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.”

Gratitude (28th Sunday Ordinary C)

A soul made it to heaven and was welcomed by St. Peter who graciously led him and showed him the different sections in heaven. They came to a section where a host of angels were all very busy reading letters.

“This is the ‘Receiving Section.’ In this room all prayer requests are received and processed,” St. Peter explained. The newly arrived soul indeed noticed that the angels were preoccupied with the volume of letters from all over the world, perhaps trying to categorize each request in terms of priority.

St. Peter and the soul moved on and arrived at the next section. Here, a great number of angels were even more busy wrapping things and labeling them.  “This is the ‘Packaging and Delivery Section,’ said St. Peter.  The soul was awed by the sheer magnitude of the gifts and blessings of every kind being prepared and delivered to the different corners of the world.

(Photo grabbed from http://www.ccar.us)

Then they reached the last section. The soul was astonished with what he observed. There was only one angel stationed in that section and the angel was doing nothing.

“Why is this section very quiet? What is this for?” asked the perplexed new comer.

St. Peter replied with sadness in his voice, “This is the ‘Acknowledgment Section.’ It is sad that after the prayers had been granted, only few people remember to give thanks.”

Today, in the gospel reading (Lk 17:11-19), Jesus is pained by the fact that, among the ten lepers he had cleansed, only the Samaritan came back to give thanks. “Where are the other nine?” Jesus asked, probably with deep sadness.

Hence, today we are invited to reflect on the theme of gratitude as our readings lead us.

An evident parallelism between the Elisha-Naaman narrative (2 Kngs 5:14-17) and the Jesus-Samaritan account easily catches our attention as we read the first and the gospel readings. Naaman and the Samaritan were both cured of their leprosy; second, they were both regarded as “foreigner;” and lastly, both also expressed their gratitude for the great favor received by glorifying and worshiping God. Let us reflect on each of these elements.

Experience of God who heals.  Leprosy then was a dreadful disease. To have it would mean losing everything; suffering from it would mean total alienation: from self, from loved ones, and even from God. When Jesus cured the ten lepers, he instructed them to show themselves to the priests. The priest’s confirmation that a leper had been totally healed and cleansed was significant in the process of reintegration to the community. The leper’s experience of healing then was a tremendous experience of being made whole again: an experience of regaining one’s lost dignity and self-respect, of reuniting with loved ones, and of reconciliation with God.  Such tremendous favor could not have failed to evoke deep gratitude. Naaman and the Samaritan experienced the great kindness and mercy of God. Hence, their hearts were filled with gratitude.

God makes us whole. God heals our brokenness. He gives back our self-respect. He reunites us with people we care about. He embraces us back in reconciliation. With this tremendous act of God’s goodness, how can our hearts possibly not well up with gratitude? What heart is not moved to tears of gratitude by so great a favor from this loving God?

Gratitude for undeserved grace.  The fact that Naaman and the Samaritan were considered foreigners and yet were blessed with God’s healing grace highlights the element of gratuity on God’s part and a deeper sense of gratitude on the part of the lepers.  Both Naaman and the Samaritan could have felt their unworthiness precisely because of the fact that they did not belong to the “chosen people” of God. They did not deserve God’s healing grace.  Yet they experienced it.  All the more that they felt indebted and were moved to give thanks.

The other nine did not come back to thank the Lord. Were they overwhelmed by the experience so as not to remember to say “thank you”? Or was this a case of the sense of entitlement on their part? Maybe in their heart of hearts, they believed that they received what was due to them; so as a matter of claiming what was rightfully theirs, there was no need of giving thanks.

Hence, for us to be grateful, let us see God’s grace and blessings as gifts freely given. We do not deserve to be shown great kindness and care by this Almighty God, yet we joyfully experience his love anyway.

Gratitude leads to true worship. Naaman, having been healed, asked permission to make a sanctuary in order to offer a sacrifice no longer to the pagan gods he used to worship but to the Lord of Israel alone. The Samaritan likewise returned “glorifying God in a loud voice.”

Indeed, gratitude leads to true worship. When we experience the undeserved grace of God, let our gratitude bring us into a meaningful worship of God. The Eucharist actually means thanksgiving and it is in fact the highest form of worship we offer to God. Let our celebration of the Eucharist then be truly a thanksgiving to the Father, through Jesus, the Son, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Let our celebration be marked by the joy of our grateful hearts. 

Not Counting the Cost (27th Sunday Ordinary C)

Can God ever be held indebted to us? When we render Him service, when we do sacrifices for him, when we offer him our lives under perpetual vows, for instance, have we done God a great favor? And does God, then, owe us his gratitude? Can we make a claim on God? Can we demand from him his kindness and mercy as if these were due to us by right?

(photo from http://newsinfo.inquirer.net)

Don’t we usually expect God to be generous to us or to be ready to grant our prayers precisely because we have been faithful to his commands? Human as we are, we do tend to view our relationship with God, as we view our human relationships, within the framework of commutative justice. We somehow see our relationship as a contract between two parties: I render you my services, my time, and my skills and you, in turn, give me the compensation that I deserve. Because of this mentality, many a times we demand as a right some recognition and reward for the good things that we have done. And if we do not get what we have expected, we turn sour and we become unhappy and we begin to lose our enthusiasm in serving.

Yes, we expect God to act within our concept of justice so much so that many times we cry “unfair!” when our expectations are not met. Or we simply and secretly harbor an ill feeling deep within us. But we need to understand that we drag God into this talk of justice only because we have been oblivious of the fact that whatever resources we harness in serving, like our skills, energy, talents, time, even our lives, are not ours but God’s. Even the very opportunity to serve is a graced moment offered to us by God. We demand reward because, in the first place, we have failed to see that everything that we have and are is a gift.

The vocation to serve as a duty. The parable of the homecoming servant in today’s gospel reading (Lk 17:5-10) sheds light on the right attitude called for by our Christian vocation to serve. In the parable, the master does not invite to sit with him at table his servant who just came home from working in the field. Rather, he asks the servant to prepare the table for him and wait on him while he eats. The fact that the servant has already worked in the field does not give him a claim of gratitude on his master. Those who render services for which they are employed deserve nothing more than what the terms of the agreement provide.

This is also true to Jesus’ disciples. In Jesus’ words: “When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do’” (v. 10).

The vocation to serve as a gift. The point of the parable is that our Christian vocation is itself a gift. Our act of serving, as a vocation, does not give us a claim on the Lord. In the words of Roland Faley, TOR: In being the beneficiaries of God’s saving work in Christ, his followers are already “gifted”; anything to which they are subsequently called as Christians is, as might be said, done “in the line of duty.”

Hence, we cannot rightly demand God’s added favor and graciousness as due to us. Yet, God is in fact gracious to us. And this is not because He owes us. His grace is always free. It is freely given—a gift. We don’t work for it; we even do not deserve it. So these good things that come to us in our Christian life ought to be received in the spirit of gratitude. Since God does not owe us anything, his favor, when it pours, should always catch us by surprise.

Generosity in serving. As Christ’s true disciples then, the right disposition in living out our vocation to serve is that of generosity and self-giving. Let us be inspired by the prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola:

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

If only we can all take this prayer to heart, we can accomplish many more great things for God’s kingdom here on earth.

Looking back, what are the things which I refused to actively engaged in because I counted the cost or I did not see the reward I expected to get out of it?

What were those moments when I felt unhappy serving or I harbored ill feelings because I was not given “due” recognition?

A story to end: A friend of mine who takes the gospel seriously in her life shared to me her experiences in serving as a volunteer in the evacuation centers in Zamboanga during that historical "Zambonga Siege." While distributing food to the evacuees, it became apparent to her that many of the families she was serving were most likely families of those who attacked the city. They were mostly women and children. She began to feel angry and tempted to stop serving. But she continued because, according to her, the gospel imperative was very clear to her. Even if she found no reward in what she was doing, even if she was battling with her own disturbing emotions, she could not turn her back to her calling to serve those who are suffering at present.

This friend of mine has made me confident that, indeed, there are still true disciples of Christ who are ready to tell anyone, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.”