The Primacy of God and a Case for Hospitality

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 10:37-42.
Jesus said to his apostles:
"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

"Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet's reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is a righteous man
will receive a righteous man's reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because the little one is a disciple—
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward."

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Reflection

Just before we were sent out to our respective weekend apostolate assignments, our formator-in-charge warned us: "Do not think that people come close to you and praise you and compliment you because you are handsome. No, they come to you because they see the goodness in you." It was a fitting warning to a millenial generation of ministers who are fond of using social media and taking selfies. This generation after all is described as obsessively narcissistic. But I would say that people approach the ministers at the altar because they believe God is with them.

A Vietnamese priest who got recently ordained and who grew up with me in the theologate is unsettled at the lavish concern that Filipino Catholics give to priests. It is a point of teasing between us but it does show the Catholic culture we have in the Philippines. It is indeed unsettling for us who chose to serve at the altar since we very well know of our own weaknesses and how much we do not deserve the honor. Yet by faith, we accept it for by faith we believe that the devotion the People of God lavish on priests and ordained ministers are not to the persons themselves but to Christ.

It simply amazes me that the Spanish missionaries were able to inculcate in our society this instinct for Christ in the ministers. The danger these days however is to forget the faith that underlies the devotion. In fact, other sects deride Catholics for this seemingly unrealistic practice. Jesus in today's Gospel invites His believers to a culture of hospitality for those He has sent. It is not about the person sent but the message that the apostle (apostolos in Greek means "sent") bears for the Christian community. That is the reward for hospitality and devotion promised by the Lord.

The message or Good News is none other than Christ. So the reward for accepting the messenger into one's home and one's heart is certainly greater than that of the prophet or the righteous one. We ordained ministers bring Christ to the people of God. There is no proof for this other than our witnessing and preaching and only the eyes of faith can see Christ in the minister. The minister for his part has to believe this in a greater degree since the pull of doubts can sometimes douse the flame of the Gospel.

All in all, everything revolves around Christ and it is Christ who holds everything together. Thus our love for Him must transcend everything else even familial ties. For all other loves exist because of the Love of Christ. Only Christ gives meaning to everything.

The Face of the Father

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 14:1-12.
Jesus said to his disciples: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.
Where (I) am going you know the way."
Thomas said to him, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
Philip said to him, "Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us."
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.

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Reflection

Pope Francis writes in Misericordiae Vultus that Jesus is the face of the Father's Mercy. Like Philip, we are ignorant of the Father without Jesus. The Father, the first Person of the Trinity, is the Great Lover. Human as we are, we cannot feel that love if not shared by the Beloved, the Only Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus makes concrete for us the love of the Father. This is why Jesus is called the Mediator of the Father's love, He is love Incarnate, that is, love-made-flesh.

The love between the Father and the Son is bountiful and unmeasurable. Jesus was not exaggerating when he said that, "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places." The eternal plan of the Trinity was to include us into that loving embrace of the Father and the Son, in the Holy Spirit. We are to dwell in them as they are to dwell in our humanity.

This, I believe, is the continuing mission of all Christians: to perpetuate the incarnation of God's love. That we become for others the concrete manifestation of the Father's love in the same way that Jesus was the love-made-flesh for us. And this is the Spirit of the Easter season - to introduce us to a future where everyone can claim that God's love for them is real.

God's love becomes real in the love of mothers for their children - in the way they touch, the way the soothe, the way they cradle us in their arms. It becomes real in the sweat of fathers who sacrifice themselves for their families. It becomes real to people whose friends remained in the journey through thick and thin. It becomes real to the world that witnesses Christians living out their Baptism through service and joy.

No one can come to the Father except through Jesus. This highlights the role of the Sacrifice of the Eucharist for us. Since in the bread and wine we have the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, made food for our bodies and our souls. Blest and broken for us, it is the tangible and sensible sacrament of the Father's love. It is Jesus Christ himself who makes present in the Mass the unchanging promise of Easter. It is right then that we join Him in his Thanksgiving.

Are we then as Christians the face of Jesus to others?

The Case of Insecure Software

I used to avoid this discussion since the question of which operating system is most secure is a very slippery subject. Honestly, I am a Windows user since the OS is most common among alternatives, familiar and productive. I admire the complexity and raw power of Linux and all its flavors while although I am piqued by the simplicity of MacOS and iOS, both are expensive and claustrophobic for me. I have however two thoughts to put forward: one, the question of insecurity, and; two, the need to protect consumers.

The Question of Insecurity

It is quite common to hear in the tech world that Windows is an insecure OS. The question of software security, however, is a very complex one. Tech commentators now speak of ecosystems with Apple and Google and how the former has a strangle hold in theirs. Security, I believe, is a paradigm between a balance of control and freedom. Growing up with Windows, I saw how modular design has allowed great freedom in the creation and support of third party software in the Windows ecosystem at the cost of greater vulnerabilities.  Apple fanboys say that Apple OS is secure but that is because the company has tightly controlled its own OS'es that it is not too friendly to third party programmers.

When a discussion breaks between Windows and Apple fans, the topic of viruses is sure to come out. Windows, they say, has more viruses and malware compared to other OS'es. That is true but it misses the whole picture. While malware is made and is a product of several factors, the main driving force for it is it's objective of maximum effect. Malware is always directed against the  most used product. The tirade against Windows is also an acknowledgement that it is the most used operating system.

The rise of Android in the mobile space is a testament to this. Being the mobile OS with the greater market share, it has become what Windows is in the desktop sphere. I would say that if it were Apple products, then most hackers and black hats would direct their attacks against MacOS and iOS and tide would reverse on Apple fanboys.

It would be good to note too that the internet is now the universal attack vector. Any operating system connected to the internet can be hacked, so none of these could actually brag of impregnability. Software vendors have to deal with three major fronts: insecure software design, user abuse, and vulnerable inter-operability.

The question of secure software design then rests in how much effort software engineers harden their code and their ecosystems, how much leeway they provide for users and third parties, and the balance that comes between. Software security is always an arms race between software engineers and malware authors, thus, another side to security is how much updating and patching a software is given. All in all, the question of security isn't easy and simple.

The Need for Consumer Protection

Google has the Project Zero Program that seeks to find vulnerabilities that affect Google software and others. In recent months, Googlers have contributed to hardening Microsoft software, one of their rivals. This intelligence sharing benefits consumers because the more security researchers from different vendors collaborate, the more secure the software we use becomes. This leads me to my second thought: consumer protection has become a collective responsibility between software companies and states.

Besides vulnerability scanning of software from other companies, like peer review within the scientific community, the use of software standards also calls for this collaborative and collective effort at security. A few years ago, a major flaw was discovered in the TCP/IP stack and in the DNS system, a software infrastructure that holds together the internet and the web. It forced rival companies to work together in solving the problem. They saved the day and everyone was happy.

Security nowadays has to be crowdsourced. The internet and all its dimensions: technical, political, moral, etc, is still in a state of flux as humanity is still in the process of making sense out of the greatest invention it has created that transcended boundaries and categories. While we still lack a universal approach to dealing with the internet and it being a work in progress, security is everyone's job, including the user.