The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 08 September 2019
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte at Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019
Our gospel today is so personal.
Sometimes, we have to be unreasonable — and be personal — when the only explanation and justification we can have for continuing to love and forgive, to care and accept people is “because of Jesus Christ”.
“If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 14:26
There are times in our lives when we are so down and everything is so dark when all we need is the warmth of a loving heart and a loving face of another person. No ifs, no buts but just because of you.
This is the reason Jesus is very clear today with his words, “hate” one’s self as well as those closest to us to stress that when things get worst, our only reason is him alone. We love, we forgive, we care despite all the pains and hurts because of our communion in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the only one who would really stand us, offering himself up on the Cross for you and for me.
That is why for this Sunday we have chosen Beng E. King’s 1961 hit “Stand By Me” that was rereleased in 1986 as theme of a movie with the same title.
The song speaks of the undying love and fidelity of a man to the woman he loves. It is partly the same story of the friendship of those for boys in the said movie.
King’s music has been covered by so many other artists over the years for its reflective music and poetry that evoke deep personal love that transcends reason and conventions. No wonder, it was sang at the wedding last year of Prince Harry and American Meghan Merkle, a true-to-life love story that seems can only happen in Hollywood.
But that is the beauty of the song and Christ’s gospel: everything can happen when we are willing to give up everything including our very selves in the name of love for another person.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Week XXIII-C, 08 September 2019
Wisdom 9:13-18 ><)))*> Philemon 9-10, 12-17 ><)))*> Luke 14:25-33
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte at Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019
“A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one’s work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.”
Albert Camus, “The Plague”
I always tell people not all days are bright and sunny but, there comes a time when we are so down, when all is so dark and even hopeless that the only thing left for us is to believe, to hope, and to love.
There is really nothing we can do except to patiently wait for the storm to pass while we suffer alone and cry alone. That is when we are surprised and even shocked at how the gospel of Jesus and the commandments of God can sometimes be so rigid that we want it modified even a little because we want to get even, we want to fight back. If we are not busy thinking of revenge, we complain, asking God why me who should suffer?
But, the more we pray and submit ourselves to God, the more we realise that God’s ways are not our ways. That despite the difficulties, we feel deep inside God is with us, guiding us, leading us to something better!
“Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what our Lord intends? Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high? And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.”
Wisdom 9:13, 17-18
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte at Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019
Here we find the importance of Christ’s teaching last Sunday, of the need to be humble, to be our true selves by being where we should be for “those who humble themselves will be exalted and those who exalt themselves shall be humbled.”
It is in our poverty, in our weakness, even in our incomprehension when the Holy Spirit works well to reveal to us the higher realities of life often wrapped in every pain and suffering we go through. And that is why sometimes in life, it is best to be unreasonable when the only explanation and justification we can have in still being loving and forgiving, merciful and understanding, kind and patient is the person of Jesus Christ.
“If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sister, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 14:26
Photo by the author, Holy Family Chapel, Sacred Heart Novitiate (Novaliches), July 2016.
Our gospel today is a continuation of last Sunday when Jesus was invited to a Sabbath dinner by a Pharisee. After giving them some “table talks”, Jesus told them another parable about the great feast to stress that God’s mercy is so vast that there is room for everyone in heaven.
People started to follow him after that meal and lesson on heaven, wanting to become his followers and disciples. To further motivate them in following him, Jesus challenged them with these powerful words using a figure of speech. The word “hate” may be too strong and harsh but such is the gravity of discipleship: we have to lose our very selves even those dearest to us when we have to see everything and everyone in the person of Jesus. To “resolutely follow Jesus in his journey to Jerusalem”, we must be ready to be totally his with him alone as the basis in every decision that can be sometimes foolish like St. Paul who claimed in one of his writings he was a fool for Christ!
See the “foolishness in Christ” of this great apostle: St. Paul was in prison at Rome awaiting trial and judgement. A slave named Onesimus escaped his Christian master named Philemon. It was definitely against the law to harbor escaped slaves yet St. Paul welcomed Onesimus in his prison as his companion and servant! More than that, without really knowing him well, St. Paul baptised Onesimus to become a Christian!
Imagine St. Paul’s adherence to the gospel of Christ even to the point of being unreasonable when he could have just told Onesimus to go back or go somewhere else and spare him all the troubles! But no. It was very clear with St. Paul in asking Philemon to receive Onesimus back that he was not sticking to any moral standards or laws but solely on the person of Jesus Christ, in our communion in him as brothers and sisters.
“Perhaps this is why he was away from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother, beloved especially to me, but even more so to you, as a man and in the Lord. So if you regard me as a partner, welcome him as you would me.”
Philemon 15-17
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte at Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019.
Next Sunday we shall hear the very long but beautiful parable of the merciful father also known as parable of the prodigal son. Like God our Father, the merciful father would reassure his two sons of his immense love for them despite their sins because of their very persons as his sons.
Today in our Sunday Eucharist, Jesus welcomes us all as persons, his brothers and sisters despite our sins and weaknesses. Like Mary whose birth we also celebrate today inspire us to receive Jesus our Savior in his total person in ourselves by receiving the persons around us in him. Amen.
Tuesday, Memorial of St. Gregory the Great, 03 September 2019
1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, 9-11 ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 4:31-37
Photo by Jo Villafuerte, Atok, Benguet, 31 August 2019.
“For God did not destine us for wrath, but to gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live together with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you do.”
1 Thessalonians 5:9-11
Dearest God our Father: Yesterday your words moved me to pray for consolation, to accompany those “alone”. Today, your words call me to “encourage one another and build up one another.”
How beautiful and wonderful indeed are your words, so powerful and fulfilling, indicating your very presence!
In this highly competitive world, it is not enough that we encourage people but also to build them up. From the Latin words “en” and “cor”, literally meaning to hearten or strengthen the heart, there are times that encouragement without community can be misleading and even destructive too.
Encouragement is going within every person, right into one’s heart like in your Son’s exorcism of a man possessed by “unclean demon” who “left the man without harming him” (Lk.4:35). From the heart, true encouragement moves outward to touch others’ hearts to form a community. Every time you heal the sick, Lord, people are moved to build up their families and community.
Encouragement is not pushing people to do and achieve things. Encouragement is bringing others closer to you through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is actually Jesus Christ who encourages for it is him alone who touches hearts and moves them to build up a person, families, and communities.
Like your servant St. Gregory the Great he encouraged not only Christians but also pagans to work for unity and to pursue so many efforts that built up not only persons and families, nations and tribes, monasteries and churches but most of all, an entire civilization now slowly turning away from you.
Fill us with more courage and wisdom, holiness and patience in encouraging one another to build up communities as we await for your joyful coming again. Amen.
While praying over today’s gospel during the week, I came across this photo of Ms. Rosa Parks in my Facebook feed saying something like, “Rosa Parks made a stand for her rights by refusing to give up her seat in a bus 60 years ago.”
I love the caption and the play of words of the photo that convey the same message of our Sunday gospel: it is not where we seat but where we stand that matters most.
On a sabbath, Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.
Luke 14:1, 7
For the next three Sundays beginning today while Jesus resolutely decided to journey to Jerusalem, he will be teaching us with some “table talks” as he spoke about the heavenly banquets as expressions of God’s vast ocean of mercy where everyone is welcomed. But, more than lessons on table manners and etiquette, Jesus is also teaching us of finding our own places in his kingdom here on earth where everybody is welcomed just like in heaven.
Key to appreciating our gospel today is found in the first reading:
My child, conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.
Sirach 3:17-18
From Google.
Remember that very central in the teaching of Jesus is the need to be like a child when he would always remind us that “unless you become like a child, you will never inherit the kingdom of heaven.” Being like a child is being humble and obedient, being open to learning new things that are all necessary in building relationships that lead to communion with God and with others. Heaven is the perfect communion of God and everyone but it has to start here on earth among us.
Jesus lived at a time when society and people were so fragmented, just like now. Everybody feels being entitled to heaven and on earth, to every position and honor everywhere even in the church.
While at a sabbath dinner hosted by a Pharisee, Jesus took the occasion to teach the people of the need to be humble to be accepted anywhere. According to St. Teresa of Avila, humility is walking in truth. Humility is being real!
“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Luke 14:11
Photo by Jim Marpa, 2018.
Jesus is telling us that for his grace and mercy to truly work on us, we have to be really who we are. In this age when life has been replaced with lifestyle and people have usurped the power and authority of God as well as the natural order of things, everybody feels entitled to everything insisting on their rights forgetting their responsibilities. Homosexuality is not a sin; what is sinful are homosexual acts. The challenge is for the person to accept his/her true self as a beloved child of God doing his/her best to be the bestest person. No need to alter one’s body nor be somebody else he/she is not. Homosexuality is not about insisting on something just for the sake of insisting or making a statement for one’s self regardless of others like in the use of toilets. We have a Tagalog expression that perfectly captures the Lord’s lesson, “lumagay ka sa dapat mong kalagyan”. Loosely translated, it means simply be where you are supposed to be.
Last Wednesday we celebrated the memorial of St. Augustine, one of the most famous and colorful saints of the Church. His life is a gospel in itself, showing us that nobody is too late to change and be a better person. Most of all, nothing is too late for God. Like St. Augustine, we must first accept who we are, be humble for our weaknesses for it is only when we accept that we start to grow and everything follows like acceptance by others. How can we expect others to accept us if we cannot accept first our very selves? This is the most beautiful mark of humility of children that make them so irresistible to adults: they have no guile, all-natural and no plasticity or synthetic fronts to be loved and appreciated.
More than table manners and etiquette, Jesus is teaching us that if we can be humble and accept who we are, we can definitely find our place in the kingdom of God, here on earth and in heaven. God loves us so much he has a plan for each on of us if we play our roles wholeheartedly. We will never experience his mercy and grace unless we become humble.
Photo by Reuters, 2018.
“Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Luke 14:13-14
To further ensure the lesson of his parable about each of us having a place in his kingdom here on earth, Jesus reminds us too while in the context of his sabbath dinner that for us to be able to establish a more humane society, we have to guard against stereotypes of peoples that we tend to box them into categories.
Jesus is asking us to radically change our prevailing social mores, suggesting a very different value-system in the here-and-now kingdom of God. Far from the cries of the communists for a classless society, Jesus tells us to see the value of every person rather than focusing on the few powerful, wealthy, and influential people we always deal with in exchange of so many favors.
It is a patronage system so prevalent everywhere especially in politics and in our social relationships like the compradazo system of getting ninong and ninang who are rich and famous to get influence and other perks and rewards. It is so unfortunate that some clergymen are so guilty of this that the Church’s credibility has eroded so much for the mistakes and sins of a few.
In this manner of patronage system, the poor and the weak are always left out to the margins, forgotten and even disregarded. What kind of Christianity do we have when we are so concerned with Christmas carols and counting the days before Christmas and be oblivious to the plight of the farmers and fishermen?
Lorenzo Atienza, June 2019.
What Jesus is telling us today is that those who have less in life should have more of God because, truly in the end, they are the ones who shall be exalted!
In these parable and admonition by Jesus, St. Luke our guide these Sundays is not only giving us an advice on how to prepare for the end times but also on how to live according to the Lord’s vision of a just and humane society in our imperfect world.
We in the Church play a very vital role in bringing about this change by witnessing the gospel that often brings about a reversal of fortunes in the end.
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that the ultimate goal of our Christian life is communion with God made possible by Christ’s offering of himself on the Cross. Do our Sunday Mass celebrations and Parish set-ups witness to the gospel values of a just and a humane city of God here on earth?
Tuesday, Memorial of St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus, 13 August 2019
Deuteronomy 31:1-8 >< )))*> <*((( >< Matthew 18:1-5. 10. 12-14
Photo by Jim Marpa, 2018.
The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:1-4
I must confess to you, O Lord Jesus Christ, that so often I act and think like your disciples, asking you “who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”
And it is not really to know who that person is or what kind of a person is that.
It is more about me – I want to be the greatest and be looked up to. Or, be affirmed and accepted. Especially by you.
When you called that child, you showed me how you have remained a Son of the Father, always humble and open to instructions from the Father above. Most of all, obedient to the Father’s will.
True greatness indeed is in becoming like a child, always young and willing to learn new things, raring to go and follow those above for new adventures in life like Moses and Joshua in the first reading and, St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus whose martyrdom we celebrate today.
As I prayed on that scene at Jordan where the Israelites prepared to enter the Promised Land, the imagery of Moses and Joshua came to me like children ready to take on new tasks and directions in their lives from God as Father.
The same imagery of little children submitting themselves to you, O Lord, despite their old age I have found in St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus who were both greatly at odds with each other at the beginning.
St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus. From Google.
As Pope, St. Pontian was lenient in readmitting Christians who have turned away from the faith during persecution; St. Hippolytus strongly opposed it that later he broke away from Rome to become an anti-pope as he refused to relax his rigid views of the faith.
But you found ways of bringing them together, Lord, as exiles at the island of Sardinia.
In the midst of harsh labor, the fatherly St. Pontian was able to bring back into the Church the rigorist St. Hippolytus.
Help us to keep in mind, Lord, that age is just a number, that we are forever young like children when we humbly abandon ourselves to you, holding on to these words by Moses:
It is the Lord who marches before you; he will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you. So do not fear or be dismayed.
Deuteronomy 31:8
Let me remain as your faithful and trusting child, O loving God our Father. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 15 July 2019
Photo by John Bonding, Architecture&Design Magazine, 25 May 2019 via Facebook.
This is not another homily about yesterday’s Parable of the Good Samaritan. I am very sure you have heard so much about it. In fact, you must have memorized that parable, too. And most likely, you also believe there is nothing else new in that parable. Its conviction remains true that we are all neighbors, that the question we must be asking is not “who is my neighbor” but, “do I act as a neighbor to others”?
However, in this complicated age of tweets and hashtags when everything is shortened, either abbreviated or initialized, the question “who is my neighbor” has become very legitimate again these days when technology has taken the center stage of our lives and relationships.
Two months ago I officiated the wedding of a friend’s youngest brother who sent me a gist of their “love story” that I may incorporate in my homily. Fact is, I have already worked out the outline of my homily for his wedding except that I really had a hard time deciphering the meaning of the three letters he had mentioned about their love story: “LDR”.
After several minutes, I finally got what he meant with those letters that stand for “Long Distance Relationship”.
Okay, I admit being too old for those kind of talkies with so many abbreviations that litter Facebook posts from “OMG” to “ootd” with a host of other letter combinations that I really do not understand at all even when given with their meanings.
This sudden surge in usage of so many abbreviations and initials is spawned by modern technologies in communication that still continue to evolve. Truly, the medium is the message. When we were growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, typewriters reigned supreme. We knew only two important abbreviations that time, “cc” for “carbon copy” and “asap” for “as soon as possible”.
With the demise of Messrs. Remington and Underwood following the rise of PC’s and Macs along with smartphones that all use the venerable “qwerty” board of old, we are now deluged with all of these initials and abbreviations. At least, those hardly used signs on the typewriter keys like @, #, and _ finally came more alive in this age of dot.coms.
There is nothing wrong with these developments but when these abbreviations and initials as well as signs and symbols are applied onto humans, problems begin to happen. This is when people are “materialized” while things are “personalized”. See how the benighted souls on television, from program hosts and celebrities to journalists using the Filipino personal pronoun “siya” for he/she/his/her when speaking of food and typhoons like “masarap siya” (he/she is delicious) or “siya ay magbubuhos ng ulan” (he/she will pour rains). How insanely they use the Filipino demonstrative pronoun “ito” or this for persons like “ito ang nanay ko” (this is my mother instead of she is my mother) or “ito ang mahal ko” (this is my beloved instead of he/she is my beloved)!
You see how we have now come to regard persons as things and things as persons?
And worst, we now see persons as food to be eaten and consumed when good looking men and women are described as “yummy” and “delicious”. It is utilitarianism at its worst when people are seen like food as if they are good only when “fresh, hot and tasty” but when already old and sickly, they are regarded like leftovers kept on the fridge, even discarded. In the same manner, see how in our country we take people like ice cream with those belonging to the “AB” crowd or the rich and famous as “flavor of the month” or “all-time favorite” while those from the lower segment of the society, the “CDE” or “chineleas-duster-estero” crowd as “dirty ice cream” or sorbetes.
From Google.
Here lies the legitimacy of the question who is my neighbor? — when we not only shorten words for the sake of convenience and do the same to persons, shortchanging them with the respect and dignity we all deserve.
A friend and fellow blogger recently wrote a piece about the growing number of young people who are so inconsiderate in using specific lanes and counters reserved for seniors and PWD’s in malls and stores. Even in churches, there are also inconsiderate, and hypocrite or unChristian, able-bodied people occupying pews reserved for seniors and PWD’s, claiming they will just leave and move when they arrive?! How I really feel like adding to our notes that “This pew is reserved for seniors and PWD’s. And morons too.”
How ironic that in this age when almost everyone is supposed to be tech savvy, being able to read every sign and logo yet refuse to respect give way to our seniors and PWD’s. Here is a classic case of us having smartphones but not so smart people, guided missiles and misguided children. They are like the Levite and the priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan who simply “saw” the victim lying on the road, failing to see him as another person in need. Unlike the Samaritan who saw the victim and was moved with compassion to help him.
From Google.
The question “who is my neighbor” becomes more legitimate and pressing when we in the Church, in our own homes and family are overtaken by things of the world, from money and gadgets to fame and convenience that we not only forget one another but ultimately Jesus Christ our Lord and Master.
When we are more concerned with raising funds or earning money for more buildings, more gadgets, for more privileges and convenience, becoming vain even if beyond our means or not in our calling and state of life, that is when people start asking again “who is my neighbor” because nobody seem to care anymore. No one is with compassion and mercy anymore that everybody seem to have become robots and sadly, inhuman when all we see are things than persons.
The Church since Vatican II has always seen these modern means of communications as gifts from God meant to be used for the the “advancement and unity” of man (Communio et Progressio). Let us put technology and things at their proper place. And that is always at the service of mankind and glory of God.
Jesus is the Good Samaritan par excellence. Photo from America Magazine via Google.
It’s a beautiful, warm and sunny Sunday on this side of the earth, perfect for reflecting anew on the meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan proclaimed in all churches today.
And of course, we do it with popular music.
For our Lord My Chef Sunday music today, we have a song from the OST of the 2005 Cameron Crow movie “Elizabethtown” starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst.
Though it did not do good in the box office like the critically-acclaimed “Vanilla Sky” and “Almost Famous”, “Elizabethtown” speaks so well of Crowe’s reflections about that inner stirrings or movements within us all, of a longing for something more meaningful than just driving in the fast lane of life like “Jerry Maguirre”.
Written by Crowe with a help from his former wife who used to be a member of Heart, Nancy Wilson, our Lord My Chef Sunday Music “Same In Any Language” speaks a lot about being a neighbor to everyone, regardless of color and creed.
The song teaches us like the parable of the Good Samaritan that the question we should be asking is “am I a neighbor” to others especially to those in need than searching for “who is my neighbor”.
My neighbor is the one with whom I identify myself with, seeing with compassion and mercy when down in sufferings.
My neighbor is the one with whom I get down on the road to help and raise because I also feel his or her pains.
My neighbor is the one with whom I see Jesus Christ, the God who became human reaching out to me, asking me to care for him, to love him, teaching me the things to do so I may inherit eternal life.
Try listening to the laid back music of “Same In Any Language” that is refreshing with lyrics so simple yet very reflective. Better, try also watching “Elizabethtown”.
Have a blessed Sunday and a new week ahead of you!
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Wk. XV-C, 14 July 2019
Deuteronomy 30:10-14 >< )))*> Colossians 1:15-20 >< )))*> Luke 10:25-37
From America Magazine via Google.
After teaching us about discipleship these past two Sundays, Jesus shifts his lessons to things “we must do” following a series of questions he encountered from people when he “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem” (Lk.9:51).
There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”
Luke 10:25-30
And thus Jesus answered the scholar of the law with the beautiful parable of the Good Samaritan that can only be found in St. Luke’s gospel. It has so endeared the world that hospitals and charities including laws and awards everywhere use the “Good Samaritan” title in recognition of the parable’s conviction that we are all neighbors.
Problem is, we have become so familiar with this parable that sometimes we think it teaches us nothing new. Like the Laws or the Ten Commandments, it has degenerated into becoming letters like a code imposed from the outside we simply follow. Moses tells us in the first reading how the Laws are “something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you only have to carry it out” (Dt.30:14). Loving God and loving others is an interior and life principle innate within each of us.
This Sunday, Jesus is inviting us to set aside our thoughts about his parable of the Good Samaritan in order to see it in a deeper and personal perspective.
For most Christians especially Catholics, we always reach that stage in our lives when deep within us there is a longing for something deeper, for something more than what we have been used to. It is a very positive sign of spiritual growth. Like the scholar, we are no longer contented with the usual things we do like praying, Sunday Masses, and keeping the laws. At first we may not be able to verbalize or even identify what are the stirrings within us until we realize it is something more than this life we are having.
Like the scholar, we ask Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Lk.10:25). But, instead of probing deeper into our hearts, we tend to look outside for answers like the scholar asking, “who is my neighbor?”.
From Google.
Twenty years ago, the sci-fi series “The X-Files” was a hit worldwide with its tagline “the truth is out there” to refer to all kinds of conspiracy theories and paranormal activities by the US government. Of the same genre today is the Netflix series “Stranger Things” that also points us to something “out there” for answers to many mysteries happening to us.
The answer is never out there – it has always been inside us! Always.
From Google.
How strange that we keep on asking “who is my neighbor?”, searching for a theoretical definition of a neighbor we always think as somebody outside us. What we must be asking is, “am I a neighbor to others?”
Observe how Jesus narrated the parable where both the priest and the Levite “saw the victim and passed by the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him” (Lk.10:32-34).
That’s the strangest thing of all! Two Temple officials simply “saw” the victim and passed by while a Samaritan “saw” also but was moved with compassion. To be moved with compassion in Latin is misericordia, a “stirring or disturbing of the heart” which translates into mercy.
Here we find the Samaritan looking deep inside him that he saw in him the plight of the victim that he was moved with mercy to help him. And that is to be a neighbor, to treat somebody with mercy that transcends any color or creed or nationality. See the question of Jesus at the end of his parable, “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” The scholar answered, “The one who treated him with mercy” (Lk.10:36-37).
City of Jericho, the setting of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Photo by author, 06 May 2019.
My neighbor is the one with whom I identify with, with whom I am drawn near because of the mercy that moved me within to help in his or her sufferings. A neighbor is one who feels his or her own humanity that he or she is always moved with compassion with those who are in suffering and pain.
And the more we reflect on this parable, the more we see Jesus Christ is in fact the Good Samaritan himself. He is “the image of the invisible God, in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15,17). It was Jesus who went down the road, becoming human like us in everything except sin, picking us up from our sinfulness and miseries, healing us of our wounds, and restoring us to life “through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20).
Let us heed his command this Sunday to “Go and do likewise” (Lk.10:37) as the Good Samaritan. Be a blessed neighbor to everyone! Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for Wedding of Bryan and Catherine, 24 May 2019
St. Francis of Assisi Chapel, Fernwood Gardens, Quezon City
Ephesians 5:2a,25-32 >< }}}*> <*{{{ >< John 15:11-17
The Tamsui Lover’s Bridge, New Taipei, Taiwan. Photo by author, 29 January 2019.
Congratulations, Bryan and Catherine!
Our gospel is very clear today with Jesus telling you, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you” (Jn.15:16). In his infinite wisdom, God had planned this day to happen today, not last year or last month nor tomorrow or next month.
Today the Lord had chosen you Bryan and Catherine to tie the knot as husband and wife in this lovely chapel so you would be his witnesses of his immense love for us. You went through a lot of challenges in your love that is a certified “LDR” – you got me thinking for sometime what those letters mean.
As classmates in elementary until you were separated in high school when Catherine and her family moved to Marilao, you remained friends. When you pursued your dreams in college, the great distance between UP Los Banos and UST in Espana did not keep you away from each other as friends until you realized you love each other that you became sweethearts.
After graduation, Catherine had to move again with her family and this time, thousands of miles away from you Bryan when there were no free messaging apps yet like Messenger and Viber. Bryan had to make those expensive overseas calls while Catherine had to be patient with the unreliable, cheap call cards bought in Asian and Filipino stores in New Jersey.
Thanks very much to Mark Zuckerberg and you had more time seeing each other in social media that your love deepened through time and distance. But, Facebook did not resolve your main issue at that time.
It was Jesus who moved you both to realize that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn.15:13).
Both of you Bryan and Cath sacrificed so much to be finally together, today and forever. Married life is not a competition in love, in seeing who loves most. Husband and wife simply love, love, and love. St. Paul said it so well in our first reading, “live in love as Christ loved us” (Eph.5:2a).
To live in love like Christ is to respect one another.
In our gospel, Jesus said “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jn.15:11) which is to love like him, giving up one’s self to your friend.
Bryan and Cath, you are now the bestest of friends. In the word “friend” you find a letter “r” that if you remove it, you get the new word “fiend” or enemy, the exact opposite of friend. That letter “r” in “friend” stands for respect which means in Latin “to see or look again”.
Without respect, any love will not grow. Without respect, love withers and dies. Respect deepens our love because in seeing again, in looking back to our loved ones, we remember our vows to always love.
From Google.
Three things I wish to share with you Bryan and Catherine about respect so you may live in love as the bestest of friends.
First, always look at your very selves, see yourself as the beloved of God.
God makes no mistakes. You are God’s perfect creation as he intended when he created you, Bryan and Catherine. Be proud of who you are even you have lost your hair or have had wrinkles, or gained weight to have so much “love handles” around your waist.
Bryan… Catherine… you are not only one in a million… you are a once in a lifetime.
Catherine, stay true to who you are as a woman. St. Paul never meant in our first reading that the wife must lose her identity in a relationship. Everything and everyone changes for sure, but a healthy marriage will always grow with you and never against you.
When you are apart and not together due to work, always look at each other. Always try to see the other looking at you. That is respect because in that way, you remain faithful to each other and avoid sin.
Second, always look back to your dreams, to your plans and vision in life.
The ideal man finds himself first before he finds his ideal woman, and vice versa. What do I mean? Many people have sights but not all have visions. A visionary is someone who dreams with eyes wide opened. Vision makes us see where we are going and what it will take to get us there. Like the “Mission-Vision” thing you have Bryan in Maynilad.
The moment a man/woman starts to have a vision of himself/herself with a partner in achieving that dream in the future, then he/she has become the ideal husband/wife. When you have a purpose in life and included in that is someone special, even if you have not met him/her yet, then you are the man, you are the woman.
When trials come in your lives Bryan and Catherine, look again into your vision and dreams in life. Start to work for it again with each other, together as one. If you have to start all over again, do so. Together. Pursue your dream and make it come true!
Third, every day, Bryan and Catherine, look again to God. Always see God in your life. Remember the Holy Family how every year they would go to Jerusalem to worship God. When the child Jesus was lost and they could not find him, they went back to Jerusalem and found him in the Temple. Mary and Joseph looked to God to find Jesus and they found him!
When you always look to God Bryan and Catherine, you will also find yourselves and your dreams. In that, you live in love, respecting each other always as gifts from God.
May today be the least happiest day of you life as husband and wife, Bryan and Catherine! Amen.
Pilgrims entering through the small door of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, 02 May 2019.
Lately, Lord Jesus Christ, doors have been fascinating me: more than passages where we come and go, or enter and leave, doors are indeed like you! Last week you claimed yourself to be the gate of the sheep with you, Lord as our door, we never leave but, simply, come and come.
When you told your disciples at your Last Supper in today’s gospel that you were going away and will come back to them (Jn.14:28), you were very much like a door, Lord: for how can our hearts be not troubled or afraid when you are going away only to come to another level of relationship and existence with us?
That is the beauty of the door in you, Lord: your going away in your Ascension is your coming to us in new form of closeness, of continuing presence that leads to peace within each one of us.
How wonderful to remember Lord Jesus why the door to your birthplace in Bethlehem is so small: we have to go down, we have to bow and be humble in order to enter you:
They (Paul and Barnabas) strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”
Acts 14:22
Give us the courage and strength, patience and perseverance, Lord, along with faith, hope and love to enter through you our door so that we may always come out as better persons than yesterday. Amen.
View from the inside of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem of its small doors. Photos by author, 02 May 2019.
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