40 Shades of Lent, Thursday, Week I, 05 March 2020
Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-25 +++ 0 +++ Matthew 7:7-12
Photo by author, Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, 01 March 2020, Bagbaguin, Santa Maria, Bulacan.
O God our Father, you know very well how ignorant I am with computers and the Internet. But, somehow, Lord, I have learned something very important with computers like the “default system” whereby a computer setting is on a desired preexisting configuration useful to the user.
On this season of Lent, help us to restore our default system in you, O God!
Make us stop “surfing” the universe for better default systems for there is no one better than you whom we must always have as our first option in everything, whether in good times or in bad.
Like Queen Esther in our first reading today who only had you as her recourse in seeking help for her countrymen:
“Now help me, who am alone and have no one but you, O Lord, my God… come to help me, an orphan. Put in my mouth persuasive words in the presence of the lion, and turn his heart to hatred for our enemy, so that he and those who are in league with him may perish. Save us from the hands of our enemies; turn our mourning into gladness and our sorrows into wholeness.”
Esther C: 13, 24-26
Create a clean heart in me, O God, so that I may always seek and follow you.
Most of all, incline my heart to you always so you may dwell in me to let justice and love and mercy reign in me. Amen.
Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18 +++ 0 +++ Matthew 25:31-46
Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul Spirituality Center, Baguio City, 03 February 2020.
“Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.”
Responsorial Psalm
Today, Lord, I borrow your psalmist’s words for they summarize the two beautiful readings on this first Monday of Lent 2020.
Thank you for reminding us that we are your Holy Spirit’s indwelling, that we must be holy for you, O God, are holy (Lev.19:2).
Continue to fill us with your holiness so that we continue to do whatever is good to our brothers and sisters, especially the least among them for whatever we do to anyone, that we do also to you, dear Jesus (Mt.25:40, 45).
May your holy season of Lent remind us that it is our nature to share and give life because we have you Jesus in us. That’s the implication of those like the sheep on your right side, Lord, who were surprised and could not believe asking “when were you Lord hungry we gave you something to eat, when were you Lord…?”
When we let your Spirit of holiness animate us, that is when we are never bothered to think of anything else upon seeing the poor and suffering except to love, to practice charity.
May our Lenten practices of fasting and abstinence, sacrifices and alms-giving empty us of our selves and be filled with you, sweet Jesus, the Word who became flesh to dwell in our hearts for you alone are Life and Spirit.
Teach us to examine today our attitude towards everyone who may be unknown to us silently poor and suffering. Let us reacquire that nature in us we fondly refer to as “second-nature” of being kind and charitable to everyone because he/she has you, Jesus, in him/her.
That need not be difficult for us because in the first place, YOU, O Lord, is in us too! Amen.
Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7 +++ Romans 5:12-19 +++ Matthew 4:1-11
From Google.
Lent has always been associated with the Sacrament of Baptism since the beginning of the Church. In fact our Sunday readings this 2020 (Cycle A) are among the oldest in our liturgy used in the preparation of candidates or catechumens to Baptism on Easter Vigil.
This intimate link between Lent and Baptism is very evident in our synoptic gospels as Matthew, Mark, and Luke present to us how after Jesus was baptized by John in Jordan River, his temptations by the devil in the desert immediately comes next.
At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.”
Matthew 4:1-3
The Season of Lent and the Sacrament of Baptism
From Google.
Let us go back a little to that Baptism scene of Jesus at Jordan so we can understand this link between Lent and Baptism as well as to appreciate the meaning of our celebration this first Sunday of Lent.
It was during his Baptism at Jordan when the Father formally launched and made known the mission of Jesus as the Christ or the “Anointed One” of God, that is, the Messiah in Hebrew or Christo in Greek from which we derived the word Christ in English.
As a prefiguration of his coming Pasch – Passion, Death, and Resurrection – Jesus Christ’s Baptism became his “investiture” or “commissioning” when the Father declared, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17).
In his Baptism, Jesus entered into solidarity with us sinners when he plunged into Jordan River to be one with us in everything except sin. It is here we find very clear the intimate link of Baptism with Lent when we are called to be faithful children of God like Jesus Christ
An anatomy of temptation and sin
Detail of the mosaic of the “Temptations of Christ” at the St. Mark Basilica in Venice. Photo from psephizo.com.
Every temptation by the devil, every sin is always a turning away from God, a deviation from our identity as children of the Father in Jesus Christ.
Whenever we would wake up, the Father reminds us like at the Baptism of Jesus at Jordan that we are his beloved son or daughter with whom he is well pleased despite our many sins, failures, and weaknesses.
And like Jesus Christ right after his Baptism at Jordan, the devil also comes every day to tempt us to turn away from the Father, echoing to us his same words in the desert with the Lord, “If you are the Son of God” to lure us into becoming someone we are not.
The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” He said in reply, “It is written: One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written…”
Matthew 4:3-6
See this pattern of the devil in his first two temptations, “If you are the Son of God” – very enticing to be somebody else, to prove one’s worth and being.
This pattern will significantly change at the third temptation when the devil took Jesus to a high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence. No more “If you are the Son of God” but a more direct temptation that is affront and “garapal” as we say in Filipino:
“All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”
Matthew 4:9
Observe how cunning was the devil in his temptations of Jesus until finally, he brings out his sinister plot: worship him, turn away from God!
The same is true with us: the devil will lure and deceive us in so many ways with just one objective which is for us to turn away from God. In every temptation, in every sin, the issue has always been the primacy of God which Jesus Christ firmly affirmed in his triumph over the devil’s temptations at the desert.
And this issue on the primacy of God is always attacked by the devil in every temptation when he confuses us on who we really are like the woman in the first reading after the serpent had told her that she would be like God:
The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its frit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Genesis 3:6-7
Do we not feel the same way after every sin? We feel naked – ugly, dirty, and alienated from our very selves precisely because we have not become our true selves!
These temptations of Jesus by the devil would persist up to his crucifixion where some people jeered and taunted him, telling him “if you are the Son of God” or “if you are the Messiah” so that he would turn away from the Father and forget all about his mission and Divine plan of salvation.
Notice that the last temptation of Jesus is exactly our last temptation too: abandon God the Father and simply be like the devil, with no dignity, with nothing at all because he is separated from God, our only grounding of being.
Hubris, our greatest temptation and sin
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA-7 News, Batanes, 2018.
Last Sunday we have mentioned how the Greeks have always held that man’s first and greatest temptation and sin is hubris – that is, the arrogant presumption of man that he is god, or that he can defy the divine to do everything and have anything.
We call it pride which is at the very core of every temptation and sin. The director of the classic film “Ten Commandments”, Mr. Cecil de Mille was once asked which of the Lord’s commandments is most often violated by man?
According to Mr. De Mille, it is the first commandment of God that we always violate because whenever we sin, that is when we also have another false god or idol aside from the true God.
Very true!
Our problem in the world is not really hunger or war or poverty but our refusal to be faithful to God, to be who we really are as his blessed sons and daughters. In some instances, there are some who have totally rejected and denied God, believing more in themselves, in the sciences and technologies.
Jesus is not indifferent to hunger or wars still going on in many parts of the world today; he had come to show us the path to our problems is to reclaim our being children of the Father, listening and living his words, worshiping and trusting him alone.
In going through his Pasch, in fighting all temptations, Jesus shows us the path to see and experience the God we can meet when we come to our desert where we rely only in him alone. It involves hard work, without any shortcut and quick fixes or instants that have become our norm these days.
It is not a simplistic approach to the many problems we are facing, but if you read the newspapers or watch the news, we see how humanity is still in solidarity with Adam, with sin, with the material world as St. Paul explained in the second reading.
On this first Sunday of Lent, we are reminded anew of our identity as beloved children of the Father in Jesus Christ who showers us with every grace and blessing that we need. Let us live in him, trust in him, hold on to him to experience life anew.
Let us give Jesus a chance to work in us, rise with him to our being beloved children of the Father! Amen.
Photo by author at the ancient city of Jericho, Israel, May 2019.
40 Shades of Lent, Saturday after Ash Wednesday, 29 February 2020
Isaiah 58:9-14 +++ 0 +++ Luke 5:27-32
“The Calling of St. Matthew” by Caravaggio. From Google.
Dearest Jesus: I have been imagining in prayer of myself being Levi the tax collector sitting at his post.
It must be so lonely being like him, rich but deep inside longing for something deeper and meaningful than money and wealth. He had been thinking of making a “lifestyle shift” but he felt hopeless with nobody to help him.
Like in the first reading, your invitation Lord through the Prophet Isaiah seem to be too good to be true that anyone like Levi – or me – could make a big difference in life by “giving food to someone hungrier, abandoning my own comfort to care for someone afflicted, substituting a kind word for a malicious gossip, and worshipping you than pursuing my own interests”(Is.58:10,13).
I felt like Levi – there in his little customs post – that is impossible because everything is hopeless and there is no chance to change. Everything is doomed, especially for me, a sinner, Lord.
Then, suddenly you came, saying, “Follow me” (Lk.5:27).
How I love looking back, Lord, to those dark days when you suddenly came calling me to follow you!
It was so simple.
Like Levi, I just stood and followed you and everything changed in my life!
That was so nice of you, Lord Jesus, to take such a bold step of coming to Levi’s post to call him and, me. It was – and still is – a gamble on your part to call us sinners to follow you. And since then, you have never stopped calling us sinners Lord Jesus to follow you, even on our darkest and lowest days and hours, Lord, when everything seemed to be so doomed.
As we prepare for the first Sunday of Lent, remind me, O Lord, that this holy season is not all that drab and dry. After all, Lent originally means “springtime”, the coming joy of Easter which happens every time we turn our hearts to you like Levi. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent, Friday after Ash Wednesday, 28 February 2020
Isaiah 58:1-9 +++ 0 +++ Matthew 9:14-15
Have mercy on us, O God, have mercy… for we are still totally lost on the real meaning of fasting and abstinence. We have lost its spiritual meaning, focusing more on ourselves for vanity reasons like losing weight and looking good, totally forgetting fasting is all about you and others than us!
How unfortunate, dear God, that we no longer fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday but even on Sundays before receiving your Son Jesus in the Holy Communion by making all kinds of excuses with bold claims of having sacrificed so much in doing good deeds for you.
Thus says the Lord God: Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast. Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God. They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God. “Why do we fast, and you do not see it? Afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?” Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.”
Isaiah 58:1-4, 6-7
Make us realize that fasting is not punishing ourselves, of denying ourselves with goods and pleasures of the world that leave us empty, wanting for more but never fulfilled deep inside.
Fasting is actually rewarding ourselves with you, O God, our only wealth and treasure, our only fulfillment.
Help us create an empty space within ourselves through fasting and abstinence so that your Son Jesus may dwell and reign in our hearts, saying from within us, “Here I am!” (Is. 58:9).Amen.
40 Shades of Lent, Thursday after Ash Wednesday, 27 February 2020
Deuteronomy 30:15-20 +++ 0 +++ Luke 9:22-25
As we step forward into the second day of Lent, O Lord, you remind us today of your call to conversion which is actually a call to love and a call to life.
Forgive us, O Lord, for those times we have turned away from you in sins, thinking that is the path to life, the path to freedom, the path to fulfillment – only to find out later it is the path to destruction and death.
Moses said to the people: “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy. I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.”
Deuteronomy 30:15-16, 19-20
Photo by author, our Parish altar candle, Lent 2019.
Help us, Jesus, “to deny ourselves, take up our crosses daily, and follow you” (Lk.9:23) in the path of conversion and fidelity to your everlasting covenant.
Make us realize that Lent is more than a season we yearly celebrate but a reality of life itself, a life so blessed in your coming to be one with us in our sufferings and struggles.
Give us the strength, dear Jesus, to renew your covenant with us, to always choose God, choose life.
May we also share your love and mercy, understanding and patience, kindness and compassion to our fellow pilgrims in this journey of life so that together in the end, we may all enter into the house of the Father in heaven. Amen.
Lawiswis Ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, ika-26 ng Pebrero 2020
Mula sa Google.
Mierculés de ceniza
araw ng pag-aayuno at abstinensiya
ngunit tila wala nang nagpapahalaga
ni nakaka-alala.
Marahil ay nalimot na nga
at binalewala mga banal na gawain
tuwing cuaresma na nagpapa-alala
kahalgahan ng Diyos higit sa lahat.
Nagtitiis ng gutom
hindi pinapayagang sayaran
ng anumang laman ang tiyan
alang-alang sa kaganapan at kabanalan.
Kaya nga kung titingnan
pag-aayuno ay higit pa sa sakripisyo
na kung saan tiyan ay walang laman
upang magkapuwang Tagapagligtas ng tanan.
Ngayong cuaresma sana iyong mabuksan
puso at kalooban tingnan ano ba kanilang mga laman
baka naman mga wala nang kabuluhan
pabigat lamang sa kalooban.
Bigyan ng puwang upang makapanahan
sa ating puso at kalooban si Kristong maasahan
upang ngayon pa lamang maranasan
hatid ng Diyos na kaligtasan sa mga sa kanya'y mayroong puwang.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Week VII-A, 23 February 2020
Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18 ><)))*> 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 ><)))*> Matthew 5:38-48
Altar of the modern Minor Basilica of the Holy Trinity at Fatima, Portugal. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, 2017.
Jesus concludes his Sermon on the Mount this Sunday just in time for the start of Lent this coming Ash Wednesday. He taught us last Sunday that righteousness is not only measured by acts but most of all by the purity of the heart’s intentions that we call “education of the heart”.
Today Christ comes to the demands of charity and love, the fullness of the Laws in himself.
Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well… You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father..”
Matthew 5:38-39, 43-45
See again the Lord’s pattern in his preaching like last Sunday: a recall of the laws to show his adherence to them contrary to claims of his enemies, and then his infusion of his teaching that perfects the laws: “You have heard… But I say to you…”
Jesus focuses only on two laws today, that of revenge or “lex talionis” (from Latin talio for the word such) and that of hate for enemy which needs some clarifications.
Nowhere do we find in the Laws of Israel “to love your neighbor and hate your enemy”. Experts say Jesus must be citing a popular saying of his time in this part of his teaching. Besides, the Aramiac spoken by the Lord does not connote the harsh meaning we have today for the word “hate”. In short, Jesus is correcting here the norm among Jews of his time to “just love those who love us”.
This is why he adds this beautiful explanation with the most unique conclusion of all.
“For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:46-48
Photo by Lorenzo Atienza, 12 June 2019, Malolos Cathedral.
A fraternity of humanity in the Father
Here we find a beautiful dimension of Jesus Christ’s assertion last week that he had come to fulfill the Laws: more than having a broader approach to the spirit of the laws, education of the heart leads us to see everyone as a brother and a sister.
No one is different. Every one is a family – a kin! which is the root of the word “kind”.
Being kind is more than being good as we say in Filipino, mabait or mabuti.
Being kind is treating the other person as a kin, a relative or family; someone who is not different from us. When we say “he is kind to me”, it means more than being good to me but treating me as a family, a brother or a sister – not as “another” or “iba sa akin” as we say in Filipino.
Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul, Baguio City, 03 February 2020.
This is the essence of our “Year of Inter-religious Dialogue, Ecumenism, and Indigenous Peoples” in preparation next year of our 500 years of Christianity in the country.
Everybody is included in that celebration as we reach out to peoples of other faith and beliefs as well as to the indigenous peoples whose forefathers were actually the first settlers of the country.
This is very important in any dialogue and relationship and partnerships including marriage: there must always be the acceptance of everyone in equal footing with same dignity as a person. It is from here we start that fullness of the Laws in Christ in love.
Human holiness as a reflection of God’s holiness in love
Love can only happen where there is equality and fairness. Love demands we are first of all at equal footing with each other. This is why Jesus became human like us: the Son of God became human to stand on equal footing with us that we cannot argue that he is greater because he is truly human, too, going through everything we have gone through except sin.
When he said that we offer our other cheek, to give our cloak, and go for another mile, he is not referring to criminal or penal codes but more into our humanity, that spirit of universal brotherhood so that even our oppressors and enemies come to realize within them that we are one, that we should be caring for one another, not hating and hurting each other.
Loving our enemies does not mean we let evil continue; loving our enemies means continuing to “love” perpetrators of evils until they realize we are brothers and sisters, keeping each other, caring for each other.
Loving our enemies is making them realize that there are nobody else here on earth for them except us – why fight and perish?
Yes, these are easier said than done. And admittedly, I must confess it is the most difficult part of the gospel, of being a Christ-ian. But it is something Jesus is asking us in the most personal manner.
From Google.
Let it be clear that Jesus is not asking us to behave with naiveté that we give in to injustice, evil, and violence but that we always be peacemakers, the blessed ones he said in his Beatitudes. In our fight for justice and peace, we fight with the moral persuasions of love which is the morality of Christ.
The American civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had shown in our modern time that the Lord’s teachings are doable: we just have to be convinced and must truly believe in Jesus.
“Love is the most durable power in the world. This creative force is the most potent instrument available in mankind’s quest for peace and security.”
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
When we love truly in Jesus Christ, asserting what is true, what good, what is just, we make God truly present in the world. When that happens, the more we allow him to do his works of changing us within, of transforming us within. It is in our imperfect love that we make God present, the perfect I Am.
The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”
Leviticus 19:1-2, 18
Photo by Dra. Mai B. Dela Peña, Santorini in Greece, 2016.
Hubris, our greatest temptation and sin
The Season of Lent is fast approaching us, set to start with Ash Wednesday this week. It is a season characterized by barrenness: no Gloria and Alleluias, no flowers, no decorations, no images to make us turn back to God again, our Lord and Master alone.
St. Paul reminds us today in our second reading that we are “God’s temple… that there is no need to boast of anyone including one’s self” (1Cor. 3:16, 21). Instead of embracing or holding on to anyone including one’s self, we have to embrace the scandal of the cross of Christ, that is, power in weakness, wisdom in what the world considers folly.
For the ancient Greeks as depicted in their epics, the greatest temptation and sin of man is hubris – the arrogant presumption that he is god, that he can do everything, he can have everything that he defies the gods.
Hubris is the sin of pride that has led everyone from Adam and Eve to all the powerful men and women of history into their downfall. It is absolute power crumbling absolutely, always tragically.
In his Sermon on the Mount where we heard many of the Lord’s teachings this whole month of February, Jesus shows us the path away from hubris, his path of love and holiness in the Father. Let us heed his calls, give his teachings a try and a chance to be fulfilled in us.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-11 ng Pebrero 2020
Larawan kuha ni G. Jay Javier, 09 Enero 2020 sa Quiapo, Maynila.
Deboto ang tawag sa isang tao
na malapit at namimintuho
Kay Kristong Nazareno o Sto. Niño
kasama na mga Santo at Santa
sa pangunguna ng Birheng Maria.
Kaya dapat bawat deboto totoo
uliran at huwaran sa pamumuhay
taglay ay kabanalan nang sa kanya'y
mabanaagan larawan ng kabutihan
ng Diyos sa kanyang kadakilaan.
Kay laking katatawanan at kahangalan
kung ang debosyon ng sino man
ay haggang simbahan lamang
nakikita paminsan-minsan
tuwing kapistahan at mga prusisyon sa lansangan.
Larawan kuha ni G. Jay Javier, 09 Enero 2020 sa Quiapo, Maynila.
Anong kahulugan at saysay
ng mga pagpupugay
sa Diyos at kanyang mga banal
kung sa kapwa nama'y manhid
walang malasakit at pakialam?
Nag-aalaga ng mga Poon
binibihisan tila laruan
ngunit pag-uugali at katauhan
malayo sa katuwiran at katarungan
ganyang debosyon dapat tigilan!
Ang tunay na deboto
puso ay malapit kay Kristo
at sa kanyang Ina at mga Santo
may pagmamahal, malasakit
sa kapwa tao na kanyang nirerespeto.
Larawan kuha ni G. Jay Javier, 09 Enero 2016 sa Quiapo, Maynila.
Ano mang debosyon
iyong nakagawian o nakahiligan
araw-araw itong sinasabuhay
pinaninindigan at tinutularan
aral at buhay ng sinusundang banal.
Sa dami ng mga deboto
bakit ganito pa rin tayo
walang pag-asenso
buhay ay kasing gulo
ng eksena sa senakulo.
Ay naku!
Ano nga ba tayo,
mga deboto o debobo
asal demonyo, sobrang gulo
pinapako nating muli si Kristo!
The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for the Soul, Sunday Week V-A, 09 February 2020
Isaiah 58:7-10 ><)))*> 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 ><)))*> Matthew 5:13-16
Our parish cross at night, taken with my camera phone, 02 February 2020.
For most of us, 2020 is a very tough year with all the dark clouds that have come to hover above us in January remain in this month of February.
Threats from the corona virus are growing especially in our country. And while the alert level at Taal Volcano had gone down, dangers of its major eruption remain while volcanologists observed last week a “crater glow” on Mayon Volcano, indicating a possible rising of magma in the world’s most perfect cone.
Elsewhere, more bad news are happening like the sudden deaths this week of healing priest Fr. Fernando Suarez and of our very own and beloved Fr. Danny Bermudo, just 24 hours apart due to heart attacks.
In our own circles of family and relatives, friends and colleagues are also dark clouds covering us while we go through our many trials and tests in life that seem to eclipse this early the many gains we have achieved in the whole of 2019.
Indeed, year 2020 shows us in “perfect vision” the sad realities of dark spots in life that behoove us more to heed Christ’s call to be the light of the world.
Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the light of the world. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father.”
Matthew 5:14, 16
Photo by author, frost on petals, Baguio City, 04 February 2020.
Jesus is the light of the world, not us
Our gospel this Sunday follows immediately the inaugural preaching of Jesus called “the Sermon on the Mount” with the Beatitudes at its centerpiece. We have skipped that part of the gospel last Sunday due to the celebration of the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.
For us to better appreciate this Sunday’s gospel, let us keep in mind that for Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount is the great discourse of Jesus Christ that depicts his image not only as the new Moses but as the Law himself, being both our Teacher and Savior as well.
Jesus shows us a picture of his person in the Beatitudes as someone we must imitate in being “poor in spirit, meek, and merciful” so we can follow his path to the Father. After all, as the Son of God, Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6).
Hence, after enumerating the nine Beatitudes, Jesus followed up his Sermon on Mount with a call for us to be the salt and the light of the world: as salt, we merely bring out the Christ or the taste in every person and as light, it is the light of Christ that we share.
Focus remains in being like Jesus, not in replacing him who is our Savior. That is why he tells us clearly before shifting to another lesson in his Sermon that “your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father” (Mt.5:16).
Sharing Christ’s light with our good deeds as a community
So, how do we share the light of Jesus Christ in this age when so many others are claiming to be the light that will dispel all darkness in our lives?
As early as during the darkest period in the history of Israel in the Old Testament called the “Babylonian Captivity (or Exile)”, God had taught his people how to become light for one another during trials and sufferings.
Christ Light of the World, Red Wednesday, 27 November 2019. Photo by author.
Thus says the Lord: Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them, and do not turn your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn… if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday.
Isaiah 58:7-8, 10
To share one’s bread with the hungry, to welcome the homeless, to clothe the hungry are some of the most concrete demands placed by God to his people since he had freed them from slavery in Egypt and later in Babylonia (Iraq today) when the third part of the Book of Isaiah was written.
Eventually, this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus Christ who also preached exactly the same things shortly before fulfilling his mission in Jerusalem when he stressed the need to do good to one another because “whatsoever we do to one another, especially to the least among us, we also do unto him” (Mt.25:31-40).
We shall hear this part of Matthew’s gospel at the end of our current liturgical year on November 22, 2020 in the celebration of the Solemnity of Christ the King.
These instructions became the basis of our catechism’s “spiritual and corporal works of mercy” that Pope Francis stressed in 2016 during the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.
From fathersofmercy.com
By saying “you are the light of the world”, Jesus is telling us that to fulfill this mission, we have to do it together as a community, as his Body, the Church!
No matter how good and holy we are, none of us is the “light of the world” on our own.
One candle or lamp, or even a light bulb today cannot produce enough light to brighten a whole town or community. But, if one Christian will be lighting just one little candle in the dark, he or she can encourage others especially those who are timid, hesitant, and indifferent until they finally set the world ablaze with Christ’s light.
Christ’s call to be the light of the world is also a call for us to be united as one community, one family, one faithful couple with all our imperfections and sinfulness. What matters is our striving to be good disciples, always charitable to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Here we find the direct relationship of mission and community: every mission given by Jesus is also a call to become a community because without it, it soon becomes a cult centered on the disciple than the Lord.
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2018.
The example of St. Paul in sharing Christ’s light
St. Paul shows us the best example of being a light of Jesus is to always have it done and fulfilled in the context of a community, of the Church as the Body of Christ, avoiding chances of grabbing the light from him for personal gains.
“I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of Spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:3-5
It has always happened especially for us serving in the Church that in sharing the light of Christ, we get carried by our ministry and apostolate that we forget him until we claim being the light ourselves.
Sometimes, we consciously or unconsciously create clouts and personality cults for ourselves for being the best, the brightest, even the holiest and most humble of all!
We foolishly brag the great buildings and edifices we have built or the countless malnourished kids we have fed or sent to school for free through college, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera without being bothered at all where is Jesus Christ in all our efforts and projects!
How sad when we forget that what matters most in life is not what we have done or what we have achieved but what have we become as bearers of the light of Christ like St. Paul.
My dear friend, if you are going through many darkness in life today, simply be good, think only of Jesus Christ in everybody you meet and deal with. That is actually when you shine brightest as the light of Christ because people will be surprised at how calmly and gracefully you carry your cross.
In that way, you encourage others living in darkness to let their little sparks of light come out too without realizing how in their own darkness and limitations they have made Christ’s light seen. Amen.
Have a bright and blessed Sunday with your loved ones!
lordmychef.com 