visible rhetoric

In our psalm today, psalm 103, David talks to himself and tells his soul to do two things.  First he tells his soul to praise the Lord – bless the Lord, O my soul.  To bless the Lord means to praise in thankfulness.  To bless the Lord means that I recognize that God is the giver of blessings.  To bless the Lord is to joyfully announce all good things come from God.  This is what benedicamus Domino means – let us bless the Lord, praise him, thank him for all the good he has bestowed on you.  In the seminary the first invitation of the day as you wake up is to bless the Lord – the day is new, life has been given anew, God has sustained you, God loves you, God calls you, thus the first words that comes from our lips in the morning is Deo gratias – thanks be to God.  BE thankful. The second thing David tells his soul is to ponder all God's benefits to us.  David tells his soul, do not forget the good the Lord has done for you.  It takes a lo...

Last June 13 we again brought in procession the image of Our Lady of Fatima around the cathedral grounds and prayed together the rosary immediately after the 5:30 afternoon mass.  June 13 is the 100 th year anniversary of her second apparition to the children of Fatima.  There was a good enough crowd who joined the procession despite the fact that the invitation was only announced last Sunday in some of the masses.  So I am inviting our parishioners to gather once more on July 13, a Thursday, for the 5:30 pm mass and the for the rosary and procession immediately after.  Our Lady's message is so relevant especially at a time when parts of Mindanao are again becoming restive and terror attacks and threats are increasing by the day all over the world.  We turn once more to Our Blessed Mother who urged us to pray for peace and conversion, to pray especially the rosary.  We may find ourselves helpless in the face of these threats but we have a powerful weapo...

Psalm 85 is one of the most beautiful psalms.  It is in this psalm that we hear that beautiful passage which says " Mercy and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss."  We often hear this, we often say this, but do we see the seeming contradiction?  Do we see the impossibility of the encounter and embrace between mercy and truth, of justice and peace?  And yet this psalm says they will, one day they will meet like two long lost friends.  One day they will kiss like long lost lovers. The country today is torn between what president Duterte is doing to crime and criminals and what human rights activists want him to do.  In the president's mind a drug pusher does not deserve to live, kill him.  In the president and seemingly in the majority's mind a rapist does not deserve to live, give him the death penalty.  In the public's mind, the Maute brothers after what they have done to Marawi and so many innocent people do not deserve to live, ...

Psalm 99 praise God because God is holy.  What is qadosh, the Hebrew word for holy?  Holy means set apart, separated, different, la-in sia sang sa iban .  God is called holy because God different from anything that exist in this world, God is different from anything that we could imagine.  God is the totally other. This is also our call to be holy – to be holy means to be totally other, to separate oneself from the mob, to be different, not in the sense of becoming an elitist or to feel superior to the rest but to walk the less travelled path, to seek a different direction, to choose a different value, to love what the world despises, to run after what the world loathes. To be holy means to be different, to be separate like God.  I said this morning that during the time of Cory Aquino many Filipinos started working abroad by the thousands.  Little by little our values changed.  Parents would send their sons and daughters to courses that were n...

Today we reflect on psalm 119.  As I have already noted in the past this is the longest psalm, a psalm of 176 verses, and this longest psalm is a psalm in praise of God words, his precepts, his commands, his laws, his decrees.  In the psalm one is thankful for God's words and commands comparing these to a lamp to one's feet, a light for one's path, it is wisdom, it gives understanding, it enlightens the heart and the mind. Rules are not always liked, and many times, people would avoid them if they can.  We always want to do what we like, when we like and how we like things done.  We are always jealous of our freedoms and we refer to these laws and commands as burdens we don't want to carry.  But there are people who are happy because of these guides, and many times as we get older we can only look back with nostalgia and gratitude to those days when our parents made us do what we did not want to do. Today as we end the first full day of our retreat we look ...

Today we reflect on psalm 119.  As I have already noted in the past this is the longest psalm, a psalm of 176 verses, and this longest psalm is a psalm in praise of God words, his precepts, his commands, his laws, his decrees.  In the psalm one is thankful for God's words and commands comparing these to a lamp to one's feet, a light for one's path, it is wisdom, it gives understanding, it enlightens the heart and the mind.

So far, only a few have signed up for the Lord, "one hour once a week".  Except for the 5:00 AM and 7:00AM slots all the hours are filled on Sundays.  But on Mondays, of the 19 slots available, only 6 were filled up.  On Tuesdays, only 5 slots were filled u; on Wednesdays, only 6; on Thursdays, only 6; On Fridays, 2; and on Saturdays, 10.  Well, I know many of you are probably one of the many who visit our Lord even more than "one hour, once a week."   Some, I know, come daily.  Or you are one of those who prefer to be anonymous, not wanting to have your name published, not wanting to be recognized for a good deed.  But we are doing this campaign not just to have people "keep watch with the Lord".  We are doing this for two things. 

I would like to continue my reflection on the responsorial psalm of the mass and today we reflect on Psalm 47.  Psalm 47 is an appropriate psalm for the feast which we celebrate today, the solemnity of the Ascension when Christ our Lord after completing his mission here on earth went up to heaven and now sits at the right hand of the Father. Psalm 47 however situated in the context of the Ascension is not just your ordinary description of going up.   In so many words the psalm wants us to visualize the majesty, the splendor of the King's ascending which only the likes of Franco Zifferelli can produce on stage and Cecil DeMille on film.  There is grandeur in the description, there is an emphasis on the splendor of the ascension – "the Lord God mounts his throne and he mounts it amidst trumpet blasts, and as he ascends his throne all people clap their hands, there are shouts of joy, there are cries of gladness, for the Lord is the most high, he is the great king, reig...

When we were seminarians we were encouraged to visit the Blessed Sacrament several times a day and it has become a habit for many of us to pass by the chapel every time we leave our dorms for the classrooms, and also every time we leave the classrooms for the dorms.  We pass by, make the sign of the cross, genuflect, say hi or just make eye contact with the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, make the sign of the cross again, and leave.  For many of us this simple act of "visiting the Lord" has become a habit.  It is an important first act whenever we come to the parish – greeting the Lord first in the church before even greeting the parish priest.  Not much fuss or rituals, but just a simple acknowledgement that He is there, that somebody important is there.

We have opened our newly renovated adoration chapel.  We are passing around a paper asking for commitments from individuals or groups to take turns in adoring our Lord in the adoration chapel for an hour – just one hour once a week.  You can come individually or as a group – a group among the many religious organizations or ministries; you can come as barkadas, or as families, or a couples, etc., etc.  You can choose a one hour slot from 5:00 in the morning till 11:00 in the evening. We're leaving the sign-up sheet with the guard. 

You all have probably encountered the acronym DOM.  DO you know what it means?  Well some people take it to mean Domdoma Otong Mo.  Others take it to mean with something I cannot mention in the pulpit.  But the real meaning is Domino Optimo Maximo – it is a dedication with means "To the Best and Greatest Lord." It is a dedication we find most often in a lapida.  And so it can mean that this lapida with its epitaph is dedicated to the person buried, referred to as lord in small letter D, or this person buried is dedicated to the best and greatest Lord referring of course to God.  But what makes the Lord our God the best and the greatest? 

For the past three days, in our triduum, to prepare ourselves for this feast, this centenary of the apparitions of Our Blessed Mother in Fatima, we have reflected on the 3 messages of Our Lady – Prayer, especially the holy rosary and going to mass on First Saturdays; reparation for our sins and the sins of the world; and thirdly, we talked about consecration, to heed the Blessed Mother's request that we consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart.  I feel I have said too much already about Fatima, I have nothing more to say on her feast.  And so instead of looking at the apparitions of Fatima as one big picture allow me to look into the effects of the apparitions on the life of Francisco. How did the miracle of Fatima transform Francisco?  I have already cited one such incident when we meditated on reparation two days ago, his preoccupation to make God happy, to console God.  Today I will cite another two.

On this third day of our meditation on the messages of Our Blessed Mother in Fatima let us turn our attention to the word consecration.  Mary asks us to consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart.  What does this mean?  What does consecration mean?  What shall we do to make this consecration? Many times we only think of consecration as a prayer – a prayer of consecration. So we just kneel and pray the prescribed prayer and then bingo we are now consecrated.  But a prayer of consecration is like a prayer before meals.  A prayer before meals is not yet the meal.  You still have to eat.  So also with the prayer of consecration.  A prayer of consecration does not consecrate us.  It does not work like magic.  So how do we consecrate ourselves then to the immaculate heart?

Today we consider the second message which is reparation.  When the angel appeared to the 3 children of Fatima he asked them to offer their sufferings as an act of reparation to God.  Then our Blessed Mother herself asked the 3 children to make reparation for the sins against God and against her Immaculate Heart. What is reparation and how could we practice it?  Reparation means making up for the offenses against God.  Making up.  When I forgot an appointment I had with a seminarian he was so disappointed because he was looking forward for a week for that meeting and so I have to make up with him, meaning I have to repair something that was broken, I have to restore something that was cut.  This is reparation.

By the time you read this issue the Chapel of Lights would have been blessed after more than 4 months since the parish started building it, and the Adoration Chapel would have been reopened after two weeks of renovation.  Allow me to explain some new things in these structures.  First, in the Chapel of Lights.  This time we have a chapel dedicated solely for the lighting of candles.  If you notice the ceiling of the narthex at the entrance of the cathedral is already blackened by soot coming from the candles we light, and for several times already we need to put out fires coming from the votive candle stands in that area due to unattended candles and melted waxes.  The situation is so hazardous we kept a bucket of sand in the vicinity just in case.  I think one can still see traces of a recent fire just beneath the crucifix.

Today we start our triduum in preparation for the feast of Our Lady of Fatima on Saturday as we celebrate the 100 th anniversary of her apparition to the three children.  Our Blessed Mother has basically 3 messages in Fatima – the first is prayer especially the rosary and the first Saturday Devotion.  Second is to make acts of reparation for our sins and the sins of the whole world.  And lastly, the third message is to make an act of consecration to her immaculate heart. On the first day of our triduum let us reflect on the first message – to pray, to pray especially the rosary and to celebrate mass on First Saturdays.

Mt. Zion, the hill on which Jerusalem, the holy city, now stands, is praised by our responsorial psalm today, Psalm 87:  " His foundation upon the holy mountains the LORD loves: The gates of Zion, more than any dwelling of Jacob. Glorious things are said of you, O city of God!" So why does God love Mt. Zion, why are glorious things said of this city of God, why Zion, why is Jerusalem important, why is it a city like no other?  There are so many cities in the world more important, stronger, powerful, more beautiful than Zion – what makes it so important compared to these other cities, what makes it different from these other cities?  Because God chose to love Zion.  Zion did not choose God.  Instead God chose Zion.  It is the divine initiative at work.

Today we meditate on our responsorial psalm, psalm 42.  Our psalm uses the image of a thirsty deer as the symbol of a person in constant search of God, a praying person seeking, longing for God.  Body and soul is drawn, aching as it were for something distant, something seemingly unreachable, and yet something very much needed, something which my whole being is longing to behold.  As the hind longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you, O God.   Athirst is my soul for God, the living God.   When shall I go and behold the face of God? Psalm 42 reminds us that our search for God is a never-ending quest, a never-ending search.  One cannot say – I have already found God and so I will no longer struggle, I am already fully satisfied with myself.  One cannot say that.  I cannot say I don't need to seek him.  I have already found him.  I am already full.

"And just when did God start color coding our prayers to him?" This was my shocked and irritated reaction when somebody told me that there are different colors of candles corresponding to different prayers and needs – a red candle for love problems, a green candle for money problems, etc.  One day while observing people lighting candles, I saw one young woman holding in one hand 5 candles in 5 different colors!  Lord, have pity on her –5 different problems at the same time?!  (Life can be cruel, indeed!)  For those of you who are bored with life, I suggest, that you stand one afternoon on the place where people light their candles in the cathedral and observe the different colors of candles they light.  Or if from time to time you feel oppressed by difficulties like I do, spend your time there and you will realize how blessed you are compared to the many who come there with candles of different colors on hand. So, going back to the question, "just when di...

Have you ever heard of a brandea?  Brandea are objects which is believed to become holy by coming into contact with holy people or things.  These could be handkerchiefs or clothing used by the saints, or a chair once sat upon by the holy person, or even a chunk of stone from the tomb of the saint.  Well that should have been the end of it.  But things became a bit complicated.  Why?  Because one can practically make a brandea.  Get a piece of cloth and rub it against a relic or a tomb of a saint (of course with faith and reverence unlike magic).  This practice comes from the belief that supernatural powers residing on a relic or a holy person are passed to anything that touches it.  Filipinos, however, would take this belief a little bit further (very far in fact).  First, we begun by applying it not just to relics but to images of our Lord and the saints. And so for a Filipino a brandea is an object nga ginpahid kag gintandog on a...

Today we read and meditate on the Psalm 33, specifically on the first two lines of our responsorial psalm – " Upright is the word of the LORD, and all his works are trustworthy."  The words and the works of the Lord are inseparable.  God's word and God's work are one.  What God says and what God does are the same.  The words of God are fulfilled and it does not return empty. Beginning this week instead of praying the angelus, we pray the regina caeli: "Queen of heaven rejoices, alleluia; the Son whom you merited to bear, alleluia; has risen as He has said, alleluia.  Rejoice and be glad O Virgin Mary alleluia; for the Lord is truly risen. Alleluia."  Sometimes when we pray this we do it so fast we miss something very important in the mystery of the resurrection which we celebrate.  And what is that something important – that Jesus is risen as he has said .  He did not just rise from the dead.  He said it first and then it happened.  ...

Our responsorial psalm today, psalm 71, invites us in a way to look back to the different stages in our lives and see how God has guided us through the years.  This invitation is most appropriate, for in this Holy Week we are invited to make a retreat.  Not probably a formal retreat nga may speaker gid kag may mga prayer exercises, but to spend a quiet time with God in one of the days of the holy week, to pray and to recollect, in your home, in the silence of a church or a park, just to be with yourself and with God.

The highest feast of the Church is the Paschal Triduum.  It is a Triduum because it is one feast that would take us three days to finish.  It begins with the Evening Mass of Holy Thursday, then continues with the celebration of Good Friday and then reaches its peaks in the celebration of the Vigil of Easter overflowing to Easter Sunday.  It is such a big feast it takes us 40 days to prepare (Season of Lent), 3 days to commemorate (Paschal Triduum) and 50 days to celebrate (Easter Season).  The Paschal Triduum is the purpose of Lent, and the Paschal Triduum is the reason for Easter. And what is celebrated?  The Pasch.  It means the "crossing over" or the "passing through".  The word was first used by Moses and the Israelites when they passed through from Egypt to the land of promise, they crossed over from slavery to freedom.

Today our responsorial psalm is taken from the book of the prophet Daniel.  It is not a psalm but it is a hymn, the title in fact is the Canticle of the three young men.  It was composed during the Babylonian Exile when the Jews were forced to fall down and worship the golden statue of the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar at the sound of any musical instruments.  They refused for they would not worship anyone or anything but God.  And so they were sentenced to death, and the three young men were led to the furnace which was made 7 times hotter even the guards who threw the young men inside the furnace were themselves devoured by the flames.  The three young men sung this hymn inside that furnace, praising God, invoking all creation to praise and bless God with them.  They were saved from the flames.  In fact the King saw not three but 4 men walking inside the furnace, and the 4 th one looked like a son of God, an angel who had come to save them ...

Our responsorial psalm today, psalm 102 is one of the seven penitential psalms.  This is one psalm which Pope Francis said we said spend 5 minutes praying every day.  It is a cry of lament, in other words it comes from a sorrowful heart, a heart filled with sadness and suffering.  Thus, this psalm is a protest raised to God, a complaint against God. What does psalm 102 remind us of?