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Tag: Passion of the Lord

  • Jesus thirsts

    Jesus thirsts

    April 10, 2020 – Good Friday, the Passion of the Lord

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041020.cfm)

    Homily

    How would you feel when you are left alone to suffer? Could you imagine yourself, hanging on to your life, to every gasping of air? 

    I could imagine it when my papa was dying last year. I was not there when he died for I was assigned then in Iloilo at that time. But, I could hear how papa gasped for air until he departed. It was agonizing.I felt helpless as a son, listening from the phone knowing that my father was dying.  It must have been excruciating for papa even as he struggled for his last breath on earth.

    Same experience of pain and loss must have been felt too by those who have lost their loved ones and witnessed personally their passing. These days, we have been told also how the patients of covid-19 would struggle to breath as the virus attacks the respiratory system of the human body.

    Jesus who died on the cross must have felt more pain and struggle. There were no doctors and nurses around him to help him ease the pain for gasping for air. There was no medical help given to him by the people around him. An innocent man was left hanging on the cross to die with his lungs restrained together and his weight pulling him down. However, the nails that have pierced his hands stuck him to the wood of the cross.

    As he was dragged to be flogged, carried his cross and crucified, many people around him just looked at him. Many have shouted condemnation against him as if they were righteous and he was the sinner. Many others too remained indifferent to his cries, indifferent to his pain.

    Moreover, his friend betrayed him and sold him, another friend denied him three times and the rest of his friends run away and hid themselves, except for the youngest of them and few women. With all of these, Jesus endured everything. We did not hear him curse and even expressed dismay over those people who left him alone and those people around him who remained indifferent to his cries.

    However, what we have heard from him while on the cross that I find powerful was when Jesus said, “I thirst.”

    Physically, Jesus longed for something to drink, to quench his dry throat and lips. The loss of blood, the tensions in his bones and muscles and exposure to heat on that day generated loss of water in his body. The soldiers beneath the cross gave him a common wine to ease his suffering.

    This tells us how Jesus endured the suffering physically. The Lord has suffered and that statement, I thirst, conveys to us how the weight of human sin caused agony to Jesus.  

    But more than what was physical, this short statement of Jesus, I thirst, also tells us of God’s desire for us. Jesus thirsts for our presence with him, for our friendship. Imagine, how could he not be thirsty when people who are close to him run away and hid themselves? How could he not be thirsty when bystanders just looked at his pain and suffering? How could Jesus not be thirsty when many of those who gathered around him felt indifferent towards the suffering of God?

    As Jesus was publicly condemned by the crowd who merely believed in gossips and lacked the ability to be critical against their powerful leaders and wanted to kill him, Jesus thirsts. 

    As we remember solemnly today the passion and death of Jesus on that gruesome cross, may we also heed his call for us today. Let Jesus’ words reverberate into our hearts and move us to satiate the thirst of God.

    As the (Enhanced) Community Quarantine has been imposed for the safety of all, let it be an opportunity for us as Christians to be more sensitive of Jesus’ thirsts. The thirst of Jesus is also present through those brothers and sisters who need special attention and assistance. 

    Let the words of Jesus, I thirst, be heard from a neighbor who seek your help, from a friend who need your comfort because of anxiety, from a family member who is sick, from a colleague who is worried of his/her family at home, from a poor-homeless person who is being blamed for not observing “home quarantine.”

    As we respond to Jesus’ thirst, may we in return thirst for more of God’s presence. May that thirst bring us closer with one another and closer to the Lord. May that thirst for God too make us ever hopeful that suffering and death is not the end, but only the beginning of God’s ultimate sign of love and compassion. May our thirst for God bring us to experience as a community the gift of healing and restoration from sickness and pain, the grace of peace and reconciliation from sin and division, and the glory of resurrection that renews and transforms us. Hinaut pa.

    Jom Baring, CSsR

  • Why is this happening FOR me?

    Why is this happening FOR me?

    April 5, 2020 – Palm Sunday

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/040520.cfm)

    Homily

    A wise man once said: Instead of asking: “Why is this happening TO me?”, Ask rather, “Why is this happening FOR me?”

    In trying to make sense of the situations and to find meaning to what we are going through in life especially during hard times (like, sickness, failures, loss, crises, quarantine, lockdown) we tend to ask the question: “Why is this happening To me?” And the more we struggle with this question, the more we find ourselves down and confused. For with this question, we search not much on the meaning but more on to something to excuse or someone to blame or charge for the situation. Although hard and bad things do indeed happen To and In ourselves directly, these things could have happened and are happening FOR us, with an offer of a special purpose beyond our imaginings and comprehensions. 

    God’s blessings are often described as “blessings-in disguise” because only after going through the process of its trials and sufferings, we eventually come to recognize the purpose and to realize meaning of whole trying life-experiences.  Only by getting through the trying and hard experience, and struggle with the questions, we learn the lessons-offered and grow in living life much better and meaningful. As the wise man advised, to be more courageous and hopeful in dealing with life-challenges and crises, ask not for excuses, charges or verdict, but search rather for purpose and meaning behind the trying-experience. In other words, as we go through life-crises, Ask not: “Why is this happening To me?” but rather, “Why is this happening For me?” that we may be more open to the purpose and meaning it offer for our growth. 

    During these days of Holy Week, we are being in touch once again with the story of the Lord’s passion and suffering. Along with our Lenten observances, we are reminded of the Jesus story – on how He suffered and died on the cross. However, we cannot help but also wonder why Jesus has to go through all these pains and sufferings?

    On the hindsight, Jesus is sentenced for crucifixion because he was actually charged of claiming to be the Christ – the Messiah-king of the Jews. Politically, this charge is seditious and rebellious to the ruling colonial Roman Empire of his time. Religiously and culturally, this charge is blasphemously offensive to the Jews who are longing and waiting for their own expected Messiah to come and save the day. But all these things happened to Jesus, because of the envy and jealousy of those who are in power have on Jesus, since he is stirring a movement and inspiring people to change. For them, Jesus is basically a trouble-maker, bad influence, a radical leader with a cause. For allegedly claiming to be the Christ, suffering and death by crucifixion happened to Jesus.  

    We also cannot help but wonder why Jesus’ suffering and death happened to us. Reflecting on the Lord’s passion could definitely bring us to awareness of our own shortcomings and sins before God and others – of how much and how we have failed our Lord, as well as of how much we need God’s mercy and forgiveness and of how much the Lord’s price have made to save and redeemed us. For our failings and shortcomings before the Lord, suffering and death by crucifixion happened to the Lord. 

    However, over and beyond the charge of claiming to be Messiah, and our real failures and shortcomings with God, Jesus’ passion and death on the cross has a deeper value in the realization of God’s kingdom in our very lives. At the very core of the Good News Gospel of Jesus – is the constant slogan and challenge “So that You may believe”. This would mean that Jesus life and mission centers on the commission of awakening people’s faith in the Kingdom, i.e. so that we may believe in Him and His vision/mission of God’s kingdom for all. 

    Thus, His sufferings and death on the cross is His way of awakening and stirring up our faith in Him. It is His way of serving us (offering and giving us God’s kingdom). It is His way of speaking to the world (choosing, blessing and forming us) for God’s kingdom. It is His way of witnessing (revealing, sharing, and making us taste and see) life as lived in and with God’s kingdom. In other words, so that and for our faith in Him and God’s kingdom may direct and rule our lives always, Jesus’ life and death happened For Jesus and For us. 

    This is why the passion and death of Jesus for us Christian means more to us than just about our sins, failures, and misgivings, nor about the gruesome public condemnation and execution of Jesus. Our being reminded of His death can be our opportunity for us to renew our faith in our lives so that we may believe and witness into His vision and mission of God’s kingdom. For us, the Jesus story is a “blessing in disguise” – a path, a way to our life and resurrection, that we must go through in life so that we may eventually taste and see anew in faith the promise of God’s kingdom offered us again.

    We began Lenten Season with a personal challenge: “Repent and Believe the Gospel”. Now as we begin Holy Week on enhanced community quarantine this year, the challenge for us as Christian faithful is to: “Believe” for there are more yet better graces to come and be revealed to us. Let us rediscover in our present situation God’s blessings in disguise by asking not why is this happening To us, but rather ask why is this happening FOR us.May we have a Blessed, Inspiring and Faithful Easter Season ahead of us. Amen. 

    Shared by Fr. Mar Masangcay, CSsR