Judges 6:11-24 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Matthew 19:23-30
Tam-Awan Village, Baguio City, February 2019.
The Lord answered Gideon, “Be calm, do not fear. You shall not die.” So Gideon built there an altar to the Lord and called it Yahweh-shalom.
Judges 6:23-24
In our beautiful story today on how you have called Gideon as a judge of your people, O Lord, you have also taught us a very important lesson about discipleship – our first task is to love you!
So many times in my life, Lord, I remember how I would always refuse to follow you because of the fact that I am not really afraid of the task ahead but more of my fear for myself: of how people would measure me, of how they would laugh at me, or how I might not be able to deliver results.
Like in the story of your call to Gideon, I often look at myself rather than see you as the Almighty God, calling me, trusting me, sending me.
How funny it seems that when you send us to a mission, O Lord, it is not because of our limitations but because of our excesses: of our too much pride, too much knowledge, too much comfort, and too much self hiding in false humility.
Just when we think we have given up so much for you, God, that’s when we find it difficult to give up the little things we enjoy like recognition, “likes”, applauds, or even simple pleasures like food and drinks.
Teach us to be like your servant St. Bernard of Clairvaux who despite his wealth and greatness chose to exhaust himself in praising you in his many works of charity and praises to you and the Blessed Mother (The Memorare) in the liturgy.
Like Gideon and St. Bernard, keep us calm, always trusting you, loving you in words and in deeds.
Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 28 June 2019
Ezekiel 34:11-16 >< }}}*> Romans 5:5-11 >< }}}*> Luke 15:3-7
Sacred Heart of Jesus at the Jesuits’ Sacred Heart Retreat House and Seminar Center in Novaliches, Quezon City. Photo by author July 2018.
At a glance, the powers of darkness seem to rule the world.
Pains and sufferings are all around us as we see them in the news and, worst, experience them right in our homes and community!
The other Sunday evening, one of our parish lectors was hit by two riders driving under the influence of alcohol that severely damaged her face, particularly her right eye and front teeth. She did not see the motorcycle coming because the drunk riders were going so fast opposite the one way street.
The two riders have no driver’s license and both claim to have no money to pay for the medical expenses of our parish volunteer who comes from a very poor family.
I told her story to our Sunday congregation. Right after the Mass, two ladies came to me, handing me Php 25,000.00 in cash, pledging with more money for the medical and dental bills of our lector. Tears were rolling in my eyes as I thanked the two kind ladies who refused any recognition at all.
Yes, too often we are shocked at the evil going on in the world.
But, more surprising is the fact that it is always God who has the last laugh and final say in all these pain and sufferings around us.
There is always the more powerful Sacred Heart of Jesus offsetting our seemingly heartless world today.
Jesus the Good Shepherd with a lost sheep on his shoulder. A wood carving atop the cathedra of the Minor Basilica Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Malolos City. Photo by Lorenzo Atienza, 12 June 2019.
Jesus addressed this parable to the Pharisees and scribes: “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy.”
Luke 15:3-5
I love that imagery of Jesus the Good Shepherd carrying on his shoulders the lost sheep. It is so powerful and evocative of God’s immense love for us sinners.
God fulfilled his promise to Ezekiel in the first reading that he would personally come to tend and look after us his sheep by sending us his Son Jesus Christ.
For his part, Jesus showed us in teaching this parable the solicitude of the Father in going beyond his words to the prophet of not just affectionately gathering and leading his sheep to green pastures but by communing with sinners of his time. What a wonderful way by Jesus showing us the pains God is willing to go to find one lost sheep.
From Google.
Jesus knows it so well how difficult and painful to get lost that he spent time with sinners, dining with them in many occasions. He knows the fearful thoughts running through us when we were wandering in darkness and sin that he never judges us nor condemns us like the woman caught committing adultery. Most of all, Jesus knows how difficult it would be for us who were lost to find our way back home, to go back to normal life of grace that he is willing to wait like with St. Paul and with St. Augustine.
Hence, when Jesus the Good shepherd finds the lost sheep, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy. Imagine also the spontaneous reflex to clutch to oneself whatever or whomever was lost and is found. That is how intense is the love of God through Jesus for every lost sheep when finally found. He is filled with joy that he carries the lost sheep on his shoulder to hurriedly bring it to safety and comfort, never to get lost again.
Moreover, here we find the great love of God for us who have gone stray in sin: he would patiently look for the lost sheep and likewise willing to patiently carry it on his shoulders so as not to make it suffer further in going back to the fold. Absolutely, no trace at all of any disgust in God in our going stray in sins!
From Google.
Eventually, Jesus proved this intense love of the Father to us in his dying on the Cross. He showed us how true love that comes from God and rooted in God is a love that is always meek and humble. A love that is unconditional, embracing both friends and foes. Yes, it is easier said than done but doable if we love in Christ Jesus.
From Google.
To love in Christ Jesus is to trust in God’s love. Without this trust in God’s love, we will always rely on our own self, prioritizing on our love of self than love of God and others. That is when darkness comes to rule over us, making us heartless too. Then, indeed, the world becomes evil because we have become its slave.
On this Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus when our nation is in so much darkness, Jesus is inviting us to make his love visible by trusting in his unfailing care as our Good Shepherd. When there is a major paradigm shift in the parable of Jesus wherein there are more lost sheep who are also self-righteous in knowing everything, calling those not on their side as stupid, we are more challenged today to witness Christ’s values of dignity of persons and peace. Let us pray for more patience with the appalling governance we now have courtesy of the majority of our people whom we have denied with God’s love and care for the longest time.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 07 June 2019
Statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the Jesuits’ Sacred Heart Retreat House and Seminar Center, Novaliches, Quezon City. Photo by author, July 2018.
It is perhaps the most disarming question of all.
And too often, before answering the question, we try to brush it aside or even belittle it because we always feel the answer is very obvious and yet, it hits us so hard deep within that we could not answer it right away because it demands honesty and sincerity.
Do you love me?
Whether you are a priest or a religious or a layperson, much of the difficulty in answering this question lies on the fact that too often, it comes to us in those moments we have sinned to a loved one. When we were unfaithful and have not loved much as expected.
It was the context when Jesus asked Simon Peter three times “Do you love me?” after their breakfast at the shore of Lake Tiberias three weeks after Easter. Simon knew it so well that he felt sad after the third question of the Lord because it referred to his three denials of Jesus on Holy Thursday evening outside the residence of the chief priest. He must have heard the cock crowing again at that instance.
Church of Gallicantu (Rooster), the site where St. Peter denied the Lord thrice. Photo by author, April 2017.
I realized only last year as a guest spiritual director to our seminarians at the Theologate that our main problem as priests is when we get so focused with our vocation which is the priesthood, forgetting its very essence, Jesus Christ.
It is the Caller, not the call!
When we priests forget Jesus, even if we are so centered even obsessed with priesthood, problems arise. It is a misplaced priority. The call gets into our bloated egos that eventually deteriorate into careerism among us priests that we compete and complain a lot in our assignments. No more ministry because everything comes with a fee. Pains and sufferings have become costs of discipleship and not life.
Eventually, we end up being gods and kings, even larger than the Lord himself in our parishes or particular assignment. We become the standard of everything because we are all-knowing, so great at building churches and other structures, establishing every organization while consciously or unconsciously building cults around our very selves that in the process, we have evicted Jesus Christ completely from our hearts and the parish itself!
The same is true with couples. The husband and wife forget each other, getting focused more with married life and children until eventually, they just drifted apart, becoming strangers to each other and lose all love. This is most evident when couples enter into a sort of spiritual divorce, when they are “so far away” from each other though they still live together “for the sake of the children” or, as we always hear, “alang-alang sa mga bata.”
Love makes us see Jesus in himself and in others too.
In St. John’s account of the third appearance of the risen Lord to the seven apostles who have gone fishing at Lake Tiberias that Sunday morning, no one among them recognized him except the beloved disciple because he was the only one who remained loving Jesus.
When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus… who said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord.”
John 21:4,6-7
Appearance of the Risen Lord at Lake Tiberias. From Google.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI recently answered some questions given to him for an interview before the Holy Week. When asked about the festering problem of sex scandal in the Church, he said that is a sign of how we priests have entirely forgotten Jesus Christ, especially to pray to him at the Blessed Sacrament.
That is very true. Jesus could no longer be seen among us, in our person, in our actions, in our way of living, and most especially in our churches that have become so empty of God and so filled of our selves.
We have forgotten the fact that before we were ordained priests, there was Jesus Christ first. We converse with him less in prayer because priesthood demands so much of our time and energy like a profession or a job. Slowly, Jesus is nowhere to be found in us and in our parishes. And that is when we also start to get lost as priests, eaten up by materialism and fame.
The same is true with couples who forget after several years of living together that before they were married, there was also Jesus Christ first in each other. When children start coming, more concerns are shifted on the couple’s career in order to earn more and live comfortably. Couples then forget each other, even their very selves who end up married with their jobs or profession. Eventually, they part ways because they could no longer see each other.
The difficulty in answering the question “do you love me?” is found in the way we do our work, when we just see tasks. No love, no person.
Whatever we do in life, we have to do it with more love because when we love, we remain attached with persons not with things. When we do thing with more love, we have direction because we think of persons, not just goals. When we do things with more love, we see persons because only another person can love, not things. See how Jesus told the crowd who have come with him to the wilderness to pray to the Master to send more laborers to work on the great harvest (Mt.9:38). He did not instruct them and us to pray for more money, more food and clothing because what we really need is love. Only people can love.
Jesus Christ did everything in love, filled with love. That is why he is so gentle and merciful with us sinners. In his love, he sees more the person being defaced by sins and evil, pains and sufferings. And that is why he died on the Cross, the ultimate expression of doing everything in love.
The next time you want to prove your love to anyone, do your work with love, no matter how imperfect your love is. Jesus will fill in the rest because you are so loved.
Live in the love of Christ.
If you have love in your heart, you have been blessed by God;
if you have been loved, you have been touched by God.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Friday, Easter VII, 07 June 2019
Acts 25:13-21 >< }}}*> >< }}}*> >< }}}*> John 21:15-19
The shore of Lake Tiberias where Jesus asked Simon thrice, “Do you love me?” Photo by author, April 2017.
My dearest sweet Lord Jesus Christ: For the past twenty one years, I have always heard you asking me the same question you asked Simon along the shores of Tiberias. And you always come to me asking me those questions most especially after I have sinned against you, just like when Simon had denied you after you were arrested.
Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep…” And when Jesus had said this, he said to Simon, “Follow me.”
John 21:17b,19b
Lord, you know everything about me: you know my innermost thoughts, you know my sins, you know my weaknesses, you know my insecurities, you know my pains and darkness and most of all, you know how imperfectly I love you.
And that is why I am so in love with you, Jesus: I am not worthy of your love and yet you choose to love me, you choose to be patient with me, you choose to forgive me. And you continue to call me to follow you.
You have given me with so much, Lord, and I have given so little to you. Teach me to give more of your love, more of your fidelity, more of your kindness, more of YOU to others.
Keep us all, especially your priests, to always love you first before following you.
So many times, especially in this age, we have forgotten you our Caller and we have been so focused and madly in love with your call which is secondary.
You will always be our first love, Jesus and it is from that love where everything else follows. Amen.
Bronze statues of Jesus conversing with Simon at the shore of Tiberias before his ascension. We have to love Jesus first before we can follow him. Photo by author, April 2017.
Continue praying for us priests. Let us be focused more with Jesus our Caller, not with his call.
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.
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
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.
It’s a very beautiful Sunday, the first in this month of March.
I have been thinking of so many other songs that best capture our reflection for the Sunday gospel which is about education of the heart when Jesus said, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Lk.6:45).
Our heart is the core of our person and that is why it is called “corazon” in Spanish from the Latin “cor”. And the best way to understand it is to simply feel what is inside.
Can we really look inside one’s heart as David Benoit said?
The French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that “the heart has its own reasons that the mind can never understand.”
Another Frenchman, the aviator and writer Antoine de St. Exupery expressed in his book “The Little Prince” that “what is essential is invisible to the eye; it is only with the heart one can truly see.”
And so, I have decided this Sunday to share with you the music of the Swedish pop singer Orup (Thomas Eriksson) called “The Keys to Your Heart” released in 1991. I can’t find its lyrics but that’s the key to our heart – just feel the music and enjoy!
Life, sometimes, is a series of “good news-bad news” situation like the Beatitudes preached by Jesus during His sermon on the plain last week: the blessings are the good news while the woes are the bad news.
But, wait…! Such a view is the way of the world, not of Christ’s disciples!
As we have reflected last Sunday, the Beatitudes are the paradoxical happiness of the disciples of Christ because they all run directly against the ways of the world. Today we hear more paradoxical teachings from Jesus that are actually His “win-win” solution for our many problems like wars and other forms of enmities. Unfortunately, we have never given them a try because we always complain the ways of the Lord as being far from realities of life, impossible to imitate because He is God and we are not.
Today let us set aside all these reservations and arguments to reflect on this new set of paradoxical teachings by the Lord: Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies.od to those who hate you, bless those who curse, pray for those who mistreat you… But rather, love your enemies and do good to them. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. For the measure with which you measure will in turn be measured out to you” (Lk.6:27-28, 35, 36, 38).
It is very striking that Jesus repeated twice His call to “love your enemies”.
Does He not care about us who have to bear with the sins of evil people? What a good news to those who hate us, curse us, and mistreat us! Suwerte sila! We would surely say they must be so lucky, even blessed with us who strive to heed the calls of Jesus to love them our enemies.
But, on deeper reflections, we are actually more blessed when we try to love our enemies because that is when we elevate – or “level up” as kids would say – our hearts to be merciful like God. Experts claim that the best way to exact revenge against people who have hurt us is to shower them with good deeds and kindness from us they have offended. According to these experts in counselling and psychology, evil people get disappointed and angrier with themselves when their evil plots fail especially when their targets do not react negatively. They sound understandable because evil people derive joy in making people miserable. So, why be miserable?
Far from being their “punching bag”, the Lord simply wants us to teach our enemies to respect us, to be kind to us by not being like themselves. In loving our enemies, we teach evil people that more powerful than sin is the power of love. Sin and evil consume a person while love and kindness make a person grow and mature and bloom to fullness.
Far from being passive, to love our enemies by returning evil with good is always the most active method in fighting sins. When Jesus asked us to offer the other side of our cheeks to those who slap our face or when we give them our tunic when they demand our cloak, we are showing these evil people that love is never exhausted unlike evil. Love is boundless and the more we love, the more we have it, the more we keep on doing it. Evil, on the other hand, reaches a saturation point that we get fed up with it, then we we stop doing it because it is exhausting and worst, consumes us within that in the
process destroys us. Think of the most evil person you have known and surely, you find that person so ugly, so zapped of life and energy, eaten up from within by a festering wound. Evil people will never have peace and joy within, glow on their face and skin because they are rotting inside like zombies.
In the first reading we heard how David as a type of Christ foregoing vengeance by holding on to God, trusting Him completely that he chose not to strike King Saul who was then trying to kill him out of jealousy. As disciples of the Lord, we have to trust in the Word of God that can transform our hearts of stone into natural hearts filled with love and mercy like Him. This is the point being explained by St. Paul in the second reading wherein Christ as the “second Adam from heaven” had made us bear the “heavenly image”despite our “earthly image” that is weak and sinful having come from the “first Adam from earth”. Through Baptism, we have been endowed with all the necessary grace from God, transforming us into better persons of heaven.
One of my favorite sayings came from the desk of a friend of mine I used to visit in their office that says “If you have love in your heart, you have been blessed by God; if you have been loved, you have been touched by God.”
See how God has loved us so immensely without measure! Remember that scene two Sundays ago when Jesus borrowed the boat of Simon as He would do with our voice, with our hands, with our total selves? Who are we or what do we really have and own that the almighty God would borrow from us? Nothing! Yet, Jesus comes to us daily with all His love without measure to bless us with everything we need. So, who are we now to love by measuring everything, loving only those who love us, lending only to those who could repay us?
Imagine how astonishingly disproportionate is the love of God with our kind of love. It is in this light must we see the meaning of Christ’s final lesson this Sunday: “For the measure with which you measure will in turn be measured out to you.” So paradoxical and provocative yet so true! This Sunday, may we share God’s love in our hearts with others, especially with our enemies so they may also experience the loving and merciful touch of God. Then we begin to realize too the “win-win” solution of Christ to humanity. Amen.Have a blessed week!Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
Side garden of the Church of the Beatitudes with the Lake of Galilee at the background. Photo by the author, April 2017.
During His Last Supper, Jesus rose from His seat to wash the feet of His apostles to show them what position is all about: loving service to one another. See in this icon from Google there are only 11 apostles present; Judas left the Last Supper to “unseat” the Lord. Above is the word “mandatum”, Latin for “command”, Christ’s command for us to love by leaving our seats of power and comfort to stand with Him at His Cross.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 22 February 2019
If you are a Catholic and a regular Mass-goer, most likely you always follow the “Roman seating position” – that is, you always sit at the back, avoiding the front seats even in other gatherings outside the church.
According to Msgr. Gerry Santos who used to give us retreats and recollections while we were seminarians, the “Roman seating position” is a carry-over from the martyrdom of the early Christians who were always seated at the front rows of the Colosseum in Rome who were forcibly pushed to be devoured by hungry lions and beasts below.
Of course it is a joke but it holds so much grain of truth because we often refuse to take the front row seats for fears of being put on the spot, of making a stand. How ironic that in this age when seating positions matter so much for us, we have forgotten that more important than the position and prestige that come with the seats we occupy – literally and figuratively speaking – is the stand we take in every issue we face. Protocols dictate in so many occasions how seats indicate power and authority; the throne is always reserved to the highest in rank like kings and presidents. And the closer one is seated to the one in command, the wider is one’s sphere of power and influence too. Unfortunately, this is not everything because every seat of power and authority is always a call to serve, to make a stand for what is true and what is good.
Jesus Christ showed us the true meaning of our seating positions during the Last Supper on Holy Thursday evening when He rose to remove His outer garments to wash the feet of His apostles (Jn.13:1-15). It was a task left for slaves only but Jesus used it as a gospel parable in action to show us that what matters most in life is not where we are seated with Him but where we stand with Him. It was exactly what He meant when He said that anyone who wishes to be the greatest must be the least and the servant of all.
Recall my dear readers how during that evening of the Holy Thursday when John the beloved disciple sat not only beside Jesus but even rested his head on His chest to signify their intimacy as friends (Jn. 13:23). That touching gesture of friendship and love took its summit the following Good Friday when John the beloved was the only one of the Twelve who remained standing with the Lord at the foot of His Cross with the Blessed Mother Mary. In that scene we see how John literally stood his ground as the beloved disciple by remaining faithful and loving with the Lord from His Last Supper to His Crucifixion. Peter, the prince of the Apostles, was nowhere to be found on Good Friday after denying Jesus thrice during His trial before the Sanhedrin the night of His arrest. Very interesting was Judas Iscariot who committed suicide after realizing his grave sin in betraying the Lord. See how he had left the Lord’s Supper to deal with His enemies for His arrest. What an image of the traitor who could not stay on his seat during the Lord’s Supper was the same one who could not stand to face Him again at the foot of the Cross. See how those people who refuse to sit with us are also the ones who never stand with us, stand for us like Judas, a traitor!
I tell you these things even if Holy Week is still more than six weeks from now but in the light of the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter which is about the Primacy of Rome or the Pope as Vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter. We celebrate this Feast to remember St. Peter and his successors love and service to the Church as examples we must all emulate. In 110 AD, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote the Christians in Rome to describe to them the Church of Rome as the “primacy of love” and the “primacy of faith”. Every power and every authority signified by the chair or cathedra in the Church as well as in the world when we speak of “seat of power” must always be seen in the light of Jesus Christ’s example of loving service at His Last Supper. This is especially true for us priests who are united in Christ and with Christ in the Eucharist.
This festering problem of sexual abuse in the Church is largely due to our deviation from this primacy in love for Jesus as priests. We have been so focused with our seats – positions and titles – that we have forgotten to stand with Christ at the foot of His cross, standing for what is good and true, just and right. We have been so focused with the “party” of the Supper of the Lord and have forgotten Jesus Himself. Seminarians have been so focused with the vocation and the call, with ordination, forgetting the more essential, the Caller Jesus Himself! And that explains why some in the clergy and those in the hierarchy come up with so many excuses and alibis for the many things we do in our ministry, in our churches, in our parishes, and in our lives because we are only concerned with our office and position but never the Master.
When we love Jesus or any other person, we do not have to justify our actions. Love that is true and pure does not need justifications. But the moment we start making justifications, something is wrong like when we justify our special relationships, no matter how deep or shallow it may be for clearly, there is no primacy in love for Jesus and the Church.
When we justify our vices, our lifestyles, our business endeavors that Canon Law prohibits, clearly there is no primacy in love for we cannot be poor for Christ.
There is no problem with having advocacies as priests but when we are aligned with ideologies contrary to Christ, or when we play in partisan politics, there is neither primacy of faith nor primacy of love. It is the Lord who changes the world, not us, not our programs, not our ideas.
It is our duty as priests to love like Christ but to adopt children and raise them as our own children using our names, there is no celibacy, only stupidity.
Like Jesus, we need money to get our programs going but when we lack transparency and accountability, that is stealing and banditry.
When all we have is the ministry, the priesthood without prayer periods, without the Eucharist, we only have the call but not the Caller Jesus Christ Himself.
More than ever, today Jesus Christ is asking us all His priests to make a stand for Him, to stand with Him, to suffer with Him and to die with Him by leaving our seats of comfort and seats of power.
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