Love and Imperfections (All Soul’s Day)

Valentino, my father, was a good man. He was well known in our town for his availability to serve people in many and varied ways. He was the town's jack-of-all-trades. And he was really good at fixing a lot of things. A Jesuit priest fondly called him "MacGyver" after a TV series character who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the physical sciences and solves complex problems with everyday materials he finds at hand. When there was drought in our place, my dad fixed his tractor and with a trailer he would fetch water from a source and deliver some to those who badly needed it. He was everyone's friend, even the kids. He had a heart for the poor; many times, out of compassion, he would secretly give away the medicines from my mother's pharmacy. He was not as religious as many of us, but he trusted in God and feared Him. Later in his life, he devoted some of his time reading the Bible. In no time, he read it from cover to cover! 

But he had his flaws too. He could be impatient and could allow his temper to get the better of him. When he was in the throes of his anger, he could hurt his loved ones with his scathing words. He would not listen and could be unrelenting when he felt he was right.

In short, my father was a good man. But like everyone else, he wasn't perfect. He had his share of human faults and weaknesses. Today, on All Soul's Day, I remember him in a very special way. And I thank God for this day of grace. In a way, the message of today's feast is that despite our imperfections God's grace continues to draw everyone to his love. The Good News we are proclaiming today is that God loves us warts and all and that the love of God does not forsake our departed brothers and sisters even when they somehow failed to measure up to the ideals of Christian perfection.

Some Christians refuse to accept the Catholic teaching on purgatory—because the word does not appear in the Bible! Let us not be trapped in fundamentalism.  The teaching on purgatory is a comforting doctrine and perfectly consistent with the biblical message of God’s mercy and love.  As Catholics we speak of Purgatory as a state of being in which the faithful departed undergo the process of purification, purging away the imperfections and some selfish tendencies due to sin that hinder them from completely embracing God. In this process of purification, the benevolent God responds to the prayers of many to receive all his beloved children into his heavenly banquet.

It is with this belief that we offer our prayers and the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the Mass for our departed loved ones. This practice of praying for the dead has been done already by the early Christians. In his essay on this particular feast, Fr. Eugene Lobo S.J. has this to say: “Tradition tells us that Christians have always been praying for their departed brothers and sisters to remain in communion with them. Early liturgies and inscriptions on catacomb walls attest to the ancientness of prayers for the dead, even if the Church needed more time to develop a substantial theology behind this practice. Praying for the dead is actually borrowed from Judaism, as indicated in the second book of Maccabees.  In the New Testament, St Paul prays for his departed friend Onesiphorus to receive divine mercy as we read in second Timothy. Early Christian writers Tertullian and St. Cyprian testify to the regular practice of praying for the souls of the departed. Tertullian justified the practice based on custom and Tradition, and not on explicit scriptural teaching. The Christians always believed that their prayers could somehow have a positive effect on the souls of departed believers.”

The Benedictine communities during the 6th century held commemorations for the departed on the feast of Pentecost. Later in the year 998, All Souls’ Day became a universal festival because of the influence of Odilo of Cluny who commanded its annual celebration in the Benedictine houses of his congregation. This practice soon spread to the Carthusian congregations as well.   Today all Western Catholics celebrate All Souls’ Day on November 2.

Today, as we join billions of our brothers and sisters in the faith in prayers for the faithful departed, we thank God for the assurance that His love always awaits them our departed loved ones. We thank God for his love and mercy. Today’s celebration is also a reminder for us who are still on our pilgrimage that God offers his love and  awaits our total and complete response.  While on earth, as a pilgrim Church, God invites us to love him and the quality of our response to that love will have significant relevance on Judgment day.

Our gospel reading today (Mt. 25:31-46) reveals to us the standard by which we shall be judged on that day. To those who have proven their love of God by loving and serving the least of our brothers and sisters, the Kingdom of heaven awaits. "Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me" (v.34-36). We do all these acts of love and mercy for God whenever we do these for one of our least brothers and sisters.

God loves us and He invites us to respond to him in love. Yes, we are not perfect but, with God's grace, we can grow towards maturity and perfection as we love God through the least of our neighbors. Let us continue to pray for each other and for our departed brothers and sisters. Our prayers testify to our faith in the power of God's grace. It is God's grace that allows us to grow in perfection so that we may all deserve to come to see Him face to face in the heavenly banquet.

The Prayer of the Anawim (30th Sunday Ordinary C)

Anawim is a Hebrew word which means the “Poor Ones” who utterly depended on the Lord for deliverance. Originally, this referred to the physically and materially poor of Israel who did not have anyone to provide for them, hence, were totally dependent on Yahweh. Gradually this socio-economic condition was transformed into a spiritual posture. Anawim, then, came to refer more widely to people of any social category who could not rely in their own strength but manifest the spiritual disposition of utter dependence on God. Hence, the opposite of the anawim is not simply the materially rich but the conceited self-sufficient who show no need of God’s help. 

The anawim’s cry is certain to be heard as Sirach announces in today’s first reading (Sir 35:12-14, 16-18): The Lord is not deaf to the wail of the orphans, nor to the widow when she pours out her complaint… The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal, nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds…”

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the today’s gospel reading (Lk 18:9-14) points to the importance of the humble disposition that must accompany our prayers. This interior disposition is that of the anawim. The parable illustrates how the tax collector goes home justified in God’s eyes because he has assumed the lowly and humble moral posture of the anawim and how ironically the very religious Pharisee goes home unjustified in the sight of God because his thanksgiving is full of conceit and self-glorification.

If the gospel reading last Sunday reminded us of the necessity of perseverance in prayer, today, the readings invite us to grow in humility, the lowly interior disposition of the anawim as we approach God in prayer.

How do we manifest genuine humility in our prayer? It is when we come before the Lord AS WE ARE  and AS GOD SEES US.

As we are, we come before the Lord in prayer. We are sinners; we come before the Lord without hiding our brokenness and sinfulness. There is no need to be defensive in the Lord’s presence as we do in the face of judgmental people around us. We need not be ashamed of our spiritual poverty. Let us cry out to God out of our lowliness for “the Lord hears the cry of the poor.” The tax collector in the parable went home justified because he prayed to God as he was, as a lowly and unworthy sinner who depended only on God’s mercy for his justification.

As we are, we come also with good things for we are not totally overcome by sin. We discover that, by God’s grace, we can do virtuous deeds. So we come to the Lord with grateful hearts. But our thanksgiving must not be like that of the Pharisee who thanked the Lord because of his feeling of superiority over the other people. The Pharisee’s thanksgiving did not glorify God’s name but extolled himself with praises for his “virtuous” deeds. His thanksgiving is filled with conceit and pride. On our part, then, we come to the Lord as we are; no need to compare ourselves with others and show that we are better than them. No. We just come before the Lord with grateful hearts because we have done well in life only on account of the grace of God. It is His grace that makes our life meaningful and hopeful.

As God sees us, we come before the Lord in prayer. We come before Him not as others see us or as we see ourselves. People’s judgments about us and our own self-assessment do not really matter. What matters is how God sees us. What justifies is God’s loving and merciful gaze.

The Pharisee was esteemed highly by people of his time for his piety and religiosity, for his faithful and strict compliance of the law. He also held himself in high esteem as seen in his self-glorification. But all these did not matter for his justification. God was not pleased with him. Only God’s assessment matters. On the other hand, the tax collector was seen by all as a sinner by profession. He also saw himself as such. But, again, what matters is God’s loving and merciful gaze which sent this lowly man justified.

So when we come before the Lord, there is no use pretending. There is no use glorifying our own moral achievements. The Lord humbles those who exalt themselves; but he exalts those who are lowly. Let us come then before the Lord as we are and as God sees us. We come before the Lord as His anawim, whose cry never fails to move His love and mercy.

Pray Always (29th Sunday Ordinary C)

During the “Zamboanga Siege” which lasted for more than three weeks, it was very easy to lose heart when day after day what woke you up in the early morning were the exchanges of gunshots and the hovering of helicopters. Already in the second week, people were impatient asking the same question: “When will this end?” For the situation was making the suffering of people more and more unbearable each day. A priest from Bohol, who is a good friend of mine, sent me an assurance that he was always praying for me and for the City of Zamboanga.

Few weeks after the siege, we were all shocked by the extent of the damage wrought by the 7.2 intensity earthquake that rocked the exotic island of Bohol. Most of the centuries-old churches which had been Bohol’s contribution to our national cultural heritage were destroyed. When I got the shocking news, I found myself sending a message of assurance to that priest friend of mine. I assured him that I was praying constantly for him and the people of Bohol.

We are not in control of many things in life. “Ang buhay ay weather weather lang,” according to Kuya Kim. Hence, we need to pray always and not to lose heart as Jesus teaches his disciples in today’s gospel reading (Lk 18:1-8).

(grabbed from http://www.village-missions.org)

Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow illustrates very clearly that just as the unkind judge finally grants, out of his selfish motives, the widow’s persistent request for justice, so God, who is infinitely better than that wicked judge, listens to the plea of those who persevere in prayer. In short, God certainly listens to our cries; but our pleas must be constant and unceasing. We must persevere in prayer.

Why? Is God playing hard to get? Does He take pleasure in watching us struggle in begging for what we need? No. God is not the unjust judge in the parable. God is a good God. His infinite goodness wills only that which brings out the best in us and nothing less. Hence, God challenges us to persist in prayer because He wants to bring out in us the following: Humility, purity, and intimacy. A word for each:

Humility. Modernity has expected us to be autonomous and responsible for our lives and destiny. So, we tend to act independently trying to gain total control of our lives. We keep God at bay. We become very busy and praying becomes a waste of time. But life has a way of exposing our helplessness: Zamboanga Siege? Bohol Earthquake? Unending supertyphoons? Flashfloods?

It is only in accepting our existential helplessness that we assume a posture of total dependence in God. The widow in the parable is our representative. Like her, we are many times powerless and dependent on the kindness of others and God. Like her, pleading unceasingly is sometimes our only recourse. In Filipino, we say “pagmamakaawa.” Everyone knows it takes a lot of humility to beg for mercy. The good God does not like conceited people. He invites us to be humble as we pray with constancy.

Purity.  Many times what we desire for needs purification. Even if it seems that what we are pleading for is good, God still sees through our selfish motives. Oftentimes, we ask for what we want and not for what we truly need. We want to have more wealth but this may lead us to greed and materialistic attitude. What we need sometimes to become a compassionate and loving person is the experience of solidarity with the poor.

God requires our persistence in prayer because we need to purify our desires. And the process requires some time. As we persevere in prayer, the grace of God helps us, in time, to see our own self-centeredness and to distinguish our whims and caprices from our real needs. Hence, we need to persevere in prayer not because God is not listening closely to our cries but because He is helping us to grow in the purity of our desires.

Intimacy.  When we persevere in prayer, we gradually understand that prayer is not just a one-shot deal. We begin to see meaningfully what spiritual writers tell us: that prayer is relationship. God requires persistence and constancy in our prayer because, above all else, He is inviting us to grow in intimacy with Him. To be in constant prayer means to spend more and more of one’s time with God. As we grow in the purity of our desires, we begin to see with joy that what our hearts truly long for is not just any gift that God gives. Our heart’s greatest desire is God.

With much gratitude, we discover as we persist in prayer how good and generous God is. God requires our perseverance not because He enjoys keeping us on our knees but because He wants to give us much more than we are asking for; He wants to give Himself.

Praying is not a waste of time. The more time we spend in prayer, the more that God brings out the best in us. Praying persistently melts our conceit and brings out humility; praying with patience and perseverance purifies our selfish desires and leads us to our real needs; praying with constancy trains our hearts to long for God and enjoy intimacy with Him. So, as Jesus wisely advises us, “Pray always without losing heart.”