Qualities of a Leader (8th Sunday Ordinary C)

“The qualities of a great man are vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, and profundity of character.” These words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II and later served as the 34th US President for two terms (1953-1961), resonate with the words of Jesus in today’s gospel.

Jesus’ series of short parables in today’s gospel reading (Lk 6:39-45) allow us to discern the qualities of a true disciple and a truly great man for that matter.  I would like to highlight four of these qualities borrowing some words from Eisenhower’s quote. I propose that these qualities can be our goal for personal growth and may also be use as qualifications for choosing our public leaders.

Vision. A great leader must have a vision. A leader without a vision is like a blind man leading another blind. “A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit?” (Lk 6: 39). A leader without a vision brings his people to nowhere. He is going to squash their hopes and lead them to perdition. But a leader with a vision sees where to go and leads his people to become a people they want to be.

It is important then that this vision be enlightened by Christ and be guided by the Christian values of truth, justice, and love. Otherwise, without truth, a leader may mislead his people with manipulative propaganda and even form their opinion by spreading lies and fake news, for instance. Without the value of justice, a leader may act whimsically disregarding what is due to each and may even trample upon their rights. Without love, the poor will remain uncared for and power will be used solely for personal interest and, worst, for violent subjugation of the people.

Hence, Christians who are called to leadership responsibility must have a vision enlightened by Christ in order to truly lead their people to a better quality of life.

Integrity. Integrity is the antidote to hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is described by our Lord in this parable: “How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye” (v. 42). In saying this, Jesus is teaching his disciples to refrain from making hypocritical judgment on others and, instead, to proactively engage in self-examination in order to correct oneself first and become a credible critic to others.

Integrity is being truthful to oneself as Spencer Johnson has it: “Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.” The Lord wants us to take out the log out of our own eye first and see who we really are, warts and all. Acceptance of the truth of one’s own faults and flaws and, consequently, living in consistent uprightness mark a person with integrity. Such a person becomes a credible leader and a brother to those whom he approaches for fraternal correction.

The Lord invites us to become a person of integrity rather than hypocrisy.

Profundity of Character. A person of profound character has inner depth and a treasure of good values and principles in his heart. Whatever goodness is stored in his heart manifests in his deeds. “Agere siquitor esse.” What we do flows from what we are.  As the Lord says in a parable, “For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good” (vv. 43-45).

The analogy of the tree and its fruits reminds us that what we do flows from our character. Hence, it is our goal to acquire such profundity of character so as to be able to make a difference and positive impact on the people we serve. For those vying for public leadership, they can be evaluated by their tract record, i.e. what have they done to uplift the lives of the people? The fruits of their lives manifest who they are deep inside.

Power of Articulation. Speech is a powerful tool for good or evil. With our words we can either inspire or insult, bless or curse. Just as our deeds flow from our character, our words flow from whatever is stored in our hearts. “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart” (vv. 45).

Our words reveals the disposition of our hearts; a person with integrity then speaks of the truth and whatever is good and noble but a person of malice speaks with vulgarity, insult, irresponsible accusations and lies. We can have a glimpse of what’s inside a person through the window of his words.

The Lords invites us to store goodness in our hearts that we may speak of what is noble, true, and blessed.

Truly a great man and a great disciple of our Lord nurtures for himself the qualities of vision, integrity, character, and noble speech. A leader without these qualities is dangerous!

Loving the Enemies (7th Sunday Ordinary C)

Today’s gospel reading has usually been viewed by many as the most difficult invitation of our Lord to his disciples as He enjoins them to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. Indeed, this invitation is not easy as discipleship is not. But this does not mean that it is not doable. We just need to start somewhere and grow, even gradually, from there. This invitation to perfection is all about the vocation to love as God loves and to unleash the gentle power of love that we may overcome violence and transform the world into God’s kingdom. Let us focus on two significant injunctions of our Lord in today’s gospel: First is the injunction to turn the other cheek and, second, to love one’s enemies.

Turning the Other Cheek. The Lord pronounces in today’s gospel reading this disconcerting precept: “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.” What?! Isn’t this insane? Well, our human nature would have us striking back to get even. But again, Jesus invites us to be like the loving Father who does not retaliate violence with violence. God conquers our rebellious hearts with love.

An interesting commentary on this passage is illuminating: When one strikes you on your right cheek, he uses the back of his hand to hit you. When you offer the other cheek, he has to use his open palm. But the palm has always represented one’s person; that is why we make an oath with it or welcome someone with a warm handshake and when we give, we do it with our open palm. Hence, the other cannot use his open palm to hit you without demeaning his own dignity as a person.

Therefore, to offer the other cheek is not being passive to violence. It is an active decision not to retaliate and, furthermore, it is a peaceful, gentle, and loving way of reminding the other to value the integrity and dignity of his own person and hence to stop the cycle of violence. To strike back satisfies our thirst for justice; but to offer the other cheek is to exercise a far superior principle of Christian ethics—love. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Loving the Enemies. "But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked" (Lk 6:35).

Jesus does not speak here of the romantic and sentimental type of love that is always accompanied by “kilig” as one feels in the presence of an irresistible funny valentine. Love here is not about feeling good towards one’s enemies. It is, instead, in its fundamental essence, an act of the will. Love is willing whatever is good for the other. While we usually do not feel good towards our enemies, we can still will what is good for them. We can pray and bless them for instance as Jesus explicitly taught by his words and example: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).

The commitment to love our enemies is an active non-violent stance. When the world tends to resort to the use of brute force in order to eliminate the enemies, the followers of Christ use the superior but gentle power of love to conquer the hearts of the enemies. Force and violence may destroy the enemies. But Christian love restores the goodness of the enemies and thus turns them into friends. Violence is destructive; love is restorative like the love of the heavenly Father who wills to restore everything destroyed by sin. Again, it is to such loving attribute of the Father that Jesus invites us towards perfection—be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Yes, this is no mean feat. But with God’s grace, we can follow with joy what the Lord wishes us to do and to become. As with any daunting journey we take in life, we need to start somewhere with the first step. We can make a private vow of non-violence intending to learn and to live each day by the precepts of our Lord on turning the other cheek and loving the enemies:

Personal Vow of Non-violence: Recognizing the violence in my own heart and confiding in God's goodness and mercy, I MAKE A VOW (FOR ONE YEAR which may be renewed every year) TO PRACTICE THE NON-VIOLENCE OF CHRIST AS HE TAUGHT IT TO US IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. Before God the Creator and the Spirit who sanctifies, I promise to witness by my life to the love of Christ and especially: to live peace and be an artisan of peace in my daily life, to accept suffering rather than inflict it, to refuse to respond to provocation and violence, to persevere in non-violence in words and in thoughts, to live conscientiously and simply in order not to wrong anyone, to work in a non-violent manner to suppress causes of violence within me and in the world. Amen.

May Araw Ka Rin! (6th Sunday Ordinary C)

Today's gospel has two inter-related elements: A message of hope for the poor and those who are suffering and a strong warning to the powerful who cause the miseries of the people.

The message of hope. “Blessed are the poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours!” This is today’s good news (Lk 6:17, 20-26). But many find this statement perplexing and contradictory. How can the poor be fortunate? How can the hungry be happy? How can those who are weeping be joyful? How can the hated, insulted, and persecuted rejoice?

How can we who are mired into different forms of misery known to this broken world truly find meaning? How can we be called blessed?

The contradiction ceases ONLY when we who are suffering acknowledge the power of the love of God. The loving God never leaves his suffering people orphan.

This is what Jesus announces in the gospel reading. He announces the message of hope to those whose lives have become seemingly hopeless because of injustices, persecution, exploitation and sheer powerlessness. He is saying, “Hold on. God is here. God reigns. God triumphs over sin and evil. The Kingdom of God is yours! Hence, your suffering will be reversed. Remember this. Do not despair!”

When we are right there in the heart of suffering, we, short-sighted and faithless as we are, tend to despair. We tend to loose grip of the beauty of life. And if the world such as what we have continues to build structures of suffering so much so that it makes sure that more and more people stumble and fall, how can we ever conceive of true happiness as a people?

We need to realize that we cannot stand alone. We cannot depend only on our human strength. In the darkest hour of the night, we have to believe that daylight awaits us. It may be fearful while we are there. But we need to hold on. May bukas pa. We have to cling to our faith in God who never abandons us even in his seeming absence. He is our strength. He is our hope. And God never fails those who hope in him!

The message of warning. I’m tempted to end this reflection here with this pleasant note. But the latter part of the Gospel reading, while not very pleasant, is equally significant. Jesus addresses too those who cause the suffering of people while they themselves enjoy the bounty of life, oftentimes at the expense of those who are suffering.

In Jesus’ time, the rich, the powerful, and the holy were so conceited to think that God was on their side which explained their bounty. Their self-righteousness systematically marginalized the poor from society and even exploited them. They looked down on the poor as sinners and deserving to suffer!

So, as the prophets before him has done, Jesus pronounces in the gospel today his denunciation of this kind of attitude. “Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep…” (v 25).

This is a precaution, a warning to those who maintain an I-don’t-care attitude to the suffering of God’s people and more so for those who are the cause of the pain and unhappiness of God’s children. The warning consists in the reversal of situation: Should the rich and powerful continue their insensitivity and abuses, they will end up in misery.

Jesus' message, hence, assures the poor of God’s love and bounty. They have all the reason to be hopeful. To them Jesus is saying, “may bukas pa.” But to the conceited and exploitative rich, he is expressing his stern warning that, should they not repent, “may araw ka rin!”

Lord, heal our land
Father, heal our land
Hear our cry and turn our nation back to You
Lord, heal our land
Hear us oh, Lord, and heal our land
Forgive our sin and heal our broken land

Man of Faith (5th Sunday Ordinary C)

Many have stood by their I-did-it-my-way philosophy in life. They have tried to appear to have lived “a life that’s full” solely relying on their own human capacity.  At the heart of their conviction is that man is self-sufficient; he is intelligent and free; he is capable of doing what he wants in life and giving meaning to it; he may struggle but he does not need help; asking for it, especially when kneeling, is weakness. With pride, he has to face the final curtain of life as he intones:

For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught;
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels;
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way! (Sounds familiar, huh!)

Quite opposite to this self-made man’s confidence or perhaps, more appropriately, conceit, is the total wretchedness with which other people view life and human existence. There are those who see only the brokenness of man and live as such—miserable people. They see only human frailty, imperfections, sinfulness, defeat, and absurdity of life. So they make life miserable—thanks to alcohol and drugs, to their insecurities and self-pity, their anger and violence—not only for themselves but for people who care for them.

But still another way of approaching life is the way of the man of faith.  He shares some likeness with the first two in that he believes in his worth and dignity, on the one hand, and he acknowledges his imperfections and inadequacies on the other hand.  He is different from them though in that he opens his heart to the grace of God.  In his moments of inadequacies, he has the courage to bend his knees because he has no problem accepting he is weak. But precisely in this humility before God, he finds his strength to overcome not only his imperfections but even the most crushing of trials that the human spirit is made to endure.

All three readings of today’s liturgy herald the way of the man of faith by featuring three models: Isaiah, Paul, and Peter. 

In the first reading (Is 6:1-2a, 3-8), we hear of Isaiah’s calling. Isaiah acknowledges his unworthiness as he says, “Woe is me. I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips…” (v.5). Isaiah’s imperfection and sinfulness is identified with his lips since his is to be a preaching ministry. Yet the Lord purified his mouth; his wickedness is removed. So that, as the Lord asks who to send, Isaiah responded firmly, “Here I am, send me!”

Paul, in the second reading (1 Cor 15:1-11), testifies to the same enabling grace of God in his ministry.  He used to persecute the church of God due to his unenlightened religious convictions, yet he turned out to become the zealous preacher of the Kerygma, the good news of the saving death and resurrection of Christ. Here, Paul testifies that this dramatic change in his life is only made possible by the grace of God: “For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle… But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective” (v. 9-10).

Finally, Peter. In the gospel reading (Lk 5:1-11), Peter is humbled by the fact that he and his fellow fishermen had worked hard all night and had not caught anything; yet at Jesus’ command, Peter, probably going against the wisdom of his years of fishing experience, lowered their nets just the same. And to the astonishment of all, they caught so great a number of fish that their nets were tearing and their boats were in danger of sinking (v.  5-7)!

Peter, the expert fisherman, fell at the knees of Jesus as he exclaimed: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (v. 8). This is Peter’s realization of his inadequacy in front of the Lord. How consoling for us to be reminded of this humbling experience of the first pope of the Church of Christ.  And how reassuring that the Lord dispels every fear in our otherwise feeble commitment to take on his task as He says to Peter: “Fear not; from now on you will be catching men” (v. 10).

Isaiah, Paul, and Peter all illustrated for us the way of the man of faith and how we surely live life to the full when we allow the grace of God to work in us.

The man of faith does not have to prove to the world his greatness and strength. After having done everything that his life is meant to accomplish, he does not have to proclaim at the top of his lungs that he did it his way. Humility, which gives him deep serenity, is his path, not pride. He knows that conceit brings him false glory and honor. Of course, he believes in his giftedness—his intellect, freedom, abilities—and sees them as such, as gifts. Hence, the man of faith glorifies not himself but the Giver of every gift in his life.

Moreover, the man of faith acknowledges quite truthfully his inadequacies. He sees his brokenness, feels his unworthiness. But he needs not fear his weaknesses for they are the very occasion of God’s grace to work in his life. It is in the instance of his humble acceptance of weakness that God’s power makes him strong; God’s power shines mightily unhampered by the person’s foolish pride. The man of faith believes that despite his glaring imperfections, he is not destined to a miserable life; for he is called to a beautiful life, a meaningful life, a life with purpose and mission.

Clearly our invitation is to stop wasting our time exploring different ways of living our lives. No use living in either conceit or defeat. God invites us to live life in the way that brings out the best in us. God calls us to trudge the path of the man of faith.