Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Tag: Human Suffering

  • The Lord Heals the Broken-hearted

    The Lord Heals the Broken-hearted

    February 7, 2021 – Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020721.cfm)

    Who among us here who experienced pain and suffering? Or a failure or a heartbreak? I am certain each of us has these experiences in one way or another. There might be some of us here who have also experienced being humiliated, oppressed or abused. Perhaps there are those who are ill at the moment, or in trouble at work, have lost a job, failed in a business or in a relationship or who are in great sorrow for losing a loved one.

    It has been a year when the first report of death from Covid-19 has been revealed. Since then, the outbreak of the virus brought so much difficulty to many of us particularly those who have health issues and those whose source of income are already unstable even before the pandemic. Aside from these, there are also others who suffered very much because of the surrounding circumstances in their life.

    This happened to Joy (not her real name). She was working in a big hospital and when Covid-19 Pandemic made the first infection in the City, the hospital became busier. All medical staff felt the pressure as well as the fear and anxiety in working in a very toxic environment.

    Joy has a boyfriend. She was happy with him and he too was happy with her. They have been together for several years and thought that the relationship was going to the stage of a life-long commitment. One day, Joy found that she was pregnant. At first, she was surprised and at the same time felt afraid. Though she was happy with her boyfriend, but, she felt not sure after all. Few weeks later, when she was ready to inform her boyfriend, the relationship suddenly became unstable. As she expected it, the relationship was broken and Joy was not able to tell her boyfriend that she was pregnant. Her boyfriend broke-up with her and left her. And she kept her pregnancy to herself.

    But, the New Corona Virus came, and the national government declared lockdown in major cities. People were advised to stay home. Hospitals became busier. Herself and her colleagues felt not only the pressure of work but also the emotional burden. With this, the more Joy decided to keep her pregnancy a secret.

    For Joy, the situations surrounding her pregnancy, the recent break-up, the pandemic, the pressures at work, the emotional stress brought so much confusion to her. Her heart and mind now filled with darkness. She could not understand herself and her situation anymore. She felt not ready too to become a mother. She was afraid. She was terrified of raising the child alone and bringing the child in the midst of this pandemic and broken-relationship.

    With so much emotional/psychological stress from all aspects of her life, Joy aborted the baby after her third month of pregnancy. She thought it would solve the problem, end her troubles, her fears and anxieties, her pain and anguish. However, that was just the beginning of more pain and guilt, of shame and deep sorrow in the heart of Joy.

    She could not sleep anymore. Her colleagues began to notice changes in her attitude. She would break-down and sob even at work and even in public places. Joy was lost. She has been carrying a truck of guilt in her heart. She was searching for forgiveness, looking for God, yet, she could not forgive herself. Yet, deep within, Joy desired to find comfort and peace, light and hope in her heart.

    Joy has been keeping all those painful experiences in her heart alone. Joy needed a listening ear and heart that will only keep listening to her story without judgment and without any biases.  Joy needed a big amount of understanding and it can only be given to her by listening fully to her story, to her anxieties and fears, to her broken-relationship and pregnancy, to her struggles at work and to her sins. And at some point of her life, she began to open up and allowed herself to be touched by the presence of those around her. She took the risk and let herself be embraced by her friends

    As Joy was assisted to recognize all of those circumstances that have happened in her life, this paved the way to forgiveness, to the road of healing and freedom.

    A reality such as this reminds me of today’s readings. So, allow me to bring you a bit deeper into our readings and let us discover how God unfolds His invitations for us today.

    Our first reading tells us about the misery and hopelessness of Job who lost everything, not just his material possessions but especially his family and health. But what was intriguing was that Job seemed to be a good and righteous man. He never oppressed anybody. He had been honest to God. However, being good and righteous did not make him immune to human pain and suffering, to misery and hopelessness. With that horrible experience of Job, he said, “I shall not see happinness again.” This is Job’s testimony of that bitterness in a life filled with so much pain and darkness.

    Nevertheless, Job’s story did not end there. He actually saw and experienced joy again in his life because God showed mercy to him. This mercy is what we find in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus, as he began his public ministry, went from one town to another in order to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the diseases that plagued the people of his time and freed those who were possessed by demons. Jesus came in order to let the people know that God has come and is not blind to our suffering and difficulties. God wants to free us from those that enslaved us, that make us suffer and hopeless.

    This is what Jesus did to the mother-in-law of Peter and to those people who have been brought to Jesus. Jesus healed and freed them by touching them. This is what our Psalm proclaimed to us, “The Lord heals the broken-hearted.” Our Psalm testifies that God is a healer. God brings completeness, wholeness and healing to the broken-hearted, to the wounded and to the miserable. God brings hope and light to us who find life hopeless, bitter and dark.

    Indeed, it is when we allow God to touch us that God also brings healing into our life. God’s touch is showed to us in many ways. And this is what I realized in the life of Joy. God touched her through her friends who showed concern to her. God also touched her through the sacraments that Joy received. Peter’s mother-in-law was touched by Jesus through Peter himself who brought Jesus to their home. The sick and the possessed were touched by Jesus and were healed through the people who brought them to Jesus.

    It is in this way that God works wonders in us and also through us. This is the invitation for us today which I summed in two points.

    First, God wants to heal us, to make us complete and joyful. Jesus is letting us know that our God is for us the wounded, for the broken, for the sick and for the hopeless. We might be like Job who find life miserable – come closer to the Lord, then, do not lose hope but rather seek healing and ask what you need from God because our God is, indeed, a God of healing.

    Second, each of us can be an instrument of healing too. We can be a friend who will be able to bring healing to others by bringing them closer to God. We can show it by being generous of ourselves to others, that is, by offering a helping hand to those in need, by making our ears available to a person who wants to be heard, by assuring a sick friend of our prayers and company, by letting a person know that you are there to support and give comfort. Yes, we don’t have to look far, just be aware of those people around us because he or she might just be one of our friends who has been hiding his/her suffering from a smiling façade, or could just be a family member who has been making himself/herself  busy with work or worst indulging themselves in their own rooms with their gadgets or with chemical substances. Let us be instruments of God’s healing presence today. Hinaut pa.

  • To live brings out pain, yet it bears fruit joy

    To live brings out pain, yet it bears fruit joy

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    September 15, 2020 – Tuesday; Feast of the Our Lady of Sorrow

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091520.cfm)

    Homily

    To experience pain in life can become devastating and even maddening. Having a toothache can completely destroy your day. Having a headache can affect your daily activities. Indeed, when pain becomes unbearable and frustrating, it affects our daily routine and activities, our work, even our sleep and relationship with friends and family.

    Who would really want to be in pain? As much as possible, we avoid pain. Consequently, the medical science developed pain relievers that would take away slowly or instantly the aches and pains we feel in our body. In fact, a particular field among doctors has been developed to assist patients who will undergo surgeries through the use of anesthesia. Through its use, the patient will have a painless surgery so that he or she will be able to have a quality life.

    However, no remedy can be given to a heart that is bruised, abused, betrayed and/or humiliated. No doctor can apply anesthesia to a deep emotional pain. It can even linger and deepen with time. For such reason, some would succumb to it without any help from others and end their life. They see it as the only remedy to end that deep emotional pain they have been enduring in their life.

    This is the sad part because pain will really be unbearable and life-threatening when it is faced alone. Today, as we celebrate the Feast of Mary, the Our Lady of Sorrows, we are reminded that pain in itself is all part of our life. No one can escape pain. Everybody will surely meet pain in different degrees and aspects of life. And what this feast is reminding us now is the wonder and the beauty in confronting and carrying pain with others.

    Let us remind ourselves at the prophecy of the old Simeon. This old man had been waiting for the appearance of the Christ. When the baby Jesus was brought by the couple, Joseph and Mary to the Temple, behold, Simeon had caught sight of Light, the salvation of the world. However, this child will be responsible for the rise and fall of many in Israel. What he meant, was the rising of the humble, the poor and those marginalized by the society into the heart of God and the fall of the powerful, the self-righteous and the corrupt. For this reason, the infant will be a contradiction. The child will bring change and transformation to all that can be painful to those who seek comfort and power, titles and riches.

    Being a contradiction to the world, the child himself will undergo a terrible pain of betrayal, of dying and of death in which no amount of pain relief medicine or anesthesia can aid. Moreover, the same amount of pain was also given to the mother of the child, to Mary. As Simeon prophesied, “you yourself a sword will pierce.” Mary’s heart will be pierced with so much sorrow and pain as she suffered with her son.

    Every blow to Jesus, Mary also endured. Every insult to her Son, Mary also suffered. And every agony of Jesus, Mary also agonized. However, despite all these gruesome and painful events in the life of Mary, she did not hide. Mary did not escape into dreams. She did not ran away into loneliness and depression. Mary bravely confronted pain by being with her Son, by journeying with him until his last breath.

    Why is that? When people would hide and ran away from pain as what the men disciples did, but, Mary bravely faced that sword piercing in her heart and suffered in silence along with her Son. What gave her the courage? What made her to stand beside her Son and her Lord?

    It was love that sustained Mary. It was her deep concern and affection to the person whom she loved that moved her to be with Jesus and to also suffer with him. And to the suffering Son on the cross, the presence of her mother was the best comfort he had. The presence of Mary was more powerful than any pain reliever or any amount of anesthesia applied to the dying Son. Though, Mary’s presence did not take away the pain, but her presence made Jesus to be more resolved that there is hope in humanity.

    Mary’s presence on the cross is a testament to God that humanity can show so much concern and love to a suffering person. That’s why pain is never the end, suffering is never the last thing in life. The glory of the resurrection of Jesus tells us of that freedom from pain and promise of joy. We can attain that, by being together, by not suffering alone, but by allowing others to suffer with us or by allowing ourselves to suffer with others. Certainly, to live life will bring pain in us, but it will also bears fruit joy because of being with our friends and loved ones.

    Thus, on this feast of Mary, we are also called to be an instrument like Mary, to give comfort to those who are suffering and in pain in many ways, physically, spiritually or emotionally. Let our presence be an assurance of friendship, of love and concern to those who are in terrible pain this moment. For those who are in pain also, never retreat, deny or hide the pain or escape from pain, but allow others to journey with you. Allow those who love you to hold you and to embrace you. They may not take away the pain you are feeling, but let their presence, friendship and love be your source of comfort and confidence in your trying moments.

    May Mary, the Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • God intervenes to bring us comfort and confidence

    God intervenes to bring us comfort and confidence

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    May 22, 2020 – Friday of the 6th Week of Easter

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/052220.cfm)

    One day I received a sick call from a hospital asking for an anointing of the sick for a dying man in his 90s. Honestly, I personally do not like going to sick calls to the dying because of the emotional baggage that I may carry when I leave the room. Aside from the scary machines and tubes applied to the patient, it is surely heart-breaking to see a dying person holding on to his/her last remaining breathes. The sorrow and the grief of the family members who gather around the suffering patient would also creep into my heart and mind. However, I have to appear “okay” in order to do the rites properly and accompany the dying and the family in prayer.

    Yet, with this particular old man who was holding on to his last breathes, there was something different in him that caught my attention. Behind his transparent respirator, he was smiling as soon as I introduced myself to him. He was actually smiling during the whole rite while looking at me. He was fully conscious but cannot move. He was definitely in pain at that moment. He too must have been so loved by his family gathered around him. They were keeping to themselves, as much as possible their cries, as I did the rite and told him to go in peace.

    After the rite, he removed gently his respirator to tell me something (this happened before Covid-19 brought disaster in our community). He told me with a smile (saying in the local language), “Father, thank you. I will go now.” The family members could not hide anymore their tears as they too heard those words. It was truly heart-breaking that I have to keep myself from breaking down in tears to assure him of my presence. But, I also felt the confidence behind those words. This old man was confident that he was not alone. His loved ones were with him and the Lord was with him too. He was not afraid anymore despite the deep sorrow and pain at that very moment. He knew that after this, everything will turn into joy.

    True enough, as I left the room and bid my goodbye, fifteen minutes after, the parish office received a call to inform me that the old man has rested in peace.

    This is a testimony that completely trusts in God’s presence and promise of joy. It is a particular situation and a concrete human experience of struggle and confusion, of fear and anxiety, of pain and sorrow. Moreover, such human experience paved the way for the Lord to intervene and bring comfort and confidence.

    The readings today convey this message to us. In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul was mistreated by those who refused to believe in Jesus. He was harassed and was accused wrongly to put him in prison and to death. With this kind of situation, Paul must have been so confused and afraid for his life. He must have started to question the Lord for sending him into this kind of trouble in his ministry.

    Consequently, such difficult situation of Paul became the entry point of Jesus to assure him and to give him comfort and confidence. Jesus appeared in a vision to Paul. The Lord told Paul, “Do not be afraid, continue speaking and do not be silent. I am with you. No one will harm you.”

    In the same way, Jesus also gave this assurance to his disciples. This conversation with Jesus happened just before the Lord was betrayed and arrested in Chapter 18 in this Gospel of John. Jesus prepared his disciples for the horrible and unimaginable events to happen in the coming days.  Thus, the words of Jesus, “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy,” are the Lord’s assurance to us. 

    We might be struggling at this very moment. There might be some of us who experienced being humiliated, harassed, oppressed or abused. Or perhaps who are ill at the moment, or in trouble at work, perhaps lost a job or failed in business because of the economic crisis brought by Covid-19. There might be some of us too who are now having problems in their relationship or who are in great sorrow for losing a loved one during this pandemic.

    With all of these difficult and painful human experiences, God also comes to us through this sacrament, through the scriptures, through the love and support of our family and friends and through the gift of the Holy Spirit abiding in us, that God intervenes to bring comfort and confidence in us. 

    As Paul and the disciples were comforted by Jesus, the Lord also is telling us now, “Do not be afraid, go on and continue because I am with you. Believe that this sorrow you have now will pass away and will turn into joy.”

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    Moreover, this calls us today to truly believe that God is the God of our life. Then, in that faith, we shall see the many good things we enjoy in this life despite the many difficulties and hardships we encounter. When we also truly believe that God is the resurrection and the life that we also begin to become true Christians who see light in the midst of darkness, who find joy in the midst of sorrow, who capture a smile in the midst of pain, who embrace hope in the midst of impossibility, who find healing in the midst of so much sickness and who find life in death.

    And again, this is what I found in the life of that old man. Though I had a short encounter with him but that gave me a profound realization of God’s presence. Through the person of that old man, God also intervened in my life to bring comfort and confidence in me.

    Hopefully, each of us too will allow God to intervene in our life today. We may allow God to be present there in our struggles and sorrow, in our pain and anxiety. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

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