Good morning, Lord! Thank you very much for this Monday, the first day of the brand new month of April. A new beginning, a fresh start. Help us to make it a good one.
Make true your promise to us, O God, through your prophet that…
“…no longer shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does round out his full lifetime; he dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years, and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed.”
Isaiah 65:20
Our lives have no meaning at all without you, when we are separated from you. Without you, O God, life is measured in time as an age that is merely a number; but, with you, life is about finding meaning, having its fullness in you regardless we lead short or long lives.
When Jesus Christ healed the son of a royal official from Capernaum while in Cana, Galilee with the words “your son will live”, it was more than escaping death and living for more years in his life. It was more of living meaningfully, of finding you in our lives.
It has been four weeks since we started this Lenten journey. Continue to lead me back home into you, O God. Help me find my way back home to you especially in those moments I am lost and separated from you. Most especially, help me find your Holy Will O Lord that I may always fulfill it because of love and nothing else. Amen.
Early morning at the Assumption Sabbath Retreat House in Baguio City, January 2019.
Detail of Rembrandt’s painting “Return of the Prodigal Son” from Bing.com.
It was still very dark early yesterday when I left Tagaytay after giving a Friday retreat to a group of couples. There were two things in my mind as I drove back to my parish: watch the sunrise over the picturesque Taal Volcano and think of the song to feature in LordMyChef Sunday music today. Upon reaching the intersection leading to Manila still in darkness, I gave up all hopes of seeing the sunrise up there in Tagaytay, contenting myself with my music and the cold winds keeping me company in my traffic-free driving.
Suddenly, these lovely lyrics wafted through the air…
I have never lost the love that I have given you With all the things that we have all been through I’ve never stayed in love before As much as I have stayed in love with you
The Lord answered my prayer! I have found our LordMyChef Sunday Music – “I’ll Always Stay In Love This Way” composed by US-based Filipino jazz artist Boy Katindig and released in 1983 as part of his album In My Inner Fantasies. The song relates how a man tries to convince the woman of his dream of his great love for her. The words and the music plus the muy simpatico voice of another US-based Filipino singer Baron Barbers make this song so lovely (not cheesy) and relevant with our Sunday gospel on the parable of the prodigal son. Moreover, Boy Katindig’s “I’ll Always Stay In Love This Way” is also attuned with the pink motif of rejoicing in our liturgy as we near our holiest days, the Holy Week and Easter Sunday.
Imagine God the Father singing Boy Katindig’s composition, assuring us of His immense love and mercy despite our sinfulness. Unlike Katindig’s song, God had proven His love for us by sending His Son Jesus Christ who died on the cross in order to save us and bring us back to life again in Him! Here are the rest of the lyrics of “I’ll Always Stay In Love This Way” and hope you like it too!
You, you never thought the feelings Meant for you were true ‘Coz everytime we’re all alone you wonder If I’ll really never change And if I’ll really stay in love with you
Love, it needs just you and me to stay together Even if there’s nothing more The best is there forever Love, we have to stay this way in love forever Even if you change your ways I’ll always stay this way’
Coz I, I will always stay this way in love with you I will always stay this way in love with you I will always stay in love this way
You, you never thought the feelings Meant for you were true ‘Coz everytime we’re all alone you wonder If I’ll really never change And if I’ll really stay in love with you
Love… It needs just you and me to stay together Even if there’s nothing more The best is there forever Love… We have to stay this way in love forever Even if you change your ways I’ll always stay this way
‘Coz I, I will always stay this way in love with you I will always stay this way in love with you I will always stay this way in love with you I will always stay this way in love with you
Sin can be mysterious at times because it can also be a religious experience that leads us back to God and holiness. We have a saying that “every saint has a sinful past and every sinner can have a saintly future.” So many men and women who were so notorious in their lives have proven this so true like St. Paul and St. Augustine.
After reflecting on the call for conversion last Sunday, our gospel today tells us a lot about the nature of sin. Unless we understand what is sin and why we sin, then we get imprisoned by sin as we keep on committing it no matter how hard we try to be better persons. But once we understand even a little bit of it, its hows and whys, then we sin less often as we slowly break free from its bondage.
“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the property between them.”
Luke 15:11-12
Sin is when we separate from the Father like the younger son when we ask for our “share of your estate that should come to me” referring to that part of this whole life only God can have in its fullness. We always have the idea that it must be so vast and huge that even just a part of it would be more than enough for us. We want to be on our own that we break away from Him, thinking wrongly that the share we have is more than enough for us without truly realizing how great and so vast is the Father’s estate which is life itself!
And so it happens, we break away from God and live on our own that sooner or later, our share dissipates until we lose everything.
This estate, this very life of God will never be gone like Him, will never diminish nor dissipate. We shall always have it, enjoy it for as long as we are with Him, our loving Father! This is also the point of the Father to the elder son when he refused to join their celebration when his younger brother returned. Life, love, kindness, family, everything that is good dissipates when held individually away from God. But when we share it with the Father through Christ, it is like the river that never runs dry.
When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in dire need… And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any.
Luke 15:14,16
Sin always gives us the sense of “freedom” like the young son who “freely spent everything”. There is always that wrong understanding of freedom as the ability to do everything and anything, feeling that everything in this life is ours alone. Freedom is first of all choosing what is truly good. To be free is to be loving, being a part of the whole and never separated from the whole. To be truly free is always to be one. This explains why when we are deep into sin and all alone, separated from others, we suddenly long to be one with others. The sense of belonging suddenly pops up within us because we find ourselves incomplete when in sin.
“My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.”
Luke 15:31
Here lies the problem also with the elder son who has always been present with their father but had never been one with him, never belonging to him. He is guilty of “sin of omission” when he felt nothing seems to be wrong with him as he breaks no rules of their father – except their relationship and ties. The apostle James wrote in his letter that “a person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by own desire” (Jas.1:14). Sin is always the desire to be sufficiently alone, to be powerful, to be God! See how since the beginning, we have never outgrown that sin of Adam and Eve of becoming like God, of playing god.
My dear sisters and brothers, like Paul in our second reading today, let us be reconciled to God in Christ. To be reconciled is to be one, to belong, to become a part again of God. In the dryness and desolation of sin like the desert in the experience of Joshua and the Hebrew people, God continues to bless us with so many gifts, so many blessings. The two brothers in the parable are both sinners but loved by their father. And so are we.
More than avoiding sins, our gospel parable this Sunday invites us to love God more by seeking His will always. Yes, we have all been hurt by someone else’s sins and we have also caused pain on others with our sins. Let us focus more on this vast gift of life and love expressed in God’s mercy and forgiveness that no sin could ever diminish. And the good news is that it is all free and totally being given to us by Jesus Christ especially in our Sunday Eucharist. A blessed week to you!
40 Shades of Lent, Friday, Week III, 29 March 2019
Hosea 14:2-10///Mark 12:28-34
Dear God: This may sound funny but really, there is no doubt that you are indeed God. And a very loving and patient Father at that!
Like in the gospel today, I really can’t imagine how we would always talk to you, asking you so many things that preoccupy us most of the time like our endless lists.
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”
Mark 12:28
Everything has to be categorized with us, from the first to the last, from the biggest to the smallest, from the shortest to the longest, and so forth and so on.
But you, O Lord, never asked us with any lists. You simply ask us to live which is to love.
All these things you have asked through the prophet Hosea mean one thing which is to go back to you in love. Sometimes, the most basic and ordinary thing to do becomes the most difficult and complicated like love when we try to rank everything and even every one among us.
Teach us, O God, to simply love, love, and love.
Because where there is love, you are surely there. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent, Thursday, Week III, 28 March 2019
Jeremiah 7:23-28///Luke 11:14-23
What a shame, dear God, to read in the gospel today your Son Jesus Christ busy confronting evil, driving out a demon that was mute from a man while we in this age deny its very existence.
In the name of modernity and keeping up with the time, we have taken sin and evil for granted, short of imitating the contemporaries of Jesus of accusing Him of driving out demons by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons.
How true were the words of your prophet Jeremiah that “we have walked in the hardness of our hearts and turned our back, not our faces, to you. Faithfulness has disappeared, even the very word from our speech.” (Jer.7:24,28)
Let us heed today’s responsorial psalm, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
Give us the courage, O God, to be like your Son Jesus Christ fighting evil and sin by being firm in keeping your commandments. Amen.
Images from Google; above is The Temptations of Christ, a 12th century mosaic at St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Italy.
40 Shades of Lent, Tuesday, Week III, 26 March 2019
Daniel 3:25, 34-43///Matthew 18:21-35
Praise and glory to you, O Lord Jesus Christ!
Here we are now O Lord being confronted by this topic of sin and forgiveness. Every day we pray the “Our Father” and you know very well how mechanical it had become for us asking God “to forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us.”
Like Peter, we often feel at a loss at how to forgive those who have hurt us. No… not just hurt or wronged us but, hurt or wronged us so deeply.
The pain is so deep in our hearts, Jesus. And that is why you want us all to forgive from our hearts, not from our lips or from our minds but from our hearts where the pains hurt us most.
We really do not know how. Your parable seems inadequate though you make an absolutely valid point of forgiving others because we have been forgiven too.
Like Daniel your prophet in the Old Testament, we beg you to “Deliver us by your wonders” – surprise us O Lord with your gentle mercy, with your kindness that like you we may be moved to forgiving those who have terribly wronged us. 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.
It’s a very humid third Sunday of Lent, perfect for a New Wave music from the 80’s to remind us of the season’s call for conversion. But before going to our music, a little background about our gospel today that sounds like our news headlines.
Pontius Pilate massacred a great number of Galileans while many others were killed in an accident at Siloe. People were talking about the tragedies, blaming all victims as sinners being punished by God. But Jesus stopped all their blaming games, warning them that unless they repent and change their ways, they could also perish and suffer the same fate.
For Jesus, all the problems and sufferings in the world are either directly or indirectly caused by sins. He is not trying to offer a simplistic approach but invites us to see events in history as well as in our personal lives as calls to conversion, that is, turning our hearts back to God so we may experience the deeper meaning of life.
How sad that since His coming, after offering Himself on the Cross and rising to new life on Easter, mankind has continued to ignore Jesus Christ and His call to conversion. This is the reality presented by the English band Tears for Fears in their 1985 hit “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”. Wit its superb instrumentation and vocals, this signature song by Tears for Fears next to “Shout” (1984) can immediately catch our attention with its lyrics that confront us with the shameful truths and realities within each one of us like dominion and power, arrogance and corruption, wealth and fame, and total disregard for the environment. Its message remains very true to this day that ironically, has fallen on deaf ears. May its lyrics finally hit us and move us to a conversion of the heart!
Welcome to your life There’s no turning back Even while we sleep We will find You acting on your best behavior Turn your back on mother nature Everybody wants to rule the world
It’s my own desire It’s my own remorse Help me to decide Help me make the most Of freedom and of pleasure Nothing ever lasts forever Everybody wants to rule the world
There’s a room where the light won’t find you Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down When they do, I’ll be right behind you So glad we’ve almost made it So sad they had to fade it Everybody wants to rule the world
I can’t stand this indecision Married with a lack of vision Everybody wants to rule the world
Say that you’ll never, never, never, need it One headline, why believe it? Everybody wants to rule the world
All for freedom and for pleasure Nothing ever lasts forever Everybody wants to rule the world
From the desert of temptation to the mountain of transfiguration, the gospel on this third Sunday of Lent dives directly into its central message of conversion by bringing us closer to realities of life that are as timely as the news headlines.
Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. Jesus said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”
Luke 13:1-5
Conversion is confronting our true selves by admitting and owning our many sins that may have contributed to the worsening crises we are facing in our personal lives, in our family as well as in the church and in the society. It is doing away with our favorite past time, the blaming game. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, we have always been blaming somebody else including God for every bad thing that happens to us and in the world. We tend to forget or even refuse to accept that every misery in our lives and on earth are the direct or indirect results of our sins like sickness and diseases, wars and terrorism, famines as well as economic and environmental disasters. Everything is by our own doing when our sins mar the human face including Mother Earth.
Jesus Christ in today’s gospel is not offering us with a simplistic view on the many sufferings and problems we have for that would also be getting into our own blaming game. He has no intentions of getting involved with our political and economic discussions to solve our many problems. What Jesus is telling us with His strong words only Luke had recorded is for us to read everything from the spiritual point of view by finding God in our human and personal history. And that is conversion, finding God first in our hearts to find Him in our history and in our world.
In the first reading, we are reminded how the whole earth is a sacred ground, the abode of God who told Moses to remove his sandals as he approached the burning bush in the desert. Moreover, God introduced Himself to Moses in the burning bush as the perfect presence, the “I AM WHO AM” who is all encompassing directing our history into His divine will and plan. With Jesus Christ’s coming as the Emmanuel or “God-is-with-us”, God has become more present among us not only on earth but right in every person.
And that is conversion, having Jesus in our hearts in order to find Him among others. Conversion does not mean we change into another person but more of reorienting our life directions in Christ by allowing Jesus to dwell in our hearts. How sad that so often, we would look into others to blame and to change when we forget the fact that the only heart we can convert is ours. It is said that anyone wishing to change the world must first change one’s self. And that is what Jesus is telling us today.
Jesus came to the world so we may experience the Father’s gentle mercy, kindness and forgiveness. By following His direction in our conversion, it is hoped that we find better ways in solving our many social and personal problems. The recent terrorist attacks in New Zealand that killed almost 50 people, the gruesome rape and murder of that young lady in Cebu, the worsening problems on drugs and crimes as well as traffic and the environment invite us all to a conversion of our hearts in Christ to experience His humility and tender, loving care for the lost, the sick and the suffering. See how our arrogance and harshness have only worsened the many social ills throughout history, not to mention man’s continued alienation from self and from one another.
Throughout history, God has always revealed Himself to us in so many ways through Jesus Christ to show us that the only way to salvation in all forms of human life is the way of conversion, to always find Him in the many events happening around us, in the world, and most especially in our hearts. Let us heed Paul’s warning that “whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall” (1Cor.10:12) by learning from the lessons of powerful men and women in the past now gone and forgotten. As we walk in history, God walks with us too, listening to us, sharing with us Himself. Sometimes, changes do not happen right away or as we want it to be but in His time, God’s plans always prevail. In the mean time, He patiently awaits our conversion in Him.
40 Shades of Lent, Friday, Week II, 22 March 2019 Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13, 17-28///Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46
Glory and praise to you O God our loving Father for the gift of life! As I celebrate my 54th birthday today which I welcomed last midnight, let me pray this to you: Lord God, you have given me with so much and I have given you with so little.
I have never been like Joseph a dreamer in the first reading. It was late in life – after I have met you or you have found me, Lord – when I started dreaming like Joseph, envisioning myself in the future with you my God.
You have entrusted me with so much and I have wasted so many of these in the past like those tenants in the parable of Jesus today. I feel so unworthy being your servant in those times I have refused to give your share of the many fruits of your vineyard by being more loving and merciful, more kind and humble with others. There were times I have rejected your Son Jesus Christ when I would insist on my own ways than your will.
Yet, despite all these, loving Father, you have always been gentle and generous with me. That is why I have stopped asking you for many things for myself because whatever I need, you always provide. Indeed, you have done so many for me that I never asked for that are “so wonderful in my eyes” (Mt. 21:42)!
Lord God, all I pray again on my 54th birthday today is that you help me to share more of myself and most especially more of YOU with others, that in every here and now, I may always say Yes to your Holy Will. Amen.
Thank you for your prayers for me too, my dear readers and followers. May God bless you always!
Sunrise at Lake Tiberias, the Holy Land, April 2017 photo by the author.
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