Rituals, Openness and the Messiah

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 7:31-37.

Again Jesus left the district of Tyre
and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,
into the district of the Decapolis. 
And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment
and begged him to lay his hand on him.
He took him off by himself away from the crowd. 
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!”— that is, “Be opened!” —
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly. 
He ordered them not to tell anyone. 
But the more he ordered them not to,
the more they proclaimed it. 
They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well. 
He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

---

Reflection

There are Catholics who dismiss rituals in the Church. Those allergic to rituals in our liturgy should take note that Jesus was ritualistic too. When he healed the deaf man in today's Gospel reading, He accompanied the healing with actions. The act of healing was played out in discrete actions of touching and a verbal command to "be opened!" These rituals are prophetic signs - they point to a greater reality that is happening.

Prophecy in the Bible is not just about predicting the future but pointing to a reality that is beyond the physical signs we encounter. At its heart is handing down to people the Word of God, His will and message. Jesus today is depicted as the Prophet, who acts prophetically but unlike the prophets of old, acts in His own Divine capacity as the Son and Messiah. St. Mark presents Jesus as renewing Creation when he alludes creation story's "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good,"  (Genesis 1:31) with "he has done all things well," but also using Isaiah's Messianic prophecy (Isaiah 35:5) to say that the Messianic time has arrived.

The Messiah comes with great power and prophecy. He performs acts of healing: the deaf will hear and the mute will speak - a sign that He will overturn all evil in the world. Jesus calls us today to be open to Him, to unblock the ears of one's heart that we may hear, and to unfurl one's tongue that we too may prophecy in His name. For us who have been touched by God's grace, the joy of encountering Christ compels us to spread the joy of the Gospel.

Sanctified Humanity

As Christians, we believe that God became man in Jesus Christ who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. While such an article of faith is already pinned at the back of our heads, I cannot help but wonder at the great and merciful action of God in stooping down to the level of man. What is so special about us humans with all our warts and scars? Or is it that we haven’t truly seen our full worth that’s why we act like we’re all warts and scars?

The birth of the Virgin Mary is celebrated in the Church because it highlights the Incarnation. Jesus Christ was born from a human mother, who herself was born, traditionally known, to Joachim and Anne. Her birth acts as the “dawn” signaling the rising of the sun, the birth of the Savior. All these happenings were carefully orchestrated by the Father, arranged in such a way as to fully reveal to us Himself in the baby Jesus. The Supreme Artist and Tactician, carefully spread out His plans, chose Mary, played along with human contingencies, and humbled Himself by becoming man. At the heart of this great and woven tapestry is our humanity.

Humanity has been accused of self-indulgence and narcissism. Once again, even in the story of the Incarnation, man is at the center? Or is he? From the beginning of the biblical story, God has been depicted as the Creator who made a creature in His image and likeness. This creature sabotaged himself and the whole Bible speaks of how the Creator has painstakingly saving the creation that bore His image and likeness. We have here a merciful God who goes to any lengths to reclaim what is rightfully His.

God acts in such a way that in saving man, He involves humanity itself. It is not an action that comes from outside, a deus ex machina, that suddenly saves the day. God acts through and within man. So He chose a baby girl and prepared for her the vocation of being the Mother of God, preparing her by bestowing upon her the foretaste of the salvation won at the Cross, when she was born Immaculate. He chose to be born in a kingly but sinful family, allowed human conditions to play its part in the birth of the savior: that Mary is placed in a dilemma in her motherhood facing the prospect of death, that Jesus is born into a human family in a human society. The Savior is to be born into a human culture, immersed in human exigencies. Jesus was Jewish, a man of color, poor, shaped and conditioned by our humanity.

It stands to speak of how humanity was saved not by the flick of the fingers, nay, not even by pronouncement as in the creation story, “Let there be salvation for man,” but through a God who enters into the story of our humanity. Indeed, God is Immanuel, God-with-us. He has dwelt inside our very skin and embraced the experience of being human, only to tell us that salvation is not about escaping our humanity but embracing it. In becoming more human we become divine, as Divinity Himself sanctified our humanity. We are not passive recipients of God’s saving action, we have become partners with God, who works with us and through us.

When other Christians reject Mary for fear of idolatry, one should rather see that God has made use one of the most sacred part of being human: motherhood. We all have a special and sacred bond with our mothers. God knew that, and used it to bestow humanity to Jesus, but also raised it when Jesus said, “behold your mother!” The mother-child relationship between Mary and Jesus was not exclusive to them but extended to the bigger, and mystical, body of Jesus which is the Church. The Church has faithfully celebrated the sublime marriage between divine and human, because, after all, this marriage is will of the God who stooped to our level.

Humanity is sanctified because God took it upon Himself. All things human has been blessed because Jesus lived and shared our human experiences. Our human relationships - fatherhood, motherhood, childhood, has taken on divine dimensions. Jesus the new Adam, was the immaculate Son. Mary the new Eve, was the immaculate mother. In the same way that they were born as redeemed and renewed creation, so are we, as a Church, saved, by being redeemed and renewed every day as sanctified humanity.

Should the Moon Shine More Brightly Than the Sun

Religious people - priests, nuns, and brothers, are for the  most part people of privilege in Filipino culture. Not because of their own achievements but because of the identity they have taken for themselves. Religious are honored because they chose a life of service to the Church, a life that strives to be closer to Christ - two difficult endeavors in our society today. Besides that, their consecration to Christ marks them as a group Jesus Christ has taken for Himself. It is that acceptance of their self-donation by Christ through the public admission of the Church that religious are seen as "people close to God".

It is both a privilege and a responsibility. It is not a right. It is a privilege because the vocation to serve is a gift. It is a responsibility because the religious share in the mission of Christ and the Church more closely. It is not a right, because what man has the right to claim God's glory for himself? Religious people are like the moon that help govern the tides and seasons of earth but they are not the source of light and warmth. They accompany the earth in its dancing journey around Jesus, the sun and Son.

The big danger so far, as what Pope Francis has also pointed out in the past, is clericalism, or that sense of entitlement within the Church. Too many religious people fall into the trap. Pampered by people, admired by parishioners, listened to in talks and homilies, religious begin to think that they are the source of light. How many of us priests and religious feel proud when garnering more likes and shares in social media than the average person? How many of us priests and religious expect to be served and given special attention at social functions?

The privilege of attention, of focus, of a captured audience, was given to us because we are supposed to be heralds of the Gospel. The Gospel, Jesus Christ, takes the center stage of all our ministry. Our success in the ministry, the plans that we perfectly executed, the achievements we have garnered, our political beliefs and ideas should not eclipse our main mission of proclaiming Christ. For when the moon has eclipsed the sun, then we have defeated our self-donation to Christ and the Church.

For the ordinary Christian, stop praising priests because they are priests. They did nothing to deserve their priesthood and call it their own - it was Christ who chose them and not the other way around. The same goes for religious sisters and brothers. But rather, pray for them, assist them, encourage them, and help them become faithful in their ministry. In our society permeated by social media, the temptation to shine more brightly than the sun is stronger, our weak self-image and the need for affirmation trap us in an illusion of self-grandeur. Should the moon shine more brightly than the sun, remind it of its own proper place.