visible rhetoric

The book of Proverbs where our first reading today is taken from, is part of a group of books in the bible we call Wisdom Literature.  It is grouped under this heading because it teaches wisdom, it teaches the truth and most especially it inculcates a way of life.  Despites its name the book of proverbs is not entirely proverbs or short statements.  There are also stories, parables and poetry. The book of proverbs provides practical wisdom which we can practice every day but it is different from the mere worldly wisdom because it has a moral and a spiritual content.  The wise man, the man imbued by wisdom is one who always views life with a spirit of reverence to God while the fool, the opposite of the wise is a person who has no religious sensibilities, one who does not consider God in his life behaving as if there is no God.   The Book of Proverbs considers the fool as a person who does not have God in his thoughts.  So we find in our readings...

A recent and most important scientific finding was the Higgs Boson or just simply the Higgs.  It was the costliest experiment and research involving so many scientists, physicists especially, trying to find out why atoms stick to one another.  Thus this discovery, the Higgs Boson is also called the “God Particle” because it is the building block of the elements from which everything starts.  But here’s the hitch.  When they made an announcement about their findings many people even those in the scientific world did not cheer or congratulate but instead they dismissed it initially with a stifled laugh.  Why so?  Because they, the scientists involved in the research chose to present their findings using a typeface or a font called Comic Sans MS.  If you are using Microsoft Word you are familiar with this font, Comic Sans MS.  The findings were initially dismissed because what they were using was not a believable font.  So this too is a w...

Paul continues to explain to the Corinthians what will become of our bodies in the resurrection of the dead.  He compares it to a seed.  A seed has to die and corrupt so that it can become new life; so also the body has to die and corrupt in order to be raised up.  The plant which grew from the seed is unlike the seed; so also the resurrected bodies would be so unlike our present bodies for it will be endowed with new qualities. 

Here Paul continues what he began yesterday  - to affirm that since Christ was risen from the dead then we too would rise from the dead.  If there is no resurrection from the dead then faith is useless, believing is useless, following Jesus is useless.  Thus Paul ended saying, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.”  Kon nagatuo kita kay Kristo para lang sa sini nga kinabuhi, pues kaluluoy man kita.  Kon indi man lang kita mabanhaw para pa sa ano nga kita magtuo kay Kristo.  This is the point of Paul in arguing about the resurrection of the dead.  Mangabudlay ako para sa sini lang nga kabuhi?  Mangabudlay gid ako sing tuman para sa seisenta ukon sitentay anyos nga kabuhi?  Tapos ano, patay ka man lang.

For the Romans the last is not the least but the most important.  We have come to the last topic of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians and he placed it last because it was the most important.  The question about the resurrection is placed before him.  The Corinthians had a hard time believing that the dead will rise again.  Not just because it is absurd by also because not everyone is sure that they would want to rise again in their bodies.  For the Corinthians matter is evil.  It is the source of so much suffering and should therefore be discarded.

Yesterday in our reflection we said that St. Paul never meant that being contended with what we have we should no longer strive to become better.  In fact we ended yesterday’s reading and begin today’s reading with the same injunction: to strive eagerly for greater things, to be zealous for the better gifts.

For the past several months now I have dedicated myself to reflect and therefore study the first readings whatever will come.  Sometimes I would take the second reading if it is a Sunday.  This way I am forcing myself to study and not to get contented with the things that I already knew.  At the end of our first reading Paul wrote, Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.  Other bibles would translate it as be zealous for greater gifts.  Do not be content with what you have, with what you know, with what you could already do, but strive for greater gifts. Now why did St. Paul said this?   What is his context?  He wrote in our reading, “You are Christ’s Body, and individually you are parts of it.”  We are the body of Christ, the church is the body of Christ, our community taken together is the body of Christ.  We are a church.  But individually you are parts of it, you are members of this body and therefore all are ...

The controversy of eating meat offered to idols is dealt yet again.   This time Paul compares it the Eucharist.   We become what we eat.   That is why the word to describe eating meat offered to idols or eating the bread and wine offered in the Eucharist is to participate – we participate in the meal, meaning we become one with what we eat.   Today we substitute the word participation with communion, we receive communion, meaning we become one with what we eat.

St. Paul said, Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win.  Every athlete exercises discipline in every way.  They do it to win a perishable crown, but we, an imperishable one.

Here is a beautiful passage from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians: "Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up."  The background of this passage is the question whether to eat or not to eat meat offered to idols.  Pagan Corinth offers meat to their gods and goddesses then some of these are brought home or are sold to market to be eaten.  The question is, are we allowed to eat this meat or not?  For Paul knowledge will tell us yes, we can eat meat offered to idols because in the first place there are no idols, there are no gods and goddesses except the one true God.  So knowledge informs us that there is nothing wrong to eat meat that was offered "to mere thin air."

There are two things Paul is trying to tell us this morning in our first reading. First, tempus breve est .  Time is short.  The apostle Paul in our first reading says this line in order to encourage us to make the very best use of our time to serve God and others for his sake.  Why is celibacy noble, why is it advantageous to remain unmarried?  Because time is short, too short to be preoccupied by so many concerns – including the obligation of providing for a family.   Why is the resolution to remain a virgin, to remain unattached good and even excellent?  Because time is short, which only leaves us time enough to provide for eternity and we have no more time to for the pursuit of the temporal.

The letter of Paul to the Corinthians is a real letter.  It is not some general letter which dealt with general topics.  The letter has a context.  It was written to a particular community experiencing a particular problem.  It was written in order to address a specific situation which Paul came to know about probably through a messenger or through an earlier letter. There were conflicts in the Christian community of Corinth and Paul was shocked with the way they handled them.  A Christian would bring another Christian to a court of law.  Christians were asking pagan judges to make a ruling to resolve the conflict between them.  For Paul that is a scandal because for Paul Christianity is the whole of life.  It is not just one part of your life, it is not just a portion of your life.  No, it is the whole.  And so even resolving conflicts among fellow Christians should be imbued with the teachings of Christ, resolving conflicts ...

Today on the birthday of our Blessed Mother we reflect on a passage in scriptures which to my mind explains the miracle of every birth.  We focus our reflection on our first reading, from the letter of Paul to the Romans. Paul, after giving the Romans a litany of instructions in the kind of life that they must live as followers of Jesus, ends these with words of encouragement.  He writes, we know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 

In a survey by SWS in 2013 only 37 percent of Catholics go to mass weekly.   Fr. John Carrol translated this mathematically saying that each priest in the Philippines would at the very least say mass to 3,280 mass goers.   That’s a lot of people and I believe I have not said mass to that many on a given Sunday.   Now for example I am celebrating mass to 20 people and I need to say another mass to 3,260 in order to complete my quota in the 37 percent.   What is however disheartening in the survey is the fact that in 1991 64 percent of the catholic population go to mass weekly.   Of course the population then was somewhere in the 50 million mark while now we are in the hundred million.   But the fact is the drop is steep – from 64 percent to 37 percent.   And yet in a recent international survey the Philippines ranked the highest in terms of people believing in God – 94 percent of Filipinos believe in God.

There are two kinds of persons according to our first reading today from the letter of Paul to the Corinthians.  The person can either remain a physical man or he can become a man imbued by the Spirit of Go d.  Other bibles translate physical man as the animal man or the natural man.  Tawo lang gid sia, tawohanon lang gid sia, so ang panan-aw niya tawohanon ang gid.  St. Paul describes a physical man as someone who could not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, he does not have the spirit of God with him, so he only sees things with human wisdom.  That is why for him the wisdom of God and those who follow it, is foolishness for the physical man cannot understand it because he remains worldly, he relies only on human wisdom. But a spiritual man sees things differently because he sees things from the point of view of God, not according to the standards set by the world but according to the heart of God.  This is because the spiritual man has ...

If we have to summarize our first reading today this is what I can come up with – vocation comes first, merits do not count; the call comes first, worthiness does not have to follow; God reaches out first and together with it God gives the one he calls the capacity to respond. The call comes first and merits do not count - Not many of you were wise by human standards ,not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. God chose the foolish of the world, God chose the weak of the world, God chose the lowly and despised of the world.  Simply, those called are not meritorious, they are not fit to be called.  It is God who calls and we cannot know his criteria, we cannot know where he bases his judgment on those he calls.  So what is seminary formation?  Seminary formation merely aims to recognize the call and sometimes to even clarify the call.  And secondly seminary formation forms the person to respond rightly to the call, to help him respond corre...

The second letter of Paul to the Thessalonians is believed to be the second earliest new testament writing, the first to be written being the First Letter to the Thessalonians.  One proof that this is a very early writing is the belief that Christ’s return is imminent.  People in the second half of the first century, and that includes St. Paul, believed that Christ will return very soon and some have even sold already all their properties and refused to take up useful labor .  That is why in this same Second Letter to the Thessalonians Paul told them that those who would not work should not eat. People were so preoccupied with the return of the Lord that they forgot their day today obligations and responsibilities.  Daw pareho man bala sang una nga may rumor nga ma-end of the world na kag nagbinakal kita sang perdon nga kandila kag nagpabendita sang pospro.  Didto pa ako na-assign sa cathedral sadto kag nalipay gid kami kay naubos ang baligya namon nga k...

Ezekiel is commissioned to become a prophet to Israel, in the words of God, to become a watchman to the chosen people.  Both in the first readings yesterday, today and in the coming days Ezekiel would witnesses the shekinah of God, the glory of God or the presence of God leaving and abandoning the temple.  God abandons his people.  God no longer resides with his people, a prelude to the destruction of Judah and most especially the destruction of the temple.  It is like the movie Isang Araw Walang Dios , or the reaction of a mayor when he assessed the devastation in Tacloban the morning after Yolanda hit the city, saying, Where is God? God must have been somewhere else when Yolanda came.