hunger - ash wednesday 2013

It might be good to talk about the very thing we will deprive ourselves with during this day.  We will talk about food.  Yesterday Msgr. Oso came here to inform me that the parish of Tubungan has gathered 32 sacks of rice for the seminary.  It was their quarterly collection, meaning the collection for the past three months which they did for the seminary.  The collection for the other three quarters are made for different intentions.  But the 3 months he said were collected for the seminary.  He told me  that this collection as inspired by Msgr. Odi in Janiuay.  This is what they do.  

Every time they cook rice for breakfast, they would scoop one tablespoon of rice and put it inside a separate container they have prepared for this purpose.  Every time they cook rice for lunch, they would scoop one tablespoon of rice and put this inside the container.  Then they would do the same when they cook for dinner.  Every day, every week, every month, at every meal they would separate a tablespoon of rice for the seminary.  There were times that some of them were tempted to cook what they saved for the seminary especially now that the second cropping did not turn out right.  Nevertheless they would faithfully do this every day at every meal for the next three months – one tablespoon of rice for the seminarians of St. Vincent Ferrer Seminary – seminarians who will, in the future, serve them as priests.

Tubungan is not a rich parish.  But they gave us, from the little that they have.  Their giving was not surplus of what they have.  It was given with sacrifice.  It was a giving accompanied with pain.  

This day of fasting and abstinence, this day when we will endeavor to experience hunger as a community,  I would like you to experience what life would be without the generosity of this simple people who are themselves poor, even poorer than us.  I would like us to experience at least for a day what life would be for our community when people would stop being generous to us.  We live because of the generosity of people.  We have what we have because of the generosity of people.  We are what we are now, even as priests, because of the generosity of people.  And we do, even if we do not deserve this at all.

Fasting makes us humble.  It makes us meek.  Have you ever seen an arrogant hungry man – no, for his arrogance will only make his hunger worse.  Why does fasting makes us humble?  because hunger quickly weakens us.  It saps away our strength little by little until we grow weaker and falter.  It rightfully complements the ashes placed on our foreheads.

This hunger should make us realize our dependence on one another.  We are not mere individuals and isolated self-sustaining islands.  No.  We are a communion, we are part of a bigger structure that supports one another.  We live because others are doing their part as faithfully as we should be doing ours.  We affect one another.  We are church.  We are community.  And for this we need to be generous and self-sacrificing for one another

Today we will realize, because of our lack, that we are men of values capable of going beyond the need of fulfilling the craving for food.  You will come to know the virtues you possess in a dire situation.  You will come to know the values you hold in a situation of need.

Today some of you will eat in secret.  Some of you will rationalize saying, "Oh, I’m not really obliged, and this is just a little of what I normally eat."   Do not worry.  Nobody will kill you for eating in secret, and no one will debate with you on your reasons not to fast.  But now you know who you are, now you realize what hunger can do to you.  In formation self-knowledge is important.  The knowledge of self is important for the knowledge of self is your way to come to know God.

After this day you may ask, who am I, now that I have experienced hunger; what did hunger do to me today; what did hunger make me into;  what have I discovered in myself?

Fasting is not just about penance or self-discipline.  It can be self-discovery.  In the self-discovery you may come to know God, you may come to know who God is.  Perhaps.