellion of some of his subjects. After the battle died down, the king put up a candle in the doorway of the castle where he had his temporary headquarters. He lit the candle and announced to all who had rebelled against him that those who surrendered and took the oath of loyalty while the candle was burning would be spared. The king offered mercy and forgiveness only for the life of the candle.
God does the same; the candle is our life span.
This story of the king and the candle is like the parable of the fig tree in the gospel today. In life, we are given many chances to repent and to start anew, but these chances are not limitless as everyone’s life has an end. God’s love is limitless but it is we who are limited. Indeed, the call to repentance is Now! Not tomorrow or the day after for it may never happen if we do not take the opportunity.
On February 6, 2013, Life Teen released an article entitled “What to give up for Lent: 25 Creative Ideas.” The said article contains responses of mostly young people to the question, “What did you give up for Lent before and what are you willing to give up for Lent this year?” Let me read three of the responses:
A respondent by the name of Amanda said, “I am addicted to caffeine so I gave up all drinks but water for Lent two years ago.”
Josephina promised: “Last year I didn’t give up anything for Lent, just added more prayer life. This year I am going to add more prayer life and give up Facebook.”
Carrie, a Life Teen Missionary, testified: “I have an issue with vanity, especially when I get ready in the morning. So I decided a couple years ago to just wear the first outfit I put on every morning. What I learned from that was how to get a source of self esteem beyond my outfits.”
If we ask more mature persons, what do you think some of their responses will get?
What about us? What are we planning to give up for the Lord and for others during this Season of Lent? Are we planning to skip a meal every Friday during these 40 days of Lent? Are we intending to give up a sinful habit that has been enslaving us or destroying our family? Is there something in us that we need to let go so that we can be better persons and Christians? Are we giving up something so that we can share it with the poor?
While the intention to give up or sacrifice something, which may not necessarily be bad or evil, for a more noble reason or cause must be done, there is a more important question to ask during this Season of Lent. The question is: What does God want to give to us during this Season of Lent?
I think to reframe our fundamental Lenten question this way is to affirm it is God Who always takes the first initiative and we only respond to His divine initiative. The Season of Lent is a grace-filled gift from God given through the Church. If ever we need to let go of something, we are able to do so because we let God. And the more we let God, the more we are able to let go of what is not of God. One of the two prayer formulas for the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday captures this very well: “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” Indeed, we do not only turn away from sin, we turn or return to the Lord.
During these 40 days of Lent God is inviting us in a very special way to receive His gifts of conversion, renewal, transformation and rebirth. Lent is about God’s loving desire and efforts to make us new. And when we truly decide by the grace of God to embrace the new, then we are able to let go of the old.
Lent is a season of being invited and led by God in a deeply personal way to return to Him. “Come back to me, with all your heart,” the prophet Joel tells us. From the first day of Lent, the Ash Wednesday readings make God’s call and gift to us clear: “Return to me with all your heart
Lent then is a homecoming to God; it is a return to God and to His unconditional love with the totality of our being. God is always running after us although we are always running away from God. Lent is to return to Him so that we can truly be formed and transformed by Him and His love. It is to return to Him so that He can heal us and bind up our wounds.
God is not saying that we come back to Him with already pure, clean and transformed hearts. No, we come back to Him as we are – with the fragility, sinfulness, brokenness and greatness of our hearts. We come back to him with the prayer that He will create a clean heart in us and put a new and right spirit within us.
Even if we think that our lives right now are already okay, there is always a room for healing, renewal, conversion and transformation. There is always something that God can do for us or give to us. Indeed, whatever we do during this Season of Lent is only a response to what God is doing or wants to do to and with us.
On this First Sunday of Lent, we are given the victorious example of Jesus in the face of temptations.
In the Bible the primary sin is the sin of idolatry. Idolary is to have other gods other than the true and only God of Jesus. It is to replace God with other idols, whether in the form of things, obsessions or persons. Idolatry is to make gods out of some people, of money, prestige, pleasure, power, sex, ambitions, pride and others. Thus, conversion, in this sense, means a return to the real and true God and to our real identity before this true God and to denounce these false gods that smear or destroy our real identity in God.
A temptation is an enticement to sin. Temptation is not a sin, but it may lead us to sin if we succumb to it. Billy Sunday says, “Temptation is the Devil whistling at the keyhole; sinning is opening the door and letting him in.”
It must be always made very clear that temptations do not come from God for God can never tempt us. Temptations come from the Evil One, from the world, from ourselves and from others. Although God may allow temptations, they never come from God for God can never lead us to evil.
Biblical scholars tell us that Jesus is actually faced with only one main or root temptation, which is the Devil’s attack on his identity as the Son of God. Jesus’ main temptation is to doubt, forsake, prove and not to be true to his identity as the Son of God.
The Gospel according to St. Luke tells us that the Devil, before mentioning his temptations, challenges Jesus twice: “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread…” “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here…”
We remember that at his baptism at the river Jordan, Jesus heard the voice of the Father: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” The said voice of the Father confirmed the divine identity of His Son whom he had sent to bring salvation to the world.
In the temptation incident, which follows the baptism of Jesus, it is precisely this identity of Jesus that is being attacked by Satan. Satan entices Jesus to prove his identity as the Son of God, which has already been assured in the event of His baptism. In effect, the Evil One does not only want Jesus to doubt himself and betray his identity; he wants him to put his faith in other gods and not in his Father, who has given him this identity of divine sonship.
Come to think of it. This is what happens to us whenever we are confronted with temptations and sinfulness. Temptations entice us not to be true to our identity as beloved children of God, which we have received at baptism. To sin is to betray this identity that has been given to us by our loving God the Father at baptism. When I sin, when I wallow in sin, I betray my being a son or a daughter of God and I show that I put myself and my trust in other idols and gods other than God my Father.
Thus, it is very important to note that the journey of 40 days of Lent leads to the celebration of Easter. And what do we do at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday? One of the very important things that we do is to renew our baptismal vows, which proclaim that we believe in God, that we are children of God, followers Jesus and members of the Church and that we denounce Satan and all his evil works and lies. The journey of 40 days of Lent then is a return to our baptismal identity as beloved children of God and not as followers of Satan and his cunning ways.
Finally, the gospel also tells us that Jesus is able to resist the Devil’s temptations because He is filled with the Holy Spirit, because He is grounded in the Father and in His words, and because of His prayer and fasting. The victorious example of Jesus over temptations reminds us that sinfulness and temptations can never be overcome by one’s strength. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit, by our being deeply formed by the Word of God, by intense prayer, fasting, almsgiving and recourse to other spiritual means that we are able to defeat sin and temptations. Not by our own strengths and efforts but by the power and grace of God working in, through and despite of us and our sinfulness and unworthiness.
The other readings for this First Sunday of Lent give us inspirations in time of temptations. Like the Psalmist, we need to cry, “Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.” The First Reading from the Book of Deuteronomy promises that when we cry to the Lord, He hears our cry and sees “our affliction, our toil and oppression.” And St. Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, promises: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
The Desert Fathers have a very wise advice about temptations. It is very simple but very true. Their advice in the face of temptations is: “Pray and flee.”
The booklet Our Daily Bread gives the same advice: “To avoid being tempted by forbidden fruit, stay away from the Devil’s orchard.”
Roy B. Zuck tells of Bishop Hamline who advised someone in the following words: “When in trouble, kneel down and ask for God’s help; but never climb over the fence into the Devil’s ground, and then kneel down and ask for help. Pray from God’s side of the fence.”
Fr. Frank Mihalik, SVD tells a story about God’s forgiveness. One day, a woman on one of the Pacific Islands came to a missionary carrying a handful of sand, which was still dripping water.
The woman asked, “Do you know what this is?” “It looks like sand,” answered the missionary. “Do you know why I brought it here,” she asked. “No, I can’t imagine why,” the missionary replied.
The woman explained, “Well, these are my sins, which are as countless as the sands of the sea. How can I ever obtain forgiveness for all of them?”
The missionary said, “You got the sand down by the shore. Well, take it back there and pile up a heaping mound of sand. Then sit back and watch the waves come in and wash the pile slowly but surely and completely away. That is how God’s forgiveness works. His mercy is as big as the ocean. Be truly sorry and the Lord will forgive. (Franck Mihalik, SVD, 1000 Stories You can Use, Volume II, 95)
Indeed, God’s loving mercy is bigger than any sins that we can possibly commit. And there are no sins that God cannot and will not forgive. The only sins that cannot be forgiven are the sins that we refuse God to forgive.
We can arrive at another very striking insight on God’s forgiveness by reflecting on the word “forgiven.” “Forgiven” is “given before.” This is how God’s forgiveness works. Even before we ask for it, it is already given. Our forgiveness has already won by Jesus on the cross. All we need to do is to receive it, to claim it and to make it effective. It is not something that we merit or deserve. God’s forgiveness is gratuitously and lovingly given even before we ask for it. But even if God’s forgiveness is already freely given, if we refuse or do not want to receive and welcome it, it can never be effective in our lives.
God’s forgiveness is also so different from man’s forgiveness, which tends to be conditional and so difficult to earn. Sometimes, we already kneel down and beg to be forgiven; we will still not get it. We deprive others or are deprived of forgiveness by others and we often miss imitating our Lord who is compassionate. Jesus has taught us, “Be compassionate as your Heavenly Father is compassionate.” We can also say, among others, “Be forgiving as your heavenly Father is forgiving.”
The gospel passage today is about the parable of the lost or prodigal son. This parable is one of the three parables in Luke 15. The other parables are the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of lost coin. It is obvious from these parables that the owner of the lost coin, the shepherd of the lost sheep and the father of the lost son represent God.
Biblical scholars and commentators say that if we do not have a copy of the Bible, as long as we have a copy of Luke 15 and we get its message, we get the message of the entire Bible. And what is the central message of Luke 15, which reveals the message of the Bible by way of the parables?
The central message of the three parables in Luke 15 is about the unconditional, forgiving, all embracing, patient, searching and seeking love of God the Father. And this is the very message of the entire Bible as shown in the person, teachings, ministry, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus the Son of God.
The English poet Francis Thompson, in his poem entitled The Hounds of Heaven, illustrates this loving and forgiving God. He shows God as Someone running after the sinner not to make him or her pay for his or sins, not to condemn the sinner but to offer him or her His unconditional, forgiving and boundless love. Indeed, God runs after us in loving and hot pursuit despite our sins and transgressions against Him and others. This divine assurance made the English mystic Blessed Julian of Norwich confident in the love of God even in the midst of sinfulness. There was nothing that could discourage her – not even her own sinfulness. She believed that with and in God, “all shall be well.” Blessed Julian Norwich said, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Patricia Datchuck Sanchez says that the parable of the lost son is a double-edged parable. The father’s dealing with the younger son is a lesson of divine mercy and compassion offered to sinners. In the exchange between the father and the older son, we see a strong warning against those who are self-righteous and cannot share in God’s joy of boundless goodness over the repentance of sinners.
In the face of the father’s unconditional love, both sons are actually in need of conversion. Both sons need to return to their Father. In fact, for the older son it is not even returning to the Father; it is first turning to the Father and allowing himself to truly experience being a beloved son and not a hired servant. He also needs to turn to his brother and be truly a brother who rejoices at the return of his brother. One can say that the older son, in fact, needs more conversion that the younger son.
It is very evident is that God, as represented by the father in the story, can never change the way He relates with us despite our transgressions, mistakes and sins. He remains the loving Father who runs after us even if we run away from Him and His love.
St. Paul, in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, says that God has reconciled the world to himself in Christ, not counting our trespasses.” In the story, the father of the lost son restores him to his status as one of his beloved sons and reconciles him to himself and the rest of his household. He brings back the dignity that the son has lost as a result of separating himself from the father and living a life of disrepute. This loss of dignity is exemplified by the experience of the son living and eating with pigs, considered the dirtiest animals by the Jews.
God can never be “offended” by us. The only thing that can “offend” Him is when we harm ourselves and others. As St. Thomas of Aquinas says, “We offend God only inasmuch as we act against our own good.” Thus, God does not and cannot turn his back on us. When we sin, we are the ones who turn our backs on Him.
God can never turn his back on us despite all the bad, evil and harmful things that we may do to ourselves and to others. In fact, he runs towards and after us so that He can bring us back to the right and holy path. In the story, we see the father running towards his lost son to happily welcome him.
The Jewish culture dictates that it is undignified for old people to still be running. An old person must always try to walk in dignity and, in fact, it is the offending son who must run or come to him. But the heart of the father is overwhelming with joy, happiness and love over the return of his lost son. The father does not mind anymore all these cultural norms. So, he runs towards his lost but returning son and lovingly welcomes him embraces. His son was lost; he is alive again. He was lost and now he is found. It is time to rejoice and be glad.
Parables serve as windows and mirrors. They are windows for they enable us to look into the loving mystery of God and His kingdom. Through the parables we “taste and see the goodness of the Lord” (Psalm 34:9). They are also mirrors for they enable us not only to see God through them but also to see ourselves being reflected in the story.
Whenever we read or hear a parable, it is important that we place ourselves into the shoes of any of the characters. If we are honest, we will admit that we have played all the roles of the characters in the parable. At times, we have been the belligerent and squandering younger son. We have also been the father who is prodigal in lavishing compassion and forgiveness on others. We have also played the part of the resentful and righteous older son. But the big question is – which of them do we usually play or live?
Congratulations to our very own, Fr. Greg, for being elected new OFM Provincial Minister!
Read about it from:
CBCP News
February 24, 2013 Parish Bulletin
Categories
SYA 25th Weekend
Clear your mind. Reflect on your life. Feed your soul. Participate in the SYA (Single Young Adults) Weekend in time for the Lenten Season. March 15-17 at Santuario de San Antonio Parish, Makati. Friday session starts at 7pm.
You can also view the SYA Weekend Video to know more about our group:
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Stations of the Cross 2013
Every one is invited to join the Lenten Stations of the Cross every Friday at 5: 15 PM at the church garden on the Mckinley side.
Stations of the Cross Schedule by Ministry
February 15th – CWL
February 22nd – OFS
March 1st – EMHC/MSH
March 8th – Lectors/Commentators
March 15th – Health Care Ministry
March 22nd – Marian Cenacle
Downloadable Stations of the Cross Prayers:
The psychologist Abraham Maslow described peak experiences “as especially significant moments in life, involving feelings of intense happiness and well-being, wonder and awe, and possibly awareness of transcendental unity or knowledge of higher truth often from vastly profound and awe-inspiring perspective.” Peak experiences also “tend to be uplifting and ego-transcending, releasing creative energies and affirming the meaning and value of existence. Peak experiences give a sense of purpose to the individual and a feeling of integration and they leave a permanent mark on the individual, evidently changing them for the better.” Those who have peak experiences can never be the same again.
According to Mark Link, SJ, the British Bede Griffiths, in his book entitled The Golden String, describes such a remarkable peak experience that took place in his life when he was a schoolboy.
One summer evening, as he was walking outside he became aware of how beautiful the birds were singing. He wondered why he had never heard them sing like this before.
As he continued walking, he saw hawthorn trees in bloom. The trees looked so lovely and their fragrance filled the air. Bede wondered how he had never noticed their beauty or fragrance before.
Finally, Bede reached a playing field. Everything in the field was quiet and still. As he stood there, watching the sun slowly fading into the horizon, he found himself kneeling on the ground. He felt as though God were present there in a most tangible way.
Bede Griffiths writes in his book, “Now that I look back on it, it seems to me it was one of the decisive events of my life.”
Bede Griffith’s experience, Mark Link, SJ believes, gives us a glimpse into what Peter, James and John experienced more than 2,000 years ago when Jesus was transfigured before their eyes.
The transfiguration of Jesus before their eyes was a decisive and pivotal moment in their lives. They began to see him in a totally new perspective.
Peter could never forget the transfiguration of Jesus. He recounts the experience in the following words:
“With our eyes we saw his greatness. We were there when he was given honor and glory by God the Father, when the voice came to him from the Supreme Glory, saying, “This is my own dear Son, with whom I am pleased! We ourselves heard this voice coming from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain.” (2 Peter 1:16-18).
In the transfiguration event, the true divine identity of Jesus was revealed. Jesus was seen as he really is – in his divine glory and splendor as the Son of God. He was shown as the anticipated and messianic fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, as represented by the two great figures of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah with whom Jesus was seen in conversation.
The transfiguration event of Jesus was also a much-needed spiritual shot to encourage and strengthen Jesus as he was on his way to Jerusalem to face his passion and death. The words that Jesus heard at his baptism, of his divine identity as the beloved Son of God, which was attacked by the Devil at the temptation of Jesus on the desert, were the same words heard at the transfiguration: “This is beloved Son in whom I am well please. Listen too him.” Jesus, as it were, needed to be reassured again of his divine identity. He needed to hear the intimate words of his Father before he faced suffering and death in obedience to His will.
On this Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, it is very important to reflect not only on the incident and its significance in the life of Jesus. We need to reflect, among others, how we too can experience transfiguration or transformation in God.
The Gospel of Luke, which is considered a gospel of prayer because of its emphasis on the importance of prayer, makes it very clear from the beginning of the gospel passage that Jesus and the three disciples went to the mountain to pray and it was while Jesus was at prayer that he was transfigured. There is a very important clue here for our transformation in God.
In the Bible the mountain is a place of encounter with God. And in this context of Luke, a mountaintop experience is a moment of transforming encounter with God in prayer.
The Gospel clearly suggests that just as Jesus was transfigured while at pray, we too can experience transformation if only we give ourselves to a sincere life of prayer. Soren Kierkegaard said, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”
On a daily basis, we need a mountaintop experience – an intimate union with God in prayer. We do not need to a real and physical mountain to pray. One’s room can be a mountaintop when we put aside everything to spend time with the Lord in prayer.
In prayer our identity as children of God is revealed. We too hear in the depths of our hearts the voice of the Father telling us that we are His beloved children. We too get a spiritual shot in the arm when we absorb ourselves in prayer, enabling us to face the trials and challenges of life.
The voice of the Father also says, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” If we really desire to be transformed in God, we need to truly listen to Jesus. What is implied here is the challenge of discipleship. A disciple in the Bible is one who listens to the Word of God and does it in his life. Following Jesus in discipleship is the path to transformation in God.
The need to focus on Jesus and to the following of Him is reinforced by Jesus becoming alone. Moses and Elijah appeared talking with him. Magnificent things happened to Jesus. He appeared in glory. But in the end, the heavenly Father wants us to focus not so much on the secondary figures like Moses and Elijah and even on the glorious things that accompanied the event but solely on Jesus. The Father does not want us to be distracted from the sole attention to Jesus and to the following of Him in obedience.
Pope Benedict XVI, who is about to retire, has been called the Pope of the basics. One of the things that he has tried to do is to challenge us to go back to Jesus. One of his legacies as a pope is the completion of his three-volume work of Jesus of Nazareth. Return to Jesus. Go back to Jesus. Know Jesus. Be in love with Jesus. Follow Jesus. Indeed, we cannot but do this as Christians for Jesus is the very reason of our Christian faith. Jesus is the very center of our Christian Faith.
We end with one of my favorite quotations of Pope Benedict on Jesus: “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.”
The word vocation comes from the Latin word “vocare,” which means “to call.” Simply put, a vocation is a calling. And if we recognize that vocation ultimately is from God, then we speak of vocation as God’s calling.
In his book “A Sense of Vocation,” Larry Cochran examines the meaning of a sense of vocation as it is lived in the course of one’s life. He studied more than twenty persons who evidently lived their lives well because of their sense of vocation and mission in life.
In the said book, Cochran identifies certain commonalities found in vocation stories. Vocation is undoubtedly more than an occupation or earning a livelihood. It is more about living your life around a central unifying value, then allowing your life to be driven towards the fulfillment of that central value. Cochran’s book, written from a psychological perspective, is a very good contribution to the existential question of what makes life meaningful.
From the religious and Christian perspective, it is God Who calls and gives mission. Vocation and mission are about being called and being sent by the Lord. The central value around which one lives his life, his vocation and mission ultimately has something to do with God. In fact, God becomes the greatest value of one’s life.
Christian revelation tells us that life has a meaning and a purpose. And these meaning and purpose can never be truly experienced apart from God Who created us and who sustains our lives. Thus, the discovery of one’s vocation and mission in this world is ultimately a religious and spiritual quest. The meaning of life, the discovery of one’s role and place in the world, the living out of one’s vocational calling and mission can never be discovered apart from God and from one’s relationship with Him. One can never find real meaning, purpose and happiness in life until he surrenders himself or herself to God or to a Reality bigger than himself or herself.
This insight has been reaffirmed by the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung in his book Modern Man in Search for a Soul. Carl Jung notes that a third of the people he dealt with in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis were suffering not from clearly definable neurosis but simply from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. The author Ian Fox, commenting on Jung’s discovery, says, “The real crisis is often the inability to find a sense of meaning and purpose in life.” Today’s readings suggest that the sense of meaning and purpose in life is related to the sense of vocation and mission.
Vocation or God’s call is a free and gratuitous Divine’s prerogative. It is God’s initiative to call us for a certain mission in life and it is not dependent on one’s merits and qualifications.
The First Reading tells us of Isaiah’s vocation to be a prophet. Despite his feeling of unworthiness and sinfulness, the Lord purifies Isaiah and transforms his initial resistance into courage to be sent. By the grace of God, Isaiah is able to say: “Here I am, send me.” (Patricia Datchuck Sanchez, The Word We Celebrate, 322).
Like Isaiah in the first reading and Peter in the Gospel, Paul recognizes that his calling to be an apostle is completely the Lord’s initiative and not on the basis of his qualifications. Despite his horrible past of persecuting the Church, Divine grace has called him to give witness to the Risen Lord.
In the Gospel, we also find Peter experiencing a sense of unworthiness and sinfulness in the face of the Lord’s goodness and power. The miraculous catch of fish, after toiling fruitlessly, enables Peter to recognize Jesus’s Divine power.
Before His divine and magnetic goodness and power, one cannot but surrender oneself to the Lord and to His invitation. In the Gospel story, like Isaiah and Paul, Peter allows Jesus to progressively take command of his life. First, Peter lends his boat so Jesus can sit down and, from there, to teach the crowd. Second, he surrenders his obedience to Jesus’s command to put into the deep and to lower his nets for a catch. Third, after seeing the big catch, he allows Jesus to take command of his heart by kneeling down before Him to express his unworthiness and sinfulness. Fourth, he allows Jesus to replace his trade of being a fisherman with the vocation of being a fisher of men. Finally, he allows Jesus to take complete command of his whole life by deciding to leave everything and to follow the Lord. Indeed, when the Lord calls, He also allows us to grow in our commitment to Him and to the mission. Embracing one’s vocation from God entails growing in our relationship with Him and in our commitment to whatever mission He has given us.
This year’s 5th Sunday is also declared as Pro-Life Sunday. As Christians, we are called and sent by the Lord to proclaim the Gospel to all peoples. This Gospel is a Gospel of Life. It promotes, respects and defends life in all its forms and in at all its stages. It upholds the sacredness of life from the moment of conception to death. The Church strongly believes that the gospel of life is at the very heart of the message of the Good News of our Lord.
In 1995 Blessed Pope John Paul II issued the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae or the Gospel of Life. In the face of unprecedented threats to life in the names of economic progress, ethical relativism, misguided medical science, personal freedom and free choice and the spread of a “culture of death,” the Holy Father released the said document “to proclaim the good news of the value and dignity of each human life, of its grandeur and worth, also in its temporal phase.” He asserted that life is both a gospel and a human cause that has been entrusted to the Church.
The Church’s teaching on life, according to Blessed John Paul II, is “in substance ‘a precise and vigorous reaffirmation of the value of human life and its inviolability,’ and also “a pressing appeal addressed to each and every person in the name of God: Respect, protect, love and serve life, every human life! Only in this direction will you find justice, development, true freedom, peace and happiness” (Evangelium Vitae, 5).
As Christians, we are called and sent to defend the sacredness and dignity of life “especially when life is weak and defenseless at its very beginning and at its very end.” Procured and direct abortion, immoral experimentation of human embryos and euthanasia are to be denounced as crimes against life and against the Lord, the author of life.
Life, in all its forms and at whatever stage, is sacred because “it is a gift from the Creator, Who breathed into the man the Divine breath thus making the human person the image of God.”
As a precious and fragile gift, life is entrusted to man’s responsibility. Because life ultimately belongs to God, it is sacred and inviolable from its beginning until its natural end. Life is from the Lord and it can never be disposed of at any person’s whim. The document Evangelium Vitae, based on the book of Genesis (9:5), strongly affirms that “the Lord will demand an accounting for human life.” Thus, life is not only to be promoted and defended; the culture of death in different forms has also to be denounced and resisted.
In 2009, I discovered that worldwide there were approximately 42 Million abortions per year, 115,000 abortions per day. In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed in the US. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions occurred. In the Philippines there were some 400,000 to 500,000 abortions in 2005. Seventy percent of unwanted pregnancies in the Philippines end in abortion. Fr. Frank Pavone, the National Director of Priests for Life in the US, asserts, based on their investigations: “There is nothing in the world that destroys more human life than abortion — nothing at all, no crime, no disease, no natural disaster, no war.”
Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. Sec. 12, Art. II of the Philippine Constitution pronounces that “the State shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.” The provision is very clear. We must protect as much as possible both the life of the mother and the life of the child.
The Philippine Constitution, in principle, is clearly pro-life. I think we can boldly say that the Church, Pro-life Movements, organizations and individuals in the Philippines, in defending the sacredness of life, are not only defending the Gospel of the Lord; they are also defending the Philippine Constitution.
His Eminence Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, in his homily at the Funeral Mass for Sr. Mary Pilar L. Verzosa, RGS, Foundress of the Pro-Life Movement in the Philippines, on September 12, 2012, called Sr. Pilar as someone with a heart filled with zeal and passion. She found her special vocation and mission in promoting the gospel of life and resisting the culture of death. True to her name, Mary Pilar, she remained steadfast till the end, which, according to the Cardinal, is reminiscent of the Nuestra Senora del Pilar’s encouragement to St. James: “My Son sent you on a mission, get up and be strong.” The Cardinal continued that Sr. Mary Pilar took her patroness, Nuestra Senora del Pilar, seriously.
Indeed, Sr. Mary Pilar, Pro-Life advocate, took her God-given vocation and mission seriously and lovingly and found the meaning and purpose of her life on earth. May we also experience the same.
On this Pro-Life Sunday, we end with the last words of Cardinal Tagle addressed to Sr. Mary Pilar Verzosa, RGS and on behalf of all those whose lives have been desecrated due to abortions, senseless killings and other forms of disrespect for life: “We thank you, we salute you and we will continue celebrating life the way you did. And may your wish be granted to give your life to follow the Good Shepherd, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
Santuario de San Antonio Parish 