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.