a sense of purpose greater than yourself - 5th sunday B 2018

Job in today’s first reading describes his life as a struggle.  He compares life with service in the military, a drudgery, he says.  Life is a warfare, a combat, an engagement in the battlefield, where the struggle to survive is intense and each man has to fight to endure.

Then Job jumps to another comparison.  Our life can also become like the life lived by a hireling, Job says, a slave who has to labor each day longing for the shade and for rest from time to time, and a life where waiting for his wages is the only impetus and the only excitement.

Have you experienced this also?  May kilala ako nga ang nagapa-excite na gid lang sa iya sa iya trabaho amo nga may batunon pa sia nga sweldo tapos bulan. Imagine a work where the only excitement, the only motivation, the only purpose is your pay slip.  Anon a lang ang kabuhi kon puro na lang ini bugas-bugas;  kabuhi nga puro na lang, ano ang akon da?

Job said what he said in our first reading because he was suffering greatly, and probably this attitude towards life is in fact a symptom that life is no longer as exciting as it once was.  Just imagine how my life would be as a priest if all the matters to me, if all that motivates me, including my coming here to Carmel is a stipend.  Kon amo lang ni ang nagatulod sa akon sa pagpaninguha then something is wrong.  Something in me need to be examined.

In our gospel today Jesus was sought after by the crowd.  They love him.  They approve of him.  In fact, the whole town was looking for him wanting him to stay with them.  But Jesus said, "Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also.  For this purpose have I come."  Here we find that there was something more that motivated Jesus to do what he was doing.  It was not mere acceptance and approval.  It was not just the love.  It was not the adulation nor the support of the crowd.  For Jesus life was not just a matter of survival.  There was a sense of mission.  For this purpose I have come, he said." 

Do you also have with you a sense of purpose greater than yourself, greater than your needs and wants, greater than your need to just merely survive and subsist?

Peter’s mother in law when she was healed by Jesus immediately went about and waited on them.  Again for her, it was not just merely survival but a sense of purpose to live life for others.

Every fiesta in the Jaro cathedral the candles, the perdon are always sold by the poor in order that they can share in the profit in a dignified way.  Ginapa-consign sa ila ang duha ka carton sang kandila.  Kon maubos ining duha, using the money from the two boxes, bakal naman sila another 2 boxes and so on and so forth.  That way they avoid ang mga nagapa 5-6.  But there was this person who complained. She said, mabayad ako sikad para makarga sang akon kandila, mabayad ako sang tapangko nga baligyaan ko sang kandila, sa kainit sang lugar nga baligyaan mabakal pa ako coke sa tiangge agod may imnon.  Ti pila na lang na bilin sa akon ganansya?

And this is what she was told.  Nay kon ginapaginansiya kita, tani indi ta lang pagburawon tanan.  Amo man lang na nga adlaw nga makaguluginansia man gikan sa aton ang trisikad driver.  Sa amo man lang na nga adlaw nga ang naglukdo sang tapangko naton makambit man sa kinitaan naton.  Kon magbakal kita coke kay kainit sa aton balaligyaan, ang ginbaklan naton nga tiangge makaginansia man sia sa aton sa sina nga adlaw.  Gani indi lang kita ang nagginansiya.

There is more to life than mere personal survival.  If work and purpose is seen only as bugas-bugas, then life will never make us the happy and contented persons we are meant to be by God.