Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Tag: Life and Death

  • Blessing-in Disguise

    Blessing-in Disguise

    March 26, 2023 – Fifth Sunday of Lent

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032623.cfm)

    So angry, disappointed, and frustrated with God for letting his mother get seriously sick, a seminarian once was about to leave to seminary. In prayer, he said to God, “Lord, I have been your obedient follower. I’ve taken care of your people, but how could you let my mother get seriously sick?” And in response, he heard God saying: “Son, I know how you love your mother, it’s good that you have been so concerned about your mother’s health. But can you please give a chance to heal her? She is also my concern. Did I not tell you to have faith? My plans for her are much better than yours, same as my plans for you are much better than yours.”

    How much of us here, have not been frustrated with God? Yes, in one way of another, we have sometimes experienced how it is to be frustrated & disappointed with God. There are times or moments in our lives that we have felt angry, disappointed, and frustrated with God, especially at times when we were helpless in life, needing His presence, but instead we experience His absence and seeming darkness or dryness in life. Yes, like sometimes we are disappointed and frustrated with our parent, sometimes we are also disappointed and frustrated with God, whether we like it or not.

    Like here in our gospel today, people were disappointed with our Lord Jesus. Mary and Martha, his friends were also frustrated with Jesus, saying “Lord, if you have here, my brother could have been saved”. Consider that days even before Lazarus died, they have already informed Jesus how sickly Lazarus, his friend who lived nearby, has been. But Jesus seemingly did not respond or did not care. Only four days after Lazarus death, that Jesus went to visit. Who would not be disappointed and frustrated with Jesus not able to respond to a family crisis?

    People might be disappointed or frustrated with Jesus then, same way, that we might have been disappointed or frustrated with God now.

    However, our gospel today reminds us again that God has a different view of life than the way we see things. For God, our experiences, perceptions and understanding of sufferings, deaths, problems, and crises in life – frustrating and painful they might be, play a great part or role in God’s plans. Jesus’ seeming passivity or insensitivity toward Lazarus was his way of teaching us to let God be God in our lives.

    When he learned that Lazarus was sick, Jesus said: “This sickness will end not in death but in God’s glory”. And when he performed the miracle of resuscitating Lazarus, he said: “so that they may believe it was you who sent.” Meaning, for Jesus, there is more to sickness and dying or more to illness and death. For Jesus, sickness and health, life in its greatness and sufferings are opportunities for us to witness God’s graces working in us – a chance for God to heal us or revive us not only from physical but also spiritual sickness or spiritual death, and to offer us fullness of life with Him. It is a chance for God to show us His divine Glory and Mercy and for us to benefit from it, and to know that He is the Lord. In other words, not misfortunes but blessings-in disguise.

    As one wise guru would say, “Being sick is an opportunity to experience yourself and God in a new way. It is the chance to teach the mind and the soul to remain independent from the body and so connect with your inner resources of peace and silence in God.”

    So whenever we get sick or have experienced death in our family, or is frustrated with God, let Him say to you…”Give up, Surrender, Let me Be God to You. Give me a chance to be God, not as you want me to be but as I choose to be. My plans, my ways, my glory are much greater than yours. So that you may have not only life, but life to its fullness with Me.” Consider then that whatever & however circumstances we may find ourself – whether in sickness, sinfulness, despair, desperations & sufferings, could be blessings-in disguise – great opportunities for God’s grace be known in us & God’s glory be revealed through us, and for ours to rise into the occasion to witness & proclaim our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, His son to others.

    While we grapple with life’s questions, frustrations, and challenges, may Thomas Merton’s prayer of abandonment express our true heart’s desire before our Lord whom we believe most….

    My Lord God,
    I have no idea where I am going.
    I do not see the road ahead of me.
    I cannot know for certain where it will end.
    nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

    But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

    I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

    Therefore will I trust you always though
    I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
    and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

    So May it Be. Amen.

  • Of Life BEFORE Death

    Of Life BEFORE Death

    November 13, 2022 – 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111322.cfm)

    Whenever death & disasters happen in our lives, we cannot help but raise the question about the end-time or the end of the world. Ever-present war, pandemic, famine, pestilence, super typhoons, tsunami, hunger, earthquakes, flooding, landslides, and countless death-crimes in life render us anxious and helpless towards our coming future. Our worries about the coming end-times are not only felt around us but also within us. We are not ignorant as to how it feels when our world seems have broken and ended whenever we experience heartache as to the death and loss of our loved ones, or failed in our studies, business endeavors, plans and dreams, or diagnose with serious illness and others. Even worse, Scripture and Jesus himself warns us of these coming end-times as inevitable and surely to happen to our human life.  

    Related with our uncertainty about end-time are the questions: “What’s the point? What’s the meaning of all these life-endeavors? Is there hope in life?” And above all, at its very heart, raises the question: “What now… and then? Is there Life AFTER Death?”

    A wise man once said: “The question should not be: ‘Is there life after death’ but rather ‘Is there life BEFORE death’?

    True enough, while life-disasters and death surely to happen in life, we should concern ourselves less about what happen to us after life, but rather more so concern about how we live our life before our inevitable death. Regardless whether there is life after death or not, we should never forget the fact that there is life before death that we are still now in. If we come to think of it, we are still now here alive for a reason and purpose to be in this world. It is for us now, as we live this life, to discover and fulfill in life our real reason and purpose to be and live. Our task and concern in life is to live our life now before death to the fullness of our very life-purpose.

    Life Before Death would also mean that the greatest loss in life is not death, but what dies inside us while we live. Sadly there are people nowadays who have reasons to die than to live, and people who are still alive but dying and already died inside. Though painful, confusing and disheartening, our experiences of disasters and loss should move us still alive to deeply discover and enable the very reason and meaning of our life-existence. For Jesus, life-death and disasters are not only about end-times or world’s end, but more so about the opportunity for us to testify, that is, to rise to the occasion,…. stand up and witness in life our faith in God through Him, and…. to live-up to our very life-purpose and reason in life.  In other words, Jesus is saying to us, that these things will surely happen to us, but with a reason and for a purpose. So, we should consider more our life now before death, rather than our life after death, and as He  promised,  “By your perseverance in life, you will secure your lives.”

    Practical advice then to ponder: Whenever disaster strikes and happens in life, ASK NOT , “Why is this happening TO me?” but rather, “why is this happening FOR me?” Because…. Asking, “why is this happening TO me?” leads to unhealthy self-doubt, blame, guilt, anger, and inner death. Asking, however, “why is this happening FOR me?” leads to meaning, purpose, challenge, responsibility, and resolution.

    As we grapple then with the concern about our experience of death & disasters in life, as  per advised,  ask not: “Why is this happening to me?”, “Is there life after death?” but rather ask,  “Why is this happening FOR me?”, “Is there life before death?”, “Do I have or am I having a life now before my death?”.  With this, we may be more hopefully grounded to live our lives by its very reason, meaning and purpose, as well as to be a living testimony and witness of our Christian faith, and God’s grace to our present world.

    May the Lord lead us to His fullness of life.

    So May it be. Amen.

  • LIVING and DYING. LIFE and DEATH.

    LIVING and DYING. LIFE and DEATH.

    November 6, 2022 – 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110622.cfm)

    Are you living to die? Or are you dying to live? Do we seek to give life? Or do we suck out life? We have just celebrated All Souls’ Day and remembered the lives of our departed loved ones.  We remember not just their life but also how they died. Some may have died in tragic and painful events. Some also may have died peacefully. Remembering their death and being aware also of our own, sooner or later, what gives us hope is the promise of the resurrection, a blessed life that we will share with Jesus.

    However, the promise of the resurrection is not just something that will be for the future alone. Its grace and mystery are so vast and beyond any boundaries that we are already being invited in the here-and-now. And so, as we are being invited to hold on to that promise and have a taste of that blessed life in our present context, allow me now to journey with you a bit deeper on this 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

    In 2019, I was in a funeral wake of a young professional in his mid-twenties. Because of much pain and hurts that he was experiencing in his young life, he couldn’t endure them. He was helpless and felt hopeless. He felt alone and lonely. All of these directed him to depression until his depression clouded his mind and heart which also led him to kill himself.

    Without judging him, such situation brought me to ask myself, how am I living my life right now? Am I letting hopelessness and despair to deprive me to live fully and meaningfully with others?

    Back in college, I met a leper in Cebu, an old woman in her 70s, abandoned by her family in her teen-age years when leprosy began to manifest in her body. Yet, despite being abandoned and left alone in the hospital for lepers, she remained hopeful in life by resisting to be eaten up by despair, by emotional hurts, by abandonment and by the very suffering she was enduring. Thus, she even adopted an abandoned baby girl with cerebral palsy whom she named Nancy. She found Nancy in a garbage bin in Cebu. Despite her poverty, she accepted Nancy in her life and let Nancy feel a mother’s love, affection and care. Yet, as Nancy grew up and due to her failing eyesight and old age, she has to let go of Nancy and bring her to a group of Sisters who could provide better the needs of Nancy. Despite the pain of separation and of the loneliness she would endure by losing Nancy beside her, she let her go. In that way, she gave life to Nancy even though she herself struggled to live. She died peacefully in the hospital for lepers knowing that she was capable of loving and being loved.

    With this encounter, I also asked myself, am I giving life? Have I tried to give myself in order to give life to others? Or am I just busy living only thinking of myself without any regard and care for others?

    In the second book of the Maccabees, we have heard the story of the seven brothers and their mother who were tortured and killed. The king wanted them to violate the law of God. Despite the trials and persecution, the reverence they gave to the law of God made them commit their whole life even up to death. This was their expression that there is more in this life, and that is, the resurrection.

    Their story tells us that suffering and persecution, trials even sickness and death are nothing because the righteous, those who are favored by God will be raised up.

    This is what Paul also tried to express in his second letter to the Thessalonians. Paul confessed, “The Lord is faithful.” This was his experience and his reminder to the Christians in Thessalonica that amidst trials and persecutions, they too will be confident in God’s faithfulness. Paul also asked for prayers and hoped that the Thessalonians, their hearts, will be directed to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ. Christ is therefore, our strength and confidence in times of trials and the fullness of our joy. This fullness of joy reminds us of the blessed life in the promise of the resurrection.

    But let us remember, this fullness of joy or blessed life or the promise of the resurrection begins to unfold today, in our present moment, in the quality of our life and relationships.

    This was the failure of the Sadducees, the fundamentalists at the time of Jesus categorically denied the promise of resurrection. For them, this was completely foolish because this was not clearly affirmed in the Pentateuch or the Torah. However, the situation they gave to Jesus of a woman marrying the brothers of her dead husband, one after another death, was a complete misunderstanding of life and the resurrection.

    Their denial of the resurrection was a denial of God’s power over death. Their misunderstanding of life that only ends in death expressed hopelessness. And their perversion of one’s life that remains the same if there is ever a resurrection, referring to their question to Jesus, is an insult to the fullness of joy in the resurrection. Resurrection, as Jesus said, is not a state of life that we have now but the fullness of joy and total blessed life shared with the God of hope and of life.

    How are we invited now so that the hope of the resurrection shall grow in our hearts, mold our faith and develop the quality of our life and relationships? There are three invitations for us now.

    First, live to share hope. This invites us that we ourselves will become an instrument of hope not discouragement or fear. Let our very person and our presence express hope for those friends who may be struggling now, needing support and understanding, company and acceptance.  Living to share hope is call from us that we are anchored and secured in our relationship with God, who is our hope.

    Second, live to share love. This calls us to go beyond ourselves and beyond our comforts in order to show concretely our love. Living to share love requires our commitment in our relationships which can be difficult, or even painful at times. Yet, it is in truly living to share love that we too experience what life is.

    Third, live to share life. This directs us to recognize that we can actually regenerate life, inspire life, defend life and motivate life. Indeed, this is an invitation to us not to suck the life of others, or to abuse, oppress and kill the life of others. All of these are not from the God of life but of evil. Like what Jesus did, this could be quite challenging because living to share life is giving totally our life for the sake of others.

    And so, as we are called to live to share hope, love and life, may the God of the Living and not of the dead, bless us with a joyful and blessed life today and tomorrow. Kabay pa.

  • Of Life Beyond

    Of Life Beyond

    November 6, 2022 – 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110622.cfm)

    Last week and even week before last, we cannot help but find ourselves thinking about our experiences of death & life. Not only we were remembering our dearly beloved departed brothers & sister, we are also praying for the souls in purgatory & souls of those who have recently died of Covid pandemic, victims of natural disasters, & about all the 150 plus youth who died in Itaewon Stampede for a Halloween party in South Korea. Yes, we cannot help but reflect on such a waste of lives of many young people who are supposed to be enjoying & having fun on a costume party Halloween Event, which they don’t even believe, ending in tragedy on harrowing deaths of plenty.

    In such experiences of death, dying & waste of lives nowadays, yes indeed, we do find ourselves questioning about our life as it is & our life yet to come. Somehow, we ask ourselves what is life all about. “Is there a life after death? What happened to those who have died? Was their life sensible before their death? Is our lives now sensible before our death? Is there, are we living or do we have a life before death?”, are just but some questions we are confronted with, as we make sense & find meaning from our recent experiences of loss & grief.

    Somehow our readings today are offering us some perspectives as to how we grapple with these questions.

    By our faith in God, the witness of suffering & martyrdom of the Maccabeans testify to the reality that there is more to life & death than what we have and are experiencing it. For people of deep faith, there is resurrection, eternal life, and life-beyond life & death. Paul exhorts us faithful people to be steadfast & enduring in our faith in God who loves us dearly & in Jesus who journeys with us in life. And in our gospel today, Jesus is telling & teaching us that resurrection, eternal, life-beyond life & death is not all about who are we married to in life, but moreso about it is about how we have been faithful & fruitful to the life we have committed to in life, since our fullness of joy lies in the full glory of our Lord – not ours, as our Psalms proclaims.

    In our life as Christian believers then, we are called not only to be happy and successful, but above all to be faithful & fruitful. Faithfulness & fruitfulness then IS life-all about, and less on our happiness & successes. Our life here & now thus is all about fullness of God glory through the faithful & fruitful witness of all who believes in our Lord Jesus Christ.

    Beyond the questions about the meaning of our experiences of life & death while we are still alive here & now, lies the call & challenge for us to be faithful & fruitful in our faith in God. Eternal Life – Life Beyond then is all about God & about how we have been faithful & fruitful in life we are having now.

    As once penned by a modern-day spiritual guru Henri Nouwen: “The real question is: “How can I live so that my death will be fruitful for others?” Our life we have here & now then IS OUR CHANCE to do thing right before God & others.

    Perhaps while we are still now alive here in this life, consider these very words of St. Paul that inspired one of Pilipino church song entitled: “Pag-aalay ng Puso”:

    “I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now… for I shall not pass this way again….”

    Minsan lamang ako dadaan sa daigdig na ito, Kaya anumang Mabuti maaring gawin ko ngayon. O anumang kabutihan ang maari kong ipadama, itulot ninyong magawa ko ngayon ang mga bagay na to. Nawa’y hwag ko tong ipagpaliban, O ipagwalang-bahala, sapagkat di na ko muling dadaan sa ganitong mga landas.