2 Comments

Reason to Rejoice

Posted by junix28 on December 15, 2012 in Homilies, Homilies and Reflections

Homily for 3rd Sunday of Advent 2012 year C 

Gaudete Sunday (rejoice) 

We are now in the  third Sunday of Advent, and again as a Church, we are called to rejoice.

We are to rejoice because the Lord’s coming and is getting so close. ‘The Lord is near.’ So we lit the third candle, the rose-coloured one, to lighten our expectant  mood so to speak.

We have many reasons to rejoice definitely. Our Christmas shopping might be done by now. We’ve got the ham for Christmas already, or the seafood for Christmas dinner. We have booked the restaurant to for families and friends. They’re all good and if we have then, then we are to rejoice. But we must not forget the real reason for rejoicing here- the God who comes to be with us (Emmanuel), the God who comes to save us, the God who is in love with us and has come to write his own love story with us. This is really a reason to rejoice.

But how can we rejoice when we hear of the 900 plus lives lost due to the typhoon that hit the Philippines just two weeks ago? How can we rejoice when we hear of some 20 schoolchildren (5-10) years old, and few teachers killed by a young gunman in Connecticut in the US just very recently?

We might ask: How can we rejoice when it seemed that this loving God has allowed all these things to happen?

The Prophet Zephaniah, in our first Reading today would give us one reason to rejoice. We have to note that this prophet wrote this during the exile. The Israelites were driven away from their homeland. We can only speculate how hard it might have been for them. We can only imagine their nostalgia. We can only imagine their longing to be able to go back to their beloved homeland. They must have been fed up by the foreign interference in their lives. They must have been affected so much by the decline of morals in Babylon. With all these as a context, Zephaniah as a prophet, offered them hope. He reminded them of the reason to be happy and that is because even if they were in exile, God is still in their midst. He didn’t leave them. He didn’t abandon them. He still loved them.

And this is really a cause for rejoicing here. Thus, we heard Zephaniah urging the people: “Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud…Have no fear.”

Another reason for rejoicing is given by St Paul in our Second Reading today. And St Paul would say because  God is near. This means that God’s coming is not only getting so close, but also because God is so near to us. Though St Paul when he wrote this, was already in prison, yet this didn’t  stop him from proclaiming and for expressing out his conviction that this God of ours is so close to us, that we are in the Lord. And because of this, we are to rejoice. Because of this we know that we have reason to believe that God cares for us no matter what, God listens to our cries, and God loves us all the same.

But how can we really rejoice in the Lord? How can we really be happy in our Christian life?

Sure if we google this question we will find thousands of way to be happy. However, in this season of Advent we are reminded that what can make us truly happy is not a thing but someone- and it is he whom we are joyfully waiting for.  Our gospel today offers us a way to be happy and that is to be true to ourselves in what we are called to be and to care for our neighbours.  We see this in the answer of John the Baptist to the questions of the  people to him. “What must we do?” asked the crowd, the tax collectors and the some of the soldiers to show their repentance, to live out their being a true descendant of Abraham (as the friend of God) and to bear good fruit (Lk 3:7-9). To answer them, John would tell them to be true to themselves and in what they are called to do.  He didn’t call them to change their way of life but to make good use of what they are doing now, to be the best of who they really are, for the benefit of others and ultimately for the glory of God. So John had to tell them: Share tunics to those who have none. To the tax collectors he said: Don’t overcharge. To the soldiers he said: No more bullying, don’t use your power to the disadvantage of another. Be content with your pay.

So then, if we want to rejoice and be happy, let’s care for one another.

Another way to be happy if John were to say to us now is to accept who we really are in all our flaws and imperfections. It is not good and it is not making us happy and contented if we pretend to be someone we are not.

Again the example of John the Baptist  shines through here. He accepted who he really was. He didn’t pretend to be someone else. It could have been a great temptation for him to take on what people think of him. He could have easily drawn them to him and told them he was the messiah they’ve been waiting for. But no, he didn’t dare to do just that. He knew who he really was and he accepted it.  So he declared humbly: Someone is coming…who is more powerful than I am, and I am not even fit to undo the strap of his sandals. What a statement of humility! What a conviction! John’s humility is like this: that he didn’t think less of himself (i.e. putting himself down), but he thinks of himself less (i.e. focused on his mission) He is more focused on to his role as the pre-cursor of the Lord, as the one crying out: prepare the way of the Lord.

So in this third Sunday let us rejoice for the hope of the Lord’s coming will soon be realized in us. We will soon receive him as our food in the Eucharist. We will soon be celebrating that great day in our human history when God has chosen not only to walk with us but to really become like us in all things except sin because he loves us so much. So with this realization and with St Paul’s invitation, let us rejoice in the Lord  always. Amen.

Tags: , , , , , , Permalink
Leave a comment

Conversion, loving and Looking up to Christ

Posted by junix28 on December 8, 2012 in Homilies, Homilies and Reflections

(Ways to prepare a way of the Lord)

Homily for 2nd Sunday of Advent 2012

  1. For few days now, my thoughts are all for the Philippines as my fellow Filipinos there experienced the strongest typhoon that hit the country for this year.  More than 400 people confirmed dead, few hundreds still reported missing and I believed there are still more lives lost that are yet to be accounted for. ‘Pablo’ (i.e. the local name of the international typhoon Bopha) wipes out 3 Davao Oriental (in Mindanao area) towns’ was the headline of the news the other day. According to the governor of the province all the structures (i.e. houses, public buildings, hospitals, churches) in these three towns were wiped out by the 210 kph gust of strong wind brought by the typhoon. What made it more difficult is that there was no easy access to these towns. The trees falling on the roads, the debris everywhere and the destroyed bridges made these towns isolated from the rest of the province. The governor of the province would even note that the need of food was less even of a problem (then) than the accessibility to these towns. For now, the only access was through the sea according to the governor. (Source: ABS-CBN news)

  2. With this, there is a great need of road cleaning and clearing. There is also a need of repairing damaged bridges. Unless these needs are met and resolved, access to the relief services and supply of food would still be limited for both the service crew and for the victims. Unless the roads are cleared and cleaned, and the bridges repaired, the extent of support and assistance from the outside would remain to be limited and still remain to be a great task ahead. Unless a way is paved and prepared, nothing much can be done.

  3. Friends, I’m sharing this news with you not only because I wished we would continue our support to them through prayers and in whatever ways and capacities we can do, but also because ‘preparing a way’ is one of the strong messages for us today as we celebrate this Second Sunday of Advent. Luke in our gospel today spoke of John the Baptist as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah- as the ‘voice crying out in the wilderness’ calling everyone to prepare a way, and not just for the sake of preparing but because the Lord is  coming. In doing this John the Baptist serves as a concrete figure and an example of advent. This time of advent then is an opportune  time for us to listen to John’s call again and ask ourselves: “What are we doing to prepare the way for the Lord?” To answer this we need to understand what does it mean to prepare a way of the Lord for us now.

  4. To prepare a way for the Lord means: First, is through conversion of our hearts- This means not only repentance and asking forgiveness for the wrong we have done but more so to make a resolution to go forward for the better and strive to do our best. Everyday God is calling us to walk the way of conversion. And mind you, we are drawn by it though subconsciously at times. We know we walk by the way of conversion if we allow ‘our mountains and hills be laid low’ that is counteracting our pride with humility, our greed with generosity, our ego-centredness with care and concern for others. Second is to be in love and determine to do what is best for everyone as St Paul tells the Christians of Philippi that we heard in our Second Reading today (Phil 1:10). And more. St Paul is urging us to live a kind of love that is patterned after the unconditional and life-giving love of Jesus for everyone. We are called to love in a way that God loves us by not only coming to live with us but also by completely identifying with our human weaknesses and limitations thus transforming us into sharers of his glory. We are called to love- a kind of love that empowers not enforced us to lay down our lives for the person we love. Third, is that we go out to meet Christ on the way of peace, justice and love. This means seeing Christ in the life of the poor, the innocent, the vulnerable. It is a hard call, a difficult task indeed but is not impossible. Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, among others, showed us that this can be done. And in fact, Archbishop Romero would note that if we are serious in our anticipation for Christmas (that means the birth and the second coming of Christ), then we are to look at Christ beyond the crib. He said: “We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our Christmas cribs. We must seek him among the undernourished children who have gone to bed at night with nothing to eat, among the poor newsboys who will sleep covered with newspapers in doorways.   –December 24, 1979. And to make this happen we have to take on the Spirit of Christmas in our hearts (i.e. turning back to God, giving, forgiving and loving) for “he who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree” says Roy L. Smith.

  5. In this Second Sunday of Advent therefore we are called to prepare the way of the Lord by looking deeper into our hearts and to ask ourselves if our way of loving is really a reflection of God’s love for us. It also calls us to allow Christ to occupy the very centre of our hearts and to make it sure that he is truly alive and living in our lives. It also means seeing Christ through our neighbours.

  6. So as we continue in this journey of Advent (coming) let us remember that this is an opportune time for us to pave the way for Christmas, to clear and clean the paths of God and to make straight our winding roads (sin and indifference to God and our neighbours.) Let this be our prayer and our reflection. 

Tags: , , , , , , , , Permalink
1 Comment

Quality of the faithful, not quantity of the crowd

Posted by junix28 on December 2, 2012 in Homilies, Homilies and Reflections

Homily for First Sunday of Advent 2012

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/c0.0.351.351/p403x403/46413_523344554357264_1377607143_n.jpg“Four Cardinals, 54 Bishops, 700 priests, 1 million people.” This was on the headlines in one of the Philippine newspapers yesterday, the day after the National thanksgiving for the Canonization of our second Filipino Saint, San Pedro Calungsod. I might just be carried away by this amazing gathering in my own home province in Cebu, Philippines, that I shared this news on my Facebook account. A Facebook friend then commented: ‘1 million? That is an understatement!’ And he noted that there are more than a million people there. I’m wondering why this friend was so keen to tell the exact figure.  Anyway, I wrote back saying that it doesn’t really matter if there are millions or just a few hundred  people celebrating, what matters is the faith, the love and the devotion of those who attended that religious gathering. What matters most is not the quantity of the crowd but the quality of the faithful.

My Dear Friends, I’m sharing this with you because we can easily fall into this same trap as well. We might say the more people come to our party, the more enjoyable it should be. The more friends we have, and the more people we know, the more we think we have got on so well with life.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, our being a Christian is not measured by how many friends we’ve made, or how many parties we have thrown. It is measured by how much we love God and one another, how faithful we are to Christ and his Church,  and how hope-filled our lives are to the promises of God. We are not saved as a bunch of  people but we are to be saved because each one of us is precious in the eyes of the Lord.

Because of this love of God for each one of us, he chose to become like us. He sent his own son to show to each one of us how to live a truly human life and to offer each one of us a place in his kingdom. How do we know this?

Well, today’s celebration is one way to understand this truth of our faith in God. Today the Church celebrates its new year- a new liturgical year marks by this First Sunday of Advent. And so we lit the first of the advent candles- the one that symbolizes hope for us. Today we start the journey of remembering and re-living that moment in our Christian journey when God has sent his own Son into the world to become like all of us humans except sinning (First coming of Christ). And today we also renew our sense of hope for the second coming of Christ when he would come back to us in all his glory. So in this first Sunday of Advent then, we are called to renew and celebrate our sense of Christian hope.

How do we make this renewal and how to celebrate this sense of hope?

Jesus in our gospel today according to Luke urges us to do two things. First is to watch ourselves or our hearts. This can be done by regular examination of conscience, regular celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation, by being with good company, by promoting the cause of peace, justice and truth, etc. Another way to test this is to examine our motives in giving away gifts or cards this Christmas. Second is to pray at all times for strength to survive all trials and tribulations that are sure to come into our way before he comes again in glory. These two help us in celebrating and renewing our hope in the sense that it tells us to model our life (personal and communal) to the life of Jesus Christ himself. So we are to work as representatives of Christ in the world today.

St Paul in our Second Reading today would also  urge us to carry out our very important mission in life as a Christian- that is to grow in holiness. This is crucial and very important for him that he strongly made this appeal to the Christians in Thessalonica and even for us now. He wrote: ‘Brothers [and sisters], we urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus to make more and more progress in the kind of life that you are meant to live: the life that God wants, as you learnt from us, and as you are already living in.’ [1 Thess 3:12- 4:2] St Paul is saying here that in Christ we have already been shown the way of holiness so what we are to do now is to be faithful to him and follow him all the way.

We can also celebrate this sense of hope by going back  to the basics of our faith. This can be done by reflecting on how God comes into our life or how do we sense God’s presence in our lives and in the lives of others. We take life everyday as a gift from God. Let us not wish for more luxury. Let’s us enjoy the journey of life with God. At the same time, let us do our best not to lose the sense of where we are going- God.

There might be many distressing events happening in different parts of the world now. There might be acts of injustice, lack of peace, famine, violence, etc. all around us but if we live in hope for Christ’s coming and continue to be faithful to the gospel, we will be assured that these would all come to an end. We just have to remain steadfast in our faith, keep  loving God and one another and continue to embody in us the virtue of hope that Christ has gifted us with. We are to remember always that for God what matters is not the quantity of our achievements or our titles, but the quality of our Christian life. So we ask ourselves: If Christ comes today, would he find enough faith, hope and love in me?

Tags: , , , , Permalink
Leave a comment

Rediscovering the meaning of our Christian commitment

Posted by junix28 on November 25, 2012 in Homilies, Homilies and Reflections

Homily for Christ the King Sunday year B 2012

The feast of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925. In his introduction to his encyclical  Quas Primas (which explains the significance and the meaning of this feast in our Christian life and in our world), the Pope wrote:

We referred to the chief causes of the difficulties under which mankind was laboring. And We remember saying that these manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ; and that We promised to do as far as lay in Our power. (#1.)

The Pope here was telling us to review our vision and mission as a Christian. This means that we are to make the Kingdom of God  our vision and following Christ our mission.

We are then to follow Christ as our King, and thus it is of utmost importance that we hold him as the king in our heart- the one who is our way, our truth and our life. This calls a commitment on our part. But we need to renew our commitment to Christ everyday, in fact it is more so at this time. And one way to renew our commitment to Christ and his kingdom is to re-discover the real meaning of commitment. The retired Cardinal Ricardo Vidal in Cebu (Philippines) said to the young people in his keynote address for the Youth Ministers’ Convention that one of the main differences between our time now and the Age of enlightenment is that in those time people were ‘either committed to one thing or another, while this time [our time], it is commitment itself that has lost its meaning.’ (Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal: You’re Still Young, I’m Old…a Conversation with the youth of Cebu.) So we have the trend to just go with the flow, drifting away, and the like.

So our feast of Christ the King is a time for us to re-discover the real meaning of our commitment to Christ. We need to start this by asking the two fundamental questions: What sort of King Christ is and What kind of Kingdom he is proclaiming?

First, what sort of a King Christ is? In our gospel today he declared to Pilate that He is a King but a king who is born to bear witness to the truth. He is one who frees us from falsehood, from our pretences. He is a king who helps us not to give into hollow values and empty glories. He is a king whose only weapon is the truth which no amount of arm power can destroy.

As a king, he came to serve and not to be served. And he goes even further. As our King, he comes not only to visit us. He became like one of us. He lives with us. He laid down his life for us his subjects and his friends.

Second, what sort of Kingdom Christ is proclaiming?

It is a kind of Kingdom described in our preface today. It is an eternal and universal kingdom. This is a stark contrast to the kingdom that Pilate possessed that had to face a definite end and destruction. It is also a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.

In the Biblical idea, according to one Scripture commentator the kingdom of justice is understood not only as giving to someone what is due but as a right relations to one’s self, to one’s neighbour (both individual and community) and to God. The Kingdom of Peace means reconciliation with self, neighbour, and God. It is also a kingdom of joy, a fullness of life and abundance of love.

We might go on with our questioning: If those are the qualities of the Kingdom of Christ, why is there a mess-up in our world? Why all these terrible things happening in our society? Why  all these abuse of power, authority and influence?

The answer is complex but one thing is more likely a huge contributing factor: We, the subjects, the members, and the residents of the kingdom are not faithful to embody the qualities of the kingdom. We tend to enjoy the lie and stay away from the truth of who we are. Even Pilate was caught up with this. He asked Jesus: ‘What is the truth?’ He heard the truth speaking to him, yet he still crucified him. In fact, he took no personal responsibility of it. ‘Am I a Jew?’ was his excuse. It is they who brought you here, was his justification.

To know the truth is also our quest even today. Thus, we need to pray everyday that God would guide us to the truth. The late Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Veritatis splendour (The Splendor of truth) sees that Pilate’s quest for the truth of Jesus as a reflection of the ‘distressing perplexity of a man [and woman] who often no longer knows who he is, whence he comes and where he is going.’ (VS 84). The Pope also noted some sad consequences of this distress or crisis such as self-destruction, ‘contempt for life after conception and before birth (abortion, or termination of pregnancies, etc), the ongoing violation of basic rights of the person, and the unjust destruction of goods necessary for human life.’

So as we continue our celebration for Christ our King, let us rejoice that we have Christ our King and the king of the universe, who is both our sure leader, our faithful guide and our certain source of hope for everlasting happiness in his kingdom. Meanwhile, let us also endeavor to embody the qualities of the kingdom Christ has shown us in his very life: truth and life; holiness and grace;  justice, love and peace.Amen.

Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Permalink