“Sa classroom may batas, bawal lumabas, oh bawal lumabas. Pero pag sinabi, pag nag-comply ka na bawal na lumabas… pero may ginawa ka sa pinagbabawal nila, inayos mo yong law ng classroom niyo at sinubmit mo ulit… ay pwede na pala ikaw lumabas.” Sounds familiar?
While we earlier adjust to the constrains demanded of health protocols & restrictions of Covid-pandemic times – although subject to a lot of misinterpretations, somehow these words of Kim Chui particularly highlight our certain unhealthy attitudes towards observance of the law. It may sound clever & smart, but definitely there is something unhealthy & devious about such attitude towards laws & commandments. Yes, we do tend to fix, outwit, or by-passing the law (may ginawa, inayos at sinubmit) for our own convenience & advantages rather than abiding for common good.
In our gospel today, Jesus said: “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill the laws or the prophets.” Though he was judged as trouble-maker and law-breaker of the established Jewish laws & traditions, Jesus is teaching us here that he is not into the business & attitude of fixing the law – not into deconstructing, downgrading or upgrading, reviewing, making or abolishing the law. But rather, Jesus is fulfilling the law – doing, observing, practicing & teaching the value & spirit of the law. His affairs are the fulfillment & observance, rather than fixing or circumventing God’s commandment of Love.
In other words, in our loving God & others as we love ourselves, like Him Jesus wants us to be concerned more on WHAT should be done than on only HOW things should be done. Like Him, Jesus wants us to do & teach the RIGHT things rather than on how things done rightly or properly. Because experience teaches us that we can do wrong things in a right and proper way, and we can make mistake in doing the Right things. OR we can do the right things in love in a right way, like Jesus.
As we receive anew the gift of the Holy Spirit after Easter Season, we are now back to Ordinary time in our Liturgical Year calendar. How to practice our faith life as Easter people, believers of the risen Lord, guided now by the Holy Spirit is the very challenge of Ordinary liturgical Time. And this is deeply reflected on our particular attitude towards God’s commandment of Love.
Like Jesus, are we doing the Right things rightly and fulfilling the Law of Love? Or are we just rightly/properly doing right and wrong thing, and more like fixing & by-passing, outwitting, sidestepping the commandment to love?
In our love and loving, Mother of Perpetual Help.. Mother ever Help us.
Who was the person who taught you to pray? Who was that important person in your life who brought you to the church and to develop your personal relationship with God? I am sure that we have our own share of stories and memories of those persons who were significant in the formation of our faith. They may be our grandparents or parents, siblings or relatives or others because of their friends. Others also only began going to the church and learned how to pray and became closer to God because they were following their girlfriend or boyfriend in the Church.
Well, I want you to remember that person and please, thank the person. If the person is sitting near you, say thank you. If the person is not around with you anymore, then, in remembrance of that person, say thank you also as you imagine the face of that person.
I want you now to listen a story of real struggle that happened very recently who despite the pain and overwhelming confusion, she is able to realize the gift of persons in her life during these trying times. Let us listen to Mildred Taño Tocao (Ate Neneng) short story.
The bitterness and the difficulty of losing your beloved in life, is truly painful to accept. My husband had been ill for many months yet, he kept his illness to himself. He never asked for help perhaps because he did not want to be troubled.
I was only able to bring him to the hospital when he had the difficulty in breathings. When I brought him to the hospital, I had many fears since I easily get scared. I am scared of seeing dead people. I am scared of patients who are gravely ill. However, at that time, I was able to overcome to those fears because I wanted my husband to be healed and to live.
Yet, when he was brought to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), I was prevented to be with him. I went home but I isolated myself from my children and grandchildren since I was exposed to the hospital. I was very confused and very anxious. I was all alone in the room. I was paranoid and would easily get scared every time I would hear my phone ringing. I was scared that the hospital might give me some sad news. Yet, the time really came when I was informed that my husband died alone, away from us.
The pain in my heart was overwhelming. I lost my husband. I have never even seen him just for once before he was buried. What I can do was to cry. Moreover, because of the mandatory 14 days quarantine imposed on me, I could not embrace my two grandchildren. I can only hear their cried looking for me. I was grieving and deeply sorrowful.
However, despite all these, “God is gracious and fills us with gifts.”
“I am still thankful to you Lord for the gift of life and for the gift of presence of my husband, Tata. You have awakened my husband to praise and thank you. Although, he rarely went to Church, but my husband slowly came back to you and realized the importance of going to the Church. There were even times when it would be him waking me up early and reminding me to go to Church and pray. It is still painful to think that he is no longer with us. What I can do now is to remember him and cherish our memories with him especially as we are about to celebrate Christmas and New Year.”
Despite all these painful events in our life, I am really grateful to the Lord because God has given us many gifts. Our children and our grandchildren are the most wonderful gifts we have received. Now, they are the source my strength and of my inspiration in the midst of this painful event of losing my beloved husband.
Ate Neneng and the whole family had been a subject of discrimination and because of the surrounding fear during this pandemic, they too were deprived to see and bury their beloved dead. However, the painful experience of Ate Neneng and of the whole family leads us to this wonder to see beyond darkness and to hope beyond pain and sadness.
What helped Ate Neneng to see beyond are the very presence of those people who love her and whom she loves. Her children and grandchildren, as she shared, became the very source of comfort and strength to her in these very difficult times. In this way, God reveals His graciousness and gifts to us with those people who are near to us, particularly our family. This is what Ate Neneng also realized as she struggled to discover hope and find light in this heartbreaking point of her life.
To consciously remember and recognize the people in our life and in the story of our faith, we too are being reminded of God’s action within our history. God called messengers or heralds to lead us and gather us into the presence of God. With this, let us also discover how God worked in our history and reveal His graciousness to us through the Sacred Scriptures.
In the prophecy from the Book of Malachi, we have heard of God’s herald who shall lead and gather the people to see God. He is like a refiner’s fire who will teach and correct the wrong of the people. The herald leads the people to repentance to fully welcome the Lord. And the very life of this person is the message of God to make the people prepare themselves for God’s coming. This is God’s promise that is to be first fulfilled through the participation of humanity, through us.
The person of this herald is truly a gift because his presence means bringing us into preparation. This is how God’s graciousness is also revealed because what God desires is our salvation and our freedom. The role of the herald becomes our link with God.
The author of the Psalm expressed the desire to be taught by the Lord and to be led to the truth. This is the role of the herald in the first reading and the herald in the Gospel of Luke who teaches, leads and gathers the people to recognize God’s graciousness.
What is more interesting about the herald was how he was conceived in his mother’s womb. In the Gospel of Luke, which tells us of the birth of John, the herald of God was surrounded by a story of surprise and of God’s graciousness. The Lord continued the revelation of this plan through the old childless couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth.
Indeed, to the surprise of this old couple an angel announced that they will have a son. Elizabeth welcomed the message from God, but her husband, because it was too much to believe, could not accept God’s gift. That is why, Zechariah was silenced by God. He only recovered his voice when his son was born. It was when he gave the name John to his son that the Lord opened his mouth again because the Lord is gracious.
The name John literally means, God is Gracious. The birth of John the Baptist is a testimony of God’s graciousness not just to the old couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth but to the whole humanity. The couple is an image of the people who longed to be taught and to be led to God. As John was a gift to his parents, John also points to God’s graciousness who is about to come in its fullness. Zechariah also realized that his son is God’s message to him. With the birth of his son John, Zechariah was filled with God’s gift which made him to speak again because of so much joy and gratitude to the Lord.
Yes, Zechariah spoke and regained his voice because of so much joy in his heart, because of so much gratitude in his spirit. The birth of John is a divine manifestation that God is gracious and faithful despite our unbelief and doubts. God continues to reveal himself to us even though we may refuse to believe.
This was the role of John and that was to bring people again to believe that God has never abandoned us. God remembers and He is here with us. This made John a great and important prophet because he made people recognize God and brought them closer to God. He was a refiner’s fire because he challenged the people’s way of life and called them to get out from their comfort zones of power, influence, abuse, sin and corruption. Yet, because of this role of John, it caused John’s life. He was martyred, beheaded actually, because of this cause to make people recognize that God is gracious.
This is the invitation for us today – to be a herald of God. Each of us was led and taught by significant people in our life. Now, it is our time to be one, to become God’s herald today, to become like John the Baptist who will also lead others to God, who will point to others how God is so gracious to us.
How do we become a herald today?
You as parents, you are in the best position to lead your children to God. You are there to prepare the way of the Lord in the hearts of your children – not through indifference and irresponsibility but through your love and understanding, through your loving presence and affection.
Teachers, educators and persons who are in authority, you too are in the position to influence your students, mentees and subjects to discover God through your authority – not through dominance and control but through your loving care and gentleness.
As friends, co-workers, and classmates we too are in the position to let those people around us to realize that God is in us – not through manipulation and deceit but through our kindness and generosity. Through us, people around us may discover and be led closer to God. Hinaut pa.
I don’t like surprises. Yes, there’s that element of excitement that one feels over it. But I think it’s in this certain sense of mystery and of unpredictability in surprises which makes it unwanting for me.
Zechariah was not ready for a surprise. For sure, in the course of time he had served God, he must had presented his desire to have at least a child. But the time he waited for God’s answer was long overdue. Being human and old, and his wife Elizabeth was found to be barren, his doubts were understandably considerable.
To doubt or misunderstand God’s purpose in our life is obviously easy. Even highly spiritual people are sometimes subject to doubt. Maybe because we don’t pay much attention to God’s intimate presence in our lives. Or perhaps we underestimate our value by magnifying our inadequacies.
But God’s power is not bound by human limitations or confined by our pessimistic views. These factors, therefore, are not deterrents to God’s promised plan of salvation.
God is faithful, and He keeps his promise. And he delivers it on time, by his time and by his way. He, who created the whole universe and guided the events of history to prepare the coming of the Messiah, is very much capable of accomplishing what He had begun. What may be under humanly impossible circumstances, God makes it possible. Because He specializes in the “Impossibles.”
However, to be able to appreciate God’s hands at work in our life, we must be open to what God can do in every situation, be it ordinary or extraordinary. And of course, to let God be God by patiently waiting for God to act in his time, in his ways.
Lord, God of surprises, may you give us eyes of faith to see you present in our life and ears of faith to hear you speaking to us. And may we learn to trust you enough in every step of the way. Amen.
How many of us who find it hard to observe the “no touching” advice from our medical experts? Because of the increase of the infection we are all advised to refrain from touching people or things. Touch only when it is necessary. The virus can also be passed through our touch, through our hands.
Because we have been so used to touch, in expressing our affection we touch, when we give comfort to a friend or a person we love we touch, even when we greet a friend or even a stranger we also touch. Even in our religious practices we also touch. When we pray and ask the intercession of the saints we touch their sacred statues or even kiss the holy images of our Lord. However, with this pandemic we are all advised not to do it.
Moreover, we are being confined at home. Our movements are limited and our desire to meet our friends and loved ones is sometimes prohibited or at least limited. For the past months, we long for a human touch and long for human encounter. Thus, we could also understand the frustration that we feel because of this abrupt change in our behavior.
With all of these, we also realize the importance of human touch and of human encounter. It is important because there is a healing power in human touch. A human touch can comfort a bruised and fearful heart. It could take away the painful part of your body. It could give you confidence and assurance of support, love and trust.
On this 9th and last day of our Novena in honor to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, whose feast we shall celebrate tomorrow, I invite you now to listen to a personal story from a front liner herself, a nurse by profession who in the midst of our frustrations she herself went into something more frustrating too. She was confronted with fear yet at the same time of her call of duty to be at the service of those who are sick.
Thus, with her, we also bring ourselves into reflection today with our theme, “Our Mother of Perpetual Help: Source of Help to Front liners Battling Covid-19, to those infected by the virus and to those who have died because of the virus.”
“I am SHIELA MAE PANTILLO, a DIALYSIS NURSE, for almost 7 years and still counting. Now a days we are often called FRONTLINERS, and this FRONTLINER will share a piece of my journey during this pandemic.
I’ll start by asking: Does anyone of you tried of wearing a PPE or a Protective Personal Equipment? Or have you seen one? Or do you have any idea, what it feels like inside in it? Because for me, definitely I DO! And I tell all of you that it’s not fun to try one.
A PPE is composed of an overall kind of suit, covering your whole body, that makes you sweat and feel uncomfortable inside in it. This also comes with the N95 face mask that fits your respiratory entrance and exit, which is your NOSE and MOUTH. This could sometimes lead medical practitioner to feel DIFFICULTY OF BREATHING, when used for quite some time. Last but not the least is the face shield and gloves and that make a basic PPE complete or should I say the OUTFIT OF THE DAY!
Wearing such things make me feel that I am an ASTRONAUT, going outside the world fighting for aliens, “kidding aside.” However, behind my PPE and inside my heart are the worst feelings kept within. FEAR, ANXIETY, WORRIES are there that can even lead a person to DEPRESSION. I am always anxious because as I face the patients, I never know what will happen and that one day I will become infected and might end up losing my life too.
I will give one situation. This was during my shift at 3pm to 11pm. This was a very toxic day. We have 3 patients on deck admitted for dialysis. I was the team leader that time. Every one of them has a specific treatment to be done.
With my team, we also have an ICU patient who needed a dialysis immediately. The patient needed blood transfusion and Dobutamine drips needed to be provided for Blood pressure to increase. However, there was some problem with another patient because dialysis machines kept on alarming due to catheter access problem. One could just imagine the pressure that it gave me as the team leader at that time.
Suddenly, in the middle of this mess, I received a phone call from my Head Nurse. He asked me if I remember a particular patient during the past week. As my head nursed described to me the patient, I slowly remembered the patient and realized I was the one who ministered to the patient. Upon realizing this, my heart began to beat faster. I felt my Adrenaline Hormones bursting into my brain telling me that there might be something wrong with that patient.
Then, my head nurse added that the patient will be transferred to a government hospital for further investigation. They had seen signs and symptoms of the virus COVID-19. At the moment everything started to move slowly, as if slow motion really. As I remembered, I can’t hear anything!!! I only heard the Cardiac Monitor having ASYSTOLE for quite sometime or called FLAT LINE that sounded like tooooooooooot!!!!!!
Everything went blurred for the first time in my life. I began to absorb all the negative feelings which made my heart heavier. Again FEAR, ANXIETY, PARANOIA occupied my brain cells. It took me a couple of minute to go back to reality. I realized that I was unconsciously just saying YES to my Head Nurse though I didn’t understand what he was saying. I was overwhelmed of what would happen next.
The first person who came into my head was my Senior Citizen Mother. I asked, how will I supposed to tell her my situation? I was so scared to go home thinking that I should be the health care provider, but now I might be the carrier of the virus and might infect my own mother.
As I reached home and cleaned up myself. I told my mother if she can go to my brother and live with him at Buhangin and to stay there for some days. I didn’t want to tell her the reason for asking her to do that. I didn’t want her to be worried for me. But, then she REFUSED.
I tried to make things clearer for her, just to make her say yes and to transfer. But again she said NO. So I told her the TRUTH, that she needed to get away from me because I’ll do a personal isolation to myself for several days just to make sure that I’m not a carrier of the virus. However, still my mother said NO.
What do you expect from a mother who is also worried for her daughter? This made me more irritated and frustrated. Without noticing it, my voice become loud as if I was already shouting at my mom, hoping she could at least understand my frustration. But what struck me most was what she said and did.
My mom sat down and held the rosary, and told me, “My child we will pray and continue to pray. Our Mother of Perpetual Help always listens and never leaves your side. Have you forgotten that you were once far away from us for 4 years as an OFW but never she abandoned you. She keeps you safe until this day.”
At that moment, I felt a pail of cold water splashed over me, removing worries, anxiety and paranoia. I told myself, why on earth should I be worried when in the first place she chooses me to serve her people? GOD gives me this gift, being a skillful nurse to help the sick. This made me to burst into tears as I prayed, “I offer everything to you LORD. Through you Our Mother of Perpetual Help, you helped me to lift all my burdens in life. With you, I feel that no matter what happens you will never abandon me. Amen. Amen!”
This has been my prayer as I counted the days of my self-isolation. With my mom, we continued to pray the rosary and ask the intercession of Mary. Al last we got the result of the patient and it was NEGATIVE. Those fear and anxiety were over. It was the ANSWERED PRAYER we are all waiting for. As you people can see me right now and until the days ahead, I promise to always be here standing and serving as a NURSE, as a FRONTLINER and will continue to HELP and SAVE LIVES as what OUR MOTHER OF PERPETUAL HELP inspires me to be. Amen.”
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In the sharing of Sheila, we heard a struggle of a front liner that she has to go through. It was evident how fear and anxiety could affect us so much. Sometimes, more than the virus, fear and anxiety paralyze us. Moreover, what we find comforting is the support and the love of a mother, who perhaps could not also really understand the real situation why they had to be separated. In times like this, it is indeed the touch of a person who loves us that brings calmness in us, that brings peace and assurance in our hearts.
This has been shown also in that simple action of praying the rosary and calling the intercession of Mary, Our Mother of Perpetual Help who never ceases to touch us to comfort us and to bring healing in our hearts.
Moreover, we can also wonder how those who were infected have been coping with this terrible disease. Again, more than the virus, the depression, the loneliness, the desperation and helplessness, their fear and anxiety would have definitely disturbed them too. I have friends who asked for prayers for those who were infected by the virus. I have also some friends who themselves got infected and so were isolated from their loved ones. Those whom they loved, their parents or their children were prevented to visit them. Thus, this created so much stress and longing to them. Yet, they cannot help it because of the danger of infecting those whom they love.
These frustrations and longing to be touched or to have a human encounter is innate in us. Thus, not being able to touch and be touched by the people whom we love would give us emptiness.
This is also what we have heard in today’s Gospel. A leper who was discriminated and socially isolated because of their illness came to Jesus. He asked for healing. What he was asking was totally against the culture and belief at that time for he came near to Jesus. The community despised them and they were always driven out of the city. They should and never be near with anyone.
With this situation, he must have longed for that encounter with another human being who understands and shows compassion. In his desire to have a human encounter, through Jesus, he too encountered God.
As this leper encountered Jesus, there was more in this encounter. Jesus actually healed others even by just saying words. Even at a distance, Jesus can heal a sick person. However, in this situation, Jesus knew the longing of this leper. As the leper longed for human encounter, for acceptance, he also longed to be touched, to be loved. Indeed, against the culture and belief at that time, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.
The touch of Jesus made this leper clean and healed. Jesus’ touch assured him that God has not left him and that God loves him. That touch of God, reminds the leper and those who are not that our touch can be a form of loving that expresses healing, confidence and affection.
This is the invitation for us today. Though physically it is difficult these days to touch others, but at least make an effort to let those who need love and understanding be touched by your presence. Though we may not be able to caress the back of a friend for comfort, let those who are grieving and confused, those who are in pain and lost to be touched by the assurance of your friendship. Let those who are hungry and suffering in dire poverty be touched also by your generosity.
Indeed, there are many ways where we can touch other lives and become life-giving in our own profession and status in life. Thus, do not be afraid to touch others with the intention to give life and to be life for others. In this way, we are truly children of Mary, Our Mother of Perpetual Help, who continues to touch us today. Hinaut pa. Viva Maria! Viva Hesus!
Have you been in a point in your life when everything seemed to be so devastating?
Though you recognized that there are blessings but then, life for you appeared to be so unfair. Because of the difficult circumstances in our life, these could lead us to believe that we are in total misery. Perhaps because of the many failures you had in life that it becomes difficult to see any hope. Possibly because of the misfortunes that happened with your relationships, with your job or business that you also seemed to believe that God has completely forgotten about you. The unfavorable turn of events in your family or your other relationships could have led you this moment to believe that you have been deprived of happiness.
Such experiences and belief may lead us to become cold towards God’s graciousness in us. As a result, we may become dismissive of God’s invitations and graces intended for our growth and participation in God’s plan for us and for our community.
This has been the case of this man, Zechariah. In fact, there were many interesting events surrounding the life of this priest of the temple. The Gospel told us that Zechariah became mute, he could not speak after the angel revealed to him that God’s graciousness was upon him. Zechariah did not believe and dismissed God’s grace that he and his wife will have a son.
What led Zechariah to become like this was the failures and shame he experienced in his life, as a man, as a husband, and as a priest of the temple. We knew that Zechariah and Elizabeth had no son until they were very old. With those many years of being childless they endured the shame of having no child.
Their culture and faith believed that a childless couple was cursed and punished by God for the sins they committed or committed by their ancestors. Yet, Zechariah knew that he and his wife did not deserve such curse and punishment. Zechariah must have prayed a lot to God to give them a child. Yet, for those many years of praying, heaven seemed to be so silent. God was seemed to be so far away from him.
Interestingly, God had not revealed anything to His chosen people for the past 400 years. God’s last revelation through a prophet was in the Book of Malachi. And for that long period of waiting, Zechariah also must have become too tired from waiting.
This looked natural to a person who believed that God had already forgotten him. Zechariah, therefore, performed his duties in the temple mechanically. His heart too had grown tired and indifferent. This was the reason why he couldn’t believe the words of the angel. Instead of listening and welcoming God’s grace, he rather argued and rejected it as nonsense.
That’s why Zechariah was deprived of his voice and hearing. It was God’s way of telling Zechariah that he ought to be more conscious of God’s presence and of God’s graciousness expressed in many ways.
Indeed, the birth of John was the greatest sign for Zechariah and Elizabeth that indeed God did not forget them. The birth of this child led Zechariah to affirm that God is gracious. In fact, the name John means God is gracious.
In that graciousness of God, he made John as the very instrument to bring people back to God, and to lead people closer to God. This had been the experience of Zechariah. God never left him. It was Zechariah who gradually distanced himself from the Lord. Thus, through the birth of John, this son was bringing back his father back to God. John was the herald, the announcer who guided people to the Lord.
This is what we have heard in the first reading. In the prophecy of the Book of Isaiah, this person shall be a light of the nations because he will teach, lead and gather the people to see God. The birth of this person is not by accident but planned well by God.
Isaiah described God calling his herald even before his birth. This herald has been named and appointed by God to lead his people. This is God’s promise to be first fulfilled through the participation of humanity, through us.
The birth of John then, is God’s manifestation that He is indeed gracious and faithful despite our unbelief and doubts. God continues to reveal himself to us even though we refuse to believe or when we become indifferent.
This was the role of John and that was to bring people again to believe that God has never abandoned us. God remembers us and with us. This made John a great and important prophet because he reminded the people about God, made people recognize God and brought them close to God. Yet, because of this role of John, he paid it with his life. He was martyred, beheaded actually, because of this cause to make people recognize God.
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On this 7th day also of our Novena-Mass in honor of Mary, Our Mother of Perpetual Help, we remember in a special way those who are greatly suffering and stricken by wars and conflicts caused by issues of racism and imperialism. Many of our brothers and sisters have been displaced, died and in dire state because of war and conflicts.
Hopefully, through our devotion to Mary and through the invitation of God on this Solemnity of John the Baptist, each of us also will become instruments of God’s graciousness. In the way we live our life, perform our duties and express our faith, we may be able to lead people back and close to God and to discover a life filled with peace and love with God and with each other.
Thus, even if our situation is far from those who are victims of wars and conflicts, at least in our own sphere of influence we shall also do our part to become an instrument of peace and people who lead others to the Lord.
Meaning, you as parents, you are in the best position to lead your children to God. You are there to prepare the way of the Lord in the hearts of your children. Teachers, educators and persons who are in authority, you too are in the position to influence your students, mentees and subjects to discover God in your authority. As friends or co-workers, we too are in the position to let those people around us to realize that God is in us. Through us, people around us may discover and be led closer to the Lord.
This, indeed, will be our best way of expressing our devotion to Mary and gratitude to God for He is gracious to us. Hinaut pa. Viva Maria! Viva Hesus!
A DOSE OF GOD TODAY 