Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Tag: Easter Sunday

  • The Lord in our Midst, in Flesh & in Need.

    The Lord in our Midst, in Flesh & in Need.

    April 18, 2021 – Third Sunday of Easter

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041821.cfm

    “The Lord has risen, indeed. Let us be glad and rejoice. Alleluia”. As Easter people, we Christians proclaim our faith in the Risen Lord – that is, our Lord Jesus Christ has indeed resurrected from death and always with us alive and in life now forever. This is our faith. This is what we believe. This is what we proclaim as Christians to the whole world.

    Though many at times, we still wonder as to how do we & can we experience the risen Lord in our lives today. We still grapple as to how do the risen Lord reveal himself to us and to the world today, and as to how do we recognize the risen Lord in our lives today. Mysterious our faith maybe, we might discern however some signs or ways we may recognize the risen Lord in our lives.

    By telling us the disciples’ Easter experience, St. Luke in our gospel today gives us hints as to how they had then and we will now witness the risen Lord in our lives today.

    First, the risen Lord reveals Himself IN THEIR MIDST. While the two disciples from Emmaus recounting their experience of the risen Lord to the community, Jesus stood IN their midst and said to them: “Peace Be with You”. The community of disciples witnessed the risen Lord themselves while they were remembering and celebrating their experience of the Lord in their own lives. By the testimony and faith of our Christian community and through our community of believers as church, we thus experience the risen Lord in the midst of our lives. Our Lord does once said: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst”. In other words, we and others may and will witness the risen Lord is in our lives today, wherever and whenever we gather together as community of believers to celebrate and proclaim our faith in Him, as He is Present in our midst.   

    Second, the risen Lord reveals Himself IN FLESH. As the risen Lord reveals Himself in the midst of the disciples, he showed and asked them to touch and see His wounded hands and feet. Thus, the risen Lord reveals Himself not as ghost but in flesh and bones with wounds. This is very significant because mostly how we witness the Lord is clouded by how we want to see Him and how we want Him to reveal Himself to us. In other words, “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Like, we may ask ourselves not, “how does the risen show Himself to us” but more like, “how would we like to see the risen Lord”. Here we may want to see and believe on an Easter with a “Jesus without a cross”. Jesus here is the risen Lord – without wounds and cross – who reveals to us in full transfiguration and perfect glory who will save our day and provide us success and wealth in life. He is a Jesus of the prosperity gospel who enjoying and sharing the luxury and pleasure of life (smiling on a BMW motorbike with latest iPhone & all abobots/gadgets/perks) enjoying the good life with all His followers.

    We may also want to see and believe on an Easter with a “Cross without Jesus”. Jesus here is the risen Lord not in flesh but in spirit – a ghost. Here Jesus is believed to be not anymore in this world but in spiritual realm welcoming us to the next life, but still remains at a distance from our daily life-struggles.

    However we like to see our risen Lord in our lives now, whether as “Jesus without a cross” or “Cross without Jesus”, the fact is – the risen Lord has made Himself known to us as “Jesus with a Cross” – a risen Lord in wounded flesh and bones who struggles and sacrifices painfully yet victoriously in life. The risen Lord in flesh is thus a seasoned life-hero who, by letting us touch and see His wounds in Life – not His glorified body or His spirit, is now willing to coach and journey us in life. In our day to day struggles of life and humanity then, the risen Lord makes Himself known to us.

    Third, the risen Lord reveals Himself IN NEED. After showing Himself to them in their midst and asking them to touch and see His wounds in flesh, the risen Lord Jesus asked from them for something to eat, and ate in front of them. He is thus a hungry and needy risen Lord who needs us and needs something from us, for Him to continue on His mission. In other words, the risen Lord is a Lord who is not-yet finished, promising yet still more to come, still on mission, on the job, on the go, on work-in progress with our life-resurrection. And he does need us to be His cooperators/partners in life and resurrection. In our sensibility for His needs and our response for the Lord’s mission now, the risen Lord makes Himself known to us. 

    The risen Lord in our Midst, in Flesh and in Need are just but hints for us to witness Him in our lives today. These are invitations for us to see Easter as they are, as it is being revealed to us, and not as we are and we would want it to be. Only then that we may become more open to the mystery of Easter, and willingly proclaim: “The Lord indeed has risen. Let us rejoice and be glad. Alleluia.”

    Lord, in our midst, in flesh & in need, reveal anew Yourself to us now so that we may see what You want us to witness for our lives now & we know what is your will for us now, especially during these difficult pandemic times.

    So Help Us God. So May it Be. Amen.

  • Time-check. When are we in life Now?

    Time-check. When are we in life Now?

    Advertisements

    May 10, 2020 – Fifth Sunday of Easter

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/051020.cfm)

    Not only we are already almost half way through the month but also already half way through the year. And we are yet far from what we have initially planned early for this year 2020. Our global reality of viral pandemic has rendered our initial plans and programs for this year on-hold, hanging and at the verge of scrapping down the drain. Worse, nowadays ours is confusing and ground-shaking times since we find our “life-givens” – our basic presumptions and systems now unreliable (if not crashed).

    Moreover we find ourselves in a situation where and when “no possible way to know what is going to happen tomorrow, we never know”. During these trying times in our lives, as we struggle daily with the “What’s now? What’s next” of our limited, constricted, and uncertain reality, we grapple also for the “Why? How come? What for?”, that could somehow provide us some sense, meaning, and direction to our lives today.

    Corrie ten Boom once said in her book, The Hiding Place: “Every experience God gives us, every person He puts into our lives is the perfect preparation for the future only He can see.” Somehow these words of wisdom could provide us a perspective as to how we can view what we are going through and happening to us these days.

    These words are based on Corrie’s experience of being a Dutch Christian survivor of the horrors of Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. In her experience of the worse of human disaster and cruelty as well as the best of Christian faith, Corrie came to realize and believe that as Christian believers, our LIFE now is and can be  God’s preparation of us for the New Life He promised us. Understanding then our present Now as God’s preparation may provide us a much-wider perspective, allow us to go beyond and find meaning to what is happening and we are going through now.  

    Based  on her experiences of the challenges of living life in faith, here she is counselling us now that whatever happens and is happening to us, what we have gone and going through (however it may be) are just but mere  God’s PREPARATIONS for His promise of our much better tomorrow than what we envision to be. In other words, there is more to life than just what we have Now, for Now is just but a preparation for God’s promise of more abundant and better life ahead and anew for us. And we are now just being prepared by God, and God is preparing us for something greater than these things we have now.

    Somehow Jesus has the same message for us in our gospel today. In admitting that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, Jesus is preparing us His disciples for the coming life ahead. Jesus said: “I am going now to prepare a place for you”. He is preparing us and we are being prepared by Him. And this is not just about the place prepared for us out “there and after”, but all about ourselves, (you and I, here & now) being prepared for a role, task and mission – a responsibility in God’s plan of more abundant life for all.

    In Jesus, God thus is  preparing us according to His plans and purpose for us. In Jesus, God is calling, forming, training, retooling, and redesigning us now to be suited for the promise of our new life with Him.  

    Jesus as our “Way, Truth and Life” is God’s signs, guidelines, and means of preparing us. The witness of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection with us prepared and still preparing us for the promise of eternal life. And as we, believers of Jesus and our Father are being prepared, the challenges of living life in faith we Christians are going through now may be lived, not as it is, but as a preparation to a witness of better future for the world now and beyond.

    In other words, our experience of Christian life now is and should be lived same way as in holding pre-departure areas in airports and terminal or bus stops’ waiting sheds  in preparation for a journey to a better future destination God is offering us anew, along with the conviction that God and Jesus is not finish with us yet. The journey is not yet over. There is more yet to come for us with God.

    Advertisements

    So for now, take heed Jesus’ advice: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in God and in Me also”, since we are being PREPARED for something anew. BRACE ourselves  therefore, for we are part of the preparation in God’s grand plan of things in life.

    May we have the patience and faith to endure and persevere more with what we are going through Now, so that we may be worthy and  better prepared for our responsibility to a much better world ahead, God offering us now. Amen. 

    (By: Fr. Aphelie Mario Masangcay CSsR, a Filipino Redemptorist  Missionary stationed in Gwangju South Korea, though now still stranded in Cebu until further notice for available flights.)

  • RECOGNIZING JESUS IN THE MANY BREAKING OF THE BREAD TODAY

    RECOGNIZING JESUS IN THE MANY BREAKING OF THE BREAD TODAY

    Advertisements

    April 26, 2020 – Third Sunday of April

    Shared by Rev. Deacon Jose Lemuel Nadorra, CSsR

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/042620.cfm)

    One of the great Italian painters of the Baroque period is Michaelangelo Mirisi Caravaggio. He is one of the masters of realism and foreshortening technique, and the painting style called chiaroscuro, that uses the contrast of light and darkness to create and bring out the emotion and drama of the whole painting. What you see here is one of his famous painting, Supper at Emmaus. This is the second version of the same theme that Caravaggio painted about the Emmaus story. 

    SUPPER AT EMMAUS

    Most paintings of the Emmaus story, which we heard in the gospel of Luke today, portray Jesus and the two disciples in deep conversation while walking together on a road in a beautiful scenery. But Caravaggio’s take on the Emmaus story focused on the crucial moment of the story. It focused on the very moment when Jesus broke the bread and the eyes of the two disciples were opened in amazed recognition that it is the Lord. Notice the contrast of expressions on the faces of the figures in the composition. The innkeeper and the servant at the back look confused and are oblivious of what is happening, while the two disciples on the foreground were shocked in utter recognition of the Lord’s presence. Caravaggio somehow froze that split-second moment just before Jesus vanished from their sight. Yet the center of interest of the painting is the hand of Jesus and the broken bread. What Caravaggio was trying to tell us was that it was the very act of the breaking of the bread that allowed the disciples to recognize the risen Jesus. Jesus, the bread of life, broken and shared for humanity’s redemption.

    Advertisements

    The Emmaus story we have heard in the gospel today is one of the apparition stories of Jesus, eyewitness accounts of the disciples, aside from the empty tomb, that cemented the faith of early Christians that indeed Jesus is risen and alive. We are told that these two disciples of Jesus were on the road going to the village of Emmaus, walking away from Jerusalem. They were sad, grief-stricken, and frustrated, of the events that transpired a few days ago in Jerusalem. Jesus, their hoped-for Messiah, was crucified and now dead.

    Then, this “stranger” suddenly appears and joins them in their walk. They did not recognize that it was Jesus perhaps because, like Mary Magdalene, sadness and grief blinded them. Yet Jesus walked along with them, and engaged them in deep conversation about the Messiah in the Scriptures. Out of hospitality, they asked the “stranger” to join and stay with them for it was almost night time. And it was while he was at table with them, that the very act of Jesus in taking, blessing, and breaking the bread, that they recognized Him. It was the risen Lord! And then he vanished from their sight.

    Brothers and sisters, the Emmaus story reminds us that in our life journey, in whatever circumstance we are in, Jesus walks along with us. In this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite our sadness, fears, frustrations and anxieties, that may blind and numb us, Jesus is there journeying with us. He meets and encounters us where we are. And like the two disciples who acted with hospitality in inviting Jesus with them, despite them not recognizing him, we, too are called to be hospitable to His presence, to invite Him to walk along with us, even though at times we may not recognize Him at the moment.

    When the two disciples finally recognized the presence of Jesus through the breaking of the bread, and despite him vanishing from their sight, this brought them such great joy and remembered how their hearts burned when Jesus walked along with them. They left with such haste and returned to Jerusalem to announce that yes, Jesus is risen! It is also the same invitation to all of us my brothers and sisters. That as we celebrate this and every Eucharist, as we witness the taking, blessing, and breaking of the bread, we may also recognize with such great joy the presence of the risen Lord in our lives. Through this act, may our hearts also burn as we remember and look back at the many blessings, moments of grace, glimpses of God’s loving and mysterious presence in our life journey. Yes, all along he was there, walking with us. Encountering us. Journeying with us. But wait, there’s more!

    Advertisements

    The Emmaus story also invites us not only to look and recognize Jesus at the breaking of the bread in the Eucharist, but more so to look and recognize him at the many “breakings of the bread” that is happening all around us. Especially at this moment of the COVID pandemic, we see the examples of our front-liners who are risking their lives in order to help stem the spread of this virus. Or the many acts of generosity of people, individuals, local and church groups, who reached out to people in need despite the lockdown and community quarantine, etc. etc. Acts of generosity. Acts of love. Acts that bring hope. Yes, despite Jesus’ physical absence, the very act itself makes Him present. The act of the breaking of the bread in the Emmaus story strengthened the faith and brought hope to the two disciples. We are likewise invited to find strength and hope, as we recognize Jesus in the many “breakings of the bread” happening around us.

    It is good to note that archaeologists and Biblical scholars would attest that the location of the village of Emmaus is still disputed and unknown, this somehow tells us, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had said, that the Emmaus story is also our Emmaus story.

    Caravaggio’s genius in foreshortening technique found in his paintings, creates an illusion that parts of the figures are coming out of the canvas. This allows and invites the viewer to become part of the whole drama of the painting. As we become part of it, we are also invited to look at our own Emmaus stories. To look back at how Jesus journeyed with us, guided us, and manifested His presence in various and different ways in our lives.

    Advertisements

    Like the two disciples who, at the beginning journeyed blinded by grief and fear, went back and announced with great joy their encounter with the risen Lord. We, too are asked to allow the risen Lord to encounter us, in the breaking or the breakings of the bread happening around us, we will become like Peter in our first reading, who boldly proclaimed the Good News of Jesus.

    In Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus painting, we see that subtle light coming in bringing light to the figure of Jesus and the broken bread. It symbolizes the new light, that transforming light, brought by Jesus upon His disciples. Jesus, the risen Lord, is the light of hope. As our psalms today exhorts, “Keep me safe O God, you are my hope!” And so are we, if we are truly believers of the risen Christ, must also bring the light of hope to others through our actions and deeds. Indeed, it is through our actions that the risen Christ is made present.

    And so I leave you my brothers and sisters with this parting question for all of us to reflect upon: In what ways are we encountering Christ today? As Christians, is the risen Christ made present in our actions and deeds especially in these trying times? 

    May Jesus, the Risen Lord, bless us all. Alleluia!

    Join 2,850 other subscribers