Mary Magdalene went into the tomb and was weeping. Mary was filled with sadness and pain. The tomb reminded her of that painful and scandalous death of Jesus on the cross. Yet, what is interesting in this scenario was the movement of time. In the first verses of the Gospel, we were told that Mary “went to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark.” However, at this time, the dawn was breaking. The sun is soon to come out. And what Mary will witness was definitely the glorious victory of light over darkness.
Mary who developed a close relationship with Jesus, was a faithful disciple. She remained at the side of Jesus thus, the reason of her grief and pain. Nevertheless, despite the grief and sadness, Mary did not just go away and give up. She actually refused to give up. The sadness, disappointment and pain that she felt, urged her more to seek Jesus even in times of so much confusion and darkness in her life. But, those emotional and spiritual burdens in her also prevented her to immediately recognize the Lord. Jesus has to call her by name to make her realize that it was him.
Thus, in that desire to seek the Lord even in darkness and seemingly ugly scenario in her life, Mary was filled with the goodness of the Lord. Her friendship with Jesus helped her to seek the Lord and see grace beyond pain and darkness. This is something to learn from the friendship Mary Magdalene had with Jesus. Her friendship was beyond physical attraction and emotional attachment but was built on trust, faith and confidence of being loved by the Lord.
Such experience of fullness is what the Psalm also proclaimed today. “The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.” This is what Mary was holding on in her heart. She must be a believer on this that indeed the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. Even though there was so much pain and confusion in her heart, she believed in the goodness of the Lord that fills the earth.
True enough, Mary received this fullness of God’s goodness as Jesus revealed himself to her. This was captured beautifully through her words, “I have seen the Lord.” This is a testimony of a person who believed and experienced fully the goodness of the Lord.
Like Mary, let us also develop and nourish a close and intimate relationship with the Lord that will make us more attuned to his voice and presence. When we are gripped by grief and sadness, or by pain and failures in life, may we find ourselves holding on to hope and in the goodness of what is around us, rather than in giving up or running away from our painful realities. Let us allow the Lord to be with us in those moments, and allow him to encounter his liberating presence in every moment of our life. Hinaut pa.
I always find writing my reflection for “A Dose of God Today” therapeutic and invigorating. Earlier, after praying the rosary as a family, I was led to pause and ponder on the beauty and meaning of the Easter season. I then jotted some key words in one of my favorite notebooks. Mind you, at 51, I still love to collect note pads and notebooks. These are very handy in keeping myself organized amidst a hectic schedule as a counselor-educator with an admin role in the Graduate School. Perhaps, my desire to be a true witness of the Risen Christ inspired me to share my third article in this valuable and beautiful blog of Fr. Jom, CSsR.
The Easter season reminds us that HOPE should never be lost. The road that we may have taken is rough and bumpy, yet surely we will reach our destination. With the Risen Christ as our companion and guide, it will be a joyful and interesting ride. We simply have to allow Him to accompany us in our journey. How do we do that?
Possibly, sharing my personal encounter with a faithful God may shed light to this. My daily travel to and from my workplace is an opportunity for me to commune with God in prayer. Riding in a taxi, bus or public utility jeep seems challenging given the traffic jam in the major roads going to the city and heading back home. Passing by the scenic view of the sea and looking up at the skies – I always feel that God is present in His beautiful creation. This allows me to whisper a prayer in silence, entrusting my day to Him. Most of the time, I just close my eyes so that my mind will be attuned to God’s message for me. I know God speaks volumes in the silence of my heart.
During evenings, I take this opportunity to review what transpires during the day. A moment to say my thanksgiving to Him for staying close to me and for sending people who are constant in my life – my family and close friends who love me unconditionally; to repent for my flaws and shortcomings during the day and to think of ways on how to become better the next day. This, I may say, becomes a habit of mine. This practice will surely be carried out throughout this Easter Season and beyond.
This is my first and major ASPIRATION during this meaningful season. To continue to commune with God most of the time – to take time to listen to Him in the midst of our daily struggles to fulfill our role and responsibilities – to carry out our vocation and mission in life.
For me, the best time for new beginnings is during this Season of Easter. We used to make New Year’s resolution at the start of a new year so why not formulate them right now? For this season is also known as the Season of New Birth.
Earlier, I said that my major yearning is to be in touch with God most of the time. This may be difficult to do at first, and with constant practice, this will surely be a second nature to us. Being prayerful and highly spiritual made wonders in my life. It allowed me to trust fully in God’s will and the Holy Spirit promptings.
In moments of despair and confusion and in arriving at a crucial decision, my deep faith expressed through prayer and communion with a loving and faithful God is my first recourse. This greatest gift God has bestowed upon me – my FAITH propels me to walk my talk and be a dedicated, loving and compassionate public servant – being a counselor educator in a state university.
my FAITH propels me to walk my talk and be a dedicated, loving and compassionate public servant
This brings me to my second aspiration during this Easter Season. Some people seem not to like me and my dealings with them, yet deep in my heart I know I am trying to be empathetic and loving so that many people may experience the unconditional love of God through me. When one is in the position of authority and influence, one will gain more friends and haters alike. Implementing the graduate school policies fairly is no easy job. Yet, in my desire to treat each student equally, I have encountered a lot of challenges. Nevertheless, deep in my heart I know that I have done my best to practice fairness and justice. I may have my lapses, but with God’s grace, I will try my best to be a living witness of Christ’s resurrection. That He is truly RISEN and ALIVE!
I have shared my two major aspirations during this important Liturgical Season in the Church. These may be GRAND yet these are attainable. With my deep faith in a LOVING, FAITHFUL RISEN CHRIST, I have nothing to FEAR.
Surely, my longing to be attuned to God’s will for me will be realized for I always believe in a God of surprises. I simply have to clasp my hands in PRAYER, in JOYFUL HOPE and celebration that God is truly risen. He is alive and present within us, among us and amidst us. And YOU? What’s your Easter hope and aspirations?
Sending my fervent prayers and love to all readers of this blog who need these most. May all your prayers and aspirations be fulfilled. A blessed Easter Season to all!!!
Truth can indeed be easily manipulated or even covered especially when those who are faced with truth become threatened and disturbed by it. This is what we have heard on this Easter Monday as told to us by the Gospel of Matthew. The truth about the resurrection of Jesus was manipulated by people in power who also desired to advance their personal agenda. The soldiers who were witnesses of the Resurrection were paid not to tell what really happened but to create another story. These soldiers must have been captivated with awe and wonder in the event of the resurrection. Light must have pierced into their unbelieving hearts. However, what was sad in their story was when they were presented with the immediate comfort of money.
They were willing to cover the truth of the resurrection and create fake news for the sake of money. They accepted a corrupt offer to spill the untruth to people rather than to tell others of God’s power and mercy. Why was that? Is money more powerful than God? Certainly not. It is just deceiving and very tempting especially when people need it.
Nevertheless, apart from this sad story, we still have the women who showed to us how the resurrection of Jesus changed their life. The Gospel tells us that they were still fearful yet overjoyed. This means that despite the darkness they have experienced in the past days and the fear that enveloped them, the presence of Jesus filled them with so much joy.
The women did not succumbed to despair and fear unlike the soldiers who succumbed to money and corruption. The women continued to believe in Jesus in spite of the confusions and even in pain and suffering that they witnessed. They never lost their hope in Jesus.
This kind of attitude in them was showed in their action as they went to the tomb early in the morning. The tomb surely would remind them of the death of Jesus, meaning, of sadness and failure, of pain and disappointment. However, even in the midst of all of these, they found a reason to find light in the midst of darkness, to find hope in the midst of hopelessness and to find life in the midst of death.
And true enough, as they desired to see Jesus, they indeed saw and witnessed the glory of resurrection. This was how they also found their mission, and that was to be Jesus’ witnesses to others.
Now, as Jesus called them to tell other disciples about him, each of us now too is called to tell others of Jesus’ presence in our very life. With this, there are two invitations for us on this Easter Monday.
First. Money is not everything though money and riches can be deceiving and tempting when we are in need of it, that it will lead us to become dishonest, corrupt and abusive. This happened to the soldiers who exchanged for money the truth. They settled for their own comforts. However, that did not made them truly rich or satisfied with life. In fact, they are now seen like the “paid trolls” who merely repeat lies and fake news to deceive others and bring others to corruption and death.
Second, preach Christ and preach what is only true. Never be afraid to tell what we have seen, what we have heard and what we have witnessed. Tell others not just through our words but also through our actions that Christ is truly alive. Even a simple gesture of generosity to a person in need or a simple act of kindness to others is a way of sharing that Christ is truly alive in us. Kabay pa.
When we walk, we hardly take cognizant of the footsteps we take unless – like the Buddhists – we are so mindful of the here and now, the precious present moment. It is only when one focuses on the movement of his feet while walking down a path, that one is struck with the importance of taking footsteps. For as the Chinese proverb posits: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!
As we celebrate Easter Sunday today, it might do as good to reflect on the value of taking footsteps vis-à-vis our faith as followers of the Risen Lord. After all, his admonition – “Come follow me!” – involves literally moving our feet as we go after the Redeemer!
Jesus lived on earth at a time when people could only move from place to place by walking. In some cases, horses and donkeys assisted them as they travelled. Unlike today when the advancement of transportation technology allows us to travel long distance through planes, boats, trains, buses, cars, even the lowly habal-habal, those living in the first century had to rely on their feet if they wanted to be in another place.
Being an itinerant preacher-healer, Jesus himself walked practically all over Israel. While born in Bethlehem, he grew up in Nazareth. When his public life unfolded and he went out to preach the Good News, he travelled from Nazareth to Bethany, Bethesda, Capernaum, Cana of Galilee, Jerico, reaching the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee. In his three-year public life, he walked more than a thousand miles.
Some of the footsteps he took would take on biblical significance! Among these were those footsteps traversing the desert for forty days when he needed to get ready for his mission, his walk cum ride-the-donkey from the countryside to Jerusalem, his walk across the seashore as he met the fishermen who would become his loyal followers and later when he appeared to them after rising from the dead, and his walk with two forlorn followers on the road to Emmaus.
The most dramatic, of course, were the footsteps he took from the garden of Gethsemane to the palace of King Herod, to the court of Pontius Pilate until he ended up on Calvary Hill. This route – now labelled the Via Dolorosa – has become the focal point of interest for tourists who fortunately find their way in Israel on Good Friday.
On top of this mournful hill, the carpenter from Nazareth – reviled by the Pharisees as a false prophet; who hobnobbed with drunks, sinners and prostitutes; who the powers-that-be considered a rebel out to subvert the established regime and tortured by the Roman soldiers as a means to warn other potential would-be “terrorists,” – was subjected to a crucifixion on a cross, fit for criminals!
That last step Jesus took as he faced death, eventually ended his earthly life.
At dawn of Eastern morn, the sound of footsteps echoed across the graveyard where Jesus and others were buried. These were footsteps first of women, later followed by a few of the more courageous apostles curious as to the women’s testimony that the tomb was empty! And most interesting, it was a woman – Magdalene – to whom Jesus first appeared as the Risen Lord!
After Jesus appeared to more of his main followers and trusted disciples, he gathered them together for what is now known as the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) and left them with these words: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Gifted with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, many of them, including a new convert – Paul of Tarsus – walked to many directions beyond Israel to give witness to the life and teachings of the Lord. And despite the passage of time and the great advancement of transportation technology, in many Third World countries today, those who bring the Good News to the hinterlands, follow the way of the early disciples. They walk miles to reach the isolated villages.
It is thus, very appropriate that in 2021 Pope Francis inaugurated what would be a synodal Church for these present times. To be a synodal church involves getting all the baptized to journey together as one in the footsteps of the Lord, with great effort exerted to make sure that those who for so long have not been afforded a place in the Lord’s banquet, can finally find themselves in the place of honor!
This was Jesus way; moving from village to village, his focus was to journey with his society’s excluded, the sinners considered unclean and worthless. He avoided the elite, the powers-that-be, the ones who oppressed the poor even as he did not exclude them from his circle if they showed an openness to repent and make amends! He disdained pomp and pageantry, he lived simply without benefit of having a place to stay, comforted the widows and healed the sick. In the process, the Good Shepherd smelt like the sheep!
Alas, when Christianity shifted to Christendom and the Church’s memory of the way of life of Jesus faded, the ugly head of institutionalization and clericalism penetrated the walls of churches, monasteries and convents. Patronized by kings and emperors. ensconced in palaces to enjoy the perks of power, the Church’s heads veered away from the footsteps of the Lord! And the Gospels they preached held no relevance anymore to the lives of the majority who remained in the margins and disenfranchised of their human rights.
If the Church today hopes to return to the dangerous memory of Jesus’ act to save humanity, she has to embrace Pope Francis’ synodal agenda. The question is: how many of our church leaders and engaged laity are making sure that this agenda is not lost in the quadmire of a Church’s struggle to remain relevant in these post-modern times?
In the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) reality of the world today, Christianity is faced with a major challenge to return to its roots. Jesus presented the model of a synodal church – his footsteps made possible his journeying with society’s excluded – which challenged an established religion that was hijacked by those who would promote a faith that was blind and obedient to those in power. It was in this context that Christianity was born. If we are to redeem what Jesus founded, we, too, in our times will need to do our best to help build a synodal Church, in spite of the reluctance of our leaders to forge this kind of journey with the rest of us!
Along with Pope Francis, we take the footsteps towards this goal buoyed by the Risen Lord! Happy Easter everyone!
What is the purpose of life? What is life all about? Why do we have to suffer through life? How can we move on with life? Where is God in all these?
During pandemic times & even now in the New Normal period, I have been confronted with these questions from people, especially young people, who are looking and searching for meaning and directions in life. To be honest, I too had raised these questions and have grappled with finding answers. Not without difficulty however I somehow discover an answer that makes sense and suits me. I found it from a book called The Gospel according to Peanuts by Robert Short that was based on Peanuts comic strips with characters like Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and others, created by cartoonists Charles Schulz. In one of its comic strips, it simply says: We are like a bottle of medicine where God puts a label on it to make sure: “Shake Well Before Using”.
If we really come to think of it, such simple line says a lot about these questions in life.
Yes, indeed we are like a bottle of medicine. On our own and for our own sake, we are no one… we are nothing. But with others and for the sake of others, we are someone…we are something. And to be and remain something effective and someone important in life, we have to go through a lot of shaking and moving. Even we like it or not, we need to be shaken and disturbed once in a while,… or else we remain nothing and worthless. So to make sure our value and sense in life, God has to shake us, not for the sake of shaking itself, nor only for our own sake, but for the sake of Him and others – that we may be a medicine to others and each other. The spiritual guru Henry Nouwen calls this “wounded healers”, in which, with and through our wounds and woundedness we also become healers & medicine of others and for others.
If we also come to think of it, being shaken well by God has always been part of the story of our faith and life.
Last night’s review of our salvation of history in the scriptures reminds us that shaking and to be shaken well has always been part of our growth in faith and life. Ever since the creation of the universe from chaos to order, the rescue of Israelites from the power of Egypt, the building of Israel as nation, the establishment of covenant with Israel, the empty tomb and the resurrection of the Lord, and our baptism now and again in Christ, we are continually been moved and shaken by God well, not for our own sake but for the sake of Him and others. The symbol of Fire and Water, the reading of scriptures and the celebration of Eucharist in our liturgy last night are witness to the whole passage of shaking we go through in life for us to have meaning, direction and worth in life.
Today we proclaim Jesus has risen, Alleluia. We Christians remember, celebrate, and believe that Jesus has risen indeed in our lives. We can even dare to proclaim that He has risen Again and Anew in our life today. Again, because in almost every year of our Christian faith and life, we celebrate His resurrection.
But he has also risen Anew with us now, because our encounter of His resurrection will never be the same as before. Yes, Jesus always resurrects in us, and He reveals to us as uniquely as before. Nabanhaw siya kanunay kanato apan lahi ra sama kaniadto. He is still Jesus, but He is now Christ, the risen Lord.
Every Easter seasons, we may say then, are God’s time of year of shaking us before using. Just as the women & the disciples found an empty tomb and met the Lord on their way back, and the way we struggle & cope with the trying times of Covid-19 pandemic these recent past years, during this years’ Easter season, same as ever, there will be more shaking going on, and more to happen in our Christian faith and life.
Let us not forget then whatever happens and how the shaking ever happens, all of these will not be on our own and for our own sake but with and for the sake of Him and others. Remember, We are part of His great plan of scheme. Let us be open and allow ourselves to be shaken, to be moved, to be disturbed again and anew, for in this way, we participate in His work of salvation in our lives. If and when however we get lost along the way and find life meaningless and without direction, perhaps we may be consoled by Charles Schulz words: We are like a bottle of medicine where, God puts a label on it to make sure: “Shake Well Before Using.”
Happy Easter to All. At Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.
A DOSE OF GOD TODAY 