visible rhetoric

While I was committing “mortal sin” days ago, that is, eating to my hearts content pork liempo just across the plaza of Jaro, a little girl without any warning came to my table and rendered to me what at first sounded like a kindergarten child reciting, or should I say mumbling, her first poetry. It took me a while to realize that she was singing a Christmas carol, a carol all of us should have known immediately, if it had been sung intelligibly that is: Silent Night, Holy Night. Realizing that she was asking for something I opened my wallet and gave her 20 pesos, not because the song was worth 20 pesos but as a teacher I am expected to recognize and give some credit at least to effort expended, which I should honestly say was worth 19 pesos with one peso going for the song. Unluckily for me this little girl was not just interested with money, she also got interested with my pork liempo. I argued of course but sensing that she would not leave my table empty handed I gave her half ...

This is the first time ever that I am going to bless a bank. And to say it bluntly now, it is one of those things that interests me the least. For one I don’t know anything about how it works, and for another I hardly passed math and accounting in high school and college. Even now, being in charge of our chapel, I could not balance the little collecta that we receive and I have to ask somebody to do it for me. It is not because I am not interested with money. In this regard I follow the official line of our former rector in the seminary when it comes to handling the so called “root of all evil.” He often said, money is not the problem. It is the solution to our problems.

I thought all the while that if I could tackle talking about a 50th wedding anniversary, I could easily talk about a 25th wedding anniversary. I was wrong. Last night, I ended up watching the TV until 1 AM in frustration for want of thoughts to write about. I accepted this invitation because I thought all the while that I have it under my sleeve, that I won’t make great strides, great effort to come up with a reflection. I ended up having nothing. I was told this is a surprise that was hatched in the mind of Archie, I don’t know for how many days or weeks. But I tell you, you are not the only ones surprised.

Writing about “augmenting and later supplanting membership in the councils” presupposes a lot of things which this little space in our parish weekly paper cannot fully accommodate all at once. When we speak of “councils” in our parish we are referring to a gigantic structure consisting of probably more than 150 persons and divided into 3 classifications as to function and expertise, namely the Parish Pastoral Council, the Parish Apostolic Council and the Parish Finance Council. For purposes of this article I think it would suffice to explain in passing their function and their relationship to each other. THE PARISH PASTORAL COUNCIL The Parish Pastoral Council is the “planning” Council. It has three functions, namely: “to investigate aspects of a pastoral situation, to ponder and reflect on them, and lastly to reach a conclusion and recommend this to the parish priest.” As a planning council they are called to identify and reflect on the parish situation, compare that situation w...

Today is Christmas, Merry Christmas. I just want to emphasize this point because today is officially Christmas Day. I say officially because some of us have already started greeting each other Merry Christmas way back November and even as early as September when we begun putting up our Christmas Trees and lanterns. That was the unofficial Christmas, also known as the Filipino Christmas. Today it is officially Christmas and we are celebrating it after almost all our Christmas parties are over. We are after all a people known for postponing our grief and anticipating our joys.

Today in this first Wednesday in the month of December, our thoughts are led to the day of our birth when the Lord in his merciful and fruitful love deemed it wise that we be born in this world. We were the joy of our parents, the pride of our family, the apple of everyone’s eye and perhaps even the talk of the town. And though you may look superbly disconcerted in your crib and not exactly comfortable with all the attention, your parents and all the people with them were happy because life is a gift from the God and you were a gift of God for them and for all.

I would like to reflect with you on the feast of the Immaculate Conception with the first reading from the book of Genesis in mind. The feast of the Immaculate Conception is not just an acknowledgement of Mary’s privilege of having been conceived without original sin from the first moment of her conception. It is not just faith in the unique redemption of Mary by Christ her would be Son, when Jesus redeemed her by his blood like all of us but uniquely while she was conceived in the womb of her mother St. Anne. This feast is not just an acknowledgement that Mary is without sin. It is also an acknowledgement that we are and we remain sinners, redeemed sinners, but nevertheless sinners. This too is an important acknowledgement today when we have grown to be without consciousness anymore of sin and evil in our world, at a time when we seem to be without consciousness anymore that there is sin and evil lurking in our desires and in our hearts. Today we do not just ask for the grace t...

Masses with healing are always well attended. This is an irony because we are supposedly in an age where so many medical breakthroughs have been made. We have medicines unheard of before, we have treatments that were then considered suicidal but now mere routine. Doctors are becoming more and more specialized they practically know every nook and corner of your heart, kidney and eyes, so practically they know how to diagnosed and treat every problem encountered by their specialization. And yet why do people flock for healing? Why do people gather by the thousands and walk in pouring rain for masses for healing? I do not have answers. But I will just make a conjecture – conjecture in hiligaynon it means palagpat.

An old man was seen by the parish priest everyday for many years in the church. He would sit down and remain motionless for hours on end. So one day the priest approached the old man and asked what God talked to him about. And the old man said, “God doesn’t talk. He just listens.” Well, then what do you talk to him about? asked the parish priest. And the old man said, “I don’t talk either. I just listen.

Inside a bus on a very long trip, a man noticed a little girl in one side sitting alone with nobody accompanying her. So the man approached her, “Little girl, he ask, “are you not afraid to be traveling alone on this long trip.” The girl shook her head and said, “sir I am not afraid because the driver of the bus is my father.” Our gospel today is something similar. Jesus calmed the storm and the raging waves of the sea. He also calmed the disciples who were afraid, in fact terrified when their boat was tossed to and fro. But Jesus was there, and his loving presence and care was felt by the disciples.

I have a skull in my room. I cannot remember now how it ended in my room but it is there right on the table where we usually sit for the IC or for spiritual direction. I don’t know how you people feel in front of a skull while discussing with me your issues or struggles. But as for me I feel secure with it. For me the skull and what it symbolizes put everything in the proper perspective. It reminds me that whatever pretensions I show, whatever image I prefer to be known, whatever thought I would like you to have about me, all these will end up after all in death and decay – a skull. It reminds me also that whatever impression I would like to project, whatever reputation I would like to collect, and whatever impact I would like to impress on you regarding myself, in reality, literally just skin deep is ugliness and unattractiveness, and even repulsiveness to many. My face conjures power and control, however just beneath it, unknown to many is powerlessness – a skull. The skull i...

In our kind of life and formation there is always that prevailing tendency that great deeds may be done for the wrong reasons. In our kind of life and formation there is a great danger that good deeds are done for the wrong reasons. Most of the time seminary formation forms us to do exactly what Jesus is condemning in our gospel today – to do good deeds for people to see, to do good deeds to win applause, to do good deeds in order to gain approval. Seminary formation has the tendency to form us to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. It is good that we are made aware of this as we begin the formation year.

I want to tell you this morning what has been quite obvious these past two years now. I feel no more excitement in my task as formator as I did in the past. Routine and boredom have eaten what is left of the enthusiasm that initially plunged me to do some rethinking in the way formation is run. I thought I could make a comeback this year after getting the idea from you that some kind of structural change is needed. And I responded to it initially with a lot of excitement. And for a time I thought that I have regained insightfulness and depth. It was short-lived. It did not last long. I thought that the challenge to innovate and the excitement of risk-taking would rev up my former self.

Whenever visitors come to the seminary they would always think and they would almost always treat me as a gardener. Even the new seminarians would treat me as such and there was even that time when some people would ask me to help them carry their bags. Luckily there were seminarians then who came to the rescue – to my rescue and to their rescue. Because the table of embarrassment would be turned around when they would have found out that the gardener who carried their bags was saying mass for them.

People today are very practical. We give gifts with the primary intention that the gifts we give could be used by the recipient. Used. So probably this Christmas we gave frying pans to fry on, ordinary plates to be used everyday rather than be displayed on shelves to gather dust; bags of goodies to be eaten in time for Noche Buena, and even gift certificates and cash as if to say “OK you buy whatever you like because I’m tired of thinking and terribly dead beat forming long queues on the counter.” But gifts are not always like this. After all, the first Christmas gifts ever to be given are very symbolic rather than practical. What do you think Joseph would do with a block of gold, turn it into an alphabet blocks for Jesus to play with? What would Mary do with frankincense, sprinkle it on Jesus like Johnson’s Baby Powder? Or spread myrrh on the diaper rashes of Jesus? No, these are symbolic gifts, gifts that speak of something, gifts that speak of the kind of baby to whom these...

I would like to reflect with you on the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus rather than on the gospel today. Back in our time, before I even entered the seminary, the Sacred Heart devotion together with the devotion to the Mother of God preoccupied a great part of our religious fervor. It was a monthly devotion and for die-hards it was even a weekly devotion. Back in our time, we had the Hora Santa, the Holy Hour in every parish on the Thursday before the first Friday of the month. And in the more devoted town of Oton with Msgr. Calvo at the helm of the parish, we were always praised in the gatherings of parishes all over the archdiocese because we have retained the Kwarenta Horas devotion – a long 40-hour exposition of the Blessed Sacrament just before the First Friday. People came to church, and even when we were little boys then, we were herded to line up in the long queues of the confessionals. Confession was a necessary act connected with the devotion to the Sacred Heart ...

I always had passion for the old, old things, old values, old ways. It is therefore of no coincidence that I stay in a room called the museum of antiquities. This does not however mean that I am old fashioned whose object of happiness lie solely on the ways of yesteryears. As a matter of fact one of the things I really hate is to be served successively the same food twice. I hate repeats. I feel absolutely no excitement when I do a thing twice. It bores me when I can be absolutely sure of the outcome. Indeed there are things in my life which I prefer doing the old way. But as for the rest I initiate, I innovate and I feel I have not contributed anything if it is not something new. I believe my mind works that way and so does my passion. I would be a liar if I will not admit that new things do not give me goose bumps. But that is precisely the point – the unpredictable outcome is the source of excitement and the rush of adrenalin soothes my arthritis.

One of the reasons why I accepted the position of spiritual director last year was the realization that our sole reliance on psychology and the way it explains the complicated human behavior has made us wimps and weaklings unable to free and extricate ourselves from our present state. We observe behavioral patterns in ourselves and we dismiss them by explaining that these behaviors are part of growing up, or make excuses by blaming our upbringing and childhood formation, or escape responsibility by pointing our fingers to our parents or formators as the sources of our bad behavior. Sometimes we even use psychology to stifle the cry and protest of our conscience and even to justify the prevailing bad behavior we do not like to stop in the first place. Psychology can be used as a good and ready excuse to justify our addictions and negative compulsions. It can be used to soften the impact of sin and its accompanying guilt. It can be used as a reasonable excuse to go on doing whatever...

The intensity of passion which we have for a hobby like music or sports is the same intensity of passion that the saints used in order to preach the gospel all over the world. The acumen and sharpness of mind of a scientist or a mathematician or a businessman, is the same acumen and sharpness of mind used by the saints to establish congregations and religious activities which continue to this day. The intense love between lovers that would open their eyes to the goodness of each other, is the same intense love which drove the saints to serve the poor and the needy.

How do you go about with your vocation campaign? I think this is the question foremost in everybody’s mind. How do you awaken the vocation which God may have implanted in the hearts of the young men you will meet in the parish where you are assigned? Let me offer some unsolicited advice. First, it is good to note that every vocation story, a story no less similar than your story and mine, starts with an attraction. This kind of attraction is initial, so you must realize that it is skin deep. It is an attraction when one immediately judges the quality of life one is made to desire, and ultimately, to decide on. It is an attraction akin to the owner of the orchard in today’s gospel. He looks for the obvious. He looks for evidence that the tree he has planted and will continue to nurture, is of good variety and therefore worth its space in his little world which is his orchard - the fruit, the evidence of a life to be desired and later on to be decided upon.

There is no need for a doctor or a nurse in heaven. There shall be no sickness and disease there. There is no need for an engineer or an architect or an interior designer in heaven. It is already beautiful up there. There is no need for a teacher, a professor or books and computers and everything else attached to the teaching profession. In heaven we will behold wisdom himself, the very fountain of knowledge. Only those involved in the liturgy down here will ever find employment up there for scripture says the liturgy, the worship of God’s holy people will continue up there albeit more beautiful and grand. And so when we die the rest of you will be unemployed probably sitting and beholding the face of God all day long, enjoying the benefits not even your SSS or your GSIS could provide, but we who are trained in the liturgy here below as ministers, choir, servers and lectors will have our hands full in the real heavenly liturgy we would never want to miss, serving and worshipping...

When I was a young seminarian our priest-formators would always inculcate in us the virtues of a happy death. It was during that time when I started memorizing the prayer to St. Joseph as I invoke him every night before I sleep – “shield us under thy protection . . . and strengthened with thy help we may live a holy life, die a happy death and attain the everlasting bliss of heaven. Amen.” Probably it started out as a fear of dying unprepared, especially at a time when my imagination of what my particular judgment would look like was just too vivid to belittle. Also, if I remember rightly now this was also the reason why I began wearing the brown scapular. I was attracted by its promise of being reconciled with God and with each other before dying. Now, even without that overwhelming fear and primary motive, I carry with me these habits – the devotion to St. Joseph and the wearing of the brown scapular – praying for that day when I will face death prepared and to embrace it witho...

Since you came back the workload for each one of us has been tremendous. As we enter deeper into the different responsibilities, which our preparation for the alumini homecoming requires, I would like you to reflect on our personal responses to this particular call – the call of our present responsibility. I would like to suggest our gospel today as our basis for the reflection. There is only one thing I require in our work. I am not so concerned with the outcome anymore. I have resigned myself not so much on what we ought to do, and what this celebration ought to be, but only on what it could possibly become because of and despite of our meager resources.

We have been in one way or the other touched by the life of St. Therese and her Little Way. She showed us the simpler way to heaven. She made it possible for us who are little to become holy, to live in God’s presence even in the ordinariness of our lives, opening for us the possibility of becoming saints. Looking at life, including God, with the eyes of a child, she opened up a lot of possibilities not a few theologians before her and even now have deciphered as expertly as she did. We have come to understand a lot of things through her from the why and how of sainthood, to the what and where of heaven, to the simple yet profound exposition of the workings of grace that opened a new vista for ecumenical dialogue among Christian denominations. Simplistically speaking, Therese made Christianity simpler, and in most cases, if heaven is indeed our only true goal, her little way is the only thing that we need. For her contributions to the church and specifically to us ordinary Chri...

One day a little boy saw a butterfly struggling to get out of its cocoon. It was a difficult struggle, one that entails expending all of ones strength to get one’s body out through the little hole of the cocoon. The boy out of sheer generosity tried to help it by making it easier for the butterfly to get out. He cut the hole bigger and in doing so the butterfly came out in no time. But what he saw coming out disturbed him. It looked more like a caterpillar than a butterfly – its body bloated and its wings helplessly shriveled up. The butterfly never took to flight. Its bloated body was too heavy for it to bear and its wings too withered to carry it up in flight. The boy learned from that experience that that little hole in the cocoon and the struggle the butterfly has to take to go through that hole was a necessity. By going through it, excess fluid is excreted and the wings are combed and straightened out. The little hole and the struggle that accompanies it were necessities...

I am supposedly the prefect of discipline and it is part of my duty, I mean not just a part, but the main bulk of my duty, to keep everybody in line – meaning I should be there to discipline, to make sure that their behavior remains within the ambit of what we consider civil, to make sure that the rules will always be followed, to make sure that everybody sleeps and wakes on time, to make sure that the little boys eat their vegetables, to make sure that they do their house cleaning well, to make sure that they don’t do anything weird to their teacher, to make sure . . . the list can be endless! Doing all these to the boys I can presume what your next question would be. You would ask me – do you like this kind of job? Last night I sat down and listed the many things I hated with this kind of job.

In ancient times sailors who have been at sea for months on end waited in anticipation for the time when the captain announces that the ship is now ob portu. Ob portu is a Latin phrase which means toward the harbor and it is used in a time when a wharf does not extend that far towards the sea to accommodate ships even during low tide as if have today. Ob Portu means the ship has almost reached the port and it is waiting for the right time, for the high tide to come so that the ship could dock in the harbor without fear of getting aground. A sailor is assigned as a lookout and when the high tide comes, he signals the crew and they immediately grab this instance to come nearer to port and dock. If they miss this suitable time, if they miss this right time, if they miss this appropriate time, they will have to wait for another day so that they could dock properly.

At age 36 God deems it necessary it seems that I be given a crash course on loving to augment if not to complete my own human formation. He has given me at least two points today which I am sharing with you for whatever they’re worth to you at your age. The first point I would call competing for love, of course with all love’s necessary accessories like caring, attention, affection, attachment perhaps and even gifts given. Competing for love had a early head start for me probably when my younger brother came into the world and when I began understanding what my elder brothers were talking about when we were left on our own exchanging boyish comparisons like the toys that they had in the past when I was not yet born. Even when I was still very young I remember even regretting to see old pictures of my brothers being cuddled. Obviously I can’t seem to locate the pictures they had of me being cuddled, hugged and embraced. Well after having their fourth child I surmise that they got ...

Today we celebrate the birthday of the Blessed Mother. This is a unique celebration because birthdays are not usually celebrated in the church. When we celebrate the feast of the saints, we do not celebrate their day of birth but their birthday to eternal life – their death, in short. But there are three exemptions to this rule.

Today we bury a familiar sight in the cathedral for so many years. She was my parishioner for 3 years and a half when I was first assigned here 15 years ago, and she was my neighbor for eleven years when I was assigned in the seminary. Our meetings were not really that long to permit me to know her intimately. It was always passing, literally passing – usually on that street corner as Seminario St. turns right to the Cathedral.

The feast of the Queenship of Mary was instituted by Pius the XII in 1954. It is to be recalled that it was Pius XI who had instituted the liturgical feast of Christ, the King in 1925 to emphasize the primacy of Christ who will rule and bring lasting peace to a world torn by turmoil during the early part of the 20th century. This was done after the so called Great World War or what we call now in history as World War I. Pope Pius XII deemed it appropriate to institute the liturgical feast of the Queenship of Mary to emphasize Mary’s participation in the work of Christ, the King, and he did it also 10 years after the war known as World War II, just when the world was entering into what we now refer to in history as the cold war.

You ask me to reflect with you on the unity of the clergy and the laity. What is unity? What does unity consist of? A parish priest once declared, I am the captain of the ship. We have only two rules in this parish: first, the captain is always right; second, if the captain is wrong, refer to rule number one. And so one day a parishioner was asked, “Ma’am, is there unity in the parish where you belong?” “Yes of course,” the lady answered, “whatever the parish priest says, we follow.”

Today like Bartimaeus we approach Jesus and beg him “Rabonni we want to see.” We want to see. Teihlard de Chardin once said – “the whole of life lies in the verb seeing – to see.” I believe so too – the whole of life lies in the verb seeing, for most of the time what makes us happy or unhappy with life, what makes life a burden or a joy is how we see things in life. Seeing makes the difference.

For this homily I would like to thank Paul for coming to my room last night and told me this little anecdote which happened in the life of St. Thomas Aquinas. The story as Paul told it to me goes this way. One day St. Thomas Aquinas, a student just like you, was caught sleeping while his teacher, a friar, was giving a lecture. The friar upon seeing him asleep suddenly shouted pointing towards the window, “there’s an elephant flying.” Thomas suddenly woke up and in excitement run to the window to see the flying elephant pass by. His classmates and the friar laughed saying, “only a dumb fool would believe that an elephant can fly.” St. Thomas, terribly slighted and embarrassed looked at his teacher and said, “It is easier to believe that an elephant can fly than to believe that a friar can tell a lie.”

Today on the birthday of the woman we all love and I would like to talk on a very interesting topic – women. Ok if that does not sound interesting enough to you I will change the topic to something even more interesting – we will talk about girls. You have just heard the gospel read. It was boring – full of names – so many names, names which are difficult enough to read, much more to remember and much much more to understand. But there is something interesting about this so-called anscestry of Jesus. What is this interesting thing among these many names? All are names of men except for five, which are names of women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary. More interesting than these names of women finding its way in the list of ancestry in a patriarchal society where women are treated as things, are the very characteristics of these women themselves.

The sacred congregation for doctrine in Rome declared through Cardinal Ratzinger that God the Father should always be addressed with the pronoun He; the Son should always be addressed with the pronoun He; and the Holy Spirit should always be called a He. How does he know that the Holy spirit is a he? One could only imagine, but you see its very hard to determine the sex of a dove. Now people ask, how do we address the devil – is it a she or a he. The sacred congregation does not say anything but when I see Buyong running to the telephone immediately after meals I tend to believe that that “devil” is a she. Today let us talk about temptation. We have a very bad image of the devil. The great tempter is pictured as somebody so ugly you would not even want to get near it. But if you look at the bible closely the tempter is always somebody, something beautiful. The tempter is pictured in the book of Genesis as a snake. But snakes during those times were used as symbols, symbols of...

Some people attend presbyteral anniversaries such as mine bringing with them that which I would like to call the perennial human interest to hear what the celebrant has to say about his priesthood, or about his life as a priest. What I call human interest is actually my way, my politically correct way of saying may pagka-maniningad kita at the very core especially when it comes to lives that are considered mysterious because they are set apart from those which we consider ordinary or because they are simply unique. The lives of priests are very interesting conversation pieces as evidenced in the way newspapers nowadays treat us, so I won’t let you leave this place without giving you that satisfaction if only to satiate your endless curiosity about us. Don’t worry about the length of this reflection. Ten years is not that long. In fact ten years is so short that I would just like to describe it in a phrase which I took from our gospel today, “those who entertained doubts fell down ...

My arthritis brings with it not just pain in the joints but a corollary disease which attacks the eyes. I remember one time at the height of arthritis I found out that my eyes became swollen and red and my eyesight began to fail. I could no longer see things well. At night when there is little light I practically could not see anymore and in the dim light of the theatre I was becoming more and more like a blind person. I was so afraid. In fact I was more afraid of loosing my eyesight than loosing a leg and go limp for life. I remembered I was asking God, “Lord pianga lang ko indi lang ko pagbulaga.” Eyes are very important. The eyesight is very important. In fact it is considered one of the higher senses with hearing. Without the eyes you loose not just an eye but the world and the beauty in it, a beauty people are risking their life diving down the water, for what – to see. Just to see. Eyes are also the more truthful communicators. Your lips may suppress a smile, but you...

My mind is still a bit cluttered after four days of having to go through the translation of the sacramentary. Added to this is the excitement it generated in me after knowing that we have only 40 pages left to translate before everything can be called done. This, after 3 years, 1, 340 pages of Latin plus the many other pages of supplements coming from the English Sacramentary. I know you don’t miss me that much not being here for four days. But I do miss you. I even said to myself, I think I need to stay out of my community once in a while for as the saying goes, Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I don’t know if it’s the same with you. Probably with you its more of, when the cat is away the mouse will play. But to tell you I regained some of my trust in you. For a fact, during my absence, I heard many good things happening and it made me happy, it made me quite at ease and it even made my heart grow fonder still. Frankly, I missed the touch, the exchange of banter, the ...

From today until Wednesday we will hear the seven woes uttered by Jesus to the scribes and Pharisees. Today we have heard the first three woes. Tomorrow we will hear another two and on Wednesday another two. All in all, seven woes. Woe to you. In the original Greek language, which is hard to translate in English this woe is not just an expression of anger but an expression both of anger and sorrow. It is an anger that comes from a heart that has truly loved. Deep raging anger combined with deep and intense sorrow. Woe to you. I don’t know if anyone of you has experienced this.

Who is to be blamed for the murder of St. John the Baptist? I would answer: “it depends on who is answering the investigation.” If I am to ask this in an Individual Colloquium (IC) my report which I would dutifully write on a piece of paper folded crosswise, would appear like this:

Some years ago Bette Midler sung a song entitled From a Distance. I guess you are not expecting me to sing in this early hour of the morning so permit me just read a few lines from the song. From a distance, the world looks blue and green and the snow-capped mountains white. From a distance the ocean meets the stream and the eagle takes to flight. The best picture of the earth, and a bestseller picture at that, is a picture taken from one of the Apollo missions as they were about to orbit the moon. It is from this picture that the earth was named the blue planet. It is a good picture because it was taken from a distance.

It took me two weeks to finally accept this appointment, not for anything, but for the obvious reason that I am replacing the grand old man of our alumni gatherings – Fr. Bernard Ybiernas. I hate being a replacement, for two reasons. First it does not help my self-esteem especially if you are following the footsteps of somebody already refined by age and experience. And more importantly because people might be expecting for weeks and even months to see the grand old man of Assumption and hear his booming voice only to end up having to bear with this fellow whose prominent features are his eyebrows and who hobbles when he walks. I just hate it when I become the cause of another person’s frustration. Nevertheless, I accepted it, again for two v

Let’s talk about eating. They say that Filipinos eat only once a day. We eat only once a day. But, as the saying continues, it takes us a whole day to finish. What does that mean? We eat non-stop from the time we wake up until just before we sleep. We eat not just breakfast, lunch and dinner. We eat so many things in between. There’s the mid morning snacks, the mid-afternoon snacks and the midnight snacks not counting the mani, the kamonsil, the sirguelas, the maiz, the candies, the chippy, the cheese curls, the potato chips which we eat in our offices, while watching TV, in our cars, while riding on the jeepney, and even while waiting for a jeepney. It is true, we eat once a day but it takes us a whole day to finish.

This homily is partly an attempt to articulate my feelings as a seminary formator of these young boys triggered by my appointment by the administration as an investigator of a major crime committed in our seminary community, and hounded and perhaps harassed since last night by our readings today after making my recommendations which might trigger a deluge of expulsions, if not now then in the near future. I don’t know how this reflection on the word of God will suit you. Probably God will find a way to fit them into your hearts. After all it is his word and not mine.

The gospel today is so appropriate. After a week of fighting it out with each other, trying to prove who among us is the greatest, who among us is the champion, the gospel seeks to answer the question, what is true greatness? Who is the greatest among us? After a week of giving our best shot, of bearing pain, tiredness and hardships in order to come out first among the many teams, our gospel asks: who is first? What does it consist in being first?

This morning let us talk about sex. Okay I got your attention. But don’t worry I am not fooling you just to get your attention. I will be reflecting with you partly about sex. If you are accusing me of talking to you about sex in church remember it was not me who instigated the discussion. The first reading talks about a naked man and a naked woman roaming around the garden. Now what could I do? Then here is Jesus instigated in part by the question of the Pharisees talking about adultery, about a man and a woman becoming one flesh, one body and about a man or a woman having relations with others besides their husbands or wives. Now with these readings I cannot help talking about sex at 7:15 in the morning. But come to think of it, it is providential. Talking about sex in the morning is like having good coffee. It keeps one awake and should I also include the adjective, attentive?

Some people would imagine this place as an airport. On your right is the departure area and on your left is the pre-departure area and right in the middle of these, where we are at the moment, is probably the pre-departure lounge. I don’t know how to make of this joke – a joke which hits us quite satirically, something funny but also something true and factual. Reality bites they say and this kind of joke makes the bite quite ticklish. As for me I like the joke, not because it is too funny, which it is not, but because I like reality presented this way – we face it squarely in good humor.

A mother one day asked her son who was so in love with his girlfriend. The mother asked, “What does your girlfriend like in you?” The young man replied, “Because she thinks I’m handsome, talented, clever and a good dancer.” And the Mother asked again, “And what do you like about her?” “Because,” the young man replied, “because she thinks I’m handsome, talented, clever and a good dancer.”

One of the advantages of being sick, is being slowed down necessarily, - not by choice but by necessity. After having lived with sickness half my life, I have taken these days as a privilege and a grace, and, a workaholic as a I am, a much needed rest without qualms of conscience. Through this I was given the privilege of assessing my life once more, where I am, where I stand, what keeps me moving. I have come to believe that things happen for a purpose, that there are no coincidences, only providence.

It is said that in the past, people in the orient most especially the Chinese would lie about their age, like most of us do now. However there is one big difference. We lie about our age by lowering it as in you’re actually 40 and you say, I’m 24, as if people could not see the obvious. But in the past, it’s different. People in the orient would lie about their age by jacking it up, as in you’re actually 50 but they would insists, I am 65. Nowadays we color our hair with whatever color we like, except gray. I attended a wedding once who had for their motif the color green. Everything is green, even the hair of one woman. Imagine a green hair, greenamo gid, I hope her mind was not as green as her hair!

In the tradition which I myself started, my first address to the college community is always in the form of a story. The first four years I always started the year with the story of the rabbi who got lost in the woods. These last two years I addressed the community with the story of the mother eagle needing to push her young so that it could finally learn to fly. These stories are programmatic for the year. It will tell us of the methods to be used and the approaches that I intend to use in my relationship with you. Every time the story changes, the approaches and methods also change. The intent does not change, however, neither do the basics of our formation program. Only my approaches change. Only the way I relate with you changes.

What does it mean when we say that he or she is perfect. What comes to mind when we say somebody is perfect? In our reflection today let us first examine what we mean and therefore what we expect, when somebody is or is expected to be perfect. I believe some of us here are teachers. So when we say “John, you have a perfect score,” we mean that John never committed a single mistake in his test paper. No mistakes – therefore perfect. Some of us here will be hired by people for a certain job and so when they say “you are perfect for the job,” what they really mean is you are truly fit for the job to be done. She is fit – therefore she is perfect. Some of us here have boyfriends or girlfriends or some of us here idealize somebody and we call them the perfect boyfriend, the perfect girl, the perfect mother, the perfect priest. Therefore when we say perfect we mean he or she is excellent, he or she could not be matched by any other. She or he is excellent and one of a kind therefore...

This is to be a Seniors' Night but through some divine inspiration of which the inventor of this title prided himself we now call this the Sailors' Night. This new name was coined by no other than Dominic (Tanedo), our most frugal and unearthly comedian. His logic runs this way: since the Argonauts were legendary sailors and the word sailors rhymed with seniors, he thought it appropriate to call it Sailors' Night instead of Seniors' Night – ha ha ha what a stroke of genius! If this is ingenuity I could only imagine what stupidity is in this seminary. I hope the graduates won’t end up as Marineros in John B. Lacson. But coming to one’s senses this can indeed be a stroke of genius. Since the Bridge Builders are gone, the Pontifex, last year, we need sailors to cross rivers and seas to get where we need to go as a community. And besides, our calling is a calling to become fishers of men, and by profession fishermen and sailors fall under the same category. A stro...

As I stand before you today I feel I am a redundancy here if not an outright anomaly. Graduation speeches are meant to inspire and to encourage. But I have already done that to them on a daily basis since they were placed under my supervision four years ago. Ask them, for inspiration here comes in daily doses under the form of gentle coaxing and tender prodding, to my so called persuasive pushing and forceful pulling, and should worst come to worst, outright shoving. In my line of work for nine years now I have developed a wide arsenal of tools for this purpose that has earned me evaluations from seminarians as an effective formator as well as the god of lightning and thunder. In this institution you either get inspired by all means and by whatever means or you get expired. Just gazing at my face will already tell them to. And so to inspire them again today is quite redundant. Otherwise I would be perceived as one big nagger or give the impression of someone who has not done hi...

Let us see if you have studied well this year. Please answer the following questions: 1. If there are three bananas and you take away two, how many do you have? Answer: Two bananas. Why? because you took two bananas! 2. Bible quiz: How many animals of each sex did Moses take on the ark? Answer: None. Why? Because Moses was not in the ark. It was Noah. Last question: Do you know that there is a law that a man living in Iloilo cannot be buried in Manila? So why can’t a man living in Iloilo be buried in Manila? Answer: Because he is still living, he is still alive. I don’t know how your mind works but I am old enough and have experiences sufficient enough to say that things don’t turn out as expected most of the times. And things don’t turn out as planned. Irregardless of how much control I made, despite the detailed planning that was prepared, and in spite of the many and meticulous attention to details, most of the things that turned out for the better in my work in...

This is a tribute made in 2002 to Bishop Angel’s anniversary to the priesthood celebrated with the seminarians during their Christmas Party. The title/theme of the gathering was, Angel Comes to Town. Angels do still come to town once in a while. When they do, they enlighten the young to dream dreams, they inspire men to hope for the better, they agitate men to rise in strength and ardor; they motivate them to move beyond themselves and most of the time they disturb the peace, they upset order, they disrupt routine. Christmas is not just a time for peace. We have romanticized Christmas many, many times. With angels hovering about gracefully in the sky. With shepherds peacefully watching their flocks. With the sweet, sweet scene of a lovely belen and those lovely Christmas carols at the background. But Christmas is a time not just of peace or of angels serenely gliding, hovering in the sky. No, it is about a virgin disturbed by the announcement of an angel that she would give bi...

Mullah Nasruddin found a diamond by the roadside but, according to the Law, finders can only become keepers if they first announced their find in the center of the marketplace on three separate occasions. Now Nasruddin was too religious-minded to disregard the Law and too greedy to run the risk of parting with his find. So on three consecutive nights when he was sure that everyone was fast asleep, he went to the center of the marketplace and there announced in a soft voice, “I have found a diamond on the road that leads to the town. Anyone knowing who the owner is should contact me at once.” On the third night, however, a man happened to be standing at his window and heard Nasruddin mumble something. When he attempted to find out what it was, Nasruddin replied, “I am in no way obliged to tell you. But this much I should say: Being a religious man, I went out there at night to pronounce certain words in fulfillment of the Law.” End of the story. Moral lesson: To be properly wicke...

Teachers’ day is not really my thing. When I celebrated my tenth anniversary in the priesthood last year, I was grilled to the max and I felt then that every inch of my person was examined right before hungry eyes not so unlike somebody intent in dissecting a specimen under a microscope. And I just can’t believe that prying eyes such as yours would even notice my socks, mannerisms, eccentricities and all. So this afternoon as I made this little reflection I just thought to myself that these things should be permitted to happen only once a year, and once a year is more than enough, and I had had my share already at the beginning of the school year.

This homily was delivered during vespers . . . during the changing of the guards. Msgr. Nonet, now a bishop, was replaced by Msgr. Joema as Rector of the Seminary. Basically I was asking myself in this reflection, what is the role of a seminary rector and for that matter, what is the role of a seminary formator in the church? For years now I have been trying to look for a biblical passage that would justify my work in formation and at the same time guide us formators in our tasks. I believe our work is a unique call. If it wasn’t unique, then the seminary from whence I came could have prepared me better. But I was not, which leads me to the conclusion that it must have been something our formators then never thought our bishops would even think of doing, probably presuming too much that they have the fullness of the Holy Spirit. For the record, Msgr. Joemarie was my spiritual director when I was in theology.

I have never been to a tea ceremony before but I have read about it. It is interesting like many things Japanese where the position, gesture, arrangement and even minute details symbolize something. It is very oriental indeed, for things are not seen primarily in its utilitarian aspect but more so in its symbolic value. The tea ceremony is a very slow process, very slow. Even the preparation and the pouring and the sipping of the tea are done so slowly. In the mouth and on the tongue the tea must be savored as if every molecule, every atom should be tasted. This is because the tea ceremony symbolizes the recognition that every human encounter is a singular occasion which can and will never recur again. Thus, every aspect, every part, every second of the tea ceremony should be savored by all for what it gives all - the human encounter as a singular occasion which can never ever recur again, savored to the last drop.

I seldom show myself on my birthday. It is something I still consider very personal, I usually spend it alone, sometimes with my family, at times by simply retracing my steps. Here is one retracing . . . a reflection on a painful disability which affected my life as a young adult on my 36th birthday. I will never get used to being treated like this. But just the same I have to get used to this feeling of embarrassment if I have to get on with life. At the very least the consolation is that things like this happen only once a year. My reflection tonight is an intimate and personal reflection of the gospel. I’ve been holing myself in my room the whole day afraid to face visitors or answer calls and all the while I was just thinking where my life is at the moment and where God might be leading me as I am about to enter the peripheral borders of midlife. That’s the technical way or should I say the politically correct way of saying I’m getting older.

This is one piece I’ve written after a year in the seminary as formator – some 9 years ago. I reread it once in a while to get in touch with my original feelings and thoughts about my seminary work. I just found out that these rereadings are important if we want to recover the original enthusiasm that once was . . .