Peace! Kalilintad! Shalom!

Tag: Ordinary Time

  • How to recognize God’s signs

    How to recognize God’s signs

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    July 20, 2020 – Monday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072020.cfm)

    Homily

    As the pandemic developed and caused great difficulties all over the world, many have interpreted this event as a sign of the apocalyptic days or the end of the world. In fact, many tragic events in the past were also taken as signs of the end of the world. This caused panic and anxiety among those who really believed on this.

    Moreover, it has been our attitude to seek for signs especially when we are confused and filled with unanswered questions. We also ask God to give us signs when we are in the situation of making decisions. We also ask signs from God especially when we become doubtful of His presence and when we experience problems and trials in life. We believe that if God would give us a sign, then, that will make us confident in God.

    However, it has been our experience too, that when we do not receive any sign from God, we begin to doubt more or become angry with God for not listening to us. We may also think that life is so unfair because even a single sign of assurance is not given to us.

    Yet, we remind ourselves today of our tendency to expect impressive signs that will unfold before us. This is actually the problem that we have heard in our readings today. We are reminded of these two attitudes in us namely, our forgetfulness of God’s blessings and coldness towards God’s presence.

    The Book of Prophet Micah reminds us of this first tendency in us, of our short memory and inclination to forget God’s blessings. This is how Yahweh expressed the Divine plea to the people. God reminded the people how they were saved and brought out from Egypt and were released from slavery. Moreover, God sent instruments to guide the people like Moses, Aaron and Miriam. These events and people were signs of God’s blessings yet, the people have forgotten all of these. The people have become ungrateful to God because of their forgetfulness.

    Likewise, our Gospel today reminds us also of our tendency to become cold towards God’s presence. This has been portrayed the way people asked Jesus for a sign so that they will believe in him. The people expected Jesus to do a big and great sign before their eyes before they will recognize God. They thought of Jesus to be some kind of magician. This was the mistake of the people at that time because they asked sign from Jesus, when, in fact, Jesus himself was the greatest sign and miracle that ever happened.

    That is why, Jesus, as if scolding them of their ignorance and indifference, reminded them on how the Ninevites believed in Jonah’s sign and on how the Queen of Sheba believed also in the signs present with King Solomon. However, these people though Jesus was greater than Jonah and Solomon, did not recognize God in the person of Jesus.

    This happens also to us when we tend to be indifferent to what is ordinary. The Jews at that time were not able to recognize God’s tremendous presence in the ordinary life of Jesus. Because Jesus was too ordinary for them, and a mere son of a carpenter from Nazareth, the people refused to believe in Jesus and refused to recognize God in the person of Jesus.

    The Lord reveals himself to us in ordinary and many ways. This is what Jesus is inviting us today, that we may recognize daily God’s blessings and presence in us. But how?

    First, be appreciative and be always grateful even of small graces and blessings that you receive each day. Express in words and actions your gratitude. Be more generous to say sincerely “thank you” to people around you and to God. With this attitude we will always be reminded of the many blessings from God and avoid becoming forgetful.

    Second, be more discerning and listen better on how Jesus reveals himself in ordinary ways. This is also a call to be sensitive to God’s many revelations even in the most ordinary ways. Indeed, God reveals himself and his love for us every day and every moment of our life, in moments of defeat and moments victory, in moments of failures and moments of success, in moments of death and in moments of life. To discern and to listen, then, will make us less judgmental and to become more welcoming of God’s presence in our life.

    In these ways, we may always see and recognize God’s many ways of revealing His signs for us. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • When movement to love gives life

    When movement to love gives life

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    July 7, 2020 – Tuesday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/070720.cfm)

    Homily

    The Book Hosea speaks to us of Israel’s continuing guilt and of God’s boundless love and mercy. What Israel had done reflected through Gomer, the wife of Hosea, who broke the covenant with God. Israel deliberately became unfaithful to God because Israel believed that there will be more power and wealth with other gods. She was seduced by the promises of others. Yet, she was being blinded by her desire to have more and did not realize the fullness of life with God.

    Israel was led to believe that with those other gods, Israel will have life at its abundance and security. However, this was not the case, Israel in fact experienced her downfall and destruction. What Israel always wanted was immediate satisfaction of desires as to the hunger for power, for wealth and security.

    Thus, as Gomer fell again and again and lost her way every time, Hosea would always come to bring her back to his side. Gomer might have been blinded by the glamour of others and fell into sin against her husband, yet, Hosea never failed to be faithful to her. Hosea never gave up on Gomer. Hosea would always assure her of his love and faithfulness. This is love indeed that brought freedom and assurance to the troubled Gomer.

    Moreover, our Gospel today speaks of a  man possessed by a demon and could not speak but when Jesus freed the man, he began to speak. The man was prevented to speak by the demon in order to hide what was wrong with him. Thus, the demon’s work here is also in silencing us, keeping us quiet so that the demon will continue to torment us and others around us.

    Yet, as the demon was driven out, the man also spoke because he found again his freedom. The man found himself again as Jesus found him.

    This was how the heart of Jesus was also moved as he saw the multitude of people who were suffering. Jesus’ encounter with those people made him more connected to them and to the struggle they had to endure.

    This tells us of a God who is being moved upon seeing us just as Jesus’ heart was moved with pity because he felt their pain and troubles in life.

    In a way, this is the very picture we have in the first readings. Hosea, most of all, understood his wife Gomer. Hosea was always moved with pity and so would come to her rescue. Hosea’s action was not just limited with his pity but it was ultimately a movement from his heart, a movement of love.

    Jesus too upon seeing the man possessed by the demon and the many people who were troubled and abandoned was moved with pity because of his love for the people. Jesus’ action to respond was a movement of love, a movement from the heart.

    This movement of love is truly liberating and saving. Gomer who represented the people of Israel and the man possessed by the demon and those many people had experienced that liberating and saving movement of God’s love.

    This is the invitation for us today. We may be moved also with pity that comes from our love and not just of pity itself. Indeed, the Lord invites us that like him we too our heart will be moved to respond to the needs of our brothers and sisters around us. Hopefully, this will also move us to respond with love to the different needs in our own capacity and gifts. Thus, be moved with pity and love today so that we may also give life, comfort and assurance and Jesus has shown us. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • How welcoming am I?

    How welcoming am I?

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    June 28, 2020 – 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062820.cfm)

    Homily

    When I was younger, I used to play, eat and even sleep at my playmates’ house or them in our house. I grew up in this environment being assured that I was welcomed. I also witnessed how the adults at that time would do the same where they also felt welcomed. Indeed, that culture made me realize how a community becomes more compassionate and generous as every house and every person welcomes others.

    This brings me to what our readings this Sunday is reminding us, that is, the call of hospitality or the invitation to be welcoming.

    Our first reading tells us of the story of Prophet Elisha who was welcomed by a rich woman but childless and whose husband was old. Elisha, though a stranger, was welcomed into their home. In their culture at that time, a childless couple would surely suffer shame for having no child. Elisha who was very aware of this feeling of the couple particularly of the woman, prophesied something that would made them truly happy. Elisha promised the couple that by the following year she will certainly have a child.

    Thus, though it seemed that it was only Elisha who was welcomed by them but in fact, Elisha on his part also welcomed the desire and the longing of this couple.

    This tells us now that welcoming others into our homes or into our lives, brings grace. Making ourselves open for others allows the grace of God to also work in our lives. This is what Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans.

    Paul reminds us that baptism is a way of welcoming God into our lives. Moreover, it is also God’s way of welcoming us into God’s divine presence. That is why, Paul told us that as we were baptized we also join in the death of Christ. But how? Christ died for our sins. And in baptism, our sin dies because we are being forgiven. Through that forgiveness then we also rise into a new person just as Christ rose from the dead.

    The grace of baptism lies here because as we welcome God into our life and God welcoming us, this becomes a “mutual welcoming.” When welcoming becomes mutual then true relationship begins to form and develop. Consequently, God is our Father, and we are God’s children.

    This is the same also when we take the risk in welcoming others into our life. True friendship only develops and strengthens when there is a mutual welcoming of each other. This mutual welcoming involves sharing of stories, sharing of pains, sharing of joys as well as sharing of hopes and dreams.

    Recently, a dear friend visited me after months of lockdowns. Since our movements now have been eased for a bit, compared to the situation during the Enhanced Community Quarantine, we had an opportunity to catch up with each other personally even for a short period of time. Such simple encounter was indeed a form of mutual welcoming.

    However, we also know that in welcoming others we may get hurt. This happens when there is no mutual welcoming in our relationship. A relationship that is colored with manipulation or abuse or betrayal or pretensions is such a toxic relationship. This kind of relationship gives us pain and trauma which could lead us to sadness and misery in life.

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    This happened to a friend who welcomed a person in her life. Yet, unknowingly she was not welcomed at all in the life of that person whom she loved. She was just used and abused for the sake of personal pleasure of the other.

    But then, the Gospel of Matthew tells us and assures us the kind of relationship Jesus is offering to us. Jesus offers us a relationship that gives and promotes life and joy. Although the Gospel sounds a bit harsh for it suggests to hate our parents, but it actually means to place our relationship with God as the first or the beginning.

     Making God as the first priority in our every relationship gives us a good foundation to our other human relationships. The more we become in touched with our relationships with the Lord, the more we also become in touched with our human relationships.

    Consequently, Jesus calls us today to be welcoming, to allow ourselves to open up even though that would mean that we become vulnerable. Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes him who sent me.” Meaning, welcoming others with the intention of loving is welcoming God.

     Making ourselves vulnerable to welcome others is a way of losing our life, yet, in welcoming others, we also realize the beauty of loving and finding our life. Therefore, today, Jesus calls us to be welcoming as we are being welcomed, to be loving as we are also being loved.

    Today also, let us seek forgiveness and reconciliation with those whom we have hurt because of our selfishness, dishonesty and indifference. May we truly welcome others in our life too in the way of loving truly and not as a form of manipulating or using others for our own advantage and pleasure. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • Of Being Social-Distanced

    Of Being Social-Distanced

    June 28, 2020 – 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062820.cfm)

    Homily

    Not until the first quarter of this year that we come to experience and be familiar with the term: “social distancing”. To protect ourselves from Corona Virus infection, nowadays we normally resort to social distancing. To avoid being infected by others or possibly infect others as well, we now set apart and maintain a safe distance from others as we assume that the world around us is getting sick, and we can easily get sick.

    Safe and practical it is and would be, social distancing is never been that easy as observed and practiced. Simply because social distancing is particularly painful to us  for it requires of us not only the physical bodily distance but also the  experience of being and feeling isolated, lonely and cast-out/cast-off from one another. Being physically quarantined, isolated, set apart, distanced, marginalized, suspected, and monitored could make us also personally feel marginalized, segregated, ostracized, stigmatized, outcasted, feared, unwelcome, abandoned, lost and forgotten. With or without viral pandemic, physical and social distancing has always been painful and difficult (even traumatic) experience for all of us for it deprives us of our need for personal intimacy, closeness and relationships. In other words, social distancing hurts because it is not only physical but also personal.

    It is but natural and life-giving for us to connect, relate and interact as persons. More just being social animals, social inter-actions and interpersonal relationships are very important dimension of our lives. And a song would insist, “No man is an island.. No one stands alone.” We are not just being with others but we are human PERSONS with others. We grow, live and thrive in life as community of persons: Persons related and relating with others personally. That is why to live life alone, distance, and isolated is difficult, painful and discouraging indeed.

    Our readings today reminds of the great value of our interpersonal relationships both in life and faith. Jesus in our gospel today appeals for us to “receive me”, “love me”, “follow me”. He invites us to have a personal intimate relationship with Him. Like any of us, he wants us to be close to Him as much as He wants to be close with us personally.

    Being Christian, as Paul emphasized, we are WITH Christ: personally related with Jesus in death, life and resurrection. And like in the first reading, to be personally welcoming  and hospitable host to our guests would blessed and graced us with the gifts of their person, to receive and love the person Jesus in our lives personally is to personally be with and share with His divine life with our Father.

    Personal intimacy, closeness and connected with Jesus and with one another as community is indeed promising and life-giving. While social distancing and isolation is sickening and life-threatening indeed.

    While we suffer physically and personally with social distancing  for safety and protection from infection nowadays, we may take this trying times as opportunity for us to review, reflect and renew the quality of our personal relationships with God, with our family and friends and our community. Just because we are physically constrained and apart, it does not mean we are not and cannot anymore be connected with one another personally. Distancing thus could also be a chance to improve the quality of our faith, personal life and inter-personal relationships.

    For instance, social distancing may have deprived of us to celebrate Sunday Eucharist and worship as community of faith, but it could also make us improve the quality of our Spiritual Communion with Jesus and our participation as we hope and look forward to the coming opportune time for celebration. We also may find more quantity and quality time and improved lifestyle with our own selves and with our loved ones now, and thus be in touch with most essential and important in ones life.

    In other words, since social distancing is personal, so let us make it more personal, let us get more and Better Personal…. And improve the Quality of our personal, social and spiritual life during this time.

    On my fifty-ish age and nearing my silver years as Redemptorist missionary priest, perhaps my five-year old musings below could be of assistance in reflecting about our experience of social distancing nowadays:

    “Paradox of being with others”

    Along the way, we suffer two things being with others: too much & too little – of closeness and distance. Too much and too little Closeness & too much and too little Distance. Coping with these both blocks our growth in relationships as well as forms and sharpens us to be better person for and with others. Ultimately it moves us to be intimately independent as well as independently intimate with one another.

    As we are personally in faith with the Lord, may we communally not be separated from Him and one another,  and  may we not lose life but rather find Life meaningfully. 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.)

  • Allowing Jesus to be part of our every decision and action

    Allowing Jesus to be part of our every decision and action

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    June 25, 2020 – Thursday of the 12th Week in Ordinary Time

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062520.cfm)

    Reflection

    Jerusalem fell, trampled upon and destroyed. A powerful nation invaded the Kingdom, trampled the holy objects for the Sanctuary of Yahweh, officials and the people were exiled to Babylon.

    Was this God’s desire that Jerusalem will be destroyed? That the Temple will be blasphemed? That that people will be slaughtered and many exiled to a foreign land as prisoners?

    No. Of course not. This was not God’s desire. In fact, at the very beginning of the foundation of the kingdom of Israel the Lord guided the people to abide in the covenant and in the words of the Lord. Yahweh sent prophets to become heralds and to remind the people and leaders to live according to God’s desire. Thus, through the covenant and the commandments of God the people shall find the fullness of life.

    However, history tells us how the people and their leaders turned their back against God when they have become rich and powerful. They forgot that God gave them those blessings. Jehoiachin, the king of Jerusalem just like his predecessors turned against God also. History described Jehoiachin as a godless tyrant. He completely abandoned the covenant and trampled the commandments of God in the way he lived his life as a man and as a king.

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    Jehoiachin was portrayed to have an incestuous relationship with his mother, even daughter-in-law and with his step-mother. He was into a habit of murdering his men for pleasure and later just to violate their wives and grab their properties.

    Thus, instead of strengthening his army, instead of caring and providing better opportunities for his people, and asking the guidance from the Lord to lead the kingdom, he was rather busy pleasuring himself at the expense of his own people. As a result, when an enemy attacked them, he was completely overwhelmed because he was not prepared.

    Although God was all along with his people, yet, the people left the Lord out of their lives. Hence, what happened in Jerusalem was not merely a punishment but a result of complacency, corruption and unfaithfulness.

    All kinds of threats and dangers will always be in our lives. Big and small. Surprising and overwhelming. Just like this Corona Virus Pandemic. It is a big threat, a surprising and an overwhelming one that many countries now find it difficult to defeat.

    In our individual lives too there are threats and dangers. And what we are invited to do is to invest into something that will somehow prepare us or at least to have a good ground in case the worst will hit.

    This is what Jesus told us in the Gospel today.  “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.”

    Jesus speaks of having a good foundation like building a house on rock rather than on sand. What does it mean? Building a house on rock means making myself founded on Jesus. Jesus is the rock, the very foundation of our person and of our faith. Jesus will also be our foundation once we are also ready to accept him and allow him to transform our life.

    How do we do it?

    It is by listening to his words, living his words and holding on to his promises that we become solid. By listening to God’s words and wisdom then, the more we also become aware of God’s desire for us. This will always assure us because God’s desire for us is always good and will always give life to us.

    However, if we decide to build our life on mere human understanding, mere human desires and wants, then, we are like building our house on sand. To settle on these weak foundations, means putting trust on our human inclinations to sin. We know that we are weak and we can easily be driven by our selfish desires and wants. This is the story of Jehoiachin who distanced himself from the Lord and submerged himself into what he only wanted that affected the lives of many.

    The Lord invites us today to claim Him as the very foundation of our whole life. The Lord will be our best investment in life who shall deliver and protect us even when the worst will hit us. This also means that Jesus wants us to make him part of our every decision and action. We are being assured by Jesus that when the storms of failures, losses, death, illness, pain, injury, worries and doubts in life will come, then, we have Jesus to hold on and to lean on and his words which will guide us. Thus, if we have Jesus in our life, we will certainly be fine. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR