Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Category: Ordinary Time

  • LAMBING

    LAMBING

    June 17, 2021 – Thursday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061721.cfm)

    Prayer is an essential dimension of our Christian life & spirituality. Our gospel today invites us to reflect upon our prayer life as followers of Christ & God’s beloved children. And, in teaching us the Lord’s prayer, Jesus reminds us not only what to pray but also how to pray & why we pray.

    First, to pray is to be present before God’s presence – being present before God’s presence. When we call our God as our Father, we personally present ourselves before our God and address Him as our beloved Father (Tatay, Amahan, Papa, Aboji). Because of this, second, prayer is all about God and less about ourselves. When we pray, we do tend to be more concerned about the gifts than the Giver. Valid may our present needs and wants be, but before God’s presence, we are more than just what we need, but we pray as His Children. So, pray to the Giver, and less for the gifts. Aspire for His kingdom to come & His will be done now & always in life. Only then & after being present & hoping for God’s will that, third, we ask from Him. And we ask not for what we want but what we need because what we want might not be really what we need & better for us. Again, His will – not ours, be done. Jesus, rather teaches us to ask for three things that we really need in life now: our daily bread, forgiveness, & faith in the midst of life-difficulties.

    To pray then is to be present before God’s presence, to long for His Kingdom & Will to be with us, & to ask for what we really need now than just what we want from Him. In other words, praying is our pamaraig, lambing, tenderness with our Father: a loving conversation with the Giver rather than just asking for gifts & favors.

    Tatay, May Your Kingdom & Will be upon us now & grant us what we really need now – food for the journey, forgiveness for our shortcomings & strength in faith as we follow Jesus, your son in our daily struggles with life.

    So Help Us, Tatay. So May it be. Amen.

  • GOD KNOWS BEST

    GOD KNOWS BEST

    June 17, 2021 – Thursday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061721.cfm)

    Why the need to ask when the Father knows what we need?

    There is a need for us to identify and recognize what we truly need. To be able to see our own realities will bring us closer into humility. This helps us to also own our imperfections and failures, our issues and problems. Then, once we have become aware of our needs and true concerns, we are also able to name the grace that we need.

    This has been presented to us in both readings from the letter of Paul and the Gospel. Let us see them a bit.

    In the letter of Paul, we find him as if scolding the Corinthians because of their situation. Many have become confused because of the acceptance of the Corinthians of other preachers. They seemed to preach the Gospel of Christ but they only brought the people far away from the true Gospel. The “super-apostles” whom Paul called made preaching a profitable career. What they were after was not the Gospel but personal gain. Though he may have sounded angry in his letter, but his love for this Church was greater. He exhorted them to listen well and seek the will of God for them.

    Paul was making them aware of their situation and making them see the problem. Only in recognizing the problem that we will be able to respond accordingly. Thus, it is only when we also become aware of our true needs that we will be able to ask the grace from the Lord.

    The Gospel today leads us into this kind of response. Jesus taught his disciples on how to truly ask the Father and pray sincerely. Jesus also warned the disciples not to babble but of empty words meant to only impress people.

    This means that our prayers and other forms of devotions are not meant also to impress others or to flatter or manipulate the Lord because of our long, wordy and unintelligible prayers. What the Lord wants from us is our sincere and humble hearts.

    The Lord’s Prayer brings us into sincerity and humility because it acknowledges first God, our Father whose “divine will” takes priority than our own. Thus, we seek and recognize the will of God for us and not our wants. This brings us to be more aware of our needs of the present moment, of today, and not to be burdened by our past or to be anxious of tomorrow.

    Indeed, the Jesus invites us and teaches us on how to seek God’s desires for us because God knows what is best for us by praying the way he prays. May this simple but powerful prayer of our Lord gives us more confidence in the presence of God dwelling among us whose only desire is the best for us. Hinaut pa.

  • GOD LOVES A CHEERFUL GIVER

    GOD LOVES A CHEERFUL GIVER

    June 16, 2021 – Wednesday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061621.cfm)

    As the national election is coming, we can even see now of tarpaulins, photos and videos of aspiring candidates posting their best quotes, achievements, and helping-hand photo opts. Are they doing these as sincere actions to serve the country selflessly without any intention to advance their personal agenda? Maybe yes or maybe not.

    However, publishing ones achievements and good works can become self-serving especially if the intention is for our personal interest. In such manner, the object of our good works would only become instruments to seek praise and recognition from people. This is not a true act of generosity and service then, but comes from a heart filled with insecurity and selfishness.

    The action of seeking praise and recognition reminds me of today’s Gospel and on how Jesus brought to our awareness the tendency to be image-conscious but insecure.

    Jesus reminds his disciples not to become hypocrites who merely wanted to win the praise of others. Jesus criticized people who showed such attitude because of their growing indifference to the poor but swelling self-centeredness. By seeking attention from people, their vain and explicit forms of devotion were totally a mere show for people to see. They wanted people to praise them, to recognize how good, religious and respectable they were. They were seeking fame and power over the people yet, they became hungry for attention. It was as if their good and best self-image was all that matters. Hence, they became pompous and arrogant.

    We might not be far from this. We have to be careful when we become anxious and insecure of ourselves. These attitudes will make us image-conscious and we will tend to keep things for ourselves alone. This will make us vain, arrogant, pretentious and selfish who only gives to gain more.

    That is why, St. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians, reminds the Christians to be generous enough. St. Paul writes, “whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” This attitude of generosity comes from the confidence in God who is first generous to us. God’s generosity abounds  and endures forever.

    Growing in that confidence makes us more secured and assured on what we have today and at this very moment. This is the very spirit that dwell in a cheerful giver that St. Paul tells us in his letter. Indeed, God loves a cheerful giver because God sees Himself in the person. God is the first one who cheerfully gives graces to us. And when we also learn that kind of attitude in God, then, God sees Himself in us.

    Certainly, when we also realize how blessed we are, that we too grow in our gratitude to the Lord. It is essential for us to accept and appreciate the graces  given to us. They may include not just the material things that we possessed but also our relationships, people who are there to love and support us, the gift of our person, our talents and abilities.

    Jesus invites us today that as we recognize truly the good things in us and the blessings that we have, we are called to expressed freely and generously what we have received. No need for boasting the good that we have done because the Father sees everything and is delighted with us.

    In this way, we avoid the tendency to be self-serving and greedy, who would always seek for more attention, recognition, praise, and entitlements from others. This will keep us away from becoming  the unhappiest person for being a hypocrite.

    Hopefully, through this invitation, it will mold us to become grateful persons and cheerful givers, loved by the Lord. May our generosity express the cheerfulness in giving and in sharing our life. Hinaut pa.

  • TREATING EVIL WITH GOODNESS

    TREATING EVIL WITH GOODNESS

    June 14, 2021 – Monday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061421.cfm)

    Our common response when we are hurt is to react in retaliation. Among animals or even insects, when they are hurt suddenly they bite or attack us. Even when their territories are invaded, animals or insects react to protect themselves from possible threats.

    A similar reaction would also happen with us. Even among children, when they are hit or experience hurt, to hit in return is the usual response. This is most common even among adults. There are even people who naturally fight back when they are hurt. Even in some cultures the principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is still observed.

    However, in today’s Gospel we have heard a different way of responding when we are hurt and when we experience the pain and suffering that evil brings. Indeed, Jesus tells us of a different response towards hatred and evil. Jesus said, “offer no resistance to one who is evil.”

    What Jesus is basically saying to us is not to repay evil with evil or not to respond to violence with violence. As Jesus addressed this to his disciples, and so he does also to us now. Jesus calls us not to allow hatred, anger, violence and evil to control us.

    Thus, not to resist to one who is evil, is not allowing evil to control us. Meaning, once we resist to one who is evil, this may bring us into the same position of the one who is evil. We shall respond to the same violence, then. Hence, responding evil with evil or responding to violence with violence will only bring us into an endless cycle of evil and violence.

    The wisdom of Jesus lies in the offer of peace. To offer the other cheek when someone strikes us on the right cheek, though this sounds ridiculous for many of us, is an opportunity for the one who have hurt us to embrace peace and reconciliation. Peace and reconciliation is truly a difficult path. A very unpopular one. However, this is the way to end the cycle violence and evil.

    But this will not be possible with our own ability to assess a situation. Our wisdom may not be enough to remain calm in a hostile environment. That is why, Paul is his second letter to the Corinthians reminds us, “not to receive the grace of God in vain.” Yes, we have been graced by the presence of God and it is by acknowledging God’s presence that we will be able to embrace peace and also offer peace.

    Moreover, this is not an excuse to remain passive to the abuses and other forms of oppression. It does not mean that when your spouse is physically abusing you, or a family member is sexually abusing you, or a friend or colleague is exploiting your goodness and generosity, that you remain passive and indifferent. The teaching of Jesus is meant to keep violence at the minimum and not to escalate more violence towards others and ourselves. In such situations, we are called to get out from the abusive relationship and to demand justice and show mercy.

    To demand justice then is to make the perpetrator take the responsibility and consequences. To show mercy is to get rid of hatred and anger within our hearts. This is our key to live free by offering peace and reconciliation towards those who have wronged us.

    God invites us today to live freely by not allowing evil to control us or to have an access to our hearts by holding on to grudges, hatred, anger and selfishness. Hinaut pa.

  • Mustard Seed

    Mustard Seed

    June 13, 2021 – 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

    + Manny Cabajar, C.Ss.R. D.D.

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061321.cfm)

    A grieving mother, unable to bear the burden of sadness due to her son’s death, goes to a wise hermit who tells her, “What you need is a special kind of mustard seed. Find a home where there is no grief like yours, get a mustard seed from the garden, bring it to me, then I will show you how to deal with your grief.” Strange advice! But she sets off on this unusual quest.

          The first house she approaches is that of a rich family. Is this by any chance where there’s no experience of grief as I have in losing my son? The woman who answers the door bursts into tears. “You just came to a worse place. Let me tell you about grief!” She describes the tragedy her family suffers. The woman who lost her son listens, amazed that one so rich can meet such a disaster. “My experience makes me the kind of person who may understand.” So, she stays a while, counsels the rich woman who appears able to cope a little better. She goes off to continue her journey.

          You guess what follows. The next house is exactly the same: nice on the outside, a sad story inside. Again she leaves but only after helping as best she can. Then, on to the next house of grief; and the next. The curious result is that she gradually forgets her own grief and becomes more focused on helping others. The quest for a mustard seed leads her to where her grief is but a memory while something else grows in its place. Truth emerges in imperceptible ways as in the mustard seed parable.

          The Kingdom of God grows in us like a tiny mustard seed. To find wonder in what is small is as good a place as any to start. Our own start in the Kingdom may be as small as the baptism of a child. But we see the potential in a tiny child introduced with the parents into the life of the Christian community through baptism just as Jesus saw the potential in His disciples entrusted with the next stage of growth. Might it be that, despite our humble beginnings, limitations and failures we too are needed, like the grieving woman who lost her son, as God’s Kingdom continues its mysterious growth? 

          We may not have the chance to do the big, heroic things. But we daily have the chance to do the small ones that show Christian values – the smallest act of kindness, the little gesture we offer a sick friend, the forgiveness we give in our family and to one who injured us. Small seeds, perhaps, but will bear fruit ten, twenty, forty years from now!

          Brothers and sisters, we ask the Lord to transform us into Christ-like holiness, increase our zeal for His Kingdom and instill in us a desire to live for His greater glory. Amen.