Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Category: Homilies

  • On Denial and Denial of Oneself

    On Denial and Denial of Oneself

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    August 7, 2020 – Friday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

    First Friday: Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080720.cfm)

    Homily

    What’s the difference between ON DENIAL and DENIAL OF ONESELF?

    Being ON DENIAL is non-acknowledgement of the self. It neither recognizes nor own the self. It does not recognize ones failures and sins and so the person refuses to change and be converted. It is also the same as one denies his or her illness and so refuses any form of treatment or medication.

    Thus, to be ON DENIAL is also a way of denying our responsibility over the wrong that we have done. We are on denial because we do not want our responsibility and take the consequences. This might be because of fear of punishment and/or because of shame that we will endure upon admitting.

    A person who is on denial of one’s failures and sins could respond in two different ways. The person may project those failures and sins to others by making false accusations of people around him or her. One the other hand, a person may put the blame on others for such failures and sins while maintaining a self-righteous attitude.

    We find ourselves in this kind of situation of being “on denial” through our explicit reactions when we are being confronted. When confronted we become angry and irritable, aggressive and reactive. In this way, the self tries to exercise control and dominance and when opposed, the person becomes aggressive. Or we may express a passive attitude and an indifferent response to confrontation. This is expressed in hiding or retreating from confrontation. Therefore, no matter how people around us would bring to our attention those failures and sins we committed, we are not moved because we have just lost our conscience.

    Being on denial, then, is a hopeless effort to save and secure oneself, yet, in the long run we lose ourselves and others because we distance from the grace of God.

    However, this is not what the Lord wants us to be. The Gospel today invites us to learn the attitude of the “DENIAL OF ONESELF.”

    Before we can deny ourselves, there is a need first to acknowledge, recognize and own ourselves. This includes recognition of both weaknesses and strengths, of failures and successes, of sins and graces in us, as well as our needs, wants and desires.

    Denial of oneself then, is an act of love, a responsible action and a life-giving response.

    Think of what parents can do. When parents think more of the welfare and well-being of their children, in a way, they exercise self-denial for the sake of those whom they love. Parents find more life and happiness as they deny their personal satisfaction and wants for the sake of their children.

    Think of the many medical front liners today also. Despite the danger of getting infected and being separated from their families, they endure such responsibility for the sake of others and for the good of our community. This is how self-sacrificing people find fulfillment in life despite the challenges in their profession or field of work.

    Think of those who offered and volunteered themselves in both civic and  Church organizations, not because of the benefits they receive but to serve the community and the Church in their own capacity. These people find more meaning in life as they encounter and share their life with others.

    These are expressions of the “Denial of Oneself.” To deny oneself allows us to bring ourselves before others, to make our personal satisfaction and wants as lesser priority for the sake of others. It allows us to make a self-sacrifice for the good and welfare of those whom we love.

    Denial of oneself assumes responsibility and does things not just out of duty, but out of love, out of concern, out of kindness and generosity. This is how we find the Gospel message truly liberating, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

    Therefore, we discover more ourselves by relating with others. We begin to appreciate and love more ourselves by appreciating and loving others too because as we encounter others and let them be part of our life, then, we also begin to recognize the presence of the Lord in them and among us.

    This is how we find “more life and lasting happiness” because we find God in the lives of others. Hinaut pa.                                          

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • Prayer leads us to respond

    Prayer leads us to respond

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    August 3, 2020 – 18th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/080320.cfm)

    Homily

    The Gospel of Matthew tells us this attitude of Jesus to commune with his Father. After his busy schedule, overwhelming encounter with the sick, heavy loads in teaching, Jesus would find time to be alone and to pray.

    This is an attitude that shows us the importance of prayer life, to gather our thoughts, to reflect and relax after a busy and tiring day, and to be more intimate with God. The Gospel would always tell us about this attitude in Jesus. He would always find time to be alone in order to give a space for himself and for his Father in heaven. This is an intimate expression of love and confidence. Prayer then, is that intimate expression of love and confidence with God.

    In a concrete way, this love and confidence heightens ones awareness of the needs others.

    Again, the Gospel of Matthew tells us how the prayer of Jesus made him aware of the difficulties of his disciples. Jesus sensed that they needed his help. The disciples who were on the boat, crossing the sea, experienced a storm. They were frightened and terrified. Though most of them were fishermen and had experienced before that kind of danger, but they were still afraid.

    They must have been terrified because the source of their confidence was not with them at that time. Jesus was not with them on the boat. They were alone in the midst of that storm.

    However, the prayer of Jesus made him aware of this fear and need of the disciples. Jesus went and made himself present in that moment of fear of the disciples. He made himself present to assure and give confidence. The words of Jesus are indeed both an assurance and an invitation, he said, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”

    Indeed, this is an assurance that God comes and meets us where we are at the moment even in our darkest and most fearful moment in life. God comes to make himself present in our life. This is also an invitation to recognize the Lord in those trying times and not to let our fear overwhelm us.

    The invitation for us today is this – that like Jesus our prayer also should lead us to become aware of the needs of others and move us to respond. This is an active prayer and a life-giving prayer.

    Prayer then, is not meant to be mechanical and a mere ritual. Prayer in itself is an invitation for us, that as we become more aware of God’s presence in us, we too become more aware of the presence of people around us. Prayer bears fruit then, when we make ourselves be moved to the needs around us in order to give life. In this way, our prayer becomes life-giving.

    This is how true prayer and communion with God transforms us because it moves us to give our a person and very presence to those who are distressed and afraid today. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • God satisfies our deepest hunger

    God satisfies our deepest hunger

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    August 2, 2020 – 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/080220.cfm)

    Homily

    Who among us here who have not yet experienced hunger? I am sure each of us have experienced that feeling of being hungry since we were babies. Babies especially would always cry when they are hungry. A parent’s automatic response to a crying baby is to feed the baby with milk. When the baby starts sucking, the baby also stops from crying. When we become adults, we continue such behavior though we do not cry anymore but feed ourselves with food that can satisfy our physical hunger.

    At the beginning of this quarantine and lockdowns, we have also experienced how we have become anxious from running out of food during this pandemic. News reports all over the world told us of panic buying. People were fighting over some supplies, and many essential goods also run out of supply. People bought many things to satisfy not their hunger, but their anxiety of what is to come tomorrow.

    Aside from this, there are also many other forms of hunger in us, such us our hunger for acceptance, for recognition, for friendship, for love and intimacy, for justice, for peace and reconciliation.

    And in our search to satisfy those longings and hungers, we are sometimes led to resort to the promises of “instant satisfaction” and to an “immediate result.”

    Their consequences become destructive, unhelpful and the corruption of life. Addictions such as in alcohol, drugs, sex or food are ways to satisfy our deepest hunger. Yet, because they only promise an instant gratification and so we hold on to those addictions to numb our hunger for love, for attention and intimacy.

    Our obsessive fixations in spending too much time in social media, or online games or with gadgets, can remove us from the true and personal encounter with people. Because of the lack of human connection, we divert our need into what is temporary, virtual and not real.

    Our compulsive behaviors in gossiping, in defaming people and in finding the faults and weaknesses of others seemingly give us the image of a good person, righteous than others. However, these behaviors only blind us of our true longing to be recognized and be appreciated.

    Our obsession to be powerful, to exercise dominance and control over the weak and to resort to violent and aggressive actions apparently make us confident, independent and strong willed. However, they too blind us from that hunger to find our true self and our true potentials.

    That’s why, God in his goodness would always invite us to come to him so that our hunger will be satisfied and our longing will be fulfilled. This is what our first reading told us today. The Book of Isaiah tells us of God’s invitation to come, to eat and be satisfied. God invites his people to come to him, to recognize God as the source and fountain of good and wonderful things in life. This is an assurance of God to the people that indeed, in God they shall be satisfied. Yet, there is something interesting behind this invitation.

    This particular verses in the Book of Isaiah were addressed to the people of Israel who were exiled in a foreign land. And a time has come that they will be restored and will be brought home. However, many of them seemed not to be moved by God’s invitation. People have become comfortable with their life while at exile. They were able to adjust and adopted to a new way of life. Thus, when God’s promise was fulfilled, they have become indifferent, not wanting to be moved by God anymore.

    Thus, this invitation to come to God and be satisfied is also at the same time a challenge and an assurance to us who have become indifferent, complacent but remain anxious of what will happen tomorrow. This is God’s assurance also affirmed in today’s Psalm, “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”

    This is what we find in today’s Gospel. Jesus became aware of the needs of the people who followed him on foot. This moved the heart of Jesus with pity that prompted him to respond. Jesus cured the sick and also provided them with food for their empty stomach. This is the great miracle of the feeding of thousands of people. This became possible through the participation of people who were close to Jesus. This is where we discover how God gives us the opportunity to be part of the miracle.

    However, we also see how the disciples expressed their anxiety over their food supply. There were more than five thousand people around and Jesus told them to feed the people themselves. All they had were five loaves and two fish, which might not be enough also for 13 adult men. The disciples must have felt that deep anxiety and confusion if they have to share the little that they had for the people. Surely, what they had in mind was, “these are not enough, so we better keep the food for ourselves.”

    Yet, the miracle happened when those five loaves and two fish were brought generously to Jesus so that others may eat. We are invited by Jesus to offer sincerely the little that we have. We might be thinking that the world’s problem on hunger is too big for us to respond and our share will only be insignificant. But let us remember, the five loaves and two fish were actually insignificant compared to the thousands of people. However, the disciples did not hide the little that they had, but offered generously to the Lord.

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    This action tells us of our own vulnerability and weakness and at the same time the power behind a generous action. To give away the little that we have, makes us insecure, yet, it is actually through the little that we possess that the Lord can work wonderfully. When we give something and then we feel vulnerable, because that was all we have, no matter how small, is actually the fruit of our generosity. Remember, true generous people will always feel helpless because what they give to others is not something that is only an excess of their possession.

    Jesus invites us to recognize him, that is, to recognize God, His love and friendship with us as our food that will satisfy our hunger. He is the bread that gives us life. This Eucharist is the gift and our food that should satisfy our deepest human hunger. That is why, this Eucharist is more than what we think. This is not simply prayers and readings, standing and kneeling, singing and saying amen. This Eucharist is our very relationship with God and with one another. This is all about us and God, you and me and Jesus.

    And so, I would like to invite you then, so that we will be able to make this Eucharist truly life-giving.

    First, ask the Lord to help us recognize our different hungers. Be mindful, then, of our compulsive actions, fixations and some forms of addictions because those behaviors in us will tell us of our own hungers and needs. When we become conscious of those, hopefully, it will lead us to seek to what will last, to what is more essential in our relationships and to what will truly satisfy us.

    Second, be moved to open up and to become generous of ourselves to the needs and hungers of others. Remember, we too are being satisfied and become fulfilled when we ourselves become instruments of God’s action in satisfying and fulfilling the life of those in need. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • God’s presence in the ordinary and familiar

    God’s presence in the ordinary and familiar

    July 31, 2020 – Friday: Memorial of St Ignatius of Loyola

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/073120.cfm)

    Homily

    Have you experienced being judged by friends or family members because of your past sins, weaknesses or failures and because you are just too familiar and ordinary for them? Or have you ever judged others too because of their past sins and failures and because they also are very familiar and ordinary to you?

    Though Jesus never failed and sinned, yet, he too experienced judgment and bitterness from people around him. When Jesus went home to Nazareth, he was treated badly by his own people. The good news that he preached and God’s power that he revealed to his neighbors were treated with cruelty and insecurity.

    When Jesus stood in their midst, the people merely saw a carpenter and an ordinary man who once played and worked with them. The people limited Jesus by what he was used to do, in doing carpentry, nothing more and nothing less. They couldn’t accept that there was actually MORE in Jesus.

    Thus, instead of welcoming the power and wisdom that Jesus shared with grace and faith, the people refused to accept because of their insecurities and bitterness. They rejected Jesus because they could not accept that this ordinary carpenter brings God’s presence to them. They questioned him, “Who is this man? Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary?”

    The too-ordinary life of Jesus prevented them to welcome him as God’s revelation to them. Resentment and hate overwhelmed the people which made their hearts, unbelieving. This was the reason why Jesus was not able to perform many mighty deeds for them because God’s grace will only work when it is received with faith. Jesus is after all, not a magician who will attract people’s attention for a short span of time. Jesus reveals God’s presence and power through ordinary means.

    And this is not far from our own experiences too. Many times we may reject what is ordinary and familiar. We ignore God’s grace and invitation to us because we are busy looking for extra-ordinary things, for a magic to appear. That instead of recognizing God’s power in an ordinary sunrise and sunset, we busy ourselves looking for a “dancing sun” or “falling petals from heaven.” Thus, we refuse to believe that there is MORE in the ordinary.

    St. Ignatius de Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus

    St. Ignatius de Loyola, whose feast we celebrate today, believed that God is always present with us, in all our human experiences. This conviction in Ignatius is found in his deep realization that God works in all things and in all lives, no matter how simple or ordinary it can in the eyes of others. Thus, we can indeed find God, realize God and embrace God when we too have made ourselves more open and welcoming to God’s presence.

    Indeed, miracles happen every day in its most ordinary way even amidst this pandemic. God’s grace is being unfolded even in our everyday experiences. God’s healing power is also revealed to us through our familiar sacraments in the church and through the embrace of people who love us like our parents, siblings, relatives and friends.

    This is the invitation now for us today – that is, to make ourselves more aware of God’s work even in the most ordinary way, to recognize God even among the familiar people, places and events. When we are able to learn this kind of awareness, then, we too shall discover the wonders that God gives us every day, and we shall realize that there is MORE in every ordinary experience, and in every ordinary and familiar person we meet.

    This calls us not to judge quickly to what is familiar and to what is seemingly ordinary, but, to be more welcoming of God’s grace. This reminds us now to be more open to the many potentials of those people who are familiar to us, and not to limit them to their past failures and sins. This calls us too to recognize how God unfolds his grace and his gift of healing through those people who love us. This calls us also to listen to God’s message and invitation through our present situation and through the people who might be God’s prophet today even though they look so familiar and ordinary for us, because there is always more that God offers us today. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • How to maintain a welcoming and nurturing heart

    How to maintain a welcoming and nurturing heart

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    July 24, 2020 – Friday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072420.cfm)

    Homily

    How recipient am I of God and of His invitations? How welcoming and nurturing is my heart for God?

    The parable of the sower speaks to us of the different attitudes of human hearts in welcoming and accepting God and God’s living word in us. This was portrayed on how the seeds fell into the different parts of the field.

    Certainly, from this parable, this tell us too that we are God’s field. As a field where the seeds are planted, God desires that we become fruitful by allowing what God has planted in us to grow.

    As God’s field, how do we make ourselves a rich soil then, good for planting and growing? How do we also maintain a welcoming and nurturing heart?

    As in real planting, the soil should be filled with what is natural and organic, with real soil. When our field is filled with rocks, plastics and dangerous chemicals then it would not be good for plants to grow. We have to take away the rocks and plastics that may hinder the growth of the seeds, and the dangerous chemicals that may poison the plants.

    Thus, our heart can also be filled with our pretensions, our masks and our self-serving attitudes that serve rocks and plastics in the field that will hinder our faith to grow and mature. Our heart can also be filled with anxieties, excessive attachments to things, uncontrollable desires and addictions. These surely are dangerous chemicals that will poison our hearts. These lead us away from God and away from others and even away from our true selves.

    For us to have a welcoming and nurturing heart, we need to empty ourselves from our insecurities and anger, from hate and aggression. Without these, then we can be filled with love, with forgiveness, with faith and hope, with compassion and mercy, with tenderness and peace.

    Moreover, we can only accommodate God and others when we are not filled with ourselves. Yes, when we are filled with ourselves, with our arrogance and pride, with our bitterness and guilt, then, we won’t be able to welcome and give space for God and for his invitations to grow and bear fruit in our hearts. In the same way, we will not be able to welcome others to take part in our life.

    Thus, the invitation for us today is to seek understanding and wisdom from God that we may be able to recognize the way God is leading us today. To seek understanding will help us to take away at least two poisonous tendencies of our heart.

    First, is our tendency to accept what we only like to believe. This is a tendency that only seeks comfort and does not want to be challenged. Such tendency in us will make us dismissive of the Word of God that gives discomfort.

    Second, is our tendency to believe to what is only beneficial for the sake of our personal interest. This tendency expresses aggression when confronted with the truth. Such tendency will also make us narrow-minded because it is fixed to what is only good for our sake.

    However, such attitudes of the heart make us stagnant. This is not what God wants us. God desires always that we become individuals and a community that bears fruit for others and that we will be able to share and give life.

    Therefore, to seek understanding from God is to constantly challenge our hearts and confront our selfish desires. To be able to maintain a rich soil then, is to receive the word of God organically, without any color from our selfish intentions and self-serving interests. In this way, we could make our heart welcoming and nurturing, not for our sake, but for our community. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR