In God’s Loving Hands (Passion Sunday C)

There is a seeming contradiction within the liturgical celebration today. On the one hand, we start by re-enacting with joyous chants and with palms on our hands Jesus’ triumphant entry to Jerusalem. The reading before the procession (Lk 19:28-40) reminds us of the joyful welcome accorded to Jesus by his disciples as he entered Jerusalem. Surely they welcomed him as a king. They chanted thus: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in Heaven and glory in the highest” (v.38). Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem highlights his kingship. The mood is that of rejoicing and victory.

On the other hand, we later proceed in a sorrowful recounting of the crucifixion as a criminal of the same Jesus we hail as a king. “Crucify him! Crucify him!” This echoes disturbingly as the passion narrative goes on. And we listen to the account of Jesus giving up his last breath. The mood is, needless to say, sorrowful.

This seeming contradiction, I submit, is an excellent backdrop against which we can appreciate both Jesus’ resolve in turning down the people’s false expectations of him as a messiah and his unwavering trust in and submission only to the will of his Father.

We recall that the Lenten season begun with the readings on the temptations of Jesus in the desert (First Sunday of Lent). It is helpful to notice that truly the tempter haunted Jesus until his last moments. Towards the end of the passion narrative just before Jesus gave up his last breath, he would face his final temptation. Notice how similar is the test with that of the desert event: “Let him save himself, if he is the Messiah of God, the chosen one.” And “If you are the king of Jews, save yourself.” Finally, “aren’t you the Messiah? Then save yourself and us.”

The people, the soldier, and the criminal hanging on the cross challenge him to display his power. The challenge to save himself means to prove to the world that He is the one they have expected to come. The people’s joy on his entry to Jerusalem is laden with such expectations of a powerful messiah who will put an end to their oppression. If Jesus sees himself according to this expectation, then dying on the cross is out of the question; for dying means suffering the utter humiliation of defeat and meaninglessness. Indeed this is Jesus’ greatest temptation: To listen to the people’s challenge to save and prove himself; but in doing so, he will have to turn his back to the Father. His final temptation is to escape his death as it seems to lead to meaninglessness and to put things into his own hands.

But again Jesus’ total submission to the will of the Father prevails. Just before he expires, Jesus prays to the Father with so much trust in his love and fidelity: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Here Jesus has shown us that, even in the face of seeming meaninglessness and utter defeat, he has faith in the wisdom of the Father. In the depth of his passion and the unfathomable mystery of his own death, he believes in the love of his Father. He trusts that in the loving hands of his Father everything will turn out fine.

We know, of course from the vantage point of Easter, that Jesus is vindicated. But to go through the experience of suffering and uncertainty of Lent is essential for the development of our capacity to trust in God’s love and fidelity. We are always tempted to put matters into our own hands. We desire so much to end the suffering around us as to be tempted to do it in our own terms and solutions. Oftentimes we tend to put our trust in our own plans and schemes oblivious of what God truly wills. 

As we walk our own journeys of faith, especially in times of suffering and uncertainty, we are called to emulate Jesus' unwavering trust and obedience to the Father. When our plans seem thwarted, our expectations unmet, or our hearts heavy with anguish, we must remember that, like Jesus, we are invited to reaffirm our trust in God's love and fidelity. In this Jubilee Year, let us embrace our role as “Pilgrims of Hope,” supporting one another through our struggles.

Let us unite our sufferings with Christ’s own passion, then we can also share in his resurrection. Armed with unwavering faith, we can face life’s challenges, confident that God's grace will guide us through the darkest valleys and towards the light of Easter joy. May we always hold in our hearts the same trust that Jesus exhibited, knowing that in God’s loving hands, we will find our true path, leading us to the fullness of life.

Father, I am superficial. I don’t see beyond what meets the eye. I don’t always understand your ways. Grant me then the grace to trust in you always and submit things into your loving hands. Amen.

The Joy of Being Loved (6th Sunday Easter B)

We all tend to accept too readily the fact that, between the acts of loving and of being loved, the former is a lot harder.  We uncritically believe that being loved is a lot easier as it entails, so it seems, just being in the receiving end of the relationship.  However, the contrary may be true.  Fr. Joseph Galdon, SJ, in one of his reflections in the Mustard Seed, made this point too.  The position of being loved is more difficult because, contrary to the position of the lover, one is not in control of the decision to love.  While the lover may be certain about his love and knows well the depth, the height, the breadth of his love as all these spring from his own will,  the beloved—the one being loved—has to grapple with uncertainties regarding the authenticity of the love, the purity of the intentions, the duration of the commitment, etc.  While the former is in the position of control, so to speak, the latter is in the position that requires trust and hope.

This allows us to see that in our loving relationship with God, we may have been very concerned about our inadequacies in loving Him, when in fact our more fundamental difficulty is allowing ourselves to be loved by Him. All too often, our unhappiness springs from our realization that we have not loved God enough.  But the real problem is actually we find it hard to trust enough to allow God to love us the way He wants—and that is unconditionally. And when we fail to really experience the joy of being loved by God, where else do we find the strength, the inspiration, the desire to love God enough? Nowhere.  So we persist in our unhappiness.

Today’s first reading, from the first book of John 4: 7-10, reminds us of the real nature of loving: “In this is love: Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (v. 10).  God loved us first, even when we were sinners, even when we did not have the capacity to love him.

It is important then to ask ourselves, do we trust God’s initiative of love? Are we convinced that even if we are every inch undeserving of God’s love, He does love us anyway?

Hence, we see quite clearly that prior to the problem of our disappointing inadequacies in loving God is our inadequacies in allowing Him to love us in his terms.  We ought to remember that we love God only as a response to his initiative.  It is of paramount importance then that we be in touch with the way God loves us and experience the joy of being loved by Him.

The gospel reading today (Jn 15: 9-17), reveals three ways with which God loves us.  Let us reflect on these:

The way of sacrifice. God, through his Son, has given up everything for our sakes.  The greatest test of loving is total self-giving. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (v. 13).  Knowing how much God has sacrifice for our sake certainly can help us trust in such a love.  How come we have persisted in our doubts about the greatness of God’s love for us?

The way of friendship.  God has freed us from slavery of sin. We are no longer slaves.  God invites us to friendship with Him. “I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father” (v. 15).  What a great privilege to become privy to the “secrets” of God. God is offering us intimacy, the opportunity to know him and to remain in him as friends!

The way of preferential love.  God has chosen us to be his own.  It is not even us who chose him. In the words of the gospel today: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you” (v. 16).  God has chosen us to bear fruits and has promise us his providence. 

God loves us this much. And we have to allow ourselves to be loved by God this way.  We need to experience in life the full extent of God’s love for us... for only then we gain the power to respond to God with great love too.

“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete” (v. 11). In saying this, the Lord may have known that the surest way to disappointment and despair is for us to focus our awareness on the feebleness of our love for God.  But the surest way to great joy is relishing the experience of being loved by God and trusting that despite our unworthiness God loves us just the same. It is God’s love that makes us worthy of Him.

This is the joy of being loved!

Finding Joy in God (Gaudete Sunday B)

Christian life, we have to face it, is quite demanding.  We speak of high cost of discipleship, of carrying our crosses each day, of self-denial and self-sacrificing love among others.  Without the correct disposition, our life in the Lord can end up as listless, unhappy and exhausting commitment of self-giving.  In fact, stern faces and humorless outlook in life are not uncommon among many serious Christians we meet.  Needless to say, this joyless witnessing is a source of discouragement for others to take Christian faith seriously. How can we be attractive when there’s no joy in the life we lead?

Joy is an essential disposition of a true disciple.  The demands of Christian life have to be carried out with a joyful heart.  Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, is meant to remind us of the fact that always God’s presence in our life is a cause for rejoicing.  All Advent biblical figures attest to this. We hear Isaiah exclaims, in the first reading (Is 61:1-2, 10-11): “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul…” (v. 10).  Mary’s magnificat, too, is read as the responsorial psalm and we hear Mary exults: “My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit finds joy in God my savior” (Lk 1: 46).  We recall too, though not in today’s readings, John the Baptist leaping with joy in her mother’s womb as Elizabeth and Mary greeted each other.

Do we find joy in God? Allow me to offer three ways of finding joy in God—the joy of gratitude, the joy of ministry, the joy of surrender.

The Joy of Gratitude.  There is joy in thanksgiving. No doubt about it.  St. Paul, in our second reading, tells the Thessalonians to rejoice and pray always and give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thes 5: 16). Christian life may be demanding but even before we are faced with the demands of our commitments to the Lord, God has favored us first as “He has looked with favor on his lowly servant”, Mary, that she may be called blessed in all ages.  Isaiah’s joy too is one of gratitude as he attests: “for He has clothed me with a robe of salvation, and wrapped me in a mantle of justice” (Is. 61: 10).

When God asks our commitment, he sees to it first that he endows us with the gifts required for fulfilling what he expects of us.  When we see it this way, gratitude then is our first response to God’s goodness.  Whatever we do for God, we do it with the joy of a grateful heart.    

How often, deep in our hearts, we demand from God our reward for being good in this life! This we expect with a stern sense of entitlement oblivious of the fundamental fact that we have been blessed already prior to our achievements and that we are good only because God has been good to us first.  

Advent allows us to rejoice because of the goodness of God in our lives.  An important Advent preparation then is cultivating a grateful heart, one that truly brings forth joy, as it recognizes God’s favor on us.

The Joy of Ministry.  There is joy in serving.  We sure feel physically tired after serving, yet at the end of the day, we wonder why a serene sense of deep satisfaction invigorates us from within.  I believe it is the quiet and gentle power of joy that revitalizes us.

I once worked in a rural and mountainous parish with an aging missionary as my parish priest.  Because I was young, nimble and quick, all ministering that involved going through the rough roads and dangerous trails of the countryside were understandably left to my care.  Always upon my return from these difficult areas, the kind old missionary would come to me with much concern in his face making sure I was fine.  Sometimes, for one reason or another, I could not make it to the barrio, he would volunteer to go as we were left with no choice.  As he returned home, I would meet him to see if he was fine.  On those days, he surely looked tired and older but, to my amazement, a lot happier.  He would look at me beaming with a joyful smile and say, “I’m back and I’m great!”

Such is the joy of serving.  This I believe is the same joy that exudes and makes the face of Mother Teresa beautiful—more beautiful than the fresh and pampered faces of those hailed Miss Universe.

Do we find joy as we serve in our ministry?  In our professions?

The Joy of Surrender.  There is joy in trusting and in believing in the faithfulness of God.  This is the joy of placing our lives at the hands of the faithful God. 

Sometimes, in this result-oriented society we are living now, we can become control freaks.  We spend a lot of our energy making sure that everything goes according to our wishes and plans.  We begin to become strict, intolerant, stiff, unbending.  We lose our flexibility and spontaneity.  All because we want to see our design successfully materialized, our set goals met and our plans well-executed.  Failures and adversities have no place in our lives.  Yet, the fact is, they do happen.  Not everything goes according to our design.  Hence, our contemporary life is marked by stress and anxiety.

To surrender to God is liberating.  Filipinos are said to be the happiest people despite formidable adversities.  I suspect this is because we know how to place our lives into the hands of God.  “Bahala na!” in its positive sense expresses our trust in God’s providential care.  We trust that in God’s wisdom, everything will fit together, everything will make sense.  So we learn how to let go and let God and get a life.

In our Christian life it is not our own will but God’s will that matters most, not our own design but God’s design.  Advent reminds us that like the prophets and Mary who listened to God’s will and trusted in God’s fidelity, we too may do well to surrender to God.  There’s so much joy in it.  Promise.

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.”

Stop Worrying, Trust in God (8th Sunday Ordinary A)

I used to worry a lot. I was always on my toes and was often nervous. I was worried about what others would think of me, most especially, the ones whose opinion I deemed important in my life foremost of whom was my father. I was anxious about measuring up to expectations and worried that I might fall short.  This basic fear of not being appreciated or loved because of the feeling that even my best was not good enough spawned a lot more forms of useless worrying that made me quite unhappy.

But everything has changed.  The change all started when God became real to me—when I learned that what matters most is how God sees me, when I began to trust in God rather than in my own creativity, when I realized that God embraces me still lovingly even when I am at my worst.  Allowing God to be God of my life has given me tremendous peace of mind and joy in my heart. Indeed, there’s no use worrying when God is one’s refuge and fortress, God, in whom one trusts (Ps 91:2).

Today’s readings affirm my own journey to freedom.  With confidence, I extend to all with open minds and hearts the invitation of our Lord in today’s Gospel reading:  STOP WORRYING. TRUST IN GOD. Our readings offer us three assurances that free us from our worthless anxieties:

Stop worrying because God never forgets. The people of Israel were suffering in exile during the Babylonian captivity. They were losing hope and were ready to concede that God has abandoned them as recounted in our first reading (Is 49:14-15): Zion said: “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” But through the prophet Isaiah, God spoke his assurance: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”

God somehow is compared here to a mother.  A mother always cares for her child. But still a mother’s love may fail sometimes. We experience this failure more and more in our contemporary culture of death, when millions of mothers reject the baby in their womb. Then God assures us that even if a mother’s love fails, his love never fails. God never forgets his people.

When we experience being forgotten or unrecognized, we naturally worry about pleasing significant others in order to catch their attention. Worse, when we are abandoned by people who ought to care for us, we live day by day in insecurity, fear, and even anger. Today, God offers us freedom.  He assures us that He has not forgotten us. He cannot abandon us. Our names are etched in his palm.

Stop worrying. Seek the Lord. Open your heart to God. He has never forgotten you.

Stop worrying because God always provides.  In this consumerist society we have now, we worry a lot about material amenities in life. We worry even about things we actually do not need but want.  So we work like a horse not because we enjoy it but because we worry about many things.  Or even if we are not really materialistic, we still worry that we might not have the things we need to support ourselves and our family.  Hence, many are tempted or misled to serve mammon rather than God.

Jesus assures us in today’s gospel reading (Mt. 6:24-34) that God always provides. So he invites us to stop worrying.  Nature shows indubitable evidences of God’s sustaining care for the birds, the grass, flowers, etc.  We have to accept that we are far more important to God than these.  We are his children in Christ; He ensures all the more that we have what we need.

This assurance, however, does not encourage indolence or irresponsibility. Let us remember that the Lord praises the responsible steward. The Lord does not say “stop working.”  What he says is “stop worrying;” stop enslaving yourselves to your material pursuit to the point of ignoring God.  Only the non-believers worry for provisions in life because they do not believe in God. But we continue to work and plan for our present needs and that of the future without worrying.  Let us trust in the providence of God.  God surely brings our labor into fruition.

Stop worrying because God sees the goodness in your heart.  We worry about what people say of us; we stressfully live up to other’s high expectations of us. We worry about proving ourselves to others—that we are good or we are the best. We worry because we crave for the approving pat on our shoulders. We worry because we have come to believe that what others say of me matters most.

St. Paul, in the second reading (1 Cor 4:1-5), testifies that he does not worry about what other say of him: “It does not concern me in the least that I be judged by you or any human tribunal; I do not even pass judgment on myself; I am not conscious of anything against me, but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord” (v. 3-4).  For St. Paul, what matters to him is how God sees his heart. He believes that the Lord “manifests the motives of our hearts, and then everyone will receive praise from God” (v. 5).

Hence, we can stop worrying about what people say of us. Let us be good. Let us be good even if nobody gives us a pat on the back or even if others may maliciously misinterpret our goodness.  Let us be good and not worry. God sees the goodness in our hearts. This is what matters.   

Again, we can drastically improve the quality of our lives through the secret that Jesus has revealed to us:  STOP WORRYING. TRUST IN GOD.