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Tag: Baccalaureate Mass

  • Be Grateful! Be Generous!

    Be Grateful! Be Generous!

    February 20, 2025 – Thanksgiving Mass (Baccalaureate)

    Mt 7:7-11

     

    A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew.

     

    Jesus said to his disciples:

    “Ask and it will be given to you;

    seek and you will find;

    knock and the door will be opened to you.

    For everyone who asks receives;

    and the one who seeks finds;

    and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

     

    Which one of you,

    would hand his son a stone

    when he asked for a loaf of bread,

    or a snake when he asked for a fish?

    If you, then, who are wicked,

    know how to give good gifts to your children,

    how much more will your heavenly Father

    give good things to those who ask him,

    do to others what you would have them do to you,

    this is the Law and the Prophets”

    I would like to ask you first to look at the person beside you now, on your right and on your left. Look at that person and say “thank you.”

    It is just fitting for us to say thank you to people around us; especially, to you graduates, to be grateful to people who have been part of your journey as students. And so please take time to express your gratitude to your friends and classmates, to your teachers and the non-teaching staff of this university, to your nanay and tatay and your brothers and sisters here in the Chaplaincy, to your parents and siblings, and of course to God the source of all wisdom and knowledge.

    Now, as you go forward in life with your different paths and career; you will have a new environment, new people to meet, new experiences to behold, new realizations and discoveries that will mold you and mistakes and failures that will continue to teach you lessons.

    As you go forward, I want you to remember always to have an attitude of GRATITUDE, of just being thankful as a person. So, if I would ask you, “With all the pains and joys, successes and failures, sins and graces, how grateful are you today?”

    GRATITUDE makes us see what surrounds us, both the good and the bad. GRATITUDE also allows us to be embracing and accepting of the things and people around us. It is when we are grateful too that we become joyful persons. We shall see the goodness and uniqueness of others. Through this joy within us, we also become aware of God’s tremendous generosity to us despite our weaknesses and sins. In fact, this is what we recognized in our Responsorial Psalm, “We are nourished by the hands of the Lord.” The Lord indeed, is generous and provides what we need.

     And so, as we express our thanksgiving today on this special day of your life, remember that when we become joyful, we also become generous of ourselves towards the people around us, no matter who they are, whether they are our friends or strangers. Such acts of joy and generosity are expressions of a heart that is filled with gratitude.

    However, if our heart is without gratefulness but rather bitter, hateful and vengeful because of our personal failures and failures of others towards us, then, we become close-minded, rejecting, and vicious in the way we relate with one another and even in the way we relate with God.

    And so let us discern together how the Lord invites us today to grow in this confidence of being grateful particularly as we grow in our Christian faith and in prayer as our way of life.

    In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells a parable to his disciples that basically highlights the attitude of persistence in prayer. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For the one who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened.”

    Jesus tells us of the generosity of the Father and of His availability for us. It signifies that God wants to give what is best for us and what is wonderful for us. Yet, what Jesus tells us should not be misunderstood also. We might think that we can just ask anything we want according to our selfish desires.

    True prayer keeps us away from our selfishness but brings us closer into God. This means that this relationship found in our prayer is a process of letting go of ourselves and letting God to work in us. This can be possible when we also learn to ask, to seek and to knock. This is an invitation for us to grow in confidence with God despite the many uncertainties that we may face in life, whether in our relationships, in our personal struggles, in our work and in any endeavor we are in at the moment.

    Thus, ask the Lord but we can only ask the Lord once we know what we desire. Hence, name what you desire. Name your problems to be solved. Acknowledge your concerns and recognize your issues. Only then, that we will be able to allow God to work in us.

    Moreover, Jesus would like to remind us that in these many areas of our life they also require more than asking. We too are in need to seek. This means that prayer is also a form of searching what is hidden or what remains undiscovered in us. To pray is not about searching God but to seek ourselves and to let God find us.

    Thus, seek for a deeper insight, seek for understanding and wisdom because God answers us not outside of us but within our own context, experiences and relationships.

    After such understanding and unfolding of mysteries in our life, we also want to move on, to go forward to where God is leading us. This requires now the attitude of knocking, which means seeking entrance, to enter into it. We might have realized that we have been so hurt by a loved one or a friend who betrayed us. And the pain that we have experienced made us inaccessible, scared and resistant to forgiveness. Now, Jesus tells us to knock, to look for an opportunity to take the risk of entering. Indeed, knocking a door is a risk because knocking here does not only mean one knock but a persistent knock repeated many times until the door opens for reconciliation and peace.

    The Lord in his mercy wants us to exercise our freedom, that we can make a choice for ourselves. To knock God’s door will lead us to many opportunities for growth, for peace and freedom. Jesus assures us that as we come before God to boldly and persistently knock, it shall be opened to us. God would willingly and lovingly open his door of forgiveness and affection to embrace us and to welcome us.

    In this way, we become children who are transformed into the likeness of Jesus, who will not throw tantrums when we do not get what we want just for our selfish reasons, but children who are fully aware that God’s desire for us is far better than our own.

    Therefore, as we ask, seek and knock may these become the very attitudes of our heart so that it will be molded into a grateful heart that finds God’s abiding presence and faithfulness in our life.

    Let us be more grateful then of the gifts and blessings that we have already received each day, no matter how small that would be. But if we have received so much also, be more thankful and be more generous.

    Remember, a grateful person is a person who goes forward, because when we are grateful we also become contented of the present, whatever there is. We also become reconciled with the past, whatever that was. And we become hopeful and positive of the future, whatever there will be. So, be grateful as you go forward by building and cherishing your relationships with your family and friends and people whom you will meet along the way of your journey. Be grateful and be generous! Hinaut pa.   

  • WHY ARE YOU SO AFRAID, YOU OF LITTLE FAITH?

    WHY ARE YOU SO AFRAID, YOU OF LITTLE FAITH?

    June 28, 2022 – Tuesday 13th Week in Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Irenaeus 

    (A Homily during the Baccalaureate Mass for the Junior High School of Iloilo National High School)

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062822.cfm)

    What would usually stop us from dreaming and hoping? What would usually prevent us from learning new things, from adapting change, from being creative and innovative? What would usually hinder us from fully committing ourselves and fully giving ourselves for others? What stops us from being truly free?

    There could be more similar questions like these in your mind. Questions and concerns that limit us, hinder us and make us prisoners of our own fears. Yes, what we might find deep within us is this fear that shackles our spirit, our heart, and our very person to be truly free and life-giving.

    Thus, Fear of being not accepted, of being rejected, and thus, of being hurt prevents us from being free, from sharing and opening up ourselves to and for others.

    This is how we find that a traumatic or a painful experience of abuse in whatever form that is, or of betrayal, of failures, shame and guilt, or of separation and death – can paralyze our relationships, damage our self-esteem and hinder our maturity in all aspects of life that basically include the emotional-mental, spiritual and social aspects of life.

    However, God desires that we become fully human according to God’s image, and that is by being truly free and having developed our full potentials as persons in all aspect of our life.

    St. Irenaeus whose memorial we celebrate today, was bishop and a martyr in the Second Century. According to him, creation including us, every man and woman is not sinful by nature but only distorted by our sins. Moreover, he also said, that “the glory of God is to see every man and woman fully alive.” This means that indeed it is God’s desire that we will live life to the fullest expressed by being free, by being mature and by being able to develop our full potentials and building healthy relationships.

    Yet, we are also aware that there could be hindrances in this vision of living life fully. Hence, it is good that we acknowledge them so that we will also be able to know on how we shall address them, healthily and maturely. And it is good that we do this, as all of you guys are about to end your academic year and move up to the next level of your academic studies. So, allow me now to bring you deeper into our readings today and let us discover together how God calls us today to become free from fear.

    The Gospel of Matthew that has been proclaimed to us today tells us about the terrified situation of the disciples. “Why are you so afraid, you of little faith?” Jesus asked his disciples when they woke him up because they were terrified by the storm that was sweeping their boat. They were terrified because they thought they would all perish at that moment. The violent storm was too overwhelming for them that they did not know what to do anymore. The boat was being swamped by waves. And they were filled with fear.

    This tells us that fear can actually paralyze us. Fear can prevent us in making movements and in making sound decisions.

    Consequently, fear can also breed two unhealthy attitudes of the heart. First is STAGNATION. The second is COMPLACENCY.

    There will be times that we become stagnant in life that we do not know what to do. The failures that we experience, the pain and the hurts that we are enduring could make us become stagnant especially, when these things are all being experienced at home, with our friends and with our community. Stagnation is not being able to move and go ahead. This tells us that when we become stagnant in life, we too become lifeless because we stopped from being creative and imaginative.

    Second, we may become complacent, not wanting to move and go beyond, and not wanting to grow and mature perhaps because we have become comfortable to the point that we do not want to be challenged. Complacency is an attitude that settles to what is only minimal, staying always to what is only safe and easy for us. Though, it seems that complacency is not that bad, however, when complacency also affects our perspective in life and ways of thinking, then, it also affects the way we relate with others and the way we share our life with others. In fact, when we become complacent, we will refuse to do more, to be more and share more of ourselves to others.  Being complacent will make us then, cold, unmoved and indifferent to the needs around us because we become self-centered.

    These two unhealthy attitudes of the heart caused by our fear could also make us controlling and demanding in our relationships to the point that we direct others on how they should treat us, or accommodate us and love us according to how we want it to be. We do not think of others then, because we do not want any compromise. We only think of ourselves, locked in those painful past but terrified of the present.

    Furthermore, the fear in us is also God’s entry point to bring renewal into our terrified hearts, to bring true comfort and freedom in us. Thus, going back to the Gospel story, Matthew also tells us that while the storm was sweeping the boat and the disciples were terrified by it, Jesus was fast asleep. Jesus was there in the boat with his disciples but sleeping. It seemed that Jesus was not so concerned with the violent storm. He was actually confident that they would arrive at their destination safe and sound. Therefore, the Lord calls us today to take these two important lessons that are also your take aways today.

    First, do not forget that the Lord is with you. The forgetfulness of the disciples that Jesus was with them brought them tremendous fear and anxiety.  They forgot that Jesus was in the boat and that their Lord was with them on that journey. Consequently, they have actually taken for granted the very presence of Jesus in their life. This is an invitation for the disciples to always recognize the presence of Jesus.

    To each of us today, this is an invitation to recognize Jesus in our journey. The Lord is not distant. He is to be found and He is journeying with us, with you guys, to each of you! Thus, unawareness of God’s presence in us will only bring us fear, anxiety and uncertainty. When we become fearful, anxious and uncertain, then, we will be paralyzed mentally and spiritually. It will be very difficult for us to move on and to find opportunities for growth because we will tend to focus on the storm, on our fears rather on Jesus who is with us.

    Second, the Lord confronts us with his presence. Because of the terrifying situation of the disciples, it became an opportunity for Jesus to reveal Himself as Lord and Savior. At this revelation Jesus assured his disciples that his presence brings comfort and peace, calmness and confidence. At the same time, the Lord’s presence also is confronting. Jesus confronts the fears and the little faith of his disciples. This is the reason why it was not only the wind and the sea that calmed down but also the terrified and anxious hearts of the disciples.

    This reveals to us now that the presence of Jesus brings assurance and confidence in us. The disciples calmed down and found peace because at last, they have recognized the presence of Jesus who was there in that boat.

    This invites us again to recognize the comforting and peaceful presence of Jesus in our life. Let us also allow Jesus to confront us especially our doubts and fears, and even our selfish, unkind and ungenerous actions and words. Do not walk-out and hide when we are confronted of our sins and failures, those are opportunities for growth. By being able to recognize Jesus and confront ourselves then we shall certainly find peace and calmness, confidence and assurance in Jesus. Kabay pa.