visible rhetoric

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...