Category: Homily/Spirituality

The Nearness of God

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, 02 June 2019
Acts 1:1-11 >< }}}*> Hebrews 9:24-28; 10:19-23 >< }}}*> Luke 24:46-53
The Chapel of the Ascension believed to be the site where Jesus stood before ascending into heaven while his disciples looked at. Photo by author, 04 May 2019.

Outside the old city of Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives is the Chapel of the Ascension believed to be the site of Jesus Christ’s Ascension into heaven. Though the octagon-shaped structure is massive and very high, it is quite small inside with just one door for entrance and exit. Immediately upon entering that door on the floor is a framed slab of stone called the “Ascension Rock” venerated by pilgrims because that is where Jesus stood before going up to heaven.

The Ascension Rock. Photo by author, April 2017.

But personally, in the two occasions I have been there in 2017 and last month, my focus have always been more on the four windows of the chapel’s dome.

The rays of light coming through them have always evoked in me the beauty of Christ’s Ascension with a feeling that is so uplifting. The morning rays of the sun gently filling the room with light warms your heart as if angels are keeping you company like what we heard from the first reading during the Ascension of Jesus.

A window at the dome of the Chapel of the Ascension. Photo by author, April 2017.

As I prayed this week on the meaning of the Solemnity of the Ascension by recalling my two pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the light of our readings today, it is only now have I realized that the key to this feast is not found in looking up to the skies or looking down on where Jesus stood before going up to heaven.

It is in looking more into our hearts, looking deep inside us can we truly find the meaning of the Ascension of the Lord.

This feast is an invitation to get inside our hearts, not just into our minds and imagination to appreciate the words of Jesus Christ these past two Sundays about his “going and coming in a little while” (Jn.13:31, 33;14:25;16:16,20).

Remember how Jesus these past two weeks kept on speaking about his leaving and his coming at the same time? Of how we reflected last Sunday that in life, we do not really leave but simply come into new level of existence and new level of relating with God and with others?

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.

Luke 24:50-53

Normally, it is sadness that we feel most in every leaving and departures: when kids leave home to pursue college somewhere, when a father or a mother leaves abroad to work over a long period of time, or a beloved dies. Though the cliche may be right sometimes that “parting is such a sweet, sweet sorrow”, the fact remains there is always sadness whenever we leave or somebody leaves us.

That is why St. Luke’s account of the Ascension is strange when he tells us that Christ’s disciples “then returned to Jerusalem with great joy” after the Ascension. St. Luke does not give any hint or a tinge of sadness among the disciples when Jesus left them to sit at the right hand of God almighty Father in heaven. And, the Holy Spirit has not come down yet. Where did the disciples get this great joy after Jesus had left?

Detail of a 15th century Greek Orthodox icon of the Ascension of Christ with Mary so calm while the apostles very animated, eager to proclaim the gospel. From Google.

We do not have the details at how this great shift happened that the disciples were filled with great joy after Ascension but, the Scriptures and the stories of the saints as well as those of some true heroes provide us with some answers and reasons.

According to St. Luke as well as the other evangelists, Jesus came to see his disciples for many days (40 according to Luke) after Easter. The Lord taught them with some more lessons preparing them for his coming Ascension. Most of all, Jesus made his disciples experienced his new mode of presence in his glorious body. He showed them his wounds and dined with them so often to convince them that he had really risen.

In all instances of his appearances, there was always joy among the disciples. Slowly, the disciples’ joy in knowing Jesus is risen deepened into great joy at the Ascension when this truth sank deeper into their hearts too that they have finally and truly accepted Jesus is alive!

When a truth or a reality stays only in our minds, that is always open to doubts. But, the moment that truth or reality we know is brought down to our hearts, that is only when we truly accept it as really true. And that is when we are filled with great joy because we are already convinced without any doubts of the truth or reality we have received.

Saints and heroes alike find great joy in their sufferings and death because of their convictions in their hearts that what they knew in their minds are very true. They lead “authentic” lives because what they knew in their minds was what they felt in their hearts that they eventually say and do. It is only in authentic living can we find great joy in living, no matter how painful or difficult it may be.

15th century Greek Orthodox icon of the Ascension. From Google.

And that is the great joy in the Ascension of Jesus Christ: the disciples, like us, start living authentically because we are deeply convinced that the Lord had not left us but had in fact launched a new level of nearness with us. His Ascension is the finality of the redemption he had won for us coming right into our hearts when we realize that Jesus did not simply die and rose again for a nameless mass of people. He did everything personally for each one of us.

This is what social media can never give us. Despite its great popularity, social media have left many of us still sad and even sick with various forms of mental illnesses. Everything that happens in the Net often remains up in our heads, rarely sinking into our hearts that still keep us apart despite our connections.

In his message for the 53rd World Communications Sunday we also celebrate today, Pope Francis invites us to connect deeper into the human community and not just in social network communities. The Holy Father stresses that interconnection must go down into personal encounters in the flesh, not just in virtual reality, calling for a shift from “likes” to “amen”.

Poster by Kendrick Ivan Panganiban.

How ironic that all these modern means of communications were invented to bring us all closer together but it seems the opposite is happening. We are growing apart and have become more impersonal than ever! We are all guilty of so often clicking the “like” button without having read the complete post or seen the photos of our relatives and friends. We rarely take time to “process” what we read and see on Facebook by people we call “friends” who often number to thousands. What an inauthentic way of living!

The Ascension of the Lord is a call to authentic living as it launched a new level of nearness of God with us and us with him and with one another. Unlike in the Old Testament as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews explained, Jesus did not enter a sanctuary made of human hands, referring to the old Temple worship that was never complete due to human imperfections. When Jesus came and went through his pasch, he brought God closest to us. We can rise up or ascend to his new level of relationship, new level of existence by rising up also from our infirmities and limitations in him who dwells in our hearts. A joyful month of June to you! Amen.

Presence in Absence

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Easter Wk. VI, Yr. C, 26 May 2019
Acts 15:1-2, 22-29 >< }}}*> Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23 >< }}}*> John 14:23-29
A view from the entrance to the Temple Wall of Old Jerusalem, 04 May 2019.

Life is a series of coming and going where we never really leave at all.

I have been sharing you this quite often since Advent last year. We do not leave completely but simply come to new levels of relationships with our loved ones. When children grow up and go to college, they move into new environment, new stage in life. They never leave but come to new beginnings. Eventually, they leave home when they graduate in college and get married only to start their own family and home.

We call this series of coming and going in life as “presence in absence”. Sometimes it happens that it is after someone had left us, whether temporarily or permanently like death, that we even get closer with that person. Here we find the wonderful truth that if you want to be eternal, love. Then, a departure no longer becomes an exit but an entry to new mode of presence and relationships.

This is why Jesus commanded us last Sunday to love one another as he loved us, that is, to always love in his Father who is love himself. When we love in union with the Father, then our love is made perfect as it is God who eventually works in us.

The Lord deepens this teaching to us in our gospel today as he prepares us for the great celebration of his Ascension on Sunday, a kind of his own “leaving and coming”. Our gospel today is still part of his long discourse during his Last Supper when Thomas, Philip, and Jude asked him some questions about his impending departure that they could not really fully grasp at that time. Anyway, Jesus now answers the last question from Jude concerning his presence while at the same time prepares them for the inevitable when he has to “leave” them first for his Passion and Death and second, when he returns to the Father in heaven.

( Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him, “Master, what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”) Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name — will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”

John 14:22-23, 25-26
Altar of the church Dominus Flevit (the Lord Wept) with the old Jerusalem as background, April 2017.

First thing we notice in the Lord’s statement is the great honor for each of us to be the dwelling place of him and the Father. Can you imagine the kind of intimacy that means we now have with both the Son and the Father dwelling in us? It is something beyond our expectations or hopes when all we want in life is to be with him in heaven after death. But we do not have to wait for our death because right now, right here, Jesus and the Father are dwelling in us. And because of this reality, we are able to find meaning and fulfillment in life despite its many trials and difficulties, pains and tears along the way.

We have experienced the Father’s presence through the words and teachings of Jesus passed on to us through the Sacred Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church. Jesus himself stressed that his words are not really his but the Father’s. Loving the Lord and keeping his words are the same because Jesus is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us according to St. John’s prologue to his gospel. It is for this reason that we are also able to call God “Abba” (Father) because we have that inner recognition of him deep within us in Jesus Christ.

Clouds over Sinai desert in Egypt, 07 May 2019.

Jesus continues his presence and teachings in us in our own time in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the second part of his discourse in our gospel today, his sending of the Holy Spirit upon his return to the Father to be his apostles’ and our Advocate or defender and inner guide to all the truths he had taught us.

Christ did not say everything to the apostles. Aside from the fact that the time of his “presence” on earth was limited (33 years), it was impossible for the evangelists to report everything he had said and done (Jn.21:25). But he knew the totally different situations his disciples would be into and that includes us in the present time. Jesus knew very well the shifts and upheavals coming but, as we have seen in the past 2000 years since he went back to the Father, his Church has continued to exist despite the many predictions of its end. And that is largely due to the work of the Holy Spirit as our Advocate or defender.

From Google.

As our Advocate, the Holy Spirit acts as the “memory” of the Church like in a computer that it “processes” us disciples to act according to the Scriptures and teachings of Jesus in our own time. The Spirit powers us like a dynamo to continue to be the living presence of Jesus in his “absence” in a world that tries to delete him. This was first experienced in the first Council meeting of the Church in Jerusalem in the year 50 AD (Jesus ascended to heaven 33 AD) when the first Christians were plunged into a controversy regarding the imposition of Judaic traditions on Gentile converts. The first reading from the Acts tells us how the Apostles were guided in their proceedings by the word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit continues to do the same in the Church when our Pope and bishops pray and reflect on the Scriptures in making its stand on the different issues now confronting us that were non-existent 100 years ago or 2000 years ago like the Internet or global warming. The Holy Spirit is the “heart and soul” of the Church’s living tradition that makes Jesus present in the world today through each one of us, its dwelling-place.

In the second reading, John tells us of the splendor of the heavenly Jerusalem where God is at the middle of everything. It is also the challenge of the gospel to us today, as the indwelling of the Father and of the Son, do we make God present in our family, in our places of work and study? Do we remain faithful to his word that we are not ashamed of praying even in a restaurant?

See that after explaining his mode of presence through us in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus spoke of the gift of peace. Peace is always the fruit of love when we have Jesus as basis within us in all of our undertakings. How sad that even in many families, couples and children plan on their own for their many projects and activities without including their spouses or children in the process. There is no internal unity that often leads to misunderstanding and divisions that make peace so elusive.

Last Wednesday night I was invited to guest in a radio talk show hosted by former colleagues in the news. They complained to me how the Mass is no longer holy and has become very showbiz. Lourd De Veyra complained of priests not prepared with their homily and so “in love” with their voice that they talk nonsense like TV hosts. Photojournalist Melvin Calderon formerly of TIME Magazine and Pulitzer Prize winner last year Manny Mogato of Reuters News lamented at how our churches have become to look like a studio or a stage with all the pomp and pageantry, empty of any sense of the Holy. Though their observations were painfully true, I still felt so glad for them because despite their being so immersed in the world, they all long for the peace of Jesus Christ they believe can be first found among us priests and in our churches! May we go back to the Father so we may be able to share Jesus, only Jesus, and always Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Love and Respect in Marriage

The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for Wedding of Bryan and Catherine, 24 May 2019
St. Francis of Assisi Chapel, Fernwood Gardens, Quezon City
Ephesians 5:2a,25-32 >< }}}*> <*{{{ >< John 15:11-17
The Tamsui Lover’s Bridge, New Taipei, Taiwan. Photo by author, 29 January 2019.

Congratulations, Bryan and Catherine!

Our gospel is very clear today with Jesus telling you, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you” (Jn.15:16). In his infinite wisdom, God had planned this day to happen today, not last year or last month nor tomorrow or next month.

Today the Lord had chosen you Bryan and Catherine to tie the knot as husband and wife in this lovely chapel so you would be his witnesses of his immense love for us. You went through a lot of challenges in your love that is a certified “LDR” – you got me thinking for sometime what those letters mean.

As classmates in elementary until you were separated in high school when Catherine and her family moved to Marilao, you remained friends. When you pursued your dreams in college, the great distance between UP Los Banos and UST in Espana did not keep you away from each other as friends until you realized you love each other that you became sweethearts.

After graduation, Catherine had to move again with her family and this time, thousands of miles away from you Bryan when there were no free messaging apps yet like Messenger and Viber. Bryan had to make those expensive overseas calls while Catherine had to be patient with the unreliable, cheap call cards bought in Asian and Filipino stores in New Jersey.

Thanks very much to Mark Zuckerberg and you had more time seeing each other in social media that your love deepened through time and distance. But, Facebook did not resolve your main issue at that time.

It was Jesus who moved you both to realize that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn.15:13).

Both of you Bryan and Cath sacrificed so much to be finally together, today and forever. Married life is not a competition in love, in seeing who loves most. Husband and wife simply love, love, and love. St. Paul said it so well in our first reading, “live in love as Christ loved us” (Eph.5:2a).

To live in love like Christ is to respect one another.

In our gospel, Jesus said “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jn.15:11) which is to love like him, giving up one’s self to your friend.

Bryan and Cath, you are now the bestest of friends. In the word “friend” you find a letter “r” that if you remove it, you get the new word “fiend” or enemy, the exact opposite of friend. That letter “r” in “friend” stands for respect which means in Latin “to see or look again”.

Without respect, any love will not grow. Without respect, love withers and dies. Respect deepens our love because in seeing again, in looking back to our loved ones, we remember our vows to always love.

From Google.

Three things I wish to share with you Bryan and Catherine about respect so you may live in love as the bestest of friends.

First, always look at your very selves, see yourself as the beloved of God.

God makes no mistakes. You are God’s perfect creation as he intended when he created you, Bryan and Catherine. Be proud of who you are even you have lost your hair or have had wrinkles, or gained weight to have so much “love handles” around your waist.

Bryan… Catherine… you are not only one in a million… you are a once in a lifetime.

Catherine, stay true to who you are as a woman. St. Paul never meant in our first reading that the wife must lose her identity in a relationship. Everything and everyone changes for sure, but a healthy marriage will always grow with you and never against you.

When you are apart and not together due to work, always look at each other. Always try to see the other looking at you. That is respect because in that way, you remain faithful to each other and avoid sin.

Second, always look back to your dreams, to your plans and vision in life.

The ideal man finds himself first before he finds his ideal woman, and vice versa. What do I mean? Many people have sights but not all have visions. A visionary is someone who dreams with eyes wide opened. Vision makes us see where we are going and what it will take to get us there. Like the “Mission-Vision” thing you have Bryan in Maynilad.

The moment a man/woman starts to have a vision of himself/herself with a partner in achieving that dream in the future, then he/she has become the ideal husband/wife. When you have a purpose in life and included in that is someone special, even if you have not met him/her yet, then you are the man, you are the woman.

When trials come in your lives Bryan and Catherine, look again into your vision and dreams in life. Start to work for it again with each other, together as one. If you have to start all over again, do so. Together. Pursue your dream and make it come true!

Third, every day, Bryan and Catherine, look again to God. Always see God in your life. Remember the Holy Family how every year they would go to Jerusalem to worship God. When the child Jesus was lost and they could not find him, they went back to Jerusalem and found him in the Temple. Mary and Joseph looked to God to find Jesus and they found him!

When you always look to God Bryan and Catherine, you will also find yourselves and your dreams. In that, you live in love, respecting each other always as gifts from God.

May today be the least happiest day of you life as husband and wife, Bryan and Catherine! Amen.

From Google.

Christ’s gift of love

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Easter Wk. V, Yr.C, 19 May 2019
Acts 14:21-27 ><)))> Revelations 21:1-5 ><)))> John 13:31-33, 34-35
Sunrise at Lake Tiberias, the Holy Land. Photo by author, 04 May 2019.

I was sleeping soundly along with other customers at our barbershop last Thursday noon when we were jolted by a boy about four years old who shrieked and threw on tantrums as he vehemently refused to have a haircut. It was a big scene and the poor young mother was at a loss how to pacify her son who kept yelling at her “I do not want to have a haircut!”

After a couple of minutes, everybody sighed with relief – except me – when the boy finally finally cooled off to sit on the barber’s chair for his haircut. I felt no relief first because the more I pitied the young mother who had to bribe her spoiled son with a cellphone to play computer games just to behave. And secondly, I was never able to get back to my siesta due to the sounds of the boy’s computer games.

As I looked in horror with the scene, I wondered if this is the new kind of love today when gadgets and things replace persons.

When Judas had left them, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:31, 34-35
Boat ride at the Lake of Tiberias, 04 May 2019.

It is very true that love of neighbor is not a Christian innovation. Other great religions also have love as a fundamental principle.

The newness in Jesus’ new commandment to love lies deeply in his following sentence, “As I have loved you, so you should love one another.”

To love like Jesus Christ is more than doing a higher order kind of love or a more loving way of loving by following a stricter moral standard.

To love like Jesus is to love in union with the Father who is love himself!

This newness of his commandment to love is found deep in the preceding scene of the gospel when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. In the fourth gospel, the washing of the feet is the meaning of love expressed in the Holy Eucharist that prefigured Good Friday’s crucifixion. In relating that scene, St. John used the word “clean” three times as Jesus declared to his disciples “you are clean” (Jn.13:10).

It was in the washing the feet when Jesus first clearly showed the most unique and loving way of God coming down to us to cleanse us of our sins. Purity is always a gift from God because we cannot make ourselves clean. And like in that washing of feet of his disciples, Jesus continues to purify us in every Mass we celebrate today. The more we are “purified” by Jesus in the Eucharist, the more we learn to be like him, to love like him unconditionally and most of all, to love in union with the Father who is love himself.

And there lies the newness of Christ’s new commandment of love, for us to love like Jesus in him and with him.

We will always be imperfect and sinful, always needing to be cleansed and purified to be fitting to God. In the same manner, human love is always imperfect like us. Most often, we love for reasons that are always wrong or sometimes love in seasons that soon go off season. There will always be people and situations when our arguments and reasons not to love are not only right and proper but also justified. But when we come to realize this gift of love from Jesus, of loving like him in union with the Father, we become his extension and channel of love. Love, then, becomes pure and doable, even easier and acceptable because first of all, we experience it in us.

Franciscan Monastery, Mt. Nebo, Jordan where God let Moses view the Promised Land to be given to the Israelites. The cross with serpent prefigured the salvation to come from Christ’s death: the Israelites complained against God who punished them by sending poisonous snakes that bit and killed them. The Israelites repented and God ordered Moses to make a copper snake image to mount it on a stick that whoever looked at it was healed of the snake bite and lived (Numbers 21:6). Photo by author 03 May 2019.

To love like Jesus is totally new because it is not really us who does the loving but Jesus himself in us and with us. It is a totally new kind of love because it is a love not based on norms or rules but on God himself. It is a totally new kind of love because we allow Jesus to act in us, making God truly present among us. Thus, we all become an Emmanuel like Jesus, God-is-with-us. What a great honor for us to be a presence of God in Jesus! That despite our sins and weaknesses, Jesus continues to cleanse us so he may dwell in us and work through us. When we obey his new commandment to love like him, then his words at the end of today’s gospel are indeed fulfilled, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn.13: 35). It is a love so different from the world that sets us apart from others, enabling us to make a big difference in this world marred with sin and imperfections.

This remains the great challenge among us now in our time when Jesus said “My children, I will be with you only a little while longer” (Jn.13:33) when he gave this new commandment. It is the present time where we always have that tension of the here and the not yet oriented toward Jesus who has come, is coming now and will come in the end of time. This is why until now like during the time of the apostles, we have priests or presbyters appointed to care for the flock by leading them in a life of charity and unity in the Church. Every priest as well as every Christian is supposed to be a presence of Christ, loving like Jesus in union with the Father. How sad when we, priests and lay people alike, deny this kind of love of Jesus, destroying our unity in the Father as one family of believers and followers.

Let us not waste Christ’s gift of love so unique that unites us with the Father and with everyone. Let us strive harder that despite our sinfulness and many differences of beliefs and affiliations, through Christ’s gift of purity and love, we may little by little realize “a new heaven and a new earth” as John saw in his vision at Patmos. A blessed Sunday to everyone! Amen.

Our inner unity in Christ the Good Shepherd

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Easter Week IV, 12 May 2019
Acts 9:1-20///Revelations 7:9, 14-17///John 10:27-30
From Google.

There is something very unique among us that binds us Filipinos as one whenever we go abroad aside from being “maganda” as the people of Jordan, Israel and Egypt described us in a recent pilgrimage. Whenever we are in a foreign country, we Filipinos have that inner recognition that we are kababayan, something like what Jesus tells us in the gospel today.

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.”

John 10:27-28

This Sunday, we start a shift in our gospel readings: there would be no more stories of the appearances of Jesus after Easter until his Ascension with passages taken from St. John to deepen in us the meaning of Christ’s Resurrection.

Observe, my dear readers, the four verbs we have in our very short gospel today: hear my voice, know them, follow me, and give them eternal life. Right away we notice the inner recognition of Jesus Christ and his followers us, his sheep. See the flow of the first three verbs in our Lord’s declaration: my sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. It is quite odd in the sense that the sheep follow the voice because the shepherd knows them when it should be the other way around: my sheep know me, they hear my voice and they follow me.

Remember the inner recognition we talked about the other Sunday, that feeling of “a basta!” when deep inside us we are so certain of somebody or something? This is an example of that experience we have going abroad when we meet a kababayan: by just looking at each other, we already know we are Filipinos as if they first knew us, then we hear them, and follow them. It is something we also have deep within us with Jesus our Lord and God.

The lovely district of Jaffa Tel Aviv where you meet many Filipinos too. Photo by author, 03 May 2019.

These four verbs of hearing, knowing, following, and giving express relationship and ties that bind us together as a people and nation. To hear and to follow imply communion; anyone who hears and follows somebody recognizes the speaker’s authority and voice, entrusting one’s self to his or her guidance like in the family where we hear and follow our parents as we celebrate Mothers’ day today. Hearing and following lead to a kind of attachment as children to the parents or a disciple to a master. The parents, especially the mother knows her children very well that she always thinks the best for them, doing her best to give them a better and secured future. On our return flight yesterday from Bahrain, we chanced upon many Filipina OFW mothers returning home with their children – some are still infants, others are little children or young kids. They are the mothers who sacrifice so much so their children and family can have a better future.

Going back to Jesus Christ our Good Shepherd, we level up the meaning and application of those four verbs, especially the knowing and giving that pertain to Jesus Christ.

More than our communion and unity in Christ as his disciples, we ought to hear and follow him because only Jesus knows us so well. Only Jesus knows our deepest pains and hurts, our deepest longings and desires. Most of all, only Jesus loves us so much despite of his knowing of how sinful we are that he calls by name like Mary Magdalene on that Easter morning or Simon Peter at the shore of Lake Tiberias after asking him thrice if he loves him to assure his forgiveness of denying him thrice on Holy Thursday.

Most of all, we ought to hear and follow Jesus because only he can give us eternal life for he is life himself (Jn.11:25)! It was only Jesus who had walked with us in every valley of darkness, never abandoning us, and most of all, passed over through every pain and suffering, even death so that we may share in the glory of his new life. Only Jesus can bring back our shattered lives when we squander this gift of life like the prodigal son. It is only Jesus who would never judge us or put us into shame in our sinfulness to give us a chance to sin no more like the woman caught committing adultery. Only Jesus can promise us heaven because it is only him who had joined us in our sinfulness without committing sin by dying on the cross like Dimas the repentant thief.

These, my friends, are the inner unity that bind us together in Christ Jesus our Good Shepherd of which John the beloved was given a glimpse in the second reading. This also shows us how salvation for everyone, not only for Jews or any particular group, has always been in God’s plan from the beginning that he sent us his only Son Jesus Christ. May we all hear and follow his voice always, especially through our dear mothers. Amen.

Entrance to the miraculous “Milk Grotto” chapel of the Franciscans beside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Photo by the author, 05 May 2019.

It is the Lord!

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Easter Week III-C, 05 May 2019

Of all the great things one can truly experience in a Holy Land pilgrimage, it is the gift of “internal recognition” of the Risen Jesus Christ that must be most touching, most wonderful because it always brings peace and joy within.

Like the beloved disciple in our gospel this Sunday, it is when we recognize Jesus internally that we “softly exclaim” deep within “It is the Lord!” (Jn.21:7).

It is the ordinary moment that happens so sudden during prayer, in the Mass, or simply being at a holy site or seeing a beautiful sight when tears suddenly roll in our eyes, something cold or warm envelops you, or your hair rising because you remember and feel the Lord coming to you. According to our guide here, the 153 large fish caught by the apostles in that third appearance of the Risen Lord at Tiberias is significant: 153 in the Hebrew alphabet means “I Am GOD.”

And that’s what we feel not only in a pilgrimage but in ordinary life when we remember God filling you like a net with large fish like in Tiberias. In an instant even very fleeting, we realize we have been so blessed even if we have sinned and failed to recognize Jesus by the shore.

Here at the Holy Land, whether it is your first or second or third pilgrimage, there is always something new to discover, to realize, to experience, and to see. It is like that experience at the shore of Tiberias when Jesus appeared for the third time to his apostles after Easter where he awaits you for breakfast, with “a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread” (Jn.21:9). Here it is beyond doubt our God is a God of surprises.

Yesterday we had our Mass at the Chapel of Flagellation at 130pm at the Via Dolorosa. Immediately after that, we had via crucis or station of the cross. By 330pm we were already inside the Holy Sepulchre Church climbing towards Golgotha, the Crucifixion site. Exactly while lining up, the church was closed and we were told there would be no veneration because the Patriarch was coming for incensing the whole church.

Everything stopped and I felt a bit sad for my group. But lo and behold! What a beautiful experience not only to witness an Orthodox ceremony! While resting outside the only Roman Catholic chapel, I asked the Franciscan if we can pray inside. He asked me to wait and after 20 minutes, he let us in. I celebrated Mass there in 2005 with 14 other priests and two bishops from the Philippines. I could not recall the name of the chapel so I asked the Franciscan. He told me it is the chapel of the Easter meeting of Jesus and his Mother – the Salubong or Encounter we celebrate early morning of Easter Sunday. It was a new discovery for me!

In the gospels, Jesus first met Mary Magdalene but according to St. Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises, it was Mary his mother whom the Risen Lord first met because she was the first to try believe Jesus is the Christ! Most of all, Mary is the first to truly love Jesus most. And that is why we have the Salubong.

Today in the gospel Jesus asked Simon thrice, “do you love me more than this?”

It is the same question Jesus is asking us this Sunday. We have to first love him in order to follow him. We have to first love him in order to meet and see him, even with our imperfect love like Simon Peter.

You are loved and you are prayed for always. Have a blessed Sunday and week ahead! Amen.

Easter: Faith from “a basta!” experience

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul
Easter Week II, Year C, 28 April 2019
Acts 5:12-16///Revelation 1:9-11, 12-13, 17-19///John 20:19-31
From Google.

We Filipinos have an expression that best captures the faith of Easter experience, something very close with the universal expression “aha!”. It is what I call as the “a basta!” experience.

From the Spanish word “basta” which means “enough” like what St. Teresa of Avila said in her poem, “Solo Dios basta” (Only God is enough/suffices), our “a basta!” expression is often used to insist on something to be accepted as true. Its closest English equivalent is “that’s it” to show that the issue at hand is settled because I have confessed it so.

On this octave of Easter which means eternity (because there are only seven days in a week but if you count the days since Easter, this Sunday is the eighth, an octave), the beloved disciple reminds us that Jesus said other things not recorded in his book; and most likely, he had had other appearances too not recorded simply because they are impossible to do. According to John, these were all written so we may all believe Jesus is the Christ and have eternal life in him. Moreover, there is no need for him to go into so many details about the appearances of Jesus after his Resurrection because what really matters most is the intensity of his presence. It is from that intensity of his presence we derive that “a basta!” experience of him. To be open to accept such intense moments of Christ’s presence leads us to deeper faith in him and eventually, to a relationship with him and in a community.

Thomas meets the Risen Jesus. From Google.

Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

John 20:26-

“Do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Last Sunday we have reflected how the Easter stories are always set in darkness like in the early morning, at sunset, and in the evening: the joy of Easter always comes bursting in the darkness of our lives, when we are down and suffering, sick or feeling lost, and fearful. It is during those dark moments of our lives when Jesus silently comes to us even in locked doors and windows. Problem is the moment Jesus comes to us, that is when we doubt him like Thomas! We could not believe Jesus is really alive though deep inside us, we do believe if only there could be be something within us that could give that final big push for us to say “a basta!”.

A week after his first appearance to his disciples at night, Jesus appeared anew today despite locked doors, darkness, and shadows of doubts within Thomas. When Jesus told him to “do not be unbelieving, but believe” , the Lord was not reproaching him but actually exhorting him to believe. And that is likewise addressed to us today: believe!

To believe is first to accept the gift of faith from God who opens himself to us, inviting us to a relationship with him. To believe in God is to meet him who always comes to meet us, to be with us. To believe in God is most of all to enter into a relationship with him so that that more we believe, the more we “see” him, the more we experience him. Most of the time we learn and get so many proofs of the existence of Jesus Christ in our prayers, studies, and experiences. Through time, we also grow in our personal conviction and acknowledgment of the Risen Lord, surpassing all proofs and logic until eventually even if we can enumerate our many reasons for believing, in the end, we admit that not even one of them is the very reason for our faith in Jesus Christ. And that is when we give that burst of “a basta!” – – – Jesus is alive! Then we learn to confess like Thomas, “My Lord and my God.”

From Google.

The Resurrection of Jesus is both historical and beyond history that made so much impact in human life, affecting us in the most personal manner. Sometimes we really wonder like the Apostle Jude Thaddeus who asked the Lord during the Last Supper why he would only manifest to them and not to everyone (Jn.14:22) so as to cast out all doubts and set the record straight that there is God indeed. When we examine our life journey, we find there is really no need for Jesus to appear at all for everyone to believe his existence, that he had risen from the dead, that there is God.

The Easter stories show us how God works silently in our midst, always slowly and surely, gradually through history and in our personal life. It is not really his appearances that matter but the intensity of his presence felt only in silence when we learn to trust more and believe more. How wonderful that on this eight day of Easter we also celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday that invites us to trust more than ever Jesus Christ our salvation. May we entrust ourselves to Jesus anew like Thomas, touching his wounds, confessing “My Lord and my God” or “Jesus, King of Mercy, I trust in You.” Amen.

From Google.

When darkness becomes light

The Lord Is My Chef Easter Sunday Recipe, 21 April 2019
Photo from Google.

During our morning prayer (lauds) at the parish today, I invited my parishioners to “internalize” the meaning of Jesus being buried, being “dead” this Saturday. I love the word “internalize” that evokes the imagery of Jesus “descending into the dead” while we his disciples go inside our very selves, probing deeper our heart and soul to examine our faith in the Risen Jesus Christ.

Internalize. I think this is the keyword this Easter Sunday. To internalize means to go into the dark, to befriend darkness. Unless we have gone through the darkness of Good Friday, we shall never fully appreciate the brightness of Easter Sunday. How sad that so many of us went through all liturgical celebrations and other devotional practices of Palm Sunday into Holy Thursday and Good Friday only to be absent this Easter Sunday which is the most important celebration of our faith, the very foundation of our being Christians. All those five weeks of Lent plus the Holy Week are preparations for Easter which covers more than 50 days beginning today until Pentecost. And those 50 days are counted as one big day because Easter is the Mother of all feasts in the Church!

And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching; empty, too, your faith.

1 Corinthians 15:14

Recent events demand that we as a Church, the Body of the Risen Lord, internalize our being Christians. You must have seen that viral photo of Antipolo pilgrims who have turned the Cathedral into a huge trash bin during Holy Thursday’s visita iglesia. It was the same sight in many churches and pilgrimage sites last week that make us wonder if Jesus is really alive in us? Or, Jesus has risen but we have remained dead in our sins and indifference, in our own “do-it-yourself” kind of religion or cafeteria Catholicism when we choose to believe only in certain teachings and beliefs that suit our tastes and well-being.

Photo by Kae Rivera via GMA News.

Problem is not only with the faithful but also with us priests when we have forgotten or even disregarded Jesus our Lord and Master, giving more emphasis on our own beliefs and concepts of what is true, good and beautiful that our celebrations and practices have become more of a show than expressions of faith. See how repositories on Holy Thursday have become more like a stage for “Asia’s Got Talent” or any variety show that have robbed Christ of the dignity and honor because people have become more focused with the glitz and glamour of the stage design and production. Sorry to say, it has become more of a show than a devotion as people leave talking about the spectacle than Jesus being present. And the sad part is how we priests have misled the people away from Christ but consciously or unconsciously, closer to us.

Now see my dear readers how in our gospel accounts this Easter Sunday that the prevailing mood and scenery are of darkness.

At daybreak on the first day of the week… On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark… That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus…As they approached the village to which they were going, they urged Jesus, “Stay with, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”

Luke 24:1… John 20:1…Luke 24:13, 28-29
From Google.

Jesus rose in the dead of the night to bring light and life. Recall how the evangelists unanimously tell us that when Jesus died, there was widespread darkness to remind us that our darkest moments in life are our finest ones when we are with him. His first appearances were all in the darkness of dawn, dusk, and evening. There is something in darkness that Jesus invites us to come to him and meet him. It is only in the dark when we truly enter into a new and deeper level of friendship and relationship, of intimacy with him or with anyone else like married couples because it is in darkness when we truly trust and believe the other person. In the darkness of the night we muster all our faith and trust, strength and courage to await the breaking of a new day filled with hope and joy.

In this age of social media when everybody has the whole world as a stage, we always live in the brightness of so many artificial lights, stage lights for performances or palabas as we call them. We no longer have what Paul Simon sings “Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again…” Jesus conquered darkness so we can befriend it to find our selves and others better. Darkness is the light that leads us to Easter! Life need not be always bright because the sun does not shine on all days.

The tragedy of forgetting darkness, of always living in artificial lights is that the more we fail to see ourselves, others, God, and the world around us. The more we fail, the more we are sad, the more we are unfulfilled. Worst, the more we do not see despite all the lights! Don’t you find that ironic, even absurd? And that explains why we have so many undeserving elected leaders today. This Easter, let the darkness of the dawn, of the empty tomb be our light in following Jesus. Be not afraid to walk in the dark like the two disciples going to Emmaus because Jesus always walks with us, listens to us, shares with us in the darkness of our lives. Jesus is alive and he loves you very much! Amen.

“Road to Emmaus” painting from Google.

Praying And Dying with Jesus

The Lord Is My Chef Good Friday Recipe, 19 April 2019
Isaiah 52:13-53:12//Hebrews 4:14-16;5:7-9//John 18:1-19:42
Crucifix at the Fatima Square in Portugal. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, October 2018.

The Evangelists tell us that Jesus died on the Cross on a Friday at about 3:00 PM. And they tell us too that our Lord died praying, exactly what most of the Seven Last Words have expressed.  But from the gospel we have heard this afternoon written by the beloved disciple John, we discover something very beautiful: Jesus was very calm and peaceful in his prayer unto death.

After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.”  There was a vessel filled with common wine.  So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth.  When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.”  And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.

John 19:28-30

When we are deep in suffering, in severe pain like Jesus on the cross, what do we usually pray? 

Most often, we pray that the terrible ordeal we are going through would finally end or be finished.  And sometimes, due to desperation, we even pray for death, of how we wish God would finally end our life to be free from all the problems and pains we are going through. And we feel death is the solution.

One of the things I have realized about death came from the 1990’s movie “House of Spirits” when the mother played by Meryl Streep told her daughter played by Winona Ryder that “you do not pray for death because death surely comes.” I always tell that to patients I visit who are in deep pain and suffering. I know it is easier than done. But when we reflect on the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we discover how he had made death an offering, a gift of self in love. Clearly we find here that his darkest hour is also his finest hour because of love.

Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches. Photo by author, 2016.

In the original Greek text of St. John, the word used to express Jesus Christ’s final prayer “It is finished” is “tetelestai” from the root word “telos” meaning the final end and direction.  It is not just an ending but a direction too. At the start of this year’s Lenten season, we have reflected that life is more about direction than destination. Direction leads to growth and maturity because it is about persons. Destination is just about place and location. 

From the very start, Jesus was clear with His mission, of how it would be accomplished.  He has always been sure of himself, of who he is.  Notice how St. John repeated many times in his account of the Last Supper how Jesus was “fully aware” of everything that was going to happen: he was so composed and serene that he even gave bread to his betrayer Judas Iscariot during their supper.  Last night we heard how Jesus knew everything was coming to end that he washed the feet of his disciples.

When his “hour” had come, Jesus was “fully aware of everything” that he was never left to the whims and powers of his enemies when he went through his Passion, calmly and courageously facing his death on the Cross. He always had the upper hand that he was able to pray “It is finished” because he was so sure of his Resurrection on Easter. In praying “It is finished,” Jesus consecrated not only himself but also all humanity to the Father so that we are able to bear and face death squarely like him.   

Mt. St. Paul Retreat House, Baguio. Photo by author, June 2017.

In the Mass after the consecration of the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood, we proclaim “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.” We call it as “the mystery of our faith” because when we say “Christ has died,” we admit that truly, the Son of God went through all kinds of sufferings in life we all go through like betrayal, rejection, loneliness, sickness, hunger, thirst, and yes, even death.  And His sufferings continue as we suffer more in this world marred by evil and sins, making us cry, asking when would these end and be finished. And there lies the mystery of our faith on the Cross that led to Easter: when we look at Jesus Christ on His Cross, we see our own pains and agony as God’s pains and agony too.  Jesus joined us in our anguish and death so that we could experience all the more his immense love for us.  Without Jesus and his Cross, we would never be able to bear or even face the many deaths we go through daily.  May we recognize God’s immense love for us again this afternoon when we venerate the cross and see it as the merging point of human and Divine suffering.  Keep praying with Jesus who has the final say with death at Easter. Amen.

*This is an updated version of my Good Friday reflection last year.

Our life of leaving and loving

The Lord Is My Chef Recipe, Holy Thursday of the Lord’s Passion, 18 April 2019
Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14///1 Corinthians 11:23-26///John 13:1-15
Altar at the Carmelite Monastery in Israel with a unique Crucifix. Photo by Dra. Mai B. Dela Pena, 2011.

Today I am celebrating my 21st year in the priesthood. This is the first time our ordination anniversary falls on a Holy Thursday when we celebrate the institution of the two Sacraments most closely linked with us priests and the Church, Holy Eucharist and Holy Orders.

When we were ordained by Archbishop Rolando J. Tria-Tirona 21 years ago at the Malolos Cathedral, there were so many things going on in my mind and in my heart. But there was one thing that had remained very clear with me since that day: I am being ordained priest at the age of 33, the very same age Jesus was crucified on the Cross. From then on until now, I have kept in my heart that priesthood is suffering and dying on the Cross in Jesus and with Jesus centered on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.

John 13:1

Of the four evangelists, it is only St. John who repeatedly mentions the expression “hour of Jesus” in his gospel account. For him, the very life of Jesus is a journey and preparation to his “hour” which is his crucifixion and death. The hour of Jesus is his passion. The word passion is from the Latin verb patior that means to undergo, to pass through, evoking some form of suffering and pain.

The hour of Jesus started in his Last Supper. It was a very long hour so to speak. And very dark. However, it was also the finest hour of Jesus when he poured out his immense love and mercy for us. Beginning at his supper when he washed the feet of the Apostles to his agony in the garden when he perspired with blood to his arrest reaching it darkest point in his crucifixion and death, the darkest hour of Jesus is also his finest hour when he was able to bear all sufferings and insults, including death because of love. Jesus showed us that in fact, love is the very process of passing over, of going beyond our means and capacity in order to transform and become better persons. That is why our darkest hour is also our finest hour when we are transformed in Jesus because precisely that is when we truly love. It is also for this reason that the Eucharist is called an agape which is the Greek word for the highest form of love that does not expect anything in return. That is the love of Jesus Christ. And supposed to be the love of us priests.

Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.

Jesus washes feet of Apostles. From Google.

Msgr. Epitacio Castro, one of our retired priests, has a favorite expression with his being a priest: “pinag-uubra lang ako ng Diyos”. True. God is just making do of us as priests because nobody is worthy of being one. We are the worst men around! We are also sinners like you, even more sinful than most of you. In the Eucharist, we priests experience that great love of Jesus Christ when he tries to make us fit as his priests, transforming us into men like him. It happens every time we are one with him in his hour of suffering and death. Priesthood is a life of leaving and loving, of passing over and transformation. The day we were ordained, our Last Supper began, our passion began because that is also our hour in Jesus Christ. Every time we celebrate the Holy Mass, we priests are reminded that our hour had come to pass, challenging us to love more. Pray for priests who no longer love the Eucharist; something is terribly wrong with them.

I am a sinner. But it is a tremendous grace of God through the Eucharist that I continue to leave and pass over, from sin to holiness and grace, from darkness to light, from selfishness to selflessness, from desperation to hope, from grief to joy. And all because of the power of love of God overflowing in the Eucharist. How can I resist to love and to forgive, to let go and move on, to be patient and to persevere when right in the Eucharist I could feel Jesus truly present, entrusting himself to me who is so untidy with sins and weaknesses? How could I not believe in him when Jesus is the first to believe in me despite my many self doubts? Every celebration of the Eucharist is an imitation of Christ when we priests go down to wash and kiss the feet of the people we serve whom we also hurt and hurt us too!

They say the darkest nights are the longest nights. Very true especially for us priests. Be patient with us when we forget so many things, when we change so often in our plans because every time there are celebrations, our hour goes over time too. Bear with us, pray for us when we sometimes become irritable even grouchy because aside from your many problems and burdens we help you carry, we have our own struggles and problems too. That hour of Jesus remains with us even after every Mass when you all go home to your own family while we priests are left alone in our parish thinking about the next celebrations. The hours are long and the nights are so dark and all we have is that flickering light of faith, hope, and love in Jesus in our hearts.

But, though the darkest nights are the longest nights, they also say that only the brave who dare walk the darkness can see the brightness of the stars above. Courage does not mean having no fear but the ability to face our fears. And, oh! We priests have many fears too, including the fears of rejection, of being misunderstood, of being boxed, and most of all, of failing. We are what you call as “warrior is a child” — “They don’t know that I come running home when I fall down. They don’t know who picks me up when no one is around. I drop my sword and cry for just a while, ‘Coz deep inside this armor, The warrior is a child.

In the Eucharist, we priests truly share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ because that is also when we feel transformed in his love, when we pass over with so much pains from the many experiences we have in our very selves and with others. Indeed, without the Eucharist, we are not priests! Every time I raise Christ’s Body and Blood, I pray that Jesus may make me whole in body, mind and heart, that he may wash me of all my sins, doubts and fears. Nobody else in the Mass perhaps, except us priests who truly feel the meaning of praying these words before receiving communion, “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my shall be healed.”

Maybe you have all seen the photos after the fire that razed the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris this Holy Tuesday. Intact were the altar table with the huge cross beaming with light. What a beautiful reminder to us all, especially us priests, that in this life, our darkest hours are also our finest hours when we are one with Jesus Christ. No fire nor anything can ever destroy us because Jesus had overcome every evil even death for us. Every destruction and darkness are a prelude to the light and new creation of Easter Sunday that begins right here in the hour of the Eucharist of Jesus. Let us remain in Christ in love in passing over, in leaving behind the pains and hurts of the past with much love in our hearts to move on in this life. Amen.

Photo from Yahoo.news.