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Tag: Christmas

  • Christ: a Life-changing Child

    Christ: a Life-changing Child

    January 3, 2020 – Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010321.cfm)

    The birth of a child within a family is life-changing. Upon child’s birth, life is transformed and became anew not only for the couple as parents but also includes the life of whole family, neighborhood & community. Not only a new life is added & included into the family life, but also each & every members of the family have to take on a new responsibility as grandparents, parents, uncles & aunties, siblings & relatives for the baby. The birth of the child will surely bring about not only great joy but also promises great change within the family for it entails great responsibility.

    Same way as we struggle & mature with life-challenges like illnesses, crises, disasters, pandemic and other life-transitions, the normal birth of a child into our life is indeed life-changing, life-transforming. And it challenges us to live life not again & anymore same as before, but to live life anew in a new normal way with new direction, perspective, responsibility, lifestyle & meaning in life.

    On this first Sunday of the New Year, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. Known also to us as Three Kings Sunday, we worship & praise the saving act of God in making known Himself to Us All through His Son, Jesus Christ as well as our consent & faith of welcoming, accepting & witnessing God into our lives now. Epiphany is God’s revelation – both made known to us and acknowledged & believed by us. His son Jesus is God’s greatest gift of grace given to us. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise long-awaited by the forefathers of our faith but now we have found in us & with us. By giving us His son Jesus & by our reception of His son Jesus into our lives now, we become & take on the honor of being & becoming ourselves God’s children and now recipient & benefactors of God’s grace of salvation.

    In our gospel today, we are reminded of the events that happened when the three kings found the poor child Jesus lying on the manger in Bethlehem. Guided by the stars, with great joy they have finally found the place where the child Jesus is, & then through the child, they adore & pay homage to God. Their encounter of the child Jesus on a manger with His family in Bethlehem brought about great joy & praise since they have finally found what they have searched & long-waited for. With their offered gifts, they honor and thank God’s saving work in the child Jesus.  Through the child Jesus, the world is now Blessed & forever will be.

    Along with this, we should also credit that after the journey & experiences that the three kings & the Jewish people had to go through to search & find God’s blessing to the world, “warned in a dream, they departed for their country by another way.” Meaning, as they found, acknowledged & accepted God’s grace into their lives, they go back home not on their normal usual way but by another new way of life.

    In other words, with their encounter with the child Jesus, unconsciously through their dreams & not only out of fear for Herod, they have to change their ways, & transform their lives for the child. They will not anymore follow the usual normal path in life again, but now they change their ways, paths, plan, thinking, responsibility & will in life. Same way with the birthing of a child with a family, their meeting with the child Jesus has brought a lot of changes into their lives – Great change in their responsibility, meaning, & outlook in life. Their lives now are not anymore same as before, but their lives now are anew & better than before in a new normal, new identity, attitude, meaning & lifestyle.

    It is then, not only about paying homage & adoration to God who blessed us with His child Jesus but moreso about changing & transforming our lives for the life-changing Christ child Jesus.

    In the same way, as we encounter God, as we recognize God who makes Himself known to us, our lives will never remain the same again. As we welcome & accept God’s gift the child Jesus as Our Lord of our life, we also take on the responsibility to change our lives in accordance with His orientation, ways, meaning, attitude & lifestyle. Same way with the three kings, the family who welcomes a new baby in the family & us now during these pandemic times, we are challenged also to recognize, receive, and allow the child Jesus to be part of our lives now. This would mean that we have to change our normal lives & attune our New normal lives with the life-changing Child Jesus Christ, and be part of His mission of making known & share the fullness of God’s promise of blessing & salvation to all.

    Today, we thank God for His grace of His child Jesus, and we ask Him that we may always be steadfast in our faith & responsibility to parent & share His child Jesus to all, on this new year of our lives. Amen.

  • To Remain in God

    To Remain in God

    January 2, 2020 – Memorial of St. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010221.cfm)

    What is easier? To pretend who we are not or to be who we truly are? With the culture that has develop in the recent years through the use social media, it has now become easier to pretend who we are not and to portray to others a self-filled with pretensions. An individual can just create multiple accounts on Facebook or Instagram and portray a different image of himself or herself. One can just display an image of himself or herself on social media sites different from what is really true.

    Such attitude must have come from a deep longing to satisfy a person’s desire to be recognized, praised or accepted by others. The person’s environment such as the home, neighborhood or workplace must have been source of rejection and judgment. Because of this, the need to be accepted will persist and will lead a person to look for other ways where he or she will be recognized even in a superficial way.

    Hence, the space provided by the social media would allow the person to be recognized and praised. Gaining likes, shares, comments and followers are ways of a person to be recognized. This could also lead others to portray happy occasions through their pictures and videos in order to hide a painful and traumatic background in their life. Others would show how affluent and comfortable they are in life to hide their insecurity due to poverty. However, such attitude can also become problematic. Portraying to others whom we are not, distances us from our true self. This also leads ultimately in our rejection of who we truly are before God.

    In the First letter of St. John, it reminds us to remain in him. To remain in God is to be able to accept God in our life and become more confident in Him who is with us. To deny God removes us from His presence and thus will also lead us in denying who we truly are before Him. Only in remaining in God that we also inherit eternal life, which means, joy and a blessed life with God.

    Such call also reflected in today’s Gospel, John the Baptist reminds us of the importance of recognizing our true self before God and before others. Priests and Levites asked John if he was the Messiah or Elijah or some great prophets from the Old Testament. John already gained popularity among the people. People sought for him and followed him. He gained influence and became an authority. John now could just easily pretend that he was someone else of great importance.

    However, John was honest enough to admit that he is not God nor a great prophet. He was just a simple and humble friend of God, whose voice cries out in the dessert to bring people closer to God.

    This is what God calls us today on this second day of the year,  that we become more accepting of ourselves with all our weaknesses and problems as well as our strengths and potentials. Being honest with ourselves is also being honest with God and with others. To fully accept who we are also leads us to humbly acknowledge God in our life. To fully embrace ourselves makes us happier and joyful. In this way, we may become an authentic person who is not bothered of any pretension and insecurity but confident in God who loves us. Hinaut pa.

  • Our Longing for God

    Our Longing for God

    December 30, 2020 – Wednesday 6th Day in the Octave of Christmas

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/123020.cfm)

    Homily

    During the Season of Advent, we have been invited to wait patiently and to long lovingly God’s coming. The season was to prepare our hearts and minds to consciously welcome the Lord and celebrate fully the day of his birth.

    In today’s Gospel, we were told about Prophetess Anna who had been waiting and longing for the birth of the Messiah. This old and wise woman, Anna never waivered and never stopped waiting and longing for God’s coming. In those many years of waiting, she must have endured many boring, tiring and heartbreaking days of waiting. Yet, Anna persisted to be in the Temple day after day, to pray, to fast and to at last behold the face of God. Her patience and her persistence indeed bore fruit because God granted her longing.

    Anna at last saw the face of God. She must have been filled with so much joy. When that day came, it was not difficult for her to recognize Jesus, because her heart always longed for him. Her instinct and her heart guided her towards God.

    She reminds me of the presence our senior citizens who are mostly our regular church goers. They are mostly the first ones to arrive and those who sit near the altar. At the beginning of this lockdown due to Covid-19, Senior Citizens were strongly discouraged to come to Church. Others even imposed strict prohibition to them. Being a Parish Administrator in my previous assignment, I also imposed such measure in my parish as a response to the health protocols imposed by the City.

    However, this has become a great longing in the hearts of many senior citizens whose only desire is to be in the Church and celebrate the Eucharist. This was something also that I did not understand at that time – of that longing to meet the Lord, to receive God, to embrace the Lord and to be embraced by Him in our sacraments.

    Prophetess Anna reminds us to always long for God because this makes our day filled with hope and filled with joy. To long for God is characterized by our prayer which Anna also showed us by not leaving the Temple. Anna dedicated her life after being widowed in prayer and in fasting. This was her own way of serving God. This prayerful attitude of Anna made her to become a powerful witness of God’s action in the lives of many. By being conscious of God in her life, Anna also saw how Go worked in the lives of those people she encountered in the Temple

    This was how Anna recognized the Lord. In her awareness of God’s presence in Jesus, Anna teaches us now of two important lessons from the Gospel.

    First, to always long for God. Our longing for God, grants us discernment and wisdom. To discern is to be able to feel God’s presence, thus, guiding us to know God’s desire. Wisdom will allow us to recognize the Spirit of God hovering over us, leading us to where God wants us to be. By being able to know and feel the Spirit of God allows us to celebrate Christmas every day.

    Second, pray for others and pray with others. This will help us become more aware of God’s wonderful actions in our life and in the lives of those who are around us. This awareness helps us to respond to God rather than to react. A response is a conscious action towards God and others characterized by our willingness and generosity. A reaction is rather an unconscious action that would come sometimes from our strong negative emotions. By making our generous response to God and to those who are in need, this allows us to encounter and meet the Lord.

    May these invitations lead us to God and lead us to that awareness that God has come and visited us. Like Anna, let us also preach to others what we have seen and experienced in God. Hinaut pa.

  • God finds refuge in us

    God finds refuge in us

    December 28, 2020 – Feast of the Holy Innocents

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122820.cfm)

    Homily

    God looking for a refuge? Can you imagine that? Yes. This happened. Joseph had to bring Mary and the baby Jesus out of danger and find refuge, to find a safe haven for them. The cruelty and the violence around threatened the life of the baby Jesus. Such violence came from those who were in power and those who were rich.

    Herod was very threatened of the presence of the new-born King. He was in fact became very insecure that someone will take the throne, the power and his wealth from him. This revealed how King Herod was hungry for power that he became restless. Yet, this is not the first time Herod was like this. History tells us that Herod even murdered his own children so that no one will take what he enjoyed in his life. This insecurity in him had consumed him that he wanted to eliminate those whom he thought were threats to him.

    Herod must have thought that he himself was a “god.” For this reason, he felt so entitled that he was most willing to murder innocent people to get what he wanted. In his desire to have power, he ordered the murder of innocent baby boys in his attempt to kill the Baby Jesus. Hundreds of children were murdered right in front of their mothers and fathers and their families. It was merciless. It was evil.

    On this feast of the Holy Innocents, it reminds us that this kind of killings did not just stop there. This continued until today. Evil still persists until today. People were murdered in broad-daylight. Killed in front of people. Desecrated. This is evil. Evil persists when we allow it, when we allow our hearts to remain indifferent and violent.

    image from thedailybeast.com

    That is why, God has to find refuge. Yet, God runs towards us too, to find refuge in us. Egypt was a common place for Jewish refugees and people who seek safety. Egypt had become an important place in the life of Jesus as it had become a safe place for him. This tells us that even God became a refugee because of the people who rejected him.

    Today, there are two invitation for us. First, let us be aware of our tendency to be violent, to be corrupt and to be insecure. Let not those darkness in us consume our hearts. They only bring us to death and misery. As the first Letter of John tells, let us come to the light. Let us come to God because he is our light and in him there is no darkness at all but peace and freedom. Thus, seek forgiveness and seek for reconciliation. This will allow us to live in freedom, to live in peace and to live in joy.

    Second, Egypt was a safe haven for the Baby Jesus, for Joseph and Mary, allow ourselves to become the “Egypt for others.” Let our kindness and generosity, our gentleness and hospitality give comfort to those who are troubled today. Let people find care and attention, love and understanding in us, in our families and in our communities. Allow ourselves too, our families and communities to become a safe place for the weak and the vulnerable. Protect and nurture life. Defend life and stand against those who want to kill life. Though this will not be easy but demanding, make this as our expression of gratitude to the Lord who gave all to us.

    In these ways, we may able to truly celebrate this Season of Christmas with joy and peace. Hinaut pa.

  • GIVE THANKS. EMBRACE. PRAY.

    GIVE THANKS. EMBRACE. PRAY.

    December 27, 2020 – Solemnity of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122720.cfm)

    Homily

    Few days before Christmas, I gave an Advent Recollection to a group of Church volunteers. At the beginning of the recollection, I asked them to describe their gratefulness as well as their feelings at that moment. A couple in their late fifties, were already in tears. At the end of the recollection one of my invitations is “to never forget to embrace their loved one and to spend quality time this Christmas.” The couple again were in tears.

    After the recollection, they shared to me the reasons of those tears. They were in so much anxiety and worries because their son has been away from them. They found it difficult to communicate with him and to know his situation. They did not know where he was exactly at that moment. The mother couldn’t sleep well thinking of her son. The father was restless and helpless on how he could help and comfort his son. Both of them were in tears because they have missed so much their son.

    To the disappointment of the couple as parents, their other children have shown less compassion and understanding to their sibling. The siblings considered the other one as a black sheep and rebellious. Yet, to them as parents, he is a son in need of so much understanding and love. They wanted to hug him tightly yet, they could not do it. They wanted to comfort him, yet, they could not because they cannot reach him. It was a great pain in the hearts of these parents who are longing of the presence of their son.

    Conflict in the family such as this, is just one of the common problems that our families have to struggle and find way to be resolved. The hope for reconciliation is a longing that we pray for.

    Moreover, there are also other issues and problems that millions of Filipino Families are facing today. It would be good also to recognize those issues and see how God is inviting us on this Feast of the Holy Family.

    The recent SWS survey said that 48% or about 12 million Filipino families considered themselves poor. Out of this, 2 million families were “Newly Poor” while 1.3 million were “usually poor” and 8.6 million were “always poor.”[1]

    In addition, the COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions also led to the closing of many non-essential businesses, which resulted to the loss of many jobs and means of livelihood. The SWS survey in October also revealed that the unemployment rate in the country is now at 8.7%, equivalent to around 3.8 million jobless Filipinos.[2]

    The Philippine National Demographic and Health survey said that in 2017, one in four Filipino women aged 15-49 suffered domestic abuses, physically, emotionally and sexually. However, this rate has significantly increased since the lockdown imposed in March due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. There is an average of 8 cases of women being maltreated or raped reported from March to May 2020.[3] These are just the documented reports, how about those countless unreported cases? They suffer in silence.

    These are concrete situations that many of our Filipino families are suffering. In the midst of these struggles, children are also the most vulnerable. Children suffer the most. Our own families might have also particular struggles and difficulties. Surely, these concerns are most of the time what consume us.

    The Holy Family of Mary, Joseph and Jesus is not exempted of struggles and problems. Remember, the holy family had been a refugee. Joseph has to bring Mary and Jesus out of Israel and went to Egypt to seek for a safer environment for their baby.

    There seemed to be a constant threat in the life of the young Jesus, yet, this did not discourage Joseph and Mary to abandon the child. Joseph particularly was always conscious of God’s presence. This was the reason also why Joseph would always receive instructions from God on what to do. The awareness of Joseph that God is with them made him more familiar with God’s voice deep within his heart.

    In today’s Gospel, this awareness of God is being described to us in wonderful scenarios. First, Mary and Joseph, conscious of their family tradition as well of the identity of baby Jesus, went to Jerusalem and presented Jesus to the Lord God. This was an act of thanksgiving to the Almighty God for the gift of this child.

    This is the first invitation for us today – to give thanks. Develop a grateful atmosphere in your family. Consciously say “thank you” to your spouse and children. Whenever your family gathers whether during a meal, a trip or in a celebration, give thanks to each other and to God, the source of all blessings.

    Second, Simeon, a devout and righteous man had been waiting for the time to see and embrace the Son of God. And this was fulfilled. The long wait of Simeon was paid with peace and joy. He was able to hold tightly the child Jesus in his arms. That must be a great consolation to him. Having Jesus in his arms, Simeon saw the salvation and the light of God.

    This is the second invitation for us – to embrace the Lord and embrace one another. Our family might be longing for peace, longing for comfort – take courage, the Lord is here as Simeon proclaimed. The Lord is waiting for us that we will embrace him. Peace and joy begin to unfold in our families when we also open our arms in reconciliation and in gentleness, to embrace each other. Let not the violence of our fist and anger in our heart destroy our families and children.

    Third, Anna the prophetess, was also there to witness this great wonder of meeting the Lord. Anna immediately recognized that the child Jesus was the promised savior. Anna was so patient and prayerful. These attitudes in her made her to long more for God. This longing in her heart made her to be open and welcoming. With this, Anna’s heart found comfort and joy. All her troubles and pain had gone away.

    This is the third invitation for us – to pray together as a family. Through our prayer, let usconsciously long for God and joyfully meet the Lord in our struggles and problems. To run away for our problems or to hide because of our fears is never the solution. There are those who find comfort in drinking and gambling and other vices to forget their problems yet, this kind of response only create more problems. Unfaithfulness, indifference and violence in the family will be nurtured by this kind of attitude. We are invited rather to confront our issues and allow the Lord to touch us through our prayers. Gather your family around your altar. Cultivate a family tradition that prays together. Let our families go the Church, and there in our Sacraments, allow also the Lord to be with you and to bless you.

    With these invitations, we may hopefully ease the pain of loneliness, comfort the hearts of the troubled, heal the memories of those who are suffering and assure with our presence those who are confused and afraid. May our families then, be blessed by the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Hinaut pa.

    [1] https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1371761/almost-half-of-filipino-families-feel-they-are-poor-latest-sws-survey-says

    [2] https://www.rappler.com/business/unemployment-rate-philippines-october-2020

    [3] https://www.ucanews.com/news/domestic-violence-all-the-rage-in-philippine-lockdown/89821#