Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno

January 9 in Manila is a great feast. It is the Feast of the Black Nazarene of Quiapo. Although it is not a liturgical feast, millions flock to venerate the image and also to join that immense procession that reenacts the transfer of the image to Quiapo Church/

The official name of the image is Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno. I have always been intrigued by this title. Why is the Black Nazarene called "Nuestro Padre?" He is God the Son and not the Father. So why should he be called "Padre"?

I think that we can explain this by affirming that the Lord Jesus is the First-born Son. Not only is he the first-born of the blessed Virgin Mary. St. Paul calls Jesus "the first-born of all creation" and "the first-born of the dead."

In the family, the first-born exercises some fatherly authority over the household. Parents entrust some parental responsibilities to the first-born over the younger sons and daughters. Thus, the first-born is "father" to his siblings. Not that he replaces the Father. Rather, the authority of the Father resides in him.

Thus, it is right to address him as "Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno" In fact, the title itself tells us that the Nazareno is the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Before the priesthood was entrusted to the sons of Levi, it was first the work of the head of the household...a role which was entrusted to the first-born Son. Christ is the head of the Church. He is the first-born of creation. He is first-born of the dead. We see him carrying the heavy load of the Cross as Isaac carried the wood of the sacrifice. He is the Victim who will be laid on the wood of the sacrifice. He is the Priest who enters the Holy of holies not with the blood of animals but with his own Blood. Here is the Priest who walks towards the mountain of sacrifice. And the entire multitude follow him to the Altar.

Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno, Priest and Victim, offer now your sacrifice for us!

Christmas: Choosing the Light

JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU!

Our Belen for 2016

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

When the Lord Jesus was born, it was in the middle of the night. People were fast asleep except the shepherds who were keeping the night watch over their flock. Nobody knew that it was the most awaited night, the night when the ancient promise of God was fulfilled. Everything was hidden in the darkness of the night.

But what was hidden in darkness will be proclaimed in daylight. Today, the Light of the world shines in the darkness. Not even the darkness is able to overcome it. No amount of darkness will ever limit the light. Light limits the darkness and not the other way around. Light dispels the darkness. The darkness does not dispel the light. Darkness is the absence of light. When the light comes, there is no darkness.

There is only one way for darkness to stay…and that is by blocking the light. “He came to what was his own but his own people did not accept him.” Light is refused by putting up a barrier to keep it from penetrating the darkness. The barrier sort of protects the darkness from the light. Hiding behind that barrier, a person remains in the dark.

But it is unfortunate that one should refuse the light and choose the darkness. “For what came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race…” Life is light. Where there is light, there is life. Living things grow under the light. Death lurks in darkness. It would be sad if people choose the darkness because doing so, they would choose death over life. And who wants to die? The desire for death defies all logic. Everything that lives wants to remain alive. It would do everything to be able to extend life even for one second more.

Light empowers. “Those who did accept him, he gave the power to become children of God.” There can be no higher dignity for man than to be a child of God. To accept the light is to be chosen and loved by God as his dear children. This is the life he offers us. He offers us the life of the children of God. And to do this, his light comes into the world. “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Like the sun at Fatima which one can look at without hurting one’s eyes, the Light of the world comes in the poverty of a little child. He is not a light that glares and blinds. He is a light that beckons, a light that attracts by its beauty. The sign of God is the poverty of a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying on a manger. The poverty of the human nature which he took upon himself makes the unapproachable light of God less intimidating and more approachable. This Light beckons us to go out of the dark. It draws us out of the darkness of sin and death. It invites us to take away the barrier that shields us from his light and life. It invites us to turn away from sin, to shun the works of darkness. The seeming poverty of God makes people underestimate his power. Our impatience to put things in order makes us resort to works of death: wars, killings, violence. But the peace and order that comes out of it is simply the silence of cadavers, the silence of cemeteries.

If only the world would accept Christ the Light, then it would receive from the fullness of his grace, grace upon grace. “Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ.”  This is the true life giving grace. The mercy of the Christ Child is one that truly transforms and gives eternal life. It is the one that opens and fills paradise and not graves. “The Lord restores Zion. Break out together in song, O ruins of Jerusalem! The Lord comforts his people, he redeems Jerusalem.”

If we accept Christ, he will reveal God to us. “No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” Let us accept him for the Lord does not desire ruin for us but salvation. He desires not violence but peace. He desires not the death of the sinner but that the sinner should turn to him and live.

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

On Reinventing Jesus

In the bookstore, I found this book published in 2007 by Dr. Erwin Lutzer, a senior pastor of The Moody Church in Chicago. Little may he have realized it but Dr. Lutzer was proving the Popes right in their teachings against Modernism:

"Living as we do at the beginning of a new century, many new Jesuses are being fabricated year by year; this is the age of designer Jesuses. Often the only similarity is the name; the character traits are entirely different. So your Jesus might not be my Jesus and mine might not be the Jesus of my-next-door neighbor.

"...The Jesus whose biography is found in the New Testament is being treated like putty in the hands of those who wish to refashion Him to fit to their particular view of the world. Just take a moment to browse your neighborhood bookstore and you will find dozens of books, with topics ranging from Jesus and women's rights to Jesus and Zen to Jesus and inner healing. Jesus is used - or rather, misused - for every cause imaginable, from gas-saving minivans to religious zealots. I'm reminded of the words of the late Yasser Arafat, who at a press conference at the United Nations in 1983 called Jesus "the first Palestinian fedayeen who carried his sword." Think of it: Jesus was the first freedom fighter for Islam!

"It seems as though everyone wants Jesus in their parade," writes Joseph Stowell: 'From gay activists to abortionists to religious leaders to politicians, making Jesus fit their agenda and flying His flag provides a guise of propriety and credibility.'

"Stowell is right, but we have to ask: How can scholars take the radical, all-demanding Jesus of the Gospels and reinvent Him so that He, like a book on the shelf, is wholly within our power to do with Him as we will? This Jesus allows us to be in charge, never insisting that we come under His authority, never asking us to stake our eternal destiny on His claims.

"No other name has inspired such great devotion and so much controversy; no other person has been tweaked to serve so many agendas. Scholars are writing books not about Christianity, but about 'Jesusanity', as my friend Darrel Bock describes it. Learning about these evolving images of Jesus will help us identify the one Jesus who stands above all others and is actually as good as His word!"

E. Lutzer, Slandering Jesus: 6 Lies People Tell About The Man Who Said He Was God, 4-5.