On this Day of Victory (Ascension Sunday C)

Probably an 18th Century composition, the following hymn on the Solemnity of the Ascension captures not only the meaning of the mystery but also the joy and exultation proper to the celebration of the ultimate victory of Christ on his ascension. If you don’t know the music, enjoy the poetry:

Let the earth rejoice and sing, alleluia!
At the triumph of our King, alleluia!
He ascends from mortal sight, alleluia!
Reigns now at our Father’s right, alleluia!

He who died upon a tree, alleluia!
Now shall reign eternally, alleluia!
He who saved our fallen race, alleluia!
Takes in heav’n his rightful place, alleluia!

Jesus, Lord, all hail to thee, alleluia!
On this day of victory, alleluia!
Thou didst shatter Satan’s might, alleluia!
Rising glorious from the fight, alleluia!

Jesus, Victor, hear our prayer, alleluia!
In thy triumph let us share, alleluia!
Lift our minds and hearts above, alleluia!
Strengthen all men in thy love, alleluia!

While in heaven thou dost gaze, alleluia!
On thy Church who sings thy praise, alleluia!
Fasten all our hope in thee, alleluia!
Till thy face unveiled we see, alleluia!

Ascension, Cause for our Joy.  The hymn expresses what the disciples themselves felt as they witnessed the event of the Lord’s ascension to heaven. In today’s gospel reading (Lk  24:46-53), the disciples, who are witnesses to “all these things,” are reported to have returned to Jerusalem WITH GREAT JOY and they continually praised God in the temple (v.52-53).  Today’s Solemnity allows us to share in that same joy as we contemplate the mystery and the great implication it has in our Christian life.

In Luke’s gospel, the ascension account serves as the conclusion. The ascension is shown as the victorious completion of the mission of Jesus.  The Jesus event—his life, teachings, ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection—comes to a close in his ascension to heaven. A new era, that of the Spirit, is being ushered. Pentecost is in the horizon.

But what is there to rejoice about in the mystery of the Lord’s ascension? Theologians have spelled out the significance of Jesus’ resurrection-ascension for our salvation. Many have pointed out that Jesus’ resurrection (inclusive of ascension) is his vindication.  He had suffered greatly following the will of the Father.  On his death, he had painfully cried out for an answer to the unfathomable experience of total abandonment. He died clinging to only one thing—trust in his Father’s faithful love. His resurrection then is seen as the loving answer of the Father.  But more than just a vindication, the resurrection-ascension event fulfils and completes the saving mission of Jesus.  It is through his resurrection-ascension that Jesus, the God-man, attains his permanent glory as He “goes back” to the Father. In Jesus, the God-man, human race is born permanently into the very life of God, the Triune God.  Hence, human being has fulfilled his destiny. In Jesus, humanity has now become a sharer of divine life. Nothing can change this anymore!  Jesus’ victory is definite.  This is the cause of the great joy of Jesus’ witnesses. This is the cause of our exultation!

Ascension, Source of our Hope.  The first reading (Acts 1:1-11), recounted the words of the “two men dressed in white garments” who suddenly stood beside the apostles while they were looking intently at the sky: “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven” (v. 11). Today’s Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension invites us to “lift our minds and hearts above” that we may always find hope for life’s persistent experience of uncertainties and seeming defeat in the reassuring victory of Christ and that we may anticipate the glorious return of our Lord in the final fulfilment of history.

As we continue to wade through the vicissitudes of our earthly life, we need to gaze heavenward to be always reminded of the victory of Jesus of which we are a sharer.  The desperate power of evil continues to deceive us sowing doubt and despair in humanity.  Disheartening us.  Taking advantage of the faint-hearted faith. But to us whose gaze is fixed on the victory of Jesus, evil is unmasked of its pretentions.  We see it as it is—fallen!

Thus, no matter how the work of evil seems to continue to undermine our personal journey of faith through our sins, destroy the foundation of families, corrupt our institutions, sow discord and injustices in society and mindlessly abuse the abundance of God’s creation, let us not allow ourselves to fall into the pit of despair.  Jesus’ ascension has won for us our destiny which nothing can change.  And we are awaiting his final glory. Let this be our hope. And as hopeful people, we can see to it that our actions and decisions in life continue to represent the optimism of kindling even tiny sparks of light amid the magnitude of darkness rather than the resigned and futile cursing of the dark.  

The solemnity we celebrate today inspires us, amid the tides of godless secularism and materialism, to become Jesus’ witnesses to the ends of the earth. On this day of victory “let the earth rejoice and sing” as we witness with renewed JOY and rekindled HOPE.  

To Jesus, the Lord of history, seated at the Father’s right hand, we now pray:

While in heaven thou dost gaze, alleluia!

On thy Church who sings thy praise, alleluia!

Fasten all our hope in thee, alleluia!

Till thy face unveiled we see, alleluia! 

God’s Two Hands (6th Sunday Easter C)

The Father works with his two hands: the Word and the Spirit. It was Irenaeus of Lyons, one of the early Fathers of the Church, who expressed this Trinitarian understanding of God’s activity in salvation history. This Trinitarian outlook can help us approach the gospel reading today (Jn 14:23-29) with a keen awareness of the complimentary roles of Jesus, the Word of God, and of the Spirit, the Advocate, in making God present in our Christian living.

God is made present in our lives through the Word and the Spirit. Today’s gospel stresses this truth: God lives in us when we keep his Word and as we allow the Holy Spirit to empower us in our Christian witnessing. Let us have a word for each of these two agents of God’s indwelling in us.

Keeping the Word of God. Jesus is the Word of the Father. We can only come to know God through his Word, his self-revelation. No wonder, Jesus stresses, as part of his leave-taking discourse, the principle of the concurrence of the indwelling of God with the observance of his word. As we have it in the gospel today: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (v. 23).

To Keep the Word of God means getting to know Jesus, listening to him, and obeying his commandments. It means living out in our daily lives everything he has taught us. When we do this, God lives in us. Negatively expressed, today’s gospel reminds us of the incompatibility between living in God and disregarding his Word. No one can honestly claim loving God and living in him when one does not observe God’s will.

All too often, our Christian living suffers this incompatibility. We easily claim God being with us but we fail to show it in actual witnessing. How, for instance, can we claim to be followers of Jesus and at the same time be comfortably part of a culture of corruption that gnaws at every fibre of our social life like a silent cancer?

Today’s gospel then allows us to see the indispensability of knowing Jesus, the Word, and living by his precepts in order to enjoy the peace of God’s abiding presence. Without the Word becoming incarnate in our own lives, how then can we have God dwell in us?

Invoking the Holy Spirit. The Spirit works hand in hand with the Word. The Spirit, the Advocate, teaches and reminds us of everything Jesus, the Word, has told us (v. 26). The Spirit helps us understand God’s Word, shedding light on the salvific meaning of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is the Spirit that emboldens us to become fearless witnesses of Jesus. The Spirit empowers us to keep the word of God, hence, the Spirit ensures God’s abiding presence in us.

As a Christian, am I aware of this crucial role of the Spirit in my everyday witnessing? Do I invoke his empowering presence especially in moments when courage and conviction are called for in order to keep God’s word amidst a culture that jeers at the very core of the gospel values?

Left on our own devices, we always end up insecure and fearful about what we can do in terms of witnessing to the Word of God. My own feeling is that a great number of Christians have remained insecure as they honesty doubt their human capacity to keep the word of Jesus. They have forgotten to allow the Spirit to work through them, to embolden them, to assure them that, no matter what, it is God who is always in charge.

In the final analysis, God works with his two hands—the Word and the Spirit—in order to make sure that his love is effectively communicated and his Word kept that we may live in him and God may live in us now and forever.

We have just done our national and local elections, let us continue to invoke the power of the Holy Spirit to guide our nation into the path that God wills for us his people. We dream of a better nation, then let us listen to the Word in our consciences and allow the Spirit of God, the God who acts in history, to work through each of us and collectively, in our effort for nation-building. God does not leave us in the inadequacies of our own device. After all, He is the God of history; He acts in history, gently, mightily, with his two hands.

The Good Shepherd (4th Sunday Easter C)

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday.  Our gospel reading (Jn 10:27-30) describes our relationship with Jesus in terms of a mutual intimate personal knowledge between the sheep and the Good Shepherd: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (v. 27).

There is a certain Amazonian tribe which has baffled researchers and anthropologists because of its unique trait—the members of the tribe don’t know how to count, neither can they learn it after being taught. They simply do not have the concept of numbers or numerals.  Intrigued by this information, a curious tourist once put this fact to a test by asking a member of the tribe who was tending his flock how many sheep he was taking care of. The shepherd just smiled, perplexed by the question; he couldn’t answer how many. The tourist continued asking: “If you cannot count your sheep, then how would you know that a sheep is lost?” The shepherd smiled again but this time he had an answer: “I just know because I know each of my sheep uniquely.  When the sheep with the thickest fur, for instance, is not around, I worry; I go and look for it.”

Sometimes when we are good at numbers, it is easier to deal with people as numerical data or as statistical variable.  And we stop right there and fail to have a personal knowledge of the people and hence, understanding of what they are going through in their lives.  

On the part of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, He knows his sheep beyond statistics, beyond the numerical description as “the 99 and the lost one.”   He knows his sheep even deeper than their external realities. He knows their hearts; he knows their joys and sorrows, their hopes and anxieties. Such knowledge is intimate and personal, one that inevitably forges a strong bond of love and loyalty. He knows us intimately because, as the Psalmist proclaims, “He made us, we belong to him, we are his people, the sheep of his flock” (Ps 99: 3). 

Only this depth of personal knowledge elicits on the part of the leader a totally selfless commitment for the well-being of the followers. So we hear Jesus declare, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand” (v. 28).

What a consoling statement from a leader! Jesus, the Good Shepherd gives us life. He takes care of us. He protects us. He does not allow anyone to snatch us from him. As the book of Isaiah has it: “Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care” (Is 40:11).

Have I experienced the Lord as the Good Shepherd who knows me uniquely, loves me and takes care of me, making sure that nothing takes me out of his hand?

On our part, to be Jesus’ sheep to whom He offers life, we need to know his voice and follow him.  Knowing Jesus, the Good Shepherd, means hearing his voice in the depths of our conscience. It means recognizing His guiding and enabling presence in our daily lives, making his voice alive as we read and meditate on His words in the Scripture. It also means listening to him through the teachings of his Church. When we do this, when we truly listen to the voice of the Lord and follow him, we experience just what the Lord, the Good Shepherd, desires for us—life, a beautiful life, a blessed life, even eternal life.

But there are times we insist on doing things our own way.  We ignore the Lord and his voice by our decisions and lifestyle that are contrary to his precepts.  These acts of freely ignoring the voice of the Shepherd may eventually lead us to our own suffering and brokenness.  Time and again, we hear real stories of people in pain. Many times their stories end with a painful question directed towards God: “Where are you? Why do you make me suffer? Don’t you truly love me and care for me?”  

We tend to blame others and God for the consequences of our foolishness and hardness of heart. Our gospel today reminds us that God is always faithful to his goodness, to his loving nature, to his desire to bless us and protect us because He is the Good Shepherd.  He knows each of us uniquely and cares for us for we belong to Him. He is always true and faithful to the covenant, to our loving relationship with him. But He does not coerce us to follow him.  He invites. We need to hear his voice and follow him freely. Like Him, we have to be faithful.

Do I listen to the voice of the Shepherd and allow Him to be my guide in life? Were there times when I ignored Him and went my own way? Have I ever blamed the Lord for the misfortunes I brought to myself?

On this Good Shepherd Sunday, we thank the Lord for loving us in a personal and intimate way and for caring for us as a shepherd tends his sheep.  The Lord is the Good Shepherd who desires that we may have life.  

All we need to do is to be faithful to Him, always listening to His voice that we may follow Him to where He leads us—the pasture where we find fullness of life.

Do You Love Me? (3rd Sunday Easter C)

Have you been seriously asked this question: “Do you love me?” When you are aware of the full implication of the commitment to love, this question is truly a daunting one.  Many find it a lot easier to be non-committal by responding, “perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.”

When I was making up my mind about getting ordained as a priest, I had to grapple with this question. And of course the question, in my particular context, is thrown by God.  I had to face the Lord in my prayer and give my courageous answer.  After all, the authenticity of following the Lord essentially rests on the love that binds one with him.  Today’s gospel episode (Jn 21:1-19) helped me arrive at a decisive affirmation of my vocation. Allow me to share my personal insights that emboldened me to say yes.  Two related insights: First, with the Risen Lord, there’s life; without Him, there’s emptiness.  Second, the Risen Lord fills up the abyss of our inadequacy in loving him.

A Life of Bounty.  Any sane person desires to live a bountiful life—a fruitful and meaningful life. We are all in search of this life. The gospel today reveals to us the secret path to such a life: It is only with the Lord’s direction that one can truly attain a fruitful life.

The gospel begins with the scene where Peter and those with him decided to go fishing— actually to go back to fishing, a life they had already left behind when they followed the Lord. Fishing was their expertise; they were good at that.  But that night, the whole night, they caught nothing. When it was already dawn, the Risen Lord was standing on the shore and directed them to cast their net over the right side of the boat. “So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish” (v. 6).

This incident reminds all of Jesus’ disciples, starting from Peter himself, that we cannot boast of our expertise, skills, talents and know-how. These do not guarantee that we can be truly fruitful in what we do in life. A “large catch,” a bountiful and meaningful life, can be achieved only when we humbly submit our expertise to the Lord’s directions.  Apart from Him our abilities may be disoriented, our life fruitless.

I met a businessman, for instance, in Makati. Despite his seeming success in his trade, he admitted of his emptiness. Not only that, his intoxication with his success was leading him to destroy his family! His own brand of success gave him more occasions to cheat his wife and robbed him of his time to be with his children. Fortunately, before he totally destroyed what really mattered in his life he came to his senses: He could not continue to do it his own way lest he would certainly lose everything. 

Sometimes, it is good to hit the rock bottom of our folly because it shakes off our arrogance. And only in that posture of humility that we can listen to God’s directions and eventually enjoy a truly blessed bountiful life.

Do I allow the Risen Lord to give directions to my life? Or do I stubbornly and arrogantly insist on doing things my old way even after the Lord has shown me the way? 

Do You Love Me? Anyone who wants to follow the Lord has to face this question squarely. This is the question I had to face myself. Do I love the Lord enough to be his ordained priest? Do I love the Lord more than I love myself? More than I love the significant persons in life? More than his created things?

An honest evaluation of ourselves will most likely render us incapable of giving a categorical yes. We love the Lord, but we know full well that our human heart is fickle, forgetful, unfaithful, and many times coward. While it is a total dishonesty to say no, to say yes seems to be a form of arrogance.

Towards the end of today’s gospel episode, Jesus confronts Peter with this hard question: “Do you love me more than these?” Peter has to answer this three times! The same number of times he has denied the Lord just before the crucifixion! What a grilling moment this is for Peter! But this is a moment of grace too. The triple question of the Master is to allow Peter to undo his triple denial with a triple profession of love. Such is the Lord’s graciousness.

Peter’s profession of love is no longer arrogant. There is so much humility in his answer when he says “Yes Lord; YOU KNOW that I love you.” I love you as you know me and my imperfect heart.

I find so much consolation in this realization that the Lord knows our heart. He knows its inadequacies in loving him. Yet He finds ways for us to come to terms with every moment of our imperfection in loving him. He fills up the abyss of our inadequacy to love. Simply put, He enables our incompetent heart to love him!

It is this love—a graced love-- that any follower of Jesus will have to carry with him/her in the journey towards the path of discipleship.  “Feed my sheep” is Jesus’ charge to anyone who braves to embrace the challenge of loving him.

On this third Sunday of Easter, we are invited by the Lord to answer bravely but with humility his question, “Do you love me?” We may be well aware of our inadequacies in loving the Lord. This serves us well because it humbles us. But let us be equally aware of God’s enabling grace allowing us to love him. Like Peter may we then say, “Yes Lord; YOU KNOW that I love you.”  As we fulfill our charge to serve in whatever capacity we are called to, let God’s directions always be our cue; then, trust that we are in for a great catch.