Another New Year has stolen upon us. As life goes on, the year seems to get shorter and life itself gets more rushed and stressful. Maybe, it is that we are becoming more and more overloaded. We are bombarded with information, knowledge, news propaganda, advertising, entertainment and noise. The battle for our interest is intense. It is easy to dissipate one's time and energy over a vast range of experience - it is only the reflected-upon experience that enriches.

Even religious experience will not deepen faith unless one takes time to make it one's own. The word of God is a privileged way to experience the basic fact that this fast moving world is God's gift to all people without exception. He has chosen to send his Son to be one of us that we may share his life forever. This awesome message is the core of today's gospel. We may be too overloaded to hear it and may have to jettison something to be able to heed it.

My New Year wish for you is the same as Paul's for the Ephesians. 'May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlightened the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call hold for you.'

the Marian Feast

Commentaries on the Gospel

2011-10-12T17:15:00.001+08:00

Since the time of King Solomon (about a thousand years before Christ), taxes had been collected from the citizens of the kingdom of Israel, although not in a fully organized manner. The Persians and the Greeks, who occupied the country (500 and 150 years before our Lord’s birth), had also established the system of tax collection. With the Roman domination of Palestine, which became more definite starting from year 6 of the Christian era, the system was strictly enforced on the Israelites. In fact, the Roman Government retained all excess production of the country in the wide network of customs collectors who were created to be in charge of the collection of the different taxes, thus controlling the flow of commerce throughout the province.

Pilate, the governor of the Roman province of Judea, was the supreme representative of Emperor Tiberius in Palestine. Actually, his main function was precisely to attend to the finances of the empire; therefore, the supervision of tax collection was an essential aspect of his job. On the other hand he had to keep the people at bay, who rebelled every now and then due to the economic exploitation which the system, through various measures, imposed. Judea should pay.

Rome’s 600 talents (6 million denarii) is in the form of annual taxes. (A laborer was paid a daily wage of one denarius.) The taxes collected by Rome in Palestine were of three types: (1) Territorial taxes (paid partly in cash and partly in the produce of the land); (2) Personal taxes (of several types: according to wealth or income; another was of a general type which was paid by everyone, except by children and old citizens called the “tributum capitis” – per head. The evangelical account makes allusion to this); (3) Business taxes (on import and export items).

The high priests – the supreme religious authorities of Israel – “made a pact” with the Romans to ensure their power and, above all, their privileged economic situation. During Jesus’ time the high priests were Annas (6-15 years after Christ) and some of his sons; and from year 18 to 37, his son-in-law, Joseph Caiphas, who appears in the episode. Like Annas, Caiphas belonged to the religious aristocracy and to one of the wealthiest families of Jerusalem. Caiphas tried to get along with Pilate, who dominated him with all types of political and economic pressures, to the extent of threatening him. For instance, one measure resorted to by the Roman governor was to keep the sacred garments worn by the high priest during religious feasts in the Antonia Tower – a Roman quarters near the Temple. The governor would hand them over only for the feasts, and later, the garments would be returned to him for safekeeping. (This tactic was also employed by Herod the Great and by Archelaus.) This symbolized the lack of independence of the religious authority with respect to the political power of the empire.

In his conversation with the high priest, Caiphas, Pilate mentioned the construction of the aqueduct of Jerusalem. Obviously, in Jesus’ time, Pontius Pilate was the implementor of the great engineering work, part of which is still preserved. Pilate, who hated the Jews and who had offended their religious feeling on several occasions, took money from the so-called “Temple’s treasury” for said construction. Such money was considered sacred by the religious Israelites. This act provoked impassioned revolts from the people against the Roman powers. The Revolts were suppressed by the soldiers with cudgel blows, which were not mentioned by the historians of the period.

The gospel text makes reference to two Roman emperors. Augustus Caesar ruled from the year 30 before Christ to year 14 after his birth. With him started the imperial dynasty of the Claudius family. The other one is Caesar Tiberius, son of the second wife of Augustus, who ruled from the year 14 to 37. It was under his rule that Jesus was killed. After him, other Caesars continued to rule in Rome: Caligula, Claudius, Nero... Tiberius made Augustus, his foster father, a “god.” Gradually, the lust for power of all emperors demanded that all their subjects should worship them. In Jesus’ time, this tendency to deify the emperor became more and more intense, and eventually became the practice until the fall of the Roman Empire. Caligula was worshipped alive. The Caesars had made images of themselves to be venerated by making their subjects prostrate before them, etc. All this was nothing but the fruit of ambition, and above all, a wise tactic to strengthen their power and ensure submission on the part of the subjects. This idea, however, of trying to impose Roman power among the subjected people of Israel did not prosper because the Jews, faithful to the faith, strongly resisted blasphemy. But this was not so among their leaders, who, in spite of the fact that theoretically, they could not accept that the Caesar was god, in practice, ignored the whole thing and remained silent, in complicity with the established authority.

The local government (the Sanhedrin – Council or Tribunal of Israel – whose supreme authority was the high priest), was actually wanting in initiative on matters of taxes, as well as the question of relationships with other countries and defense. Its only function was to maintain religious worship and ensure strict observance of the law. In cases like that mentioned in the episode, it was clearly manifested up to what extent Israel yielded to the arbitrary whims of a foreign power.

“Give to Caesar what is due him, and to God what is God’s” is, perhaps, one of the most over-used phrases in the gospel. This has been employed continuously at all times, to define turfs and to show that the priests and the Christians should not involve themselves in political matters nor interfere in matters of the State, but rather, in concerns about God: praying, going to church.... Do not mix the different turfs or concerns, they claim, “to each his own.” Yet, the original meaning of these words of Jesus was not this. Jesus was removing from Caesar the religious basis on which the emperor wanted to rest his authority. Thus he separated God from Caesar to demythify the image of the emperor, the supreme authority of the period, in order to say that Caesar was not God.

One of the more frequent reasons for popular revolts in Israel were the taxes. It was precisely the refusal to pay taxes which sparked the Jewish revolt of the year 70 after Jesus, which destroyed the very foundations of Jerusalem and dismantled the Jewish society. Along that line, the question directed to Jesus about the payment of taxes was crucial. The zealots refused to pay their taxes as a form of active resistance to the present empire. The collaborating classes (sadducees, priests), recommended its payment. The pharisees were in doubt. Theoretically, they were against it, since they were very nationalistic, but in practice, they ended up complying with the order. In the episode, Jesus does not legitimize the Roman occupation by payment of taxes, neither does he show that non-payment is a form of open rebellion against the ruling power. His reply can be taken in another plane: that of total freedom before the secular authority.

History is replete with proofs showing that the authority of the kings (and later, that of a number of rulers) “comes from God.” For many centuries, it had been said that God “elects” the king. The following line has also been stated time and again: “A certain somebody, president, by the grace of God.” But this is not so. Authority is chosen by people – if it is a democracy. If it is authoritarian, governance/authority is imposed.

The Little That Is Much

2011-10-05T17:12:00.002+08:00

There is a story told about Sir Yehudi Menhuin, the world famous violinist, who also meditates in the tradition taught by Fr. John Main. He was giving a series of concerts in a capital city. One evening as he returned to his hotel after his performance he noticed a little girl, about eight years old and three feet tall, playing a violin at a street corner trying to collect some coins. He was touched by the sight of the little girl and sat down to listen to her. He asked her name - Nora - and encouraged her to play every tune she knew.

In the end he said to her, "Nora, how would you like to come with me tomorrow night and play at my concert before all the people"

"Oh no sir," she replied, "you know that I do not play very well."

"Never mind about that," Yehudi said. "You just stand there on the stage and play. I will be behind the curtain and play loudly. The people will see you but they will hear me!"
So the next night little pint-sized Nora took the stage. The people were thrilled at seeing the little girl and hearing the wonderful music. They clapped and clapped and gave her encore after encore.

In some ways we are like little Nora. We cannot do much of ourselves yet our little effort is needed so that God - the musician behind the curtain - can work through us. In the Christian way of understanding there have always been two poles or extremes in the relationship between our effort and God's achievement. It has been reflected in the extreme of Pelagianism on the hand and Quietism on the other. Pelagianism goes back to a British monk born in 354 A.D. who claimed that people could live good lives purely by their own efforts and did not need any help from God. St. Augustine wrote five treatises against Pelagianism. Quietism, a sixteenth century heresy associated with the Spanish priest Miguel de Molina, claimed that passive presence to God without doing anything else was all that was necessary. The same conflict was found in the dispute as to which was the more important, faith or good works. I think the three rules given by Fr. Tony de Mello give a healthy summing up of the situation. Rule One: God does everything. Rule Two: You can do nothing. Rule Three: In your day-to-day living forget rule one and rule two.

Christ is making the same kind of point in the Gospel story today. A king gives a feast for his son's wedding. When the invited guests do not come the king is furious and orders his servants to go to the crossroads of the town and invite everyone to the wedding. So they brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the wedding feast was full. At a wedding feast in those days a visitor was given a free wedding garment to wear. When the king came in he saw one man who was not wearing a wedding garment.

Again, the king was furious and had the man thrown out.

The story reflects the problems of the young church at the time Matthew was writing. They were having problems with some non Jews who had joined the early Christian Church but who were not even complying with the most minimal requirements. So, in the story the original guests invited were the Jews. Those brought in later to take their places were the Gentiles or non Jews. But even from these a minimum was required.

In our case also all that we have is gift. We are called not because we are worthy or because we are of any particular race but because God wants us. Yet, in spite of the power of his call, he wants a minimal and simple response from us.

Perhaps the simplest way of prayer, of responding by being in God's presence, is through meditation. It is as simple as putting on an offered wedding garment. All one is asked to do is to say a prayer word or mantra for 20 to 30 minutes every morning and every evening. But to say that it is simple does not mean to say that it is easy. It is an activity in which we never seem to achieve success. Recently, some people who were meditating for a number of years seemed to feel that if anything, their meditations were getting worse - in the sense of being bombarded with distractions. On the other hand they also shared that they were aware of big changes deep down in their lives. There was a greater sense of inner peace and harmony. There was a lack of anger in dealing with others and in facing difficulties. Deep down conversion of values were taking place. Saying the mantra was like little Nora playing her fiddle; it gave God the opportunity to play great music in the background.

Points to Ponder

2011-10-05T17:10:00.001+08:00

As well as gratitude and admiration, great generosity often evokes suspicion in some hearts. Unsolicited generosity, especially, sometimes causes people to question the motivation of the big hearted donor. The first reaction is to query what does the giver receive in return. We find it hard to believe that there may be no return. The human condition makes us skeptical about disinterest-ed unselfishness in anybody. As a result we may even doubt God's generosity.

So Jesus goes to great trouble to convince us of God's unconditional self-giving. One of the central parables he uses is today's story of all and sundry being invited to the wedding feast. The feast is a symbol of God's sharing himself with us. Some reject the invitation to be part of God's people and so lose out on eternal life. Others accept the invitation at first but then refuse to live as God asks and their loss is just as great. It is not that God withdraws the gift but that their selfish life-style prevents them from accepting it.

The question is not why does God love so recklessly but why do we not let such love melt our hearts so that we would live forever dressed in the wedding garment of his friendship?

Commentaries on the Gospel

2011-10-05T16:53:00.002+08:00

That Jesus, a man who was already popular, whom the people saw as a true prophet, was surrounded by the poor people of Capernaum or of Jerusalem, turned out to be scandalous. To make the poor people the privileged beneficiaries of the good news and to trust in them that they might become the agents of change, was intolerable. Jesus held on to this and he even called “blessed ones or happy ones” those who were able to surpass a similar scandal (Mt 11:5-6).

Jesus’ followers are known in the evangelical texts in various words, all pointing toward the same. One text talks of “the small ones” or of the “least ones” or of “the simple ones.” Another word used is “nepis” (in Greek), which is equivalent to “patit” in Hebrew and to “sabra” in Aramaic, a word which sums up the following: Uncultured people, with no breeding or religious formation. Jesus was surrounded by the “amha’ares” – as the Pharisees referred to them – men and women of ill reputation, slandered, and whom the self-righteous considered as doomed on account of their religious ignorance and bad moral behavior. Jesus simply referred to them as the “poor.” They are those who have nothing, “those who are weary and overburdened,” “the sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus, who was from the same social class, an artisan and a peasant, proclaimed the good news of liberation to them.

A number of Jesus’ parables try to “justify” God’s conduct, who addresses the good news to the most miserable. One of them is the parable of the “great banquet” where Jesus shows once more, one of the reasons for this preference of God: The rich, the privileged, the wise, think highly of themselves, are so satisfied and so secure that they shut themselves out of the doors of the banquet. God has invited them, but they do not wish to attend the banquet. On the other hand, the poor, those who do not matter to anyone nor to anything, have their hearts open to the invitation. They have the capacity for excitement and surprises. They have hope in their hearts and they go. God counts on them for the realization of his historical plan and they are the ones who will jampack his house and participate in the endless feast.

From the time of the prophets, Israel describes the joy of the Messianic times with the image of a banquet, where there was good food and most of all, where drinks were in abundance (Is 25:6-8). In the minds of the people, the basic difference between ordinary food and a banquet was precisely in the amount of drink that was consumed. Wine was synonymous to celebration and happiness. It was the same with dancing. To mention the word feast meant dancing, to the point that the Hebrew word that corresponded to “feast” meant “dance” originally. The feast of the Messiah was likewise compared to a wedding feast. This is what Matthew’s version adds to this parable. Even the last of the books of the New Testament, the book of Revelation preserves this imagery of the Messianic wedding (Rev 19:7-8). Within these solemn and brilliant allegories, Jesus puts in as a wedge the “scandal” of the gospel: The guests to that banquet are the tattered poor, the beggars, the least of the people, the rascals.

To overcome the scandal of the poor is core to discovering the essence of the gospel, and what is even more important, to get into the mystery of the Lord. After Jesus, the poor shall be not only the privileged beneficiaries of the good news, but they are also called to be a part of the Kingdom. All this signifies that starting from Jesus, only those who grasp the real meaning of the poor know the real meaning of God.

The gospel is aimed at eradicating all types of differences among people, showing the way to a friendly and co-equal society. And, as it happened in Jesus’ time, the only thing that can make us understand God’s plan is to reiterate Jesus’ example: by putting God within the hands of the poor.

The God Who Will Not Be Boxed In

2011-09-28T18:06:00.000+08:00

In recent weeks our newspapers have carried the usual stories of scams, corruption and ineptness. However, in my own life experience I have encountered repeated islands of extraordinary goodness. I have experienced the helpers, nurses and doctors at the provincial hospital, by and large, as a most dedicated group of people serving the poorest of the poor in spite of the additional curtailment of resources that has resulted from the devolution of powers to the local government. I have encountered groups of government and non government people working to help mendicants, the mentally disturbed, the hearing impaired and the malnourished. In the nearby jail there is a sincere effort to make the detention process as humane as possible.
As a church person, these experiences make me ask the question who is serving God most. We priests, sisters and brothers committed to give service in the "Church of the Poor"; yet, often, those who made no such commitment seem to be more committed than us. It becomes very clear that no group has a monopoly of goodness. I think this is what Jesus is getting at in today's parable about the man who had two sons. He went and said to the first, "My boy, you go and work in the vineyard today." He answered, "I will not go." but afterwards he thought better of it and went. The man went and said the same thing to the second who answered, "Certainly, sir." but did not go. Sometimes those professionally and religiously committed to community service do less than those who are only voluntary in that service.
This reflection was further enforced by M. Scott Peck in his book A World Waiting to Be Born, (p. 351). Much of the book is about recovering civility in society through better community processes. "When we began we assumed that the church would be a natural market for our services. Christians generally knew that the early church seemed to have had an extraordinary amount of community and that the notion of 'Christian community' although largely lost, remained an ideal. Many clergy and lay people bemoaned the lack of community within their churches. As an individual, Jesus had clearly transcended local culture, and the first major decision of his church was to go peacefully international. In recent years, the church in the United States has increasingly become involved in the peace movement. And what organization could possibly be more interested in welcoming the presence of God into its midst?
"Conversely, we assumed that, with its competitive secular orientation and hierarchical structure, business would be the last place we would ever penetrate with our intimacy-demanding culture. What has emerged over the past six years, however, has been an astonishing lack of interest on the part of the church in our community building services and an equally astonishing and bludgeoning interest on the part of business.
"The resistance on the part of the church has been so dramatic that a large and active volunteer 'Task force on Community and the Christian Church' sprang up to analyze the reasons for that resistance and, it is hoped, to develop effective strategies for overcoming it. The outcome is still unknown, but as I have thought about it, the emerging trend actually makes a lot of sense. Community actually demands a good deal of time and work. The work place is the center of most people's lives. Next comes the family. Church, if it comes in at all, is usually a poor third or fourth. Most churchgoers simply do not have the time to 'do' community at church. Nor do they want to do the often painful work of emotionally stretching at church that community requires. They want the worship service to be pleasantly uplifting, and if they do not like the pretentiousness of the social hour they are at least willing to put up with it in order to keep everything nice. Most want church to be pseudo-community, and despite any protestations to the contrary, they have no real desire to see the boat, and their lives, rocked in the least. The minority who do invest their volunteer time more extensively in the church often do so out of their own leadership needs - that is, they use the church as a sphere of influence in which they can, at times, play very personal power games. The few who make attempts to actualize the church as a place of the Kingdom of God on earth may find themselves silenced by the congregation with an enormously powerful, subtle effectiveness.
"Business is another matter. It is no one-or-two-hour-a-week affair. Church is not where people's lives are on the line, but their workplace is. Here is where a single decision can cost them their employment, their livelihood. Here is where missions of dollars may be in play every day - sums of money a thousand times greater than their entire annual church budget. These decisions count. Here, therefore of necessity, people may be willing to spend the time and effort to ensure that their decisions are the right ones. It is in business that they will be willing to pay the price of community...
"At first, the dramatic, relative lack of interest on the part of the church and relative interest on the part of business distressed me. I had hoped the church would serve as a place where the Kingdom would be practiced and people would learn the skills of forging a planetary civility. But then, as it occurred to me that God had possibly largely left the church and gone into business, I was struck with its appropriateness. What better place for God to work than in the marketplace."
Jesus tells us in the Gospel today, "I tell you solemnly, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. John came to you, a pattern of righteousness, but you did not believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing that, you refused to think better of it and believe him."
We can never predict or confine where the seed of God's work will take root. We often find true altruistic self sacrifice in the much criticized government services. We find more serious concern for community and democratic process in the business world than in the churches. So, too, one of the characteristics of the movement toward interiority, the contemplative renewal in the church today, is that it is coming from the laity rather than from religious and the clergy. Most of the 500 meditation groups around the world, meditating in the tradition of John Main, are composed of and run by lay people. In giving retreats to groups in different parts of the world the laity are the ones that I have found most enthusiastic and committed. And this is how it should be. It is one of the clearest biblical truths that God has never allowed himself to be boxed in by any nation or group. God's Spirit blows where it wills.

Points to Ponder

Points to Ponder

2011-09-07T17:55:00.000+08:00

It was just the type of situation that today's gospel does not seem to visualize, when it suggests that each of us has an obligation to point out faults to another, in love, of course, and with a view to enabling the errant one to reform. This gospel counsel seems somewhat idealistic and very risky but also challenging. True enough, it is a great act of friendship to point out to another the error of his or her ways, and to be able to do it so that the other person responds constructively is a great gift, and a blessing beyond compare for the friendship. But it is a delicate task calling for great sensitivity and wisdom on both sides.

Today's gospel is an opportunity to pray for such sensitive wisdom in all our relationships so that all may be done in Christ's name.

From Daily Reflection

2011-09-07T17:51:00.000+08:00

Confronting with Love

2011-08-31T10:24:00.002+08:00

The Gospel today makes fraternal correction, confronting one who has done wrong sound easy, but it is far from it. The matter of trying to modify the behavior of another which seems destructive is a very difficult and sensitive one. I would like to discuss one aspect of this difficulty today and share how meditation might help.
In 1989 Fr. Roger Champoux, S.J., the director of a testing and guidance center in Manila, gave a reflection on his experience in his work to the convention of religious superiors. While he as talking mostly about seminarians, from my parish experience with students and families in general, I believe that his observations have more general application. He said, "Frequently we encounter people who are not too happy with their superiors. Quite often we are dealing with an unresolved problem of authority and aggression. Two seeming opposite patters stand out as more frequent: an excess compliance towards people in authority, or an attitude of excessive independence or even rebelliousness. We see some who seem to function quite well but only as long as they are allowed to do their own thing without any interference. Try to bring them into a common task demanding cooperation, and right away the conflicts emerge, sometimes explosively. Compliance and rebelliousness seem opposite - yet, submissiveness breeds resentment, which may come out in the open in the form of explosive anger. We have all had this experience of a meek and quiet person who suddenly becomes red with anger to the surprise of all present. Or of this quiet and humble person, who, when slightly challenged, comes out with the hostile and final statement, 'You do not trust me, you have never trusted me.'
"The following pattern, which we have found among a good number of seminarians through a research done a few years ago, can perhaps throw some light on this problem of authority. This typical pattern has the following ingredients: First a longing for love and acceptance from an understanding but strong father figure. Second a great sensitivity to any attitude of this father figure that is not fully accepting and approving. This reflects a certain defect in the early formation of one's sense of masculine selfhood through identification with a strong and loving father - hence now both the yearning and the accompanying sensitivity. But his puts the superior in a bind: to be good and nice without confrontation: or to hide behind one's authority so as to avoid the tensions of a more realistic and sometimes painful interpersonal encounter. It is not easy for the superior to blend the two: to be both very understanding, and yet to remain challenging when needed." This situation arises especially in a culture where there is great emphasis on parental authority. Often something is seen as right because authority has said it rather an authority verifying very thoroughly that something is right before saying it. Disagreement is seen as defiance of authority. The normal flexing of muscles that teenagers engage in by challenging their parents is crushed as insubordination. When the normal signs of transition from childhood into adulthood are treated as major sins rather than as being indications of a normal process of growth the results can be most destructive. When demure deference is demanded it may lead to a buildup deep down in the person of deadly anger and defiance. Fraternal correction in this situation becomes very complicated. Who was most at fault, the parent or the child? Now when a boss at work or a superior in a seminary tries to offer guidance there will be transference of the repressed anger towards the original parent on to the new father figure. And what if the new father figure does not understand this anger and again tries to crush it as insubordination?
The Gospel today says that we should go and talk to the person that is causing the hurt. We should stop talking about the person and talk to the person. There is a risk here and it calls for courage. Often a little honest talking can clear the air.
The spirit in which the confrontation takes place is very important. It must not be done in anger. This would merely be to vent out our passion. It must be done out of loving concern to help the other person and not to appease our own wounded pride or our desire to get even.
If the person does not respond to the private confrontation in love then the Gospel says it is time to get the advice and help of others in the community. This must be done with gentleness and sensitivity for the deep hurts and feelings of all concerned. All too often I have seen well meaning efforts to make enemies shake hands, which causes only more pain because the parties were not yet ready for such a reconciliation.
Now what has prayer - the main concern of this reflection got to do with this process of confronting in love? It has, I think, a great lot to do with disposing towards a positive or negative outcome. As my earlier quote pointed out, behavior that authority disapproves can often be found where a person has moved from the docility of a frightened child into open or hidden defiance. The behavior and the sensitivity that accompanies it is only a symptom of the deeper anger. In this case our traditional ways of prayer would have us ask God to change the other. The supervisor may pray that he will be successful in bringing about a change of heart in the offending one. The offending one may be praying that this oppressive authority will get off his or her back. Both are praying that their own will may be done and they will be successful in fulfilling their own desires.
Meditation, on the other hand, is totally poor before God. It is to be empty and silent without desires of any kind. One cannot continue to be silent and to be dishonest. The silence of meditation may create a space in which the one correcting may become aware of his or her insecurity and the need it produces to control and direct. The person "at fault" may come to see how his or her behavior is a reaction formation, an over reaction to a situation which brings back the hurts experienced in a past situation. With this realization there will be a freedom to look at the situation holistically and reasonably. The person may become free enough to respond rather than to just react to the situation or the confrontation.
The Gospel today tells us "where two or three are gathered in my name, I shall be there with them." I dare to suggest that often when we come together to pray we are not gathered in his name that his will be done but we are gathered in our name that our will be done. On the other hand, when we try to meditate we just be in His presence, without words or desires. We create a space we are better equipped to confront others in a very humble love, and if we are the ones erring to hear the words of loving confrontation with great joy and gratitude

Points to Ponder

2011-08-31T10:24:00.000+08:00

It seemed like a caring and innocuous remark, but it sparked off an inferno. David had a few drinks. Jack who liked a drink himself, but who was on the dry for Sunday's match, suggested that he would drive home. David blew up. He saw Jack's suggestion as a reprimand and accused him of self-righteousness. David drove off angrily and erratically. Jack walked home chastened.
It was just the type of situation that today's gospel does not seem to visualize, when it suggests that each of us has an obligation to point out faults to another, in love, of course, and with a view to enabling the errant one to reform. This gospel counsel seems somewhat idealistic and very risky but also challenging. True enough, it is a great act of friendship to point out to another the error of his or her ways, and to be able to do it so that the other person responds constructively is a great gift, and a blessing beyond compare for the friendship. But it is a delicate task calling for great sensitivity and wisdom on both sides.
Today's gospel is an opportunity to pray for such sensitive wisdom in all our relationships so that all may be done in Christ's name.

Lectio Divina Approach to the Gospel

2011-08-31T10:22:00.000+08:00

Lectio
• You will love your neighbor as yourself.
Meditatio
• We are responsible for each other. We are accountable for the good and evil that everyone does.
Oratio
• To be responsible for others is to take care and develop them. Let us ask for the grace to be more caring and compassionate.
Actio
• Show real care for someone today rather than simply saying that we do.

Why Was Peter Bald

2011-08-24T10:20:00.003+08:00

When you see a representation of the twelve apostles how do you know which one of them is Peter? Is it not that Peter is usually the bald one? And why was Peter bald? Here I would like to offer a theory that comes, not from Scriptural scholarship, but from personal reflection. According to my theory Peter was bald because he used to tear his hair out in exasperation at having to live with Jesus. Maybe the expression in English 'tearing one's hair out' as meaning to be exasperated or frustrated goes back to Peter and his experience with Jesus. For example, one day Jesus and the disciples went to the temple to pray. A Pharisee came in and prayed like this in front of everyone, "Thanks be to you God that I am not like other people around here. I pray regularly. I am not a thief or a liar or a womanizer like so many others around here that I might mention. You are lucky, God, to have good people like me around. How do you tolerate sinners like that tax collector there in the corner?" In the corner the poor tax collector was ashamed to even raise his eyes but just said quietly from his heart "Lord, have mercy on me a sinner." For Peter there was no doubt who was the best man around, it was the Pharisee. So when Jesus said that it was the humble tax collector that went home justified and not the self-righteous Pharisee Peter just could not get it, so chkk!, he started to pull his hair out!

And then a very rich man came in and put two large notes on the collection plate. "Boy, oh Boy, look at that," Peter said. "No," Jesus said, but look at that as they heard a little "clonk, clonk." S poor widow had dropped two coins into the collection box. "You judge by the amount given. I judge by what is left over when the person has given. The rich man still had his millions after he gave his donation but the poor woman gave everything she had." This was too much for Peter and so, chkk! he lost another tuft of hair.
The same thing happened when Jesus told stories that made the hated Samaritans the virtuous heroes. And then there was the father who had two sons, one obedient and one a useless waster. But when the useless sinful one came home the father embraced him and had a party. Who could live with someone who so exasperatingly turns normal expectations upside down?
But it was especially on the matter of suffering that Peter tore his hair out. In the Gospel last Sunday Jesus had asked, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter had got it right, "You are the Messiah," he had answered. And Jesus had answered, "Terrific! Because you are so smart I will make you the head of the Apostles!" Shortly afterwards, while Peter was still glowing over his promotion, Jesus began to talk about going up to Jerusalem and suffering there. This was too much for Peter. He took Jesus aside and said "Look here, Jesus. You are the boss and now you have made me the boss. The boss does not suffer. He pushes the dirty jobs on to others. You have got it all wrong. You and I should not have to suffer!" Then Jesus said, "Get behind me, Satan. You are still getting it wrong. The values are those of the people of this world and not those of God." and all poor Peter could do was sit down and tear his hair out!
And to this day we are still getting it wrong. Each of us feels somewhere deep down that, while it is alright and normal for others to suffer, we should be exempt. We want to be elite. We cultivate the Lord with our devotions and offerings trying to bribe the privilege of exemption from suffering from him. But he will not be bribed. In fact, he showed us by his own life that suffering is not to be avoided but rather must be faced.
The Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck begins his book The Road Less Traveled with the words: "Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we really see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is not longer difficult. Because once we accept it, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties in life as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy...
The tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. Since most of us have this tendency to a greater or less degree most of us are mentally ill to a greater or less degree, lacking complete mental health... In the succinctly elegant words of Carl Jung, "Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering, but the suffering itself becomes more painful than the legitimate suffering it was designed to avoid."
When if comes to prayer most of us are acting like Peter, most of us are neurotics. We are praying that God will solve our problems for us and take away our sufferings. Yet these problems and sufferings are as essential to our growth as soil and fertilizer is for plants. True prayer is not to take away our problems and sufferings - to take away reality-but rather, to help us face it.
Most people come to meditation with the hope that they will be successful, that they will be good at meditating. Many give up because they find it difficult, even impossible. But this is exactly where meditation is effective. It is in the suffering of our failure that we are strengthened to face the reality of life. If I ever find someone who says that prayer and meditation are easy I know that I have found someone who is in a fool's paradise. To find God is to constantly seek him. To pray is to constantly seek to pray. And this is a paradigm of life. In meditation we suffer the lack of achievement of our desires. That naughty little mantra continues to elude us. If we continue to try to say it patiently and consistently without tearing our hair out this will wash over into our lives. We will also be able to face the sufferings and frustrations of life without going bald in the process.

Points to Ponder

2011-08-24T10:20:00.000+08:00

We live in the age of a great lie. It is subtle, all pervasive and generally accepted by most of us most of the time but it is still untrue. It is the assumption, the attitude, that all pain and discomfort should be instantly curable, that only the comfortably easy is worth seeking, that every whim should be explorable without the cost, that self-denial restricts human development, that self-fulfillment is the only goal, that we can and should live in a perfect world. We do not live in such a world nor was it God's plan that we should. His vision is much broader. It allows us to live in a world where we can grow and develop in faith, hope and love through adversity and difficulty, as well as through giftedness and blessing, as caring brothers and sisters. The temptation of our time is to accept every benefit that comes our way as if it were our right while closing our hearts to the needs of our contemporaries and of those who will come after us.
The danger of being seduced by such a treacherous illusion is so great that Jesus warns us in today's gospel to offset such restricting self-centeredness. He challenges us to see opportunities for developing love by sacrificing ourselves for others, by taking up our daily cross, by making room in our lives for God and for his plans for our happiness. We ignore to our great loss the fact that some-times love is tested and even enriched through shared suffering and that success, comfort and ease can endanger love more easily than pain and sacrifice. It is an arresting gospel message.

Commentaries on the Gospel

2011-08-24T10:15:00.000+08:00

The Roman province of Syria was a foreign territory where a great number of Israelites used to live, and therefore, there was much contact between Syria and Palestine. More so, with the northern province of Palestine, Galilee, where Syria’s frontiers were located. Within the territory of Syria were two important cities of the Phoenicians, Tyre and Sidon. The Phoenicians were great navigators and merchants of the ancient world. The ruins of Tyre and Sidon presently correspond to the territory of Lebanon, in the north of Israel.
Tyre was an important center during the time of the gospels and lasted for centuries. Its two ports were actively engaged in commercial activities with other Mediterranean countries, as well as industries such as metals, textiles, dyes (specially purple) and glass. A flourishing Israelite colony was established there. Since the Jews were well known for their business acumen, they succeeded rapidly in this undertaking. But since they were a nationalistic people – racist at times – they never mingled with the inhabitants of Tyre. In the gospel, they were known as Syrophoenicians or Canaanites.
The gospels tell us that only on this one occasion did Jesus leave for a foreign country. Only with this Canaanite woman and with that Roman Centurion who had an ailing servant did Jesus show a sign of the Kingdom of God by healing non-Israelites. This act of Jesus certainly did not transcend geographical frontiers of Israel. He hardly had time to do it. But with his message, his words, Jesus absolutely rejected the kind of nationalism embraced by his compatriots. This was a novelty and a scandal for them at the same time. The group of Pharisees, the Essene monks and the people in general discriminated against foreigners in the much-awaited Kingdom of God. It was their belief that God would do likewise. Jesus completely destroyed this deeply-rooted nationalistic tradition.
Even in our time, there are nations today which feel a certain superiority over others and therefore feel they have a right to rule over them. There are also races who think they are more intelligent and more capable than the rest. In the name of this supposed superiority, they colonize, dictate laws, discriminate, persecute and kill. These ill-fated ideologies led, in Latin America, to massacres of indigenous inhabitants with extremely varied cultures, to the creation of encomiendas, as well as imposition of tribute. Eventually, it led to the enslavement of men and women of African origin, violently uprooted from their countries. The indigenous part of Latin America (more than 15% of the population) is composed of survivors of that historical crime. The 30 million blacks presently living in these countries are children and grandchildren of slaves brought to the continent like beasts, by white men who thought it was their right and even obligation, to enslave them. In doing so, they invoked the name of God, as they continue to do today, in order to justify racism and discrimination of any type.
Science has proven the absolute fallacy of the racist’s mind affirming that some races are superior to others. Biologically speaking, each human group has distinctive physical and psychic characteristics, not necessarily better nor worse than those of the rest, nor more valuable than others. Above all, historically speaking, races and countries have had unequal opportunities in developing their own set of values and expressing them. On the level of racism, it is easy to discover the plan followed by the oppressors and the oppressed. What makes it more horrible is the fact that these oppressors are mostly nations with a long history of Christianity. The whole gospel rejects nationalism and racism. Christianity in its original form combats any form of discrimination: There is no longer a Jew, nor a pagan, nor a slave, nor a free man, nor a man, nor a woman.... (Gal 3:28). Neither will there be a black nor a white, an Indian nor a Latin, Mulato nor Mestizo.... We are all the same in the eyes of God. We are all God’s children. Jesus makes use of irony with the Canaanite woman. He speaks to her, “one must not throw bread to the dogs.” He is doing it to highlight Salathiel’s lack of compassion and his glaring nationalistic arrogance. “Dog” is a word of insult in Aramaic as well as in Arabic language. The dog is considered a despicable and impure animal, for being a stray and for eating rotten and unclean meat.
As a Christian one cannot talk about frontiers separating all peoples. A wrong concept of nationalism is no less than a collective expression of egoism or false pride. While respecting the culture of each nation, their history and peculiarities, the Christian must be (as has always been said) a “citizen of the world,” an “internationalist,” sensitive to the pains and joys of people of every country, who is in solidarity with the struggles and just gains of all nations. In the world we live in, where the fate of a nation can no longer be detached from that of her neighbors for better or for worse, this is not only an ideal theology but historical evidence. In this episode, the miracle of Jesus directed toward the daughter of a foreign woman, is a sign that before God there are no frontiers nor races. God gathers people from the four corners of the earth, and the only sign that will distinguish the citizens of that nation are freedom, life and justice chosen by those who comprise it.

Where to Look for God

2011-08-17T10:13:00.001+08:00

Where is truth? Where is reality? Where is God? In today's Gospel I think Jesus is showing us where to look. He asked the disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" He was interested in the perceptions and feelings in the locality in what we would now call the signs-of-the-times. They answered that some said he was Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Then he asked them, "Who do you say that I am?" He wanted to find out the truth they felt and heard from within. When Peter professed his faith that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God, Jesus replied, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, because no mere man revealed this to you but the Father who is in heaven." Truth and knowledge and experience of God come from around us, within us and above us. These are not in competition with one another but complementing one another. To have a perception that is as balanced and as whole as possible of God, we must be in touch, as fully as possible, with all of these sources.
The two questions, "whom do people say that I am?" and "whom do you say that I am?" and the response that there are other things that come from above, open up a wider vision of where to find God. The first question makes us look for truth in history, sociology, anthropology, culture, in the concerns and aspirations of our times like feminism and concern for the environment. It opens us up to a God (and a church) who are to be perceived and responded to in the world around us. The question, "who do you say that I am?" opens up the world of psychology and spirituality. It makes us alert to a God who dwells in the cave of our heart. Finally, the message that is given from above opens us up to the very necessary world and Church of theology, institution, scholarship and worship. Starting from these questions we can identify three ways of being Church; the communitarian, the mystical and the institutional. If the church itself is to be healthy these need to be working together in a balanced harmony.
The communitarian church relates to the Emmanuel God, the God-with-us. For this way of being Church the primary place in which to hear God and to answer God is in people and situations. It is a Church which empowers us to use our God-given gifts to provide for our wants, and calls us to make a prophetic stance at times. It is a Basic Ecclesial Community Church. One of the great happenings of our time is the shift of focus from the primary location of God in heaven to seeing him and responding to him in the community, the people of God.
The mystical church is the church of the Spirit that dwells in our hearts. It is being in touch with the source of life within - to drink from one's own well. The relationship with God is immediate, it is not mediated by ritual or people or situations. It is a relationship which brings us more and more to transcend wanting and just be and enjoy and respond to the abundance of God's goodness in the world around us. It brings us into a nonviolent partnership with God rather than a self-centered effort to direct him and his work. It releases an abundance of energy for relevant action in the world. It is a spirit-filled, rather vague, unstructured church.
The institutional church relates to a God "out there." It relates to God and mediates God to us mainly through sacraments, devotion and ritual. It asks God to intervene in our world and provide for our wants. It tries to manage the bookkeeping for God. It gives us a framework of meaning; it provides the security of authority and continuity of teaching. The institutional model of being church has been dominant for the centuries leading up to the Second Vatican Council. When most people thought of God they thought only of the God out there in heaven; when they thought of the Church they thought only of the institutional church.
One of the great insights of Fr. John Main was to see that renewal of the church would have to be contemplative renewal; a rediscovering of the Spirit that is within. Not only did he rediscover it but he gave us a simple way of getting in touch with it - through the twice daily saying of the mantra or prayer word for 20 to 30 minutes.
The Spirit within us is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves. The Spirit within us should be our first place of prayer. It should be our first but not our only place of prayer. Our towns have water supplies. Most of these originate in a lake or reservoir. The water is then pumped to a tank on an elevated place. After that it is allowed to flow by gravity, bringing this essential for living to the faucets of taps in our homes, gardens and places of work. The water in the lake, tank or faucet is the same water. When on a picnic you may go to the lake and take a pail full of water directly from it. You may rush, as the fire engine does, to get water from the tank. Normally, however, for your day to day usage, you will turn on your tap or faucet right there in your home if you need water.
So, too, we can and should turn to God our Father/Mother/Creator on whom we depend for all. This is the main emphasis, but not the exclusive one, when we go to church and worship. When we read the Scriptures and reflect on the words and deeds of Jesus Christ, we are principally but not exclusively growing in relationship with Jesus, the companion God, who became one of us. But just as we turn to the faucet within our house for our day to day water needs, so too, our day to day relationship with God will principally be with the Spirit who dwells within us and who helps us to express God in and to the world.

Points to Ponder

2011-08-17T10:13:00.000+08:00

I sat quietly on the lakeshore watching the artist sketch and color. Gradually, the grandeur of mountain and lake, forest and undergrowth, sunshine and shadow were caught in his emerging picture. It was a privileged moment to be an onlooker at such a creation. Undoubtedly, this artist had many gifts - an eye for color, an appreciation of nature's harmony and an understanding of perspective. But he was a dedicated craftsman as well. Conscious of his gifts, he had studied the texture of his materials, the blending of colors and a myriad of other aspects of his creative work. He had made art a priority in life. Gift and response were combined within him with great results on canvas.
Such a combination will always bear great fruit especially in our relationship with God. Faith is a gift, as Peter is reminded in today's gospel. It was not his own intelligence alone that enabled him to recognize Jesus as Son of God but the revelation that had been given him by the Father. God's gift of knowledge of himself is crucial but so too is our response. Gifts can be ignored or they can be appreciated, explored and enjoyed. Faith is accepted and developed by giving prime time to prayer. There is no other way. The crunch in faith development is making God a priority in our lives.
Just as the artist's gift could remain dormant and even die, so too could our faith. Today's gospel call is to ask for the gift and then to nurture it daily.

Commentaries on the Gospel

2011-08-17T10:08:00.001+08:00

Dawn came at Caesarea Philippi. The night slipped from us as we continued our conversation and now we still had a couple of miles ahead of us... After stretching our legs we resumed our journey toward the south, to Capernaum... Mount Hermon was sparkling white behind us....
The city of Caesarea Philippi was founded by Philip, the brother of King Herod, about three years before Jesus was born. It was named Caesarea in honor of Augustus Caesar who was then the emperor governing in Rome. The city was situated up north, sharing the border with Syria. The River Jordan originates from Caesarea, and from there descends and passes through the land of Israel. The river is formed by three springs, one of which is the fount of Dan, thus giving it the name: Jor-Dan (that which descends from Dan). In Biblical language, it is common to hear the expression: “From Dan to Beer-sheba” to define the geographical boundaries of the Land Promised by God to Israel: From the north where the fount of Dan was, to the farthest end to the south, the Bedouin city of Beer-sheba. Caesarea of Philippi is presently called Banias.
The Rechabites were a group of Israelites, who, for many centuries, and out of loyalty to their religious principles, lived as shepherds, rejecting the life of sedentary farmers. They never drank wine, were zealous for their traditions and only entered the cities by chance and on special occasions. They represented opposition to urban civilization and the memory of the ancient tradition of the desert, when Israel was a country of wandering people (Jer 35:1-19).
Just as the time of his baptism and the proclamation of the good news in the synagogue of Nazareth are decisive moments in Jesus’ conscience in relation to his prophetic mission, this episode of Caesarea Philippi marks a milestone in his life. Up to this moment, Jesus, driven by the Baptist’s example and supported by his disciples, plus a continuous fluctuation between pain and hope from his people, has manifested himself before his compatriots as a prophet. As such, he has spoken and acted. He feels heir to the prophetic tradition of Israel and acts with such a conviction. In Caesarea, he takes one step further. In fact, the freedom with which he spoke about the Law and interpreted it, and the certainty with which he presented himself as emissary of the Kingdom of God who would change the course of history brought him closer to that awareness of being the Messiah. This “leap” in the conscience of Jesus takes place in Caesarea inasmuch as it’s possible to determine a concrete place and time.
Jesus accepts his Messianic mission to the community. God chose Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, but the choice did not mean Jesus was to remain on the sideline with the people he was to serve. Similarly in the Church and the Christian community, no vocation should come “from above,” nor should it be decided “singly.” All vocation, charisma and service, if understood to be intended for the community, must be guaranteed by those who make up the community. Thus, we shall see the fulfillment in history of what was Jesus’ ministry.
When, in the gospels, Jesus speaks of his passion that is to come, of his death, this ought not to be understood as a “prophecy” in the limited sense of this word, as if he were a reader of his own future. If understood this way, then the dramatic consequence of his life would not have been a historical fact. Everything would have been predetermined from the outside and anticipated from the beginning. What these words mean is that, at this level of his activities, Jesus was already anticipating a violent death. He had violated the Law of the Sabbath – the core of the system – and this was reason enough to be sentenced to death; he had been accused by the powerful priests of being possessed by the devil, which was also punishable by death according to the law; he had had encounters with the authorities and with the landlords; he associated himself with people despised by the powerful, awakening them to their real condition as exploited people; and with the others who were feared as subversives, the Zealots. He was actually instigating a real people’s movement...
The religious leaders as well as the political authorities considered him to be a dangerous element every time, a rebel.... And he was all too aware of this. For this reason, Jesus never ruled out the possibility – it was almost a certainty – of his death, like the fate of all the prophets. His faithfulness to the mission entrusted to him by God and the people made him move on, whatever the risk. This growing awareness of his important mission did not alienate him from his friends. On the contrary, Jesus was a leader who inspired trust among his followers. He had a sense of humor and never considered himself important, nor set “a distance” from them. By being “one of them” he likewise revealed God’s nearness to us.

The Woman Who Converted Jesus

2011-08-10T10:06:00.001+08:00

I wished that I was not there! I was on a bus in the south of Mindanao going to visit the mother of Brother Joe. Joe and I had been together in community for fifteen years. On his silver jubilee of Profession he had been given a trip to Ireland. There it was discovered that he had cancer of the liver. His family had been informed, but now I was bring the news that is was only a matter of days until the end. I felt totally inadequate to console his family because, inside, I was in turmoil myself. I myself could not make any sense of what was happening and felt angry toward our so-called good God.

When I arrived at the bamboo house in the middle of the rice fields, his mother said in the local dialect, "He's dead?"
"No," I answered, "but the news is not good."
She sniffled for a while and then, with all her quiet matriarchal dignity, said, "Remember this, lad, whatever happens is a gift from heaven."
After a little while she said, "He will be buried here?"
I explained how for many reasons it would be impossible to bring his body back to the Philippines. After another silence she said, "When you don't see the body, the pain is doubled. But, remember this lad, whatever happens is a gift from heaven." I had gone to console and I was consoled. I had gone to bring faith but it was I who received it. I had gone to evangelize but it was she who evangelized me.
This is one of the richest concepts that have emerged in the post Vatican II Church. Mission is not just to evangelize the poor (whatever kind of poverty it may be) but also to be evangelized in the process by the poor.
I could go on and on giving examples of people who by their words and acts, especially by their reflections on the word of God in times of stress, challenge our assumptions, our righteousness, our structures which we assume are the only channels of God's presence. The poor convert and evangelize those who believe they have more.
There is one clear example in the Gospel of how Christ himself was converted by the poor. In Matthew 15, today's Gospel, Jesus is met by the Canaanite woman who asks him to have pity on her because her daughter is troubled by a demon. The woman is poor in many senses. In the culture of her day being a woman was to be poor, and she was a foreign woman at that! She has no right to approach Jesus. She is poor also because of her daughter's plight.
When she approaches Jesus she puts him on the spot. By instinct he is a man of compassion but his self-understanding of his mission at this time is that he has been sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. He answers not a word; he pauses over his dilemma. He is pushed by the apostles to get rid of her and he tells her rather weakly that she is not included in his mission.
When she comes back at him again he tells her, with the aggressiveness of the insecure, that it is not right to give the food of the children to the dogs. She answers him back, "Even the dogs eat the leavings that fall from the master's table." Her rejoinder is the last straw. "Goodness gracious!" he must have heard from within himself, "this woman does have faith! These people can have faith. I am called to reach to her and her kind." His self understanding has been expanded by his encounter with this poor woman. He has been converted and evangelized by her.
We see the extent to which he was evangelized a little while later in chapter 20 of the same Gospel when he tells the story of the owner of the estate who went to employ laborers for his vineyard. Some he called at dawn, others at mid morning and others at the eleventh hour. But all were paid the same. In this parable Jesus was saying that the latecomers, the non-Jews, would receive the same reward, or place in his kingdom, as the Jews themselves.
What allowed Jesus to pause, what gave him the ability to reflect, the sensitivity to be affected by the woman on this occasion? I think it was the recurring theme, the background music that we hear so frequently during the life of Jesus. "He went apart to pray." From his presence to his Father he gained stillness, a poise, and alertness that enabled him to hear the Father's voice in the voices of the poor.
We too need to be open to being evangelized by the poor, to hearing the Lord speak through the poverties within us and around us, to question our assumptions, to soften our rigidities, to let go of our boxed in concepts of how God should act. We will be able to do this only to the extent that we have stillness within ourselves, a stillness that can be cultivated by saying the mantra for 20 to 30 minutes each morning and each evening.

Points to Ponder

2011-08-10T10:03:00.000+08:00

Hungry people appreciate food with a relish unknown to the regularly well-fed. Indeed, the well-fed are often finicky about what they eat and critical about what is on offer, feeling that they deserve better. The Canaanite woman in today's gospel had no illusions of such privilege. She knew her need. Her daughter was ill and needed the touch of the master's healing power. Better than any of the religious people in the crowd, she knew what she needed and was prepared to pester the master until she got it.
Her persistence has a lesson for us all. We can be distracted by a surfeit of activity, comfort, work, success, sport or even, of religion. En route, we lose that urgent and keen awareness of our need. We rarely look for spiritual sustenance. Our faith, hope and love can die of starvation. We rarely pester God to deepen our awareness of his love for us. If only we were as aware as the Canaanite woman of what God could do for us, what a difference it would make in our lives.

2011-07-13T09:19:00.000+08:00

After that failure in Nazareth. Jesus undertakes his activity in Capernaum, in the small house of the old man, Zebedee, in the company of the group of first disciples and the residents of the village. He tells them the parable of the mustard seed. It is a story typical of the beginnings of Jesus’ activities in Galilee. It is a classic parable of contrast: The beginning is small, insignificant; the end, a beautiful bush will be the marvelous result of what God has in His hands.
The mustard is a plant that grows wild in Palestine. Along the lakeshore, it grows as high as three meters tall. That image of a tree that serves as a resting place for the birds and provides shade to whoever goes near is a symbol of God’s kindness and generosity (Ezk 17:22-24). In the old sayings of the Jewish rabbis, the mustard seed was considered the smallest of seeds. Although it is no more than a bush, Jesus calls it a tree, an exaggeration, to emphasize how God’s plans surpass ours, take us by surprise, much more than we can imagine. When we undertake a difficult and risky project, and for our part put in all we can, God enriches and makes what is great out of the smallest. The Kingdom of God is born of anything small, among the poor and with them, God forms his community. This community is a call to lead in the truly important events of history.
The Kingdom of God is new wine. Jesus proposes this idea in the beginning of his activity as the fulfillment of the social laws during the time of Moses. Those laws – the Year of Grace being one of them – focused on equality, the overcoming of social classes, the avoidance of accumulation of wealth by a few at the expense of those who were starving to death. These were old laws that turned out to be new since they had never been complied with. In Jesus’ time, differences among the Israelites were still being ignored.
The existence of social classes, the rich and the poor, for many, is “God’s will,” a “fate,” a natural event that defies change, an irremediable reality that can never be altered. This manner of thinking, like Salome’s, is common among the rich for it suits them to believe so. It is the same among the poor because the rich and their servers (the school, the false religion) have taught them this attitude of resignation, have made them believe that God wants it that way, and promises heaven in the other life if on earth they accept their misfortune. Nevertheless, “in the beginning this was not so; poverty and wealth came to people later” according to St. Gregory Nazianzen (Discourse 14 M.G. 35, 857-910). The Kingdom of God begins here on earth precisely when there exists no more differences among people, when the earth’s properties are distributed equally among us, when human beings are no longer considered rich nor poor. Instead, they are living as brothers and sisters, children of the same Father, enjoying the same rights and the same opportunities.

What Stories Do to Us

2011-07-06T09:16:00.001+08:00

Katty now knows the day and the place where part of her ceased to live. It was fifteen years ago when she was five years old. She was in her bedroom when, in the living room outside, her parents were berating her older sister Marivic because she got only a passing grade in three subjects. Why was Marivic not like Tonette, her older sister, who was their pride always getting the first honor in her class? They shouted, "Maybe you are not our child at all!" her father had said. And her mother added, "That's right, maybe you got switched with someone else's baby in the hospital after you were born!" Katty could not understand why her parents rejected the loving and warm Marivic in favor of the studious cold hearted Tonette. In fact, she felt closer to Marivic, who loved her and hugged her, than she did to either of her parents who seemed to be always at work or out of town on business trips. The little five year old Katty became convinced that if Marivic was a mistake she was the same mistake. If Marivic was rejected, no good, she too was rejected - no good.

There is a common assumption that human beings make or create stories. Actually, the opposite is true; it is stories that create us. It is the story of the imagined hospital switching of babies and the rejection it implied that created Katty. More accurately in this case, it desecrated or dis-created her into a fearful twenty year old who was only half living because of her inner emptiness.
Stories can CREATE, DESECRATE OR RE-CREATE us. They do this in the secular and in the religious world. A leader about whom there is a great story can inspire a nation. A story that glorifies graft and corruption can stymie all efforts at reform. In the religious world we are faced with mystery. Mystery is by definition inexpressible but through story we can get glimpses of it. Religious myth stories create a world view which enable people to give meaning to their lives.
Stories also create silence. The quality of our silence will depend on the story or myth or tradition out of which we enter the silence. This is why the late Dom Bede Griffith used to say that it is very dangerous to meditate without a tradition. When the other Benedictine, Dom John Main, invites us into the silence of meditation he is doing so out of the story that says "he who created the universe lives in our hearts and in silence is loving to all." It is the story that says each of us are temples wherein the Holy Spirit is ever praying "Abba, Father." John Main always kept in touch with that story by being immersed in the scriptures himself and reading, especially from the writings of St Paul, at the end of each of his talks.
When the ordinary Filipino goes into silence he or she may find something that has been made by other stories. They may be religious stories in which devils and angels predominate. They could also be stories of capricious spirits, the "not like us," who need to be courted and placated because they seek vengeance for every petty fault. To be a Christian is to be created by the story the Bible tells us. Its myths, the Genesis creation story for example, create in us a way of seeing the world. In this world everything comes from God, is made good. It affirms that human beings are the pinnacle of all and that other things are for their responsible use. In this simple story we find the basis of ecumenism, human rights, racial and sexual equality to name but a few of the implied affirmations of human dignity.
But there are other creating stories. Obviously, the parents of Katty were made by a story that said that hard work and money were the top priority. It was a story in which they saw their children, not to be loved for their own sakes, but as extensions of themselves who were to be loved only if they brought reflected glory to their parents.
In today's Gospel we have the allegorical story of the sower who went out to sow the seed. The seed is the Word, the story of God. Let us look at this story in terms of the possibilities of what it could do for Katty's parents.
"Some seeds fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate them up." In this scenario the God Story is for the birds! The couple are so hardened into their other story that the Word cannot penetrate it. Religion is pie in the sky.
"Others fell on patches of rock where they found little soil and sprang up straight away, because there was no depth of earth; but as soon as the sun came up they were scorched and, not having any roots, they withered away." In this case the couple heard the Word and saw that it had a value but as they were rooted in their former story no change was able to take place.
"Others fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them." In this scenario the couple appreciate their Christian faith. At first they fulfill the practices of their Church. They may even join Marriage Encounter or some other religious activities. But these do not last as they are crowded out of their schedules by their material concerns which are the priority story.
"Others fell on rich soil and produced their crops, some a hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty." In this case the couple were able to hear the recreating stories. They were able to hear especially the parables which subvert our ordinary worldly values and ways of looking at things. They were able to hear of Jesus rejecting the temptations to possessions, prestige and power. They were able to read of the father of the prodigal son whose attitude was always 100% loving no matter how the child performed. These stories were brought into prayerful reflection. Better still, they were brought into silence which according to Pastores Dabo Vobis is "the atmosphere vital for perceiving God's presence and for allowing one's self to be won over by it." As they become people re-created by another story they will also become parents of a different kind.

Points to Ponder

2011-07-06T09:15:00.000+08:00

Seed sowing is a task for those with hope for the future in their hearts. Not realizing that hoarded seed will eventually decompose, the faint-hearted never have the nerve to sow in the expectation of a crop in due time. No hoarder can be a disciple of Jesus. He expects each of his followers to be sowers of goodness and of gospel everywhere.

Some of the scattered seed will fall on rocky ground bearing little or no fruit, but much of it will bear fruit 30, 60 or 100 fold as to-day's gospel assures us. We cannot always judge or choose the human soil, but our vocation is to be extravagant in scattering goodness around us, sharing our time, talent, care, energy and our faith.  For the followers of Jesus, sowing the seeds of faith and tending the seedlings of gospel living among the young is always a privileged task, no matter how onerous or futile it seems to be. Sowing is our business. The harvest is the Lord's responsibility.