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.”

The Face of God’s Mercy (24th Sunday Ordinary C)

 

About six years ago, an appalling P10-billion pork barrel scam was exposed. It was said to be masterminded by Janet Napoles involving a number of our “honorable” lawmakers and other high-profile officials.  Everyone then was understandably dissociating from her.  A mere photograph in the past that showed posing with her all smiles at a party or any function became regrettable as it would raise public suspicions of complicity with the revolting corruption she was tied with. Nobody wanted to be seen hanging around with her anymore.

Our keen hypocritical sense nudges us to keep a distance from those we consider sinners because it is shameful and detrimental to our already damaged “reputation.”

In the light of today’s readings, particularly the gospel (Lk 15: 1-32), it’s possible to imagine Jesus doing what everybody else is avoiding—dining and probably enjoying the picture taking with the scam mastermind in front of all the raised eyebrows around. 

The gospel reading today depicts Jesus hanging around with the public sinners of his time who were drawing near to listen to him. A complaint from the observing religious sectors goes this way: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (v.2). This passage may be approached from two vantage points, that of the self-righteous and that of the sinner.

In fact, this statement comes from the self-righteous religious groups of Jesus’ time. As such, it is a criticism of Jesus’ act. The Pharisees and Scribes are scandalized by Jesus’ association with the sinners. For them, it is important to maintain a distance from sinners as purity is their most important vow and brushing elbows with the sinful is risking contamination. From where they stand, the act of Jesus is unbecoming of a holy man. They expect Jesus to act like them, i.e., to shoo away the sinners as one drives away a leper.

From the stand point of the sinners, however, their experience of Jesus mingling and dining with them is an experience of profound hope, the experience of the Good News. When the institution of their religion has virtually closed the door of salvation for them, they experience in Jesus the God who seeks them out when they are lost. They experience a God who does not condemn but saves.  Jesus’ act of spending time with the sinners is their invitation to conversion and their assurance that God’s mercy is available for them.

The three parables, that of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son, have a common message: God rejoices over a sinner who repents and turns back to Him. In the parables, Jesus probably intends to depict unrealistic reasons for the joyful celebration, like inviting the neighborhood for a feast because a coin is found.  Jesus’ message could be that God’s mercy, in human reckoning, is unrealistic and illogical. The ways of God in dealing with the sinners is far beyond our ways.

Especially the self-righteous, represented by the elder brother in the parable of the lost son, cannot understand the father’s merciful and unquestioning acceptance of the wasteful and irresponsible sibling. And it’s much harder to find any rhyme and reason in the joyful celebration of a banquet with his return. The self-righteous has his own logical standards and moral parameters; and the problem with this is that God’s mercy does not work in accordance with this standard or parameter. Hence, the self-righteous, while trying to maintain an exacting and high sense of justice in life, is in great danger of missing out on the abundance of God’s mercy.

On the other hand, the sinners receive God’s mercy as a welcome surprise like the experience of the prodigal son being embraced by the father and unquestioningly reinstated as a son after having turned away from him. The sinners real sense of unworthiness may find God’s forgiveness incredible but the same experience of humility makes sinners recognized their thirst for forgiveness and their absolute dependence on God’s graciousness.

Let us avoid self-righteousness. It is the surest way not to experience the mercy of God, not because there is lack of it, but because our conceit doesn’t allow the ocean of God’s mercy to flow into our hearts.

Our invitation is clear: Let us celebrate hope in spite of our helplessness as sinners. We may be naturally incredulous of the vast mercy of God revealed by Jesus but let us embrace it anyway or, more correctly, let us allow the God of mercy to embrace us as a father embraces his child with love.

We are in many ways like J. Napoles, only with different forms and degrees of sinfulness perhaps. It is consoling to remember that Jesus would always love to dine with us and allow us to take pictures with him in spite of our horrible reputations. He does not dissociate from us because we are sinners. On the contrary, he invites us to be in fellowship with him, to trust in God’s mercy, confessing with total surrender our sins that we may regain the newness of life that we have wasted and lost. Indeed, Jesus is “the face of the Father’s mercy” (Misericordiae Vultus, 1).

Through the Eyes of Mary (Easter Sunday ABC)

One beautiful expression of popular piety on Easter Sunday is the holding of the Encuentro.  It is held at early dawn to commemorate the meeting between Mary and her risen Son.  The image of Mary veiled in black symbolizing her sorrow is accompanied by the procession of women while the image of the Risen Christ is accompanied by men.  The meeting of the images is then dramatized to portray the joy that dispels the sorrow of Mary as she meets her risen son.  

This joyous encounter is not mentioned in the Gospels.  But for St. Ignatius of Loyola the meeting between Mary and the Risen Lord is considered to be common sense.   In his book, The Spiritual Exercises, one of the contemplations on the Resurrection deals with what for him would have been Jesus' very first appearance after rising from the dead.  Common sense tells us that such an appearance would have been to his Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary who had been actively present in all of his life, from womb to tomb. Indeed, this might be the reason why Mary’s name is not mentioned in the list of women who went to the tomb on Easter dawn.  Mary had no need of visiting the tomb, for Jesus had appeared to her.

Easter joy through the eyes of Mary. During my 30-day Ignatian retreat, I did this contemplation and realized that the best way to experience the joy of Easter is to see the mystery of the resurrection through the eyes of Mary.  If there was one person who suffered most the excruciating pain of watching Jesus being humiliated and violently slaughtered on the cross,  it was certainly no other than his mother, Mary.  It is not difficult to see Mary’s heart to have been torn into pieces as she witnessed the passion and death of her son.  The darkness of Good Friday was most oppressive to Mary as a mother who watched his son died violently. Yet Mary had always been a woman of faith.  She had always kept everything about Jesus in her heart and pondered on them.  She had always believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled. Hence, while reeling from her deepest sorrow for Jesus’ death, Mary had been strengthened by hope and anticipation.  On Easter dawn, the sorrow of Mary turned into rejoicing and joy.  Any mother can empathize with this indescribable joy of embracing once again a son who had victoriously overcome death with a glorious eternal life.

In my own contemplation of the meeting between Mary and the Risen Lord, I shed a river of tears--tears of tremendous joy—and sang along with the rejoicing Mother: “Ang puso ko’y nagpupuri, nagpupuri sa Panginoon. Nagagalak ang aking espiritu sa ‘king tagapagligtas!” Indeed, as the psalmist chants, today we all rejoice, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad” (Ps 118). Alleluia!

As we participate in the Encuentro, we are invited to experience the joy of Easter through the eyes of Mary. Pray for the gift of that joy.  Unlike any fleeting ecstatic emotion, this gift of joy stays in our heart as disposition and shapes the way we live as followers of the Risen Christ.  This joy is to be our character as Easter people.  But how do we nurture this precious Easter gift of joy? Let me suggest three ways:

First, Sunday Renewal.  The Lord’s Day, the day of his resurrection, is our day of gathering as an Easter community.  Let this weekly anniversary enkindle the joy in our hearts as we celebrate the Eucharist. We are a community of witnesses.  According to Peter in our first reading (Acts 10: 34a, 37-43): “This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” The Eucharist is a privilege event for us whom God has invited to be witnesses of the living Lord. We encounter the risen Lord as a community when we break bread in his memory.

Second, Heralding Forgiveness.  We are called not just to the joyful fellowship among us but also to reach out to those whose lives have been deprived of joy.  There’s just so much suffering around us because of sin and its unfortunate consequences.  Only forgiveness in the name of the risen Lord can overcome the power of sin.  Peter continued to speak in our first reading about our commissioning to testify about Jesus Christ. We are to be heralds of forgiveness in the name of Jesus. And experience tells us that one of our deepest joys is the experience of being forgiven and of having forgiven. Forgiveness sets us free from the chain of sin. Such is an Easter event.

Third, Cultivating Humor.  A sign of resurrection faith is humor.  Humor rests on the confidence that even if things do not seem to go well, everything will be alright. We do not have to control everything in life.  As Richard Gula puts it, “…humor is about perceiving discrepancies and incongruities in daily life, about embracing absurdities in human experience without granting them the last word. Humor enables us to let go of control and to sit more lightly on life by not taking ourselves too seriously.”  Our gift of Easter joy can be nurtured as we cultivate our sense humor, as we develop our capacity to laugh at our imperfections and even at our miseries for we know they do not define our destiny.

Mary of Magdala, Peter, and John saw the empty tomb of Jesus on Easter morning.  Later and gradually, they would understand its meaning.  The tomb is empty because the Lord lives! The risen Lord will soon appear to the disciples. On that Sunday morning though, the beloved Son had to console his sorrowing mother who had always been there for him. If we could only witness such a moving encounter, we would have a real taste of the tremendous and indescribable joy of Easter.