Vigilance (19th Sunday Ordinary C)

What would you be doing if today were to be your last day?

Perhaps you would drop all your non-essential preoccupations and spend your precious time, instead, with your loved ones to tell them you love them. Or visit your friends and thank them for the joy and support they have given you throughout life. Ask forgiveness from those whom you have caused pain and forgive those who have hurt you. Donate your possessions to those who are in need. Entrust everything to God as you spend silent moments in prayer. Etc.

When we are given a deadline in life, we gain a new perspective. We see things—the essential things—more clearly. And we gain a sense of urgency to fulfill these essential things lest we end up with irremediable regrets. But the problem is we don't often have a sense of deadline in life. We peacefully live with the illusion that we always have more time to do what is important, so that many of us have developed a ma ñana habit, eternally postponing for tomorrow what we ought to do today. Still some of us resort to sloth, or the " Juan Lazy " way of life, having less and less enthusiasm and energy for life's purpose and mission. Still others wait for the last minute to act, so they are always panicky and stressed rushing things in order to beat the deadline as it comes.

Vigilance. The gospel today (Lk 12:32-48) gives us that sense of deadline by reminding us of the coming of the Son of Man. Biblical scholarship suggests two meanings of this coming: One is the Parousia which is the second coming of Christ as our Judge to put a conclusion to the narrative of history and the other is the coming of our Lord in our personal death to conclude our earthly pilgrimage. In the parable of the servants awaiting their master's return from a wedding (v. 35-38), the servants are exhorted to be vigilant and prepared for the hour of the master's coming. The subsequent parable of the unexpected coming of a thief (v. 39-40) makes the point clear that the moment of the coming of the Son of Man is unknown: "You must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come" (v. 40).

Hence, we know there is a deadline but we don’t know when exactly is that moment when we will have to face our ultimate Judge either as a people or as an individual. The message then is clear: We must be prepared at all times. This is what vigilance means. Our universal call to holiness, to goodness, to human responsibility, to integrity, to love must be heeded not at the eleventh hour of our lives. In the first place, we often do not know when the eleventh hour is. Our call has to be heeded every day. We ought to fulfill what kind of persons we are called to become each and every day of our lives.  We cannot afford to procrastinate and decide to be good, generous, honest, holy and loving when we are already old and about to die. Our invitation is to develop habitual dispositions of goodness, integrity, holiness and love. This is how we make ourselves prepared always for the coming of the Lord.

Our initial question about what we would do on our last day is after all not a good question to start with. For it is not what we do on our last days that we are asked to be concerned about. That we should hurriedly catch up on doing important matters on the eleventh hour just betrays our lack of enthusiasm, sincerity, and commitment to our responsibilities as we moved on with life. Rather, it is what we have become at the end of our lives that counts most as we face our Judge. The process of becoming is not done on a single day or on the last day. The process requires every day. We become the kind of persons the Lord calls us to be as we commit to the values of the Kingdom every single day of our lives. This is vigilance.

What kind of person you shall have become when the Lord comes? This may guide and inspire us better to be faithful to our commitments every day.

Faithfulness and Prudence of a Steward. The last of the parables in today’s gospel (v. 42-48) suggests that upon his arrival the Master looks for his faithful and prudent steward. If He finds him being so, the Master will put him in charge of all his property. But if that servant abuses his Master’s trust, the Master will come unexpectedly and will mete out severe punishment and will assign this worthless servant “a place with the unfaithful.”

We are asked to become a faithful and prudent steward. What have we been entrusted with by the Lord? It is important that we understand that whatever is given us is meant for the service of God’s people. The authority, wealth, talents, skills, and other charisms we may have been given ought not to be abused through irresponsibility and self-centeredness. All of these are entrusted to us that we may serve well. We have to develop them and use these gifts every day not only for our own good but for the good of others and for the greater glory of the Master.  

When the Master arrives unexpectedly, be it on Judgment Day or on our own personal death, may we be found ready and worthy to be entrusted with all God's heavenly treasures, ready and worthy to recline at the table of God's heavenly banquet.

Of Vanities and Foolishness (18th Sunday Ordinary C)

Somebody sent me this piece of thought via facebook : The three stages of life—Teens. You have all the time and energy but no money; Workers. You have money and energy but no time; Oldies. You have money and time but no energy.

If the meaning of life were to be sought in purely materialistic terms, there is the inevitability of ending up with a pessimistic conclusion: Life is absurd and tragic. When the Dalai Lama was asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said: “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

The pessimism of Qoheleth in the first reading (Eccl 1:2; 2:21-23) expresses too the meaninglessness of man’s toil and anxiety of heart, as he would just leave his property to another who has not worked for it. For Qoheleth, “all things are vanity!” This pessimism propels us to search further for the enduring meaning of life. If material things and preoccupation with them leave our life in vain, what, then, makes a meaningful commitment and occupation in life?

The gospel reading (Lk 12:13-21) further presents what comprises our human folly. Christians ought to be wary of these three related forms of foolishness: Greed, Hedonism, and Materialism.

Greed.  Jesus, in the gospel, teaches the crowd: “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions” (v. 15). Greed is a selfish insatiable desire for more material things, more wealth, more possessions. At heart, it is a disordered love for created things. It is not farfetched, then, for St. Paul to regard greed as a form of idolatry (Col 3:5). Greed is foolishness because it loves deliriously the wrong object. This disordered love leads to frustration and not satisfaction: “Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction“ (Erich Fromm).

Hedonism. The parable of the rich fool alludes too to the foolishness of the hedonist philosophy in life. The character in the parable hoards his bountiful harvest in his new and larger barns and plans for a life of comfort and pleasure. The rich fool says to himself: “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!” There are people who subscribe to a philosophy that glorifies pleasure as the principle of a meaningful life.  Yet experience tells us that pleasure are passing and does not makes us truly happy. Making it the ultimate goal in life leads to suffering because it only ushers us to an endless cycle of frustrating attempts to satisfy our desires. The cycle can lead to destructive patterns of addiction and all of life may be wasted.

Materialism.  The parable concludes with the reminder of the foolishness of materialism: “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?” (v. 20).  Our contemporary lifestyle is materialistic. We are made to believe, by way of advertisements, that a good life is one that has acquired the latest gadgets, cars, and stuffs. Hence, we get up every day pursuing “earthly treasures,” accumulating more and more of material things.  We ignore the deepest longing and spiritual yearning of our hearts, hence we are never happy. And we will never be, as long as we persist in our foolish quest: “Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God” (v. 21).

In both the first reading and the gospel, the death of the man whose life is preoccupied with material pursuit exposes the vanity and foolishness of such preoccupation. Death, indeed, reveals to us what is essential. It gives us a clear perspective. I would like to suggest two Christian perspectives discernible in our readings today as our invitation: Christian Stewardship and the perspective of freedom.

Stewardship.  Material possessions and wealth are not evil in themselves. Rather, they are gifts entrusted to us by the abundance of nature and God’s providence. They have instrumental value. They are a means to our end, not our goal itself. They help us fulfill our mission. When material things are entrusted to us, we are invited to be a responsible steward. In the spirit of gratitude and generosity then, we are to share what we have been given to those who are in need.  Sharing becomes our way of loving. And we don’t love things; we love God and neighbor.

Freedom.  In this materialistic era, Christians ought to heed the gospel’s invitation to grow in freedom—freedom from and freedom for.  We need to be freed from our greed which enslaves us to our material desires. When our possessions possess us, we become slaves and no longer responsible stewards. We need to grow in our freedom from our inordinate attachments to created things. This allows us to be free for the Creator himself.  Real freedom is freedom for God, that capacity to choose God as our fundamental option and to love God above all else with ease. We are invited to grow in this ability to commit to “what matters to God,” to expend our energies in toiling for what endures—the real treasures in heaven.

When life is unreflected, it is not worth living. But when it is lived according to the gospel values, life finds its enduring meaning. It ceases from becoming a pitiful affair of vanities and foolishness.

 

Teach Us to Pray (17th Sunday Ordinary C)

Many people today do not pray. The commonest reason perhaps is this: “I’m too busy.” There are just too many concerns and demands from work and too little time. Another reason is from the restless young people: “Prayer is boring. We want adventure.” Perhaps those who used to pray but have experienced some unanswered prayer would say: “I’m tired of praying. Prayer doesn’t work.” Those who believe in the Omniscience of God assume that God knows their needs. So there’s no need to pray; God provides anyway. And those who have an “I-did-it-my-way” complex assert their independence and self-sufficiency. For them, to bend one’s knees in prayer is a sign of weakness. Still others do not pray simply because they don’t know how.

Whatever our reasons for not praying are, we need to realize, as the gospel reading today (Lk 11:1-13) reminds us, that Jesus Himself, the Son of God, the Anointed One, the Savior of the world, always found time to be alone in prayer. Jesus believed in the power of prayer and saw its utmost importance as an integral part of his life and mission. Hence, he taught his disciples how to pray.

In Jesus’ teachings on prayer in the gospel reading today and in Abraham’s persistent haggling with God in the first reading, we can discern some forms of prayer and some essential inner dispositions that we ought to consider for the growth of our prayer life.

Praise and Worship. The “Lord’s Prayer” may be seen as having two parts. The first part consists of praising and worshiping God as our Father whose name we glorify and whose reign we desire in our lives. As our Father, He is acknowledged as the source of what we have and are. We accept his sovereignty in heaven and on earth. Jesus himself had always submitted to the will of the Father. His life was a constant praise and worship of the Father.

Don’t we have our own reasons for praising and worshipping God, our Father? When we honestly take account of our blessings in life, it would be but a natural overflow of joy, gratitude and awe that we praise and worship the Lord. I’ve seen and joined some faithful who dance and sing with gusto their praises to the Almighty and All-loving God. It has always been an exhilarating experience, far from being boring.

Petition. The second half of the prayer of Jesus is focused on our needs. We call them petitions. We ask for our present needs, our daily bread. We ask for forgiveness of our past--our debts, trespasses, and forms of sinfulness as we commit to be forgiving to others too. And we ask to ensure our future with God by our deliverance from the evil one. In this prayer, we acknowledge that our present, past, and future depend on the graciousness and mercy of God.

Intercession. When our petitions go beyond our own needs and express the needs of others, we are offering intercessory prayers. We pray on behalf of others. We find ourselves doing this because we care for others. We are a community. We are one family. We have a common Father in heaven. The first reading (Gen 18:20-32), for instance, recounts how Abraham interceded for the people of Sodom. He persistently haggled with God, trying to save the sinful people from the impending destruction. The story shows that God actively listens to Abraham’s intercession.

A good model of petition and intercession is Pope Francis’ simple method of prayer using one's fingers:

"The thumb is the closest finger to you. So start praying for those who are closest to you. They are the persons easiest to remember. To pray for our dear ones is a “sweet obligation.”

“The next finger is the index. Pray for those who teach you, instruct you and heal you. They need the support and wisdom to show direction to others. Always keep them in your prayers.”

“The following finger is the tallest. It reminds us of our leaders, the governors and those who have authority. They need God’s guidance.”

“The fourth finger is the ring finger. Even that it may surprise you, it is our weakest finger. It should remind us to pray for the weakest, the sick or those plagued by problems. They need your prayers.”

“And finally we have our smallest finger, the smallest of all. Your pinkie should remind you to pray for yourself. When you are done praying for the other four groups, you will be able to see your own needs but in the proper perspective, and also you will be able to pray for your own needs in a better way."

Persistent Disposition. The parable of the importunate friend in today’s gospel highlights an important disposition in prayer: Persistence. Not that God requires to be badgered before He listens to our cries, but that our perseverance reveals the true desire of our hearts. We desire many things and many of which are not essential. Only that which is truly essential keeps us motivated and persevering. As we persevere in prayer, we realize that it is God himself, not just his blessings, that our heart yearns. This yearning cannot be turned down by a God who has yearned for us first and foremost.

Trust in God. Another essential disposition in prayer is trust in the goodness and wisdom of God. God is our Father; He is all-good and all-wise. If a sinful earthly father can still be trusted to provide good things to his children, how much more is the heavenly Father worthy of our total trust? When we pray then, we are entrusting our heart’s desire to the care of our loving and wise Father. I think this disposition of trust is what made Mother Teresa assert: “Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God…”

If still we don’t find ourselves drawn to prayer, let us make just one humble petition: Lord, teach us to pray.