visible rhetoric

Last week we reflected on the Gloria, the ancient pryer, Glory to God int he highest.  In particular we reflected on the greeting of the angel peace to men of good will, and we said that the gift of the incarnation was not because we deserved it, nor did God owe it to us, but that all these are divine initiative.  It is God who loved us first. He has given us graces although these are undeserved.  And finally he will grant us heaven not because we are worthy of heaven but because of his mercy.

Last week in reflecting on the confiteor or on the prayer “I confess,” specifically on reflecting on the words “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, I emphasized personal responsibility - sin is an act of choice and it is done with free consent.  In moral theology, the commission of mortal sin has three requirements - the act is grievous, there is full knowledge meaning you know that doing this is a sin, and lastly there is free consent, knowing that it is a grievous sin still one chose to do it. But there is one other thing I would like to emphasize in this lex orandi.   The prayer I confess is personal, but it is done in community even begging the other “to pray for me to the Lord our God.”   Through this prayer we are made to realize that the sin of one, harms others in the same way that the goodness of one enriches also others.   When a person is greedy for profit that he destroys the environment, his sin does not just affect...

I would have wanted, if you asked and insisted on it, that we do our evening prayers in the cemetery.  When I was in the FY in Mandurriao then and when morning prayers were individual, I would almost always do my morning prayers in the cemetery.  I would sit in one of the tombs and pray my morning prayer.  Yes I am a little morbid, I have a skull in my room, I am fascinated by the requiem and the dies irae of Mozart, Lully and Verdi and I recommend that you listen to the funeral songs of the Russian Orthodox church especially the litany - a sampler would be the funeral of Boris Yeltsin, once the president of Russia.  These songs are beautiful, heavenly in fact. But why label this preoccupation as morbid, and why present it as fearful, with howling dogs at the background, and creaking doors, and macabre music and pipe organs? This bias comes from western movies probably.   It is not Filipino.   Filipino tradition is to invite the souls, to invite the...

Last week we reflected on our response to the greeting and with your spirit and we saw the importance of this response especially in our faith, that the priest, despite his unworthiness, celebrates the sacraments in persona Christi - not in his person but in the person of Christ.  Thus it is Christ who baptizes, it is Christ who offers the mass, it is Christ who anoints.  Now we proceed to the confiteor, to the prayer “I confess to almighty God.”   This is part of the Penitential Act and the most obvious change in our new translation is not really surprising because we have been using this in the Hiligaynon translation - sa akon sala, sa akon sala, sa akon daku nga tuod nga sala - through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.   Dala ang pokpok sang dughan .  

This is the second time this year that I am celebrating mass for an octogenarian who is celebrating his birthday.  First it was my mother’s 80 th birthday, now it’s Tay Badal’s 81 st birthday.  I am fascinated by this age for two reasons.  First, the book of psalms says that “our lifespan is 70 years old,” and it hurriedly adds “or 80 for those who are strong.”   To have reached 80 therefore is to reach the fullness of age, and since it is a fullness, it is an age where one can say, I have nothing more to ask.   Here, age and the things closely associated with age, like time, the succession of day and night, health, sight, great grandchildren, can truly be called and appreciated as gifts - something freely given, something extra even, something we can even call underserved.   Not all of us will be given this grace, not all of us are and will be given these extras in life.   It must be very beautiful and I am one with Tay Badal in saying thank you...

Pedro Calungsod is our second saint and all of them are martyrs - St. Lorenzo Ruiz was our proto-martyr or our first martyr who was killed because of his faith in Nagasaki in Japan.  Our second saint is St. Pedro Calunsod who was martyred in Guam in the Marianas Islands in the year 1672.  It is with excitement that we approach the Sunday when he will be canonized by Pope Benedict himself at St. Peter;s Square on Sunday. It could take several years, even decades to investigate the martyrdom and heroic virtue of Pedro.   He was beatified in the year 2000 at St. Peter’s Basilica by Pope John Paul II.   By beatification a person’s life is recognized as exemplary.   So the experts, priest, bishops and cardinals would investigate if indeed he has lived a heroic virtue.   Then if he is beatified he is given the title Blessed.  

Jesus is telling us that man, the person is composed of body and soul.  All of us have a body and a soul.  If you are body without a soul then you are dead because the soul gives life to the body.  The soul however can live even without the body.  Our souls are eternal.  We cannot kill it.  It will live forever no matter what we do.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Luke.  He was a doctor by profession before he became a companion of St. Paul during his many journeys.  That is why St. Luke is the patron saint of doctors.  He is also the patron saint of artists most especially of painters because legend says that he was the first to have painted an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary.   Most of all St. Luke is known because he wrote two books in the bible, in the new testament, the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. 

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch who was martyred in the year 107.  The church remembers him very well for he was the successor of St. Peter in the church of Antioch where for the first time the followers of Jesus were called Christians.  St. Ignatius became also the first to refer to the Christian community as catholic by calling it the Catholic Church.  St. Ignatius is well remembered because while he was being brought to Rome to be executed he wrote letters to different churches along the way.  He wrote seven letters in all, all of which have become part of the office of readings in our breviary.  When he arrived in Rome escorted by soldiers he was led to the amphitheater where he was devoured by two fierce lions.

And in true Daquilanea fashion, within an hour of leaving the hospital after Tatay's body was sent off to the funeral parlor, we were already laughing (albeit a little sadly), mocking and enjoying each other's company.  And I'm pretty sure Tatay was doing that very same thing with my mother and all other family and friends who have passed on in the afterlife. This is Roy’s narrative of the event as told in Facebook.   What Roy did not include in this narrative, which he entitled, “The House of Basoy", was the hour after that hour after they brought Tay Basoy to the funeral parlor.   I would like to continue where Roy left off.   This is how “the two hours later” went if it was written on Facebook.

Last week we talked about the sign of the cross symbolizing the two great tenets of the Christian religion namely the Holy Trinity, and secondly the Redemption brought about by the death of Jesus on a cross.  We also reflected on the meaning of the greeting “the Lord be with you,” and why good morning or good evening used as a greeting in the liturgy may sound bland and I should say, out of place inside the mass; and why the greeting the Lord be with you is such a profound and beautiful greeting.  Today we reflect on the meaning of our response to the greeting the Lord be with you.   Your response is, “and with your spirit.”   It is a direct and literal translation of the Latin response et cum spiritu tuo. At present when the priest says the Lord be with, we all respond “and also with you.”   In December, we will start using, “and with your spirit.”   This is our lex orandi, this is the rule of prayer which we should follow, at least in English. ...

Today we reflect on the attitude of Jesus towards money because the exchange in the dialogue between the young man and Jesus shows that Jesus cares about how we use our money.  A priest would always feel some degree of discomfort whenever he talks about money in the pulpit.  It would always be viewed as self serving.  Why?  Because after his sermon, the colecta takes place. But I would like to talk about it anyway.   After all there is no colecta after this homily although there will be some pressure on you this week with the signing of clearances and the settling of accounts because of the finals on Monday next week. So what is the attitude of Jesus towards money, how does he want us to use our money?

I would surmise that whoever chose the date for this convention did not consider our readings today, because if they did, they would have moved this convention a week earlier or a week later.  Since I presume that they didn’t know, I am now forced to talk this early about a naked man and a naked woman roaming around a garden, I am going to discuss adultery in a convention hall full of women, and I am going to speak about sex before some of us have even drunk our first cup of coffee.  And believe it or not, all these I would do over the microphone.  If you think these things shock your fine morning, consider how I felt last night, after living alone in my room for the past 19 long years, I came upon this passage which says, “and God said, It is not good for man to be alone.”   Then why the hell am I living alone?   You could have told me earlier that it is not good for man to be alone!   So there you go. Whoever chose the date for this convention is gi...

In our reflection on the liturgy we will use the age old principle which I discussed with you last week as our pattern of explaining what we do in the mass.  The principle is lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi - the way of praying lex orandi comes from our believing lex credendi and thus influence our way of living lex vivendi.  This is how we pray because this is what we believe and thus this is the way we act and live. Let us start with the sign of the cross and the invocation of the Trinity.   Our Lex orandi is In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit while we make the sign of the cross from our forehead to our navel, then to our left shoulder and to our right shoulder.   This is how we pray.   Why?   Because of our Lex Credendi, the rule of faith.   By making the sign of the cross we are starting the mass by affirming two very important tenets of our faith.   Without these two tenets of the faith we cannot be calle...

      It is with great excitement that the disciples reported back to Jesus after being sent to their mission. It was successful and they came back triumphant. At your name, they said, even the demons are subject to us. They realized that they had power, they can do miracles in his name. They can heal and drive away evil spirits from people afflicted in any way. They were happy and probably even proud. Thus Jesus said, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. It can mean that Satan’s kingdom is beginning to crumble because of what the disciples did in their mission. But it could also mean another thing. It can mean beware of the sin of Lucifer, beware of the sin of pride. The sin that makes us think that we can do things on our own and by our own power, and that we don’t need God nor do we need to obey.

We attribute greater responsibility to those who have greater privileges.  We may be tolerant when a child makes noises and plays out loud when mass is going on, but we will not be amused when an adult does the same in church.  We allow a child to do certain things in a formal occasion which we find intolerable and inexcusable for an adult to do the same.  This is the reason why the application of laws is different from a juvenile offender to an adult offender - because we attribute greater responsibility to those who have greater privileges.

What makes St. Francis popular even in our age? Several things come to mind.   Probably because he was a lover of nature.   He talked to birds and trees.   He was even seen preaching to the fishes in the pond.   Holiness does not mean being in the chapel or praying before the Blessed Sacrament.   St. Francis taught us what real holiness means, and it means to live constantly in the presence of God.   Whether we are in the chapel or in the classroom or gardening or working or playing, God is there and to be aware of his presence is to be holy; to live in his presences is holiness.

One of the criteria for discipleship is detachment.  Detachment means the willingness to cut relationships for something which we realize is of higher importance; the readiness to leave behind the things we value for the sake of the call. The willingness to cut, the readiness to leave behind – this is what detachment is all about and time and again this will be demanded from somebody who intends to follow Jesus in a more intimate way.

Today we celebrate the feast of our guardian angels.  In our gospel today, the disciples were warned not to despise children, for as Jesus said, their angels in heaven always look upon the face of the father.  It is an assertion by Jesus himself that angels are watching us, protecting us, and offering prayers to the Father for each one of us.  At times they are depicted as messengers from God.  That is why angels or aggelos in Greek means a messenger, a messenger from God.  Other times, however, they are also depicted to be praying for us to the Father, for as the bible says, they stand in God’s presence day and night.

Scandal comes from the Greek word skandalon which means an obstacle, an obstacle that makes people trip over.  The sin of scandal of which the gospel today speaks of, recognizes therefore several things in our faith and moral life. First we affect one another.   Whether we intend to or not, whether we accept it or not, there are people affected by what we say and what we do.   That is why there is a sin of scandal because people may lose faith because of what they see in us, people may be led to sin because of what they know about us, and people may be led away from the church because of what we do and how we treat others.   There is such a sin as scandal because we affect one another.

Last two weeks ago, we reflected on liturgy as prayer, that when we come to celebrate the mass, when we come to have our child baptized or confirmed or when we go to confession or get married, we come primarily to pray.  We affirmed that liturgy is not a performance but prayer, that whatever we do in the liturgy, whether it is in the selection of the songs we will sing, or in the ritual actions that we perform, or in the pakulo that we do in weddings for example, may mga bubbles-bubbles, may sira-sira puerta, the question is, do these things enhance prayer, that after all these things are done, can we say, I have prayed?  Again let me remind you liturgy is prayer. Our second point for this week in our consideration of the liturgy is this - liturgy is not just prayer but it is our prayer - not just my prayer, or his prayer, or your prayer, or her prayer or their prayer but, but our prayer.   The liturgy is the prayer of the church.

Today we read the very middle of Mark’s Gospel.  This passage is located at the very center of the gospel.  It is at the center because it separates the first part from the second part of Mark’s Gospel.  And more importantly it provides the transition from the first part to the second part. The first part is about the ministry of Jesus, the ministry of liberating men and women from the bondages of oppression - freeing them from diseases and sicknesses that enslave the body; freeing them from the evil spirits that take hold and control the soul; liberating them from ignorance that stifles the spirit and the mind.   These, Jesus did as he went all over Galilee healing the sick, casting out devils and demons and teaching the people the truth about God.

Not all values are the same.   Not all values are equal.   There is what we call a hierarchy of values.   When we say there is a hierarchy of values we recognize that in a particular context there is a prior value and a value of lesser degree.   We recognize that in a particular situation, there is a more pressing value and there is a less pressing issue.   The Sabbath rest is a value.