Tag: Robert Manansala

The Servant of God Catherine de Hueck, Foundress of the Madonna House Apostolate, once said: “A bell is not a bell till you ring it. A song is no song till you sing it. The love in your heart was not put there to stay. Love is not love till you give it away.”

Roy B. Zuck tells us that in describing the first century Christians to the Roman Emperor Hadrian, Aristides said, “They love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who will hurt them. If they have something, they give freely to the man who has nothing. If they see a stranger, they ask him home and are happy, as though he were a real brother. They don’t consider themselves brothers and sisters in the usual sense, but brothers and sisters instead through the Spirit, in God.”

Indeed, love is not just an emotion; it is a decision and an action. Love is willing, seeking, pursuing and sacrificing for the good of the other. Love is the giving of oneself for the well-being of the beloved. For love to be genuine and effective, it has to be practical love. It has to be love that is shown in action, as the early Christians showed the world.

That love must be shown in action is one of the important points of Jesus in the gospel reading today. “Whoever loves me will keep my word… Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”

St. Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives some qualities of love. He says, “Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not envious, it is not boastful, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” What a beautiful description of love! To be added to this list of qualities of love on the basis of gospel passage, I suggest, is obedience. Love is obedient.

In our contemporary world that emphasizes personal freedom and personal expression, some people may not like love being obedient, especially in the sense of blind obedience. Love must be free and it must be free to obey.

That love must be obedient will make a lot of sense if we take note that the Latin root word of obedience is “obedire,” which means, “to pay attention to, to give ear, literally, to listen to.” Obedience, its Latin root word tells us, has something to do with listening. A love that is obedient knows how to listen.

Many psychologists and spiritual writers tell us that listening is an act of love. Listening is loving and great listeners are great lovers. Indeed, listening must take the big portion of the art of communication and interaction.


Listening as an act of love demands that we pay respectful attention to the other. We empty ourselves of our self-preoccupations and interests so that we can provide a sacred space, especially in the heart, for the other to be and to express himself or herself. We try to see things from the perspective of the other and not just from our point of view. Then, we act and respond accordingly and lovingly. Indeed, there can never be genuine obedience without loving and respectful listening. We do not really love if we do not know how to listen to people we say we love.

Listening involves a lot of self-sacrifice and a dying to oneself, to one’s ego and often to the self-righteous obsession to be heard. Listening involves being more concerned about the other than about oneself.

Nowadays, the art of listening has become so difficult. Even some family members do not know how to listen to one another. Many husbands and wives quarrel a lot because they do not know how to listen to one another. Parents and children misunderstand each other because of lack of true listening in their communication. We experience so many quarrels and so much misunderstanding because of the break down in communication, especially in listening.

In response to the question, “Why is it more difficult to listen these days?” somebody answered, “Because of all our high technology, and also because there is so much narcissism in today’s society. People tend to want to hear ‘all about me,’ not the other person.”

It is very clear from the gospels that love is the fundamental message of Jesus. And Jesus challenges us to a demanding and self-sacrificing love. The gospel today tells us that only those who follow the Lord’s sacrificial example and obey his directives can be said to truly love.

In fact, more than a requirement for love, obedience is more a consequence of it. Because we love, therefore we listen and obey. If we as disciples truly love Jesus, we will truly listen to Jesus and obey and act on his commandments. In the gospels, a disciple is one who listens to and acts on the word or will of God.

Aside from themes of obedience and listening as an act of loving Jesus, in the gospel passage today, also talks about the giving of the Holy Spirit and the gift of peace. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you…Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.” How do we connect these different themes?

The Holy Spirit given to us is divine love, divine life, divine indwelling. When we truly allow the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, the Holy Spirit leads us to live with all the compassion and mercy, love and obedience, care and concern that exist within the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit teaches us to surrender ourselves to God’s life within us and prompts obedience to what God asks of us and opens us to receive the peace only God can give.

The peace that we receive is not just the absence of conflict, but the fruit of the Holy Spirit within us. Peace, in the Bible, has something to do with having good and right relationships with God, with others and with oneself. When we truly manifest obedient love, a kind of love that really listens to God and others, and when we truly allow the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, then peace arises as a gift from the Lord. Indeed, peace is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and an offshoot of obedient love that listens, respects, dialogues and cares.

Someone describes Christian love in the following words:

“Christian love is silence when your words would hurt. It is patience when your neighbors are mean. It is thoughtfulness for another’s problems. It is promptness when a stern duty calls. It is courage when misfortune falls.”

Still another person speaks of Christian love in this way:

Christian love is slow to suspect… quick to trust. Slow to condemn… quick to justify. Slow to offend… quick to defend. Slow to reprimand… quick to forbear. Slow to provoke… quick to conciliate. Slow to hinder… quick to help. Slow to resent… quick to forgive.

Indeed, love is an action. What kind of actions do we show and do to manifest the love that we say we have in our hearts?

About Fr. Robert and his reflections

Roy B. Zuck tells us the main reason why so many healings and recoveries happen at the Menninger Clinic, a leading inpatient psychiatric hospital located in Topeka, Kansas, USA. We take note that the well-known Catholic priest, psychologist, spiritual writer Henri Nouwen did a fellowship and studied clinical psychology at the said hospital.

The work of the Menninger Clinic, according to Zuck, is organized around love. Everyone in the clinic – “from the top psychiatrist down to the electricians and caregivers” – must show love. All contacts with patients must manifest love that is unlimited.

At some point in the history of the clinic, hospitalization was cut in half. Zuck shares about a patient who for three years sat in her rocking chair and never said a word to anyone. The patient was brought to the clinic. The doctor called and instructed a nurse, “Mary, I am giving you Mrs. Brown as your patient. All I’m asking you to do is to love her till she gets well.” The nurse tried the instruction with great dedication. “She got a rocking chair of the same kind as Mrs. Brown’s, sat alongside her, and loved her morning, noon and night.” Amazing results began to happen. According to Zuck, “The third day the patient spoke, and in a week she was out of her shell and well.”

Karl Augustus Menninger, an American psychiatrist and a member of the Menninger family of psychiatrists who founded the Menninger Foundation and the Menninger Clinic, loved to say, among others: “Love cures people – both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.” “What’s done to children, they will do to society.”

If love is that powerful even from the psychological point of view, we can understand why Jesus preached about love as the greatest commandment. In the end, love, i.e., practical love, does not only release human transforming energies and power; it reflects the very reality of God. God is love, the Scriptures tell us. And someone said, “He who loves touches the face of God.”

One of the most admired saints in the Church is St. Therese of the Child Jesus. St. Therese entered the Carmelite Monastery in Lisieux, France at the age of 15 and died at the age of 24, after having lived as a cloistered Carmelite for less than ten years. She never went on foreign missions, never established a religious order, never performed extraordinary works. Her only book, published after her death, was a brief edited version of her journal entitled “Story of a Soul.” But within 28 years of her death, she was canonized saint.

Like all of us, St. Therese struggled to find the meaning and vocation of her life. “Why am I here?” “What is the purpose and meaning of my life?” “What is my vocation in the Church and in this world?” “What does God really want from me?” By the grace of God and through her cooperation with God’s grace, St. Therese was able to discover the meaning and vocation of her life. She said: “Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times and places…in a word, that it was eternal! Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love…my vocation, at last I have found it…My vocation is Love!”

St. Therese was expressing what the Church document Lumen Gentium would later on categorically state: “Everyone, by virtue of baptism is called to holiness… and holiness consists in the perfection of charity or love.”

Indeed, holiness, according to the example and spirit of St. Therese, does not necessary consist in doing spectacular things, but in the love with which even very simple things are done. Once she said, “I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul.”

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who embodied the spirit of St. Therese, would also say, “I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, ‘How many good things have you done in your life?’ rather he will ask, ‘How much love did you put into what you did?… Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”

Although sometimes we say, “Love is not enough,’ we can never underestimate the transforming and healing power of love, for to do so is to underestimate God Himself who is love.

In the passage today, we hear a portion of the farewell discourse of Jesus in John. We believe the parting words of a dying man or someone who is about to go to a far place and who may never be seen again are extremely important. They tell us what are most important to the person. They reveal to us what the person desires to be a continuing legacy to be passed on to others or, perhaps, to be handed down even to the next generations.

Jesus says in his farewell discourse, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The commandment to love is actually already found in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus of the Old Testament. Jesus, in the New Testament, summarizes all the commandments and precepts into the love of God and neighbors. So, what does Jesus mean when he says he is giving a new commandment? Why is this commandment called “new”? What is new about it that distinguishes it from the many other places in the Bible, both the Old and the New Testament, where people are told to love one another?

There are two features of the commandment that make it new. First, a new and unprecedented model in loving others is given to the disciples. Loving others is no longer just based on the standard of loving others as one loves oneself. The love of Jesus is now the new standard and model. “Just as I have loved you, you should love one another.”

Jesus loved his disciples to the end, as John also tells us. This “loving to the end” may be translated to “loving to the uttermost.” Jesus loved his disciples with a boundless and unconditional love that was ready to give oneself even to the point of death on the cross. Thus, in Jesus the disciples had a concrete, powerful and authentic expression of what love really is. Love is no longer just a matter of emotions. Love is the giving of oneself for the good of the other no matter what and without counting the costs.

Second, the love of Jesus for his disciples has not only provided a new paradigm or model. It has also inaugurated a new era. Jesus’s coming into the world and his life characterized by sacrificial love has opened up an radically new and different situation, in which eternal life has become not only a future possibility but a concrete reality in the present. Indeed, anyone who loves according to the example of Jesus no longer lives in the dark; he now lives in the true light, which is God who is love.

At the center of this new era is the community established by Jesus on the basis of his love for them and their love for one another in the manner of Jesus. Jesus has established a new community mandated to make Jesus present and recognized by the way they love one another. Jesus will be recognized in our midst if we love as he did. When we love with a Christ-like love, then we make Jesus present in our midst and we are recognized as his real disciples.

The Passionist Biblical scholar and former Catholic Theological Union President Donald Senior says that this new commandment of Jesus, “this deep, faithful and abiding love – love in the manner of Christ’s own infinite love for us” is “the very heart of his teaching” and “the true hallmark of the Christian.”

St. John of the Cross, the great Carmelite master of mysticism, said, “At the end of our lives we will be judged on love.” Indeed, in the end, this is what really matters – to truly receive the love of God in our lives and to lead lives of love of God and others in response to this divine love.

May we end with a letter of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Yesterday, after the Anticipated Mass at the Pacific Plaza I saw a letter of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta addressed to our own very active parishioner, parish leader and singer, Tita Babeng Abella or Mrs. Isabel A. Abella. On February 14, 1988, Blessed Mother Teresa wrote a personal and handwritten letter to Tita Babeng in response to her invitation as CWL President to some kind of a gathering here in the parish. With Tita Babeng’s permission, I share Blessed Mother Teresa’s letter with you, which can now be considered a relic. The letter said:

Dear Mrs. Isabel A. Abella:

Thank you very much for your kind letter and invitation. I am very sorry I will not be able to accept your invitation – but I will pray for you and your parish – that you may grow in the love of God through Mary and by loving each other as God loves each of you.

Let us pray.

God bless you,

Sr. Teresa

In 1988, Blessed Mother Teresa made a promise to pray for Tita Babeng and the parish. We can be sure that she continues to do that in heaven – that we may grow in the love of God through Mary and by loving each other as God loves each of us.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!

About Fr. Robert and his reflections

Some days ago, the newspapers carried the Social Weather Stations survey results indicating that in the Philippines, on a national scale, religious affiliation to the Catholic Church has gone down from 85% in 1991 to 81% in 2013 and church attendance among Catholics has dramatically declined from 64% to 37% in the same time period. The said SWS survey results contain other findings, but, I think, these two matters of religious affiliation and church attendance are the most important.

I do not know your reactions to the results of the said survey, but we know that the results have generated a lot of controversies. Some have agreed with the results; others, including some church leaders, have tried to debunk them.

What is my personal reaction to the survey results? Listening to the readings for this Third Sunday Easter vis-à-vis the SWS survey results and the attendant reactions has given me a new challenge – and that is the need for the renewal of our witness and of our efforts in doing our share in the task of integral evangelization or of bringing the good news of the Lord. Put it this way, whether the SWS survey results are accurate or not, we should be challenged to renew our zeal and efforts in being credible and effective “fishers of men and women.” I think this is the main challenge of the readings, especially of the gospel, today.

Why do I say that we should be challenged by the survey results? I lived, ministered, served and studied in a number of countries for a span of 9 years before returning to the Philippines in 2010 and I have personally seen these dwindling religious affiliation and church attendance in some of them. I saw a former church in England converted into a restaurant. One very rich man in Amsterdam, The Netherlands bought an unused church and transformed it into his private palace. Some dioceses have preferred to burn decommissioned churches down instead of allowing these to be later used for very secular and even sacrilegious purposes. While in some churches where I said Masses, the attendance was encouraging, in others all I saw were the reliable old people.

In a world becoming more and more globalized, these dwindling religious affiliation and church attendance can indeed take place in the Philippines, if they have not yet taken place. Thus, the SWS survey results should encourage and challenge us to begin again and to recommit ourselves to the call of being “fishers of people.” This is a challenge not only to us religious and church leaders, but to all of us baptized Christians. Brothers and sisters, we are the Church, not only the Pope, bishops, priests and religious, although we have a big responsibility in the Church.

There is a story about a mother who was trying to help prepare charity goods and religious items to be sent to a far-flung mission country. Her four-year old son insisted on making an offering of his own, a little leaflet titled, “Come to Jesus.”

The young boy wrote his name on the leaflet with the little prayer, “May the one who gets this soon learn to love Jesus.” When the child’s leaflet reached the mission country, it landed in the hands of a non-Christian teacher.

The teacher took the leaflet without looking at it. Upon reaching home, he thought of the leaflet, took it out and read the writing on the outside.

The little child’s prayer so touched him that he got interested to know about the Christian faith. Later he requested to be baptized and became a great evangelizer of his own people.

We have here a young boy becoming an evangelizer and a missionary in his own little way. As baptized Christians, we are called not only to follow the Lord Jesus but also to share Him with or to bring Him to others, starting with our families – in our own ways and according to our life circumstances. There is a need for us to transition from being disciples or followers of Jesus to being apostles or to being sent to others in order to make them disciples of the Lord as well.

The gospel passage today shows Jesus unrecognized by a group of disciples when he appears to them for the third time. They have been fishing all night, but their efforts are fruitless or to no avail until Jesus appears to them and gives them directions on how they should conduct their fishing. The disciples follow the directions of Jesus and then, amazed by the sight of a big catch, the beloved disciple John recognizes, “It is the Lord.”

We have here a case of obedience preceding fruitfulness and recognition. It is in obedience to Jesus that the efforts of the disciples become fruitful and it is in the same obedience that they recognize it is the Lord.

On their own and relying only on their own efforts, the disciples can do nothing; with Jesus, things change. Fruitless fishing turns into a big catch. Without God in our lives, we are nothing. Without God in our efforts, we are bound to fail, to get disoriented, to be fruitless. As followers of Jesus, we cannot just rely on our selves and on own efforts. We must allow the Lord to really be with us and to accompany us, to be the center of our lives and of our efforts, to be obedient to Him and to His words, teachings and example and to do things according to his will and directions. Thus, the first challenge of renewed evangelization is to renewed conversion to the Lord, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote in Porta Fidei.

Indeed, it is only in loving obedience to the Lord that we truly discover Him and that we become fruitful disciples of Him. Albert Schweitzer makes this point in his book The Quest for the Historical Jesus. He says: “Jesus comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, he came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow me!’ and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall in they own experience who he is.”

Aside from loving obedience that helps us to recognize the Lord, the quality of love for the Lord is also fundamental. In a number of instances, the beloved disciple John is always the first one to recognize the Lord. When we love, we are able to see things that others may not see. Sometimes we hear people say, “Why do you love this person? What do you see in him or in her?” Others may not understand precisely because they do not see what the one who loves sees. In terms of relationship with the Lord, someone said, “When we love, we touch the face of God.” Those who truly love the Lord see and reflect God’s face. And when we truly love the Lord, we embrace His mission wholeheartedly. We always see new opportunities and horizons instead of walls and roadblocks to advance and spread this love of Jesus.

This fishing incident appearance of Jesus also highlights the universal mission of the followers of Christ. The success of the efforts of the disciples guided by the Lord is described in terms of a big catch of 153 fish. This number is obviously a symbolic figure. St. Jerome has given us the best interpretation of the meaning of the number. According to him, Greek zoologists had classified 153 species of fish. Patricia Datchuck Sanchez, commenting on St. Jerome’s discovery, says: “As disciples mandated by the risen Lord the disciples were sent to bring to salvation all peoples (all species) regardless of race, religion or heritage. The fact that the net resisted tearing or breaking attests to the all-embracing nature and capacity of the Reign of the Kingdom of God.”

The Lord does not only commission the disciples to be “fishers of men.” He also assures them of his support, nourishment and sustenance. In the passage we find Jesus welcoming the disciples and providing them a breakfast of fish and bread. This meal breakfast has clear allusions to the Eucharistic banquet.

The experience of the Lord in the Eucharist sends us on a mission in the world. Then, we go back to the Eucharist to be again strengthened by the Lord’s presence in the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, our Lord becomes our Divine Host and our Food and Drink, our nourishment, as we continue our journey as followers of the Lord in the world. Indeed, the Eucharist is our Food for the journey.

Finally, we find the rehabilitation of Peter and the verification of the love of the Lord by the love and care of others. Earlier in the gospel, Peter had denied Jesus three times. In the risen Jesus three-fold question to Peter, “Do you love me?,” and in Peter’s three-fold affirmation of his love, Peter is reinstated or rehabilitated.

This rehabilitation of Peter does not only remind us that the Lord gives us so many chances and new beginnings even after we have committed terrible mistakes and faults. It also reminds that those who claim to love Jesus must take care of His sheep, of His lamb. They must love and take care of others. If indeed we love the Lord and others, we bring the Lord to them and we bring others to the Lord.

Our beloved Pope Francis I, shortly after his election, said: “We are called to follow in his footsteps. To step outside ourselves so as to attend to the needs of others; those who long for a sympathetic ear, those in need of comfort or help. We should not simply remain in our own secure world, that of the ninety-nine sheep who never strayed from the fold. But we should go out, with Christ, in search of the one lost sheep, however far it may have wandered. Going out in search of others so as to bring them the light and the joy of our faith in Christ.”

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI also said: “Being tepid is the greatest danger for Christians…We pray that faith becomes like a fire in us and that it will set alight others.”

St. Francis of Assisi, as he was dying, after long years of dedicated service to the Lord and the Church and of living and preaching the gospel faithfully and radically, told his followers, “Brothers, let us begin again for until now we have done very little.”

Whether the SWS survey results are true and accurate or not, brothers and sisters, let us begin again for until now we have done very little.

About Fr. Robert and his reflections

A story is told about a preacher who began his sermon by saying: “Brothers and sisters, here you are coming to pray for rain. I’d just like to ask you some questions. Where are your umbrellas? Do you have some doubts that the Lord will answer our prayers? Don’t you have faith in the power of God?”

The expression “Doubting Thomas” has been used to refer to a skeptic who does not want to believe without direct personal and even empirical and physical evidence. It is in reference to the Apostle Thomas who refused to believe that Jesus had risen and had appeared to the disciples, until he could see and touch the wounds that Jesus had received on the cross.

While it was indeed true that Thomas doubted, he did not persist in his doubts. In fact, he uttered the greatest expression of faith in the Gospels and even in the entire Bible: “My Lord and my God.” More than a declaration of faith in the event of the Resurrection, this sublime expression was an act of adoration before the Divine Son of God risen from the dead.

The transition from a Doubting Thomas to a Believing Thomasshould be consoling for us. This reminds us that people can change. People can experience transformation. Thus, we can never put people in a box and condemn them to stagnation or to helplessness. The Lord is risen and the power of the resurrection is available to all of us. Perhaps, all that is needed is a small opening for the Lord and we can never be the same again.

How did this transformation of Thomas happen? What did Jesus do so that Thomas would not persist in his disbelief? What did the other disciples contribute to this transformation?

The gospel passage today is composed of two resurrection appearances of Jesus: first to the disciples who were locked in a room on Easter evening when Thomas was absent and the second, a week later, to the same group of disciples but with Thomas present.

We do not know why Thomas was absent in the first appearance of Jesus. We can only make some conjectures. Like the other disciples, he must have been deeply affected by what had happened to Jesus in Jerusalem – the crucifixion and death of the Master. His hopes in Jesus must have crumbled into pieces and perhaps he felt he needed to attend to his wounds and frustrations just by himself. Whatever was the reason for Thomas’s absence when Jesus first appeared to the band of disciples, a very important lesson can be learned from this incident.

Thomas, as a result, missed the risen Jesus when he first appeared. Of course, there is a time for us to be alone, but sometimes we can miss a lot when we isolate ourselves from our families and communities, whether intentionally or by mere negligence on our part. Some opportunities are lost because we are, for example, always late, we do not show up when we should be present, when we prefer to be lone rangers and not to walk with others. When we withdraw ourselves from others, we do not only deprive others of our gift of presence; we also become the ultimate losers of what our presence in and with the community can actually bring.

The succeeding gesture of the other disciples in the story is very significant. The gospel tells us that the other disciples told him that they had seen the Lord. How were the other disciples able to tell Thomas about the appearance of the Risen Lord? They must have searched for him. The other disciples could not contain the news of the appearance of Jesus just for themselves. They had seen the Lord and they had believed and they must share this with Thomas so that he too could believe at least on the basis of their testimony.
Fr. Francis Fernandez says: “That’s what we have to do also. For many men and women, Christ is, as it were, dead, because he hardly means a thing to them. He counts for almost nothing in their lives. Our faith in the Risen Christ impels us to go to those people, to tell them in a thousand different ways that Christ is alive, that we unite ourselves to him by faith and love every day, that he guides and gives meaning to our lives.”

While we have to do what we need to do, we must also recognize that ultimately faith is a gift that can only come from God. The gospel tells us that Thomas was not convinced by the testimony and efforts of the other disciples. He wanted to see Jesus for himself. In fact, he wanted to see physical proofs that Jesus had indeed risen. But what the other disciples did was still very important. It was all part of the journey of Thomas from disbelief to great faith in the Risen Lord.

Then, we witness that the concern of Jesus was not only for the disciples as a collective group; it was also very personal and particular. A week later, Jesus appeared again to the disciples in the presence of the doubting and skeptical Thomas. Jesus extended the same greeting of peace that he had extended to the other disciples. He showed him the same forgiveness, peace and mercy that he had shown to the other disciples: no recrimination, no blame, no accusation. In fact, he accommodated Thomas’s demand for a physical proof of his resurrection.

We do not know if Thomas did poke his finger into the wounds of Jesus. Thomas, after hearing the words of Jesus inviting him to physically probe his wounds, he already uttered, “My Lord and my God.” The very presence of the Risen Jesus, more than the physical proofs, was more than enough for Thomas to believe and adore Jesus.

Thomas transitioned from being a Doubting Thomas to a Believing Thomas because his fellow disciples did not abandon him in his incredulity and, more importantly, because Jesus did not give up on him. Jesus in His Divine Mercy and Love for all his Disciples, both as a community and as individuals, went back to appear again for the sake of Thomas. We can say that more than the physical proof of the Risen Lord’s presence, what brought Thomas to believe was the compassionate, loving, merciful, forgiving and persistent presence that the Risen Jesus showed him and the other disciples. Just as Jesus had done this in his earthly presence, he continued to do the same in His Risen presence.

There is something extremely important here to learn in the way we deal with those who are doubting and faltering in their faith. In fact, with anyone who may be experiencing some difficulty. Jesus showed so much mercy, compassion and patience. He reached out to his disciples where they were at the moment. Then, slowly he raised them up – encouraging them, strengthening them and even challenging them on the way.

Thus, in the Gospel, Jesus also presented a kind of faith that is not based on any physical witness of his presence. “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.” We have not seen the Lord in a way the Apostles and other contemporary disciples of Jesus saw him and yet we believe. We believe by faith and not by sight.

Indeed, in the realm of Christian faith, more than “To see is to believe,” it is “To believe is to see.” We believe by faith in our hearts and we see as God sees and as we must see.

The journey of faith, according to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, is a journey of a life time, a journey that starts at baptism and last until we reach our final destiny with God forever. It is consoling to know that the Risen Jesus continues to journey with us. He can never abandon us. With Thomas the Apostle, may each of us continue to see and experience the Lord of Divine Mercy with the eyes of faith and the heart of love and hope, believing and proclaiming that he is indeed “My Lord and my God.”

About Fr. Robert and his reflections

The story is told of a young French soldier who deserted Napoleon’s army but who, within a matter of hours, was caught by his own troops. To discourage soldiers from abandoning their posts the penalty for desertion was death. The young soldier’s mother heard what had happened and went to plead with Napoleon to spare the life of her son. Napoleon heard her plea but pointed out that because of the serious nature of the crime her son had committed he clearly did not deserve mercy.

The mother answered, “I know my son does not deserve mercy. It would not be mercy if he deserved it.”

That is the point about mercy: nobody deserves it. Everyone deserves justice; mercy, on the other hand, is sheer gift. Mercy does not suggest that the guilty are not guilty; it recognizes the guilt but it does not demand an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth satisfaction for the wrong. In all this, mercy reflects the utter graciousness of the one who has been wronged.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday we ask ourselves, “What exactly is Divine Mercy?” Allow me to reflect with you on the Biblical meaning of Divine Mercy?

In the Old Testament there are three words that are usually translated as mercy: hesed, rachamin and hen or hanan. Hesed means “steadfast covenant love.” When the Hebrew hesed is used to refer to God, it is in connection with the covenant that God freely established with Israel as a gift. The word rachamin means “tender and compassionate love” or simply “compassion.” Coming from the root word “rechem,” the word means a “mother’s womb.” The connotation is clear: there is a special intimacy and concrete responsiveness about this kind of love, and a special concern for the sufferings of others. Hen/hanan, which means “grace” or “favor”, refers to mercy as a free gift that is dependent solely on the giver.

In the New Testament, the Greek word for mercy is “eleos”. We use this word when we pray or sing, “Kyrie eleioson, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison,” “Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy, Lord, have mercy.” This Greek word can be translated as “loving kindness” or “tender compassion.” It is interesting to note that the root word of the word “eleos” means oil that is poured out. So when we sing or pray “Lord, have mercy,” we literally say or pray, “Lord, pour out your oil of loving kindness or tender compassion upon us.”

In Latin the word for mercy is misericordia, which literally means “miserable heart.” Fr. George Kosicki says the meaning of misericordia is “having a pain in your heart for the pains of another, and taking pains to do something about their pain.” We can also say a merciful heart is one that feels miserable in the face of the miseries of others.

In summary, on the basis of these meanings and insights from the Bible we can say that Divine Mercy refers to God’s gratuitous or freely given and compassionate love for his people, especially for his people in pain and in misery of all types, manifested in concrete saving acts of grace. These saving acts definitely include, but are not limited to, the forgiveness of sins. According to our beloved Pope John Paul II of holy memory, the Pope of Divine Mercy, Divine Mercy is the greatest attribute of God and love’s second name.

In Jesus Christ– in his incarnation, life, ministry, passion, death and resurrection – we see the incomparable and tangible personification of the great depths of God’s merciful love for us. Jesus is Divine Mercy personified. The Incarnation and Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus have shown the world to what extent God could go to show His Divine Mercy. God in Jesus has gone as far as Bethlehem and Calvary to pour out His oil of merciful and compassionate love upon us – giving Himself without reservation even to the point of death. Indeed, “there is no greater love than this to offer one’s life for one’s friends.”

The gospel text that I have chosen for our reading and reflection on this Divine Mercy Sunday is the Lukan rendition of the Matthean command of Jesus for us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. While in Matthew we have “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” Luke has “Be merciful or compassionate, just as your Father is merciful or compassionate.” Comparing the two gospel lines makes it very clear that God’s perfection has something to do with His unconditional and boundless love, compassion and mercy for all his children, good and bad alike. God the Father is perfect because His love is complete, embracing everyone including, if not especially, the sinners, the poor and the miserable. As God’s children, we are to imitate the Father in this way of loving mercy. The perfection of God consists in his being merciful, and our perfection consists in imitating the merciful Father.

Divine Mercy is something that we often find very hard to understand, to comprehend and even to accept precisely because divine behavior does not match our judgments, our ways, and our dealings. “Our ways are not God’s ways, and His ways are not our ways.”

As human beings we tend to thrive on getting even. We tend to thrive on vengeance. To hate those who hate us. To strike those who strike us. To consider enemies those who consider us enemies. To condemn the sinners who are not like us. Because this is often the way we are and what we do; we find it very hard not only to be challenged by God to be and to do the exact opposite, to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, to pray for those who abuse us. Worse is that we want God to behave in the same way we behave. We find it hard to allow God to deal with us in a way that is different from the way we deal with ourselves and one another. We find it hard to allow God to deal with us and with others in His own way, according to His merciful love. We often want God to think and act the way we think and the way we act. Divine mercy is just too much for us.

The private revelation given by the Lord Jesus to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska has been intended to draw the world to the fullness of the public revelation of the Father’s immeasurable, unconditional and merciful love for us in and through his Son Jesus. While there is no new revelatory message that the Divine Mercy Devotion is telling us that has not been revealed in Jesus, what it does is to remind us of this great divine attribute of mercy.

Based on the Lord’s revelation to St. Maria Faustina we can say that there are at least three challenges for us related to the Divine Mercy Devotion: First, to truly and worthily, by way of a converted heart, recognize and receive God’s undeserved gift of divine mercy and to trust in him and in his mercy; second, to devoutly celebrate and propagate this gift of divine mercy through rites of devotion and spiritual practices; and, third, to concretely live, practice and share God’s mercy with others, especially with those who need it most.

Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, one of the first things that we dare to do is to acknowledge the mercy of God and our need for it. “Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy.” We do this because we want to be soaked and baptized with the divine mercy so that we can experience the miracle of God’s mercy and share the same divine mercy shown to us. Indeed, to reject divine mercy and to refuse the same mercy to someone else is the ultimate mortal sin. In so doing, we are obstructing the saving, loving and forgiving intervention of God in our lives and in others.

Someone has said that Christ cannot exist in any place where there is no mercy because He is mercy personified. Thus the gospel, especially in the scene of the Last Judgment, makes it very clear that mercy will be the quality on which the Christian will ultimately be judged. Traditionally, the Church, in her wisdom has handed down the dictates of divine mercy in the gospel in terms of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. In short, how do we become embodiment of God’s divine mercy as shown in and through Jesus Christ? How is mercy concretized? Mercy becomes concrete when we do the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Mercy becomes concrete when we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, visit those imprisoned and bury the dead. Mercy becomes concrete when we admonish sinners, instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, comfort the sorrowful, bear wrongs patiently, forgive injuries, and pray for the living and the dead. I am sure more can be added to these traditional lists of corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
I was still a young seminarian when The Divine Mercy Devotion started to become popular in the Philippines.

In the mid-1980’s, in the midst of political turmoil that beset the country under the Marcos Dictatorship, our Bishops, under the leadership of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin, asked the Filipino people to turn as a nation to the Divine Mercy through a daily nationwide prayer of the Three O’clock Hour of Mercy prayers and the chaplet. We pleaded and begged the Lord for a peaceful and just resolution of the national conflict. In February 1986 a miraculous non-violent revolution did take place, and democracy was restored to our country. God showed his Divine Mercy upon us as a suffering people.

On this Second Sunday of Easter let us once again consecrate ourselves, our families, our parish, our Universal Church, our nation and the entire world, especially our brothers and sisters in miserable pain of different types, to the Mercy of God. And may this celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday help us to truly receive God’s mercy, so that the mercy shown to us is the same mercy we show to others.

About Fr. Robert and his reflections

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.”

About Fr. Robert and his reflections

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.

About Fr. Robert and his reflections