Palm Sunday 2019: The Homage of Unconditional Obedience

PALM SUNDAY 2019

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

April 14, 2019

Jesus, I trust in you!

Our Lenten journey for this year began with the story of how the Spirit led Jesus to the desert to be tempted by the devil. There, the intention of the Incarnation was made clear: “That the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil.” He engaged in a spiritual battle with Satan who sought to destroy man by seducing him to sin. Sin, which entered into the world through the disobedience of one man, must be destroyed through the obedience of the Son of God. Christ humbled himself by coming in human likeness and by his obedience until death, death on a Cross.

In the desert, the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth which he would easily give Jesus if only he knelt to worship him. The Lord could have easily received power and glory from the devil but he refused to receive it from him. instead, in the garden, even though he was in so much agony that his sweat became like drops of blood, the Lord knelt and prayed to his Father: “Not my will but yours be done.” In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve refused God the homage of their unconditional obedience. They wanted to be like God by following their own will. They ate the forbidden fruit and through their disobedience, sin entered the world and together with sin entered death. Jesus offered to God what Adam and Eve refused to offer: the homage of unconditional obedience. He, who is God, emptied himself. He took upon himself the opposite direction which Adam and Eve aspired to take. Our parents aspired to be as great as God. Jesus went down to be a slave: “I am among you as one who serves.”

It is in the humiliation of the Cross that the Lord conquered the arrogance of Satan. By the depth of his suffering and humiliation, Jesus ended the reign of sin by invoking upon us the forgiveness of God: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” By enduring the agony of the Cross, Jesus satisfied the demands of justice He atoned for our sins. Thus, he is able to obtain the freedom of Barabbas. The Son of God liberated the criminal by dying in his stead. Rightfully did the thief say: “We have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Because Jesus is without sin, he is able to atone for us. By atoning for our sins, he is able to give the repentant thief the promise: ‘Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

As Jesus was told by Satan to jump from the parapet of the temple, so now, he was dared: “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.” But as he refused to jump from the top of the temple, so now he refused to come down from the Cross. He stayed on the Cross until he commended to the Father his spirit. He stayed on the Cross until he breathed his last. And so he glorified God. In doing so, he destroyed the work of the devil. The people who saw the spectacle returned home beating their breasts. By their repentance, they obtained mercy and forgiveness. Jesus brought back to God his prodigal children.

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

5th Sunday of Lent C: I Do Not Condemn You

5^TH SUNDAY OF LENT C

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

APRIL 7, 2019

Jesus, I trust in you!

The woman really deserved to die because she was caught in the act of adultery which was punishable with death by stoning. She was brought by the scribes and Pharisees to Jesus to test him. Jesus said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And in response, they went away one by one, leaving her alone standing before Jesus. She could have taken that opportunity to run away and escape death but she stood still before him. After all, the one who was left behind had all the right to execute her because he is the sinless One. Jesus, the Son of God, received from his Father the right to judge: “The Father judges no one, but he has given all judgement to the Son so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.” (John 5:22-23) She did not escape because she was guilty and deserved the punishment. She stood there and waited for execution.

But Jesus asked her: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she replied. Jesus said: “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, do not sin anymore.” Jesus had the authority to judge but for that moment, he did not use that authority. The sinless One refused to condemn the sinner. “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:17)

The Lord refused to condemn the woman even though she deserved to be condemned. In like manner, he refuses to condemn us who are all as guilty as the woman. Instead, he allowed himself to be condemned to death. He, the sinless One, took upon himself the condemnation we deserved. He let go of the stone which he could have used against us. He let free his hand of the rock of condemnation so that he may embrace the Cross and be crucified on it to atone for our sins. He took upon himself the heavy price of death which our sins deserved. This he did to satisfy the demands of Divine Justice so that he can be merciful to us. Forgiving our sins, the Lord puts them behind us. He remembers not our past, the things of long ago. Instead, he makes all things new. He makes a path in the desert. He tells us to “forget what lies behind but strain forward to what lies ahead.” On the Cross, the Lord makes all things new.

Thus, he tells us what he told the adulterous woman: “Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.” He reminds us of the executed Galileans and the 18 people who perished at the collapse of the tower of Siloam and reminds us: “If you do not repent, you will perish as they did.” He rejoices at our return to him as the Father rejoiced at the return of his prodigal son. He rejoices to have us back safe and sound.

But from now on, do not sin anymore because one day, he will come to judge the living and the dead. “(The Father) gave him the power of judgment because he is the Son of Man…The hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.” Let us repent while we can. He will not condemn us. Let us not wait for our sins to accuse us. Let us turn to him for the Lord says: “Even now, return to me with your whole heart; for I am gracious and merciful.” (Joel 2: 2-3)

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

4th Sunday of Lent C: Joy comes from the Father

4^th SUNDAY OF LENT C

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

March 31, 2019

Jesus, I trust in you!

The parable of the Prodigal Son was originally addressed by the Lord to the scribes and Pharisees who found difficulty in rejoicing over the return of tax collectors and sinners to Jesus. Instead of being happy over the fact that these public sinners are repenting and are changing their lives, the scribes and Pharisees found fault in the way the Lord ate with tax collectors and sinners.

They were like the elder brother in the parable. He could not understand why his father ordered the fattened calf slaughtered when the son who dissipated his property on loose women returned. Why give him a welcome party? Should he not have received a scolding instead? Should he not have been punished for his misdeeds? Should he not have been reproached (sinumbatan): “O anong napala mo sa ginawa mo? Matapos mo akong layasan, babalik ka ngayon kasi kailangan mo ako uli?” Why eat with him? In other words, why does the Lord eat with tax collectors and sinners?

The way the father rejoiced over the safe return of his way ward son shows how the mercy of God is indeed beyond our comprehension. In the Old Testament, the Prophet Jonah could not understand why God did not pursue the destruction of the Ninevites when they repented and converted from their evil ways. The Lord explained his mercy through a plant that sprouted and brought temporary relief to the prophet from the heat of the sun but was destroyed rapidly by a worm. The Lord said to Jonah: “You cared about the plant which you neither tended nor grew. It sprang up in a night and perished in a night. So should I not care for the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left?” ( Jonah 4: 10-11)

Sometimes, like the Pharisees and scribes, we think that sinners should be punished. Why was the repentant son not punished? Why was he welcomed instead? The answer is: the son was already “punished.” After dissipating his inheritance, he went hungry. He experienced the humiliation of having to tend swine for a living. The misery was not sent by the father. He merely reaped the consequences of living away and apart from his father. He understood that he got what he deserved. That is why he was even prepared to say: “I do not deserve to be called your son. Treat me as one of your servants.” It was his misery that awakened him to his senses and made him decide to return to his father.

Misery cannot come from the father, only joy. When the son returned home, he did not encounter reproach but a welcoming embrace. The father restored his lost dignity (the robe, sandals, and ring). He was humiliated enough by his sins. Why humiliate him further? “Let us celebrate a feast, because this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” “In heaven, there is rejoicing over the repentance of one sinner.” The boy may have forgotten for a time was he was his father’s son but never did the father forget this. He constantly waited for his son to return and so rejoiced when he came.

And he wanted his elder son to share in his fatherly joy. He gently reminded his faithful son that the repentant boy was also his brother: “But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because YOUR BROTHER was dead and has come to life again, he was lost and has been found.” The sacrament of Reconciliation does not only reconcile the sinner with God. It also reconciles the sinner to the Church. The repentant sinner is not only God’s son. He is also our brother.

The Father rejoiced because he is a prodigal father. He lavishly spends his love upon us his children. Some may find it wasteful especially if that love is lavished on ingrates. But the Father loves anyway. He does not rejoice over the death of a sinner. He wants that sinner to return to him and live. He wants us to do the same. He wants us to share in his joy over the return of a sinner, the return of a brother. While the world clamors for the death of the sinner, the father gently waits for his conversion. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you in behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God!”

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

3rd SUNDAY OF LENT C: SIN IS DEADLY

3^RD SUNDAY OF LENT C

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

MARCH 24, 2019

Jesus, I trust in you!

Tragedies, whether they be natural or man-made, are usually deemed as punishments from God. I remember when “Yolanda” struck Samar, an insensitive post came out in the social media. It said that tragedy befell them because the people living there were all sinners. I suppose that the Lord was referring to this same mentality when he referred to the Galileans executed by Pontius Pilate and those 18 persons who perished at the collapse of the tower of Siloam. He asked: “Were they more guilty than anyone else in Jerusalem?” Were the victims of calamities more sinful than all of us? And the answer of the Lord was: “By no means!” And indeed, he is right. They cannot be regarded as greater sinners because all of us are sinners. All of us are guilty. That is why “if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”

In the 2^nd reading, St. Paul gives us a clear explanation. He spoke of the Israelites who perished in the desert. He said: “These things happened as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil things as they did…These things happened to them as an example, and they have been written down as a warning to us, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.”

The Lord teaches us of the deadly effects of sin. Many of us take sin lightly because they are ignorant of what it can do to us. Sin is deadly. When sin entered the world, together with it came death. What happened to the executed Galileans and to the victims of the fallen tower of Siloam were the natural consequences of sin. If we were spared of such catastrophe, it was simply because our time has not yet come and we should not wait for it to happen. We must repent as soon as possible.

Sin is deadly and all of us are enslaved by it. Our afflictions are caused by sin. They do not come from God. They are the effects of sin. When we sin, we turn away from the Lord who is Life, Love, and Good. That is why we are afflicted by death, violence, and evil. Evil cannot come from God because He is holy. From the burning bush, God told Moses to come no nearer and to take off his sandals because the place where he stood was holy ground. “I have witnessed the affliction of my people and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well that they are suffering. Therefore, I have come down to rescue them…and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

The venerable Senyor of Pakil, Laguna

As we saw last time, God does not delight in our affliction. He does not delight in the death of the sinner. He is kind and merciful. That is why he came to save us. “He pardons all (our) iniquities, heals all (our) ills. He redeems (our) life from destruction, crowns (us) with kindness and compassion. He desires nothing but our salvation. Thus, he descended from heaven and took flesh from the Virgin’s womb. He took upon himself our affliction. Like the Galileans executed by Pilate as they offered sacrifice, he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. And in dying, Christ offered God the most perfect sacrifice. His Blood did not mingle with his sacrifice. His Blood was The Sacrifice itself. Like all men who were afflicted by death’s serious blow, he descended into hell. The sinless One shared the lot (kapalaran) of sinners. And he did this to take us out of hell. He resurrected from the dead and “when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive. And he bestowed gifts to men.” (Ephesians 4:8) Now, we eat the same spiritual food and drink from the spiritual rock who is Christ himself.

Therefore, let us repent while we can. Let us not wait for disaster to fall on us. He gives us a chance to bear fruits. He cultivates the ground around us and fertilizes us with the Eucharist, our spiritual food and drink. Let us turn from our evil ways and turn to Him who is kind and merciful. “For if (we) do not repent, (we) will all perish as they did!”

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

2nd Sunday of Lent C: Our Sins and His Curse

2^ND SUNDAY OF LENT C

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

March 17, 2019

Jesus, I trust in you!

Walking between animal carcasses at the sealing of a covenant was supposed to be a curse and a warning. The gesture was supposed to warn both parties that the misfortune that befell these dead animals would be the lot of anyone of them who would violate the stipulations of the covenant. And so both God and Abraham passed between the carcasses. In this way, they signed the covenant in the way of the ancients.

And yet we know who violated the covenant. The people of Israel were not faithful to God. Like a harlot wife, Israel committed adultery against God. She worshiped other gods. She violated her marriage with God.

However, the tragedy of the slaughtered animals did not fall on her nor on us. Instead, it was God who suffered the animals’ fate. He was born amidst animals in Bethlehem. As he fasted in the desert, he lived amidst wild beasts. Like sheep led to the slaughter, the incarnate Son of God was slain at the very hour the sheep were sacrificed in the temple.

We will not appreciate what Christ has done if we do not consider the Transfiguration. The Lord Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him to the mountain where he was transfigured before them: his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. He allowed them to see his glory as God’s only begotten Son. So beautiful was that sight that Peter exclaimed: “Master, it is good that we are here…” Jesus showed them the beauty of his glory in order to prepare them for his “exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.” In that exodus, Jesus will be seen treated like an animal: scourged, beaten up, and crucified. That glorified beauty of his Divine Face will be marred by the cruelty of men. His face shall be defiled by our sin…in the very way the Divine likeness in Adam was destroyed by original sin. Yes, God made man in his image and likeness, patterned after the beauty of the face of God’s only begotten Son. But at his crucifixion, Christ’s face will be marred, patterned after the hideous face of sin. God gave us his beauty when he created us but when we crucified him, we gave him the ugliness of our sinful nature.  “There is no beauty in him nor comeliness, and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him.” (Is. 53: 2)  

It is in this way that he shall restore to us the beauty of the Divine likeness which was destroyed by sin. The exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem will be our exodus as well. That deformed face of the Crucified One will be glorified at the Resurrection. Through the discipline of self-restraint, the saints have rejected the luxury and the comforts of this world in order to join Christ in his exodus from this world. By restraining their bodies, they were nourished inwardly by God’s Word and their spiritual sight was purified. This enabled them to keep their eyes fixed on the glory of Jesus. They have died to the world and now they rest and live in the light of the Lord. If we listen to him as the Father commanded us to do, then we will also follow him in his exodus from this world to the Father. Heaven shall be our home and “he will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body.”

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

1st Sunday of Lent C: Christ's Battle

1^ST SUNDAY OF LENT C

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

March 10, 2019

Jesus, I trust in you!

Whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we beg the Father: “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Today, we hear the exact opposite in our Gospel reading. After his baptism at the River Jordan, the Lord Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert “to be tempted by the devil.” The Holy Spirit did not lead Jesus away from temptation but led him into it. It was as if the Holy Spirit fortified Jesus for a battle – a battle that the Lord decided to engage in because the Lord “heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression” brought about by his enemy, the devil. As the Egyptians maltreated the Israelites, so did the devil maltreat and oppressed by imposing the hard labor of suffering, illness, and death upon us.  The Lord knew that we were powerless against this oppression that is why he himself came down to this earthly desert of our exile in order to engage the devil in a fight so that he can bring us out of our Egypt “with his strong hand and outstretched arm, with terrifying power, with signs and wonders.” In leading us out of this enslaving world, he intends to bring us to heaven, the land overflowing with milk and honey.

The weapon the devil used against Jesus was the same weapon he used against Adam and Eve: temptation. He used temptation to seduce our first parents away from the path of holiness which the Lord intended for them. The devil has his way of doing it. In a temptation, the devil could make something so horrible look attractive. The devil made the forbidden fruit look delicious to eat. Adam and Eve were so enticed by the assurance that eating the forbidden fruit would not kill them. Rather, it would make them like God. Our first parents fell into this trap. They ate the forbidden fruit. They disobeyed the Lord and so sin entered the world and together with sin came suffering, illness, and death.

The devil tried using the same temptation on Jesus. Capitalizing on our Lord’s hunger from fasting, the devil attempted to make the stones look like bread: “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”  It is as if the devil was saying: “You are the Son of God. You do not even have to go hungry because you have the power to do the impossible. Change stone to bread and help yourself. Use your power to indulge yourself.”

The devil seduced Adam and Eve with an empty promise: they will become gods if they disobeyed the Lord. He now seduced Jesus with the promise of earthly power and glory in exchange for a renunciation of his Divinity. He must have thought the Jesus was no different from Esau who sold away his birthright in exchange for a bowl of soup to satisfy his hunger. It was as if the devil told Jesus: “You do not have to suffer and die in order to receive power and glory. Simply relinquish your Divinity and worship me and then, power and glory will be yours with the least effort.”

The devil tried to instill in Christ doubt in the Father’s love for him: “Go and jump from the parapet of the temple and test the Father’s love for you. If he loves you, he will send his angels to catch you and keep you from harming yourself.” After 3 years, the devil will reiterate this temptation on Calvary. The devil would speak to Jesus as he hanged on the Cross: “Where is your Father now? Where are your angels now? Did they not defend you from this cruelty? Why are you all alone now?” The devil would speak through the jeering crowd: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the Cross and we will believe in you.”

But Jesus would not jump. He will not test the Father. He will not come down from the Cross. He will stay on the side of his Father. He will be obedient until death. He will stay on the Cross because the Cross will be his weapon against the devil. The outstretched arm he will use to lead us out of the slavery of sin will be that arm which he will stretch out upon the wood of the Cross. The terrifying power of Christ will be that of his unconditional obedience to the Father. His signs and wonders will be his Cross and his Resurrection. Indeed, the Lord will win this battle by his fasting, by his suffering, by his unwavering obedience, by his Cross, and by his Resurrection.

And he empowers us with the same weapons in our spiritual battle against the devil. This Lenten season, he invites us to join him in his fast. Strengthen your soul by the weakness of your body. Fast and pray. Arm yourself with the Word of God. Obey his word. Restrain yourself. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him. Let us arm ourselves with the weapon of self-restraint as we take up battle against spiritual evils (Collect of Ash Wednesday). Do not be afraid. Christ has gone before us in this battle. He has engaged the enemy in a battle. He fought and he won. He has conquered the world.

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

Ash Wednesday: Let the Priests weep before the Altar

ASH WEDNESDAY 2018

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

March 6, 2019

Jesus, I trust in you!

“Between the porch and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say: ‘Spare, O Lord, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach…’”

The prophet Joel wrote at a time when the southern kingdom of Judah was devastated by a plague of locusts. The land was laid barren and the people suffered heavy losses. And so, the prophet calls for a time of penance: a time of fasting and sacred assembly: “Blow the trumpet in Zion! Proclaim a fast, call an assembly…” This call to penance was done because the Lord said to the people: “Even now, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning…Return to the Lord. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.” The time of penance was necessitated by the plague. But such an occasion can only be called because of the mercy of God. The people can return to the Lord because the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and rich in kindness. He is relenting in punishment. If the Lord were not so, then penance would have been useless. If the Lord is unmoved by acts of mortification, then why engage in penance?

Ash Wednesday this year finds the Church in a difficult situation. The crisis of clerical sins has brought about a severe beating for the Church. The scandal has risen to the highest offices of the Church. We have been brought low in the sight of people on account of the sins of our spiritual fathers.

In such crisis, the Lord tells us to return to him. And he seeks genuine conversion: Rend your hearts and not your garments. Tearing one’s garment looks dramatic enough but it would amount to putting up a show. But the Lord does not want a show. He wants conversion to be sincere. He wants this conversion to come from the heart. To rend one’s heart means to radically cut off ourselves from the roots of our sins. Repentance cannot be sincere if there is no desire to reform. Repentance involves a severing of ties and attachment to sin.

Our sorrow for sins must come from the heart. We are sorry that we have offended God. We are sorry for hurting others. In this crisis of clerical abuse, people kept talking about how victims were traumatized and rightly should we say so. But we will miss the point if we do not realize how such sins have offended the Lord. We will miss the point if we do not realize how such sins have defiled consecrations to the Lord. The sins of clerical abuse are so offensive because they violate the clergy’s consecration to God. That is why priests have to weep before the altar, before the altar where they must stand undefiled in order to worthily offer sacrifice. Priests have to weep before the altar because the altar makes the offering sacred. Priests have to weep before the altar because they place on the altar the spotless Victim who is Christ and therefore, by their lives of self-abnegation, they must lay down their lives together with Christ.

Dearly beloved, as we enter into this time of penance, may I humbly ask you to remember us, your priests, in your prayers. Many of us have fallen. We have fallen to sin. We have defiled our consecration. We have become unworthy ministers of the Lord. Like the public sinners of old who stand at the doorsteps of the Church to beg for the prayers of the faithful, we priests beg you to pray for us. Pray that we may acknowledge our sins and take responsibility for them. Pray that we may sincerely be sorrowful for our sins. Pray that we may make amends for them. Pray that we may rise and return to the Lord. “For I acknowledge my offense, and my sin is before me always: ‘Against you alone have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight.’”

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

He falls alone

PALM SUNDAY B

YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND CONSECRATED PERSONS

March 25, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

“You will all fall away!” so Jesus told his disciples during the last supper. To this, Peter and the other disciples objected: “Even if all will fall away, I will not…Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And so it came to pass: at the garden, Peter, James and John could not stay awake and watch with Jesus even for an hour; Judas betrayed the Lord with a kiss; everybody deserted him and fled; Peter denied him. Even that mysterious young man who followed the Lord fled naked, leaving his garments behind. From the time of his arrest, Jesus was surrounded by his enemies: false witnesses testified against him, the Sanhedrin condemned him as worthy of death, the crowds demanded that he be crucified, soldiers mocked him, passersby insulted him, and even those who were crucified with him heaped insults on him. But the worst of all was that when Jesus cried out from the Cross: “Eloi, Eloi lema sabachthani?” no answer was heard from the Father…even the Father seemed to have abandoned him. In other words, Jesus died alone.

But it was when he died that the centurion who saw how Jesus died exclaimed: Truly this man was the Son of God. The women who followed him from Galilee and also from Jerusalem were seen watching from a distance. Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin came forward to bury Jesus. Indeed, the single grain of wheat fell to the ground and died. But when it died, it bore much fruit.

This single grain that fell to the ground is truly the King of Israel. This truth was professed by his enemies themselves. Pilate asked, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” The soldiers who mocked him saluted him by saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” The chief priests and the scribes mocked him, “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down cross that we may see and believe.” The inscription of the charge above his head read: “The king of the Jews.” Indeed, the Holy Spirit has put this truth on the lips of Christ’s enemies in order make it more credible. If a person’s greatness is acknowledge by his rivals and enemies, that greatness becomes more believable than when it is said by one’s own friends and relatives.

And so, this single grain that fell and died is truly the King of Israel. Single handedly, he defeated the enemy. Alone, he took up the battle and he was victorious. God greatly exalted him and gave him a name which is above all other names. This is why today, we acclaim him: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!” Today, the Scriptures tell us: “Fear no more, O daughter Zion; see, your king comes, seated upon an ass’ colt.”  Let us welcome him with all the sincerity of our hearts. Let us “inwardly fulfill what we enact outwardly.” (Pre-1955 blessing) Christ bows down to us so that we should come back to the Father. Therefore, let us honor Christ by our sincere conversion. By submitting to his commands and teachings, let us truly profess: Truly, this man was the Son of God, the King of Israel.

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

The Hour of Christ

5^th Sunday of Lent B

Year of the Clergy and Consecrated Persons

March 18, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

We have a saying” Pag oras mo na, oras mo na.” Oras here means death. It means that when your time is up, no matter how much money you have or how good your doctors are, if it is your time to die, nothing will keep you for dying. There seems to be some sense of fatalism here but what it says is true: there will be a time to die and when it comes, there is no escaping it.

The Lord Jesus today speaks of his “Hour.” In the Gospel according to John, the Hour of Jesus is a very important theme. It appears as early as the first miracle of Christ during the wedding at Cana. When Our Lady brought to his attention the problem of the newly wedded couple, Our Lord said to her: “My hour has not yet come.” Even when the Jews attempted to kill him or even arrest him, the Lord would escape unharmed because his Hour has not yet come. However, in today’s Gospel, that Hour has at last arrived: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

What is this hour all about? This refers to the hour of his death: the time when the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies in order to bear much fruit. When the wheat dies in the ground, mysteriously life is released from its shell (balat) and it produces thousands of other grains containing its same nature. Similarly, Christ’s death brings about the birth of many sons and daughters unto God, inheriting eternal life and participating in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

Although he is troubled, the Lord Jesus resolutely faces this hour because it was for this purpose that he came. He wants to glorify the Father by giving up his life for the sake of sinners. From the Cross, Jesus “offered loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Son though he was, Jesus learned obedience by his sufferings.” His obedience glorified God. In doing so, he casts out the “ruler of this world” and draws all men to himself. He is the Son of Man who ascends to the throne of God through the heavenly ladder, which is the Cross. By the Cross, he is lifted up to God. By the same Cross, we ascend to him. Jesus was glorified because he was obedient until death on the Cross. We ascend to God also using the same ladder. We ascend through obedience also until death. “When Jesus was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him.”

By his death, the Lord Jesus is ratifying a new covenant for us with God. This covenant is ratified, not by the blood of animals but by his own blood which was shed upon the Cross. This is the new covenant referred to by the Prophet Jeremiah: “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God and they shall be my people…All shall know me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evil doing and remember their sin no more.” He writes his law upon our hearts by pouring upon us his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit reveals the Father and the Son to us. He gives an interior witness to Jesus in us. He Holy Spirit poured in our hearts brings about the forgiveness of our sins. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to obey God and to be faithful to this covenant. Therefore, as Christ faces his Hour, let us make the petition of the Greeks as our very own: “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” We would like to see him so that we may follow him. We will follow him to Jerusalem. We will follow him to the Cross. We would like to see his glory. We would like to be glorified with him by dying with him, by crucifying our disobedient hearts so that we may acquire hearts like his own: meek and humble, always obedient to the Father’s will.

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

In Christ's Light , we find joy!

4^TH SUNDAY OF LENT B

YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND CONSECRATED PERSONS

MARCH 11, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

The tragedy of the Babylonian that has befallen upon the Israelites was the fruit of their sins: “…all the princes, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord’s temple…They mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the Lord against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy.” That is why they had no one to blame for their sufferings but themselves. However, the rise of Cyrus, King of Persia, brought to them great joy. Cyrus ordered the rebuilding of the temple of the Lord and also the return of the Israelites to Jerusalem to end their slavery.

The proximity of Holy Week is the reason for our rejoicing today. Why do we rejoice at the approach of Holy Week? Is it not the time to commemorate the sufferings of the Lord? Then why do we rejoice instead of becoming sad? The answer is this: the approach of the days of the Lord’s suffering marks for us the nearness of our salvation. As the rise of Cyrus to power marks the liberation of Israel from their slavery in Babylon, so also the lifting up of the Son of Man upon the wood of the Cross will mark our liberation from our captivity to sin: the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. God loves us and he does not want us to perish. He does not want to condemn the world. This is why he sent his only begotten Son to die on the Cross: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

The reason for our joy is the great love of God for us: Because of his great love for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, God brought us to life in Christ. God, indeed, is rich in mercy. He offers us the light of Christ as a way out of the darkness of this world. All we have to do is to approach the light which Jesus offers. And it surprises us that people preferred darkness to light because their works were evil. Why would people prefer darkness to light? It is because the light exposes the ugly face of sin. Isn’t darkness deceiving? That is why beauty pageants are done not at midday but at night. A friend once told me: Father, when I meet a woman I fancy, I first ask her out for lunch so that I could verify her beauty under the light of midday. People are afraid to draw near the light of Christ because they know that he will expose the ugly face of the evil within us. But if we want to be saved, we must draw near Christ’s light so that realizing the gravity of our sins, we may repent and confess them so that we may be forgiven. Operating tables are equipped by powerful lights to assist the surgeon in their operations. So are dental chairs and derma clinics. Assisted by powerful lights, the doctors can clearly see the tumors, the cavities, or the blemishes that they should treat. It is when we expose our sins in the light of confession that they are forgiven by the grace of God’s kindness to us. Only then will we be liberated from the sadness of slavery to sin. Then we shall rejoice in the truth. Let us then expose and confess our evil works so that we may be freed of them. In Light there is true joy. “Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.”  

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

Christ: the Temple of God

3^RD SUNDAY OF LENT B

YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND CONSECRATED PERSONS

MARCH 4, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

Last Sunday, Jesus was transfigured before his disciples. His face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzlingly white. By this, he revealed to his disciples his glory as God the Son. A shining cloud descended and enveloped him in the very same way that the cloud of God’s presence descended upon the Temple on the day it was consecrated by Solomon: “The cloud filled the temple of the Lord so that the priests could no longer minister because of the cloud, since the Lord’s glory filled the temple.” God, who cannot be contained by the highest heaven, decided to dwell in the temple built by Solomon. (1 Kings 8) The Temple is the consecrated place where God dwells among his people.

Jesus is truly the Temple of God because in him dwells the fullness of the Divinity. This is the reason why he said: “Destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up…he was speaking about the temple of his body.” After the transfiguration, Jesus admonished his disciple not to tell anyone of what they have seen until he has risen from the dead. This is because they will understand the glory that they saw in Jesus only after the resurrection has taken place. In the same manner, the disciples understood Jesus’ words about the temple being destroyed and rebuilt only after the resurrection: “Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.”

St. Paul tells us that we, baptized Christians, are also temples of God. This is because at our Baptism, God the Holy Spirit descended upon us and made his dwelling in us. This is the reason why we must strive to be pure as Christ is pure. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Cor. 6:17-20) In the Gospel, the Lord Jesus was driven by holy zeal as he cleansed the temple of everything that should not be found in it: “Take these out of here and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace. His disciples remembered the word of Scripture, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’” The Temple of Jerusalem was the Father’s house. Jesus’ body was the Temple of God the Son. We, baptized Christians, are Temples of God the Holy Spirit. In the manner that the Father’s house was cleansed by Jesus and he kept himself pure, so also Jesus desires that we be cleansed for God’s Temple is holy and we are that Temple. As water washes away impurities, so also the waters of Baptism cleansed us and made us temples of God. The waters of sorrow for sins, the tears of compunction, also cleanse us and make us worthy dwellings of the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is important to regularly examine our conscience so that we can detect impurities within us that should be cleansed by confession. We examine our conscience by measuring our lives according to the 10 commandments revealed to us by the first reading.

Jesus made a whip out of cords and drove out from the temple area everything that did not belong to the holiness of the temple. In the same manner, we must use a whip of cords to drive out from the temples of our bodies everything that should not be found in it. The whip of cords would be our acts of penance and mortification: fasting, abstinence, prayer, almsgiving, whole hearted acceptance of sufferings…these penitential acts cleanse us and keep us pure as temples of the Holy Spirit. By these acts of penance we proclaim in our bodies the death of Jesus. We die to ourselves and we die to the world. “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called…Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

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

We do not know Christ until we know his sufferings

2^ND SUNDAY OF LENT B

YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND CONSECRATED PERSONS

FEBRUARY 25, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

Every 2^nd Sunday of Lent, we read the story of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Before the scandal of the Cross takes place, the Lord Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him to the mountain so that they may encounter the Blessed Trinity. On that mountain, the divine glory of Jesus as God’s only Son was revealed to them. His face shone like the sun and his clothing became dazzlingly white. The Holy Spirit appeared as that shining cloud that covered Jesus and the Father made his voice heard. He said: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” Both the Father and the Holy Spirit made Jesus known to Peter, James, and John. Jesus was revealed as God’s beloved Son.

But the very disciples to whom Jesus’ divinity was revealed seemed to have forgotten the revelation so easily. When Jesus was arrested in the garden, James was one of those who fled and abandoned the Lord. Peter dared to follow Jesus until the house of the high priest. There, he saw Jesus beaten up by the guards and so, when he was being identified by the servants as one of Jesus’ disciples, Peter denied the Lord 3 times: I do not know him. John followed Jesus and accompanied Mary his mother all the way to the foot of the Cross. It was there where he saw Jesus suffer and die. It was there where he saw Jesus’ side pierced with a lance. It was there where he saw the blood and water flowing from his Christ’s wounded side. But it was not until he saw the empty tomb that John believed: He saw and he believed. Thus, we understand now why Jesus admonished them not to relate the incident of the Transfiguration to others until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.

Apparently, Christ’s glory was revealed to the disciples in order to prepare them for the scandal of the Cross. And the Cross was truly a scandal. It was an incomprehensible act of Divine love. Seeing how Jesus was being beaten up, Peter was saying the truth when he said that he did not know Jesus. For no one will truly know Jesus unless he sees him Crucified and Risen from the dead. When we see Jesus on the Cross, we are confronted by the same scandal. The Cross reveals to us the incomprehensible depth of Divine Love. Abraham was prevented by an angel from consummating his sacrifice to God. An angel prevented him from killing Isaac: “Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy!” But no one prevented the Father from consummating the offering of Jesus his Son. “He did not spare his Son but handed him over for us all.” The consummation of Jesus’ sacrifice manifests to us the incomprehensible depth of God’s love. To what extent was God willing to do in order to save us? This baffles even the mind of St. Paul who asks: “Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us, who will condemn? Christ Jesus it is who died for us.” Seeing how Christ suffered for us, we will say: I thought I have already seen everything…but I did not realize that it will be like this. (Hindi ko akalain na hahantong ang lahat sa ganito.) God will not spare even his only Son so that he might acquit us of our sins.

Indeed, the glory of Christ Crucified is the glory of God. The depth of Christ’s humiliation is the depth of God’s love. Thus, we have not known Christ until we know his suffering. The Cross truly scandalizes us but it opens up for us the true revelation of who Jesus is. Thus St. Paul would say, “I consider everything as rubbish except the knowledge of Jesus and him Crucified.”

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

Into the Solitude and Barrenness of the Desert

1^ST SUNDAY OF LENT B

YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND CONSECRATED PERSONS

FEBRUARY 18, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you.

The 40 days of Lent imitate the 40 days spent by Jesus in the desert. Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert where he was tempted by the devil. The barrenness of the desert is a true contrast to the abundance of the garden where Adam and Eve were also tempted by the devil. In the garden where Adam and Eve had everything, they fell to the seduction of the devil. However, in the desert where Jesus had nothing, he triumphed over the devil’s temptation. Is it not ironic that when the body is pampered, the soul is weak in the presence of temptations while when the body is weakened by suffering, the soul is strong enough to withstand temptations?

Lent calls us to the solitude and the barrenness of the desert. The Spirit leads us to the desert as He did to Jesus. Lent is a call to solitude. It is like a 40 day spiritual retreat where through fasting and mortification, we experience the barrenness of the desert. It is when we are alone and when we have nothing that we begin to be sensitive to the interior voices that we usually do not hear when we are busy and preoccupied with so many concerns. The external silence of the desert becomes conducive to interior listening. The sounds of the urban jungle oftentimes drown interior voices. This is why during Lent, it would do us good to tone down external sounds and slow down our usual pace so that we can engage in spiritual introspection.

In the desert lived wild beasts and the Lord Jesus was among them. But it really looks strange that the wild beasts seemed tame as they surrounded Jesus. It was like paradise before the fall where Adam and Eve lived in harmony with the beasts.  Unlike the fallen angels who refused to serve God the Son in his humanity, the angels ministered to Jesus whose divinity remained unchanged in his incarnation. The original harmony between man and the natural and supernatural world was seen no longer in the garden but in the desert. This is because being true man while remaining to be true God, the Lord Jesus has restored to humanity what the devil stole through his seduction and temptation. Inasmuch as temptation always appeals to the “animal” in man, Lent becomes for us the occasion to tame the beasts within. It is the time for us to control inordinate passions that liken us to the beasts and draws us away from our likeness to God. We control our animal instincts (sinusupil natin ang ating kahayupan) through fasting, mortification, and prayer. Lent is the time to regain the humanity that sin has compromised in us. When we control ourselves (nilalabanan ang sarili), we become less beasts and more human which was created in the image and likeness of God.

Thus, Lent is a time of real spiritual renewal. It is the time to recover our lost humanity, our likeness unto the Lord. It is a time of silence and solitude. It is a time of taming the beasts within. It is a time to be like Christ who was “put to death in the flesh and brought to life in the Spirit.” Let us allow the Holy Spirit to lead us to the desert. With his help, let us confront our demons. Let us take care to resist the temptation of the devil. Instead, like the angels, let us minister to the Lord. Let us listen to the voice of God who draws us through the desert unto himself.    

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

Coming From the Heart

ASH WEDNESDAY 2018

YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND CONSECRATED PEOPLE

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day are an odd combination. One speaks of fasting and the other speaks of indulgence. That is why for most people, a choice must be made: will you celebrate Ash Wednesday by going into a fast or will you celebrate Valentine’s Day by going on a date?

However, when we listen to the Word of God, we realize that both of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day meet at a certain point. They meet in the heart. Today, we are summoned to penance. “Blow a trumpet in Zion! Proclaim a fast, call an assembly!” But this is not supposed to be simply an external show. Christ our Lord warned us today against “performing religious acts for people to see.” Our deeds of mercy and piety must be done in secret: “Keep you deeds of mercy secret…pray to your Father in private…let no one see that you are fasting…and your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”

What does “keeping deeds of mercy secret” mean? Where is that private room where we are to pray? How is that hidden fasting done? The answer simply is: do these from the heart! The heart is that secret place where we encounter the Father. The Lord does not look at external appearances but at the heart! The Lord is not impressed by externals. He wants things done with the sincerity of the heart. That is why the word of God tells us: Rend your hearts and not your garments! Our acts of piety and mercy are supposed to come from the heart because unless we do so, these will remain to be empty shows like a clanging gong. Without love, all these count for nothing.

The call for penance today starts what St. Paul calls the acceptable time…the day of salvation. The trumpets blown today tell us: We implore you, in Christ’s name: Be reconciled with God! We seek that reconciliation by detaching ourselves from the enemies of the soul, namely the self, the world, and the devil. These prevent us from forming authentic relationships of love with God. And so, if we want to truly love God, we must struggle against these enemies by using the instruments given to us: fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. We use fasting to fight against our own self. By depriving ourselves of food, we struggle against our excessive love for the self. We use almsgiving to fight against the world. The world teaches us to accumulate. Sharing with the poor, we give a counter witness to the world. We use prayer in our struggle against the devil. We refuse to kneel before him because we worship God and only God. And all these struggles take place in the heart. We fast, we give alms, we pray with all our heart. We want to offer God a contrite and humble heart. We beg him: A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.

And so we enter the holy season of Lent. Let us take the Lenten discipline seriously. Be sincere in doing works of piety and mercy. Let our repentance come from our hearts. Let us not weep crocodile tears but authentic tears of compunction. “Between the porch and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep, and say ‘Spare, O Lord, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach…’” We are not here to entertain people. Our desire is to please the Lord. He wants our hearts. Therefore, return to him with all your heart! 

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

The Primacy of God

Jesus, I trust in you!

Wanting to rescue us from the slavery to the devil, the Lord Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. Pope Benedict explained that the fasting of Jesus in the desert is “a descent into the perils besetting mankind, for there is no other way to lift up fallen humanity…He must recapitulate the whole of human history from its beginnings – from Adam on; he must go through, suffer through the whole of it, in order to transform it.” (Jesus of Nazareth, 26.) The slavery of the whole world to sin and death was brought about by the disobedience of one man (Adam). Adam’s disobedience came when he fell for the temptation of the serpent. Temptation is a seduction to sin. Satan enticed Adam and Eve to look at, take, try and taste what is forbidden. He wanted Adam and Eve to disregard God’s decrees and commands and instead, appropriate for themselves the right and the power to determine what is good and evil. It was a costly decision which Adam and Eve made because “a single offense brought condemnation to all men…through one man’s disobedience, all became sinners…”

The Lord Jesus wanted to return to man whatever was stolen from him by the devil. Adam was successfully tempted to disobey God. Jesus had to undergo the same temptation in order to undo Adam’s disobedience by his obedience. Anointed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus went to the desert. The devil challenges Jesus’ identity as the Messiah. The devil “seeks to divert Jesus from the Father’s plan, that is, from the way of sacrifice, of love that offers itself in expiation, to make him take an easier path, one of success and power…The devil, to divert Jesus from the way of the cross, sets before him false messianic hopes: economic well-being (indicated by the ability to turn stones into bread); a dramatic and miraculous style (with the idea of throwing himself down from the highest point of the Temple and being saved by angels); and lastly, a shortcut to power and dominion, in exchange for an act of adoration to Satan.” (Pope Francis, Angelus, March 9, 2014) “At the heart of all temptations is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives. Constructing a world by our own lights, without reference to God, building our own foundation; refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and material, while setting God aside as an illusion - that is the temptation that threatens us in many forms.” (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, 28) 

Satan puts the question of relevance into the mission of Jesus as Messiah: What kind of Messiah are you if you do not bring universal prosperity, or world peace, or a better world? The Church, because she is the Mystical Body of Christ, is constantly confronted by the temptation to be relevant. Disregarding the Church’s record of charity, politicians constantly repeat what Satan said: “Why don’t you turn stones into bread? Why don’t you just impress us by your miracles? Why don’t you conquer all mankind and force them to live in peace?” If you do not solve the problems of humanity and establish a perfect drug and crime-free world, you are not the Messiah we need!

And so, Jesus came and until now, there is still hunger and poverty. Until now, the world is not at peace. Until now, there is no universal prosperity. The world is not yet a better world. And so, what has Jesus done? What has he given us? “The answer is very simple: God. He has brought us God…He has brought God and now we know his face. Now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope, and love. It is only because of the hardness of our heart that we think this is too little. Yes, indeed, God’s power works quietly in this world, but it is the true and lasting power. Again and again, God’s cause seems to be in its death throes. Yet over and over again, it proves to be the thing that truly endures and saves. The earthly kingdoms that Satan was able to put before the Lord at that time have all passed away. Their glory has proven to be a mere semblance (illusion). But the glory of Christ, the humble, self-sacrificing glory of his love, has not passed away, nor will it ever do so.

“Jesus has emerged victorious from his battle with Satan. To the tempter’s lying divinization of power and prosperity, to his lying promise of a future that offers all things to all men through power and through wealth – he responds with the fact that God is God, that God is man’s true Good. To the invitation to worship power, the Lord answers with a passage from Deuteronomy (the same book the devil himself had cited): ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him alone will you serve.’ God alone is to be worshipped…this unconditional Yes to the first tablet of the 10 commandments also includes the Yes to the 2^nd tablet – reverence for man, love of neighbor.” At the end, “angels came and ministered to him.” Psalm 91:11 now comes to fulfillment: The angels serve him, he has proven himself to be the Son, and heaven therefore stands open above him, the new Jacob, the Patriarch of a new universalized Israel.” (Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth, 44 - 45.)

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

Ash Wednesday in the Year of Mercy

Jesus, I trust in you!

Let us hasten to the Inner Room to meet the Father

We once again open the Lenten season with the celebration of Ash Wednesday. During this season, we engage in acts of penance and piety. We fast, we pray, and we give alms to the poor. We go to Church today in the age-old tradition of receiving ashes on our heads as a sign of sorrow for our sins. In the Old Testament, people wore sack cloth and put ashes on their head as they fasted and prayed. We do the same today. Let us remember that the ashes on our heads are signs of true contrition for our sins. Publicly, we acknowledge that we have sinned and by acts of penance, we want to take responsibility for what we have done as we seek the forgiveness of the Lord.

On this Year of Mercy, let us listen to God’s Word which invites us to return to the Lord: “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord your God!” The prophet Joel emphasizes the importance of interior conversion: Rend your hearts, not your garments! Even the Lord Jesus teaches us of the primacy of the heart, that “inner room” where we should go and meet the Father who sees everything in secret.  We do not need to put up a show, to make an elaborate production number to entertain judges. All the Lord wants us to do is to fast in secret, to pray from the heart, and to be sincere in our charity. This is what it means to rend our hearts and not our garments.

But why do we return to the Lord? What is the motive of our interior conversion? We return to the Lord because the Lord has revealed himself to us as a Father who is rich in mercy: “Return to the Lord your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.” St. John Paul II said that when Israel broke her covenant with God by worshiping the golden calf, “The Lord himself triumphed over this act of breaking the covenant when He solemnly declared to Moses that He was a ‘God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.’ It is in this central revelation that the chosen people…will find, every time that they have sinned, the strength and motive for turning to the Lord to remind him of what He exactly revealed about Himself and to beseech His forgiveness.” (Dives in Misericordia, 4.)

This is exactly the reason why turn to him in spite of our sins: the Lord Jesus revealed to us that the Father is rich in mercy. Kaya nga malakas ang loob nating humingi ng awa ay sapagkat sinabi niya na mayaman siya sa awa. Kung walang awa ang Diyos, matatakot tayo at mag-aatubiling lumapit sa kanya. Kung walang awa ang Panginoon, walang sinuman sa atin ang aamin sa kanyang pagkakasala. Kaya nagtago sina Adan at Eba noong sila ay nagkasala ay sapagkat labis silang nahihiya sa kanilang ginawa at hindi nila naisip na kaya at gusto ng Diyos na magpatawad. Lumalapit tayo sa Diyos dahil madali siyang lapitan. Humihingi tayo sa kanya ng awa dahil mayaman siya sa awa.

Let this confidence in the Mercy of God accompany us in our Lenten journey. Let our return to the Lord be done with quick and joyful steps. Let us not walk like convicted men led to their execution. Rather, let us be like children who race to return to the Father’s house. Make your steps light by fasting. Let go of your baggage by alms giving. Let us be quick to enter that inner room to meet the Father who sees everything in secret. He waits for you there. Do not delay your reconciliation to him. Now is the acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation!

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