Leave a comment

An extra mile in the Christian journey: Love and pray for our enemies

Posted by junix28 on February 23, 2014 in Homilies, Homilies and Reflections

Homily for 7th Sunday in Ordinary time year A 2014

dsc00924.jpgBetween April and June 1994, the world witnessed one of the horrific and heart- wrenching events in the world- the terrible genocide in Rwanda. It  was noted that within those 3 months, about  800,000 Rwandans were killed most of them were from the ethnic minority, the Tutsi population. It was also said that about three-quarter of the Tutsi population perished in that horrible act of genocide.  

One of the few survivors from the Tutsi ethnic group had an amazing story to tell. She wrote a book recording her ordeal called ‘Left to tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.’

Immaculée Ilibagiza, a Tutsi, was 22 years old and was a student of electrical and mechanical engineering when the genocide began. It was Easter time and she was there at home with her family when the Hutu death squads began their 3-month killing spree of any Tutsis all over the country and Immaculee’s family was brutally killed. She, together with 7 other women however, managed to hide in a 3 by 4 ft bathroom in the house of a local Christian pastor. It was just a miraculous thing that they were not found out by the murderers and there they remained hiding for 91 days.

“While in hiding, Immaculee struggled to cling to her sanity. She endured an intense internal battle between trusting in God and succumbing to paralyzing fear and despair. Nearly all of her waking hours were spent in prayer. But she realized that some of the words she recited rang hollow in her heart, particularly the words in the Lord’s Prayer about forgiving “those who trespass against us.” She felt hatred toward the killers and had dreams of revenge. My own prayers were about ‘Kill them! Kill them back! Take them to hell.’ I looked at them as animals; they weren’t people.” (cf:http://thedivinemercy.org/library/article.)

However, within those three months, something extraordinary happened to her. She found a glimmer of life and  of hope. With the help of a Bible and a Dictionary, she established a real and personal relationship with God at the same time she was learning English. She prayed the rosary many times everyday. Then she started to recognize and experience the power of God’s unconditional love which would later on become her main motivation to forgive even the man who killed her entire family except one brother of hers who was studying abroad. She said: “I realized that my battle to survive this war would have to be fought inside of me. Everything strong and good in me – my faith, hope, and courage – was vulnerable to the dark energy. If I lost my faith, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to survive. I could rely only on God to help me fight.” (cf Chapter 9 in the book Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza with Steve Irwin)

She hanged on the faith and continued to hope until she came out of hiding after 91 days.

Once freed she did one more extraordinary thing. She went to see the man who killed her family and offered her forgiveness to him. Incredible! She recalled: “His name was Felicien; he had been a successful Hutu businessman whose children I’d played with in primary school. I shivered, remembering that it had been his voice I’d heard calling out my name when the killers searched for me at the pastor’s house where I was hiding. Felicien had let the devil enter his heart, and the evil had ruined his life like a cancer in his soul. I was overwhelmed with pity for the man. I could feel his shame. I reached out, touched his hands lightly, and quietly said what I’d come to say. I forgive you.”(cf the book Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, p 203)

Saying ‘I forgive you’ must have been a difficult thing to say for her, considering that she has all the reasons to condemn the man who murdered her family. But the loving and forgiving God has been so real and personal in her life then that all she could do is to show and share that love and forgiveness especially to those who need it.

I’m sharing this story with you because this is just a beautiful proof  that  Jesus’ command in the gospel today (Matthew 5:38-48) ‘to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us’ is not only in the realm of the ideal, but that it is real, it is realistic and it is doable. Jesus is not only good in telling us this. He really did it himself even to the point of making justifications for his persecutors. One example of this is when he was there hanging on the cross, he prayed: ‘Father forgive them; for they know not what they do?’ (Luke 23:34).

In this and in many other instances in the gospel Jesus is showing us that loving our enemies and praying  for those our persecutors is indeed doable and thus it is one of our basic Christian duties.  In saying this Jesus is calling us to do something more than what the gentiles can do. And ‘in this way’ Jesus would  add we ‘will be sons and daughters of the Father in heaven’, unlike the gentiles who live as if there is no God.

The beauty of keeping this commandment of Jesus in our heart is that we become more Christ-like in all that we do and in all that we are. It’s not that we are playing ‘God’ or assuming the role as God, but we just become ‘living witnesses’ for God in the world. By doing this basic Christian duty to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors, we stand out as a person of God, as a person with God and as a person who has God as the meaning of our existence.

To love our enemies and to pray for our persecutors is not an easy thing to do, and even Pope Francis would agree with this. But this doesn’t mean we stop doing it or we keep it still as an ideal thing to do. But as Pope Francis would stress “we must do it”, otherwise we “will be like the tax collectors, like pagans. Not Christians.” (Pope Francis reflection on Tuesday, 18 June 2013)

Who is/are our enemy or enemies?

First of all, we need to know who our enemies are. Our enemies are not necessarily those whom we don’t like. We may say ‘we don’t like that certain celebrity’, but that doesn’t mean that person is now our enemy. No. Our enemies are those who make life difficult for us. This includes people who may be against what we are doing for God, or standing on our way to witnessing for God and for serving others. It is important to note though that this doesn’t include loving the devil, or prohibited drugs, or alcohol addiction, though the devil, drugs, and addictions of any kinds are our enemies truly.

We need to know the distinction here. As I have mentioned above, our enemies are those who are making life difficult for us. The devil  however, is not only making life difficult for us, but he makes life impossible for us. Thus, the devil could never be worthy of our love because what he brings is eternal death not life. This is true too with taking prohibited drugs, alcohol addiction among others. Prohibited drugs and alcohol addiction are not giving life, but taking life away. They are killing those people who are indulged into them  softly.

How can we love our enemies?

Jesus would say in the gospel ‘Pray for those who persecute you’.

Pope Francis made a prayer for us to use in praying for our persecutors. ‘Say to God’ the Pope said: ‘Change their hearts. They have a heart of stone, but change it, give them a heart of flesh, so that they may feel relief and love.’ It’s amazing because my prayer for my ‘enemy’ before is more or less like what the Pope composed.

As human as I am, I also begrudged a person before for the reason that the person betrayed my trust and confidence. It came to the point that I became so negative on my attitudes towards that specific person. I even ‘gloried’ if I heard other people speaking negatively about the person. But then one day I realized I was a ‘monster in the making’ because of the hatred, the feeling of taking avenge I felt inside. So I decided then and then to stop it and instead began to pray for the person. This is how I prayed: ‘Lord, I don’t like this particular person you know that. But anyhow, bless this person as you have blessed me. Make this person feel your love and care for him. You know what is in his/her heart. He/she may just have some issues to deal with in him/herself.’ This has been my prayer for a while because you know it doesn’t happen overnight. But overtime, the feeling of hatred has faded away, and changed into care and concern for the person. My prayer was answered.

Why do we strive to love our enemies?

Because as Jesus said by loving and praying for our enemies we will be sons and daughters of God and this means that we learn to look at one another in the same footing (no poor, no rich, no superior, no inferior) just as God the Father sends his rain or let the sun rise to everyone regardless of who we are. By loving our enemies, we are giving them another chance to grow and mature as a person.

Immaculee Ilibagiza loved her enemy by praying for him, reaching out to him and forgiving him with all her heart.

Jesus showed his love for his enemies by dying for the salvation of all, his ‘enemies’ included. As followers of Christ, we can expect no less.

We might say, forgiveness doesn’t work in my case, well I would challenge you to show me  how NOT forgiving works in you. In the case of Immaculee, forgiveness sets her free from hatred and vengeance. For Jesus forgiveness not only cleanse us of our sins  but it also assures us of the key to eternal  life.

As Christians, it is our mission to be forgiving, to be loving as God loved us unconditionally, and to be praying for those who made life difficult for us. We have the ways, we have the means, all we need now is the will to do it.

Sources: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/surviving-genocide-in-rwanda/article_96918d39-2766-50c4-ba6a-08c50e2a60ba.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1288230.stm

http://www.immaculee.com/about/story.php

http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/genocide_in_rwanda.htm

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/06/18/all-christians-are-obliged-to-love-their-enemies-says-pope-francis/

Tags: , , , , , Permalink
Leave a comment

Walking in the path of Jesus

Posted by junix28 on February 16, 2014 in Homilies, Homilies and Reflections

Homily for 6th Sunday in Ordinary time year A 2014

Prince of Peace by Akiane

One strong message in our gospel today is the truth that following Christ is not that easy. As I have already mentioned many times before, being a Christian is not always walking on a red carpet or sleeping in a bed of roses. Following Christ always points us and leads us to the foot of the cross. There is a cost to discipleship.

One cost of discipleship is the challenge thrown by Jesus to us in our gospel today when he said: ‘If your virtue goes no deeper than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.’ (Mt 5:20)

To take this as our challenge we need to know and understand the things the scribes and Pharisees do.

The scribes and Pharisees know so much about the law- the commandments of God. They know them by heart, which is good and commendable thing, but the problem is that they ‘twisted them’, they interpreted the law according to their own personal interests and ambitions. This is what Pope Francis describes as ‘Spiritual wordliness’ in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). “Spiritual wordliness’ the pope explains is that ‘which hides behind the appearance of piety and even love for the Church, [but] consists in seeking not the Lord’s glory but human glory and personal well-being’ (EG93).

The scribes and Pharisees missed the whole point of the commandments of God- which is to establish & enhance human relationships and promote real and personal relationships with God. They interpreted the law in a way that suits their whims and desires to the point that it creates walls instead of bridges. Their interpretation creates gap between people rather than building relationships. So Jesus had to stand up against this misinterpretation of the law because this is not what God his Father has intended to be when he gave us the law. Jesus had to re-interpret for them the spirit of the law by reminding them that he comes ‘not to abolish the law but to complete it.’ (Mt 5: Just by looking at the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus we can see how much He  carried out in his life the spirit, the meaning of the law that is meant to establish, nourish and sustain relationships, to promote love and forgiveness, compassion and justice, respect and appreciation of the dignity of each human being. In today’s gospel Jesus is inviting us to go back to the basic of things. He is urging us to go to the heart of the matter.

Going back to the heart of who we are and what we are called to do as Christians means that we, unlike the scribes and Pharisees, build bridges instead of putting up walls or as Pope Francis would say, not to ‘give in to the temptation to build fences to make us feel safer, more protected.’ (Pope Francis, Angelus Message,  Sunday, 26 January 2014)   

The scribes and Pharisees built walls. But Jesus Christ has broken  down the wall and created bridges. As followers of Christ, we must also create bridges that connects us to one another, to God and to help connect others to God.

We can do this by imitating Christ in his way of relating with sinners and with those in need. When sinners came to him, He didn’t condemn them. Instead, he offers them hope and light by forgiving them and giving them another chance. Furthermore,  Jesus didn’t just wait for the sinners to come to him. He went to them– to us. He searches for us and offered us reconciliation. He ate with sinners, mingled with us, not to tolerate our bad behaviour and actions but to show us that there is a way out of our sinfulness and that He is always ready to forgive us, and that He is rich in mercy and compassion.

But there is more. It is also our call, not only that we be forgiving to those who have wronged us but also be instruments of reconciliation ourselves. Jesus is strong in this when he said in the gospel: ‘When you are offering your gift at the altar, if your remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift…and go…be reconciled to your brother or sister and then come offer your gift.’ (Mt 5:23-24)

And more, when the sick and needy came to him, Jesus didn’t turn them away. He didn’t ask his disciples to get rid of those sick and needy people.  Instead he did all he could do to respond to their needs. He showed mercy, hospitality and generosity to them. He helped the helpless. He gave hope to the seemingly hopeless and desperate ones. He didn’t look down at us when we fell in sin, rather he helped us not only to lift us up but more so to carry the burden of our sins too. Jesus has shown us this is a way to create a bridge- bridge that connects us to one another and bridge that leads us to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of life, happiness and peace.

Another way to create bridge that nourish human relationships is by constantly listening to  God speaking to us and being aware of his presence in our lives. This is a challenge too because God oftentimes appear to challenge our values and attitudes. Sometimes his presence seems difficult and even unreal at times.  

Last week, a heavily tattooed man came to the presbytery and asked for some money to buy fuel for his car. I thought, here we go again, typical story. And typical people who only comes in the evening when the St Vincent Centre is closed, and they would have no one to turn to but the Church. I  gave it a thought for a short while, then I decided I would give him something. I gave him $20 note. Then he said, he’d come back during the week when he get paid to pay me back. I said to him:  ‘Don’t bother, just pay it forward to someone that might need it.’ He thanked me and left.  However, last Wednesday morning, he came to see me to pay me back, but the one who opened the door for him, didn’t know the story and couldn’t believe his story either, so she turned him away. I wasn’t really expecting him to pay me back. In fact I’m just happy that I am in the privileged position to be of help to anyone in need. But more so I believe that God has come to visit in the guise of that man and helping that person is a way for me to give back to God some of the many blessings he has showered on me.

From that experience I realized that it is very important to look at other people through the eyes of Christ- with a question: ‘What would Jesus do if He is in this situation?’

With the eyes of Christ through faith, I realize that I have become more aware of the presence of God everywhere and in everyone. The good thing about  listening to God and being aware of his presence is that we  become more open to the wisdom of God- that wisdom of the Lord that is ‘vast’ as noted by the Book of Ecclesiasticus/Sirach in our First Reading today. This is the wisdom that would become our source of our hope and that gives meaning in our witnessing to Christ. Being aware of God’s presence helps us catch a glimpse of those wonderful things that St Paul would describe in our Second Reading today as those ‘things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him’. (Cor 2:6-10)

The more open we are to God’s wisdom and teaching the more we learn to choose life over death, the more motivated we become, in standing up for the truth and for God, the stronger we are to choose what is life-giving (Friends, good company, good and healthy relationships, optimistic attitudes, etc) over things that kill our spirit (drugs, alcohol abuse, violence, corruption, power control, pride, arrogance, selfishness, etc.)

So let this be our point of reflection for this week: Christian discipleship has a cost to pay, the Cross, but if we stay faithful and focused on Christ till the end, we would never regret, instead we would come to realize that it is a  cost worth-paying for. But for now, let us ask ourselves: How loyal are we to Christ?

 

Tags: , , , Permalink
1 Comment

Being a good example…

Posted by junix28 on February 9, 2014 in Homilies, Homilies and Reflections

Homily for 5th Sunday in Ordinary time year A 2014

candleA year ago  I visited a man who had just celebrated his hundredth birthday. He looked so happy and contented with his life. So I asked him to tell me his secrets to a long and a happy life. He said to me: ‘Mate I only have four secrets, good genes, good food, good doctor and good luck.’ That was a good one. But I believed that to really live the fullness of life we need to be  a good example too.  

To be a good example is one message we can learn from our gospel today. As we have heard in the gospel Jesus is urging us to be a good example to others by being the salt of the earth, the light of the world and to be a city built on a hill.

It is important to note first of all though that  our gospel today is a continuation of the sermon on the Mount. Before this gospel we heard Jesus preaching the Beatitudes- i.e. the qualities we have to embody and live out as  followers of Christ. But a Scripture Scholar, Francis Moloney warns us that if we focus only on the beatitudes, we may just be at ease with contented peacefulness or living in peace and harmony with one another, (which is important of course), and stop there without doing anything else, or without bearing fruits ourselves. (Francis Moloney Commentary [5th Sunday Ordinary time year A]) As Christians there is much more expected of us.

As Christians then,  we need both qualities of the kingdom and fruits of those qualities to be a big part of our Christian life. That’s why Jesus didn’t stop on the beatitudes. He went on to commission us, as we heard in our gospel today,  to be a good example by taking on the vocation and the mission to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world and to be a city built on a hill.

We are the salt of the earth. As salt we contribute giving taste to the world. Salt is hardly visible in our  food but it creates so much difference in taste and in flavour. So are we. We are not to aim to be in the  limelight, nor our presence need be acknowledged. We just have to stand out by giving taste and flavour in the world. We can do this by showing to all that there is another alternative, and a good one, to the illusory happiness brought about by material things and worldly possessions.  We can  give taste and flavour in the world by being a person of faith and of hope, by proudly standing up for our faith in our world, in the society we lived in. It is  important to be a person of faith because as Pope Francis in his encyclical letter, Lumen fidei (The Light of Faith), taught: ‘Faith teaches us to see that every man and woman represents a blessing for me, that the light of God’s face shines on me through the faces of my brothers and sisters.’ (Lumen fidei 54). In other words, with faith, we can clearly see the inner dignity and value of each person as the image and likeness of God, thus, worthy of our respect and appreciation.

Jesus also calls us to be the light of the world. This doesn’t mean we claim to be the light. We only have one light, Christ himself, and we are only sharing in his light, so being the light of the world means that as Christians we radiate the light of Christ to the world. This means we are  to uphold and promote the gospel of Christ and the values of the Kingdom of God and live it out in our lives everyday wherever we go, and whatever we do. The prophet Isaiah in our first reading has some practical hints for us how to be light to others. The Prophet wrote: ‘Share your bread with the hungry, and shelter the homeless poor, clothe the man you see to be naked and turn not from your own kin…then your light will shine like the dawn.’ Then he continued: ‘If you do away with the yoke, the clenched fist, the wicked word, if you give bread to the hungry and relief to the oppressed, your light will rise in the darkness.’ In other words, to be light to the world is to touch other people’s lives by way of enabling them to see the light of Christ through us, through our care and concern for them. To be light to the world is to welcome others as Christ himself coming to us. Why are we turning away boats of Asylum seekers, or towing them away from this  our so-called lucky country?

Jesus also invites us to be a city built on a hill. This doesn’t mean we are to live aloof and be looked up so highly by others. Rather this means we are stand up for Christ and for his message of the kingdom, no matter what it takes.  But we can realize this if we learn from the way St Paul stood up for Christ. In our second reading today, he recalled that what he was preaching was not what he knew about Jesus (intellectually) but on a more personal level, and that is the realization that Christ has been crucified for our sins and died for us. Christ is so real in St Paul’s life, that he could face whatever odds because of ‘Christ who lives in me and strengthens me’ as  would say. Jesus also adds that as a city built on a hill we cannot remain hidden. This means that we must not remain hiding in our own comfort zones. Rather we go out and share to others the beauty of the faith, the beauty of God, the gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth. This means we are to stand up and lead others to God, encourage others to follow the road to heaven. And we can simply do this by our way of life- as we work like Christ, as we work with Christ and as we endeavor to be with Christ.

So as we continue our celebration of the mass today, let us ask ourselves: What steps or moves are we taking to be a good example to others as the salt of the earth, the light of the world and as a city built on a hill?

Tags: , , , , Permalink
Leave a comment

God’s will be done…

Posted by junix28 on February 2, 2014 in Homilies, Homilies and Reflections

Homily for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord 

I don’t know about you, but I have personally met people who appear to be prophets of doom. They are the people who would rather enjoy seeing the negatives, the gloomy aspects of things, the pessimistic view, the people who would say the ‘cup is half-empty’ rather than saying ‘the cup is half-full.’ I could remember when a lady, a school catechist I personally know, said to me: ‘I’m sure you would never become a priest.’ And another time another lady said to me: ‘By the way you take on things and by the way you make decisions for yourself, you would never succeed in life.’

I have to confess,  I was upset when they told me that. I even tried to defend myself reproving the school catechist. I said to her: ‘Who are you to tell me that? Do you know what’s in my heart? Do you know what God wants me to do in my life?’ Do you know God’s will for me?’

After I was ordained, a thought came to me to go and see those two ladies and to prove them wrong. I thought of telling them: ‘See, your prophecy wasn’t fulfilled! You said to me before ‘I’ll never become a priest’ or I’ll never succeed, well here I am now.’ But no, I didn’t do anything of that sort because there’s no need to do that. For me, it is not what happened before that matters to me, or what people say or think of me. What matters more for me is how God’s will for me is being realized.

Reflecting on the gospel today in this feast of the Presentation of the Lord, I would say, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna would have shared the same sentiment with me. It is evident in their lives that what happened to them or in them couldn’t sway them away from letting God’s will be done in them. Simeon was  getting old and he was promised by God that He would see in his own eyes the Messiah. Waiting for that long, keeping his eyes and ears open to any sign of Christ, would have been a great test for his patience. As a saying goes: ‘Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can, seldom in a woman, never in a man.’ But Simeon kept on waiting as he continued living as a devout and upright man.

The same with Anna. She only enjoyed 7 years of married life when she became a widow. And she was 84 years old. Being a widow in her time was a difficult one, because they couldn’t even own a property if they had no male child to bear the name. She lived on though, through prayer and fasting and never left the temple. Some commentator would interpret this that she didn’t leave the Church as a community. In there she might have felt belonged, cared for and fulfilled her mission from the Lord. She also waited for the messiah patiently.

And their waiting, their patience paid off. They were able to gaze the beautiful face of the Holy Child of God. Simeon even carried him in his arms while praying that ‘he could die  in peace now’ because he has already seen the fulfilment of all the prophecies.

Mary and Joseph too might have been scared of what Simeon prophesied about the child. Simeon told her of the sorrow and the pain she would have to bear as she watched the child Jesus grew. He told her that Jesus would stir a controversy later, to be rejected even. If Mary contested, she could have reproved Simeon saying: ‘Who are you to tell me that? Do you know what’s in my heart? Do you know what God wants me to do in my life?’ Do you know God’s will for me?’ But no, she let that experience go, pondering everything in her heart. Later on she would come to understand that everything happened in them and to them is part of God’s will for them.

These four important figures in the gospel and Jesus himself are showing us the way to let God’s will be done unto us.

But what is God’s will for all of us? God’s will for us is that we all be saved. So no matter what we have done, or who we are, what have we become, God’s wants us to be saved. He just wants us to enjoy his friendship and company forever. For God what matters is not what happened to us before. He has already assured us of that by becoming human like us, by dying for our sins, and by opening the doors of the kingdom for us. But, this is not and must not be a licence to do anything we want. Rather, we need to do our part. We need to use our freedom responsibly. We need to long, we need to desire for God, we need to grow in the desire for the kingdom.

This is a challenge because everyday we are facing plenty of choices. It is important to note here that freedom is not choosing anything we want or doing anything we want to do. It is rather doing the good thing and choosing the true and the right choice. We need to choose God.  We need to let his will be done unto us. Like Simeon we are called to live a devout and upright life. Like Anna, we are urged to live a life of prayer and fasting. Like Mary and Joseph we are to live a  simple, humble, prayerful life and a life of faith, hope and love, while being enlightened by God’s will in all that we do.

Let us remember always too that the more we walk closer to  Jesus, the more evident the cross is. The more we let God’s will be done unto us, the more the evil one, the rebellious tempt us to ignore God. The more we live out our Christian identity, the more people noticed us. And some would even criticize us, or ridicule us. But no matter what they say or do to us, if we have the faith, if we have Christ in our hearts, we always emerge victorious.

For myself, if I believed in the negativity and gloomy prediction of those two women I mentioned above, I would never be able to open myself completely to the will of God. But because I believed it is his will for me to be one of his priests, I didn’t care so much of what people say or think of me, I went on…and here I am by God’s grace and generosity serving in his vineyard…and I hope that I will continue to be attentive to God’s will for me, everyday all the days of my life.

For us here today, let’s keep up with our faith as we live in hope while waiting for the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the light of the nations, the Lord of all, and the saviour for us all. Amen.

 

 

 

Tags: , , Permalink