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Category: AUTHORS

  • Three-fold ONE

    Three-fold ONE

    May 30, 2021 – Trinity Sunday

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/053021.cfm#subscribe)

    Once a team of mountain climbers were stranded almost near at the highest peak. As the air grew thin and weather got colder – that made them cold and weak, one of them made a fire. So, together they gather around  the fire and contribute whatever they have to sustain the fire. As they started to enjoy the heat, they share food, as well as their stories and dreams with one another that in effect, sustain and inspire them again. One of them decided to be on his own. So, he took a stick with a fire, and isolated himself from the group. Eventually, away from the group, his fire extinguished and he got sleepy and weak.

    With the team, we get strength and inspiration. Away from the team, we get tired, weak, and dispirited.

    As Christians, we praise God in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. We give glory to God Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We proclaim our creed of faith: “I believe in God, the Father…in Jesus Christ… in the Holy Spirit.” At its very core, our Christian faith is Trinitarian – i.e. unlike any other religions, we uniquely believe in God, the Father-Son-Holy Spirit. As we honor today the Holy Trinity, perhaps now we ask: What does it mean to believe in the Trinitarian God?

    First, the word covenant simply would mean, “coming together”. As God making covenant with us, God wants to “come together for us/with us/in us”. In God the Father, we come to believe a “God-for us” who chooses us to be His own people. In God the Son, we come to believe Emmanuel Jesus, a “God-with us” who makes known to us God’s love for us, and how to love God in return. In God the Holy Spirit, we come to believe a “God-in us”, who inspires, directs, and sustains us in life of faith. To believe in the Holy Trinity then is to be in covenant with God, much as God is in covenant with us. Meaning, as God is for us/with us/in us, we must also be people for God, with God, and in God.

    Second, in the Lord’s ascension, we are reminded that the risen Lord is not-finished yet. His mission of salvation for us is still a work-in progress, and is now a product of the concerted-effort, teamwork of the communion of the Holy Trinity. Our salvation is the teamwork and actions OF our God, the Father who chooses us to be His own, THROUGH God the Son who is loving us always, and WITH the God the Holy Spirit who inspires, directs, and sustains us in life. To believe in the Holy Trinity is thus to be IN communion with God. As God acts and works as one for our salvation, so also we must be in sync, in tune with God’s concerted teamwork for our salvation. Thus we not only to give glory to them but also we are to be in sync with the works OF the Father, THROUGH the Son, WITH the Holy Spirit for our salvation.

    Third, as the Lord mandated us to proclaim our faith to all nations, in our gospel today, He particularly challenges us to make disciples in the name of the Holy Trinity. Making disciples while proclaiming our faith to all nations would mean helping ourselves and one another to be in constant covenant with God, and in partnership-communion with God’s work of salvation for us. To believe in the Holy Trinity then is to lead our lives and faith as Church, a Community of faith. As God is and works as Community, we too must also be and acts as Church – a community of Christian faith, living and witnessing God’s being and acting in our lives.

    The Holy Trinity shows us as Church how to be and act as God’s own People. As much as God be and acts together, to have a Trinitarian faith we too must be and act in covenant, in communion and in community with God and one another. As Church then, we must be faithful people for God, with God, and in God – witnessing our faith in sync with the labor of the Father, through the Son, with the Holy, and living our lives as church community making disciples and proclaiming our faith.

    Remember “the community is the bearer of God’s Salvation”. Salvation thus happens in the context of the church, faith-community, and not of individuals. We are God’s own chosen People, not chosen individual. We all are to be in covenant, in communion and in community with Him and His church. With the church, we are strong and inspired. Without and away from the church, we are weak and dispirited. We are to be in His threefold ONE.

    May we, as God’s own, not be separated from the Holy Trinity and God’s church, but instead always be connected and involved with God’s life and labors of salvation for all nations and peoples, even amidst during this challenging pandemic times. Amen.

  • To Be-Relate-Live with the Holy Spirit

    To Be-Relate-Live with the Holy Spirit

    May 23, 2021 – Pentecost Sunday

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

    Have you ever experienced a time when you are so caught up with the wonders of the moment that made you say how great it is in your own native language? And then, a foreigner caught up with the same experience as you are having, utter words of how great it is, and also in your own native language?

    Like once, my Filipino friend and I were walking sight-seeing in a street of Brussels, Belgium. We caught sight of a beautiful painting being done in the plaza. In our amazement, we both loudly utter words: Ang Ganda, ano. “Ohh, Such a beauty”. And then a Belgian guy also in wonder say: “Oo nga, napakaganda” (Oh Yes, Beautiful).  All of us (Pinoy and Belgian) where not only caught up with the beauty of the painting, but also with the beauty of the moment where we can communicate and understand each other our appreciation of the experience.

    Perhaps the same experience could be said about a French man who tries to eat Kumtang – a famous Korean beef stew, inside a Korean restaurant with among Koreans, and after tasting it, said: “Masizoyo” (Delicious, Sarap). All understand how great it is, and even a foreigner is able to appreciate it through in the local native language and tongue. In other words, Napa-Koreano sa Sarap. O Napa-Tagalog sa Ganda.

    Our shared experiences of wonders and mutual understanding among diverse cultures somehow describes us the experience of the people and the disciples during the day of Pentecost.

    Church tradition has it that fifty days after His resurrection (ten day after His ascension), on the day of Pentecost, the disciples received the promised gift of Holy Spirit to the church, and inspired them to speak in different languages to proclaim the Good News of God’s salvation. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, people from different cultures then and until now are able to speak, hear and understand each other’s faith in each other’s own native tongues. Because of such experience, today marks the birthday of the Church – the day of birth, the day when the church becomes alive. The gift of the Holy Spirit is thus very essential in the life of the Church. Like a soul to a body, the church is dead without the movements of spirit, as well as the spirit cannot inspire our life without body, the church. We, the church needs the Holy Spirit to live as well as the Holy Spirit needs our Church to offer us meaning and direction in life. For how does the Holy Spirit works in our lives?

    First, the Holy Spirit makes us experience and witness the present moment. Like being caught up with the beauty of a painting or scenery, with the delicious taste of food, with the wonders of the architectures & building, cooking, or working processes, with the intensity of a good book read, a good drama play or movie, and like the risen Lord made Himself known to his disciples, the Holy Spirit inspires us to situate and appreciate ourselves in the present experience. In other words, the Holy Spirit offers us PRESENCE in the here and now.

    Second, the Holy Spirit compels us to share our inspiration of the present moment with others. Our inspiration then is not ours to keep but to be shared with others. Like falling and being in love, the Holy Spirit moves us to proclaim and communicate our life and inspiration with others in a way that we can understand each other. In other words, the Holy Spirit provides us the LANGUAGE to articulate and communicate our inspiration of the present moment.

    And lastly, the Holy Spirit makes us respond rightly and accordingly to the inspiration-given and shared. Like Jesus giving us the mandate and mission to witness and proclaim our faith to all nations, the Holy Spirit encourages us to lead our lives according to our faith-life inspirations. In other words, the Holy Spirit obliges us a LIFESTYLE – a way of being and becoming human in life.

    Like, as Love is one of its gift, the Holy Spirit inspires us to love and be loved, to express humanly such love with an-other and others, as well as to live our lives as loving and beloved person. In the same way with Faithfulness, the Holy Spirit inspires us to have faith and trust in the risen Lord in life, to express, proclaim, and share our faith with others (regardless of culture and race), and to practice and live out such faith in our daily lives. The Holy Spirit thus concretely offers us PRESENCE – LANGUAGE – LIFESTYLE of Love and Faith in life. That is how essential Holy Spirit is into our day to day lives as Christian and as Church.

    We can only receive what is being offered. And it will be offered us in our life, if and when we allow and invite the Holy Spirit into our very lives now. We can only share what we already have. We welcome then the Holy Spirit into our lives now so that others may feel its presence, relate with its language, & live its lifestyle in our world today. 

    As we celebrate the birthday of the Church, we especially once again invite the Holy Spirit into our lives during these pandemic times, as we pray: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And you shall renew the face of the Earth.” 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!”

  • RISE UP & BE READY

    RISE UP & BE READY

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

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

    At the very hour of His death, Jesus said, “It is finished”. He is not saying, “I am finished” but rather He is just getting started.

    Somehow these insights and thoughts offer us much deeper meaning and appreciation of our faith in the Lord’s resurrection. Easter proclaims the Lord has indeed risen. And this would mean that our risen Lord is not only alive in us but also He is not finished yet. After his death, then, and in His resurrection, His mission for our salvation was just getting started, not yet finished, and is still work in-progress. His suffering and death must have finished already, but our salvation through Him is still going on. Ours is a salvation story with the risen Lord, not of sad “endings and goodbyes” but rather of hopeful “beginning and to be continued”. Easter thus proclaims the risen Lord is not finished yet, and still just getting started. So Abangan, Be ready. There are yet more to happen and much better to yet to come in our Christian lives from now on and beyond.

    Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension during Easter season. As what was described in our readings today, church tradition has it that forty days after the risen Christ have made Himself known appeared to the Apostles and stayed with them, given them many proofs of the resurrection, worked many miracles and had spoken to them and taught them of the Kingdom of God, the risen Lord now brought them into a high mountain. There, Jesus gave them his last words, blessed them, and he was lifted before their eyes, and a cloud received Him taken out of their sight. Such event is now what we Christians believe and proclaim the second glorious mystery: the Ascension of the Lord – the risen Jesus Christ has ascended into heaven, and seated at the right hand of the Father. 

    Perhaps the best way to appreciate its meaning is to see the Lord’s Ascension, not from what had happened to Jesus and his disciples but from what Jesus said to his disciples. As our gospel suggests the Lord’s Ascension is the moment when the risen Lord blessed and commissioned His disciples to be his witnesses to the world and to continue the Mission he had begun. In the Lord’s Ascension, we remember then  the event when Jesus has now entrusted to His disciples all the good things he had begun. In other words, Jesus was handing down the responsibilities and sharing on the task of proclaiming the Good News to His disciples. It is just like Jesus saying in these words, “Guys, I have already done my part. This time, rise to the occasion and do your part. Go now, go ahead, move on to the world and proclaim that you are my witnesses and that I have given you the authority 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 chose, trusted, and 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 already done and yet still doing my part.”

    Like Easter message, Lord’s ascension is about our Salvation not as a story of sad “endings and goodbyes” but rather of “beginnings and to be continued.” It is also about not mission-accomplished, but rather “mission still-on going in us & through us”,  and “mission-delegated to us” as well. Remember as the risen Lord ascended, the disciples went forth to do their tasks to preach everywhere while the Lord worked with them. Our salvation then is not a one-man operation but rather a joint-team effort, community-endeavor and church mission.  And Lord’s ascension also reminds us that our collaborative mission with the risen Lord is not all about looking at the sky but rather about working with our Lord in lifting up our endeavors to our Father.

    During Easter season, we are called to believe in the Good News of Lord’s resurrection. Now, as we celebrate His Ascension, we are called to witness our faith in the risen Lord. Now is the time for us, Christians, not to look up but stand up and rise into the occasion and do our part in sharing and living our lives as witnesses to the Good News of Christ’s Redemption.

    As Christians, we are and to be God’s gospel to be preached to all nation. Each one of us do have our own special mission in life. It is our responsibility to be what God has intended us to be here in this life now. Do our part in fulfilling our life-mission God called us to be.

    So, rise up to the occasion, be responsible for our salvation, work with the risen Lord, take all our chances to preach our gospel of Christ to all nation, and do our part for the future of our salvation in our church nations and the world, especially during these pandemic times. Only then that our Salvation Saga with Christ lives on. So be it. Hinaut pa unta. Kabay pa. Siya nawa. Amen.