visible rhetoric

The fifth article says that when Jesus died he descended into hell, something that we have reflected last week.  Then the creed continues saying that on the third day he rose again from the dead.  Today we reflect on the resurrection of Jesus which St. Paul places so much importance to when he said to the Corinthians, "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain."  Kon si Kristo wala mabanhaw ang amon pagwali wala sing kapuslanan, kag ang inyo pagtuo wala sing kapuslanan. Why is everything in vain if Jesus did not rise from the dead?  There are three reasons.

Why did Jesus send his disciples two by two?  Probably because he read this passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes which says: Two people are better than one, because they can enjoy a better benefit from their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion; but pity the person who falls down and has no one to help him up. Although an assailant may overpower one person who is alone, two would be able to withstand him. Moreover, a three-fold cord is not quickly broken.

What does Jesus mean when he said pluck out your eyes if that causes you to sin, or cut off you right hand if it leads you to sin?  What does these mean?  Since I did some research on the life of St. Anthony who feast we celebrated yesterday, I found out that a boy at one point kicked his mother in a fit of anger and in a fit or remorse went to St. Anthony to confess his sin.  St. Anthony said, if your legs causes you to sin cut it off.  So the boy went home and cut his legs.  When St. Anthony came to know about this he went to the boy’s house, took the boy’s leg and attached it back.  And the saint lectured the boy and told him not to do what the Lord said literally.

Why is it that people tend to view laws negatively?  Why do people look at the law as a burden, as something that stifles freedom.  When the seminarians went back to the seminary after a two month vacation some of them left a parting message on their facebook accounts saying, vacation is over, goodbye freedom.  Now they are entering a community with so many rules one of which is they cannot open their facebook – so vacation is over, goodbye freedom.

Now we are on the fifth article of our faith.  Jesus after he died and was buried, descended into hell and on the third he rose again.  Jesus descended into hell.  What is this hell? In the Old Testament, the English word hell refers to the land of the dead – in Hebrew this is called Sheol and in Greek this is called Hades.  It is believed that when people die all went to the land of the dead.  If you recall in Genesis the abode of God, heaven and paradise were closed to people and would remain close until the messiah would open it up again.  So all the dead whether good or bad, just or unjust go to Sheol or to Hades translated as hell in English because hell is a place where one is deprived of the vision of God.  In the later Old Testament they came to believe that Sheol or Hades was divided into two and Jesus would later say that an abyss separates these two parts of hell.  The first part is called the bosom of Abraham.  This hell is for...

There are certain things in the first reading that intrigued me and ever since I read it in preparation for this Sunday, this reading won’t leave my mind even if I wanted to reflect on our gospel today.  So this morning I would like to learn from them instead, from these things that are intriguing in our first reading. Before that permit me to give some preliminaries: this is the same widow that Elijah, fleeing the wrath of King Ahab, was told by God to go to.  Elijah encountered her at the city gate and asked her for a drink of water.  She got the drink but then Elijah asked her for bread.  Without refusing she expressed her hesitation for the bread she was about to bake would be her and her son’s last food before they commend themselves to die of starvation at the time of famine. But Elijah told her to trust God and indeed the bread and the oil lasted them.  After a few months, with Elijah still living with this widow and her son and eating from the same ...

We are still in the fourth article of faith – Jesus who was conceived by the power of the Spirit and was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. Today, God in Jesus as it were is staking his claim of ownership on us when Jesus said that we give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give back to God what is God’s.  This claim is not just founded on the fact that we were created in the image and likeness of God.  This claim is even more wondrously established when Jesus redeemed us by accepting death for our sake.  Thus the ancient hymn the priest sings during Easter says, “O happy fault of Adam that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer.”  Kay kon wala nagpakasala si Adam kag si Eba wala kita pinana-ogan sang Dios, wala kita kontani makakilala kay Kristo kag wala kita kontani kahibalo kon ano ka daku ang paghigugma sang Dios sa aton.  sa Latin sini nga kanta nagsiling sia O certe necessarium peccatum Adae – ...

There are two perspectives, two ways of looking which I would like to reflect with you in our gospel today. The first perspective is the perspective of the boy and even of the disciples.  Five loaves and two fishes are all we have.  It is a perspective, an observation of one who is conscious of the little that he has.  It is not much.  It is just a little, so little in fact that it really won’t make a difference to the present need.  There is no pretension in the observation.  It is not pa-humble-humble.  It is just a simple statement of fact, coming from an acceptance of a reality, the reality that what I have is little and perhaps even insignificant.

Now we come to the fourth article of faith – Jesus who was conceived by the power of the Spirit and was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.  It is because of this constant repetition in the creed that the name of Pontius Pilate came to be associated with persons we vilify together with Barabbas and Judas – mga ngalan nga gina-associate naton sa mga traidor, criminal ukon mga tawo nga nagapanginwala sang ila responsabilidad kag nagapanghugas sang ila kamot.  But the name of Pontius Pilate is mentioned in the creed not to vilify him but to put an exact date, an exact time, to put in the chronology of world history the saving death of the Lord.  The death of Jesus was not just some accident.  The death of Jesus did not just happen in some distant past.  It has a date.  It happened at an exact day and hour.  It happened at a particular reign of a particular Roman Procurator in the Roman province of J...

The third article of faith professes that Jesus was “conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.”  We cannot leave this article without looking at the person of our Blessed Mother to whom we Filipinos dedicate this month of May in our special love for her.  After all we are pueblo amante de Maria – a people so in love with the Blessed Virgin Mary. The many titles by which we honor Mary flow from this article of faith – Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary.  That is why the first title given to her by the early Church was theotokos – Mary is the Mother of God.  No, she is not just the mother of Christ or the mother of Jesus.  But above all she is also the Mother of God for she is the Mother of Jesus who is both God and Man.  Theotokos – this title was given by the Council of Nicea, the first ecumenical council in the year 325 AD. 

Today, liturgical law prohibits us from using the funeral mass.  Liturgical law stipulates that we have to stick it out with Easter even if we have to recite the Gloria in the presence of the dead and in the midst of our grief.  The Sundays of Easter cannot be replaced even by something so extraordinary, so singular like this funeral, not because Easter is more important than death, not because Easter is prior to a requiem, but because Easter is so encompassing everything derives its meaning from Easter, everything is explained by Easter, even our view of things and events is transformed by Easter, and that includes death, most especially death.  We are nothing without Easter.  This death would be nothing without Easter.  In fact our lives would be nothing without Easter.   So no, we could not miss even just a Sunday of Easter, otherwise what is the point of living and what is the meaning of dying.