Mission of healing

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Solemnity of the Pentecost-A, 31 May 2020

***Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11* <(((>< 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13* ><)))> John 20:19-23***

Pope Francis praying at an empty St. Peter’s Square 27 March 2020. Photo from cruxnow.com.

As I prayed over the readings this coming Pentecost Sunday, my thoughts kept going back to those powerful images when Pope Francis prayed at an empty St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican last March 27 when COVID-19 was ravaging the whole Italy with so many deaths.

Now more than ever, the Church badly needs the Pentecost – a new Pentecost that will heal and rebirth the world so wounded and altered by the corona pandemic this year 2020.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
John 20:19-20

Modern rendition of the Pentecost. From Google.

Holy Spirit, breath of life and cause of unity

The Pentecost is not just an event remembered in the past but a reality that happens daily when the Holy Spirit comes and is received by those attuned with its life and mission which is to bring peace through unity and healing.

Promised by Jesus Christ to his followers as their Advocate and Counsellor, the Holy Spirit descended on them during the feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem when Jews from all parts of the world gathered to remember the 50 days after their Passover in Egypt at the time of Moses.

It was the perfect setting for the Christian Pentecost – this time 50 days after Easter – to celebrate the new unity of mankind in Jesus he established on Holy Thursday evening at his Last Supper. Inasmuch as the Jews went home at that time to be one with their fellow believers in Jerusalem, on that day from the holy city comes forth the new solidarity of peoples in Jesus led by his followers gathered that day in the Upper Room.

Hence, the tradition of considering Pentecost Sunday as the birthday of the Church, too.

Though we have heard two different versions of its coming, what matters most is the Person of the Holy Spirit as the breath of life and the cause of unity among the followers of Christ.

In the first reading, Luke gives us an artistic presentation of the coming of the Holy Spirit showing the unity of the peoples: first of the followers of Jesus and later with the Jews gathered in Jerusalem on that day for their feast of Pentecost. Whereas the apostles were at first presented as timid and lacking in understanding, the Holy Spirit emboldened them on that day to go out and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Led by Peter, they were filled with life and wisdom and courage, converting thousands of people on Pentecost day despite their speaking in different languages, exactly the opposite at the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament.

In the gospel, John gives us the theological grounding of Pentecost when we find Jesus appearing to his disciples hiding from the Jews on the evening of Easter at the Upper Room where he breathed on them the Holy Spirit that filled them with joy upon seeing him risen and alive.

The scene was reminiscent of the many stories in the Old Testament of the “breath of God” giving life to the first human beings in the story of creation, the “breathing on” by Elijah on the nostrils of the widow’s dead son back to life (1Kgs.17:21), and the promise of God to Ezekiel to restore to life the many dry bones in their graves in the time to come (Ezek. 37:1-14).

These stories now take on deeper meanings in Jesus Christ its fulfillment. And not only were the disciples breathed on with new life in Christ but also the whole creation was renewed in the coming of the Holy Spirit that we pray, “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and you shall renew the face of the earth”.

Perennial Pentecost for peace and healing

Pentecost is an event that continues to happen daily especially when we are gathered as the body of believers of Jesus Christ tasked to realize its fulfillment. This coming of the Holy Spirit is not a one-shot deal that happened only in the past in Jerusalem more than 2000 years ago — it is something we as followers of the Risen Lord must always wait and make happen every day so as to continually bring life and renewal to this world especially at this time of the corona pandemic.

In giving us the Holy Spirit, Jesus not only renewed our lives as his disciples united in him but also conferred his own power without restrictions to accomplish our mission.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
John 20:21-23

The Chair of St. Peter at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with the stained glass of the Holy Spirit above. Photo from dreamstime.com.

At the Vatican inside the great St. Peter’s Basilica is a beautiful stained glass of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove rising above as background to the Chair of St. Peter ( Feast is February 22) at the sanctuary area.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI described this beautiful work of art:

“It seems to me that a deep analysis of the essence of the Church lies hidden here, is contained here… It unites the Church with creation as a whole. It signifies through the dove of the Holy Spirit that God is the actual source of all light. But it tells us something else: the Church herself is in essence, so to speak, a window, a place of contact between the other-worldly mystery of God and our world, the place where the world is permeable to the radiance of his light… The Church is the place of encounter where God meets us and we find God. It is her task to open up the world closing in on itself, to give it the light without which it would be unlivable.”
Images of Hope, pp.29-31

Here we find part of our mission in collaboration with the Holy Spirit is the the healing of the world that can be achieved only through peace. See how Jesus had to repeat twice his gift of peace to his disciples because it is his greatest gift to us following his Resurrection.

Life thrives and blooms most where there is peace, where there are disciples of the Lord willing to work for it with love and patience.

But the peace from Jesus Christ always has a price that we must be willing to pay to achieve it.

See that after his first greeting of peace, Jesus showed his wounds — he was the first to pay the price for peace with his own life.

Bringing around our Parish the Blessed Sacrament during the lockdown, March-May 2020.

This is the meaning of the many sacrifices and sufferings we all have to go through in this quarantine period expected to continue until 2021: if we want to get out of this pandemic, aside from the need for a vaccine and medication, we all need to change our ways to make sure this will not happen again.

It is always easy to join so many advocacies and rallies calling for every kind of change in the society and the world but nothing had ever happened because whenever we come home, we do not change our own ways of living! Sayang (what a waste) were all the inspiration and energies of the Holy Spirit for our many causes that have not taken roots right in our hearts.

All the apostles of the Lord paid the price of peace with their own lives that led to the healing not only of individuals and families but even of nations and the world.

The second time Jesus offered his gift of peace, he breathed the Holy Spirit on his apostles and commissioned them to forgive all sins.

Peace is the fruit of love according to Vatican II.

As such, peace from the Holy Spirit leads to healing when there is dialogue, prayer and repentance, that lead to justice, love, and forgiveness. Peace and healing need hard work that is why they are fruits. They never come on a silver platter.

On Monday, most of the quarantine levels in the country are downgraded because it is hoped we have somehow controlled the spread of COVID-19.

As we eagerly await more freedom and mobility in this time of pandemic, what have we achieved during these three months of quarantine, said to be the longest in the world?

Have we resolved our family differences? Have we rediscovered our family members, getting more close than ever, more kind, more understanding?

How sad that all we can share as our quarantine stories are all about food and other pursuits we have undertaken forgetting the unity and life of our family and community.

How sad when we in the Church have all been preoccupied with the new communication media but failed at all to make any impact or dent in the lives of our faithful because we have not shared Jesus Christ at all, when all our “live streaming” and vlogs are powered by likes and followers, not by the Holy Spirit.

Pope Francis blessing the people last March 27 in an empty St. Peter’s Square during the height of COVID-19 in Italy that became the new epicenter of pandemic next to China. Photo from Vatican Media Office.

Jesus never takes back his gift of peace, his gift of healing, his gift of the Holy Spirit. He promised to never leave us orphans. Let us not leave the Holy Spirit behind and stop believing in our selves.

That’s the way we have been in the world and even in the Church.

That is why – to a large extent – we have this corona pandemic.

A blessed week to everyone.

Our sense of belonging

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Monday, Easter Week-IV, 04 May 2020

***Acts of the Apostles 11:1-18* ><)))> ooo+ooo <(((>< *John 10:11-18***

One good thing about this COVID-19, O Lord, is how it is teaching us today that we all belong to each other, that we all belong to you, our loving and merciful God.

How wonderful that in the midst of quarantine, the many brothers and sisters we have looked down or taken for granted for so long a time are finally telling us, showing us that in this life, we do not need boundaries or walls but bridges to link us all as one.

We belong to just one flock with one Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

In him alone can we rely and trust because he is the only one who is “the way and the truth and the life.”

Even him tells us in today’s gospel that there are still other sheep who do not belong to our fold of whom he must also look after and guide (Jn.10:16) because ultimately, we all go to one destination in life which is eternity in you, O God, our Father Almighty.

Help us realize like Peter in the first reading that the key is to be inclusive than exclusive. May we see that more than the many superficialities of our color, beliefs, and gender is your Son’s Easter gift of divinity you have shared with us.

May we focus more on our similarities than differences so that we may work and live harmoniously as one big community to never allow this calamity to befall us again. Amen.

Misyon sa Panginoon

Lawiswis Ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, ika-21 ng Abril 2020

Pananampalataya 
ang simula kaya tayo 
ay kaisa ng Maylikha;
Pananampalataya sa kanya
kaya tayo nagkakaisa
nabubuklod bilang kanyang 
katawan na siyang pinagmumulan
nitong ating katipunan
na Kanyang sinusugo
para sa misyon at dakilang layon.
Sa tuwing ating nakikita
ating misyon sa Panginoon
hindi malayong makita rin
mismo ang Panginoon 
sa lahat ng sitwasyon
at pagkakataon.
Kaya manatiling nakatuon
sa ating misyon mula sa Panginoon
hindi magtatagal mararating
at matutupad natin iyon 
sa Kanyang takdang panahon!

One mind, one heart, one mission in Jesus

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe, Tuesday, Easter Week-II, 21 April 2020

***Acts of the Apostles 4:32-37* ><)))> +++ 0 +++ <(((>< *John 3:7-15***

Posted by Marivic Tribiana on her Facebook 18 April 2020 when a huge fire hit “Happyland” in Tondo district, Manila, leaving 450 families homeless with one fatality.

Artwork by Fr. Marc Ocariza using Digital Art Timelapse after seeing photo at left, claiming it was like seeing Jesus Christ carrying the old man as he contemplated the Divine Mercy that Saturday.

Glory and praise to you, O Lord Jesus Christ for coming to us, and continuing to come to us most especially amid this COVID-19 pandemic.

Increase our faith in you, awaken our being “born from above” in you in the Holy Spirit so that we may continue to find you and follow you in the ordinary things that happen to us.

It is not enough that we as a “community of believers be of one heart and mind, having everything in common” (Acts 4:32).

As a community united in you, Lord Jesus, keep us strong in fulfilling our mission from you.

Remind us always that we merely represent you in this mission.

We are not the ones who will change the world but you, O Lord.

Give us the grace to forget ourselves and carry our cross daily so we can follow you more closely every day.

Most of all, give us the courage to seek your ways and follow wherever your Holy Spirit leads us to so we can best serve you without ever thinking of our very selves or anything in return except that we are doing your most holy will. Amen.

The Facebook post by Marivic Tribiana that inspired Fr. Marc to make a digital representation of the scene amid the huge fire with thick, black smokes billowing above visible kilometers ahead in a city under an extended lockdown due to Covid-19.

He dubbed his artwork “Nag-aalab na Pag-Ibig” (Burning Love), an interplay between the raging fire in the area and the burning love of Jesus to the old man being carried.

That is why we need to be “born from above” to be able to understand teachings of Jesus about heavenly things on earth (Jn.3:12), remaining open to leading of the Holy Spirit to follow the Lord closely, not our selves, nor our plans, nor our personal agenda.

Finding Jesus in Easter darkness

The Lord Is My Chef Recipe in the Octave of Easter, also Divine Mercy Sunday, 19 April 2020

***Acts 2:42-47* ><)))> 0 <(((>< 1 Peter 1:3-9 ><)))> 0 <(((>< *John 20:19-31***

Carrying around our parish the Blessed Sacrament every Sunday afternoon since lockdown began.

I have almost forgotten – and it is only now amid this extended lockdown – that I have realized the first Easter happened in darkness! We are in the same situation with the Apostles when Jesus rose from the dead.

What we need is to “quarantine” ourselves more, our heart and soul within to see and recognize our Risen Lord among us like during that first Easter.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
John 20:19-23

Stained glass at the back of our parish church depicting the appearance of the Risen Jesus with Thomas, aka, Didymus. Photo by author, 02 April 2020.

Jesus always comes in darkness to bring light of peace

In our reflection last Holy Wednesday, we have mentioned how Jesus was born during the darkest night of the year to bring us that light of hope and salvation. The same is true with Easter when he resurrected in the darkest part of the day just before dawn.

Jesus indeed is the light that bursts and pierces through the darkest darkness of the world and of our very lives, our sinfulness. This is the reason we also celebrate this Sunday the Feast of the Divine Mercy of God in Jesus Christ.

Through his Passion, Death and Resurrection, Jesus is the only one who can penetrate through whatever blockages and imprisonment we have or we are into like sin and evil, pains and hurts in the past that filled us with so much guilt.

In his Divine Mercy, Jesus had come to give us our life back complete with the gift of freedom that we have all lost to sin and evil.

And that is why on Easter, Jesus gave us his greatest gift of all which is peace or shalom in Hebrew that means wholeness or holiness. To be whole literally is to have a good relationship with one’s self, with others, and with God.

Vatican II asserts in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World:

Peace is more than the absence of war: it cannot be reduced to the maintenance of a balance of power between opposing force not does it arise out of despotic dominion, but it is appropriately called “the effect of righteousness” (Is.32:17). It is the fruit of that right ordering of things…
Gaudium et Spes, no. 78

Righteousness in the bible means justice that is also equivalent to holiness which is, to be filled with God, not necessarily to be sinless. That is why after greeting them with peace the second time, Jesus breathed on them the Holy Spirit, an imagery that reminds us of the story of creation when God breathed on the first humans to have life.

At Easter, we were breathed on again by the Risen Lord to renew our lives, to fill us again with God and be closest to him in our breath and thus enabling us to be free again from sin and evil, free for God and for others.

What a joy to read these days due to lockdowns worldwide that the Sierra Madres and Mt. Samat can be seen again from the metropolis or the Himalayas from India after 30 years due to clearer skies with less pollution. Or, the lions in Africa’s wildlife parks lazily sleeping without being disturbed by humans.

These are proofs that there is life indeed amid the darkness of this pandemic when Jesus restores life and balance, making everything new and alive again!

Peace and mercy, unity and mission

At his Supper before his arrest, Jesus prayed to God our Father that we may all be one – ut unum sint – like him and Father (John 17:21) are one. This would be partly fulfilled on Easter and eventually at the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost when the Church is eventually launched.

It is in our faith that we enter into communion with the Father in Jesus Christ and with one another as a community, as a church.

That is why it was a beautiful imagery of Thomas eventually joining them the following Sunday not because he lacked faith; he had faith that is why he came to see and experience Jesus. And that faith bloomed upon encountering Jesus again that according to tradition, Thomas preached the good news to India where he died a martyr by being skinned alive.

We have always said in our previous reflections that whenever and wherever there is faith, there is always union and unity with God and others.

Eventually, from every unity and community, there is always mission.

In our first reading today we have heard how the early Christians were one in their faith, always praying, that is, celebrating the Eucharist from which flowed out their mission.

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.
Acts 2:44-45

In his entire life, we have seen that Jesus had always been clear in his being sent, that the words he had spoken and things he had done were not all his but from and by the Father.

Watch closely John’s narration of after the Lord’s Resurrection:

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
John 20:19-21

After giving them the gift of peace and filling them with his breath of life to signify they have been forgiven for their sins and failures when they left him on Good Friday, Jesus is now drawing them into his great mission: As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

This is the defining and definitive characteristic of the Church, of any community of disciples in every age, most especially in this time of the corona virus pandemic.

Our mission continues in the darkness of COVID-19

Churches may be closed, public Masses are banned but the mission of proclaiming in words and in deeds the good news of the Risen Lord continues very loud and clear.

Detractors would always malign us, would spend for trolls just to ask “where is the Church in this time of crisis” but the people know best that we have never been remiss nor even flinched a single second whenever disasters strike anywhere in the world.

In the darkest moments of history in the past up to the present, the Church as a community of disciples of Jesus has always shine so brightly in Christ standing up for the poor and oppressed, the marginalized and forgotten, the sick and the hungry, those suffering in the most far-flung areas with its extensive networks of parishes and BEC’s.

This is also the reason why people always malign us in the Church about what we are doing amid the poverty and sufferings of the world: we work in silence because we are merely being sent by Jesus Christ. Like him our Lord and Master, whatever we say and do are not ours but the One who sent us, the Father in heaven.

We merely represent Jesus Christ who represents the Father and guided by the Holy Spirit, together we forge onto the darkness of this pandemic despite the many sufferings we go through, “tested by fire so that we may prove to be for the praise, glory, and honor of revealing Jesus Christ” (cf. 1 Peter 1:6-7).

This is who we are, disciples of Jesus sent to proclaim his love and mercy especially in the midst of all darkness.

This Sunday amid the darkness and threats of COVID-19, let us join the psalmist in his song, “Give thank to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting” (Responsorial Psalm , Ocatve of Easter).

A blessed week to everyone. Stay safe but keep working for the Lord! Amen.

Easter Vigil in our Parish, 12 April 2020.

Photos in the collage clockwise: Malolos Diocese Social Action Center, Inc. with Caritas Manila spearheading relief operations in Bulacan; Sisters from the Daughters of St. Anne walking through fields and mountains to reach out to our poorest of the poor; trays of thousands of eggs to be given away to fisherfolks in Binuangan, Obando by Fr. Ramon Garcia III; last two photos, beneficiaries of the 10-m Php worth of Gift Certificates given throughout Bulacan before Holy Week that included everyone even those from other faith and beliefs.