Spiritual Pruning (5th Sunday Easter B)

The previous Sunday’s Good Shepherd theme has allowed us to see Christ as our caring leader and companion who is ever ready to sacrifice all for our sake. But today’s image of the vine and branches brings us to an awareness of an even more profound level of relationship between us and the Lord. Christ is not just a leader or a companion, He is our very life.  He is the vine and we, his disciples, are the branches.  This reveals the intimate union we have with Christ and, through him, with the Father.  We share the one and the same Spirit-life with the Risen Lord.  We are so united with him that we cannot live, we cannot do anything fruitful apart from him much as a branch withers and unable to bear fruits when cut off from the vine.

Hence, today’s gospel (Jn 15: 1-8) invites us to remain with the Lord: “Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me” (v. 4).

Remaining in the Lord means cultivating our intimate relationship with him and nurturing the very life we have with him.  One aspect of the imagery of the vine that suggests the necessity of nurturing this intimacy is the art of pruning. The vine grower, that is, the Father, takes away every branch that does not bear fruit, and “everyone that does, he prunes so that it bears more fruit” (v. 2).

Let us then look into this aspect of pruning as an art of spiritual nurturance.  May I suggest, as an insight, three ways of appraising our experiences of being pruned.  We may understand this spiritual pruning as a process of purification, a process of discernment, and a process toward surrendering.

Pruning as a process of purification. We are always in need of purification. The more intimate we become with the Lord, the more we need to be purified from the habits of sin. Sin and divine life cannot co-exist.  When we allow our habits of sin to persist in us, these habits undermine our intimacy with the Lord. Our capacity to bear much fruit is diminished. Hence, we need to submit ourselves to pruning.  We need to be constantly purified from our sins so that we are always disposed to the life-giving grace of God.  When we are freed from sin, God remains in us and we remain in Him. This strengthens our intimacy with the Lord.

“You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you” (v. 3).  This reminds us that Jesus’ word purifies us.  As an art of pruning, then, we are invited to immerse ourselves always in the word of Jesus by reading the scriptures, reflecting on it, praying with it, and acting upon it. His word reflected and prayed upon purifies our day-to-day intentions and conforms our being and doing with that of God.

What are the habits of sin that hamper my intimacy with the Lord? Can I allow the word of God to purify me every day and hence nurture my intimacy with Him?

Pruning as process of discernment.  Oftentimes we are not bearing much fruit because we are not primarily concerned with what is essential.  We are distracted by too much worldly cares. We are bombarded with many choices each day from the most trivial things to the profoundest options. Most of the time we don’t discern; we just embrace uncritically just anything that is attractively presented to us and hence spend our time, talent, treasure, energy, and life pursuing concerns of this world aimlessly.  The result of this disoriented pursuit is emptiness.  No fruits. 

We need to trim down our concerns and discern what is essential from the passing fancies of this secular society.  Pruning may be seen as discerning our purpose as Christ’s disciples.  Amid this growing secularized or “Godless” society, Christ’s disciples are called to remain in him. In the language of the second reading (1 Jn 3: 18-24), to remain in the Lord is to believe in him and to keep his commandment: “We should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us” (v. 23). For us disciples of the Lord, what is essential is that which brings growth in faith and in our love for one another.  And this is particularly what’s dying in our communities with the onslaught of secularism. Hence, we need to be pruned by our discernment of our essential purpose.  Is the Lord with me in what I do now in life? Or Am I in the Lord as I do what I do in life?

Pruning as a process toward surrendering to God.  When we live in our habits of sin compounded by the Godless culture around us, it is not surprising that this Godlessness may characterize our lifestyle. Meaning, sin and worldly cares become our way of being. They become so much a part of us that we begin to resist any invitation to change. Or sometimes we are still aware of God’s presence in our life but we have grown satisfied and complacent in our comfort zones.  We definitely need pruning to shake off these attachments.  Sometimes, what awakens us is a tremendous experience of pain, like the experience of failure, of great loss, of serious health problem, etc. 

God allows these painful experiences to happen not as punishment but as a powerful intervention to bring us back to him. When we are confronted with the fact of losing everything we believed to be important to us, we either wallow in despair and anger or, with the last ounce of faith, we cling to God and humbly submit.  I believe our experiences of loss are graced moments meant to enable us see clearly that apart from God we are nothing. Our experiences of loss are invitation to move on with hope for a new beginning of a much fruitful life with God. We need to surrender and remain in God.

May our experiences of being pruned nurture our intimacy with God and our fruits give glory to his name: “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples” (v. 8).

The Good Shepherd's Foolishness (4th Sunday Easter B)

Come to think of it, it’s quite absurd for our self-preserving and calculating natural orientation to go by the Good Shepherd’s sacrificial laying down of one’s life for one’s sheep.  It does not make sense for us to sacrifice our life, our highest value, for the sheep.  Something deep inside tells us “it’s not worth it!”  Our primary concern is to preserve our life; everything else is secondary.  Hence, we see the absurdity of Gods’ love for us. By human reckoning, to die for a sinful people is not worth it. The Good Shepherd laying down his life for us is beyond human logical calculation. But God’s love again is beyond human logic. God does not calculate when it comes to loving us. Even when we were sinners, the Good Shepherd did not hesitate to die for our sakes.

Today is the Good Shepherd Sunday.  Let’s open our minds and hearts to learn from our Good Shepherd. Three things for our reflection:

On Total Self-giving. The Good Shepherd’s total self-giving reminds us to overcome our minimalist stance in life. Jesus said: “I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus does not calculate how much to give of himself.  He gives up everything. It’s total self-giving, the mark of real love. This invites us to examine and correct our very calculating and minimalist attitude in life.  We tend to give what is only expected of us—the minimum.  We measure what we give and what we do for others; and we have a keen sense of how far we ought to give.  Oftentimes we base our calculation on what the law or any social norm requires.  To give beyond that seems to be unwise, unpractical, or “lugi” in our business parlance.  To give more than what is expected sometimes leaves us a sense of loss or “panghihinayang.”  So we settle with our minimal self-giving.

We need to love like the Good Shepherd does in order to be able to give more of ourselves. We are his sheep. We follow our Good Shepherd. To the world, He is absurd; but we are not of this world.  Jesus’ absurdity is the wisdom of God.  We follow our Good Shepherd, not the standard of this world. Like what our psalm proclaims: “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes” (Ps 118: 8-9).

On Serving with Care. The Good Shepherd’s way of ministering reminds us to overcome our tendency towards “economism.” We tend to view a lot of our life in terms of economic value.  Our work, for instance, has been reduced to an economic component.  We are reduced to becoming hired workers--with the emphasis on the “hired.”  We gradually lost touch of the deep vocational and ministerial aspect of our professions and jobs.  We are killing ourselves working hard for our pay. Nothing more.

The Good Shepherd’s commitment to take care of his sheep is especially contrasted with that of the hired shepherd. The former gives himself to service and to care for his sheep; the latter has no concern for his sheep for he works only for pay. Again, we follow the Good Shepherd.  While we give due value to compensation and the necessity of justice in wages, foremost to our concern is the dignity of our work.  Our work is a vocation to serve, to minister, and to care for those who are entrusted upon us.

On Proactive Living. The Good Shepherd’s free initiative in giving his life reminds us to overcome our tendency to react to life by complaining. Jesus said: “I lay down my life to take it up again. No one takes it from me; I lay it down freely.” Jesus was not a victim of circumstances. His sacrificial act is his free decision. He willed to die as a response to the utter need for salvation of his sheep. Oftentimes, we find ourselves reacting to what life gives us. And we complain a lot. We play victim. So we serve begrudgingly. Truly unhappy. And we persist in the unhappiness of doing things half-heartedly.

The Good Shepherd reminds us to stop playing victim.  Stop complaining. Be proactive. Act from conviction and free initiative. Only then will we truly be happy with what we do.

A taxi driver used to complain a lot until a passenger, apparently a successful businessman, pointed out to him how futile it was to complain in life. If he wanted to change his life, he must stop complaining and start to serve whole-heartedly.  So the driver began to take care of his taxi, cleaning it and polishing it well. He became friendly to his passengers and assured them of his honesty.  People began to be happy with his way of serving. They asked for his calling card and gave him generous tips. Now, while other taxi-drivers complain and spend a lot of time queuing, this driver is busy receiving calls and reservation from those whom he had served.  His life is changed.

The Good Shepherd wants us to follow his way and change the quality of our self-giving, our serving, and our living for the better—far better than we can imagine.

Recognizing the Risen Lord (3rd Sunday Easter B)

Master:  When do you know that it is the end of the night and the beginning of the day?

Disciple: When I can see the trees and distinguish one kind from the others.

Master:  No quite.

Disciple: When I can see the animals and distinguish a goat from a sheep.

Master:  No.

Disciple:  Sorry, my Master. I don’t seem to have the answer. Would you tell me please, when is the end of the night and the beginning of the day?

Master:  It is when you can recognize in every person you meet a brother or a sister.

* * *

We may ask a similar question: When is the end of the darkness of Good Friday and the beginning of the light of Easter? Our readings today point us to this answer:  It is when we recognize the presence of the risen Lord in every “breaking of the bread” and in every experience of the forgiveness of sins.

The Risen Lord in the Breaking of the Bread.  The gospel reading today (Lk 24:35-48) starts with the report of the two disciples who hurried back from Emmaus and recounted what transpired on their way there and how they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread.  Their recognition of the risen Lord through the act of breaking bread may be seen as a fulfilment of Jesus’ last supper wish: Do this in remembrance of me.

This reminds us that the celebration of the Eucharist, the present form of the breaking of the bread, has a memorial dimension.  But this does not mean a simple recalling of the past event as history.  The mass, as memorial, means it makes present here and now the event of Christ’s paschal mystery. In other words, for every time we participate in the Eucharistic celebration, we experience again and again the same salvific sacrifice of Christ offered by him once and for all on that night of his Passover (see CCC 1364).

The breaking of the bread is obviously a meal. No doubt, the most evident dimension of the Eucharist is that it is a meal.  This involves partaking in the banquet of the body and blood of Christ.  As such, it is an invitation to fellowship with God and with one another.

The Eucharist as a memorial meal, then, is a privilege moment for us to “remember” our Lord.  It is in this fellowship that we experience the real presence of Christ—a fulfilment of his promise to remain with us until the end of the world.

So, it is the end of the darkness of Good Friday and the beginning of the light of Easter, when we recognize the risen Lord in every ‘breaking of the bread’ that we participate in.  Do I allow my mind to be opened and my heart to be enkindled, as the two disciples in the road to Emmaus did, whenever I participate in the fellowship of the Eucharist? Do I experience the presence of the risen Lord in this memorial celebration?

The Risen Lord in the Ministry of Forgiveness.  The suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ brought him, as the Messiah, to his victory over the power of sin. The risen Lord thus instructs his disciples towards the end of today’s gospel reading: “Thus it is likewise written that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. In his name, penance for the remission of sins is to be preached to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of this” (vv. 46-48).

Hence, in the first reading (Acts 3:13-15, 17-19), Peter confronts the people in Jerusalem who handed over Jesus to his death: “You disowned the Holy and Just One and preferred instead to be granted the release of a murderer. You put to death the Author of life. But God raised him from the dead, and we are his witnesses” (14-16).  But Peter’s message is not of condemnation but of understanding and invitation to repentance:  “I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did. ...Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away” (17-19).

We experience the presence of the risen Lord whenever forgiveness is preached and celebrated.  As a minister of God’s mercy, for instance, I recognize with clarity the presence of the risen Lord in the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I recognize his presence in the experience of those who come for forgiveness.  They approach trembling, ashamed, insecure, and searching for words to describe the ugliness of sin. But they emerge later from the confessional with peace, with the dignity of the children of God, with security, and with the words of thanksgiving and praises to the merciful God. Such is for me the undeniable power of the risen Lord over sin.

Whenever forgiveness is preached, celebrated, and experienced, it is indeed the end of the darkness of Good Friday and the beginning of the light of Easter because forgiveness testifies to the power of the risen Lord over sin. Jesus Christ is risen.

Let us then witness to the resurrection of Christ as we recognize his presence in our Eucharistic fellowship and in our experience of forgiveness.

Ocean of Mercy (Divine Mercy Sunday ABC)

I was walking leisurely along the beautiful stretch of the shore of Boracay, when my attention was caught by a jolly teenage boy masterfully working on the fine white sand building his awesome castle.  As he completed it, he allowed tourists to pose and take pictures with it as background.  Some were so pleased that they even tipped him.  I walked farther along the shore as the red sun was retiring hesitatingly behind the horizon; something within me nudged me to make my own castle.  Yes, I fumbled at first but built my sand castle anyhow. But no sooner had I completed my masterpiece than the ocean mockingly wiped it out!  Just like that. No pictures. No tourist tips for me.

But I experienced consolation.  As I looked at the great ocean reflecting the beautiful colors of the setting sun, it reminded me of the vast mercy of God capable of wiping out my ambitious but feeble castle of sins.

On Good Friday, the sinful world mocked Jesus who died on the cross; but on Easter morning, Jesus victoriously rose from the dead conquering the destructive power of sin. Henceforth, sin has fallen and remained as such—a pretentious castle made of sand. As often as it is built and rebuilt, the ocean of God’s mercy is there to wipe it out. Alleluia!

Today, the second Sunday of Easter is the Divine Mercy Sunday, a special day to rejoice because of the assurance of the infinite mercy of God for us who are sinners but who long for salvation. Pope John Paul II pronounced the second Sunday of Easter as the Divine Mercy Sunday on April 30, 2000 during the ceremony of the canonization of St. Mary Faustina Kowalska, the Polish nun who had received from Christ the revelations of the Divine Mercy in the early years of the twentieth century. One of Christ’s requests through these revelations was the reservation of the second Sunday of Easter for the entire Church to honor and commemorate God's infinite mercy.  Pope John Paul II fulfilled the request.

Hence, today, we discern in the gospel reading (Jn 20: 19-31) the revelation of the mercy of God as the Risen Lord confronted his fearful disciples.  Jesus appeared to his disciples who were hiding in a locked room out of fear. He appeared to them not to reproach them of their cowardly act of denying and abandoning him as He suffered in Calvary.  No. He passed through the locked doors and through their fears and guilt in order to bring peace into their troubled hearts. “Peace be with you!” And indeed their fears turned into rejoicing.

More significantly, the Risen Lord appeared to them to give them the power to bring into this sinful world the mercy of God: “’Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  And when he has said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained’” (v.21-23).

This is the explicit institution of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In this sacrament we experience the mercy of God.  By this sacrament, the Church fulfills the mission for which she is sent—to proclaim to the world that the limitless ocean of God's mercy overcomes the pretentious sand castles of our sins. 

Hence, today we rejoice because of this assurance. But how can we partake of this tremendous gift of God’s mercy? Let us explore three things we can do to make the Divine Mercy truly integral to our Christian living:

Acknowledging our utter need for God’s mercy.  We have to be humble to accept that we are sinners. And we should be horrified that we are in sin and that we cannot save ourselves from its slavery.  We need God’s mercy to set us free. Our greatest tragedy, and this is already a plague in our contemporary society, is when we live in sin and are no longer disturbed by it. It is then very helpful that we examine our conscience regularly so that we may not be blind to the persistent influence of sin in our lives and that we may humbly acknowledge our utter need for God’s forgiveness.

Trusting in the mercy of God. The ocean of God’s mercy has been made available by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The Risen Lord has entrusted to the Church the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation through which we experience the joy of being forgiven.  Here is what Jesus told St. Faustina about confession: When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I Myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy (Diary, 1602). As sinners, let us surrender to the merciful arms of our Lord as we pray in our hearts: “Jesus, I trust in you.”

Becoming merciful.  One of the many things Jesus demanded from St. Faustina is this: "I demand from you deeds of mercy... You are to show deeds of mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere." As we experience the mercy of God in our lives, we are invited to share to others that same mercy. Let us allow the ocean of God’s mercy to be channeled through us.  Mercy is Christianity’s distinctive virtue. To be a Christian is to be merciful. This means to be forgiving to those who are indebted to us in whatever way and to be kind and loving especially to those who cannot return the favor because of misery and poverty.

Through the death and resurrection of our Lord, the ocean of God’s mercy opened up for the whole world. This Sunday invites us to celebrate with joy the gift of God’s infinite mercy. Let us surrender to the Lord our sinfulness and that of the whole world and completely trust in his mercy as we pray: “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” Amen.