RIP: Fr. Anscar Chupungco, OSB

The Feast of the Translacion of the Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno this year was marked by the passing away of Rev. Fr. Anscar Chupungco, OSB. Known as a very prominent Liturgist, Fr. Anscar has influenced the Church in the Philippines with regards the liturgical reform and inculturation. He served as Rector of the Liturgical Institute of San Anselmo in Rome for many years. He also founded the Paul VI Institute of Liturgy in the Philippines and also the Graduate School of Liturgy in San Beda College, Manila. He was part of the ICEL group that made the English Translation of the Roman Missal which is now replaced by a new English Translation. His passing marks the closing of an era for liturgical reform in the Philippines. I hope and pray that his passing will bring about a new era of liturgical reform in the Philippines which is closer to the spirit of the reform envisioned by the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI.

That in all things God may be glorified. Rest in peace, Fr. Anscar.

Late Posting of Christmas Meditation

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

“What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The birth of the Son of God made man occurred in the middle of the night and so the darkness seemed to have obscured this great mystery that has come into the world. However, the great multitude of heavenly hosts filled the skies with heavenly light to announce to the world that on this day is born him who is called the Christ and Lord. Christmas day has come upon us and as light fills the morning skies, the mystery is revealed to us: The Word, who in the beginning was with God and is God, is now made flesh and he dwells among us. God the Son comes to give life. He is the Light that shines in the darkness and no matter how thick the darkness was, He was never overcome by it. He who is born today says: “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (Jn. 8:12) If we listen to him and follow him, we will never walk in darkness. Why? It is because his light, his glory is filled with grace and truth. He is the Light because he is the Truth. He is the Light because he is the Life. His light is both Truth and Life.

So many people today undermine the Lord who is born for us. Many people pretend to be enlightened as they oppose the teachings of Christ. I remember a senator who told the Church, “Do not pray for our enlightenment because we have already been enlightened…that is why we support the RH Bill.” Last night, the Holy Father spoke of the way we reject Christ who knocks at the door of our intellect:  “Does God actually have a place in our thinking? Our process of thinking is structured in such a way that he simply ought not to exist. Even if he seems to knock at the door of our thinking, he has to be explained away. If thinking is to be taken seriously, it must be structured in such a way that the ‘God hypothesis’ becomes superfluous. There is no room for him.” (Homily on Christmas Night, 2012) St. Augustine wrote: “Although this life is the light of men, yet the foolish of heart cannot comprehend that light, because they have grown blind through sin, so that they cannot perceive it. Lest therefore they should think that there is no light because they do not see it, there follows: and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. For though to a blind man standing in the sun, the sun in indeed present, but he is absent to the sun; so the foolish heart is truly blind to wisdom, although it is beside him. But while thus present to the blinded, it is absent to his eyes; not because it is absent to him, but because he is absent to it.” (Tr. 1, in John; Catena Aurea) “The deceit of worldly hearts cannot perceive the Light of God, shining in their flesh.” (Origen)

“But you were once in darkness,” says St. Paul, “but now you are light in the Lord.” (Eph 5, 8) Because we believe in the Lord and we follow him, we do not walk in darkness. We are not fools who say that there is no God. Faith allows us to recognize in the child of Bethlehem the invisible God. Faith enables us to open the doors of our intellect and hearts to Him who knocks. Faith makes us walk in the light. Origen said, “The light shines in the darkness of believing souls, beginning from faith, and approaching to hope.”  “This light which has become the light of men, shines in the darkness of our souls, and enters in where the ruler of this darkness wars with the human race (Eph 6, 12). The darkness persecutes this light…the darkness contending against the children of light. But since the Father is their defender, the darkness will not prevail.” (Origen) And so, as the darkness of the culture of death spreads throughout the nation, let us keep following Christ who is light. Let us fortify our families in the Catholic faith. Let us continue to uphold life. Let us continue to uphold Truth. Let us not waver in the faith. Yes, the darkness persecutes this light. Yes, the darkness contends against the children of light. But let us stand fast in the faith for the Father is our defender, the darkness will not prevail. The darkness cannot overcome the light!

Jesus, I trust in you! O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee! 

Religion and Science Move towards Christ

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

Amongst the many biblical narratives, the story of the magi from the east has caught the imagination and has stimulated so much research and reflection for many people. In fact, if we make a survey even of contemporary nativity scenes (belen) put up for the holidays, we would notice that second to the holy family, the magi would more likely be seen than the shepherds themselves. Perhaps, the idea of kings visiting the newborn of Mary has given the Christmas story some mythical, fairy tale ambiance that would categorize the birth of the Savior to the genre of the Walt Disney stories of princesses, princes, and unicorns.

But the story of the magi is not some mythical account that entertains, it is, in fact, a wonderful portrayal of a Divine Mystery that reveals itself to the pagan nations. The magi were “members of the Persian priestly caste. In Hellenistic culture, they were regarded as ‘rulers of a distinctive religion,’ but at the same time their religious ideas were thought to be ‘strongly influenced by philosophy’ so that the Greek philosophers have often been portrayed as their pupils…Aristotle himself spoke of the philosophical work of the magi.” (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: the Infancy Narratives, 92-93.) What we have here are serious searchers, “people of inner unrest, people of hope, people on the lookout for the true star of salvation…(they) were not just astronomers. They were ‘wise’. They represent the inner dynamic of religion toward self transcendence, which involves a search for truth, a search for the true God and hence ‘philosophy’ in the original sense of the word. Wisdom, then, serves to purify the message of ‘science’: the rationality of that message does not remain at the level of intellectual knowledge, but seeks understanding in its fullness, and so raises reason to its loftiest possibilities.” (Ibid., 95) “They represent the religions moving toward Christ, as well as the self-transcendence of science toward him. In a way, they were the successors of Abraham who set off on a journey in response to God’s call. In another way, they are the successors of Socrates and his habit of questioning above and beyond conventional religion toward the higher truth. In this sense, these figures are forerunners, preparers of the way, seekers after truth…” (Ibid.)

The movement of the magi towards Christ ought to teach us of the authentic search for wisdom. Today the pursuit for truth is done apart from Christ. False intellectuals call it intellectual freedom. I call it slavery to lies. For how can truth be pursued apart from Christ? Christ himself is the Truth. He himself is the Light. Apart from him, there is nothing but darkness. Self-seeking intellectualism goes nowhere. It goes round and round because it is a self-enclosed search. Eventually, it falls into superstition. Science must be self-transcendent if it must lead somewhere significant. It must be open to the reality above it. True science, true philosophy leads to Christ. In Christ all search for truth finds fulfillment.

And so, guided by a star, they came to adore the Christ. St. “Gregory Nazianzen says that at the very moment when the Magi adored Jesus, astrology came to an end, as the stars from then on traced the orbit determined by Christ.” (Ibid., 101) Christ has conquered all the powers and forces in the heavens. He reigns over the entire universe. “It is not the star that determines the child’s destiny; it is the child that directs the star.” This dominion of Christ over the entire universe drives us to the point that all searches in the universe will lead to Christ. Science, so long as it is purely intent on searching for the truth, will always lead to Christ. “God’s truth is his wisdom, which commands the whole created order and governs the world. God, who alone ‘made heaven and earth,’ can alone impart true knowledge of every created thing in relation to himself.” (CCC, 216)

Jesus, I trust in you! O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Ecclesiastical Embroidery

I found this website on Ecclesiastical Embroidery which may interest you as it interests me:

Corbet’s Needle ‘N Thread

Preaching in the Desert

PRAISED BE Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

St. John the Baptist is known to us as the voice crying out in the desert because it was in the desert that he preached “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Somehow, the desert seems to be a strange venue for preaching. After, there is virtually no one living in the desert because its circumstances make it inhabitable. The desert is the place of death. Perhaps this is the reason why John preached in the desert. Being the place of death, the desert has become the image of the world of man after the fall. “Through the disobedience of one man, sin entered into the world and together with sin entered death.” Man used to live in paradise because he used to live in communion with God. But turning away from God in whom is found life, man found death. Paradise became a desert.

The Holy Father speaks of a similar situation in our times: “Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual ‘desertification’. In the (Vatican II) Council’s time it was already possible from a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked like, but now we see it every day around us. This void has spread.” (Benedict XVI, Homily at the beginning of the year of Faith, 11 October 2012) (This week, the congress rejected the amendment that would require the government to respect religious belief. Is this not a manifestation of the advance of a spiritual “desertification”?) The world we are living in is increasingly becoming a world without God. And the Church must lead people out of this desert.

The Holy Father speaks of people of faith in the middle of the desert: “And in the desert people of faith are needed who, with their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope alive. Living faith opens the heart to the grace of God which frees us from pessimism. Today, more than ever, evangelizing means witnessing to the new life, transformed by God, and thus showing the path.” John the Baptist is an example of the people of faith we need to see in the desert. He provides the way out of the desert by “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John the Baptist tells us that we must accept the Savior who comes into our desert. He tells us to take away all hindrances that prevent the Lord from entering into our world: the valleys of our negligence and the mountains of our excesses. We must make up for the good have failed to do and repent for the evil that we have done. Let us “discern what is of value”: “In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life.” (Homily at the beginning of the Year of faith)  Let us thirst for God, let us thirst for the ultimate meaning of life. In this thirst for the true living water, let us make straight all winding roads and make smooth all rough ways “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Jesus, I trust in you! O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

The Immaculate Conception and the Emnity with the Serpent

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

In the recent debates on the RH Bill, Congressman Edcel Lagman refused to look into the beginnings of life: “This House has no competence to tell when life begins,” he said. While scientists still debate on the question, the Church has a very simple answer: at conception. Life begins at conception. The mystery which we celebrate today tells us so: the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We believe that God infused an immaculate human soul into the fertilized ovum in the womb of St. Anne. (On account of the fact that the human soul is infused into the fertilized ovum, it is already a human person.) Mary has never been touched by sin in any way nor in any point in time. She has always been ‘full of grace’. The Lord has always been with her. The Holy Spirit has been dwelling in her soul since the first instance of her conception. (the mere fact that we speak of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Mary at the first instance of her conception already tells us of the existence of the human soul at the early point of her existence. For if it were not so, where would the Holy Spirit dwell in her?) The greatness of Mary has been hers even from the beginning of her life.

The book of Genesis speaks of a perpetual enmity between the serpent and the Woman, between his seed and her seed. The spiritual battle wages on until today and all of us are in it. We have to take sides, there is no neutral ground. Either you are on the side of the Woman or on the side of the serpent. Either you are her seed or the serpent’s own. In this battle between good and evil, God has entrusted his cause to the Woman who was conceived without sin. It is to her that God has given to crush the serpent under her feet. But why? Why did the Lord entrust this spiritual battle to the Woman? Why to a creature so small and humble? Why to someone who seems utterly powerless before the rebellious serpent? Why to the Immaculate Conception? Imagine, the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary at the most vulnerable and most defenseless point in her life. (The human being is most vulnerable and most defenseless at the moment of conception. Why is it so? Well, a morning after pill is enough to expel a fertilized ovum from the womb ) Why did God make this Immaculate Fertilized Ovum the general of His army? The answer is found in the epistle of St. Paul: “And he said to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’; for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) Our Lady’s humility is so much the reverse of the pride of the serpent. While he declared “I will not serve,” Our Lady said, “Be it done unto me according to your word.” While the serpent, in his arrogance, deemed himself equal to God, our Lady called herself “the handmaid of the Lord.” In the Immaculate Conception, the Lord reveals to us the sufficiency of his grace.

And so, while the enemies of God bask in their self-proclaimed glory, while the enemies of the Church gloat over their money (63 million dollars) and political power, we kneel before the Immaculate Conception and entrust to her our humble cause. All seems lost in our struggle against the culture of death but we continue to have confidence in the Immaculata. To her hands God entrusted the spiritual battle. To her feet God gave the power to crush the serpent’s head. “Who is she that comes forth like the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array?” (Song 6:10)

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

On the First Sunday of Advent

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

Today is the new year of the Church – the start of a new liturgical year. Holy Mother Church has a very peculiar way of celebrating her new year. While most cultures would spend the New Year in thinking of new beginnings, the Church spends it by meditating on the end. Recalling the words of the Lord about frightening signs in the heavens and in the seas, the Church anticipates that point in time to which all history leads. The New Year of the Church brings us a year closer to that end of all times. It will inevitably come and no one can escape it: “For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth.” (There is even a rumor that this will happen on December 21 this year.) The end is near. It will really happen.

But the Church does not meditate on such things in order to engage in some scare tactics. The perplexity of nations comes from what they do not know. “People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken.” They do not know why these things take place. They could not make sense of all these.

But we are not perplexed because we know what will happen. We are told by the Lord: “When these things begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads.” Why? It is because “they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” And His coming will the time of our redemption: “Your redemption is at hand.” It will be the time when our Lord will fulfill all his promises to those who strive to be faithful to him: “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah.”

The definitiveness of the Lord’s return becomes the occasion for the Church to remind us to “be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.” The Catechism reminds us: “Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.” (CCC, 675) “The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.” (CCC, 677)

Jesus, I trust in you! O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!