A Million Dollar Question (21st Sunday Ordinary A)

The great Fr. Juan Sanz, who was a very patient spiritual director to me and was many other things to countless other people when he was alive, would remind me again and again of a basic Ignatian principle.  “If you were to serve God joyfully, you’ve gotta love Him most dearly. Okay? But if you were to love God dearly, you’ve gotta know Him first intimately.  Clear?”  This is the simplest and maybe the clearest way of explaining what St. Ignatius believed as the purpose of man’s life:  To know, to serve, and to love God. In this triadic calling, one element is foundational to the other; of all three, the most basic is to know God.

Do you know God intimately?

Today’s gospel reading (Mt. 16: 13-20) recounts a very significant moment in the life of Jesus’ disciples especially Peter and in the life of what was to become the Church.  In this gospel episode that transpired in the region of Caesaria Philippi, Jesus fires the million dollar question:  Who do you say I am? Maybe we can paraphrase this with “Do you really know me?”

But first, Jesus asks the disciples the easier question, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  The disciples are very quick to answer, most probably even in chorus trying to be the first to reply, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (v. 14).

It’s quite easy for the disciples to report to Jesus how people perceive him.  But Jesus’ real concern is not the opinion of other people.  If his disciples were to be the foundation of his Church, it is of utmost importance that they know him intimately and personally.  So Jesus fires the million dollar question.

“But who do YOU say that I am?”  This time no one answers... except the great Simon Peter. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”   Correct!  Jesus affirms Peter by assuring him that it is God the Father who reveals this truth to him for no “flesh and blood” (which means human power) can do it. On the basis of Peter’s profession, Jesus calls him “Peter,” the rock, who, right there and then, is designated as the foundation of the Church: “...and upon this rock I will build my church” (v. 18).

Peter’s intimate knowledge of Jesus is the very foundation of loving and serving God all throughout the centuries as the Church headed by Peter and his successors do what she is sent to do.

Again we can never overemphasize this crucial fact:  To know God intimately is of utmost significance to our relationship with God be it on the level of personal and individual or of collective and ecclesial.

Today, we may do well to allow the scripture to confront us too. “Who do you say I am?” What is our response to this? We probably notice that, as in the case of Jesus’ disciples, it is easier for us to describe God according to what we have heard, read, and seen from external sources.  We have plenty of opinions about God. Opinions from our parents, catechists, preachers, pastors, retreat directors, etc.  It would be a real tragedy in our spiritual and ecclesial life if for long we have been maintaining a relationship to an opinion of God.  God is not an opinion. God is not an important piece of information, a fact that our head considers.  God is not even a doctrine that we debate about or wish to memorize in an orthodox formula.

God is someone who loves us personally. God is someone who reveals himself to us inviting us to love him in return. To know this God is to encounter him in our life. Knowing him means experiencing him in quite a personal way.  For God, this is what matters and not so much our ideas and concepts about him. 

Again, the million dollar question: Who do you say I am? Like Peter, are we ready to give an answer to this yet?

Fr. Sanz taught me a secret:  “If you wish to know God intimately, ask for the grace.”  We can only know God as He allows it. We can only experience God as He reveals himself. No amount of unaided human insight can truly realize whom we are dealing with.  Peter knew who Jesus was because the Father revealed to him. The other disciples listened to the voices around them; hence, got the opinions of other people about Jesus.  Peter, however, listened to the voice inside him—the voice of God who reveals.

God is constantly communicating with us. He is a God who relates. In Trinitarian theology, some theologians propose that “relations” is an ontological property of God, meaning, God’s very being is relationship.  And indeed, the scripture reveals that God is love. Love cannot be in isolation. Hence, we can correctly assume that God constantly relates with us.  The only venue for such relationship to be meaningful is our human experience.  Therefore, to know God is to encounter him in our daily experiences.  Do we have time to examine where God is working in our life?  Do we find deeper meaning in our otherwise ordinary routine in life? Do we encounter God in what we do in life? What kind of a God does my life reveal to me? 

Again, the million dollar question: Who do you say I am?

Lord, give me the grace to know you intimately and personally so that, in knowing you, I can love you most dearly, and in loving you, I can serve you joyfully.

The God of Silence (19th Sunday Ordinary A)

God was not in the stormy wind rending the mountains and crushing the rocks, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire.  Elijah encountered God in the “sound of silence”—in the tiny whispering sound (1 Kgs 19: 9-13).

God’s presence in the ordinary day-to-day events. Almost always greatness is demonstrated by grandiosity—like the astounding display of a multi-million-peso worth of fireworks, the construction of a huge and dominating elaborate edifice, the preparation of an unparalleled hero’s welcome, etc.  Going by this line of thinking, we easily expect God to work in mind-boggling, nature-defying miracles or to reveal God’s self in awesome, jaw-dropping theophanies.  All because God is God; and God is great!

God can do this of course.  But God does communicate with us, more often than we ever notice, in a commonplace fashion, in a non-obtrusive way, in a tiny whispering sound as in the case of Elijah.  The problem is, most of us do not have the slightest suspicion that God in is the ordinary and everyday routine of our lives.  Furthermore, when God is silent, we easily take it to mean that God does not care at all.

God’s presence in the storms of life. In today’s gospel (Mt. 14:22-33), Peter and the other disciples encountered Jesus as a reassuring and calm presence amid the waves that tossed about their boat. “It is I; do not be afraid,” was the assurance of Jesus to his terrified disciples.

Today’s readings assure us of the abiding presence of God whether in our most trying moments or in the humdrum of our daily responsibilities. God is always with us.  God is maybe silent but not absent for sure.

Do I have faith in the God of silence?

Where is God when my only son committed suicide? Where is God when our livelihood and properties were all washed away by flood?  Where is God in my moments of unbearable pain wrought by this vicious cancer?  Where is God when my daughter, our only hope to rise from this miserable life, had an unwanted pregnancy? These can go on and on as an endless litany of other excruciating cries that betray our lack of trust in God whose silence we don’t understand.

Where is God during the storms of our lives?

We see the storm quite clearly as we tremble in fear; but we fail to notice the hand of God reaching out to us.  Just like Peter, when he got out of the boat and started walking on the water toward Jesus, he was distracted by the strong wind.  He allowed his fears to creep in and lost his focus on Jesus.  There and then, he started to sink (vv.  30).

This is true with our lives.  We focus on the storms too much.  God is left unnoticed.   We walk through life with so much burden and pain, insecurities and fears while all along God silently accompanies us, always reaching out his saving hand.  And we don’t notice it, perhaps, until we sink into the pit of despair and start to panic for dear life.

Our invitation is to see the saving hand of God in any storm of life. Like Peter, we need to fix our eyes on God and ask for God’s saving hand. What storm has been buffeting my life?  Do I have faith in the silent but reassuring presence of God seeing me through these difficult times?

May the readings today, make known to us the God of silence—the God whose presence is as unobtrusive as a faint sound of a whisper.  It is God’s silence that tests the sensitivity of faith on our part when we face the turmoil of our storms in life. God is with us either in the ordinary daily grind or in the most trying events of our lives. May this truth build our confidence in facing any storm in life. The Lord is just right there in the middle of the storm reaching out his hand to save us. “It is I. Do not be afraid.”

Jesus' Compassion (18th Sunday Ordinary A)

How do we muster the strength to continue being concerned with the needs and suffering of others when we ourselves are in pain and in sorrow?  Don’t we conveniently make our own suffering an excuse to be insensitive to others?  

I used to bring Holy Communion to an old lady way back my seminary formation days.  She had a son, her only child, who took care of her.  For about two years, I visited her at home every Sunday after mass.  She would gladly receive the Holy Communion.  She was very sweet to me.  One Christmas break, I missed to visit her for two Sundays as I was in vacation. During my absence, her only son died in an accident! So when I resumed my visit, I witnessed her grief and anger.  Her characteristic sweetness was gone. She would wail and raise hell as I entered her house and she would blame God—the merciless God—for the tragedy.  She refused to receive communion for several Sundays. She recovered later though.

When we are in pain we can be too self-absorbed to see the suffering of other people.  Oftentimes, we call attention to ourselves and demand sympathy. Worse, sometimes, we are rendered paralyzed unable to move on with life. Some would just give up on life and others would persist in cynicism.

Drawing strength from our suffering. Jesus is in pain in today’s Gospel (Mt. 14: 13-21). When He heard of John’s death, “He withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself” (v. 13). Well, the passage is a plain and simple report of a seemingly negligible gesture of Jesus.  It does not describe, for instance, how terrible Jesus feels.

While it does not explicitly say that Jesus is in grief due to a loss of a significant person in his life, the account, perhaps, leaves it to the reader who knows the relationship of John the Baptist to Jesus the Messiah to figure out how Jesus feels.  His forerunner is dead. Beheaded! The person who paved the way for his mission is murdered brutally.  Jesus must be in terrible sorrow.  This may indeed explain his withdrawal to a deserted place.

In this Gospel episode, we learn from Jesus that we need to wrestle with our grief and to feel our pain and sorrow.  However, we need not stay there.  We should not allow our suffering to suck the life out of us.  We’ve got to move on.  Instead of sulking and blaming others and God for our suffering, we better come to grips with the situation and turn our suffering into our very strength to understand the pain of others.

 

Compassion is "suffering with" others. I believe here lies the secret of the compassion of Jesus—He knows by experience how it is to suffer... to be in pain... to lose someone dear...  to feel the terrible anguish over some events that test our faith... to grapple with questions that shake our convictions.  I would like to believe that Jesus, while in solitude, makes it a point to be in touch with his own pains, anguish, and disturbing questions.  So that, when he disembarks from his isolation, he emerges as a person with a sensitive heart, one that easily sees the real suffering of the vast crowd, a heart that is easily moved with pity (v. 14). “Compassion” after all literally means “to suffer with.”

What are the significant forms of our own pain and suffering in life? What sort of persons have we become because of them? Have we turned into bitter persons or better ones?  Have we become cynical, grouchy, and unproductive persons? Or Hopeful, tender, and compassionate?

Compassion calls for self-giving. Moreover, the rest of the gospel episode reveals that Jesus’ compassion spurs him on beyond plain emotional and sentimental identification with the suffering of people.  He acts on what he sees and feels.  He cures the sick and feeds the hungry, accordingly about five thousand men not counting the women and children (v. 14-20).  

The event of the feeding of such a great number of hungry people tempts us to look at it easily through a miracle-worker understanding of Jesus.  Jesus manages to feed all of them because of his capacity for miracles.  Problem solved.  However, another way of approaching the episode is to consider it as a sacramental catechesis (favored by more commentators).  The feeding event points to the Eucharistic celebration as evidenced by the Eucharistic language--blessing... breaking... giving... (v. 19).  Jesus offers himself in the symbol of the bread.  He is the bread blessed, broken, and given for the sake of his people.

Jesus’ compassion is truly an act of “suffering with” his people.  It is not some magical solutions that he offers to ease the people’s suffering.  He does not believe in shortcuts.  Shortcuts are the devil’s strategy that calls attention to oneself by a display of power.  What Jesus offers is himself.  His compassion urges him towards total self-giving.  If the people are suffering, Jesus is right there with them suffering too as he empowers and gives hope by his sacrificial bestowal of self.

When we are in pain, we may do well to ask for the grace to draw from it the very strength we need to continue to be concerned about the suffering of people around us. And may we share in the compassion of Jesus, thus, helping us to muster the courage to be truly involved in giving hope to one another.