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Tag: Easter Season

  • Having friends? Or being a friend?

    Having friends? Or being a friend?

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    May 15, 2020 Friday 5th Week of Easter – Memorial of St. Isidore the Farmer

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/051520.cfm)

    How many friends do you have in your Facebook account? Or in your other social media accounts? Certainly, those who have fb account or accounts have hundreds of friends. Others even have a thousand or more friends. Well, a Facebook account has a limit of 5000 friends. But, do we really consider every person there, in our account, as a “friend?”

    Today, the word “friend” is differently understood. Our friends in our social media accounts are actually our contacts. However, having those “friends” does not mean that we have a personal relationship with them. Perhaps, to some people, but mostly, we don’t, because among the thousands of friends we have, many can be are acquaintances at school, at work, business or during our summer vacations and trips.

    It has become so common to have such tendency to accumulate friends, to make and have friends, to be socially connected with others through the internet, and to be identified by the people to whom we make contacts.

    Aside from this, there is also another form making friends which can be toxic. It means that such form of relationship is only based on advancing one’s self-interest. Such form of friendship is commonly called as “alliance.” Such alliance protect and promote one another’s interest no matter how selfish and oppressive it could be. It does not look on how one will be able to give life to other in a self-sacrificing manner. It is inclined on what and how I could benefit, gain favor and advance my interests and agenda.

    Thus, we might have become more conscious of having friends, affiliate or make an ally ourselves with others rather than “being a friend.”

    To have friends and to be a friend have different natures. To have friends has the tendency to be self-absorbed, self-conscious and selfish because this attitude looks inward. However, to be a friend is an action that comes with commitment. It is self-giving and self-sacrificing. Hence, this attitude is other-oriented and life-giving.

    This is the kind of friendship that Jesus is talking about in the Gospel. Jesus calls each of us to be his friends. The friendship that Jesus offers is self-giving and self-sacrificing. Jesus commits himself to us as our friend. His commitment is summed up in his love for you and for me by offering himself to the cross on our behalf. 

    Thus, the friendship of Jesus is not about using us or so that he may get something from us. His friendship with us is about giving oneself. Through this friendship, he calls us as his friends, not slaves, not mere acquaintances or contacts, or allies.

    This is how we remember today St. Isidore, a Spanish Farmer who was a friend to many, to humans and to animals. His simplicity and hard labor became a way where he grew in his friendship with the Lord. It was said that he would always spend much time in the Church to commune with Jesus. And as the story about him circulated, an angel would instead plow the field while Isidore was in the Church. Other miracle stories became popular also as Isidore would give his bread to the hungry without running out of supply of bread.

    These stories tell us that such friendship with Jesus makes us more aware of the needs of others. Moreover, to become a friend of Jesus makes us a friend to everybody. With Isidore, he was a great friend who gave life to people and to the nature.

    St. Isidore, the Farmer (image from Aleteia.com)

    This is Jesus’ invitation to each of us now, that you and me will grow in that friendship with Him. Thus, we are called to develop our personal and intimate friendship with Jesus through our constant “chats” expressed through our prayers and this Eucharist. Friendship grows when we come to know each other both our pain and joys, failures and dreams. 

    And because this friendship gives life, our friendship with Jesus should also inspire us “to become real friends with others.” Yes, you and me who are friends of Jesus are called to be a friend of everyone and to express the same love that we have felt from Jesus by giving ourselves too, to “shout out” the goodness that the Lord has revealed to us and “to post what’s on our mind and heart” so that others may know and grow also in their friendship with Jesus.

    In times such as this pandemic, our friendship could be one of the best comforts we could offer to those who are distressed, anxious and in need. Thus, maximize also this Community Quarantine by making sure that you parents will become best friends of your children, and children to their parents, siblings to siblings, and to the rest of the people around you.

    So, friends of Jesus – go and be a friend to others!

    Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

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  • When Love liberates and empowers us

    When Love liberates and empowers us

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    May 14, 2020 – Feast of St. Matthias, Apostle 

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/051420.cfm)

    A friend of mine once shared to me why she became confused and distressed. She was restless and depressed because of a deep-seated emptiness within her. She felt unloved, rejected and worthless. Her parents separated when she was young, her father was so strict that she could not even express what she needed, her siblings treated her as if she’s not existing, at school she was bullied. She’s aware that she has a house to live, but she has no home where she feels being loved, supported and affirmed. This emptiness in her heart haunted her when she’s asleep even when she’s awake. Her life became so dry and meaningless. She does not know where to go.

    To feel being loved and affirmed is everyone’s need. Love gives brightness and meaning to our life even in the midst of suffering and much difficulty. That is why, when love seems absent, life becomes a horror. 

    This reality reveals the imperfection of our human relationships. Though our relationships are the source of our fulfillment and joy, yet, it is through our human relationships also that we find the deepest pain and frustrations because of rejection and at times betrayal. But, that is not the end of everything because even out of a messy relationship, something can grow.

    This is where we can find the presence of God. As God joined us in flesh in our history, God also dwells in our human relationships. Jesus was born into a family and gathered people and made them his friends. Within this context, Jesus experienced rejection as well as betrayal from people closest to him. Yet, despite this painful experiences, we also find redemption, we find forgiveness and find life.

    TODAY ON THIS FEAST OF ST. MATTHIAS, AN APOSTLE, OUR READINGS GIVE US THE COMFORT THAT WE ALL NEED WHEN ALL OUR HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS FAIL. WITH IT, WE RECOGNIZE THE NEED FOR REDEMPTION AND FORGIVENESS.

    In the Gospel, Jesus says to you and to me, “I love you!” John, who is believed to be the author of this Gospel and traditionally, as the beloved disciple,  truly felt the weight of this love. It was because of this love that made him to stand strong even in the midst of confusion at the arrest of Jesus. He followed Jesus on his way to be crucified. John was also present at the foot of the cross of Jesus with Mary and witnessed the death of his Lord. John was also the first to believe in Jesus’ resurrection upon seeing the empty tomb despite his confusion and fears. 

    However, aside from him, the rest of the disciples of Jesus were nowhere to be found. Judas betrayed his Lord and Master and killed himself. Peter denied Jesus three times. And the rest? They all fled and him themselves because of fear. However, the Lord never abandoned them. The Lord never gave up on them. The Lord will never give up on us.

    This is how we find the Gospel truly life-giving. Jesus says, “There is no greater love than this, to give one’s life for one’s friends; and you are my friends.” Jesus calls us his friends and nobody can take that away from Jesus. Hence, even with rejection, denial and betrayal, these will not make Jesus to withdraw from us. “You are my friends,” says the Lord.

    This is the same love shown by Jesus in the most concrete way, that the disciples were converted. They began to see their imperfection that though they were all unworthy, but Jesus remained faithful till the end. This is the love that made the disciples to become confident and daring. The love that they truly believed is life in itself for them. Thus, as a community, we believed that God first loved us and because God is faithful, God will always love us even if everyone and everything goes wrong.

    This love then, empowers the disciples. This is how we find the story of Matthias being chosen to be part of the 12 Apostles who were sent to continue what Jesus has started. Matthias became part of this apostolic ministry that proclaims the life of Jesus and the power of his resurrection.

    It is the same love that God tells us today. When rejections, betrayals and fears haunt us, when our relationships fail, and begin to feel unloved, then, Jesus tells each of us, “I LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE MY FRIEND.” God is totally in love with you and with me. Be assured and be confident in that love because His love is constant and faithful.

    It should be this same love that would hopefully lead us to see the light and joy even in the midst of suffering and pain in life, even in the midst of rejection and betrayal of people who are close to us, and even in the midst of worries and anxieties in times of pandemic. 

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    This love should also inspire us to respond in love, to express our love to God, to ourselves, and to others even to those who have hurt us and people we do not like. This is the commandment of Jesus, “love one another as I have loved you.” St. Matthias is a witness to this. This is the reason that he also committed himself to Christ that he may be able to give life to the Church even in the midst of persecution.

    Indeed, God’s love is liberating and empowering. This is how Easter becomes glorious because God’s love empowers and liberates. As we are being loved, we are also moved to love. 

    Loving and being loved certainly make our life worth living. Love gives us purpose and meaning in life and this becomes concrete as we continually reach out to others to express our love and show our kindness. Thus, hopefully, we may not become reasons for others in making their lives miserable and horrible because of our indifferent, childish and selfish desires and intentions.

    May I invite you then today, show your kindness to people around you in the most concrete way. Make that person feel being loved as God lets you feel being loved today. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

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  • Have you been circumcised? I mean, your “heart”

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    May 13, 2020 – Wednesday – 5th week of Easter

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/051320.cfm

    During this month of May, our Parish would always have the annual “Operation Tuli” to be sponsored by the Devotees of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. This plan has already been discussed as early as November last year in order to have an organized operation. With this, it reminds me of my growing up years in elementary school.

    During summer time like this, there would always be an “operation tuli” everywhere. Tuli or circumcision of the male genitalia has become a Filipino tradition and culture, an initiation process among young boys.

    As I underwent the same process, I was filled with fear of the pain that I would experience. Thus, when my mother brought me to a doctor’s clinic, I was trembling but managed to get out and hid myself. Well, for a week, I was able to avoid that. But because of the tremendous pressure from my playmates and classmates especially with those who were already circumcised, I was somehow forced by them to go through the same process of “initiation.” With tuli, then, as we have believed will turn me into a man. Tuli has become an initiation process from being a small weakling boy to a “gwapo-looking” young teen and from being a boy to a young man. But I wondered, was it really necessary for a man to be a man?

    This question I have brought me to the problem of the first reading. The Acts of the Apostles expresses a conflict of the early church. The Jews, especially the Pharisees who became believers of Christ insisted that pagans or non-Jewish Christians should be circumcised like them. Somehow, the Jews discriminated the pagans by thinking that pagans were unclean. For them to be cleaned they too must go through the same process of circumcision. The Jews thought that by becoming first a Jew through circumcision then one becomes a Christian.

    Now, Paul was against it though he himself was a Pharisee. For him, to be converted into Christ is beyond what is physical. The Jews at that time were looking in a very legalistic point of view. Paul wanted them to realize that a person who has been captured by Christ does not need any “tuli” anymore. 

    What is needed is the circumcision of the heart! What does it mean? It means that one should give up or stop old habits and attitudes that keep one away from God. These include the insecurity and indifference of the Jewish Christians at that time.

    For us today, what should be cut-off from us also are those thoughts, beliefs, actions and attitudes that continually keeping us away from the Lord, making us unresponsive to the invitations of the Lord, and that make us uncaring and unmoved of the difficulties and struggles of others. In other words, cut-off those that keep us indifferent to what is happening around us.

    This is the invitation of the Gospel. We, who are believers in the resurrection of Jesus, must be constantly pruned just like any plant so that we will bear good fruits or flowers. What is not helpful, dangerous and oppressive must be stopped because that will only lead us into our own misery.

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    Jesus reminds us in the Gospel that the key to become a good Christian is “to remain in him.” To remain in Jesus means to be always aware of his presence in our life. To remain in him too is to recognize his face in all of God’s creation especially among the criminals and sinners, the young and the old, the sick and the underprivileged, the poor and the abandoned.

    I would like to ask you now as we continue to deepen our faith.

    What are the thoughts, actions and attitudes that keep me away from God’s presence? Or those that make me indifferent and uncaring to the needs of others?

    May our Mother of Perpetual Help who is an example to all of us, inspire and teach us how to remain and recognize the Lord always. Through her help, we may be able to circumcise our hearts. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

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  • How often do you worry?

    How often do you worry?

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    May 12, 2020 – Tuesday 5th Week of Easter

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/051220.cfm)

    How often do you worry?

    I am sure that we would find ourselves worrying about many things in life, almost everyday. You worry about your husband or your wife, or your growing children and the failing health of your parents. Or we worry about the demands of our job or the difficulties in our business, or about your new relationships, and newfound friends. We might also find ourselves worrying about our tomorrow, of what is to come the next day because of the uncertainties brought by the pandemic. Or worrying also about our unfulfilled dreams and unsatisfied desires.

    Our worries and anxieties may prevent us from seeing things as they are because our minds and hearts are already troubled. When worries and anxieties overwhelm us too, we might not be able to respond properly and responsibly because we are internally disturbed. 

    Indeed, excessive worrying may lead us to high anxiety, which may cause us physical and mental illness. When this comes, our decision making process is also affected and our relationships with others and even with God will suffer.

    That is why; it is very important that we remain calm and at peace with ourselves and with what surrounds us. It is in this way that we will be able to move forward with our life and will be able to respond generously to what God calls us to be.

    Today, the Risen Jesus invites us to be confident with the gift that his resurrection brings to us. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you but not as the world gives, do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”

    It would be good for us to see and understand what Jesus was saying about the peace that he gives and the peace that the world gives.

    Let us see first to what Jesus said about the peace that the world gives. We may understand that what the world tells us about peace is the normalcy of life or ‘business-as-usual.’ This means that we go and proceed to what we usually do in life by doing what we want and by satisfying our needs and desires. But is it really peace at all?

    The peace that the world gives is shallow and remains self-centered. This peace focuses on our ego. But then, when the ego is not satisfied then the promised peace is lost because worries and anxieties will overwhelm us again.

    However, the peace Jesus gives is something different. This peace is growing in confidence with God, with my brothers and sisters no matter who they are. Thus, this peace allows us to see and recognize our brothers and sisters. This peace breaks any form of division, discrimination and indifference.

    This goes beyond to what is physical but into our hearts, in believing and becoming confident that God is with us and that God never abandons us. This peace sips through our troubled life, even into our stressful work or ministry, and into our un-reconciled relationships, into our danger-filled surrounding brought by covid-19, into the many displacements and halting of our so-called normal life before the Covid-19,  and into our anxieties of what is to come tomorrow.

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    Jesus gives us His Peace! This is Jesus’ gift to us. Are we ready to accept it? Are we willing to embrace it? Or do we prefer to just do our normal and usual things in life? To continue making ourselves submerged in worries and anxieties of life?

    Jesus wants us to be free from the troubles of worries and anxieties, to be free from fears and hesitations. This is the reason why the Lord gives Himself to us so that we will have him and enjoy his peace.

    Be confident that the Lord is with us; the Holy Spirit is among us and within us. By becoming confident in Jesus, we may also recognize the peace that others may bring into our lives. Hence, be welcoming also of the peace that our brothers and sisters may bring into our life.

    Peace be with you always. Hinaut pa. 

    Jom Baring, CSsR

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  • Finding Jesus

    Finding Jesus

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    May 9, 2020 – Saturday of the 4th Week of Easter

    Click here for the reading (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/050920.cfm)

    One day, a boy opened their fridge and got two cupcakes and two small bottles of orange juice. When his mother saw this, she asked him, “Are you going out to play?” The boy replied, “I am going out, Mom, to find God.” “Well, good luck son. Tell me, then, when you find Him,” said the mother.

                So, the boy set on his journey to find God. He was walking and walking. He saw trees and birds and flowers everywhere. He reached the tall buildings in their city, saw the busy traffic and the crowd of people crossing the street. Yet, not a single person noticed him.

                It was about snack time that he went to a park and found a bench where a homeless woman sat. The woman looked very sad, looking aimlessly. And since the boy was quite tired, he decided to sit and have his snacks. Sitting on that bench, he opened his bag and got his two cupcakes and two small bottles of orange juice.

                The boy, then, shared his cupcakes and orange juice to the homeless woman. The woman accepted his offer gladly, and looked at the boy with a big smile on her face. The boy, then, looked into the eyes of the woman and saw happiness in her. 

                The homeless woman, grateful to this boy, found tremendous generosity from him. While enjoying their snacks the two shared stories and laughed together.

                After the snacks, the boy said his goodbye to the homeless woman and went home. When the boy arrived home carrying a smile on his face, was greeted by his mother. She said, “How was your day, son? Have you met Him (God)?”

                The boy answered joyfully, “God is a woman, mom, and she has the most beautiful smile I have ever seen.”

                Meanwhile, the homeless woman wearing a smile that she couldn’t hide decided to take her walk. Along the way she met an old homeless man. The old man was intrigued as the woman could not hide her joy reflected on her face. So, he asked, “What’s with your smile? You seemed to be filled with joy today.” The woman replied with cheerfulness, “Oh, I just met God today. He was a boy, much younger than I expected.”

    This story shows us an encounter with God, in finding and meeting God in our human and ordinary experiences. This story may bring us into that experience of surprise from God because God reveals his presence in ways we do not expect.

    Our readings today, both in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Gospel of John tell us of this story of the revelation of God in unexpected yet ordinary ways. Consequently, because of such simplicity, people found it difficult to recognize God. Moreover, many refused to recognize God’s presence because of its apparently unadorned and simple God’s self-revelation.

    Let us look at the Gospel of John, Philip, who had been with Jesus for long, impatiently asked the Lord, “Lord, show us the Father, and that it enough.” As if Jesus was not really enough. With this, Jesus had to be honest to Philip, “You still do not know me, Philip, though I have been with you,” Jesus said.

    In a way, we are told that even a close  a disciple of Jesus found it difficult to recognize and to be convinced that the Father is in Jesus, and that they are one. Philip must have been expecting a magical revelation or any spectacular manifestation of God’s presence. However, God’s self-revelation was manifested through the person of Jesus, the Word-made-flesh.

     In the same way, the Jewish people found it ridiculous as the Apostles preached to them the person of Jesus, as God-made-flesh. Jesus was too ordinary, too simple to be believed as God. Yet, they still found his death and resurrection as offensive or a stumbling block. This was how the people showed insults to Paul.

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    This happens to us when our hearts also grow tired and weary. When we are overwhelmed with our anxieties and worries of the situation around us. Then, we might be looking for some spectacular thing to happen and for a magic to appear. But then, we might also lose the opportunity of recognizing God, of the revelation of God’s presence in the most ordinary way.

    This is the call from the story of the boy looking for God. He found God not in a magical way but through a homeless woman who showed the most beautiful smile he has ever seen. Moreover, the woman also met God in a surprising way, in the person of a boy who showed tremendous generosity to her by sharing his snacks and presence with her on that bench.

    Thus, what we are invited today is to see Jesus clearly, to recognize God who is very much involved in our daily life. To see Jesus clearly is to know God dearly. This will help us then, to follow Jesus closely. This is what has been proclaimed to us in the Acts of the Apostles commanded by Jesus, “I have set you as a light, so that you may bring my salvation.”

    We are invited to see Jesus in every person no matter how ordinary they may look like, or how familiar or strange they may be to us. It is in this way that we too shall be able to bring light to them. Again, as it was in the story, the boy experienced the light through the person and the smile of the woman. The woman too, experienced the light trough the presence and the generosity showed by the boy to her.

     Today, as we continue to live and find our way in this age of the pandemic, this may become an opportunity for us also to see Jesus clearly in the person of our brothers and sisters. May we truly become the light that shines in the darkness through our generosity and kindness to those in need, through our sincere and honest words to people around us, and through the gift of our presence to those who need comfort and a friend. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

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