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!

Cleansing by a whip of cords

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

The Lord Jesus was truly upset with how the Temple, which was his Father’s house, was transformed into a marketplace. He therefore proceeded to cleanse the Temple by making a whip out of cords and by driving away whatsoever defiled the holiness of the Temple. However, when asked to justify what he had done, he challenged the Jews to destroy the Temple and he will build it up in 3 days. But John was quick to comment: Jesus was speaking about the Temple of his Body. How could Jesus refer to his Body as the Temple? Perhaps, we should first clarify: What is a Temple? Simply put, the Temple is the house of God. Although God dwells everywhere, he designated the Temple as his dwelling place so that people may easily find him when they search for him. If a person is looking for a king, he should go to the palace. If a person is looking for a priest, he should go to the rectory. If a person is looking for God, he should go to the Temple. In this way, the body of the Lord Jesus is most appropriately called the Temple of God because in that body of his dwells the fullness of the Divinity. In his sacred Body dwells the 2^nd Person of the Trinity. Indeed, his human Body is the glorious Temple of God because it is radiant in its purity and glory. This was what we saw in last Sunday’s Transfiguration: Christ’s Body was transfigured before his disciples. In Christ’s human Body, the disciples saw his Glory, the glory of God’s only begotten Son, full of grace and truth.

By virtue of Baptism, our bodies are also Temples because we have received the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit. We are Temples of the Holy Spirit. However, our temples are not as radiant as that of the Lord Jesus. Because we have fallen for the seduction of Satan, we have also made a marketplace out of the Father’s house. Therefore, in order to be truly worthy Temples of the Holy Spirit, we have to purify ourselves of everything that defiles the Temple. This we can do by imitating what the Lord did in today’s reading: He made a whip out of cords and drove them out of the temple area. The whip of cords would refer to our acts of mortification: fasting and abstinence. It would refer to our acts of self-denial, to the mortification not just of our bodies but also of our wills. When we obey the commandments of God instead of pursuing our own will, we mortify our will in favor of the will of God. We purify ourselves when we carry our Cross everyday in order to proclaim Christ Crucified. We are cleansed when in our flesh we take up what is still lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church.

It is important that we cleanse ourselves with mortification and penance if we wish our bodies to bear resemblance with Christ’s glorified body on the day of the resurrection. The Lord Jesus allowed his body to be whipped, to be scourged, to be crowned with thorns, to bear the heavy weight of the Cross and to it be nailed. Although he was sinless, Son though he was, Jesus was made perfect by suffering. If we wish to be glorified with Jesus, we must suffer with Jesus, be buried with Jesus so that if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in us, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in us. (Rom 8:11). The Lord will also raise our lowly bodies and  will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body…(Phil 3:21) Let us always keep in mind that the Temple of God is holy and you are that Temple!

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

Late Posting 21st Sunday in Ordinary time C :The Narrow Gate

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

We have always known the Lord Jesus as someone who is welcoming – someone whose heart is always willing to accommodate everybody…one who keeps telling people: “I come to gather nations of every language; they shall come and see my glory.” This is why we would wonder why he would say: “Strive to enter the narrow gate.” Is it not true that if the Lord wanted to bring all men to salvation, then he should make heaven’s gate wide and open? Then why is he saying that heaven’s gate is a narrow one?

The Lord tells us that heaven is for the strong: “Many will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” However, strength here is not gained by simply eating and drinking in the company of the Lord. Nor is it gained by simply listening to the Lord as he preached in our streets. For “not everyone who calls out ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter into the kingdom of God!” The strength to enter through the narrow gate is gained by what the second reading calls “Discipline”: “Endure your trials as ‘discipline.’”

Try to enter the Narrow Gate

We enter heaven by following the Lord. He is the Good Shepherd who leads us into the verdant pastures and restful waters of heaven. He goes before us and we follow him. However, he goes before us along the way of the Cross. The way of discipleship is that of self denial and of carrying our crosses in imitation of him who suffered and died for us. The way of discipleship is the way of discipline. Contrary to what the world teaches us, our trials, our crosses actually make us strong and fit for the narrow gate of heaven. That is why we should never disdain our trials. We should not disdain the cross for such is the mark of the love of the Father for us: “My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him: for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines. He scourges every son he acknowledges…God treats you as sons. For what son is there whom the father does not discipline? At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.”

Thomas a Kempis wrote: “JESUS has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him. But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either into complaints or into deep dejection. Those, on the contrary, who love Him for His own sake and not for any comfort of their own, bless Him in all trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if He should never give them consolation, yet they would continue to praise Him and wish always to give Him thanks. What power there is in pure love for Jesus -- love that is flee from all self-interest and self-love!

The Difference between the thoughts of God and the thoughts of men

Jesus, I trust in you!

St. Mark addressed his Gospel to the Christians who were being persecuted for their faith. Thus, the image of Jesus which he presents to them is that of the Suffering Servant of God, one who teaches that “the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise again after three days.” He rebukes Peter for resisting our Lord’s destiny as the Suffering Servant. He calls Peter “Satan” because he was “thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

The Lord shows the difference of the thoughts of God from the thoughts of man. Man naturally thinks in terms of convenience, comfort, and ease. This is the reason why the RH bill is very attractive to many people. It promises couples of a life of ease and comfort because, admittedly, the less children they have, the less responsibilities they still need to fulfill. Less responsibility mean a lifestyle of comfort and ease. That is why, as I have said a few weeks ago, many people would rather listen to the human teachings that guarantee comfortable lives than the commandments of God that challenge us to transcend the narrow limitations of the human point of view.

But human beings do not think as God does. Men think in terms of convenience but God thinks in terms of righteousness and truth. Men think in terms of accumulation but God thinks in terms of self-emptying. Men think in terms of honors and applause but God thinks in terms of humiliations and self-denial. The ways of God, the way of suffering, self-denial, and daily cross, can only be explained by who God is: God is Love. Padre Pio used to say: “He who begins to love must be willing to suffer.” This willingness to suffer is due to the fact that love and sacrifice go together. Love and sacrifice is what the Cross is about.

We constantly search for what will make us happy. Wrongly do we think that happiness is brought by convenience and material satisfaction. True happiness is found in God. True happiness is found in heaven. And the only way to heaven is through the Cross. Christ entered his glory only through the Cross. “The foot of the Cross is the gateway to heaven.” “Life is a Calvary and we must climb it cheerfully…From Calvary, we go to Tabor.” The way of suffering is the way of glory. “Glory will be ours on the condition that we endure suffering.”

By the Cross, the Lord proved his love for us. By the Cross, let us prove our love for Him. “In suffering, we give to God something which we cannot do in paradise…The angels are jealous of us because they cannot suffer.” “Suffering is a sure sign that God loves us…Accepting sufferings will perfect us and sanctify us.” Let us deny ourselves, carry our Cross, and follow Jesus.

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

Self-denial according to St. Faustina

The Lord's way is one of self-denial. What does self-denial mean? I was browsing over the pages of St. Faustina's diary and I found something worth our consideration:

1. The denial of my reason. Subjecting it to the reason of those who represent God to me on earth.

2. The denial of my will. Doing the will of God, which is revealed in the will of those who represent God to me and which is contained in the rule of our order.

3. The denial of my judgment. Accepting immediately and without reflection, analysis or reasoning all orders given by those who represent God to me.

4. The denial of my tongue. I will not give it the least bit of freedom; but in one case only I will give it complete freedom; that is, in proclaiming the glory of God. Whenever I receive Holy Communion, I will ask Jesus to fortify and cleanse my tongue that I may not injure my neighbor with it. That is why I have the greatest respect for the rule which speaks about silence.

(St. Faustina, Diary, 375)