Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Category: Fr. Mario Masangcay, CSsR

  • Discerning Authenticity

    Discerning Authenticity

    May 11, 2025 – Fourth Sunday of Easter

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051125.cfm)

    Once the late-Philippine lady senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago while giving a graduation speech made this joke. She said…

    Beside a swimming pool, two girls are having this following convo. G1 said to G2: Know what? You are going to float (Alam mo. Lulutang ka). G2 to G1: Why? Is it because I’m getting slim, light & sexy? (Bakit? Dahil ba, magaan, slim at sexy ako? G1 replied: No, it’s because you are Plastic (Dahil plastic ka). Funny & rude it maybe, but it tells a lot.

    Now, we might ask nowadays, how do we distinguish a GOOD parent, teacher, friend, politician, leader, mentor, or coach from a BAD one? How do we know if that person is real, true, deep, honest & trustworthy? How do we know that person is fake, shallow, liar & unreliable? In other words, how do we discern authentic from artificial?

    Nowadays it is normal for us to suspect things, simply because it is not easy to know whether it is real or fake. Because it is difficult to detect the authentic from artificial or plastic, the durable from disposable, nowadays we do tend to be suspicious of things & even of one another.

    Same way with our relationships with others, we rather suspect, doubt, and distrust one another, than believe and trust others because it is more challenging to distinguish who are real, honest & smart from fake, deceitful, & shrewd people.

    Jesus in our gospel today introduced and made Himself known to us as The Good Shepherd who knows His sheep and His sheep follows Him. As Jesus distinguished Himself from a Hired Worker who work for pay and no concern for the sheep, He reminds us here that as OUR good shepherd, He is a hands-on and committed caretaker/caregiver of His sheep who maintains a personal intimate relation with His sheep, and will commit His life to live and work with His fold in life & we, His sheep has a deep faith in Him, our Good Shepherd.

    Be reminded the risen Lord reveals Himself in Person & in Flesh for real. Jesus then is authentic, not artificial.

    In the Gospel few Sundays ago, as the risen Lord reveals Himself in the midst of the disciples, he showed and asked them to touch and see His wounded hands and feet.

    Thus, the risen Lord reveals Himself not as ghost but in flesh and bones with wounds. The risen Lord, our Good Shepherd thus knows us & we know Him personally for real, & not for fake or as plastic.

    We Christians proclaim that our risen Lord Jesus Christ is OUR good shepherd. We believe that He is our Shepherd, who knows and loves us personally. We also believe that we know Him personally for we know His voice & we follow Him faithfully in life.

    Particularly For us Filipino Catholic, we do have special or unique take in knowing our Good Shepherd personally. We know Him not only because Kilala natin siya but because Dama Natin siya – not only because we know Him but moreso because we feel Him.

    Culturally sense-feeling perceptions are important to us, Filipino Christians. Like,… I may know you, but I may not feel you. I may feel you though I may not know you. (Kilala kita, pero di kita ramdam. Ramdam kita kahit di kita kilala). This is how we distinguish real from fake – authentic from artificial or virtual & how we discern good & bad person.

    Same way as we Filipinos have this natural felt-instinct & sense to distinguish the real from fake, to discern the good from evil, we also come to be familiar with & know more the shepherd’s voice through our gut-sense and feelings.

    Same way as the mother knows the child instinctively & the child knows the mother by sense & instinct, we do come to know the risen Lord as our true Good Shepherd in life not only by our volition, consent & reasonings, but most of all through our sense & feeling perception (damdamin at kalooban).

    Feel/Ramdam ko Siya/Bati Nako Siya. Feel/Ramdam natin Siya/Bati nato siya. By our sense-perception & feeling-gut insights, we come to know the risen Lord with us – in person & in flesh. Knowing the Shepherd is thus not only for us an intellectual or cognitive familiarity but moreso a deep felt-sense knowledge and insight of His presence, love & blessing.

    Same deep-sense knowledge and insight would also guide us in tomorrow’s National & Local Election as we choose & vote for our coming political leaders. By the same gut-feeling insight, we know who will be good or bad, real, or fake, sincere or corrupt for the future ahead of us.

    We pray then that the Easter Season this year be our moment to enhance and improve our special felt-sense of knowing our True & Good Shepherd, so that we may not be gone astray from His fold but rather have a much deeper relationship with Him, and be always attuned with His will & plan for us now, for the future of our society, nation & world ahead.

    So Help Us, God. So May it Be. Hinaut pa unta. Amen.

  • Witnessing Resurrection

    Witnessing Resurrection

    May 4, 2025 – Third Sunday of Easter

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050425.cfm)

    In this day and age it is unavoidable to meet people who maintain: “To see is to believe”, i.e. to base their faith on facts, sciences and evidences. In other words, they only trust and have confidence on what are sensible, logical, and scientific. Nowadays, it is not easy for others (& even ourselves) to believe. We ask usually for signs, proofs, or evidences in order to trust and have faith on others. We need some credentials first in order for us to believe. Many at times we claim, “We will never believe until we see it”. Others would even say, “Show me the money first before I believe & trust you”.

    However, signs, facts, proofs and evidences are not the basis of our Christian faith – not even on the empty tomb of Jesus, but on the testimony and faith of the disciples and of us who experience & witness the risen Lord as He reveals Himself in our normal ordinary lives and such witness has totally transformed us.

    Like the disciples in our first reading, faith in the risen Lord makes us experience the risen Lord in our lives, and make us witnesses (sharers of the Lord’s presence) to others. Such Christian faith and witnessing of our risen Lord make us Christian different & unique from other religions.

    Now, what does it entail, to witness Jesus and to be witnesses of Jesus today? What does it mean, and how it is to be today’s Christian witnesses of the Lord’s resurrection? How do we believers witness the risen Lord to others?

    Same way as being a witness in the court, Christian witnessing entails and requires us:

    1st, to experience the events, or what is going on or happening, as it happens or unfolds in our ordinary day-to-day life. This would mean we should Be there present, and not absent like Thomas, at the moment when Jesus reveals Himself to us.

    2nd, Be conscious or aware of what is going on. Physical presence is not enough. We must pay attention to ordinary miracles that are happening in our midst. Thus, our total self must be present and sensitive with His revelations.

    3rd, Let the events happen in its own course. Let things be and happen as it unfolds. Savor the moment without controlling and programming. Don’t interfere or else we become accessory & not anymore a witness.

    4th, be affected by the event – be transformed by the events. Be moved, surprised, amazed, awed, inspired, and shaken by the experience.

    5th, share and testify our faith- encounters with others, as we have experienced and been affected by the encounter.

    How to witness then our Christian faith? Be present, Be aware, Savor the moment, Be affected & Share your story with others.

    The same process of witnessing happened with the apostles in our gospel today.

    1st, while going back to their ordinary lives of fishing and catching nothing, a man appeared and suggested them to fish in the other side of the boat.

    2nd, having a great catch, they eventually recognized and became aware that the man is the risen Lord Jesus Himself.

    3rd, as no one dared to ask: “who are You?”, they let Jesus invite and serve them a breakfast.

    4th, with their first breakfast with the Lord, once again they are moved, transformed, and inspired to continue with their faith and mission.

    5th, their very meeting and sharing bread and fish with the risen Lord inspired them to follow Him and in serving the Lord’s lambs and sheep in faith and life. In other words, we witness the risen Lord to others, by our being present and conscious of the Lord’s appearances in our ordinary life, meeting him naturally and intimately, and passionately share to others our stories of faith-encounters of the risen Lord in our daily lives

    Again, Easter is all about the risen Lord continuously meeting us in life – appearing and making himself known to us. As the Lord meets us in our day to day lives, our experience of Him challenges us to believe, i.e. to recognize and trust Him and His ways, as well as to witness Him, i.e. to taste and see (savor) His being with and acting in us, as well as to share our experience of Him with others.

    Easter season also reminds us not only of Eucharist as our last supper, but moreso, as our usual first breakfast with the risen Lord in our day to day witnessing of our Christian faith and life. The Lord’s resurrection is thus God’s offer of life and meaning to the whole world – appealing us to believe, witness and share His son Jesus Christ, as we meet Him in our ordinary daily lives. May our Christian faith and celebration of Eucharist, as community continually inspire us to believe, witness & share the risen Lord to ourselves, others and to all in our lives, now & always.

    So May it be. Amen.

  • IN-HOUSE GUEST

    IN-HOUSE GUEST

    April 27, 2025 – Second Sunday of Easter; Sunday of Divine Mercy

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042725.cfm)

    Happy Easter to all. Last Sunday we celebrated Easter Sunday. We celebrated and proclaimed our Christian faith that our Lord Jesus Christ has indeed risen into our lives.

    Today we are now on the 2nd Sunday of continuing celebration of Easter season. So, how is life after Easter Sunday?

    After the preparations of Lent and the celebrations of Holy Week – after Easter Sunday surely, we are back to our normal ways – back to our usual routine, schedules, activities, programs, tasks, and responsibilities. But as we go along our normal ways and live our usual lives, we also wonder how is the message of resurrection of the risen Lord make sense and become more real now in our day to day living. Yes, we believe that the Lord has risen. But how and in what ways the risen Lord has resurrected and can be resurrected into our ordinary lives today? Paano Siya naging at maging Buhay’ng-Muli sa buhay ko at natin ngayon? This is the very challenge of Easter to us Christians during this Easter season.

    While reflecting on the revival of Lazarus from the dead, Pope Francis once in his homily said that each one of us has a small tomb inside our hearts – that somehow somewhere in our lives, though still alive and breathing, is dying and dead inside. Yes, somehow, we are still & get used with isolation in our small caves, even after pandemic lockdown & quarantine. Our small tombs are usually our dark secret holes and shadowy caves where we usually hide and bury our anger, hurts, pains, sufferings, failures, frustrations, anxiety, fears and addictions from ourselves and others.

    And inside our small tomb, we do have the choice whether to be alone on our own, miserably struggling and grieving with the “why’s of life”… OR to invite the risen Lord to be part of our search for answers and sense for all these happenings in our lives.

    For Pope Francis, we need to recognize our dying and dead self-inside, and invite the risen Lord to be our Guest inside our small tombs and allow Him to be part of our death and dying within, and be resurrected into our New Life with Him.

    Brothers and sisters, the empty tomb of Easter reveals to us that the risen Lord is not in his tomb. But out here and there revealing Himself into our ordinary normal lives and offering us life and life eternal. The same way as He appeared before His disciples, the risen Lord is showing & will appear Himself to us in our ordinary lives anew with a promise of not only new normal but more so, of Life Eternal.

    The mistake of Thomas in our gospel today is not so much for doubting the Lord’s resurrection but more so for being absent – he was not there when the Lord appeared the first time. Thomas at first did not recognize his own small tombs and invite the risen Lord to be part of his ordinary life. Only when he was with the other’s disciples in locked door room – present in their own tombs and allow the Lord to be part of His Life that Thomas came to recognize and believe in the risen Lord.

    Meaning, the risen Lord only wishes to be invited and partake into our own isolation inside our small tombs and in our ordinary lives so that He can share to us New Life with Him. No more being alone – on your own in your own tombs. Thus, no more hiding, navel-gazing, just looking into oneself – licking wounds, brooding, and sinking in anguish & despair.

    For the Easter message of Lord’s resurrection to be more real and meaningful now in our lives then, we must invite the Lord into our small tombs and allow Him to be part of our usual day to day struggle with life. The Lord is risen and has indeed resurrected again and anew in our lives now – if and when we invite Him to be part of our small tombs and our ordinary lives. He also can only resurrect and bring our death and dying back to life anew nowadays if only and whenever we invite and allow the Lord to be part and be with our normal life’s-struggles and triumphs, especially influencing and guiding us in our day-to-day decisions, as we elect & vote for our political leaders ahead.

    To have a more real and meaningful celebration of Easter Season then, let the risen Lord in and allow Him to be our Guest – to be there and be part of our small tombs and our ordinary lives these days. And perhaps ask ourselves once again: What is the risen Lord offering me now here inside my tomb, inside my isolation? What is His resurrection in to me and what’s in for me? What are benefits and the purpose of letting Him be part of my life now: Healing, Peace, Mercy, Forgiveness, Hope, Mercy, Love, Release, Liberation, New Life, Holy Spirit… A chance to choose & do things right for our country…..?

    Although we are back to our usual normal lives & usual ways after Easter Sunday, we also know and believe that with the risen Lord in our lives now, LIFE will & should never be the same again and as usual, but ours would now be a new normal life and better than before, IF and Whenever we invite and allow our risen Lord to be part of our small tombs and our daily ordinary lives, as our in-house guest.

    Siya Nawa. Hinaut pa unta. Kabay pa. Amen.

  • PISTIS

    PISTIS

    April 20, 2025 – Sunday of the Resurrection of our Lord

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042025.cfm)

    Our gospel today proclaims that the disciple saw and believe …. Though they did not understand yet.

    When was the last time you find yourself in this situation? Seeing & Believing, yet not understanding. Though it happens to us occasionally, we do have experienced situations in our lives that we find ourselves seeing & believing, though not yet understanding what is happening.

    Come to think of it. Just for these past few recent years, we saw and still seeing a lot of challenging things happening in our lives. We have witnessed lately to life-threatening & life-changing experience of massive infections, sickness, & death caused by Covid pandemic that rendered our lives. Constricted with lockdowns, quarantine, protocols of social distancing, isolation & immunization. We saw also the devastating effects of the natural disaster of typhoons, heavy rains, landslide, & flooding into our livelihood. We saw also the influx as well as the lack of humanitarian & government response. We see also the threat of world war & the political turmoil in both local & global level. We have seen & still seeing the best & the worse of humanity & the world unfolding before us.

    As we saw & still see a lot of things happening in our lives lately, we also yet to understand why all these things are happening to us. We still yet to understand the sense, meaning, or purpose of the life we had & having, are now being challenged & changed. We are yet to understand the losses, worries, anxieties & fears that we have gone through a lot those years. We are yet to understanding why we idolize (make God of) others to somehow save us, while we also demonize (make devil of) others to blame of our present predicament.

    As things happen & still happening, and we not yet understanding all these, be as it may, we cannot help but find ourselves believing not only on our own & other’s capacity to rise & respond to the occasion & be responsible for all these. Above all, we cannot help but find ourselves bowing & knelling down in humility before God, believing that He has better plans than what we had, in store for us in our life ahead.

    Consider then that, in our gospel today, as they witnessed themselves the passion, death & burial of our Lord, the disciples had just lost hope & meaning of their very life – Jesus Christ. And worse, in the midst their hopelessness & despair, what they saw then is an empty tomb. Jesus was not only gone, but worse His dead body is also gone missing. Their experience of empty tomb & missing body may have been devastating, non-sensical & incomprehensible to them. But they saw & believe, without even understanding yet. They see & believe. They have seen & will forever believing.

    Same way as disciples of Jesus-then, this is also how we will now experience the Lord’s resurrection into our lives now & always – by trustingly seeing & believing in God’s Plans for us, though not understanding yet.

    Easter, the Season of Our Lord’s Resurrection, challenges us then to trustingly see & believe, even yet to understand the life we are going through at this moment now & will about to happen, for our God has a lot better life in store for us ahead.

    As we celebrate the Lord’s resurrection this year in our lives, we are invited to view anew the things that are happening to us now & about to happen ahead in the near future, in Faith in God & with Our Risen Lord Jesus Christ. For in Greek the word “Faith” is (PISTIS), which means trusting the person of risen Lord than just believing even without understanding.

    Be reminded then that Easter season is our yearly reminder of God’s everlasting love for us. God assures us that “I have love you with an everlasting love”. His love for us then is from eternity to eternity. He loves us long before & ever since from the beginning, until now & always be forever. And as Henri Nouwen would say: “Life is just a little opportunity for us during a few years to say, “I love you too, My God.” What we have and having now then is just our short chance in life to trustingly see & believe in His love & to love Him in return.

    Though life nowadays may not be comprehensible, or no-sense at all, we do know deep inside & in faith that there are more better life yet to be seen & believed with Our God & our Risen Lord Jesus Christ.

    So, Brace Ourselves. Abangan. For there are more yet to come & to happen, as the Lord has risen into our lives now & always.

    Alleluia. The Lord Has Risen, Indeed. Amen.

  • Beware of MICE

    Beware of MICE

    April 15, 2025 – Tuesday of the Holy Week

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041525.cfm)

    Holy Tuesday marks the beginning of the treachery & betrayal of Judas Iscariot that has led to the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    We have heard in our gospel today the circumstances that lead to the passion of Jesus Christ. Here Jesus exposed of Judas’ betrayal as trusted finance officer of the disciples of Jesus who corrupted their funds & conspired with the “bashers,” detractors & enemies of Jesus that led to His arrest & execution.

    We may have known how painful it is & would be, if & when we are betrayed by our own trusted people. Betrayal of trust is surely a difficult & traumatic experience for us that breaks people’s hearts & lives. But we may wonder, what moves people to betray others?

    It has been said that in the espionage world or the world of spies, there are four factors that moves spies to defect & betray their loyalties & people. Its acronym is MICE (Money, Ideology, Compromise & Ego). Somehow we might say that these are the four reasons that we & other may cause to betray ourselves, others & even God – Betrayals then always involved with Money, Ideology, Compromise & Ego (MICE).

    These are very true in the case of Judas Iscariot. Definitely, he was in  to betray Jesus for the M-money (30 pieces of silver). He was in for business-influences & market-consumerism I – ideology, willing to C- compromise his faith, beliefs & values, & to conspire with the enemy. And above all, His selfish E – ego, self-centeredness cause Judas to betray his Lord. This simply explain why we always associate people who betrayed us as Judas & we consider Judas as betrayer.

    However, let us be aware of MICE (Money, Ideology, Compromise & Ego) that cause people & even ourselves to be like Judas Iscariot in betraying ourselves, others & our Lord that is making life difficult, harmful & traumatic for all & everyone. These are the pitfalls & warning signs that may fall & lead us to the temptations of betraying & betrayals. Same reasons MICE (Money, Ideology, Compromise & Ego) make us betray our suffrage – our right to vote & betrayal of public trust that lead us to vote-buying & vote selling.

    So, beware of MICE (Money, Ideology, Compromise & Ego) for it could lead us to betray our faith in Jesus Christ, & ourselves as Christians.

    Lord take away everything that distance us from you. Grant us everything that bring us closer to you. Detach us from ourselves to give our All to you. Amen.