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.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul Tuesday, 05 March 2019, Week VIII, Year I Sirach 35:1-12///Mark 10:28-31
Sunrise at Lake of Galilee, the Holy Land. Photo by the author, April 2017.
Lord Jesus Christ, you know very well our favorite expression in Filipino “walang wala ako” whenever we do not feel like helping somebody in need especially if it is money.
We always say it to show how poor we are, that we literally have nothing at all. And you know as we also know very well that it is not true at all.
Forgive us in professing that absolute lie for if ever we possess no wealth at all when our hands are totally empty of anything, we still have those hands to share and reach out to anyone in need.
Help us heed Ben Sirach’s admonition,
“Appear not before the Lord empty handed, for all that you offer is a fulfillment the precepts… Give to the Most High as he has given you, generously, according to your means. For the Lord is one who alwaysrepays and he will give back to you sevenfold.”
(Sir. 35:4, 9-10)
Let us not be like Simon Peter who sometimes feel bragging about our sacrifices and offerings for everything we have is not ours but all yours.
It’s a very beautiful Sunday, the first in this month of March.
I have been thinking of so many other songs that best capture our reflection for the Sunday gospel which is about education of the heart when Jesus said, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Lk.6:45).
Our heart is the core of our person and that is why it is called “corazon” in Spanish from the Latin “cor”. And the best way to understand it is to simply feel what is inside.
Can we really look inside one’s heart as David Benoit said?
The French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that “the heart has its own reasons that the mind can never understand.”
Another Frenchman, the aviator and writer Antoine de St. Exupery expressed in his book “The Little Prince” that “what is essential is invisible to the eye; it is only with the heart one can truly see.”
And so, I have decided this Sunday to share with you the music of the Swedish pop singer Orup (Thomas Eriksson) called “The Keys to Your Heart” released in 1991. I can’t find its lyrics but that’s the key to our heart – just feel the music and enjoy!
A view from the inside of the Church of the Beatitudes overlooking the Lake of Galilee in the Holy Land. Photo by the author, April 2017.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, 03 March 2019, Week VIII, Year-C 1Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23///1Corinthians 15:45-49///Luke 6:27-38
For the past two Sundays we have been listening to some of Christ’s most sublime teachings filled with paradoxes that may sound like a folly for us humans because they all run contrary to the ways of the world. Beginning with His Beatitudes, Jesus taught that true blessedness comes from being poor and hungry, when we are weeping and being maligned. More difficult yet most sublime of all were His teachings last Sunday when He told us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us.
They are very, very difficult but doable in Christ Jesus who have taken all these lessons directly from life. He knows very well how capable is our hearts in truly loving like Him.
And so today, Jesus turns His attention to us His disciples who shall act as guides in putting into practice all His teachings through the education of our hearts. It is in our hearts where all the good and evils around us originate from. All the problems and sufferings we have in the world today like wars and various forms of violence, hunger and sexual exploitation, human trafficking and all kinds of injustice first happen right in our hearts. Not in Syria or Jolo or the slums of Tondo or any other city in the world. Jesus perfectly hit it right when He said, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Lk.6:45).
In the first reading we find the same line of thinking during the Old Testament when Ben Sirach wrote, “When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear; so do one’s faults when he speaks. As the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace, so in tribulation is the test of the just. The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had; so too does one’s speech disclose the bent of one’s mind. Praise no one before he speaks, for it is then that people are tested” (Sir.27:4-7). Remember that in the Bible, speech and being always go together like when God created everything by simply speaking.
And that is the whole point of Ben Sirach: people reveal who they really are in the manner they speak as well as in the words they use to express their thoughts and feelings that all come from the heart. Of all the creation by God, it is only the human person whom He had gifted with the ability to communicate intelligibly with speech. Our ability to speak is in fact a sharing in the power of God who created everything by simply speaking. But how do we use this great power of speech and communication? Are we like the Spiderman convinced in our hearts that with great power comes great responsibility?
It is elections again in the country and sadly, it is more like a circus than a democratic process. And the great tragedy we keep on repeating again and again is how most people put into office candidates without any qualifications at all and worst, deeply mired in every form of immorality and scandals. Where is our heart that we allow blind people to lead us? Or, have we become heartless that we have no regard anymore for our country, for our future and the next generation?
Jesus is challenging us today to educate our hearts, to learn from Him, to come to Him and be like Him to have our hearts transformed like unto Him. Though we are all weak and have all the defects as a person, our readings today lead us to the Christ who revealed to us that ultimately, “communication is more than the expression of one’s thoughts and feelings but at its most profound level is the giving of self in love” (Communio et Progression, 11). It is the Lord Jesus Christ who had revealed in His very person and life of self-giving the paradoxical joy of discipleship, the transforming power of love gained in His own pasch that removed the sting of sin and of death in our weak humanity. May we persevere in our education of our hearts in Jesus, “firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord, knowing that in Him our labor is not in vain” (1Cor.15:58). Amen. Have a blessed week!
Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
Here is the link to one of my favorite songs, “One More Gift” by Jesuit Fr. Manoling Francisco that speaks eloquently of the need to educate our hearts. Sing it prayerfully.
I have been dreaming of former classmates lately. Last Tuesday night I dreamt of a classmate in high school seminary now a priest but have not seen in months. Later that day I met another classmate, told him of my dream, and inquired about him. Unfortunately, he has not seen him too for so long though he presumed he must be doing well in the ministry.
Thursday morning upon waking up, I was thinking hard for the possible meaning of another dream I had the night before about my two seatmates in elementary school. Two dreams in a row about three good, old friends very much still alive but have not seen for so long. And how ironic that until now, I have not reached out to them personally or through the many social media platforms available except for a Facebook post that Thursday morning for a possible explanation about my two dreams!
That is the great irony – or, tragedy of our time when we have all modern means of communications that include extensive road networks and yet we could not even get in touch with those people dear to us. See the simplicity of Jesus Christ in calling us his friends: on the night he was betrayed during supper, he told his disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command you (i.e., love one another). I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father” (Jn.15:14,15).
Jesus does not need to dial numbers, text SMS, compose emails, or send invitations in Facebook to become friends with us. Jesus simply reveals to us in the most personal manner everything the Father wants to tell us and right away, we are already friends! Of course, it would be difficult to enumerate everything that the Father had told Jesus to relay to us but the greatest of these is the fact that God loves us very, very much. Period.
That is the greatest thing Jesus had achieved in his coming to us by bringing God closest to us by speaking straight to us by himself of his love, his mercy, his forgiveness, and his plans for us. That is one of the great joys of friendship when we talk straight, speak our hearts out freely to our friends without any fears of being rejected or misunderstood. There is always that sense of respect for the other person as a subject to be loved and cherished, not an object to be possessed and used like tools and gadgets.
In our mass-mediated culture, expressing our true feelings to our friends have become more complicated as we become less personal in our relationships. How I hate it when some people would always invite me for breakfast or lunch in some expensive restaurants or hotels only to ask some special favors after the meal that I feel like throwing out the food I have ingested! It is not social grace to treat people to fine dining or gift them with expensive or special things only to ask for some favors in the end. That is corruption or bribery. Simply put, it is lack of respect especially if done by people we regard as friends.
Going back to that Last Supper scene with Jesus Christ when he called us his friends, notice the word “friend”: there is only one letter that makes the difference to make it mean exactly the opposite, “fiend”. It is the letter “r” that stands for respect, from two Latin terms that literally mean “to look again”. To respect is to look again at another human as a person with equal dignity as yourself. Respect is the starting point of love that cannot exist in any situation where there is inequality or feelings of superiority over another person.
Our words coming from our hearts are some of the most wonderful things that create true and lasting friendships. The rest are the actions expressed when these words run out.
“Hapag ng Pag-Asa” by the late Joey Velasco. From Google.
lordmychef.com 