Category: relationships

The Good Samaritan, the X-Files and Stranger Things

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Wk. XV-C, 14 July 2019
Deuteronomy 30:10-14 >< )))*> Colossians 1:15-20 >< )))*> Luke 10:25-37
From America Magazine via Google.

After teaching us about discipleship these past two Sundays, Jesus shifts his lessons to things “we must do” following a series of questions he encountered from people when he “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem” (Lk.9:51).

There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”

Luke 10:25-30

And thus Jesus answered the scholar of the law with the beautiful parable of the Good Samaritan that can only be found in St. Luke’s gospel. It has so endeared the world that hospitals and charities including laws and awards everywhere use the “Good Samaritan” title in recognition of the parable’s conviction that we are all neighbors.

Problem is, we have become so familiar with this parable that sometimes we think it teaches us nothing new. Like the Laws or the Ten Commandments, it has degenerated into becoming letters like a code imposed from the outside we simply follow. Moses tells us in the first reading how the Laws are “something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you only have to carry it out” (Dt.30:14). Loving God and loving others is an interior and life principle innate within each of us.

This Sunday, Jesus is inviting us to set aside our thoughts about his parable of the Good Samaritan in order to see it in a deeper and personal perspective.

For most Christians especially Catholics, we always reach that stage in our lives when deep within us there is a longing for something deeper, for something more than what we have been used to. It is a very positive sign of spiritual growth. Like the scholar, we are no longer contented with the usual things we do like praying, Sunday Masses, and keeping the laws. At first we may not be able to verbalize or even identify what are the stirrings within us until we realize it is something more than this life we are having.

Like the scholar, we ask Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Lk.10:25). But, instead of probing deeper into our hearts, we tend to look outside for answers like the scholar asking, “who is my neighbor?”.

From Google.

Twenty years ago, the sci-fi series “The X-Files” was a hit worldwide with its tagline “the truth is out there” to refer to all kinds of conspiracy theories and paranormal activities by the US government. Of the same genre today is the Netflix series “Stranger Things” that also points us to something “out there” for answers to many mysteries happening to us.

The answer is never out there – it has always been inside us! Always.

From Google.

How strange that we keep on asking “who is my neighbor?”, searching for a theoretical definition of a neighbor we always think as somebody outside us. What we must be asking is, “am I a neighbor to others?”

Observe how Jesus narrated the parable where both the priest and the Levite “saw the victim and passed by the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him” (Lk.10:32-34).

That’s the strangest thing of all! Two Temple officials simply “saw” the victim and passed by while a Samaritan “saw” also but was moved with compassion. To be moved with compassion in Latin is misericordia, a “stirring or disturbing of the heart” which translates into mercy.

Here we find the Samaritan looking deep inside him that he saw in him the plight of the victim that he was moved with mercy to help him. And that is to be a neighbor, to treat somebody with mercy that transcends any color or creed or nationality. See the question of Jesus at the end of his parable, “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” The scholar answered, “The one who treated him with mercy” (Lk.10:36-37).

City of Jericho, the setting of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Photo by author, 06 May 2019.

My neighbor is the one with whom I identify with, with whom I am drawn near because of the mercy that moved me within to help in his or her sufferings. A neighbor is one who feels his or her own humanity that he or she is always moved with compassion with those who are in suffering and pain.

And the more we reflect on this parable, the more we see Jesus Christ is in fact the Good Samaritan himself. He is “the image of the invisible God, in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15,17). It was Jesus who went down the road, becoming human like us in everything except sin, picking us up from our sinfulness and miseries, healing us of our wounds, and restoring us to life “through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20).

Let us heed his command this Sunday to “Go and do likewise” (Lk.10:37) as the Good Samaritan. Be a blessed neighbor to everyone! Amen.

Coming together in the Lord

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Wednesday,Week XIV, Year I, 10 July 2019
Genesis 41:55-57; 42:5-7, 17-24 >< )))*> Matthew 10:1-7
Pyramids of Egypt. Photo by author, 09 May 2019.

Thank you very much, our loving Father, for making us all come together as family and friends, colleagues and acquaintances on many occasions you have planned in all eternity in your infinite wisdom.

Like the sons of Israel who have come to Egypt to buy food during a famine and the 12 Apostles summoned by your Son Jesus, our coming together for various reasons in different seasons were all caused by your divine will.

The sons of Israel did not know how their coming into Egypt would reunite them with their lost brother Joseph they have maltreated and sold a long time ago. The 12 Apostles never had an inkling at that time how they would be betrayed by one of their very own that they welcomed each other as disciples of Jesus.

In your time, God, you perfectly know when and where and how we would meet the many people we now have in our lives.

Give us the grace to always seek your holy will, your grand design and plan with the people who come to our lives. Let us take care of them as precious gifts of family and friends you give us, let us shower them with your love and attention while still around us. May we never take them for granted, value them always as they value us too as gifts coming from you.

Let us not take them into someone not meant to be in our lives.

We pray also for people without friends and family around them, for those in far and distant lands working away from their loved ones, for those languishing in jails especially the innocent one that they may soon be reunited with their family.

Most of all, our loving Father, may we always see your face on every person we shall meet this day. Amen.

With our fellow pilgrims at the Sphinx in Egypt, 09 May, 2019.

Songs on Father’s Day

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 16 June 2019
Photo by edwin josé vega ramos on Pexels.com

It is Father’s Day and I cannot help being nostalgic because I lost my father 19 years ago at around this time of the year. It was June 17, 2000, the eve of Father’s day when my dad died of a heart attack before dawn. It was also the birthday of my mother.

And that is why I have always loved Luther Vandross Jr.’s “Dancing With My Father” he had co-written with Richard Marx released May 30, 2003.

It is the perfect song on this Father’s Day as it speaks of the tenderness and love of a father to his wife and children. No wonder, when Jesus taught us how to pray, he told us to call God “Dad” or “Daddy” which is the more literal translation of “Abba”.

What I like most in “Dancing With My Father” is at the end of the song:

Sometimes I’d listen outside her door
And I’d hear how mama would cry for him
I’d pray for her even more than me
I’d pray for her even more than meI know I’m praying for much to much
But could you send her
The only man she loved
I know you don’t do it usually
But Dear Lord
She’s dying to dance with my father againEvery night I fall asleep
And this is all I ever dream

My father loved my mother so much. Since childhood until I became a priest, he never ate without my mother with him at the table. He does her coffee and he is our chef. It was doubly hard losing him because he died on her birthday. Every time I would visit my dad’s grave, I asked him only one question: why did you die on mom’s birthday? After two years, I felt his answer that he died on my mom’s birthday so I would also love her as he had loved her. And that is what I have always tried to fulfill.

My father never asked me to become a priest but it was him who unconsciously planted the seeds of my vocation when I would always see him praying before our altar before leaving for work and upon arriving home in the evening. It was from him I have learned and realized what true love is and most of all, that indeed, God is love. He loved us so much and even though it has been 19 years since he died, I can still feel his love.

For all the faithful and loving dads especially those with God our Father in heaven, here’s one for you….

Our second song is another tribute to a late father, Bread’s 1970 hit “Make It with You”.

According to its composer David Gates, he got the inspiration for “Make It With You” not from his girlfriend but from his late father. Gates claimed that during an interview, a reporter asked him with whom would he want to share his success in music with? Right away, he answered it would be his late father, of how he would want to “make it with him” so his dad would see his successful career in music.

Perhaps, that’s what we all miss with our late dads who worked so hard to give us good future, a good career: we all want them to see the fruits of their labors in us, to share with them whatever good things we now have is because of them. It is from these experiences with our loving dads that we have had glimpses of our personal God who became human like us in Jesus Christ, joining us in our pains and sufferings to be one with him in his triumphs and glory.

As we celebrate today the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, may we get into the very selves of our dad in Spirit to realize how immense that love God has for everyone meant to be shared with others too. Cheers to all dads!

Dance with My Father

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul
Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, 16 June 2019
Proverbs 8:22-31 >< )))*> Romans 5:1-5 >< )))*> John 16:12-15
From Google.

I know.

You must be saying our title is from a hit song by the late Luther Vandross Jr. with Richard Marx, “Dance with My Father”.

Since its release in May 2003, I have always loved that song. Like Vandross Jr., I sometimes ask God to return my father even for a while not only for me but most especially for my mother who was celebrating her birthday when he suddenly died of a heart attack in 2000.

Though my father did not dance much like Vandross Sr., one of the things I miss so much from him were how he would discuss so many things to me especially whenever I would join him in our library. And when I could not understand everything, he would always tell me, “paglaki mo maiintindihan mo rin yan, anak” (you will understand that when you grow up, son).

Eventually those words came to sound like music to me as a I grew up until later in life I realized that indeed, I have come to understand the many things we have discussed when I was still a child! Most of all, now that I am a grown up man still having a hard time comprehending many things in life, my father’s words still soothe me. Although he is no longer around, I always tell myself when facing difficult situations or questions that someday, I’m going to understand this – “paglaki ko maiintindihan ko rin yan”.

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.”

John 16:12-13
Jesus during his Last Supper Discourse telling the Apostles his departure and sending of the Holy Spirit. From a depiction found on the Maesta in Siena by Duccio (1308-1311). From Google.

On this Eleventh Sunday in the continuation of our Ordinary Time after Lent and Easter, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity. In the past Sundays we have been slowly introduced by the Lord in his teachings about the Holy Spirit. Today we come to full circle with this celebration of the Holy Trinity, the highest mystery in our faith that there are three Persons in One God.

For many Christians, especially Catholics, they feel that believing in One God is enough. To speak of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – matters very little for them that they fail to see what the mystery of the Trinity evokes concretely in our lives.

It is true that we cannot find an explicit statement in the whole Bible telling us there is One God in Three Persons. It is a doctrine that slowly unfolded in the Sacred Scriptures reaching its highest point of revelation in Jesus Christ’s Incarnation and sending of the Holy Spirit.

This is the essence of Christ’s farewell discourse during their Last Supper together: the Holy Spirit will not introduce anything new to them. The Holy Spirit will just enlighten and bring out to the open the many dimensions of the teachings of Jesus that were mostly found also or rooted in the Old Testament. Sometimes in life, there are so many realities already present but we do not recognize right away because of so many factors that hide them from us. But the moment we discover some new dimensions of life’s truth and reality, the more we find its beauty! That is why we have to somehow understand the Trinity to fully appreciate the beauty and wonder of God in our lives.

In the Old Testament, God did not speak about himself being a Person per se, as a full, conscious relating Being like humans. Moreover, God never spoke about his being One in Three Persons to the people at that time because they would never even feel such mystery as they were surrounded by polytheistic nations. It was enough at that time to insist on the people that there is only One God who relates personally like humans, seeking intimacy.

thus says the wisdom of God: “…then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the human race.”

Proverbs 8:22,30-31

In the first reading, God presents himself as a person, one who relates with others personified in wisdom juxtaposed in two images equally evocative, as an artisan or creator and as a child happy and proud to be around his parent.

Here I find Luther Vandross Jr.’s “Dance with My Father” so applicable: he was seven and a half years old when his father died of complications in diabetes. But his fondest memory of him was how he would dance with his mother at home and would always pull him to dance with them!

Isn’t that beautiful, three people dancing together like one entity?

Incidentally in theology, we also have this explanation of the Trinity as a “circle dance” called perichoresis. It is a way of seeing the Trinity as action than definition. If you ahve been to Turkey, you must have visited Cappadocia where once lived great thinkers of the Church called Cappadocian Fathers who thought of perichoresis.

According to the Cappadocian Fathers, in perichoresis, each Divine Person is like a dance partner who contributes and has a specific role in the choreography so that what they do together make up the dance. The Persons like partners in the dance pull and push against one another, not in resistance or force but in support and unity. The dance is in constant motion and the partners are not focused on themselves but on the others. Likewise as we experience in “club party”, the dance circle is never closed so that more people are invited to join in the celebration until each becomes a part of the dance, sharing in the joy and unity.

From Google.

In perichoresis, the Trinity is presented more as a relationship of Persons: the Father is the Creator, the Son is the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit is the sanctifier. Applied to us, we are all children of the Father who are brothers and sisters in Jesus as indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Blessed Trinity invites us to their dance of life and grace as we find here the gist of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans today that through our faith in Christ, we have found the peace of God through the outpouring of so many gifts upon us by the Holy Spirit that we now have a relationship of friendship and trust in him, culminating in participation “in the glory of God” (Rom.5:2).

This Sunday, we are all invited to join in the dance of God, the dance of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In that dance, the Father reveals to us his hidden plans for us in Christ through the Holy Spirit of how he wants us to live to the fullest in him. It is only in dancing in him and with him can we know this mystery of God, mystery of self, and mystery of life in general. Though we cannot fully understand his mystery, God slowly unfolds to us his many dimensions that little by little, we see more of him, nmore of ourselves, and more of others.

That is when we find GUIDANCE, for God-U-and-I Dance.

When there is guidance, we find direction and do not get lost.

A blessed week ahead to everyone. Amen.

Photo by Jens Johnsson on Pexels.com

“I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats (1979)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 26 May 2019
Sunrise at Lake Tiberias, 03 May 2019.

It’s a lovely day but before thoughts of the work load waiting for you tomorrow distract you, here’s The Boomtown Rats’ 1979 hit “I Don’t Like Mondays” for our last Lord My Chef Sunday Music this month of May.

Written by Sir Bob Geldof and his fellow Irish Johnnie Fingers, I Don’t Like Mondays is a song about the 1979 Cleveland Elementary School Shooting in San Diego, California that killed two adults and injured eight children and a police officer.

According to Geldof, he wrote the song after reading a telex report of the shooting incident while being interviewed at Georgia State University’s campus radio station WRAS. In that report, he learned how 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer fired at children in a school playground in San Diego because she said, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

Geldof found Spencer strange who also showed no remorse for her crime. She gave no other answers except “I don’t like Mondays” when journalists asked her to “tell me why” the shooting spree. On his way to his hotel, Geldof kept thinking about Spencer’s “senseless reason for the senseless act” that he told himself the “silicon chip inside her head had switched to overload.” He then wrote the song “to illustrate the perfect senseless reason for doing the perfect senseless act.”

Geldof clarified he never intended to exploit the tragedy though, after many years later, he admitted he regretted writing the song that made “Spencer famous.” The song hit the number spot in the UK charts after its release but reached only the 73rd spot in the US where the Spencers tried unsuccessfully to prevent the single from being released there.

In our reflection for this Sunday’s gospel, we said the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus and sent by his Father acts as the “memory” of the Church. Jesus told his disciples during their Last Supper that the “Advocate, the Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (Jn.14:26).

Like the “silicon chip” of a computer, the Holy Spirit “processes” in us the meaning of the words of the Sacred Scriptures so that we can respond accordingly to the many issues presented to us by the modern world. In that way, we continue to become the presence of Jesus Christ today where some people have become not only senseless but also loveless, causing so many pains and miseries among us.

I Don’t Like Mondays reminds us that despite the modern technologies we have today, what is still most essential among us is the love we have inside, the respect and concern we have for others around us. And this can only be found in Jesus Christ who dwells inside our hearts. Let us “switch” him on and become his presence of love and mercy in this world that is becoming heartless and even senseless sometimes.

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.

The small door of the “little town of Bethlehem”

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Tuesday, Easter Week V, 21 May 2019
Acts 14:19-28 ><“)))*> <*(((“>< John 14:27-31
Pilgrims entering through the small door of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, 02 May 2019.

Lately, Lord Jesus Christ, doors have been fascinating me: more than passages where we come and go, or enter and leave, doors are indeed like you! Last week you claimed yourself to be the gate of the sheep with you, Lord as our door, we never leave but, simply, come and come.

When you told your disciples at your Last Supper in today’s gospel that you were going away and will come back to them (Jn.14:28), you were very much like a door, Lord: for how can our hearts be not troubled or afraid when you are going away only to come to another level of relationship and existence with us?

That is the beauty of the door in you, Lord: your going away in your Ascension is your coming to us in new form of closeness, of continuing presence that leads to peace within each one of us.

How wonderful to remember Lord Jesus why the door to your birthplace in Bethlehem is so small: we have to go down, we have to bow and be humble in order to enter you:

They (Paul and Barnabas) strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Acts 14:22

Give us the courage and strength, patience and perseverance, Lord, along with faith, hope and love to enter through you our door so that we may always come out as better persons than yesterday. Amen.

View from the inside of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem of its small doors. Photos by author, 02 May 2019.
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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.

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.