Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Tag: Discipleship

  • Praying as Jesus Prays

    Praying as Jesus Prays

    October 5, 2022 – Wednesday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100522.cfm)

    We cannot help that sometimes our way of praying sounds like a demand to God. This could happen especially when we feel desperate. Though we believe that asking or begging God’s grace is certainly a way of praying, yet, this is not everything. When our prayers will only be filled with demands and requests for our own needs or wants, then, we might tend to believe that God is like a vending machine who is 24/7 available to grant our whims.

    Prayer is ought to be our way of life as Christians and not just a mere religious practice to observe from time to time or when we only want it. Prayer as our way of life is a constant discernment of the will of God, of getting closer to the very heart of the Lord. This is what a disciple asked of Jesus in today’s Gospel. The disciple witnessed how Jesus lives a way of life in prayer. The disciple must have seen how prayer empowers Jesus and his ministry by being one with the Father in Heaven through prayer.

    Indeed, Jesus taught his disciples how to pray which we know by heart as well. The Lord’s prayer allows us to put our complete and childlike trust to the Father. Such prayer brings us into a greater awareness of God’s presence working every day in our life and a greater awareness of our true needs, particularly of being at peace and reconciled.

    The prayer Jesus taught and his way of life in prayer have a common thing to reveal to us and that is, to be “in the heart of God.” Others may all this as being “in communion with God or to be one with God.”  Being in the heart of God is to be in a state of allowing the Lord to change us, to transform us that includes our thoughts, our desires, our plans and our very way of life.

    Certainly, what Jesus desires for his disciples and for us is to pray as Jesus prays. The very life of Jesus is founded in being in the heart of his Father in Heaven. With this, Jesus constantly seek his Father’s will and desire for him and for the world. This is what Jesus also wants us to learn, that in our prayer, we may also be in the heart of God so that we may be able to discern and identify God’s desire over our impulses, to know and embrace God’s will over our demands and personal wants.

    This is something that Paul wanted Peter to recognize and embrace as well. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, reminded Peter of his hypocrisy, biases and wrong belief about God’s desire. Peter refused to eat at the table with Christians who were non-Jews. Peter must have believed at the thought that in order to be a disciple of Jesus one must be first a Jew. Paul confronted him about this and called Peter that God is not like that. God is not limited with Jewish practices. God is not even limited among them and not limited on our personal prejudices. Definitely, Peter was challenged by Paul to rather seek the desire of Jesus and not his or a group’s desire. Such way of knowing Jesus’ desire is to be in the heart of God through prayer.

    Thus, this calls us also today to make our prayer as our way of life so that we may come into the heart of God and know better God’s desire over our personal wants and whims. Kabay pa.

  • To bring others closer to the Lord

    To bring others closer to the Lord

    January 22, 2021 – Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012221.cfm)

    An encounter with the Lord leads to discipleship and to be on mission. This is message for us today. But for us to grasp better the message, let us make a step by step discovery.

    First, the call or the invitation is God’s initiative. It means that it is God who calls us and God chooses us to be His servant, to be his disciple. God’s way of choosing is not through the wealth we gathered, or how much power and influence we possessed. God calls us when we are open to him regardless of our profession, status and state in life. This is how Jesus summoned the ordinary 12 disciples and then sent them to proclaim the kingdom and free people from the slavery of sin and evil.

    Second, we need the help of our family, friends, and community to lead us to God. An encounter with God, though that can be very personal but it is essentially always in the context of the community. Thus, seek the help of others. It will be easier for us to recognize God when we have a friend who will help us to see God.

    Third, our God-experience or personal encounter with God is the most wonderful experience we will ever have. Because it is so wonderful that we cannot just keep it by ourselves. Our encounter with God leads us to action – it leads us to follow the Lord and leads us to tell others about what we have seen, heard, felt, and experienced with God. The 12 apostles’ personal encounter with Jesus led them to this point where that encounter moved them to action to become healers, witnesses and preachers.

    Each of us today, whoever we are and wherever we are, as Christians we are called to preach Christ, to preach the Gospel by our life that we may become agents of healing and reconciliation, and bring other people closer to God. This is what it means to become an apostle.

    May we always remember this and become true Christians in the way we live our life, in the way we perform our work and in the way we relate with others and with one another so that we who have experienced God’s goodness will also become instruments in bringing other people closer to God. Hinaut pa.

  • Attachments and Conditions in Commitments

    Attachments and Conditions in Commitments

    September 30, 2020 – Wednesday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time

    Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/093020.cfm)

    Homily

    What prevents us to fully commit ourselves to a relationship? Why are we being prevented and what makes it difficult to fully commit?

    A couple who was about to be married shared to me their thoughts and plans. They were surely in loved with each other and wanted to live as husband and wife. Yet, they too shared to me that as a couple they planned not to have a child. They just wanted to live as husband and wife. I asked them why. The two of them confirmed that, to have a child is difficult for them. Both of them were at the peak of their careers and their individual profession was so important that losing them was not a choice. Thus, if they will have a child then their careers will be affected.

    Christian marriage is not just limited between the union of husband and wife. This love and union should also overflow towards their children. Completely closing the doors to the possibility of having children, rearing, loving and nurturing them is after all, a non-commitment to Christian marriage.

    Thus, our many attachments can actually prevent us from fully committing to a relationship. It is indeed difficult when we are called to let go of our many attachments. These attachments could be our careers and jobs, positions and influence, power and wealth, or unfulfilled dreams and desires, our traumatic experiences or past broken relationships. These can also be our various addictions and compulsive behaviors, or just our family and circle of friends.

    These attachments prevent us to fully commit to a relationship because we are being held back and we allow ourselves to be caught up. This happened to those whom Jesus invited to follow him.

    Jesus said “follow me.” The person certainly wanted to follow Jesus, BUT, in following Jesus, there were conditions attached. Jesus emphasized the urgency of following him but then the person was being held by his attachments. These attachments prevented him to follow the Lord by making conditions.

    This is something Job realized also in the first reading. The story of Job tells us about the human suffering of those who find themselves righteous and good. Yet, life is not under our control. God remains the author of life and decides about our life. Job here slowly realized that he was not the master of his life. All the things that he possessed are not his, including the life of his family and his very life. His suffering was a proof that attachments in life do not give security and contentment and that he can just set conditions in his relationships with God, the almighty.

    Today, Jesus also calls us to follow him freely and without conditions. Each of us is being invited, wherever we are and whoever we are. Whether you are working and married or single, unemployed or a simple vendor, a professional or a laborer, well and healthy or sick, a religious or a government official, young or old – the Lord calls us to commit ourselves to Him. When we commit ourselves, then, we too are challenged to let go of our attachments that may prevent us from fully following Jesus.

    Let us ask Mary, Our Mother of Perpetual Help, t to guide us in recognizing our unhealthy attachments so that we will be able to let go of them and realize the freedom and peace of choosing Jesus. Hopefully, in choosing to follow Jesus we may also discover the joy and the beauty of allowing God to be the center of our commitment in our relationships. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR