While praying your words today O Lord Jesus Christ, I remembered your servant Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI who explained the great importance of professing “I believe in God”.
It is a fundamental affirmation, seemingly simple in its essence, but it opens on to the infinite world of the relationship with the Lord and with his mystery. Believing in God entails adherence to him, the acceptance of his word and joyful obedience to his revelation… The ability to say one believes in God is therefore both a gift — God reveals himself, he comes to meet us — and a commitment, it is divine grace and human responsibility in an experience of conversation with God who… speaks to us, so that, in faith and with faith, we are able to enter into communion with him.
General Audience, 23 January 2013
Since then until now, believing in you Jesus to have risen from the dead, to be from God the Father has always been a problem because we have always refused to accept your opening to us. We always want to manipulate everything, especially God.
The problem with believing is we have refused to live by God, always leaving him behind because we feel he is outdated, old-fashioned and too conservative for our modern thoughts and perceptions of how life should be lived.
The problem with believing God then and now is we have stopped recognizing God as the foundation of our lives that like the chief priests and elders in the Acts of the Apostles, we would rather be blind from the glaring truth of your loving presence before us. Like the Apostles too during Easter, we have refused to believe others in proclaiming your rising from the dead because of many reasons and one of these is the hardness of our hearts.
Lord Jesus Christ, take away our stony hearts and give us with a natural heart that beats with firm faith in you, fervent hope and unceasing charity and love. Amen.
Choir loft of Parish Church of the Holy Family in Taipeh. Photo by author, January 2019.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Tuesday, Easter Octave, 23 April 2019
Acts 2:36-41///John 20:11-18
Photo from Google.
Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other Apostles, “What are we to do, my brothers?”
Acts 2:37
What a powerful expression, O Lord Jesus Christ: “they were cut to the heart” upon hearing the preaching by St. Peter about you on Pentecost day, on how the people have killed you, on how they failed to recognize you as the Christ.
They were cut to the heart, they were so moved.
Yesterday O Lord, many of us were also cut to the heart with the powerful earthquake that rocked us hard late afternoon. Many prayed, many wondered what’s going to happen next. And many asked what are we to do?
Suddenly, people remembered you and called on you. That is always the case when calamities strike us, when problems arise in our families. We are cut to the heart. Our faith is awakened, we become conscious not only of you but of others we used to take for granted.
But there is something more wonderful in being cut to the heart, O Lord.
Mary Magdalene was also cut in the heart upon discovering your empty tomb that Easter morning. Give us that same grace of always seeking you, looking for you whenever we feel we have lost you.
So often, you come to us, calling us with our name but we never listen to you, always forgetting how much you love us, how much you have forgiven us with our many sins, how you have changed us.
Remind us like Mary not to touch you because from now on, we must relate with you in a higher level, that the most important thing to do is to proclaim to others most especially with our lives that we have seen you, that you are risen.
That is the most kindest and wonderful kind of cut of all, Jesus. Amen.
Jesus telling Mary Magdalene not to touch him in a painting at the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy. Photo from Google.
Today we begin the Holy Week. And here is my piece of good news for you: you do not have to necessarily listen to religious music to reflect on the immense love and mercy of God for us expressed in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Exactly twenty years ago today, St. John Paul II asserted in his “Letter to the Artists” that every artistic inspiration is always from the Great Artist himself, God. This is very true in music which always speaks about love.
For our LordMyChef Music on this Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, I offer to you one of my favorite from David Benoit’s 1986 album “This Side Up” called “Land of the Loving” featuring the vocals of the great Diane Reeves. Of course, the song is about romantic love, of how a woman had found a love so true and sublime with a another person, with a man who must be so rare. Raise it to the highest level, it is no one else but Jesus Christ.
Photo from Google.
Deep in your eyes is a promise Love can be ours if we want it Starting tonight Every dream I ever knew Here in your arms I’m believin’ Finally my life has A meaning of its own Here in the land of the loving I am home
In today’s gospel, one can find the remarkable – even striking – character of Jesus who, after being crucified, prayed for his enemies, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” No hatred nor revenge. But pure love and friendship. Sometimes, our sins become our religious experience for it is through its darkness that God makes us experience him or find him.
Photo from bing.com.
I was alone in the city Searchin’ for someone to find me Cold empty nights and a million strangers’ eyes Here in your arms I’m beginning To leave behind all the loneliness I knew Here in the land of loving there is you.
In this simple room magic is made Though the world seems unchanged Leave the lights on I’m a bit afraid This might be just a sweet dream.
Deep in the night love is growing Though I had no way of knowing That when I found you I found ev’rything I need Here in your love I’ll be staying Fin’lly my life won’t be living all alone Here in the land of the loving I am home.
May Jesus find you, fill your heart with more peace and joy this Holy Week so you may rejoice in his Resurrection in Easter. Amen.
Sunset at San Juan, La Union. Photo by the author, January 2018.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Year C, 14 April 2019
Isaiah 50:4-7///Philippians 2:6-11///Luke 22:1-49
Photo from Bing.com.
Today we begin the Holy Week with two celebrations merged into one, Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. The Palm Sunday is a tradition started by the early Christians in Jerusalem in the fourth century while in Rome during the 12th century, the Pope proclaimed the long gospel account of the Lord’s Passion on this Sunday to signal the start of Holy Week. Almost 2000 years later in reforming the liturgy, Vatican II merged these two traditions into one to usher in our holiest days of the year.
Like in the four Sundays of Lent except last week, St. Luke guides us today in reflecting the Lord’s Passion with emphasis on the Cross with its call to conversion. For St. Luke, the cross is the object of discipleship in Christ. Join me in reflecting on the last three words our evangelist had recorded when Jesus was crucified.
First word:
When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other to his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
Luke 23:33-34
Mosaic of the Crucifixion at the crypt of the Manila Cathedral. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, October of the Jubilee of Mercy 2016.
This is very striking. Immediately upon his crucifixion, Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of his enemies! It is a total adherence to his preaching during his sermon on the plain, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Lk. 6:27-28, Seventh Week Ordinary Time, 24 February 2019). Here we find the immense love and mercy of Jesus — no hatred, no calls for revenge or threats like “karma” against those who crucified him. He simply begged for their forgiveness because “they know not what they do.”
In Jewish thought, to know means more than an intellectual knowledge for it implies relationship. Knowing somebody for them is more than knowing one’s name but having ties with the person. And to know something is always to see things in this perspective, always in relation with a person. Had they known Jesus is the Christ, they would have not crucified him! Exactly the preaching of St. Peter at the healing of a lame man after Pentecost at the temple when he told them they have “acted in ignorance” in “killing the Author of life whom God raised from the dead” (Acts 3:15). St. Luke also notes in his Acts of the Apostles how the crowd upon hearing St. Peter’s preaching were moved or “cut to the heart” (2:37) that many were baptized on that day. Recall also how at the arrival of the wise men from the East searching for the child Jesus: the scholars of Jerusalem “knew” from the books how the Christ would be born in Behtlehem yet he was found by the pagan magis! Even the most learned man in the New Testament, St. Paul admits how ignorant he had been in persecuting and blaspheming Jesus before (1Tim.1:13) experiencing God’s loving mercy.
In the bible we always see this combination of knowing and ignorance at the same time to indicate that more than factual and cerebral knowledge, there is that deeper knowing of relating and of loving. If we really know somebody, the more we love, the lesser we sin. St. Thomas Aquinas used to say that the more we know and become intelligent, the more we realize the truth, the more we must become good and holy. That is why saints are the most intelligent people that they were able to do what is good and what is right.
In this age of Google and Wikipedia , Jesus is challenging us that if we truly know so much that we have become smart and more intelligent, then, how much do we really love and care for others?
Photo from Google.
Second word:
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you shall be with me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:42-43
The Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to claim that Dimas was indeed a great thief who was able to steal or snatch Paradise from Jesus just before dying on the Cross. It may be funny but very true. But more than “stealing” his salvation from the Lord, Dimas had displayed on the cross what we have discussed earlier about the combination of knowing and ignorance. I would say Dimas is perhaps the “most learned thief” of all time who truly knew what is most essential in life which is to know Jesus. The moment he called out to him “Jesus”, Dimas expressed his knowing Jesus, of belonging to Jesus. As we have reflected earlier, to know is to relate. Anyone who truly relates must first believe in order to love dearly. Dimas believed in Jesus that he called out to him while hanging on the Cross.
Today, Jesus is reminding us that the door to Paradise is him alone. And we begin to enter Paradise the moment we entrust our total self to Jesus like Dimas who came to know Christ at the Cross, and then believed him and loved him. If we really know, do we believe?
Altar of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre over the exact site where Jesus was crucified outside Jerusalem. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, October 2017.
Third word:
Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” and when he had said this he breathed his last.
Luke 23:46
One of St. Luke’s unique feature is always presenting to us Jesus at prayer. Especially here at his crucifixion. See how his first words were prayer of forgiveness for his persecutors. Now at his death, St. Luke presents Jesus again at prayer, reciting Psalm 31:5, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Here we find the whole picture of Jesus Christ’s life which is a prayer and his prayer is his very life. From the very start, Jesus has always been one with the Father which is the essence of every prayer called communion. And that is the important aspect of his being our Savior: everything he said and did was everything the Father had told and asked him. There is that perfect communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit so that in his death, Jesus offered his total self with us to God. Everyone and everything is thus sanctified anew in Christ. This became possible only with his kenosis, his self-emptying eloquently expressed to the Philippians by St. Paul in our second reading.
On the Cross, everything in the life of Jesus Christ came to a full circle, God’s whole picture emerged. Now more than ever, we have become closest to God in love. In his dying on the Cross, Jesus made known to us God, brought him closest to us so we can relate and be intimate with him more than ever. In his becoming human like us by bearing all the pains and sufferings expressed in the first reading from Isaiah, God proved to us his love in Jesus. Most of all, he enabled us too to be capable of knowing and loving like Jesus Christ by being intimate with him always. This is why these days are called Holy Week when we are filled with God so we experience him anew and have him more than ever in our hearts, in our very selves. Amen.
The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?”
John 10:31-32
O dear Jesus, my Lord and my God, I could relate so much with you in this episode in your life. Lately, I have been feeling so down, wondering how could people give me in return evil deeds and pains after all the goodness I have shown them? There are still many others out there wondering the same, feeling the same.
We all feel like, you, O Jesus, asking our detractors, our very own relatives and friends, which of the good works we have done to them are they stoning us?
We all feel like Jeremiah too, your the prophet.
I hear the whisperings of many: “Terror on every side! Denounce! Let us denounce him!” All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine. “Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail, and take our vengeance on him.”
Jeremiah 20:10
In our distress, O Lord, hear our calls!
Keep us strong and faithful always to you. If life is Lent, then life is about persecutions, about sufferings. We have accepted it Lord but sometimes we cry, we get weak, we want to rest and stop because things are getting too much.
But, Lent has a spirit and character that refresh us, renew us with the thought that before all these persecutions and sufferings came our way, you were there first for us, Lord Jesus to, bear all these pains. Even dying on the Cross. Amen.
Loving God our Father, make our hearts bigger to accept you and let our minds be contented when we can no longer understand you. So often we complain of so many things we do not have, failing to see what you have given us, because we always try to understand you and your ways, both beyond us.
From Mount Hor the children of Israel set out on the Red Sea road, to bypass the land of Edom. But with their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” In punishment the Lord sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit then people so that many of them died.
Numbers 21:4-6
Forgive us O Lord for complaining so much, forgetting to be grateful for what we have received from you freely. Forgive us most of all for challenging you, questioning you, doubting you. Please forgive us when we forget you are our God, we are your creatures.
How amazing were the poor among those in the temple that day listening to Jesus. So humble, so open to your presence who accepted the Christ while speaking in mysterious ways as a Person that the learned could not understand. How amazing were those poor they recognized the Christ in his pronouncements of the “I AM”:
“For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins… When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me.”
John 8:24, 28
Remind us always, O God, that you are not a concept to be understood but a Person to be loved and accepted. Amen.
Crucifix at the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception Seminary by National Artist Erwin Castrillo, Guiguinto, Bulacan. Photo by ICS alumnus (Batch 82) Chester Ocampo, November 30, 2014.
40 Shades of Lent, 5th Sunday-C, 07 April 2019 Isaiah 43:16-21///Philippians 3:8-14///John 8:1-11
From Google.
Sunrise at Lake of Galilee. Photo by author April 2017.
Today is the last Sunday of Lent. It is hoped that by this time since Ash Wednesday, we have slowly acquired or even regained our contemplative spirit of prayerful silence. It is something very essential not only during these 40 days and in the coming Holy Week. It is only in silent prayers can we truly find balance in life as we discover what is valuable and what is worthless, things that last and things that pass. Prayerful silence teaches us to slow down, to be more discerning, and more trusting. The contemplative spirit thus leads us to grow deeper in our faith, hope and love in God. It is in the contemplative spirit where God works best in us.
We find this invitation to a contemplative spirit in our beautiful gospel today of a woman caught committing adultery whom Jesus refused to condemn. Unlike the previous four weeks when we heard all gospels taken from Luke, this Sunday’s story is from John that perfectly fits last week’s parable of the prodigal son to show us God’s immense love and mercy for us sinners. Every conversion, every contrition of sins presupposes silence. Recall how the lost son last Sunday realized his sinfulness while silently tending swine in a far away land.
From Google.
Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.
John 8:1-6
From Google.
We have seen how Jesus foiled other insidious plots against him through tricky questions but this one involving a woman caught committing adultery shows us a fine image of him as the Christ. His silence, his bending down and his writing on the ground are moving moments that touch our hearts and make us wonder all the more, who is this man?
More than addressing a question that concerns the many dilemmas we face in life, this episode shows us that it is something that directly concerns Jesus Christ himself, his being our Savior. Notice at the start of the story where Jesus is presented always going to the Mount of Olives to pray, to be one with the Father. This episode happened after he had entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, showing us how Jesus became more intense in praying, in being one with the Father when his final days were approaching. That is the contemplative spirit.
Now feel the atmosphere of those tense moments when people brought the woman caught committing adultery to Jesus: everybody was saying something, emotions were running high, just like us in our own time with social media around us. We live in so much noises where everybody and everything is talking that we fail to listen to our very selves, to others and most especially to God always silent. See how Jesus was so cool – or “chillax” as young people would say. It was an astonishing reaction to the situation. Only a person with deep contemplative spirit like Jesus can be so composed and silent in a tense situation like that. It is always easier to react and say something than be silent to weigh everything. Too often in the world today, words are so empty that they have to be shouted all around and repeated so often in the hope they become true, exactly what every election candidate is doing!
From Bing.com.
Jesus chose to be silent so we may realize that issues of sin and evil are best resolved in a contemplative spirit where we find the value of every person that we condemn the sin not the sinner. History has shown time and again how wars and violence or any other harsh methods like death penalty have proven ineffective in correcting any injustice or wrongdoing and preventing crimes. Where there is severity in measures against evil, we find only more deaths and burials happening but never peace and justice.
Now more than ever in Jesus Christ, we have found and experienced God’s mercy so abounding and closest to us sinners if we are truly sorry and ready to change. Like the woman caught committing adultery or the prodigal son last Sunday, we have to reach out to Christ to be forgiven from our sins. He assures us of never being condemned, of deleting our past sins and assuring us with a bright future to receive his promises if we “go and sin no more.”
We have to stress that Jesus does not approve sins. Never. He recognized the sinfulness of the woman when he told her “go and sin no more.” Likewise, Jesus never asked us to stop fighting sins. When he dared the people of whoever has no sin be the first to cast the stone, Jesus never meant us to be silent with the evil and wrongdoings happening around us. This encounter between Jesus and the woman committing adultery invites us to examine first, our own attitudes toward others guilty of serious sins. And secondly, to examine our own reactions when our misery meets with God’s mercy especially in the sacrament of penance or reconciliation.
Do we choose to be harsh like the crowd or be gentle like Christ?
How sad that even with our very selves we are so unforgiving, so severe that we hardly move on in life. Only in a contemplative spirit can we truly experience God’s liberating mercy and forgiveness within us and with others. The contemplative spirit enables us to trust God that no matter how sinful we are, his love and mercy are more powerful, able to transform us all into better persons, even saints! This is the promise of God in the first reading that he would do something greater than what he had done in liberating his people from Egypt – that he would send our Savior not only to forgive our many sins but even to share in his glory as saints.
Assumption Sabbath Baguio, January 2019.
St. Paul in the second reading could speak of “considering everything as a loss in knowing Christ Jesus” because of the contemplative spirit he acquired after his conversion. His letters all reveal to us St. Paul’s contemplative spirit and intimacy with Jesus Christ that flowed out into his daily life, reaching its summit in his martyrdom.
As the season of Lent comes to a close on this fifth Sunday, we are reminded of the path of conversion we have followed these past four weeks under St. Luke’s guidance. Conversion leads to contemplation, a daily communion with God in prayerful silence and allow him to suffuse us with his love. Its fruits are seen in our daily lives. It is the work of God, not us. It is God who renews us in silence into a new creation. We simply have to remain in Christ and strive always “to go and sin no more”. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent, Tuesday, Week IV, 02 April 2019
Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12///John 5:1-16
Dearest Jesus: Last night as I prayed amid the heat of summer, I realized that since the start of our 40-day journey of Lent, it is only now I have been reminded of one of the highlights of this Season, the sacrament of Baptism symbolized by water in the two readings today.
So often, Lord Jesus, we take water for granted, not realizing its value until it is gone.
Just like you, Lord.
Cleanse us, O Jesus, with your purifying waters of Baptism, keep us nourished like the trees seen in Ezekiel’s vision planted near the rivers, always filled with life, always green, always bearing fruits of good works.
Most of all, come to us Lord Jesus like in the pool at Bethesda or “house of mercy”.
Quench our thirsts for life’s meaning. Without you as our water, we are dehydrated, weakened, dried up by life’s so many demands and concerns. May you always refresh us, awaken us to many possibilities of life especially when the well runs dry. Amen.
The Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord is a Christmas celebration outside the Christmas cycle. Since the middle of the sixth century, it has always been celebrated on March 25 that falls within Lent except when Ash Wednesday comes early February like in recent years that it occurs within the Easter season.
What is very interesting with this Solemnity of the Lord is how its gospel from Luke is proclaimed in Advent and Lent, two major seasons that are similar in varying degrees with its violet motif and with its penitential character that is a call to conversion. Both Advent and Lent invite us to create a space within us so we may receive Jesus Christ in us like the Blessed Virgin Mary. Angel Gabriel continues to come to us, bringing Jesus Christ. But, does anybody willing to listen to the angel to receive the Son of God like Mary?
“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”
Luke 1:30-31, 35
Yesterday in our third Sunday of Lent, we reflected the Lord’s call to conversion by repenting our sins and changing our life directions in Him. Conversion is finding Jesus in our very self so we may also find Him in other persons and in the events of our lives. This can only happen when there is a room for Jesus in us like Mary. We simply have to create that space in us by emptying our hearts of our pride and other sins so the Holy Spirit may overshadow us to make us God’s presence. It requires a lot of trust on our part in God and His power. How sad that in this age of great technological marvels, we continue to be like Ahaz in the first reading who entered into secret alliances with Israel’s pagan neighbors trusting in their military might than with God. Like Ahaz, we often pretend not to be tempting or testing God with signs from Him yet, the fact is our hearts are so far from Him. Conversion is taking two or three steps backward so that we can allow God to do His works in us. Problem is we have never truly allowed the Holy Spirit to overshadow us with God’s power to be His presence in the world. We are always afraid even ashamed at what others would say. Or sometimes, we are always in great hurry that we cannot wait for God to accomplish His work in us.
A very dear friend last week texted me with a prayer request for her surgery today. She specifically asked me to pray for her doctors that the Holy Spirit may guide their hands in removing cysts in her pancreas. What I liked most in her request is the fact that she herself is an accomplished doctor under the care of perhaps the best doctors in the country in one of the leading hospitals in the city. Imagine her deep faith and complete trust in God! Here is a lady doctor, a woman of science so busy with her profession and family yet always making – not finding – time for God in her prayers especially the Sunday Mass.
I am always amazed by people like her who always have that glow in their face exuding with deep joy and peace within borne out of their deep spirituality. One can always feel in them the transforming power of the Holy Spirit that despite their weaknesses and shortcomings, Christ is seen and experienced among them.
Jesus did not merely come on the first Christmas over 2000 years ago. Most of all, Jesus does not come only every December 25. Jesus comes to us every day throughout the whole day which is the reason we pray the Angelus in the morning, at noon and in the early evening. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us of this reality of Christ’s coming by offering Himself as our perfect sacrifice to the Father. He is real and truly transforms us into better persons if we are willing to cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s work like Mary. Today’s solemnity of the Annunciation falling on the driest and most humid season of the year during Lent reminds us of how God continues to stir us into opening to Him, creating a space for Him to let His Spirit overshadow us not only to change us but also the world around us.
In what instances of your life do you feel God stirring you to do something for Him but you feel afraid or inadequate like Mary at the beginning of her conversation with the angel? Listen first to God or His angel by emptying yourself, creating a space for Jesus Christ. Then imitate Mary in her fiat or expression of faith by praying, “I am the servant of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word.” Amen.
A Filipino painting on the perimeter wall facing the front of the Basilica of the Annunciation at Nazareth, the Holy Land. Photo by the author, April 2017.
40 Shades of Lent Week I, Year C, 10 March 2019 Deuteronomy 26:4-10//Romans 10:8-13//Luke 4:1-11
Our gospel story on this first Sunday of Lent about the tempting of Jesus at the desert sets the prevailing mood and disposition we must have on this holy season: docility to the Holy Spirit.
Docility is obedience. A docile person is an obedient one who is also attentive which is the literal translation of the Latin root docilitas. On the other hand, “obedience” is also from two Latin words “ob audire” that literally mean to listen intently. Here we find that Lent is a season that invites us to be attentive God and with others. Most of all, Lent is the season that calls us to recover this beautiful trait of docility and obedience by submitting and surrendering our selves to God and those above us like our parents.
How ironic and unfortunate that in our highly advanced world, we have become inattentive with persons and more attentive with things and gadgets. We have not only become less obedient but even less caring and kind with others because we no longer care at all with persons next to us. We cannot listen intently to parents and teachers, friends and almost everybody because our ears are always plugged with earphones while our eyes are fixed on screens! And maybe that explains why we always find ourselves into so many disastrous situations in our lives that could have been prevented had we been more attentive with our selves, with others and with God. According to a study in 2015, the average attention span of audience is 8.25 seconds while a goldfish has 9 seconds. This maybe the reason why looking at fish in an aquarium can be therapeutic… at least a goldfish can spare you with more attention than anyone!
Going back to our gospel this Sunday, we sense this spirit of docility of Jesus in the introduction and conclusion of Luke’s version of the temptation in the desert that follows right after His baptism at Jordan.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry.
Luke 4:1-2
“Filled with the Holy Spirit.” What a beautiful expression to describe Jesus after His baptism at Jordan and in going to the wilderness to pray and fast, later to be tempted by the devil!
Docility in the Spirit is being filled with the Holy Spirit we first received in our Baptism, in Confirmation, in the Holy Communion and the sacraments. Every day like Jesus during His baptism at Jordan, we are filled with the Holy Spirit upon waking up because we are all beloved children of the Father. We have to claim the Holy Spirit who fills us, comes to us day in and day out. Docility in the Spirit is being attuned with God like a radio or any communication device that must be “connected” to a power or signal source. This is the reason we have to fast and do some sacrifices as well as pray during Lent so that we may be empty of our selves to be filled with the Holy Spirit and be docile to God. Without the Holy Spirit, there can be no docility.
Docility in the Spirit is entrance into the very person of Jesus Christ who is the beloved Son of God. The five Sundays of Lent are like doors that lead us closer into the innermost room of God. It is a journey that begins in our hearts. It is a journey we said last Ash Wednesday that is more about direction than destination. We enter the person of Jesus Christ, just like when He entered the synagogue at Nazareth to proclaim the reading from Isaiah that said “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” (Lk.4:14-21). The people were amazed at Jesus because He was so filled with the Holy Spirit that they really felt the part of the scripture fulfilled in His proclamation. Recall also the gospel last Sunday when Jesus said “from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Lk.6:45) to remind us that whatever good or evil comes from us comes from what is in our hearts, from the kind of spirit that fills us.
Jesus was consistently filled with the Holy Spirit up to the end, was consistently docile to the Father that reached its summit at the Cross because he was also continuously tempted on many occasions by the devil up to His crucifixion. That final temptation at His crucifixion was first heard in the wilderness when the devil said “if you are the Son of God” very similar with the words of the bystanders at the foot of the Cross. Most of all, that final temptation at the crucifixion was foreshadowed in the desert when the devil led Jesus to parapet of the temple in Jerusalem, teasing Him to throw Himself down for the angels would surely support Him.
Every time the devil tempts us to sin, his intention is not only for us to sin but for our lives to be destroyed by making us turn away from God signified by jumping from the top of the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus knew this so well that is why from the desert to the Cross, Jesus remained docile to the Father, remained filled with the Holy Spirit by relying on the powers of God than of Himself or of anyone else. And that is always the temptation we also encounter daily: to abandon God, to rely on ourselves and various forms of human powers. Every temptation faced by Jesus was always a temptation to abandon God’s plans, to be ordinary, to remain stuck in the level of the of the world.
The good news is not only that Jesus had overcome every temptation from the devil but most of all, enables us to do so by filling us with the Holy Spirit. Like Moses in the first reading, remember how God saved us in the past. He will never forsake us for as St. Paul reminds us today, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom.10:13). May we be attentive to the Holy Spirit always. Amen.
The imagery of the wilderness every Lent invites us to be docile, i.e., literally attentive in Latin, to the Holy Spirit, to the things of God and of the more sublime than merely human and material. Photo by author, Holy Land, April 2017.
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