July 24, 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 24, 2016

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138; Col 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13

I remember this story about a man who dreamt that he died in a tragic car accident. When he woke up the next morning, he immediately went to the bank and withdrew all his money. Why? Because the slogan of the bank says: “We make your dreams come true!”

Our readings for today tell us that prayers can make our dreams come true. Jesus says in the gospel: “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.” To whom are we talking to when we pray? What kind of attitude must one have in praying?

Let us reflect on this in three points:

WHEN WE PRAY, WE TALK TO A GENEROUS GOD. This is what we see in Abraham’s prayer in the first reading. He was negotiating with God to give up His plan to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. One may say that Abraham had a vested interest in protecting Sodom because his nephew, Lot who was a good man, was living there. This was the basis of his negotiation – to spare the destruction of the city because there are innocent and good people residing there. What was the response of God to the persistent request of Abraham? God said: no matter how few these innocent and good people are, I will spare the city from destruction.  This tells us that we have a generous God. 

My dear friends let us remember that when we pray, we talk to a generous God.  Paul in second reading also reminds us that this generosity of God should inspire us to trust in Him every time we pray. So when we pray, let us remember that we are not talking to a mean God. We are rather talking to a generous and kind God who listens to us. We must not be afraid to come to him and present our concerns in prayer. But does this generosity mean that God answers our prayers?

THE ANSWER OF GOD TO OUR PRAYERS WILL ALWAYS BE FOR OUR OWN GOOD.  There was this story of a mother and her child were strolling along the mall one Sunday afternoon. Passing by a makeup store, the child requested the mother, “Mom, can you buy me some lipstick? Some of my friends are already wearing lipstick.” The mother said quickly, “No.” After a few meters, they passed by a shoe store. “Can you buy me those high heel shoes, some of my friends use it during certain occasions.” The mother said again, “No, I will not.” Then they passed by a dress store. The child told the mother, “Mom I want to try one of those dresses, can I?” The mother finally said, “Junior, will you stop it or else your father will get mad at you!”

The point of this story is that sometimes in prayer, we are like the child who asks God for things that are not for our own good. God is like a parent who knows what is good for us. When we ask for things that may not be good for us, out of God’s love, God will not give it for us because it is not for our own good. But even then, God will always give us something better than what we have asked for. What does this tell us about prayer?

PRAYER IS BENDING OUR HEARTS TO THE WILL OF GOD. It is a wrong notion to think that prayer seeks to change the mind of God. Prayer is about inclining our hearts and minds to the will of God. This is actually the content of the Lord’s prayer in the gospel today. Notice that the first part of the Lord’s prayer says: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  No amount prayer can change the mind of God. The essence of prayer is not about conforming the mind of God to ours whether He likes it or not. No. Prayer is more of the changing of our hearts and minds to the will of God. We may never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can be sure and certain that God’s will is that which is best for us.

In this mass, the highest form of prayer, let us remember that we are bringing our concerns and needs to a generous God. His answer to our prayers will always be for our own good. Let us pray that we may bend our hearts and minds to the will of God.  Amen.

July 17, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 17, 2016

16th Sunday in Ordinary time

Genesis 18:1-10a; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

Four years ago, Forbes magazine made a study about the most hospitable country in the world.  The results of the survey showed that Philippines is the friendliest and the most hospitable nation in Asia. Why do you think Filipinos are considered as good hosts? Is it because of the food? Other countries have better food than us. Is it because of the lodging? Other countries have better accommodations. I think what makes us good hosts is the way we make our guests feel special and important.

Our readings for this Sunday are actually about hospitality. We are talking here not just about welcoming guests but more of welcoming Jesus in our lives. We actually have two models of hospitality to Jesus in today’s gospel: the way of Martha and the way of Mary. Which of the two is a better host? What can we learn from the the hospitality of Martha and Mary?

Let us reflect on this in three points:

MARTHA WELCOMED JESUS INTO THE HOUSE. We see in Martha the usual way of welcoming a guest. Martha welcomed Jesus by inviting Him to the house. Martha wanted to give the best for Jesus. Martha wanted Jesus to feel at home and comfortable in their house. This explains why Martha is busy doing all the physical preparations - cleaning the house, getting water from the well, cooking the food and so on. 

I remember whenever we would have visitors in the house, everything will be special. It was like an instant fiesta in the house: from the food, to the utensils to the decorations and so on. This is similar to what Abraham and Sarah did in the first reading. They welcomed the visitors and provided what they need: they offered water to wash their dusty feet and prepared food. Here we see the hospitality and generosity of the hosts to their guests. This is how we can also describe Filipino hospitality – we think of what’s the best for our guest.

What about Mary? How did she welcome Jesus?

MARY WELCOMED JESUS INTO HER HEART. Perhaps Mary, the sister of Martha, realized that Jesus visited them not primarily because of the food or the accommodation. Jesus perhaps visited them because he wanted to share something to them. Because of this sensitivity of Mary, she offered Jesus her time, her listening ear and her full attention. This is how Mary showed her hospitality to Jesus.

Isn’t it that when we have guests in our house, we often decide how are we going to welcome them? We decide what food to cook, we give schedules for the tour of our guest and many more. But do we bother to ask the guest, do we bother to listen to the guest, how he/she must be welcomed? Listening is important. If we prepare food for the guest without asking if he or she has any allergies, we might end up preparing food that is not good for the health and well-being of the guest. Whenever we priests are invited to a celebration, we are often given a special seat so that we will not anymore queue in the buffet table. But what happens is that when the host gets food for us, the host will get the food he/she wants. The volume of the food is measured according to the capacity of the host and not of the guest. That is why as much as possible, I insist to fall in line and get food for myself.

My dear friends, listening is an important part of hospitality. This is what Mary did. She sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to Him. Who is the better host between the two?

A GOOD HOST FIRST LISTENS TO JESUS AND ACTS ON HIS WORD. We are not saying that Martha’s hospitality is not a valid way of welcoming Jesus.  It is. But let us not forget that we must complement this by listening to Him and welcoming His Word. This is actually the reminder of Paul in the second reading. He is urging the Colossians to welcome Jesus, welcome every word that comes from him. In a certain sense this not easy. Because this implies that we must welcome even those which we find it difficult to accept.

Mary did not tell Jesus, “Tell me only the things I want to hear.” This is not hospitality. When Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, she listened to everything that Jesus told her.  Perhaps it included even those which are not easy to accept and believe. The same is true with our life. Welcoming the Lord in our life means welcoming every word that comes from Him – even those which might challenge or disturb us. If Jesus says, “love your enemies” will you welcome that? If Jesus says, “Sell your possessions and give it to the poor” will you welcome that? If we are to be hospitable to Jesus, we must welcome every word that comes from him.

What kind of hosts are we to God? Let us pray that we may welcome Jesus not only in our homes but also in our hearts. Let us welcome the Lord as He wants it. Yes, it is a good thing to serve the Lord like Martha did. But let us complement it by listening to the Lord, like Mary did, so that our acts of service may flow from welcoming Jesus into our lives.  Amen.

July 10, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 10, 2016

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Psalm 69; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

I remember this conversation between a young boy and his mom. The boy who was doing his assignment in religion class asked his mom: “Mama, what are the 10 commandments?” The mother replied, “They are the instructions or commands of God to us.” Her son said, “So you are higher than God then.” The mother said “Why?”  The son replied, “Because you have more commandments than God.”

Sometimes when we are confronted with many commands, there is a tendency to lose sight of the very heart, very center, the most important of God’s commandments. This was the dilemma of the lawyer in the gospel today. As a devout Jew, he is aware of the 613 prescriptions of religious laws. Can you imagine that? If some of us find it difficult to memorize the Ten Commandments, what more the 613 laws? And so he asks, what is the most important of them all? What law must one obey to inherit eternal life?

Let us reflect on the response of Jesus to this question in three points:

LOVE GOD. This was the first part of the response of Jesus to the question of the lawyer. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind.” This commandment is not something new for us and for the Israelites. How do we express our love for God? Remember the first phrase in the Silver Jubilee theme of our parish. If you look at one of the banners in the walls of our church, it says there: Deeper in prayer. We express our love for God by allotting time for prayer everyday and going to mass every Sunday. Some even go beyond that. Some go to mass everyday.  Some spend extra time of prayer in the adoration chapel. Some are involved in the different church activities. The point is when we allot time to be with God, we grow deeper in prayer, deeper in our love for Him. This is just the first part of the response of Jesus. He did not simply say, “Love God. Period.” What else did Jesus say to the lawyer?

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR. This was the second part of the response of Jesus to the question of the lawyer. But the lawyer was not contented with the answer of Jesus.  He asked again, “Can you clarify who is my neighbor?” If we will look at the mindset of the Jews during their time, the term neighbor does not simply refer to anyone.  Neighbor refers only to relatives and to their fellow Israelite. It therefore implies that for them, those outside the family and those who do not belong to their nation are not classified as their neighbors. Because of this they are already dispensed from loving them because they are not technically their neighbor. But Paul in our second reading reminds us that because of Jesus, we can consider everyone as our neighbor. Here we see that the question of the lawyer somehow indicates that he would like to put limits to his love. It is like telling Jesus: “Tell me who my neighbors are. Name and identify them so that it is clear to me who to love.” What was the response of Jesus?

BE GREATER IN LOVE AND BOLDER IN MISSION. These two phrases are still part of the Silver Jubilee theme you see in the banners hanging on the walls of our church. The response of Jesus to the question “who is my neighbor?” is actually an invitation to be greater in love and bolder in mission. Jesus responded by telling a story about a man who is left dead by thieves. Jesus did not give any qualification to this man. We do not know if this man was a Jew or Samaritan. What we only know is that he is a human being who became victim to robbers. What happened? Priest first passed but departed because he had to preserve ritual purity. Same is true with Levite. But here comes the Samaritan who makes a surprising move. Jews consider Samaritans as their enemies and vice versa. But even if this Samaritan does not know who this man is, he stopped and took care of the man.

My brothers and sisters, it is not automatic that those who love God also love their neighbor.  How ironic it is for a priest and a Levite to ignore this man dying on the road. The priest and Levite are lovers of God. They are church people but they fail to see a neighbor in this helpless man. Our first reading reminds us, that this law of love is not something far from us – especially for Church people (for mass goers like us). This law of love is written in our hearts. This is what we see in the heart of the Good Samaritan. He sees in this unknown man, not a stranger, not even an enemy but a neighbor - someone who must be an object of love. Who is my neighbor? The answer is everyone. Even strangers and enemies are considered our neighbors. This is precisely being greater in love: loving not only our relatives, not only our friends and barkadas, not only the rich and influential ones, not only our kababayans but even strangers, enemies and the poor.  We have to concretely express this love by being bolder in mission to help our neighbor who is in need. That is why Jesus said to the lawyer, “Go and do the same. If you want to inherit eternal life, it is not enough to love God. Go and imitate the good Samaritan who looked after the needy person.”

My brothers and sisters, we will conclude our Silver Jubilee celebration this coming fiesta mass on July 24. But the spirit of the Silver Jubilee: deeper in prayer, greater in love and bolder in mission for Christ will continue forever. Let us pray for our parish community to sustain the fire of Silver Jubilee spirit. If we want to inherit eternal life, if we want to go to heaven, remember the Jubilee spirit: deeper in prayer, greater in love and bolder in mission for Christ.  Amen.

July 03, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 3, 2016

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 66:10-14c; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

I remember this story about a parish priest who announced to his parishioners on a Sunday mass: “My dear parishioners I have in my hands three homilies – a P500 homily that lasts 5 minutes, a P100 homily that lasts 15 minutes, and a P20 homily that lasts for 30 minutes. Now, we will take first the collection and see which one I’ll deliver.” When the offering was counted, practically all chose the 5-minute homily and the church got a bigger collection.  

The moral of the story is that priests must keep our homilies short.  I remember our homiletics professor told us to remember the principle of the mini skirt when preparing homilies: It must be long enough to cover the essentials and it must be short enough to keep it interesting.

Jesus in today’s gospel somehow tells the same thing when He sent the seventy-two disciples on a mission to preach about the kingdom of God. Who were the seventy-two disciples? What was the instruction of Jesus regarding the content of their preaching? What should his disciples do in their mission areas?

Let us reflect on this in three points which start in letter “A”:

AMATEUR. THE SEVENTY-TWO DISCIPLES WERE AMATEUR DISCIPLES. Jesus did not actually send bright and experienced messengers to do the mission. He sent followers who were simply willing to spread the Good News. This was the only qualification. In other words, they were amateur disciples. But even then, what is remarkable in amateurs is that they driven only by one thing – love. The word amateur comes from the Latin word “amator” which means lover. An amateur singer may not have had any formal voice lessons, but since this amateur singer is in love with the singing, he will never tire of videoke singing. What drives this singer to sing is love.

Jesus is right in sending amateur disciples on a mission. For when there is love, they will bear and face any trial and difficulty. When there is love, they are open to God’s providence and guidance. Perhaps this is what we need now – we do not lack excellent and gifted people. We lack people who truly love. We need amateur disciples – people who are driven by love to spread the kingdom of God. What was the instruction of Jesus to the amateur disciples He sent on a mission?

ACTION. JESUS EMPHASIZED THE ACTION AND BEHAVIOR OF HIS DISCIPLES RATHER THAN THE CONTENT OF THEIR PREACHING. This reminds me of the famous saying, “Action speaks louder than words.” Notice that in the gospel, Jesus did not give a detailed content of the preaching or sermon of his disciples. He just said, “tell the people that the Kingdom of God is near.” Jesus rather gave a detailed instruction on what they should do in their mission. He told them: “be like lambs among wolves, travel light, eat what is set before you, cure the sick and cast out demons.” Why emphasize on doing these actions? Because these actions will speak louder than words. They are the most effective way to demonstrate that the Kingdom of God is near. I am sure nobody likes long sermons and long lectures. That is why our preaching must be short. People are rather interested to see if we really practice what we preach. This applies to all of us. I remember one mother told me, that in order for her to be credible and effective in reminding her children, she must first practice what she says. Otherwise her children will not believe in her. Even children know the meaning of “action speaks louder than words.” The same is true with being a disciple: we would become credible witnesses in our mission not by coming up with long sermons but by practicing what we believe.

ACTIVE MISSION. WE ARE ALL SENT BY JESUS TO THE SAME MISSION. When we talk of mission, the first people we imagine are the clergy and the religious. But in today’s gospel, Jesus sends seventy-two disciples. The mission is not reserved to the twelve apostles. The mission is not reserved to bishops, priests and religious. The seventy-two disciples mean that mission is for all. You are the modern day seventy-two disciples. We need not go to a distant place to be a missionary. We can actually show to people through our actions that the kingdom of God is near right where we are – in our own families and communities. For if people see that we are practicing what Jesus taught us, if people see that we are honest, faithful, patient, forgiving and so on, then perhaps they will begin to believe that the kingdom of God is near because God is already ruling in our lives.

In this mass let us remember that we are all sent by Jesus to be active missionaries to proclaim to people the Kingdom of God not so much through long sermons but through our sincere actions of witnessing in what we believe in. Let us pray that we may become amateurs for the kingdom – people filled with selfless love for God and our neighbor.  Amen.

June 26, 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

June 26, 2016

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21; Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62

One author said that one way of capturing monkeys is to make a trap by cutting a small hole in a box and put some food inside it. The hole must be large enough for the monkey to put in its hand and it should be too small for the monkey to withdraw its hand once it grabbed the food inside.  So the monkey has two choices: It can let go of the food and run away, or it can hold on to the food and get caught. This strategy is successful because most of the time, monkeys never give up in holding on to the food inside the box.

My brothers and sisters perhaps the monkey is a good image of us (of course not physically, but spiritually). When we cannot let go of things that hinder us from following the Lord, we get trapped. This is the theme of our readings for today. In order to follow Christ, we must be free from things and attachments that can hinder us from being disciples of Christ. What kind of freedom are we talking about here? What kind of freedom must a disciple have to follow Christ more closely?

Let us reflect on this in three points.

FREEDOM FROM SLAVERY TO SIN. Paul in the second reading tells us that Jesus has already set us free. But this should never lead us to think that since we are already free, we can do whatever we want. This is not true freedom. True freedom is freedom from dictates of sin and selfishness. Yes, Jesus has set us free from slavery to sin. But if we continue to give in to the demands of the flesh, to the demands of sin, we are back to slavery. Paul reminds us to be vigilant because the desires of flesh, desires that may lead us back to the slavery of sin is very much alive in us. Let us not take for granted the freedom that Jesus has given us. We are already free from the effects of sin. Let us not allow ourselves to be enslaved again by the dictates of the flesh, by sin and selfishness.

FREEDOM FROM WORLDLY ATTACHMENTS. In the first reading, when Elisha was called by the Lord to succeed Elijah, Elisha went home to say goodbye to his family. This is a natural thing to do. When you are called to a mission that will bring you to distant places, you say good bye to your family. But Elisha went home not just to have a farewell dinner. He killed the animal he was using for work and he used his wooden equipment as fuel – he burned it to boil and cook the animal. This is symbolic of Elisha’s detachment from his former way of life. He disposed everything he used in work so that he may be free from his former way of life, free from any worldly attachments – any property, riches or anything that can take away his focus and attention to fulfil the mission God gave him. Elisha here is giving us a lesson – when you receive a calling from God, you must be ready to be totally available to respond. And nothing – even your most significant relationships, even your possessions should hinder you to fulfil your mission. Where will this lead us?

FREEDOM TO FOLLOW CHRIST. In the gospel, Jesus met potential disciples who wanted to be His disciple. But Jesus wants to make it clear to them that following him will not give them comfortable life. Following Jesus will bring us many discomforts in life. That is why he said, “foxes have lairs, birds have nest but I am homeless.” Not only that. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem not to have a grand vacation but to face His death. It is clear that following Jesus is not having an easy life. He was telling the potential disciples, are you really free to face those things? Are you really free to follow me? Are you free from worldly attachments? Are you free from slavery to sin? Jesus here is telling us, if we want to follow Jesus more closely, we must totally available – free from anything that can hinder us from following closely Jesus.

In this mass let us ask for that grace – to continue our struggle to be free from slavery to sin, free from worldly attachments so that we can be really free to follow Christ.  Amen.