Raising children for God

FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY C

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

DECEMBER 30, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

The issue of parental upbringing came to the fore with the bully video that went viral before Christmas. People began to ask: What happened to the kid that he grew up to be an arrogant bully? Public attention went to his parents. They began to ask: What kind of parenting did he receive? In fact, in a TV program, the bully’s father, apparently fed up by all these questions, texted the host: “Huwag mo akong turuan kung paano ko palalakihin ang aking anak.”

When Mary reproached (sumbat) Jesus for staying behind in Jerusalem without their knowledge, she gave Jesus the opportunity to teach about parenting. She said: “Son, why have you done this to us? Did you not know that your father and I searched for you with great sorrow?” Jesus said: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I have to be in my Father’s house?” Contrary to what many parents think that their children are theirs and that these are raised according to their own liking, Jesus, in these words, is telling Mary and Joseph: “I am yours but also not yours. I belong to you but also not to you. I belong to the Father and I must be found in my Father’s house. I must do what the Father sent me to do.”

Parents must always remember that their children are theirs but not totally theirs. They belong to the Father in heaven. “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God.” God entrusted his children to them. Therefore, parents fulfill the role of stewards. They raise children not for themselves but for the Father. Dear parents, you are raising sons and daughters for God. Therefore, you do not raise your children to become like yourselves. You raise them to become like Jesus because Jesus is the Son of God and therefore, he is the model of all Christian children. Most parents want their children to grow up resembling themselves. No! Let your children grow up to resemble Jesus. Your ultimate goal is not to lead your children to a successful career. Your goal must be to help them become saints. If you really love your children, you want them to go to heaven for all eternity. Therefore, teach your children to do the Father’s business. Help them discern the Father’s will at all time. “We keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And his commandment us this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us.” In the end, when you bring up God-fearing children, you will have loving children.”

Bring your children to the temple as Hannah did to Samuel and offered him to God’s service. Bring them to the temple as Joseph and Mary did to Jesus. Teach them to worship God and they will be blessed: Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord. Teaching them to love God will eventually lead the way to real obedience to you. Jesus went down to Nazareth and was obedient to them because he understood that his obedience to his human parents expressed his obedience to his heavenly Father. When children are raised up to become like Jesus, they grow up like him: advanced in wisdom and age and in favor before God and men.

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

Standing in the side of the Sign of Contradiction

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

Familiarity breeds contempt. Perhaps this is the best explanation that can be given about the rejection which the Lord received from his neighbors in Nazareth. That his neighbors were impressed by his preaching was without any doubt. But they could not reconcile the fact that this amazing preaching came from the mouth of someone they thought they knew so well: “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” In fact, this remark betrays their ignorance of the Jesus they thought they knew all so well. The truth is, Jesus is not son of Joseph for he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Son of the Living God. He is the one in whom the Father in heaven is well pleased. However, this truth lay hidden to them – yes, in spite of the fact that they had witnessed Jesus growing from being a boy into a man. This is the consequence of Christ’s kenosis: his self-emptying. The incarnation hid his Divinity. Jesus’ Divine nature was cloaked by his humanity. This humanity of God the Son is, in fact, a scandal. When the men of the synagogue were filled with fury and rose to drive him out of the town, the words of aged Simeon came to pass: “This child is a sign that will be contradicted by many.” He is destined to be the rise and the fall of many in Israel. The rise and fall of humanity will depend on their response to the Son of God come in the flesh. “He who believes will be saved. He who will not believe will be condemned.”

Until this very day, Jesus continues to be a sign contradicted by many. He continues to infuriate many people by his teachings. He continues to divide families: two against three and three against two. This is so because he is the unbendable Truth: either you are for him or against him. The Truth that he is makes him “a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass, against the whole land; against kings and princes…” against false intellectuals and even powerful politicians. They will fight against him, and fiercely they really do…but they will not prevail against him. For the Truth is still the Truth even if no one believes in it…in the same way, a lie will always be a lie, even if the whole world agrees with it.

Today, powerful men bend Christ’s Truth and then disguise what they do as the way of righteousness. The political concept of “daang matuwid” is nauseating. How could contraception be righteous when in fact, it is intrinsically evil? How could divorce be righteous when in fact, it is a blatant affront to the sanctity of marriage? Where is righteousness in the use of bribery and intimidation to get a priority bill passed? And these people in power think that they can trample upon the rights of Christ with impunity. But they are badly mistaken. They will not prevail against him. Thus, we should always see to it that we be found always in the side of Christ, even if this means taking the unpopular stand. Our time is the best time to take sides with Christ. Dare to swim against the tide. Be a prophet and walk against the flow. Always look at Jesus. While the crowd rose and led him to the brow of the hill to hurl him down, Jesus passed through their midst and walked away. Dare to be different. Walk against the crowd. Walk with Jesus.

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

The Family in Search for God

PRAISED BE JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH!

After an entire day’s journey on their return home from the pilgrimage to the temple, both Joseph and Mary realized that Jesus was not with them. And so they looked for him among their acquaintances and relatives and not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem. We might easily conclude that the search for Jesus took place simply because as parents, Mary and Joseph felt responsible for him. While this may be true, there is something here deeper into this search for a lost boy. Perhaps the key to this deeper meaning is found in the fact that after 3 days, they found him in the temple.

In the newly published 3^rd volume of the book “Jesus of Nazareth”, Pope Benedict points out: “The 3 days may be explained in quite practical terms: Mary and Joseph spent 1 day travelling north, a further day was needed to retrace their steps, and on the 3^rd day, they eventually find Jesus. But while the 3 days are thus a perfectly plausible chronological indication, one must nevertheless agree…(that) here (is) a silent reference to the 3 days between Cross and Resurrection. These are days spent suffering the absence of Jesus, days of darkness, whose heaviness can be sensed in his mother’s words: ‘Child, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.’ (Lk 2:48)” (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: the Infancy Narratives, 123.) Mary and Joseph were not anxious simply because they lost a child. Their anxiety was on account of the fact that the disappearance of Jesus was the seeming absence of God (very similar to the sad experience of the disciples at the death of Jesus) They did not simply search for a child…they were looking for God. And true enough, they found him … where else but in the temple! Isn’t God supposed to be found in the temple?

This event speaks much to our families who are now living amidst a very secular setting. The signing of the RH Law should be the occasion for us to engage in some sort of examination of the state of Catholicity of our own families: Are our families still truly Catholic? Does the Lord still enjoy a central place in our family life? Does he still have a place in our families? The indifference with which many families met the signing of the RH law seems to indicate how secular our families have become. That our consciences are not at all bothered by the spread of the culture of death in our society and even in our families is a clear indication (and perhaps a danger sign) of how our families have imbibed a secular culture and have lost their Catholic identity. This is a clear warning sign that we are easing God out of our families. We are literally leading him out of the door. It is funny that we do not question the superstitions of feng sui experts but meet the teachings of Jesus with incredulity. It is disturbing that our hearts are no longer troubled nor anxious over the absence of God in our homes. Have we lost God? Are we looking for God?

It is time to retrace our steps to the Temple. It is time for our families to go back to Church and give time to God. It is time for us to search for him in prayer and in the study of our catechism. As Jesus reminded Mary and Joseph of the importance of being concerned with the “things of the Father”, so also he tells us to set our family standards higher: set your hearts on the things above where Christ is seated in the right hand of God.  Let us set our eyes on things sublime. We should be doing our Father’s business!

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

Feast of St. Joseph

Pictures of the Solemn High Mass on the Feast of St. Joseph at the Holy Family Parish, Roxas District, Quezon City, Philippines

Myself as Celebrant, Fr. Rodel Lopez, OMI as deacon, and Fr. Mark Sese of the Diocese of Pasig as subdeacon

Thanks to Dennis Maturan for the pictures

Prayers at the foot of the altar

Elevation of Our Lord's Body

Elevation of the Chalice

2nd Confiteor

for posterity

Video of Solemn Mass in the EF at the Holy Family Parish

The Video of the Solemn Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the Holy Family Parish is now posted at the New Liturgical Movement .

More From the Philippines: Solemn Mass in the EF

Children as Signs of Contradiction

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

“Lord, what good will your gifts be if I keep on being childless?” so Abram asked God who has showered his faithful servant with many good things. Blessed by God with land, livestock, and many other properties, Abram should have been satisfied with what he had. However, his sterility bothered him. All his properties did not compensate for that longing which remained unsatisfied: he longed for a child, an offspring to whom he shall bequeath his properties, an offspring for whom he shall dedicate his efforts. Such is the generous disposition of Abram. He was truly a man of God because he is like God whose desire to give himself is an expression of his love.

So unlike him is the attitude which characterizes the world we live in. So deep are the roots of materialism in us that we no longer ask what Abram asked the Lord: What good will your gifts be if I keep on being childless? In fact, isn’t this what many modern people want to achieve: to remain childless so as to be free of burdens and responsibilities and also to continue enjoying for the self the fruits of one’s own labors? Ah! The joy of having no children! The less mouths I have to feed, the more I have to enjoy for myself!

When the old Prophet Simeon took the child Jesus into his arms, he declared this child to be a sign that will be contradicted. Early in his life, the Cross begins to cast its shadow upon Jesus. He will be a sign that will be contradicted because the world will hate him for what he will say and for who he is. What he will say will directly oppose what the world teaches. Who he is will threaten the dark forces that control the world: “Have you come to destroy us? We know who you are: the Holy One of God!”

However, when we consider the hostility of the world today towards children, the words “sign of contradiction” begin to take on a new light. In becoming a little child, the Lord Jesus stands in solidarity with all children who, unfortunately are also signs that are contradicted. And the opposition to having children is so subtle because it takes the guise of informed choices, reproductive health, and planned parenthood. And the forces behind this opposition are so great if only we consider how much money is poured behind planned parenthood and the RH bill. So great are these forces that clearly we are up against more than just human beings but against principalities and powers in high places.

Against these principalities and powers that have connived against the child, the Christian family has only one weapon: faith in the Cross. “By faith, (Abraham) received the power to regenerate,” so said St. Paul in his letter to the Hebrews, “…So it was that there came forth from one man, himself as good as dead, descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore.” This faith of Abraham is complemented by the willingness of Mary to take up the cross: “you yourself, a sword will pierce.” In order to defend the child from the forces that contradict it, Christian families must be willing to take up the crosses that go with raising children. Nobody said that having children will be easy. In fact it is difficult but even so, it has to be done because it is the will of God. God wanted Abraham to have “descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore.” Difficult as this cross may be, Christian families have to carry it with faith – faith in the wisdom and in the providence of God. After all, God does not impose burdens that we cannot bear. His wisdom sees what the world, in its shortsightedness, cannot see. The world cannot see beyond present convenience. The Lord sees the preservation of humankind. The aging European population is proving right the wisdom of God. With an almost zero birth rate, there is no one to replace an aging workforce. There is no one set to sustain the economy. Indeed, what good will the Lord’s gifts to us be if we were to remain childless?

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

Novena to the Holy Family

Our Parish begins the novena to the Holy Family on February 3, 2012. The Parish Fiesta is celebrated on the 2nd Sunday of February every year. I really wonder why this is so. In the old calendar, the Feast of the Holy Family used to be celebrated on the Sunday after Epiphany. Why my new parish and 2 other parishes in the Manila and Quezon City areas celebrate the feast on the 2nd Sunday of February is an interesting subject to research.

Anyway, I found these novena prayers to the Holy Family. Follow this link: Novena to the Holy Family