Category: healing

In touch Vs. Out of touch

40 Shades of Lent, Sunday Week II-A, 08 March 2020

Genesis 12:1-4 +++ 2 Timothy 1:8-10 +++ Matthew 17:1-9

“Creation of Adam” by Michaelangelo at Sistine Chapel, the Vatican. From Wikipedia.

Touch is a very powerful word – literally and figuratively speaking. We say “we are touched” when we are deeply moved by words or music, gestures, acts, and scenes that need not be so spectacular because to touch is about making a connection, a communion of persons.

A touch can be so powerful that when filled with love and sincerity, it can transform the person being touched. Experts say that a touch of about five seconds is worth more than 300 words of encouragement and praise!

And that is why our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God is a certified “touch person” who always reached out to people by physically touching them, embracing them to make them feel his loving presence, his mercy, and most of all, his healing.

Almost all his healings were done by touching the sick when he would lay his hands on them like with the blind Bartimaeus on the street of Jericho.

There were times Jesus held up the hand of the sick to raise them up from their bed like Peter’s mother-in-law and the daughter of Jairus. Sometimes in rare occasions, Jesus healed in the most bizarre ways with his sense of touch like with that deaf in Decapolis.

He (Jesus) put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”).

Mark 7:33-34

In Nain, Jesus raised to life the son of a widow by touching the coffin – not the dead – by saying, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” that everyone was amazed, saying “the Lord has visited his people”.

Jesus never missed an occasion without personally touching another person, especially the children like when he caught his disciples driving them away.

“Jesus blessing Little Children”, painting by British North American Benjamin West PRA (1781). Photo from wikipedia.

It is perhaps one of the most touching story of Jesus touching others when he told his disciples to “let the children come to me for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”, after which he embraced them, laid his hands on them and blessed them.

How blessed were those children must be to be embraced and laid with hands on by Jesus! According to tradition, one of those kids embraced and blessed by Jesus was St. Ignatius of Antioch who became a bishop and martyr in the early Church.

That is the transforming power of the touch by Jesus that children are blessed, the sick are healed by restoring their sight or cleansing their skin of leprosy, forgiving the sinners, giving hope to the poor. His touch is always a part of his proclamation of the good news to the people.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Jesus continues to touch us today in every Mass we celebrate when he first speaks to us in the scriptures, trying to make us feel our “hearts burn inside” like the disciples going home to Emmaus on Easter Sunday; and secondly, when he gives us his Body and Blood to partake in the Holy Eucharist.

Most of all, Jesus continues to literally touch us today through one another in our loving service to one another as a community of his disciples.

But, in this age of social media when every communication is mediated by gadgets and other instruments, this kind of personal communication is something we have all been missing because we have stopped touching Jesus, touching others too.

And this is what the second Sunday of Lent is trying to remind us today in the Transfiguration of Jesus.

Transfiguration of Jesus, communion of God with us

Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them… a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.” And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone.

Matthew 17:1-2, 5-7
“Transfiguration of Jesus” by Raphael from wikipedia.

We hear this story of the Transfiguration of Jesus twice every year: the Second Sunday of Lent and the sixth of August for the Feast of the Transfiguration. At this time of the year, the Transfiguration story is heard in relation with the Lord’s coming Passion, Death, and Resurrection.

At his Transfiguration, Jesus made it very clear that his glory and divinity must always be seen in the light of his Cross for it is only with his Cross that he can be correctly recognized as the Christ. It is on the Cross where Jesus truly touches us too in our personhood, in our humanity.

See how the three disciples were seized with fear upon hearing the voice of the Father while a bright cloud cast a vast shadow over them; but, it was right in that “tremendum fascinans” that we also find the intimacy, the closeness of God to us through Jesus Christ when he touched the three disciples.

Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.” And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone.

Matthew 17:7

And that is the good news for us all!

God had chosen to be so close to us in his Son Jesus Christ who touches us most not only in glory but most especially in moments of trials and tribulations! It is on the Cross where humanity and the divine truly become one in Jesus, when that personal and loving touch of Jesus becomes transformative and even performative.

This is the reason St. Paul exhorted Timothy to “bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God” (2Tim.1:8) because oneness with Jesus always starts at the cross!

This is very true with us too when we only come to realize who are our true friends, our BFF’s when they are personally one with us in our trials and tribulations, not only in times we are well and good.

True transformation in Jesus can only happen when we are willing to be one with him, to be in touch with him in his passion and death for it is the only path to his Easter glory of transfiguration.

Touch communication vs. mediated communication

From Forbes.com

How sad that in this age of modern communications that have shrunk the world into a “global village” with instant communications that instead of growing together we have grown more apart than ever from each other.

We have lost real communications that lead to communion of persons or unity of people because we have become more concerned with the techniques of communication, more of skills and gadgets than of persons.

That is the meaning of media or “mediated communication” where there is always a medium between or among persons like cellphones and gadgets.

No more interpersonal relationships, making us more isolated and alienated, leading to growing problems of loneliness, depression, and suicides.

How frustrating sometimes to attend social functions like dinners and weddings where everyone is more busy and interested with their cellphones than with persons beside them!

Aside from isolation from persons, we have also grown “out of touch” with reality itself when more and more people are retreating into their own small worlds like cocoons with wires attached into their ears while their eyes fixated on screens oblivious to the world around them.

We have become so out of touch with ourselves and with others that more and more we are becoming like porcupines – we have not only stopped getting in touch with others but even hurt others if ever we touch them!

From Google.

Parents, lovers, couples, even people we trust like priests and religious sometimes hurt us with their touch instead of healing us, comforting us. Nobody would want to go through the Passion of the Cross anymore that we would rather stay on top of the mountain, of everything to be delighted with our perceived power and glory.

So unlike in our first reading where we get the feel and touch of real encounter in persons between God and Abraham. Note how in just four verses the word “bless” used five times by God to Abraham, promising to bless him more if he leaves his kin to follow him to the land he would give him.

In their conversation, we find a very personal and engaging communication, as if God and Abraham were literally in touch with each other, where there is personal contact and communication.

We know this for a fact at how effective and more reliable are personal interactions in communication than mediated ones through phones and email – personal communications always have that feel and touch that enable us to negotiate further and be more fruitful.

This Season of Lent, the Father is asking us to be in touch with him again by listening to the words of his Son Jesus who asks us only one thing: deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him. Let us heed him, touch him, and allow him to touch us again to be healed and transformed.

May you be touched as you touch also others in the most loving way this Sunday throughout the whole week! Amen.

Lent is for “debugging”

40 Shades of Lent, Friday, Week-I, 06 March 2020

Ezekiel 18:21-28 +++ 0 +++ Matthew 5:20-26

Photo by author, Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Bagbaguin, Santa Maria, Bulacan, Lent 2020.

Once again, our loving Father, I take the computer as my point of comparison for my prayer reflection on this second Friday of Lent.

Thank you in giving us this blessed season of Lent when we are able to “debug” our “internal hard drive” – the heart – to be cleansed of bugs and virus as well as unnecessary materials that slow us down to be holy and perfect like you.

Your words are very reassuring of how you want us to be “fixed” always, to be in good condition, filled with life and holiness.

Thus says the Lord God: “Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of a wicked?” says the Lord God. “Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way that he may live? Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair? When someone virtuous man turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniqity he committed that he must die. But if the wicked, trning from the wickedness he has committed, does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins that he committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.”

Ezekiel 18:23, 25-28

Educate our hearts, O Lord.

Help us “surpass the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees” in Jesus Christ who have come to perfect the laws in himself, in love.

May your purifying love, sweet Jesus, cleanse us of our sins, delete our painful memories that continue to hold us back, preventing us to move forward and forgive others and especially our very selves.

Make us rejoice, O Lord, in your immense love and share it with others so that we may grow more in holiness in you. Amen.

That “Eureka!” moment of life – and death

The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for the Soul

Homily at the Funeral of Archimedes Lazaro (ICS ’97), 18 February 2020

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 ><)))*> 0 <*(((>< Luke 7:11-17

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Soon afterward Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” He stepped forward and touched the coffin; at this the bearers halted, and he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, exclaiming, “A great prophet has arisen in our midst,” and “God has visited his people.”

Luke 7:11-16

Today, we are like at the city of Nain. Traffic is so heavy outside as many of us – family and friends, former classmates, colleagues at work from all over and neighbors – gather to pray and pay our last respects for Archie.

Celebrating a funeral Mass for a young person is always difficult for me. Like Jesus, I feel so sad for their parents. Normally, it is the children who bury their parents. It must be so painful for parents burying a son or a daughter. That is why in our gospel, Jesus was “moved with pity” with the widow of Nain.

But today, amid the pains and sorrows with the sudden death of Archie last week at a very young age, we actually celebrate life in Jesus Christ.

Photo by author of the hills of Galilee from the Walls of Jerusalem, May 2017.

Jesus comes to visit us always

Like in that scene at Nain, we remember and celebrate the life of Archie who had come to visit us even for a short time.

I love that part of the gospel where the people at Nain exclaimed at how “God has visited his people” when Jesus raised the dead young man.

Jesus continues to visit us everyday through one another like Archie.

Despite his many sins and imperfections, Archie made us experience Jesus Christ’s love and friendship, warmth and kindness, especially to his two sons, family, and friends.

Surely, Jesus must have visited Archie, too, during those dark moments of his life.

And the good news is, Archie visited Jesus so often especially these last two years when he started to pick up the pieces of his life.

Last time I saw Archie was last November when he came to celebrate Mass in our Parish. And I have heard how he had sought spiritual guidance from Fr. Carl, driving that far to Paco every month as he renewed his relationship with Christ, trying to follow anew the Lord he had served since elementary as a sacristan and later as a seminarian in our high school seminary.

It is Jesus who first finds us always

Photo by author at Mt. St. Paul Spirituality Center, Baguio, 04 February 2020.

We all know Archie’s tocayo is one of ancient Greece’s great scientist and inventor, Archimedes.

It is said that he discovered the principle of buoyancy – the “Archimedes’ principle” – while taking a bath.

When Archimedes sat onto his bathtub, he observed that “when a body is submerged in a fluid, it experiences an apparent loss in weight that is equal to the weight of fluid displaced by the immersed body.”

Archimedes was so ecstatic with his accidental discovery that he jumped naked from his bathtub out to the streets, shouting “eureka!” or “I have found” the solution to a problem he was trying to solve at that time.

Archimedes had not only enriched the field of mathematics and sciences with his discoveries but also the English language with the word “eureka” or “eureka moment”: when somebody discovers something very significant in business and economics, the sciences especially medicine, and practically in every field and subject.

Most especially in life.

Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul Spirituality Center, Baguio, 04 February 2020.

Archie had the same eureka moment in life: he had found Jesus Christ again that he went back to Mass and Confessions.

He had found meaning in life again after losing hope and directions.

Most of all, Archie had found love again.

Like his namesake of ancient Greece, Archie is now exclaiming “eureka” ecstatically into heaven – naked – with nothing but the love and mercy of Jesus Christ who first found him and brought him back to life a few years ago.

Today as we bring the remains of Archie into his final resting place, we thank God who never stops looking for us, finding us so that we can find him again and finally rest in him.

Today it is Jesus who is most ecstatic of all because he is the first to have found Archie and that is why, he had called him back to him, never to get lost again.

But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace. In the time of their visitation they shall shine.

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-3, 7

Amen.

God’s overflowing grace with Mary

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Tuesday, Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, World Day of the Sick, 11 February 2020

Isaiah 66:10-14 ><)))*> 0 <*(((>< John 2:1-11

Photo of Our Lady of Lourdes in France by Arch. Philip Santiago, September 2018.

Praise and glory to you O God, our loving and merciful Father who has given us a wonderful and most kind mother in the Blessed Virgin Mary through Jesus Christ your Son.

Through Mary, your abundant blessings, O God, have flowed and continue to overflow upon us even with the completion of her mission here on earth as Mother of Jesus.

How true were your words to the Prophet Isaiah that you shall send Israel a mother who shall comfort us, a mother in whom you shall spread prosperity and blessings upon us (Isaiah 66:10-14).

When Mary came into the scene when she was conceived without original sin, through her came our Savior Jesus Christ. From the very start, she worked to be the vessel of your blessings, God.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Jesus told them, “Fill the jars wit water.”

John 2:1-3, 5, 7

How wonderful to recall and meditate on this first miracle of Jesus of turning water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana through the intercession of his Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

How lovely it is that more than 1800 years, another miracle would happen again from you, O God, at a grotto in Lourdes, France involving water through the Blessed Virgin Mary again!

Thank you dearest Jesus for the gift of water, the gift of life in you. Water is the primordial element of life, and water is also one of the primordial symbols of humanity. How amazing that since the miracle at Cana, your life continues to overflow upon us, Lord Jesus Christ, through Mary especially at Lourdes, France.

There are at Lourdes, Mary told the young St. Bernadette to dig on earth where water burst forth a spring, like life coming out of the womb of the earth. Until now, that spring is the origin and beginning of many healings and other miracles among generations of different peoples from all walks of life and nation, including to those who have not been there in Lourdes, France!

The waters of Lourdes remain a symbol of fruitfulness and of healing, of maternity in Mary who cares most to us and the sick next to Jesus our Lord and Savior..

Give us the grace, O God, the gift of purity, of cleanliness in our hearts so that we may become like Mary at Lourdes as a vessel of your healing and compassion especially for the sick of the world. Amen.

Photo of a cross of atop the church of Our Lady of Lourdes in France by Arch. Philip Santiago during his pilgrimage, September 2018.

Private time with Jesus

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Tuesday, Week 4, Year 2, 04 February 2020

2 Samuel 18:9-10, 15, 24-25, 30-19:3 ><)))*> <*(((>< Mark 5:21-43

Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul Spirituality Center, La Trinidad, Benguet, 03 February 2020.

Thank you very much, Lord Jesus Christ, for this gift of rest in you. Thank you for reminding us last Friday how you would always explain everything about your parables “in private” to your Twelve apostles (Mk.4:34).

Today I feel that if there is one thing you would really want to ask each one of us is to have some private, personal time with you.

We have always been so busy with so many things in life except with you, Lord.

Like that woman in today’s gospel afflicted with hemorrhages for 12 years seeking to touch even your clothes to be healed, many of us still feel so alone, even alienated in the midst of the crowds, of so many friends and followers in social media and of all kinds of BFF’s.

Many of us have forgotten that of all the bestest friends we can ever have in life is no one but you, Lord. And that’s the good news!

You are always here for us, Lord Jesus, always looking for us, searching us, wanting to enter into a personal relationship with us that is vibrant and alive.

Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?’ But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you asked, ‘Who has touched my clothes?'” And he looked around to see who had done it.

Mark 5:30-32
Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul Spirituality Center, La Trinidad, Benguet, 03 February 2020.

After meeting the woman you have healed, people came to inform Jairus that his sick daughter had died, that he should no longer bother you. But, you assured Jairus that his daughter was asleep and has not died, asking him to just have faith in you. Again, you asked him for some private time with you:

Then Jesus put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother and those who were with him (Peter, James, and John) and entered the room where the child was.

Mark 5:40

Give us O Lord Jesus the grace to make that precious moment to spend time with you in private to experience your healing and loving presence.

May we always keep in mind that in the beginning when God created the first man, it has always been your desire that we be alone with you, first of all. Amen.

Prayer for healing

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Monday, Memorial of St. Blaise, Week 4, Year 2, 03 February 2020

2 Samuel 15:13-14, 30; 16:5-13 ><)))*> 0 <*(((>< Mark 5:1-20

From catholicnewsagency.com

Praise and glory to you, O God, our loving Father, for this beautiful first Monday of the cold and breezy month of February.

Today we pray for your mercy and healing, O Lord, as the dangers posed by the novel corona virus in the country become more real with the death yesterday of a patient afflicted with the dreaded virus.

As we celebrate the memorial of your great servant, St. Blaise, we pray most of all for a healing of our minds and hearts infected with so much sins for our lack of charity and concern for one another, especially our leaders in government.

We pray for the cleansing of our hearts that we may think more of others, especially those most weak and vulnerable among us like the poor and elderly.

Drive away the evil spirits within us especially of those who take advantage of the situation.

Most of all, stay with us, Lord Jesus Christ to guide us in proclaiming your good news of salvation like St. Blaise who immersed himself in prayers and charity. Amen.