Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Category: Bishop Manny Cabajar, CSsR, DD

  • Mustard Seed

    Mustard Seed

    June 13, 2021 – 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

    + Manny Cabajar, C.Ss.R. D.D.

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061321.cfm)

    A grieving mother, unable to bear the burden of sadness due to her son’s death, goes to a wise hermit who tells her, “What you need is a special kind of mustard seed. Find a home where there is no grief like yours, get a mustard seed from the garden, bring it to me, then I will show you how to deal with your grief.” Strange advice! But she sets off on this unusual quest.

          The first house she approaches is that of a rich family. Is this by any chance where there’s no experience of grief as I have in losing my son? The woman who answers the door bursts into tears. “You just came to a worse place. Let me tell you about grief!” She describes the tragedy her family suffers. The woman who lost her son listens, amazed that one so rich can meet such a disaster. “My experience makes me the kind of person who may understand.” So, she stays a while, counsels the rich woman who appears able to cope a little better. She goes off to continue her journey.

          You guess what follows. The next house is exactly the same: nice on the outside, a sad story inside. Again she leaves but only after helping as best she can. Then, on to the next house of grief; and the next. The curious result is that she gradually forgets her own grief and becomes more focused on helping others. The quest for a mustard seed leads her to where her grief is but a memory while something else grows in its place. Truth emerges in imperceptible ways as in the mustard seed parable.

          The Kingdom of God grows in us like a tiny mustard seed. To find wonder in what is small is as good a place as any to start. Our own start in the Kingdom may be as small as the baptism of a child. But we see the potential in a tiny child introduced with the parents into the life of the Christian community through baptism just as Jesus saw the potential in His disciples entrusted with the next stage of growth. Might it be that, despite our humble beginnings, limitations and failures we too are needed, like the grieving woman who lost her son, as God’s Kingdom continues its mysterious growth? 

          We may not have the chance to do the big, heroic things. But we daily have the chance to do the small ones that show Christian values – the smallest act of kindness, the little gesture we offer a sick friend, the forgiveness we give in our family and to one who injured us. Small seeds, perhaps, but will bear fruit ten, twenty, forty years from now!

          Brothers and sisters, we ask the Lord to transform us into Christ-like holiness, increase our zeal for His Kingdom and instill in us a desire to live for His greater glory. Amen.

        

  • Feast of Gratitude

    Feast of Gratitude

    May 23, 2021 – Pentecost Sunday

    + Manny Cabajar, C.Ss.R. D.D.

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052321-Day.cfm)

    Pentecost is a big Jewish feast of gratitude for the harvest. Jesus comes to sow God’s Spirit. We see this Spirit working wonders among the blind, the sick, the lame and hungry. Jesus is condemned but returns to those who desert Him. He coaxes His disciples to raise their eyes and look beyond their own little world. They experience His Ascension.

          Now, he appears again while they are closeted in a little upper room we don’t know except that it is in Jerusalem where people gather from every nation to express harvest gratitude. They speak different languages and have varied intentions. To their surprise illiterate Galileans speak to them in their own native tongue and preach in the language they understand.

          Amazing! We know how hard it is to learn, speak and write in another language! Yet, when those illiterates speak, people from different countries understand. That is the novel experience of the new harvest, Pentecost! It’s the hearers, not the speakers, that make the claim! 

    Photo courtesy of Sandino Hofer Madelo Photography and Videography

          We rarely experience such a harvest today! St. Paul hints that no one can say, “Jesus is Lord” unless influenced by the Holy Spirit. It is not easy to understand others if we don’t shed our mold of feelings and set habits, if we don’t dethrone ourselves and enthrone the other. To enthrone the other, we have to forgive self-centered habits in others but even more: we need to forgive them in ourselves. That is why the Lord says: “Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.”

          Jesus’ gift of peace is more than an absence of trouble. His gift includes forgiveness of sins and fullness of what is good. The gift of the Spirit enables His disciples and us to live a new way of life – a life of love, peace, joy and righteousness. The outpouring of the Spirit creates the Church to continue Jesus’ mission in proclaiming the Good News. If we want to live a faith-filled life, we ask Jesus to fill us with the power of the Holy Spirit.

         

    Sadly, we often retain the sins of others and ourselves. So, we do not harvest the fruits of God’s Spirit among us. It is striking we are not told where the Apostles experience the Holy Spirit. Isn’t it because that could be any time and any place where we closet ourselves? Do we get the hint? Are we ready to say: “Jesus is Lord”?  Are we ready to forget the pain, the insults, the injustice we bear? Are we ready to go beyond our horizons and see those from the vantage point of the Lord? Don’t our cities look like jewels when we fly over them at night?

          Father, we thirst for the life of the Spirit in us to obey Your will. Thank You for the gift of Pentecost and new life in the Holy Spirit. Fill us with Your Spirit and set our hearts ablaze with the fire of Your love that we may serve You in freedom and joy. Amen.

          Brothers and sisters, God may surprise us behind locked doors. The key is to be always open to the Holy Spirit!

  • PROCLAIM THE GOOD NEWS

    PROCLAIM THE GOOD NEWS

    May 16, 2021 – Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    + Manny Cabajar, C.Ss.R., D.D.

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051621-Ascension.cfm)

    As He returns to heaven Jesus wants us to be His voice, His hands and His feet. He wants us to continue His work in the world. Often we are half-hearted, doing just enough to get by. This is not what Jesus wants. He tasks us to teach others all that He teaches us! What He freely gives to us, we are to freely give to everyone. Why does Jesus go from one town to another announcing the Good News? So many grope blindly in the darkness. They need Jesus. They need us to speak about Jesus and give Him to them. Filled with the Holy Spirit, the Apostles fearlessly go to the streets to proclaim Jesus. Their example edify us and their zeal is a blessing to us!

    Too often we follow what’s popular in our society. The media gives us experts who see religion as out-of-style and proudly attract attention to themselves and forget God. We’d rather trust ordinary people who think religion is important. They have no degrees but know they need God and urge us to go to God and pray. A poor mother often teaches her children more about God than expert professors. It is simple mothers who believe and tell their children to help those in need as Jesus teaches. It is the hard-working families who keep the faith alight in the deepening darkness around us. Many say they don’t know enough theology to discuss it. You don’t need to discuss. Simply invite others to come to Mass with you and pray. Then, introduce them to the Pastor. God will do the rest!

    Heavenly Father, we tend to avoid what is good if it seems to threaten peace. We tend to keep quiet about injustice or wrongdoing of a co-worker. We close our eyes to abuse and lack of accountability of a community leader as it is the politically right thing to do. Our silence means giving consent. We are sheep going astray. We are sorry. Remind us to be faithful to our calling and persevere in our work for You. You want us to be firm in Your ways. You want us to be right in Your eyes, never to compromise our Christian values just so we will be politically right to the majority. It’s never enough to find Jesus. You also want us to bring Him to others with courage. Help us bear witness to Him by truly living out our faith. Make us zealous witnesses among our peers in every life situation!

    Father, You want us to share in Your work and be part of Your cause. Strengthen our dedication to Your work without bending the truth. Make us instruments of Your plan to save everyone. You command us, “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”.

    Blessed are we, brothers and sisters, if we respond, “Here I am, send me, Lord!”

  • CALLED TO BE SHEPHERD

    CALLED TO BE SHEPHERD

    April 25, 2021 – Fourth Sunday of Easter; Good Shepherd Sunday

    + Manny Cabajar, C.Ss.R., D.D.

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/Bible/readings/042521.cfm)

    What is the value of the priesthood in our life? St. John Vianney says, “Without the priest, the passion and death of our Lord would be of no avail. It is the priest who continues the work of redemption here on earth…The priest holds the key to the treasures of heaven…He is the steward of the Lord…Leave a parish for twenty years without a priest and they will end up worshiping the beasts there.” Pope Benedict XVI adds that without priestly ministry “there would be no Eucharist, no mission, not even the Church.”

              Today we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday and the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. We are blest and rejoice that we belong to the flock of the Good Shepherd, who continues to take care of us through the human shepherds He chooses – the bishops and priests. Through their ministry we are ensured access to the means of our salvation. God may not call us to their kind of life but He invites us to promote and to pray for priestly and religious vocations. There is a decline of young people joining the priesthood or religious life. That may partly be attributed to the materialistic and egoistic culture that regards material comfort and luxury as the way to happiness. But maybe it is also because we have not prayed enough to the Lord to send more laborers to the harvest.

     As we intensify our prayer for more vocations, let us also pray for good and true leadership among those responsible for tending the flock. Jesus sets himself as their model through the image of the Good Shepherd who takes care of His flock. He knows and leads His sheep to green pastures; He seeks out the lost sheep. If needed, He is ready to die for His sheep. The happy priest is one who is not interested in having or getting more, but rather in self-emptying in the service of his flock. The happy priest is one who intimately knows the Good Shepherd and shares his experience of Him with the flock under his care.

             

    Lord of the Harvest, we pray in a special way for our priests, deacons, seminarians and religious women and men. We beseech You, O Lord, to grant them the grace of fidelity to their vocation. We also ask You to bless their families who continually show great generosity through their spiritual and material support for those who try to listen to Your call and follow You. Amen.

              Brothers and sisters may you have a prayerful and restful Sunday!

  • FAITH SHARING

    FAITH SHARING

    April 18, 2021 – Third Sunday of Easter

    Bishop Manny Cabajar, C.Ss.R., D.D. (Bishop-Emeritus of Pagadian)

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041821.cfm)

    If last Sunday’s gospel was on experiencing the risen Lord, today’s gospel is on sharing our faith with others. Christ wants us to be his witnesses which means that we are called first to have a personal experience of Him and then to share that experience with others. Many Christians only focus on knowing Christ without an interest in sharing their knowledge of Him with others.

            When the two disciples going to Emmaus met the risen Lord, they went back to Jerusalem to share their experience with the eleven apostles. While talking with them Jesus appeared in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you’. Christ made himself present in the process of sharing their faith experience with others. The eleven apostles were in turn enabled to experience the risen Lord. It takes no stretch of the imagination to see that for the two disciples this is a big strengthening of faith, a great empowerment. Faith is like a flame: the more a piece of wood passes the flame to others the more brightly it burns, but if it refuses to pass on the flame, it is in danger of losing even its own flame.

              Jesus actively gives them His peace. He is the one who strengthens their faith and takes away their doubts. He is the one who opens their minds and explains the Scriptures to them. He is the one who declares them his witnesses. The disciples don’t do much in the encounter except open their eyes to see Him, their hearts to let in His peace, their minds to receive His instruction. When He says, “You are witnesses of these things,” they are expected to respond, “Yes, Lord!” and then go out and try to be just that.

             

    Heavenly Father, help us to give witness to Christ, Your Son, not by arguing on controversial doctrines or theological issues but to simply relate the story of our own personal encounter with Christ, as the two disciples on the way to Emmaus did. With your grace, enable us to just share with others why we are Christians. Let us take heed of St Peter’s words, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect”.

              Brothers and sisters, let us be ready to give the reason for our hope!