40 Shades of Lent, Friday after Ash Wednesday, 28 February 2020
Isaiah 58:1-9 +++ 0 +++ Matthew 9:14-15
Have mercy on us, O God, have mercy… for we are still totally lost on the real meaning of fasting and abstinence. We have lost its spiritual meaning, focusing more on ourselves for vanity reasons like losing weight and looking good, totally forgetting fasting is all about you and others than us!
How unfortunate, dear God, that we no longer fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday but even on Sundays before receiving your Son Jesus in the Holy Communion by making all kinds of excuses with bold claims of having sacrificed so much in doing good deeds for you.
Thus says the Lord God: Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast. Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God. They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God. “Why do we fast, and you do not see it? Afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?” Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.”
Isaiah 58:1-4, 6-7
Make us realize that fasting is not punishing ourselves, of denying ourselves with goods and pleasures of the world that leave us empty, wanting for more but never fulfilled deep inside.
Fasting is actually rewarding ourselves with you, O God, our only wealth and treasure, our only fulfillment.
Help us create an empty space within ourselves through fasting and abstinence so that your Son Jesus may dwell and reign in our hearts, saying from within us, “Here I am!” (Is. 58:9).Amen.
Lawiswis Ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, ika-26 ng Pebrero 2020
Mula sa Google.
Mierculés de ceniza
araw ng pag-aayuno at abstinensiya
ngunit tila wala nang nagpapahalaga
ni nakaka-alala.
Marahil ay nalimot na nga
at binalewala mga banal na gawain
tuwing cuaresma na nagpapa-alala
kahalgahan ng Diyos higit sa lahat.
Nagtitiis ng gutom
hindi pinapayagang sayaran
ng anumang laman ang tiyan
alang-alang sa kaganapan at kabanalan.
Kaya nga kung titingnan
pag-aayuno ay higit pa sa sakripisyo
na kung saan tiyan ay walang laman
upang magkapuwang Tagapagligtas ng tanan.
Ngayong cuaresma sana iyong mabuksan
puso at kalooban tingnan ano ba kanilang mga laman
baka naman mga wala nang kabuluhan
pabigat lamang sa kalooban.
Bigyan ng puwang upang makapanahan
sa ating puso at kalooban si Kristong maasahan
upang ngayon pa lamang maranasan
hatid ng Diyos na kaligtasan sa mga sa kanya'y mayroong puwang.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-11 ng Marso 2019
Apatnapung araw nag-ayuno si Kristo Nang siya ay tinukso ng diyablo: “Kung ikaw ang Anak ng Diyos, Gawin mong tinapay itong bato.”
Gutom at walang laman tiyan ni Kristo Ngunit hindi napatangay sa tukso ng diyablo Hindi siya nalito, naging matibay tulad ng bato Na buhay ng tao higit nakasalalay di lamang sa tinapay Kungdi sa Salita ng Diyos na bumubuhay, gumagabay na tunay.
Ito ang pangunahing katotohanang Dapat nating pakatandaan Na hindi sapat, at lalong di dapat Tayo ay mapuno at mabusog Ng mga bagay ng mundo upang hindi matukso at malito.
Maraming pagkakataon Lalo tayong nababaon Sa balon ng pagkagumon Kapag lahat tayo ay mayroon Na malayo naman sa naaayon.
Sa pag-aayuno tayo napapanuto Tumitibay ating pagkatao Nawawala pagkalito sa higit na totoo Na si Hesu-Kristo naparito upang samahan tayo Maiwaksi at malampasan maraming tukso.
Mangyayari lamang ito kung tulad ni Kristo Masasaid natin ating sariling kalooban Di lamang bawasan kungdi mawalan ng laman Magkaroon ng puwang sa ating kalooban Diyos na ating tanging yaman.
Larawan ng ilang sa Israel tulad marahil ng pinuntahan ni Hesus nang Siya ay tuksuhin ng Diyablo. Kuha ng may-akda noong Abril 2017. Ang unang larawan sa itaas ay mula sa Google.
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.
40 Shades of Lent Friday after Ash Wednesday, 08 March 2019 Isaiah 58:1-9///Matthew 9:14-15
God our loving Father, in this 40-day journey of Lent in and with your Son Jesus Christ, help us to imbibe anew the value of “fasting”. How unfortunate that in this age when we have made everything so fast and quick, we have forgotten or totally disregarded the other meaning of that word “fasting” that seemed to have been stuck with the past.
We have ceased to fast not only during Ash Wednesday and Good Friday but even before receiving the Holy Communion in the Sunday Mass, making all kinds of excuses with bold claims of having sacrificed so much in doing good deeds that we need not fast from food anymore.
And if ever we fast these days, we repeat the very same mistakes of the people in the Old Testament of having themselves as the focus of their fasting rather than you, O God, through others.
“Why do we fast, and you do not see it? Afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?” Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!”
Isaiah 58:3-4
In this age of superabundance of almost everything in the world like food, clothes, money, gadgets and other things except YOU, teach us to let go of some comforts and pleasures to be one with those in suffering.
Most of all, let us fast to be empty of our very selves so we can create a space for you and for others. Fill us with your Self to become your very presence here on earth:
“Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am!”
Isaiah 58:9
What a joy it would be if more people experience you, O Father, through us. Amen.
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