visible rhetoric

My task today is to explain to you, supposedly, the role and function of the MBMG in the liturgy.  My initial reaction was, what do I know about the function of the MBMG in the liturgy.  The person who formally handed me the letter for this request is I think a mind reader or just a quick-thinking lady because without me asking or even revealing my predicament, she said, Msgr. do you want the MBMG handbook.  Thank God for her, now I know where to get my talk.  Last Monday however as I sat down to gather my thoughts for this paper and write them down, it dawned on me – why am I being asked to answer the question what is the role of an MBMG in the liturgy, and worst, to answer that, why am I being made to read the MBMG handbook.  Frankly, if you ask me what is the role of a priest in the liturgy, I would answer you and probably write a treatise on the subject.  But to ask me what is the role of an MBMG, how would I know, I am not...

The rite of Baptism starts with several questions.  Allow me to explain the significance of these questions. First, what name do you give your child?  The question pertains to identity.  In baptism we are giving the child an identity.  Identity is the answer to the question, who are you?  Who am I?  This is important because morality, ethics and good psychology teach us that action flows from being.  Our action comes from our understanding of who we are.   Ano ka?  Sin-o ka?  Ang imo pamatasan, ang imo pagginawi, ang imo values magahalin sa sini nga paghangop.  Sin-o ka?  Ako si Edward?  Ano ka?  Ako anak sang Dios. As an addendum to this first point allow me also to point out the belief of the people in the bible that he or she who gives the name claims responsibility for the child.  By claiming responsibility, you also accept accountabil...

These past months many of us had been given a firsthand experience of what contemplative life is, even if it is just a glimpse, even if it is just a taste, even if for many of us it was and is an unwelcome experience.  Nevertheless, it was an experience of contemplative life.  There was less movement, we stayed put most often, we stayed at home confined in the four walls of our houses.  And as the quarantine progressed and became longer, the silence too became lengthier.  First there were small gaps in the conversation and the gaps became longer each day because everyday there were less experiences to talk about.   We experienced how it was to surrender our freedoms and experienced how it was to live under the rule of obedience – wear your facemasks, observe social distancing, stay in line, wait in line, and for a time we were even told not to go to church.  And many of us humbly followed, some willingly, some hesitantly, many ...

Today’s theme recalls the story which Jesus told privately to his disciples.  The story therefore is for them and about them – it’s not about the pharisees, or the Herodians, or the Jews who oppose Jesus, no.  It’s a story made for his disciples.  In other words, this story of Jesus is for us and about us.   For several days now in the novena we have gleaned lessons from different encounters with God by the young men and women in the bible -  from Joseph’s own encounter, to Samuel’s;  from David’s and Gideon’s encounter with God, to the encounters of Solomon and Jeremiah, of Ruth and the Jewish servant girl, and the encounter of the younger son with his father in the gospel parable known as the prodigal son.  In all these we also saw Mary’s own encounter with God.  And we learned lessons from these, and from these we even saw parallels in our own encounter with God. Today however our focus is quite different...

What makes you happy?     What makes you unhappy?     The 4 th Sunday of Lent is called Laetare Sunday.     Laetare means be happy.     We are allowed today to put some flowers on the altar and to use the color rose instead of violet.     Rose is still violet but it is mixed with gold, the color of supreme joy.     Thus, it is only proper to ask ourselves these very important questions which motivates all our actions - what makes me happy, what makes me unhappy?

You are not far from the kingdom of God.  You are not far.  You are not there yet, but you are not far. Here Jesus reminds us the difference and therefore the relationship of what we know, and doing or acting upon what we know. We must acknowledge that many of us need to be catechized, we need to know more, we need something substantial in the education in the faith.   As affirmed by Jesus in the attitude of this pious scribe everything starts with knowing, and believing and being convinced with what we know.  It is an acknowledgement that as a parish community catechesis is very much needed from its littlest members to us adults.  We need to be educated in the faith.

Our gospel today is a reminder which will be repeated time and again by St. Paul in his letters.  That on our own we can never be good enough.  Paul would often say that we should pray for the strength that comes from God and that we should not rely solely on our own strength.  Why?  Because on our own we can never be good enough.   This is why Jesus is depicted many times as driving away the evil spirits not by human power, not by the power of another evil spirit, but by the all-powerful finger of God.

What does it mean to fulfill the law?  Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law.  We know for example that Jesus in the eyes of pious Jews during his time violated the law of the sabbath by doing something prohibited on a Sabbath.  For one he healed on the sabbath.  In another he told the person he healed to carry his mat on a sabbath.  So, what does it mean to fulfill the law?

The number seventy times seven in Hebrew means always, whenever, at all times. Thus forgiveness in the mind of Christ should be always, whenever and at all times.  But the most important thought of the gospel is the reason why we should forgiven at all times.  Why? Because God forgives me at all times. This is the Christian way. Why should I forgive?  Because God forgives me.  Why should I forgive at all times.  Because God forgives me always.  Why should I be generous?  Because God is generous to me. Why should I have compassion on people who are in need? Because in my need God has compassion with me.  We never stop doing good to each other because God never stops doing good to us.

The feast of the annunciation is a feast celebrating the virtue of obedience, both the obedience of Christ and the obedience of Mary. Sin entered into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve.  Salvation entered the world through the obedience of Jesus and Mary.  In the letter to the Hebrews in our second reading we find a quotation alluding to the obedience of Jesus.  Here Jesus is made to say:   "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.”  This is a quotation of Psalm 40 except for the last part which should have read, “but my ears you have opened.”  Probably wanting to emphasize the complete obedience of Jesus he used “but a body you have prepared for me.”  So now it is not just simply ears listening and obeying, it is now the whole body being offered in humble submission to God will.  

Even when I was still in the seminary I was already struggling to understand who God is.  I am not referring to our children’s catechesis which says: Pila ang Dios -  isa.  Pila ang persona sang Dios - tatlo.  Sin-o sila - Amay, Anak kag Espiritu Santo.  Instead I was asking, who is this God that I am praying to, who is this God who created me, who cared for me, and who saved me?  Moses in our first reading asked God, who are you, if they ask what is your name what will I tell them? In our gospel Jesus was told about Galileans who were cruelly massacred by Pilate.  Was it because of their sins that God allowed them to die?  Is this who God is?

The mother of James and John is Salome.  It is said that when Zebedee her husband died, when she became a widow, Salome followed Christ together with her sons. St. John Chrysostom said that though she was very old she followed the Lord because faith never grows old and the desire to serve the Lord does not fade and does not falter.  Thus Salome is one of the women who followed the Lord caring for his needs and that of the disciples. But in this passage St. John Chrysostom asks, why is it that Salome was just corrected by Jesus but Peter was openly and even angrily rebuked by the Lord?  Salome was just told, you do not know what you are asking, but Peter was told get behind me Satan.  Why?

Today we celebrate the solemnity of St. Joseph, one of the two solemn feasts in the middle of Lent.  St. Joseph is referred to as Pepe, for in Spanish the double P stands for Padre Putativo, or the reputed father, not the real father but the reputed father.  That is why in the Philippines all Jose’s are nicknamed Pepe, not Joe I suppose.   St. Joseph is father because primarily he was the guardian of the Holy Family and thus, traditionally, he is also considered the guardian of the church. He is also considered the patron of a happy death because when he died he was graced with the physical presence of Jesus and Mary.  As a priest I have seen a lot of difficult deaths, damo hawid kag makangilidlis. Since all of us will die, we better have a devotion to St. Joseph so that our deaths will be peaceful, well-prepared and dignified.  To speak of St. Joseph however, only in this way is to belittle his role in the life of Jesus. ...

Be merciful just as your Father is merciful. There is one virtue, one characteristic which makes us like God – merciful, maluloy-on.  If Jesus is asking us to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect, then this characteristic must be present in us – maluloy-on. How can we be merciful?  The church provides us with some guidelines.  For example we have the corporal works of mercy – feed the hungry, drink to the thirsty, visit the sick, shelter the homeless, visit the prisoners, bury the dead, giving alms to the poor. Our parish has a feeding program every Saturday, providing food for at least 60 people – sponsored by two people.  I believe this is a good start.  Passing by Molo one gets the impression that it’s all beautiful houses and rich people. 

Several years ago, I was talking with an old woman, laon, in her house while her things were being given away – chairs, tables, chandeliers, plates, cabinets, tanan.  She was selling the house in the amount just enough to live off with the money for the remainder of her days.  We were seating on the two remaining chairs.  While she was talking I became distracted by the people packing her things, carting them away.   Maintiendihan ko kon patay ka na tapos partidahon imo gamit. Pero buhi pa sia kag makita niya with her eyes nga ginaputos kag ginabit-bit pagguwa literally ang iya kabuhi. Daw nagapin-ot ang akon dughan. Ano ayhan ang pamatyag mo nga buhi ka pa ginapartida na ang imo pagkabutang?   She noticed me and she called my attention telling me,  Fr. indi man lang amo sini ang kabuhi, this is not all there is to life.   I was a bit embarrassed then because I should have said that to comfort her. ...

Jesus teaches us to follow not the letter of the law but the spirit.  That is why Jesus expands the commandment thou shall not kill to include anger, or insulting the other by calling him raca, or worse by calling him a fool which in the Hebrew language means ining tawo nagbuang.   However, the expansion is not limited to the bad things one does to the other, but now it also includes the good I need to do.  Jesus said,  Go first and be reconciled with your brother; settle with your opponent quickly; these are positive expansions of the law. And this is how we live the spirit of the law.

The ending of the gospel which talks about prayer is asking us to develop a sensitive heart.  Having a sensitive heart is someone who can feel what others feel.  Because if we feel what others feel we would do to others what we want others to do to us.  And the opposite too is also true, we would not do to others what we do not like others to do to us.  That was the motive too of our fasting last week – we went hungry for a day so that we could feel what hungry people experience every day of their lives and hopefully the experience would develop in us compassion for those who hunger, and lead us to action. That is the content too of the argument on prayer – can a father have the heart to give his child a stone if he asks for bread?  Develop a sensitive heart.  How does it feel kon ikaw na dira?  

The timing of this gospel is crucial to our interpretation of the text today.  We are now a full week since we started the season of lent, the season of repentance and conversion.  This gospel seems to say, it has been a full week since we started lent, why is there no repentance yet, why is there a slowness to respond to the call of conversion, why are you delaying the response to God’s call?  The sign of Jonah is a sign for us to commit, a reminder for us to not delay, for when Jonah preached a call to repentance in Nineveh it just took him three days to make the people commit, it just took them 3 days to decide to turn once again to God and leave their sins behind.  For us it is already 7 days.

Notice again the gospel.  Jesus is not teaching us what to pray but how to pray, he is teaching us a manner of praying. And how do we pray?  Two things. First, when we pray we are addressing a Father not a deity, not a supreme being, not an unapproachable God, but a Father who knows what is in our heart even before we ask, a Father who knows what is good for us.  Is this also how we pray?  In our prayers are we addressing the Father?  In formulating our prayers, is this with the disposition of a son or a daughter?  

Today in the first week of lent we are reminded that the good we do to the least and the needy is a good not done for Jesus but to Jesus.  And it follows too that omitting to do the good to the least and the needy is an omission done not for Jesus but to Jesus.  This mystery of Christ in the needy and the least is further expanded in the experience of St. Paul when he was still persecuting the Christians, when on the road to Damascus, the Lord asked him, Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me.  Saul’s persecution was not against Christians, in fact Saul was persecuting Christ in every Christian he persecutes.