GOOD FRIDAY

Are you willing to sell an organ of your child so you can have money to buy a car? The caveat is that, this car which costed you of your child’s organ is not even for you or for your child but for the same person you sold the organ of your own child. Who is in his right mind will do that? This is absolutely absurd and makes no sense at all. And yet, God did it today – Good Friday.

Yes, what God has done today is to offer his own life as the final sacrifice as a ransom for our sins. He did not just offer an organ or part of Jesus, his own son but his very life. In Jesus’ time, people are used to offer animal sacrifices to the temple and depending on the kind of sacrificial offering, they will have to repeat the offering over some time as they “expire.” Jesus’ blood has become the only necessary offering to atone for our sins that will last eternally.

What good can come from a man being nailed to the cross and hung from a tree? If there is one lesson we must learn from what Jesus did on the cross today is for us to see how far God will go to show us how much he loves us. In our world today, we have 2 ways of measuring things. First, by using the objective/universal standard. We measure things using a universally accepted and verifiable standard like weight, volume, size, number of hours, market value, depreciated value, etc and all these have corresponding prices and equivalent trades. Second is the subjective/personal standard. We measure things by how much it is worth to the giver like, an old watch given to you by your father or an earring from your mother. The equivalent trade is not measured by the universal standard. Biblically, the best example is the widow’s mite who gave two small copper coins. Not much in value if we measure using the objective/universal standard but more precious according to the words of Jesus himself because the widow gave everything she has and out of love for God. Do we measure his love for us on what it’s worth, by regarding him as a historical figure of the past and his life has nothing to do with us? Or we measure it by how much he means to us on a personal level?

God did what he did because he desires our good. He wants us to share in his divine love. Through out Jesus’ public ministry, he always say “behold, the kingdom of God has come….” He taught us to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom. This is not God upgrading his offer of promised land ver. 2. Nor to disregard our earthly life because we will enter heaven after this miserable life as the new testament version of promise land. He means we can also have God’s kingdom here on earth and this is characterized by having peace in our lives. The peace of Christ that the world can’t offer.

Peace can only exist if love and justice prevail. This is the mission of the Church were all of us are part of. We show love by feeding the poor, the homeless, visiting the sick, giving clothes to the naked and by proclaiming the gospel of Christ through the witness of our lives. We call these the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. But we also work together so that the poor, the homeless and vulnerable will have the opportunity to live descent lives by upholding the Church’s social teachings centered on the dignity of life and preservation of the common good and we call this our work for justice.

When we look at our world today, especially the pandemic COVID-19 happening, we can see that God has allowed a microscopic virus to bring us all to our knees. Regardless how much “self made money” we have in our bank, how popular we are, how powerful we are, how politically connected we are or how prestigious our corporate title is, we realize that all those don’t matter. This is not about who we are and what we have done or what we can do. This is not about how good we are. This is not about us.

Our charity and works of justice are not our participation on the redemption of the world. We don’t need to save the word, Jesus did that for us today. We do these not because God needs us, but all these we do because we need God. “There we shall rest and see, we shall see and love, we shall love and praise. Behold what will be at the end without end. For what other end do we have, if not to reach the kingdom which has no end?” St. Augustine

God is alive, he loves us not because we are good but because he is good. Blessed the name of the Lord!

#lent2020

Where Were You?

We can’t discount the horribleness of the evil that is happening around us especially when it hits us really close to home. When you are the one affected or somebody close to you. Especially when we don’t find any meaning or sense in the pain, loss and/or suffering. Sometimes, it is easier to accept when tragedy happens to other people especially the “bad” people and we will just say “karma.”

If we come to think of it, we are always double standard. We are easy to judge who is “bad” or not and who is deserving. We probably don’t realize that our self defined standard of morality is broken because of our own sins. This is the reason why people when confronted with this reality resist the message. Because of sin, our eyes are calloused and our hearings are selective. The scriptures speak of this not only once but on several occasions across many generations - Isaiah 6:10: Jeremiah 5:21: Ezekiel 12:2: Matthew 13:15: Acts 28:27 ... “you have eyes and ears but fail to see and hear.”

Like Job, the easiest way out to unburden once self is put the blame on God. If God is good, why does he allow pain and suffering happen to good people? Why in the sense he seems to not care? As we see, this issue of pain and suffering has been asked since time immemorial. What is fascinating is how God answered Job in his questions – Job 38 4-7:

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

If I am to tear the pages of the bible in Luke chapters 22 and 23 and hand it over to somebody who has not read any single paragraph of the bible lest, not know the Christian God, what would he say? If the highlights of our lives are just zeroed in on our own misery, pain and suffering, are we not missing to tell the whole story here? How about the joy you have brought to your parents when your born, you had your first step? How about the people in your life which you have shown kindness and are grateful that have met you? Are those to be taken for granted? Are those joy and beauty experienced by others and in your own experience of joy and beauty that others brought to your life inferior and subservient to the pain and suffering you have now? Has the beauty of your life stopped because of your pain?

We are a generation of confused people. Our biggest problem is we listen to the lies of the devil and we are easily deceived. There are even some from among our ranks, promising to ease our pain. This is the reason why we don’t know the value of sacrifice and sacrificial offering. We have been deceived that pain is all bad and we forgot that it is a gift from God. This is the reason why those who have colon cancer, 97% of the time when it is discovered they are already terminally ill. Why because you don’t feel any pain. If you don’t feel the pain of appendicitis, you will die too.

Pain is a gift, sometimes it is temporary to wake us up and tell us there is something wrong. I need to repair my relationship with my spouse, children, neighbor… and sometimes it is permanent and God given. I don’t have an explanation how he chooses the bearer and I don’t want to attempt to know. The only thing I know is that it is meant to bring glory to His name. The only attitude necessary here then is to thank God for trusting you to give him this glory.

Our life with its joy and pain are all beautiful. It should shout joy and glory to God and let us all be thankful. The Israelites didn’t reach the promised land until they are done wandering in the desert for 40 years (time of completion). We too, when God deemed our life completed here on earth, we will enter the promised land where sin, death, pain and suffering have no more sting – eternally!

Religious and Spiritual

One of the greatest tragedies of modern Catholicism is that as Catholics we are no longer considered a spiritual people (Matthew Kelly – Rediscovering Catholicism). There are some who agree with the famous meme in you tube some years ago about being spiritual and not religious. That being spiritual can be achieved and that is the ultimate goal of our life's journey. I believe that we can't be spiritual without being religious, while I agree that we can be religious but not spiritual, another tragedy in the modern day faith

Many of us have forgotten that we are a communion of body and soul. That as the soul yearns for God, the body finds a way to express that yearning and that is expressed by our reverence and awe of what is beautiful, true and good, the love of the sacraments and the exercise of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy which now make us “religious.”

Modern man has always tried to find new ways and means to improve our living. We have advanced in science and technology by leaps and bounds and they are all good. This is a fulfilment of God’s mandate to man when He says to Adam "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Gen. 1:28.

We have become, as God has designed it: pro-creators. When you read the creation story, from Genesis chapter 1 up to a few verses of chapter 2, you will realize that God has created everything from nothing. Things and beings come into existence with God just saying “let there be…..” However, as pro-creators, we can also create something but only coming from what God has already created. Chairs come from trees that God has caused into being. We can also notice that other living creatures can create same as man. The difference is that they don’t evolve. Birds 10,000 years ago still build their nest the same way they build their nests now. While the materials maybe different but the technology has remained the same. Unlike man (“people” as Justin T would correct me if he reads this), we have improved our level of sophistication in creating things. Buildings become taller and taller, aircrafts becoming more sophisticated, medicines are discovered to cure where 100 years ago can’t be cured. And yet we still create from something what God has blessed us with.

The good news is, when we pursue our side of getting or being spiritual, we can turn to all proven ancient practices. We don’t need to “re-invent the wheel” so we can find that right expression of our love for God. Early Christians and modern day saints have one common denominator, their love of the sacraments and the sacramentals. The Eucharist, regular confession and praying the rosary and devotion to Blessed Mary. We can also grow by leaps and bounds in our spirituality and reach that perfection and greatness God has called and destined all of us.

To God be the Glory!