Needing God

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 18:9-14.

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. 
"Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. 
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, 'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity--greedy, dishonest, adulterous--or even like this tax collector. 
I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.' 
But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.' 
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted."   

Reflection

We all have an irritation towards self-righteous people, people who love to brag about themselves, people who believe they are higher than most, people who think they’re elite. Nagbubuhat ng sariling upuan. Pagarpar ug palapad. They step on our nerves because sometimes they remind us that we too have that tendency and deep down inside they remind us that we too have pride that shouldn’t be stepped on by others. In the final analysis, their behavior and our reaction is all about human pride.

Jesus, in this Sunday’s Gospel, reminds us through the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector of what really matters in the eyes of God. God is close to those who need Him, but for those who don’t they shut Him away. The tax collector went home justified because he recognized the truth that we oftentimes forget: all of us are weak and broken, sinful and erring, and we all need God. The Pharisee shut out grace because he thought he was already perfect. In his self-deception, he shut out the Truth.

It is only when we realize how poor we are as human beings that we open ourselves to the richness of God’s grace. The realization of how little we are puts everything in perspective and it opens us to the truth of our existence. We need God. When this has already sunk into our consciousness then we become humble and the humble attract God the most.

The Pharisee did nothing wrong. He followed the rules. He observed the Law to the letter. Yet he claimed all these as his achievement. He forgot that we can only be good because God is good. In the end, all his good deeds were empty. They were all fueled by his own self-righteousness and pride. They were all fueled by his emptiness.

In our society today where everything is changing fast, where everyone wants development and a better life, where everyone wants to be financially secure and live happily, let us not forget that all these things could only have value for us if we put God in the midst of these. If we want to have a good society, a God-fearing country, then we ourselves must be good. But in order to be good we must allow ourselves to be “worked upon” by God by allowing Him to fill us with His goodness. In order to be filled, we need to empty ourselves first and only then can God fill us.

Spamming Heaven

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 18:1-8.

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, 
"There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. 
And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, 'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.' 
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, 'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, 
because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.'"
The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. 
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? 
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"   

Reflection

Anyone who lives in the city, has a mobile phone in their pocket, or maintains a Facebook account could not live without the internet these days. Despite the sad state of connectivity in the Philippines, the internet and the world wide web has become part of our daily lives. The internet is an interconnection of all networks in the whole world. Our own social nature vibrates with it no wonder we love to be connected, and complain to the whole universe when the web drops to a crawl.

The need for persistence in prayer, as Jesus taught in the Gospel today, is very much like the internet we so love. Prayer is not just an action. It is not just a recitation of formulas that we have memorized since we were children. True prayer is entering into the presence of God, to be present to the God who is present everywhere. There is a need for silence because in silence we begin to resonate and hear the voice of God. All the actions, the recitations, the rituals, the objects of prayer are but helps that assist us into that state of being united with God.

You see, prayer is not about petition. Prayer is about being connected with God. Think of yourself as a mobile phone trying to reach out the cell phone towers in order to attune to that much longed for LTE connection. This connection is not just an uplink of our intentions and petitions, but it is also a downlink, a download, of God's being. Every time we pray, we enter into God, we absorb God who is love, and we become more like God. That is why all pray-ers slowly but surely begin to become like God.

The more we talk to a person, spend time with a person, and waste time with a person we begin to know more about a person and love that person. Prayer is like that. It is getting familiar with God. Familiar means we become a family to Him. God is our Father, our Abba and we are His beloved children. The more we pray, the more persistent and constant our connection with Him, we begin to understand Him, His mind, His plans, and His intentions for us. When we take upon ourselves the way God perceives reality, we will begin to feel at peace and everything falls into place.

This is the reason why Jesus insists that we pray insistently. Jesus insists that we keep that connection live because the more we are connected to God in prayer, the more we become like God and God begins to live in us. And when we have God within us, we have nothing to lose and nothing to fear for we know He knows our needs and our needs will be met more than what we prayed for at the proper time.

So the next time you pray, consider yourself as someone downloading the mind, spirit, and being of God. The internet that we have now is nothing to the network of connections of creatures and things that the universe is. And this network that we call the universe is pulsating with one lively message for you and me: God is love.

Eucharistic Existence

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 17:11-19.

As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him 
and raised their voice, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" 
And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; 
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 
Jesus said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? 
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?" 
Then he said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you."  

Reflection

An article from The Standard was published recently asking the all too-familiar question, "Are millennials so full of themselves?" It is a public secret that we live in a narcissistic time captured in the selfie phenomenon. Call it the tide of post modernity but the truth is, this is the very atmosphere we all breathe in day in and day out whether you like it or not. We all speak in reference to ourselves. Give everyone some inconvenience and you will hear complaints about rights and privilege.

An excess of self-love blinds us to the grace that has always permeated our lives. Despite the high standard of living in developed countries the incidence of depression is very high. We are too concerned with a little drizzle we totally forget about the sun. Today, we are in need of a sense of gratefulness.

Someone approached me and complained about his problems in life. There's just too much to take in, he claimed. For him, it felt like the world was on his shoulders so much so that his weariness turned to despair and he began to question even the existence of God. I listened to him. All the while at the back of my mind I saw myself in him. I too complain about everything big and small. There are simply so many things to complain about in life. But I remembered one advice I got from my spiritual director which I also shared with the guy. "Every night, before you go to sleep, think of three things that happened to you during the day that you can be grateful of," I told him. It is the same exercise I do to combat incessant complaints.

The Gospel reading is striking for it highlights a very small proportion. In ten, only one came back to give thanks for the cure. To situate ourselves, leprosy during the time of Jesus is an incurable disease that brings with it social stigma. To be a leper means to be exiled from the community and to die a slow and shameful death. It is striking then that after being healed only one in ten came back to give thanks.

To mention that the person was a Samaritan is all the more striking. The people of Israel had a habit of singing in jubilation after being saved. They sang praises after Israel crossed the Red sea in their escape from the Egyptians. They sang when David returned to Jerusalem after his defeat of the Philistines. They sang whenever they could say that "the LORD has visited his people" (cf. Luke 7:16).  But this time, among the ten, only the foreigner, the non-Jew, came back to give thanks.

The episode is a reflection of how much we can miss out on the graces that we receive everyday. Perhaps of the ten good things that happened to us, we only notice one (that is if we notice at all), all the while complaining about the rest of day. We are too engrossed in the small inconveniences of life or too preoccupied about our "big" problems that we oftentimes forget how big our God is. We sometimes fail to see the graces that God has sprinkled throughout our day that has the potential to be life-changing for us.

Take for example the Eucharist that we celebrate and receive every Mass. We believe that in that piece of bread is the real body of Christ that we receive with our hands and tongue. It is Jesus, the Word-made-flesh, that we are holding in our hands and chewing in our mouths. We have in our hands the God who made the whole universe. But these detail leaves us. It has happened before as it is happening now; it is something so common that we do not really appreciate the value of the real treasure that we receive at communion. Yet saints have been made because of the Eucharist.

"Eucharist" is Greek for Thanksgiving. The Holy Mass is a thanksgiving of the Church to the Father for all the graces and love that she received. As Christians, we are a grateful people. We are grateful for Jesus. We are grateful for the Spirit. Gratefulness is a clear sign of faith. That is why Jesus praised the Samaritan for his act of gratitude. He was able to realize the cure has happened and felt grateful about it. Gratefulness consists in humility that stems from receiving an undeserved gift of grace. That is why he fell at Jesus feet. He recognized the immensity of God in Jesus. If we allow grace to work in us, it transforms us to become grateful and humble people. It is then that we are saved.

The challenge for Catholics today is to live that Eucharistic existence. That is, to see the imprints of God throughout the day, to be sensitive to His grace. Mystics call it contemplation. Yes, we need to contemplate now more than ever the presence of God in our lives and allow His grace to transform us. That like the Israelites of old and like the Blessed Mother, we can also sing in humble recognition of our littleness before the immensity of God. We become a thankful people. We become a Eucharistic people.

Peace in a Restless World

I grew up in a relatively peaceful world. I was born a month after the Martial Law regime collapsed. The second world war was four decades behind me. So I never really knew what real conflict is. I have not seen the horrors of war that our grandparents have seen. You might call me lucky or blessed but the problem with a generation that lived in peace is that it is difficult for them to appreciate the gift of peace that they have received. Eastern thought would teach that to know hot you must experience the cold, to know joy you must experience sadness.

People like me who did not know armed conflict cannot easily relate the experience of those who are in Syria, in Africa, or in the Middle East where powers are having their tug of war at the expense of the innocent and the defenseless. Now more than ever this world is in need of peace. Yet peace is such an ambiguous term so much so that some would say it is impossible to attain. For as long as man has the tendency for aggression there would always be conflict and war.

Yet as Christians we believe in peace. All throughout its pages the Sacred Scriptures speak of shalom. As Christians we have been offered that shalom. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you," (John 14:27) is something very familiar to us as we hear it Sunday after Sunday. We have been offered the shalom of Christ. How are we to understand and experience real shalom?

The original peace (shalom) that existed in creation before the fall of man is a state of harmony of relationship between man and God, between man and himself, and between man and the created order. When sin entered the world, that peace was broken and Eden was taken away from man. But within humanity is that deep desire to return to that original peace and harmony. Within each of us is a longing of true and lasting peace.

One can see this in the way Filipinos describe the departed. "Nagpapahinga na siya." (He is already resting.) "Nakapahulay na gyud intawn siya." (Finally he finds rest.) These are statements we give to console ourselves of people who pass away. It is a universal longing that holds true in all societies all around the world. I remember an anecdote that described how during World War II, the French and German forces sang Christmas carols on a Christmas eve in the battlefield. The mystery of life is that there are moments even in suffering and war where peace can exist!

Photo credit:
Eternal Struggle by Skull of DeviantArt.com 

Jesus is our peace. His peace goes beyond human conflict for within Him is the original harmony that this universe desires. It is the same peace given to us every Eucharist and the same peace offered to us today. Where Jesus is, there is true peace because in Him everything finds their place, everything finds their meaning. In Jesus, man finds his true place before God. Humanity is the beloved of God and God is humanity's lover. There is no greater proof of this love than the Word-made-flesh. In Jesus, man finds peace in himself, for he sees himself as he is, warts and all. He realizes that beyond the imperfections and weaknesses and the sins is a person that is worthy to be loved. In Jesus, man finds peace with his neighbor and creation for in another man he sees the face of Jesus and in creation he finds God's love letter to him. Jesus is the true and everlasting peace.

Peace is not the absence of conflict. Politicians and philosophers cannot hope to find peace if their flavor of peace is Utopian. True peace, especially in Asian thought, is the capacity to exist between two opposing forces, the capacity for co-existence and dialogue, the capacity to bear with another. Jesus' peace goes beyond that. It is a peace that first purifies and causes division, calling one to a radical choice of loving and forgiving but at the same is inclusive and tolerant. It is a peace rooted in the love of God, impossible for man but possible through Christ.

To help us remember the original peace that was we remind ourselves of the Spirit of God that hovered over the primeval waters of chaos. While outside God was chaotic, was nothingness, within Him is the Spirit of peace. In our country beset by political and social concerns that have dragged on for decades leaving in its path innocent victims, we Catholics are called to hover over this chaos in the Spirit to influence it and shape it so as to form from our country the new Eden.

Increase our Faith

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 17:5-10.

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." 
The Lord replied, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to (this) mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. 
Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here immediately and take your place at table'?
Would he not rather say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished'? 
Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? 
So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.'" 

Reflection

Having administered several computer networks in the course of my life, there is always that one irritating complaint that I have to address every time for as long as I am in the Philippines. People often would complain of slow internet connection. The disciples request to Jesus is very much like the wish of internet subscribers in the Philippines. Increase our bandwidth. Increase our faith.

Very much so since, being connected to the internet and enjoying the benefits of the World Wide Web, social media, streaming, and downloading files is analogous to our connection with God. We just need to have faith. It is through faith that we are connected to God. It is not a faith that we worked for ourselves. No, home subscribers don't put up their wires to link with internet service providers (ISP's) like Globe and PLDT. The ISP's provide the connection in the same way that God provided us the connection. He gave us faith. He revealed Himself to us and allowed us to commune with Him. Without the initiative on the side of God we would never have known God. Thus, faith is a gift.

The Church would teach that faith is one of the three theological virtues alongside hope and love. These three are given to us by God, infused in us, at our Baptism. Baptism is that sacrament that opens us to a personal relationship with God. It is right then for the apostles to ask for an upgrade in their link to God. Increase our faith. They knew how important faith is in our relationship with God.

What then is faith? The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews would say "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, NRSV). It is putting our trust and confidence in a truth. Faith is when we believe and hold on to the words of other people even without proof and concrete evidence. We believe that there's a country named United States and its American people even if we haven't been physically there. Yet in the context of Christianity it is not just any word. It is the Word. Faith is our trust, confidence, and belief in Jesus Christ, the Word-made-flesh. It is something so radical and challenging but at the same time powerful that allows us to make a gamble even with our lives.

This is where faith is a response. It is our response to the invitation of Jesus to a personal relationship with Him. Having presented Himself to us, He challenges us to put faith in Him. Yet this faith is not just an interior act of believing. It is something that naturally expresses itself from the heart to visible signs. Faith is seen in the way we live our lives, in our works of charity, in the way we treat others, in the way we pray, in the way we celebrate the sacraments and practice our devotions, and in the way we spend quality time to celebrate the Holy Eucharist on Sundays.

Like our experience of slow internet connection in the Philippines, like the way YouTube takes forever to buffer and play, like the way Facebook is all messed up in the browser, we know that our faith is sometimes lacking. We doubt. We question God. We question ourselves. It is right then to join the apostles to ask the Lord to increase our faith. To recognize that it is only in Him that we can find the Truth and assurance of everlasting joy. There is nothing to boast of when we practice our faith. As unprofitable servants, we only believe inasmuch faith grace has planted in us and have been allowed to grow by us.

Trusting in the Lord's assurance, we know that no matter how small our faith is, no matter how slow our connection to God is, God will make most of our faith. Jesus, the Master and the source of our faith, will work through us and in us.