Faith in the Father

JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU!

Today, the Lord says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” The Lord Jesus assures us that God loves us and that we are important to him. Because of this, he will take care of us. The Father feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field with splendid colors. “Are you not more important than they?”

Because God’s love assures us that he will take care of us, he asks us to trust him. The reason for trusting God is the certitude of his love and care. The Lord sets before us both worry and trust. Choose only one because they cannot go together. If you worry, then you do not trust. If you trust, you do not worry.

People who worry about what to eat and what to wear do not trust the Father. “All these pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” People who worry about tomorrow forget that the Lord has gone there ahead of us. And that Father who has gone ahead of us anticipates all our needs. People who worry too much about the future deprive themselves of the joy of the present.

The Father assures us of his tender love. The prophet Isaiah asks, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even if she forgets, I will never forget you.” I have carved your name in the palm of my hand. We write on our palms to avoid forgetting what we need to do. God did not simply write our names on the palm of his hand. He carved them to make sure that we will not be erased from his memory. The Lord does not forget us. All he asks of us is to trust in him.

Padre Pio said, “Don’t spend your energies on things that generate worry, anxiety, and anguish. Only one thing is necessary: lift up your spirit and love God…Don’t worry to the point of losing your inner peace. Pray with perseverance, with faith, with calmness and serenity…Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”

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

The Perfection of the Father

Jesus, I trust in you!

Last Sunday, the Lord Jesus said, “Unless your holiness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.” We might have biased opinions about scribes and Pharisees because we have heard our Lord call them hypocrites. But during his time, these groups of people were the icons of religiosity because of their expertise and minute or detailed observance of the law. If there was anyone who would most likely enter the Kingdom of God, it would most probably be the scribes and Pharisees. No one could be deemed worthier than them.

But to the mind of the Lord, the meticulous observance of the law was not enough. If a person wanted to belong to the Kingdom of heaven, he had to surpass this high Pharisaic standard. In today’s Gospel reading, the Lord Jesus raised the standard of holiness. No longer are the scribes and Pharisees the standards of holiness. Instead, the standard would be the Father himself: “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In the first reading, the Lord said to Moses: “Be holy, for I the Lord am holy.”

What does the holiness of the Lord mean? The holiness of the Lord means that he is not like his creatures. His ways are different. His thoughts are different. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways, for I am God and not man.” That is why to be holy as God is holy means living according to the paradigms of God and not of man. This is difficult because of the immense difference between the ways of God and the ways of the created world.

For example, it is but natural for us to love our neighbor and hate our enemies. It is but natural to love those who love us, those who like us, those with whom we share common interests. It is but natural for us to love those who are good and kind to us. But the Lord tells us that our holiness must be greater than mere natural goodness. Our love must be supernatural. Thus, as the Lord is good to all the good and bad alike, so also our love must not be limited to the lovable but also must extend to the unlovable. “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors.” While it is natural to feel hatred for the enemy, loving them and praying for those who make life difficult for us is supernatural. This is because God is love. He is kind and merciful. Thus, the Lord admonishes us: “You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart. Though you may have to reprove your fellow citizen, do not incur sin because of them. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of them.” This is why “an eye for an eye

and a tooth for a tooth” does not work for us. “Kapag buhay ang inutang, buhay rin ang kabayaran,” likewise does not work for the Christian. Rather, the Christian response to evil is goodness: “Offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well. Hand over your cloak to the one who sues you for your tunic. Should anyone press you into service for 1 mile, go for 2 miles. Give to the one who asks of you, do not turn your back on the borrower.”

This is why it is so difficult to propose the way of Christ to the world. The resistance of many to the bishops’ opposition to death penalty and also to extrajudicial killing comes from the fact that the standards of God are way above the natural standards of the world. It is easy to understand why people are more inclined to Duterte’s argument: “Masama sila kaya dapat lang sila mamatay.” Killing the enemy sounds so natural because this is the way the world thinks. Many people cannot comprehend the concept of supernatural mercy and patience. “God does not delight in the death of the sinner. He desires that the sinner should repent and live.”  It takes a lot of faith and a lot of grace to comprehend God’s wisdom in his mercy and patience. And yet, if we want to go to heaven, we must make this great effort to leap from natural logic to Divine wisdom. “The wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God,” so said St. Paul. If our holiness does not surpass natural goodness (that is, the holiness of the scribes and Pharisees), then we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. No less than the perfection of the Father is what it takes in order to enter heaven. We cannot afford to lower the standards of Christian living because Jesus elevated them.

Christian life is indeed challenging because it beckons us to go beyond the limits of natural goodness. We must aim high – aim for the height of supernatural holiness. Goodness is not good enough. We must be holy as God is holy if we want to enter heaven. Pope John Paul II said: “The standards of Christianity are high. They do not admit mediocre morality nor shallow spirituality.”

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

Thou Shall Not Kill

Jesus, I trust in you!

Jesus said to us, his disciples: “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors: You shall not kill and whoever kills will be liable to judgment…”  Pope John Paul II said in Evangelium Vitae: “Human life is sacred because from its beginning, it involves ‘the creative action of God’ and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can, in any circumstance, claim for himself the right to destroy directly an innocent human being.”…Donum Vitae sets forth the central content of God’s revelation on the sacredness and inviolability of human life.

“Sacred Scripture in fact, presents the precept ‘You shall not kill’ as a divine commandment…this commandment is found in the Decalogue, at the heart of the Covenant which the Lord makes with his chosen people; but it was already contained in the original covenant between God and humanity after the purifying punishment of the Flood, caused by the spread of sin and violence.

“God proclaims that he is the absolute Lord of the life of man, who is formed in his image and likeness. Human life is thus given a sacred and inviolable (banal, hindi maaring labagin) character, which reflects the inviolability of the Creator himself.  Precisely for this reason God will severely judge every violation of the commandment ‘You shall not kill’…He is the defender of the innocent. God thus shows that he does not delight in the death of the living (Wisdom 1:3). Only Satan can delight therein: for through his envy death entered the world (Wis. 2:24). He who is ‘a murderer from the beginning’, is also ‘a liar and the father of lies.’ By deceiving man he leads him to projects of sin and death, making them appear as goals and fruits of life.

“As explicitly formulated, the precept ‘You shall not kill’ is strongly negative: it indicates the extreme limit which can never be exceeded. However, implicitly it encourages a positive attitude of absolute respect for life; it leads to the promotion of life and to progress along the way of a love that gives, receives, and serves. The people of the Covenant…progressively matured in this way of thinking, and thus prepared for the great proclamation of Jesus that the commandment to love one’s neighbor is like the commandment to love God: ‘on these 2 commandments depend all the law and the prophets.’ St. Paul emphasizes that ‘the commandment ‘You shall not kill’ and any other commandment are summed up in this phrase: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ …The commandment ‘You shall not kill’ stands as an indispensable condition for being able ‘to enter life’. In this same perspective…the Apostle John (says): “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1 Jn 3:15)

The Didache, an ancient document of the Church coming from the Apostolic times said: “There are 2 ways, a way of life and a way of death; there is a great difference between them…In accordance with the precept of the teaching ‘You shall not kill’…you shall not put a child to death by abortion nor kill it once it is born…The way of death is this: …they do show no compassion for the poor, they do not suffer with the suffering, they do not acknowledge their Creator, they kill their children and by abortion cause God’s creatures to perish; they drive away the needy, oppress the suffering; they are advocates of the rich and unjust judges of the poor; they are filled with every sin. May you be able to stay ever apart, O children from these sins.

“This should not come as a surprise: to kill a human being, in whom the image of God is present, is a particularly serious sin. Only God is the master of life! (Evangelium Vitae, 53-55.)

The Book of Sirach teaches us: Before man are life and death, good and evil, whatever he chooses shall be given to him.

Let us choose life. Let us choose to stand by the commandments of God, even if we shall be persecuted and mocked for this. (March for life on Saturday, Feb 18 at the Qurino grandstand at 4:30 to 7:00 am) There is no mistake in standing up for life. There is no mistake in standing on the side of the God of life. If you keep the commandments, “they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live.”

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

The Truly Blessed

Jesus, I trust in you!

During the Lunar New Year, I was in Chinatown to do some errands. I chanced upon a make shift altar erected in honor of the Buddha with so many people lining up to offer first incense to him for blessings during the year. I really would not mind this practice of religion if it were not for the fact that those who lined up were not Buddhists. They were not even Chinese but Filipino Christians who would do anything (even worship a false god) in order to receive blessings for the new year.

We all want to be blessed and we all want to live a truly blessed life. But who are the truly blessed? To many of us, the rich business tycoons, beauty pageant winners, powerful politicians are among those who we would most likely call blessed people. “Blessed na blessed!” we would say about them. But the Lord would say otherwise. He said that the ones who are truly blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure of heart, peacemakers, the persecuted, the mocked and slandered people. Listening to the Lord’s list, we would find it difficult to believe that these people live blessed lives. How can they be blessed when in fact they seem to be suffering some want or lack? When looking at these people, we do not say “blessed na blessed.” Rather, we say “kawawa.” Indeed, these people are not what the world would consider as the “haves” but rather they are the “haves not.”

But St. Paul tells us: “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, he chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, he chose those who count for nothing to reduce to nothing those who were something, so that no human being might boast before God.” The people included in the list of the beatitudes are definitely the ‘have nots” but ironically, they have everything because God chooses to give himself to them. He gives them his kingdom, his comfort, his inheritance, his satisfaction, his mercy. He will show himself to them. He calls them his own children. “Their reward will be great in heaven!”

When God created the human being, he left in each of us a space, a vacuum which cannot be filled by anything nor by anyone except by him.  St. Thomas Aquinas said, “Nothing created has ever filled the heart of man. God alone can fill it infinitely.” And this is the true blessing: God’s gift of himself. God who fills the entire universe is the only one who can satisfy the longings of the human heart. It is when the longings of the heart are satisfied, it is then that we are truly happy.

And so, if you want to be blessed during this new year, don’t offer incense to some strange god. Don’t buy charms nor engage in incantations. Rather, do what the prophet Zephaniah said in the first reading: “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth, who have observed his law; seek justice, seek humility; perhaps you may be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger…they shall pasture and couch their flocks with none to disturb them.”

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

Fishing Men Out of Darkness

Jesus, I trust in you!

Close to Epiphany, we see the beginnings of the public ministry of the Lord Jesus. He continues to reveal himself to all nations. As through the light of a star he beckoned the magi to himself, so today, he calls to the people beyond the Jordan, the Galilee of the Gentiles. The beginning of his public ministry took place in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali in northern Galilee which was occupied by Assyria. He addresses himself not just to the chosen people of Israel but to all the gentiles, that is, to the entire world: He has glorified the land west of the Jordan, the district of the Gentiles. God has so decided in the past to reveal himself to Israel. It was only to them that he spoke through the prophets. John the Baptist, the last prophet to be sent, preached to the people of Israel. God never sent any prophet to the Gentiles. For a long time, the light of Divine Revelation shone only upon the land of Israel while the rest of the world was kept in darkness. At last, the Lord expands the scope of his light. At last he speaks to the rest of the world: The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death, light has arisen. That Light is Jesus himself, the revelation of God, the visible image of the invisible God. He is Light from Light, true God from true God. He is the Light of the world and no one who follows him will walk in the dark.

He calls his disciples and makes them his partners in the work of saving people. As “fishers of men”, they are to “fish” people out of the dark seas, the abyss, the kingdom of evil. But for them to do this, they must themselves be fished out of that darkness. They must leave the kingdom of evil in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. This can only be done by conversion (metanoia). Conversion means making a radical turning towards the Lord, a full U-turn, turning one’s back to the previous life of darkness in order to live by the light of Jesus. Because Jesus is the Light, if we turn our backs toward him, we shall face our shadow. But if we turn to him, we have our shadows cast behind our backs. Therefore, we have to turn to Jesus and follow him first. We cannot lead people to the light of Jesus if we continue to live in darkness. We cannot liberate (fish) people from darkness if we remained prisoners of darkness ourselves.

In these past days, we have witnessed the outpouring of Filipino devotion to the Lord. Millions joined the procession of the Nazareno. Millions paid homage to the Santo Nino. And yet, we cannot deny that in spite of such fervor of devotion, many of us are still nominal Catholics. Oftentimes, there is a contradiction between our actual lives and our faith in Jesus. This nominal Catholicism is rooted in the absence of true conversion. Conversion is not just sorrow for past sinfulness. It is rebirth (bagong buhay, pagbabalik-loob) in which we allow the Holy Spirit to transform the way we think into the mind of Christ. It is rebirth in which we allow the Holy Spirit to transform our will so that we would desire only to do what Jesus wills. In this rebirth, we allow the word of God to shape our lives. Thus, we should ask ourselves: are we walking in the light of the Lord or are we still living in the shadow of death? Are we living on the side of light and life or are we still sitting in darkness and the shadow of death? Are we preaching the Gospel of life or are we supporting the culture of death? Let us allow ourselves to be enlightened by the Lord. It is by walking in his light that we shall live in the land of the living.

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

  

The Fearless Surrender of a Little Child

Jesus, I trust in you!

Children are usually told to watch and learn from adults. Adults like us are always presented to them as models who they should imitate. But the mind of the Lord is different. He tells us: “Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.” Those who aspire to enter heaven must watch and learn from children. They are the models who we should all imitate if we want to be part of his Kingdom.

The Lord puts the little child in our midst today…the little child who oftentimes is relegated to the side because he has done nothing yet to prove his worth. The child has not proven his worth because he does not yet earn his keep nor has he achieved anything to assure him of his niche in society. And yet, when asked: “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven,” the Lord puts the child in the midst of his disciples and tells them: “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”

In this way, he reveals to us his glory…for who is greater than Him who is the Lord? Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. To him, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given by the Father. And yet, in entering this world, he humbled himself and became a little child. He diminished himself. He made himself small, because in the Kingdom of God, littleness is the measure of greatness. Even Philosophy affirms this: God is the simplest of all beings. In the image of the Sto. Niño, we see the true glory of Christ: it is the glory of God’s only Son, full of grace and truth. Indeed, what the world deems important (like power and wealth) is nothing in the sight of God. A person’s true greatness is measured by his simplicity and child-like trust in the Lord.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus teaches us the doctrine of spiritual childhood. She wrote: “I understand so well that it is only love which makes us acceptable to God that this love is the only good I ambition. Jesus deigned to show me the road that leads to the Divine Furnace, and this road is the surrender of the little child who sleeps without fear in its Father’s arms. ‘Whoever is a little one, let him come to me.’ So speaks the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Solomon. This same Spirit of Love says: ‘For to him that is little, mercy will be shown.’ The prophet Isaiah reveals in his name that on the last day: ‘God will feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom.’“ (Story of a Soul, 188.)

“The surrender of the little child who sleeps in its Father’s arms” is the oblation that pleases the Father. This surrender is the way of trust that the Lord is asking us to offer to him. Self-sufficiency brings us nowhere. We need the Father and we should never hesitate to ask for his love. With confidence, we should approach him for “there is no detail of my life that is too tiny for his concern.” As Jesus became a little child in order to enter our world, so we should become like little children in order to enter heaven. Let us confidently walk this way of spiritual childhood – the way of unconditional surrender and trust in the Lord. He does not need anything from us except our love. Let us give him this love as this is all the Father wants from us. Let us ask the Santo Niño: “O Son of God, who for my sake took on the dependency of childhood, help me to accept the readiness of the Father’s grace.”

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

Epiphany: All Nations Belong to Him

Jesus, I trust in you!

Jose Rizal was fascinated by a gamu gamo or winged termite which is attracted by light. The small insect, desiring for light, drew near the flame of the oil lamp even though it was dangerous. And true enough, its wings caught fire.

Light has power to attract. And Epiphany, being the feast of light, shows us this lesson. The Magi coming from the East, went to Bethlehem in search of the King of the Jews. They were led to him by the light of a star which they saw rising in the East. “Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples; but upon you the Lord shines and over you appears his glory.” Indeed, these pagans saw the light of a star which beckoned them to a greater light and that light is Christ, who is Light from Light, true God from true God.

The pagans were not given the light of revelation. God did not send them prophets. They sought guidance from the stars because it was all they had. Through the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews, they heard of prophecies about the coming of the King of the Jews who would rule the nations. The unfortunate occasion of Jewish slavery in their land became a blessing for the pagans. “Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance…they all gather to come to you…”

Light has power to attract. We are drawn towards the light. Christ’s light draws us to himself. Christ’s light is not dangerous. It does not kill like the flame of a lamp. Rather, his light gives life. “What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race.” The Magi found out that the closer they were to Christ, the greater light they enjoyed. First, it was just a star that they saw. Later on, in Jerusalem, they heard the prophecies of scriptures. Then, finally, they saw Christ himself and they prostrated themselves and worshiped him. They offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Little did they realize that it was not what they brought that were the gifts to the newborn King but they themselves were the gifts. “I shall bequeath you the nations, put the ends of the earth in your possession.” (Ps. 2: 8)

The Jews are not the only ones who belong to the Lord. Even if they were the chosen people of God, they are not the only ones who belong to him. The world and everything in it belongs to him. We are all the inheritance of the Lord. We are his people, the flock he shepherds. Thus, today, the Father reveals to all of us his Son as our Lord and King. He also draws us towards his Son for Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.”

Let us always be grateful to the Father for having revealed to us his only Son. As the magi experienced, so also do we realize that the closer we are to Jesus, the greater light we enjoy. The closer we are to Jesus, the more life do we possess, the more alive we are. The more light we enjoy, the greater is our capacity to see. The gospel of Jesus renders astrology useless. We no longer need the guidance of the stars. We are guided by a greater light given to us by the teachings of Jesus. When the magi found Christ, they no longer went back to their former ways. “They departed for their country by another way.” The Christian path is no longer a groping in the dark. It is not a guessing game. Rather, it is a confident journey from light to greater light. We do not worship a god we do not know. We know him for he has revealed himself to us. We know he is true and all his ways are sure.

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