visible rhetoric

Last week I was assigned as reader to a thesis defence on Ricoeur’s concept of the fallible man. There is in us a tension created by the upward pull of the spiritual and the downward pull of the bodily; the upward pull of the ideal and the downward pull of the empirical; the upward pull of our desires, dreams, ambitions and imagination and what we can possibly become and the downward pull of our realities and who we really are.  Because of this tension there will always be a disproportion between what we could have done and what we have done; a tension between what we want to do and what we in fact do.  We will always fall short.  Thus we carry with us the possibility of committing error, we are prone to make mistakes because ontologically we are “the fallible man.” In the paper presented what struck me was the struggle and desire of the seminarian to lessen the tension between these two poles, and thus lessen and perhaps even eliminate the possibility of man fa...

Again we focus our attention to our first reading from the book of Daniel.  This hymn of thanksgiving to God’s mercy is part of the hymn sung by the three young men who were put in the fiery furnace by the King of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar during Israel’s exile because they violated the decree of the king to worship an idol.  The three young men were Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah – these are their Hebrew names.  They are called by Nebuchadnezzar by their Chaldean name Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  For not worshiping the idol but the one and true God, they were condemned to be placed in a fiery furnace.  The furnace was so hot that even the soldiers who pushed them inside were themselves burnt.  But the three young men were however protected by an angel sent by God so that the fire could not burn even a single hair on their skin.  Because of this they sung this hymn in praise of thanksgiving for God’s mercy as fire engulfed them yet remaining unh...

Again I would like to focus my attention on our first reading, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments from the book of Exodus. Allow me to turn your attention to the first words in our first reading today.  It says - “I, the LORD am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.” Some scholars call this the introduction to the commandments.  But others even call this the first command, not just an introduction but the first commandment.  The point of this discussion is this:  these first words are very important.  Why?  Because it makes a difference as to how you look at the commandments of God.  In ancient past when a king conquers a nation and its people, defeating them in war, he would make an agreement with the conquered people by recalling first and foremost his victory over them – the victory speech. " I did this, I did that, I defeated you . . ." Then he will set out the terms that the people would obey and foll...

Today we get our reflection on our first reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah.  Jeremiah had a joyful early life, a happy disposition in his youth, but the difficulties he had to face and endure as narrated in the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations gave him the moniker “the weeping prophet.”  He suffered persecution from the hands of authorities and false prophets.  He had to endure beatings and at one time he was imprisoned inside an empty cistern.  He had to bear calumnies and lies thrown at him by his fellowmen in order to destroy his person and his credibility.  Thus he is the referred to as the suffering servant and for that he is said to prefigure Christ because Christ had to endure the same thing from the people he sought to serve.

Our first reading today from the book of the prophet Isaiah uses the language of a judge arguing the case in court and pronouncing sentence.  The accusation is basically the dichotomy in the life of people who believe they are religious, a disconnect between what they believe and what they do, between what they do in the temple or in the church, and what they do in our homes and in our communities and offices.  In this reading God is simply asking for sincerity of heart.  A person who says one thing and does another is not sincere.  A person who says he loves God but does not love his brothers and sisters is not sincere in his love for God.  A person who worships God, participating in the mass and not missing his prayers but neglects the needs of the weak and does not give what is right and just to others, is not sincere in his worship of God. The English word sincerity may have come from two Italian words – sin cera – without wax.  It was a prac...

The original Transfiguration Monastery of the Benedictine monks in Malaybalay Bukidnon got its architectural inspiration from today’s gospel.  It was perched on top of a hill and when one looked at it from afar one can see in a background of trees, three structures shaped like tents, all painted white.  The hill crowned with three massive white tents was an impressive sight to behold as you enter the monastery grounds.  When I was there, and I was there for a little less than a year, they were in the process of transferring the monastery from that hill to the  valley below.  The monks finally realized after so many years living on that hill that it was no joke to go up and down a hill several times a day, even for a monk, as they go about their daily responsibilities.  And probably, reading a little bit further into the suggestion of Peter to build three tents, the monks then finally realized that when Peter suggested this, he was, as Mark described,...

Have you sometimes asked yourself, why do I need to belong to a parish, why do I have to be in my community?   Partly the answer lies in our gospel today:   love is not a feeling, it is a command.   In Hiligaynon we say ang paghigugma indi lang balatyagon kundi tulumanon.   It is easy to say I love when I stay the whole day inside my room.   It is easy to say I love when I just stay the whole day inside the house.   It is easy to say I love when the whole day I am with the people I like.   Precisely we are a parish, we are a community because love is not a feeling but a command we need to fulfill.   

A portion of the book of the prophet Isaiah was written at a time when Israel was already in exile in Babylon.  They have been living in a foreign land far from their homes and fields.  They were enslaved and many times they had to suffer harsh realities of life living under the watchful eyes of their captors.  They had lost their freedom.  In fact all memories of home and freedom were by now already distant memories.  They have heard of the prophet Isaiah before and the other prophets promising them something, propping them up so that they won’t wallow in hopelessness.  It was important that they do not lose hope.  So the prophets were telling them – a time will come when the shoot of Jesse shall bud forth, a time will come says the Lord when the lion and the calf will live together, a time will come when you will finally return home.  It was important that they would keep on looking forward to something better, to keep hoping, to keep o...