St. Luke described to us the visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. He included this story in his Gospel to bring a message to a particular Christian community to which Luke was in-charge. What we can learn from this particular passage of the Gospel of Luke is the role of Mary in the Christian Community.
Even at that early stage of the Christian faith, Mary had already become a mother and a model to every disciple of the Lord. Mary who received the Lord in her womb and in her whole life manifested in her actions the wonders of God done unto her. She became a model of charity and service to others which is an expression of bringing the Lord to others. This is clear enough in Mary’s willing heart to help her cousin, Elizabeth.
The exchange of greetings between these two women was the amazing thing we find in the Gospel. Luke described to us how the baby in the womb of Elizabeth leaped with joy upon hearing the voice of Mary. Mary, the THEOTOKOS or bearer of God, brought such great joy to Elizabeth and to her baby in the womb.
Mary’s visit was certainly God’s visitation to Elizabeth, to her baby and to Zechariah. God visited them through Mary. Definitely, Elizabeth was filled with gratitude not just to Mary but to God especially. This is what we find in her greetings, “blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” This tells us that even the unborn child can feel the presence of God. An unborn child can also give assurance of God’s presence to others. This is wonderful!
Thus, on this feast of the Visitation, we who are disciples of the Lord are reminded to be like Mary, to be charitable in our words and actions, to be aware of those who are in need of assistance, to be at the service of others especially those who are most in need of our help. In that way, we bring the Lord to them, we let others feel God’s presence through us.
Each of us has that capacity to bring God’s presence to others. The Lord is with us, he is with you and with me. The Lord is in our midst, as the Book of the Prophet Zephaniah tells us.
As Christians we are called to make a stand and to be aware of what is happening around us – not just within our small community but also in the wider picture of our society. It means that we are called to be socially aware and not to remain indifferent to the difficulties of our sisters and brothers. That is why, when we are indifferent to the difficulties of others, there is surely something wrong with our Christian life. It is good then to ask ourselves, “how socially aware am I to the plight of others, or am I totally indifferent and unmoved by the sufferings of others?”
And so, in concrete terms and in small ways, a challenge is given to us. It would be good then to remember those people whom we have not visited for a long time. Visit them if possible. Remember also those people we know who will surely need our help, or recognize the people around us who need help from us in one way or another. In hope, we may be able to let them feel God’s presence through us, through our generous words and service. Kabay pa.
People who are severely ill, those who are haunted by their traumatic experiences, and those who suffer chronic depression would mostly agonize the feeling of being alone and lonely. At the height of this pandemic, when infections were so high, the pandemic left many individuals to that feeling of being alone. The isolations and lockdowns, no movements and Enhanced Community Quarantines increased the anxiety and fear to many of us.
To feel alone, indeed, is a terrible feeling. It makes a day no matter how bright it would be, to be so dark. Even though many people will surround us physically, this feeling detaches us from their presence. This explains how a person who is alone and lonely would compensate that feeling by having many distractions as a way of coping and entertaining oneself.
Yet, this causes people to be so sad and depressed. How much more if physically people will leave us alone? If someone we love and so dear to you would just go away and leave us? Then, this would be a horrible feeling.
People who work away from their family would also feel being alone. They cannot help it but work from a far to give more opportunities for their family and for the children especially. Yet, as a consequence, they have to endure such loneliness for their sake in the case of migrant workers.
In the Gospel today, Jesus reminded us of his conviction of the presence of his Father. Jesus knew that his disciples would abandon him when he will undergo his passion. The disciples will retreat and hide because of fear even though that would mean that Jesus will be left alone to suffer and die.
However, Jesus was filled with confidence that his Father will never abandon him. Hence, the Father was there with Jesus even at the cross where Jesus felt being abandoned.
Today, Jesus wants us to have the same conviction and confidence. Indeed, we are never alone. The Lord is with us, always with us. This is the promise of Jesus to us today.
Thus, when we feel alone, let it be known that we are never alone. When a terrible sickness hits us, when a traumatic experience haunts us, when depression bothers us, remember, God is with us.
Those of us who are away from home and away from our families, Jesus comforts us that he is always with us. Today, we can say, “I am not alone.” Kabay pa.
Have you ever had a religious experience? A religious experience is a deep and intimate encounter with God. This can be a realization how vulnerable and powerless, sinful and unworthy we are before God yet, we are being loved. Such experience brings transformation in the way we look at life and in the way we relate with others, from being closed-minded to being welcoming, from being hateful to being loving.
Thus, a tremendous joy is felt. It could be a moment of your prayer time where you have deeply felt God’s presence despite the many problems you have. It could be in an occasion where you have seen your family or friends being together and the happiness of being with them cannot be contained. This could be the moment your girlfriend said yes to you, the moment your boyfriend held your hands, or the very first time you have carried in your arms your baby.
This tremendous joy makes God’s presenceand love ever more present in us that we wanted to get hold, to just stay there, in those feelings of joy and peace.
Hence, allow me to bring you a bit deeper into the readings on this Solemnity of the Ascension of Jesus and see how God invites today.
The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles told us about this kind of religious experience. The apostles witnessed the ascension of Jesus into heaven. That was surely an event that captivated them so greatly because it was glorious. It was their religious experience where God made himself ever present in them as Jesus was lifted up. Because of that, the apostles kept looking at the sky. They wanted to behold that moment for a long time, not wanting to disappear from their sight and memory what have just happened.
However, two men appeared in their midst and told them, “Why are you standing there looking at the sky?” The apostles seemed to be stunned with what just happened. But, they were not to remain standing there and gazing at the sky. The apostles were told to come down and share what Jesus shared to them. They were to become his witnesses beginning from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, as the Gospel told us today.
Indeed, the apostles were witnesses of the many wonders the Father made and did through Jesus. As Jesus ascended back to his Father in heaven, Jesus gave an important role to those who believed in him. These believers were being sent and empowered by Jesus through his ascension to heaven.
Jesus’ ascension then does not mean that the disciples were being left alone or abandoned. His ascension means being more present to each of his friends wherever they would go. His ascension makes him a constant companion to all of them and to each of us now.
What does it mean to us? This feast reminds us that we, who believe in Jesus, are called to tell others about Jesus – that in our own way, each of us is sent to bring Jesus and to spread Jesus’ presence into the lives of others through our words and actions, through our very life.
Our very experience of God should move and motivate us to tell others of God’s mercy, goodness and generosity. Our experience of God is not meant for us alone but it has to be shared. Jesus is after all cannot be contained in us, because Jesus is spreadable!
We spread our God experience through our very life. We spread Jesus in the way we relate with others, in the way we treat people and all others around us. We spread the Lord in our homes, workplaces, communities and even in our virtual reality.
When we truly spread Jesus, this also means that we make a stand of being a witness of Jesus, of our Christian faith. Yet, it won’t be easy. It might be quite difficult because people will be against us. Why? Because, it is not easy to be honest, transparent and accountable when many are dishonest, cheating and corrupt. It is not easy to tell the truth when many are lying and convinced of the lies. It is not easy to be selfless when others are selfish. It is not easy to be faithful when others are unfaithful. It is not easy to be a counter-culture. Yet, this is what being a believer of Jesus means.
As we continue to deepen our faith and cherish our God experiences, God invites us today.
To Spread Jesus today! Share to someone, to your friends, family members or even to strangers your experience of God. For the young ones and to all of us who are in social media on a daily basis, explore the social media as a way of communicating and sharing the goodness of God, by not spreading lies and fake news but facts and truth.
It is just timely that on this Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, we are also celebrating World Communications Sunday. Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, TikTok and twitter are good media platforms to proclaim the goodness of God to others.
Again, spread Jesus today! Spread the Good News and not fake news; spread the good not the lies. Make viral God’s faithfulness and mercy upon us. Kabay pa.
Not uncommon these days that we may see video clips of departing OFWs at the airport with their family. It is particularly heartbreaking to see little children crying & clinging to bid farewell to their beloved parent who may have been with them for awhile and now will be absent again, all because of the sacrifices-needed for the greater good and better life to be accomplished.
In our gospel today, it is said that “As he has blessed them, Jesus parted from them and was taken to heaven.” Our Christian faith proclaims the Ascension of the Lord into heaven whenever we profess in our Apostles’ creed, ‘He ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father.” In claiming His rightful place in the story of our salvation, Jesus also has to leave us behind, depart from us & distant away from us. For God’s salvation be fully revealed & fulfilled, the risen Lord Jesus & His Easter disciples then must go through the process of goodbyes, letting go and distancing, which only an OFW family, both parent & children can understand by experience.
But beyond the heart-breaking consequences of departure & distancing in life, the risen Lord’s Ascension & perhaps the flight of an OFW migrant is all about our rising above to the special mission & particular plan God has in store for us in life. Over and above what happened to Jesus & His disciples at the ascension, we give importance to what Jesus said: “As the Christ would suffer & rise from the dead.. would be preached to all nations, You are witnesses of these things… and I am sending upon you the promise of my Father.” With these words, Jesus attests that He has done His mission and now is for us to do our Mission – our Part in His mission.
The Lord’s Ascension then is the moment when Jesus commissioned His disciples to continue the Mission he has begun. It is the very time when Jesus entrusted to His disciples all the good things he had done. And Jesus is handing on the responsibilities now to us His disciples.
Not unlike a departing OFW parent saying parting words of love & encouragement to children left-behind, in His ascension, Jesus may have been saying these words, “Hey, I have done my part. I have nurtured & formed you right. This time, do your part. Go now, go ahead, move on to the world and proclaim – that is, I’ve given you the authority & responsibility to share what you have experienced and learned from me, so that others may also enjoy what have you have enjoyed with me. By the way, don’t forget to believe that I have sent you, for we can continue to do great things, if you believe in me and remain in my love. Go now and do your part, for I have done my part & will continue to do our part in this life and beyond”.
Like the disciples of old, ours is a life commissioned by Christ. As baptized Christians, we are commissioned by Christ to continue and to do our part in the Mission of Christ. As we live our lives in faith of the risen & ascended Lord, we are entrusted also now do our part in building a Christian Nation as well as building God’s Kingdom in the here and now. Jesus continues to send us today in various ways to fulfill our respective life-missions as media of His offer of salvation to the world. During ordination, priests are commissioned to sanctify our Christian faith & life. During profession, religious are commissioned to consecrate & witness our response to God’s bountiful graces. During their wedding day, married couple are commissioned to love God in their marriage & family. During their commissioning, church lay ministers are commissioned to distribute communion, publicly read the scripture, give catechesis on neophytes Christians, on their own capacity. And above all, after Mass, we are all commissioned to “Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord.”
It has been said that at the hour of his death, Jesus did not say: “I am finished”, but rather He said: “IT is Finished”. Thus, With Him & with us, there is more yet to come & more yet to happen as we do our now our part in His mission.
As sent & commissioned to be His media & witnesses of the God’s kingdom, may we continue to respond & do our part in His ongoing plan of salvation.
This is a reflection of Fr. Ramon Fruto, CSsR – He is currently based in Iloilo City and the Director of St. Clements’ Retreat House.
“ Recall your ‘shrines’” was an exercise given us in a joint seminar on “elderhood” for us who belong to the senior and the golden age generations. To the outsider, this opening sentence at once asks for enlightenment. What is “elderhood” and what are the “shrines” we are asked to identify?
“Elderhood” seems to be a more compassionate and sensitive way of saying “growing old, the same way that we are now asked to call “suspects” as “persons of interest”! Growing old used to be taken for granted and even with a sense of pride and mission accomplished. Growing old gracefully was a lesson all those who have crossed the 60-year line were expected to learn. But with today’s sensitiveness to cultures and subcultures, “growing old” is something that the “ageing” wish to varnish over the way we ageing males try to comb our hair so as to hide the balding patches of our pate and the ageing females undergo a “Dr. Belo” on their wrinkling cheeks. And so in the retreat-seminar for us ageing Redemptorists, we are asked to reflect on our answer to the reflection-question: What do you consider as your great challenge in growing into being elderly/”Elderhood”? That is certainly a sensitive way of asking a question that could be put more brutally – and truthfully – as “What do you consider as your great problem in growing old? “ Then we would more truthfully answer: combing our hair which is no longer there, brushing our teeth which are not our own, forgetting where I placed my eye-glasses a few minutes ago, getting cantankerous at the slightest provocation, feeling forgotten and useless. Then we can talk about “growing old gracefully” and not euphemize it with “coping with elderhood”!
Anyway, here are the four of us among the most elderly, if not THE most elderly among the ageing confreres of the Province. Hopefully we are able to face “growing old” with equal grace as facing the challenge of “elderhood”. During our senior-golden agers’ seminar, one of the exercises we were given was to get in touch with the “shrines” of our life’s journey. By the “shrines” were meant experiences or events in our pilgrim journey that had an impact on our lives. The shrines varied in kind as our experiences were varied, and varied in number with the length of each one’s life’s journey. But the four of us portrayed here had one “shrine” in common: our life in Bangalore, India where the first batches of us Filipino Redemptorist vocations were sent for our studies in philosophy and theology. We made our groping way to India, the land of magic and mystery, after a novitiate in Cebu shared with the novices from the northern vice-province of Manila. To India, we winged our way not on jet airliners but on four-engined DC-6es. In the studentate in Bangalore, we lived in harmonious co-existence with Indian and Sri-lankan and Irish students. Asking for no special diet, we survived the years of Indian curry and learned to like it after getting over the initial conflagration of our palates. During our years there, we neither got to visit home nor got visitors from home. Long before the age of the internet and cell-phones, our only contact with our families was by an “air-form” letter once a month. Those of us who were ordained there were ordained without anyone representing our family. At my ordination I sent my blessing to my folks by telegram – in Latin! The only “exposure” to the outside world we were given a glimpse of was limited to the studentate house in Bangalore and the holiday house in the hills a train- and bus-ride away from Bangalore. The five-week holiday in the hills after each school year was something we all looked forward to. We took all this in stride because this was part of the life we had applied for without anyone forcing us to enter it. Processing was unknown to us, the only process we underwent was the once-a-month colloquium with our Prefect. Yet we lived in reasonable contentment, which was probably one reason we had little difficulty adjusting to different personalities and places and ministries of assignment in later life, and lasting longer in the active apostolate than expected in retirement years.
Over the span of ten years, Cebu Vice-Province had sent to Bangalore a total of 9 newly-professed students. There was discussion among the Superiors as to where the Filipino students might be sent for their studies in philosophy and theology. There were three openings: Ireland, Australia and India. Back in 1925 a Cebuano student (John Corominas) was sent to Australia though he left after his first vows expired. In the end the decision was for India, the studentate in Bangalore then being conceived as a possible regional studentate for this part of Asia. So, with no other student before me to tell me what life in India was going to be, I was sent there alone in 1951, before my 20th birthday, a raw, untraveled Filipino to a country I had only read about my school’s geography book as a land of mystery, of magicians and snake-charmers. When I arrived there the students stared at me as a nine-day wonder never having set eyes on this creature called a Filipino before. Later, they would share with me the questions making the rounds before I came: Does he speak English? Does he eat with chopsticks? Does he sit on his haunches? By the time the subsequent batches would arrive, they realized that we were as human as the rest of them. Despite the world’s impression of India as the home of the caste system, we felt as welcome as members of their family and in our years there, we learned to look on Bangalore as our second home.
After my coming in 1951, Fernando Yusingco followed in 1952, Abdon Josol in 1956, the famous four (Louie Hechanova, Fil Suico, Willy Jesena, Ireneo Amantillo) in 1957, then the final batch of Juanito Caballero and Rudy Romano in 1958. The student professed after these two, Joelito Seyan, could not get a visa for India. His father was a citizen of Nationalist China and India only recognized Communist China. Consequently, Joelito was sent to Ireland, which started the sending of Filipino students to Ireland. All those sent to Bangalore reached ordination, though in later years some of them would leave the Congregation.
The Banglore Survivors (Fr. Fil, the late-Bishop Ireneo, Fr. Ramon and Fr. Willy)
The photograph here represents the survivors of the Bangalore “shrine” of the Filipinos. Five of the Bangalore-Filipinos have died: Fernando had left and died outside the Congregation, after doing monumental work on the missions and in community organizing among the depressed area population. Louie died as vice-provincial superior, Abdon went to his reward after years of service as a missioner, vice-provincial and provincial Superior and moral theology professor and formation director in our studentate in Davao. Rudy Romano, activist and defender of the oppressed and the poor has been unheard from since he was abducted and tortured by the intelligence agents of the martial law regime, and Juanito Caballero having left the congregation and served first as chaplain in the armed forces and later as officer in the martial law armed forces has since died.
I asked the other three “golden agers” in the attached photo for a few words born of their reflection on the shrine of our pilgrimage that was Bangalore: Here are the gems coming from their memories:
Bp. Amantillo (who died in 2018):
“To live in a country rather than your own, would make life so lonely, unappreciated and forlorn, but with the ‘ shake of the head ‘and welcome of Tamilnadu, those glorious days, fifty years can never undo”.
Fr. Fil Suico:
“There is no death though eyes grow dim, there is no fear with your everlasting smile with me.”
Fr. Willy Jesena:
Looking back over 55 years of Redemptorist life, it is a great source of joy to me to recall the many blessings of our Holy Redeemer. I have engaged in parish mission work, retreats, parish apostolate, spiritual direction, migrant workers’ apostolate and formation work. I see thousands of faces of people who in one way or another I have served. It a great grace to be a servant of Jesus Christ for his own purpose, to touch the lives of people. I thank Mary who has always been a perpetual help and inspiration. I like to say to our seminarians: ‘Together let us face the future, and continue to accept the challenge of Jesus’ mission for the abandoned poor. Let us take the words of Pope Francis with enthusiasm: ‘Go, fear not, serve!’”
For me: summing up my fellow survivors’ golden journey, as we pause in prayerful reflection at this shared shrine of our Redemptorist pilgrimage, our Bangalore experience, these verses I have treasured from my high school days:
“For yesterday was only a dream and tomorrow a vision, but today well lived makes yesterday a dream of happiness and tomorrow a vision of hope.”
From my pauses at my journey’s shrines, this brief reflection:
HOPE springs eternal in the heart that does not cease to dream.You might say that we old-timers past our golden of ordination are dreamers without end!!!
A DOSE OF GOD TODAY 