Your Mass readings today complement the disturbing and shocking news headlines of sex abuse in the Church festering for the last 30 years or so.
What is so shameful and disgusting with this news is the fact you have never failed in warning us against hurting the little children including women and the poor who have nothing in life except you.
Those sins are so grave that moved you to harshly declare that “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea” (Mk.9:42).
We make no excuses O Lord for these grave sins against children. No words, no programs and no compensation could ever bring back their lost innocence and dignity from the hands of your priests and servants. It is a betrayal of the highest degree like what Judas Iscariot did to you.
We are angered by their sins, Lord; but, worst of all, we are deeply angered by our inaction that allowed them to continue with their evil deeds in the guise of mercy and compassion.
But, Lord, there is also something sickening than this news when our brother priests are falsely accused of sexual misconduct. We pray you keep and protect them. We pray for faithful priests to be spared of these false accusations.
You know very well O Lord you have more faithful and celibate priests working in silence and hiddenness than the unfaithful ones. Yet, we still pray that you continue to help us heed your words of wisdom through Ben Sirach (Sir. 5:1-10):
“Let us stop relying on our wealth, power, and strength in following the desires of our hearts.
Let us stop being so sure that no one could prevail against us or subdue us for God will surely exact punishment against us.
Most of all, let us not delay our conversion and stop being overconfident with your forgiveness, adding sin upon sin, for your wrath alights with the wicked.”
Have mercy on us all your priests, dear Jesus, keep us faithful to you our Lord and our God. Amen.
Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
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.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 24 January 2019
Vacation and vocation are two important realities for us priests. In fact, the two are closely related because both are rooted in God. Problems happen when we priests totally forget God both in our vacation and in our vocation. And this has always been our problem because we have refused to go back, get closer and enter God Himself.
Both vacation and vocation came from Latin: the former is from the word “vacare” that means to be emptied or vacant while the latter has its roots in “vocare” which is to be called. Every vacation is a sabbath, a resting in God who calls us to this priestly vocation. This concept is beautifully expressed in our Filipino word “magpahinga” that literally means to be breathed on by God. When we priests go on vacation, the more we are able to serve people better with joy because that is when we are filled with God. Every vacation is a path leading us closer to God that is why priests are encouraged to go on sabbatical leaves, whether the usual weekly breaks or the yearly longer vacations. This past week we have heard from the gospels in our daily Masses how the enemies of Jesus missed this important aspect of sabbath when they would always question His healings on days of rest, prompting Him to ask them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than destroy it?” (Mk.3:4). God is always bigger than Sabbath because “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mk.2:27-28). Even laypeople have fallen into this trap of emphasizing sabbath more than God Himself that we make many excuses of not going to Sunday Masses because bonding with family and friends is more important. Every year, less and less people are going to Church celebrations of the Holy Week and Easter because they would rather take the opportunity to go on vacation as they try hard to convince themselves that God would perfectly understand them anyway.
This problem with vacation takes on its most unfortunate turn when we priests deal with our vocation. In my 20 years in the priesthood with the last seven years spent in direct interactions with seminarians as teacher and spiritual director, I have found something so wrong now becoming a trend that is probably one of the reasons why we are plagued with all kinds of problematic priests in the Church. It is a new kind of idolatry when we have come to worship and adore more our vocation and priesthood than God Himself. We have forgotten the great distinction between the call and the Caller. When the one being called, whether a priest or a seminarian, gets so focused with the call forgetting the Caller, problems arise and not too far from the scene are evil and sin.
“Brothers and sisters: Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. No one takes this honor upon himself but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. In the same way, it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest, but rather the one who said to him: You are my son; this day I have begotten you” (Heb.5:1,4-5).
Priestly vocation is always a gift and a call from God to be closer and be one in Him and with Him in Christ. Vocation is the call of God but not God. The Caller is always above and distinct from the call. The one being called is meant to end with the Caller and not with the call. It is a terrible problem when a seminarian insists on being ordained as if it is a right simply because he is called even if the seminary fathers do not see him responding properly to his priestly calling. It becomes a tragedy when priests insist with their own beliefs and perceptions of things as part of their responding to their vocation, forgetting or even totally disregarding Christ as well as the norms and teachings of the Church, His visible presence (sacrament) on earth. The sex scandals that continue to rock and deeply hurt the Church stem from this erroneous perception by some priests who cling to their vocation, unmindful of the Caller we all need to imitate in holiness so we can also embrace children and uplift women like Him in love and respect. See how some of our churches have become like birthday cakes, malls and even dance halls when pastors pretend to be bringing the people closer to God with all their pomp and pageantry when in fact are just massaging unconsciously their bloated egos. When priests get busy more with church constructions, fund raising and other social events without any time for prayer to be with God and His flock, they worship the call, not the Caller. The height of this idolatrous worship of the vocation by priests is when we make up so many alibis and excuses to justify our various preoccupations like luxurious living, vanities that include too much sports and body-building, vices in all forms like addiction with telenovelas, engaging in businesses, frequent travels that Pope Francis had branded as “scandal of the airports”and yes, even adopting children!
I wrote this not to put down my brother priests and students in the seminary but to contribute in whatever way that we can grow closer with Jesus Christ who calls us to be one in Him. I am also a sinner, “a worthless servant of the Lord who tries to do my duty” as His priest (Lk.17:10). Lately in our daily Masses as well as this coming Sunday we shall hear in the gospel of how Jesus would enter their synagogue in Capernaum on a sabbath. It is a very simple scene but filled with meanings, asking me whether I simply enter the church or do I enter God? How sad that until now there are people like the Magi from the East asking “where is the newborn king of Israel?” while inside our churches that have merely become a building but never the Body of Christ because what we only have is the call, or maybe just the echo of that call without the Caller.
*Photo by the author, chapel of Holy Family, Sacred Heart Novitiate and Retreat House, Novaliches, Quezon City, June 2015.
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