Patience in adversity

            I have just finished the talk during the recollection I was facilitating with a small group of employees at the side chapel of the Sta. Ana Shrine Parish last Wednesday when I received a call from a seminarian who happened to pass by our house in Ma-a, telling me that our house was blazing in fire.

Immediately, I took the car and headed home. When I reached the place I could only see black smoke. (Later that day, a friend of mine jokingly texted me, “We are waiting for a smoke from the Sistine Chapel not that smoke from your house”). The fire had been extinguished. The house was completely burned. We may not have salvaged anything, but thank God, my mother, my auntie and my niece were saved.

            It was March 13, 2013, the 78^th birthday of my father who passed away two years ago. We were about to visit his grave that day and have dinner with the whole family at the house. But that evening, we were so busy trying to compose ourselves and attend to the hospitalization of my mother who broke her left wrist. She slipped on the floor during the emergency. The doctor’s initial suggestion was an operation.

            Very late that night, as I was going to sleep (at around 2:00 A.M.), I received a call from Msgr. Paul Cuison. “Habemus Papam!” he excitedly informed me. We had to wait for an hour with our eyes fixed on the TV screen before we saw the newly-elected Pope emerging onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. Pope Francis of Argentina brought immense joy to my day. I forgot for a while my family’s predicament.

            In prayer, I began to grope for the meaning of all these. At the writing of this article, I seem to understand. Coincidence, says Albert Einstein, is God’s way of staying anonymous. Two striking data converge: my late biological father’s birthday and the election of my spiritual father, Pope Francis. God is telling me that despite the tragedy, He is still a Father to me. He will never let us down. We may have lost all our belongings but never the truth that we are God’s children.

            For this reason, we cling to Him more firmly and most especially in times of adversity. We have been stripped of worldly things for us to trust only in Him, in His loving, fatherly providence. Human heart can easily get distracted. Oftentimes, too much attachment to earthly goods could easily swerve our hearts from the path that God wants us to tread. Adversities can be God’s wake up call. But God is so faithful that He does not try us beyond our capacity Cfr. 1 Cor 10: 13).

            Job said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job 1: 21). We must thank the Lord for whatever happens in our life. We must always remember that God is a loving Father. If He allows trials, they are intended for our purification. God can write straight with crooked lines. We must learn to be patient in times of adversity as we are also grateful in times of prosperity.

           

Why the RH law can never be catholic?

            Pardon my insistence of this issue. But there’s an erroneous thought that goes around today insisting on the compatibility of the RH law with Catholic doctrines. While I admit that the RH law issue is already irritating to tackle about, what is more irritating is the fact that RH law advocates, who could not make Catholics pro-RH, are now trying to make the RH law catholic.

            In clarifying this question, I am simply doing my ministry as a priest, that is, to “proclaim the message, in season and out of season” (Cfr. 2 Tim 4:2). It is because, today, as in the time of St. Paul, some “people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths” (2 Tim 4: 3-4).

            I don’t think the RH law only provides for “choice according to religious conviction”, as one intellectual claims, for two reasons: first, I don’t think laws only provide options or choices. The helmet law which took effect in Davao City recently does not only provide for a choice on whether or not a motorist would use standard helmets. The law prescribes it under penalty. Do you think the RH law only provides for a choice on whether an adult married Filipino couple would use condom or rhythm method? Tell it to the marines! If the law only provides for a choice, why the need to make it a law? Don’t couples already have a choice before the RH law?

            Secondly, I don’t think the RH law guarantees religious conviction when all it prescribes and promotes is the contraceptive mentality which is contrary to the religious conviction of the majority of Filipinos. By promoting the use of contraceptives, the law is insensitive to the religious conviction of the Catholic majority. Besides, it endangers the conscience of all Catholics who are striving to be good Catholics through obedience to the Magisterium. Is that the way the law guarantees the free exercise of religious freedom and conviction?

            Moreover, the argument of those who hold that the RH law is compatible with the Catholic doctrines simply because the law “provides for choice according to religious conviction” is seriously flawed and is completely missing the point. The point at issue here is not whether Catholics have or don’t have choices. The central point is that the RH law promotes contraception, something that Catholic teaching cannot tolerate.

While it is important to emphasize that people should have choices, it is equally important to analyze what kind of choices people should have. Freedom does not consist merely in having choices. True freedom is choosing the good. Evil choice is not freedom; it is slavery. If married couples are given the choice to use contraception, this is an evil choice. Hence, it does not make them free: it enslaves them.

Therefore, something in the RH law is intrinsically evil: the promotion of contraception. That alone makes it incompatible with the Catholic doctrine. Even non-Catholics with good will and who are lovers of life will surely reject the RH law. How much more a Catholic priest like me?

           

One More Try

     Two contrasting images we can find in our liturgical readings today, the 3^rd Sunday of Lent: the burning bush and the barren fig tree.

      What astonished Moses with the burning bush was the paradox: it was burning but was not consumed. A few seemingly contradictory realities we can find in the world today. The most astonishing perhaps is the Virgin birth of Jesus. Mary gave birth to our Lord, yet remaining a virgin before, during and after. No wonder, the Fathers of the Church see in the burning bush a prefiguration of Mary.

     Another paradoxical reality is the human person itself. Persons are relational. The human person finds its fulfillment and the authentic meaning of its existence only in the total giving of oneself to others. When we dedicate ourselves to the welfare of others we are actually “burning” in selflessness but not “consumed” because only in selflessness do we find ourselves.

     The Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving are exercises of becoming selfless. Prayer makes us intimate with God. Fasting helps us overcome ourselves. Almsgiving promotes our love of neighbor. With these practices, we may become “burning bushes” too.

     The barren fig tree is the image of laziness, mediocrity and presumption of God’s grace. Whenever we give in to the tendency to procrastinate, we tend to be barren. Whenever we become mediocre in our work and prayer, we don’t produce the fruit that God expects of us. When we begin to think that “Anyway, God will understand…”, we may be standing like the fig tree in God’s vineyard, but we don’t bear fruit.

     Thanks be to God we have powerful intercessors in the Church who plead with the Father for us. “Give it another year, Sir, so I would put fertilizers around it”. Our “fertilizers” could be our own defects and weakness. Even our sins, St. Josemaria said, can become “fertilizers” to our holiness when they make us come closer to God rather than drawing us away from Him.

     Our God is the God of “second chances”. He gives us another opportunity every time we ask Him pardon for our sins. He loves us so much that He thinks this true love of His is worth “One More Try”! Why not make a resolution to give God one more try in our life?

The Papacy is Stewardship, not Ownership

            The chief priests and the Pharisees realized that Jesus was referring to them in this “Parable of the Wicked Tenants” (Cfr. Mt 12: 33-43; 45-46). They wanted to arrest Him there and then. But they were afraid of the crowd who regarded Jesus as a prophet. By contrast, we can immediately learn from this reaction of the Jewish authorities a very important lesson: when someone points out to us our faults, evil deeds or mistakes, we should accept it with humility and strive to change for the better.

            But what do the Jewish authorities understood in the parable? They knew that our Lord compared Israel to a choice vineyard. The landowner was God, who entrusted the vineyard to its tenants, the religious and political leaders of Israel. The chief priests, the Pharisees and the elders, therefore, had the responsibility to produce the expected fruits of faith and good works. They were accountable to the landowner who sent his servants from time to time to collect the fruit. This was the mission of the prophets. But the prophets sent by God were ill-treated and even murdered.

Finally, the landowner sent his son thinking that the tenants would spare Him. But the son was also murdered by those who wanted to keep the inheritance and become owners themselves. Then, “they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him”: a clear reference to Christ’s crucifixion, which took place outside the walls of Jerusalem. Those whom God expects to be faithful stewards of His gifts have become God’s own murderers, maliciously motivated by the ambition to become owners. We are all stewards of God’s gifts. Our apostolates are God’s vineyards entrusted to us. May we learn to behave as authentic stewards of the mission God has given us and reject any pretension or desire to become owners.

Jesus prophesied the punishment of the wicked tenants and that God’s vineyard – the new Israel – would be given to the gentiles. This is a very significant prophecy, which became a reality when St. Peter became the first Pope, the first Bishop of Rome, a gentile nation. The Catholic Church, founded by Christ Himself and is entrusted to St. Peter and his successors, is built on the cornerstone: Jesus, “the stone which the builders rejected”.

The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI which took effect at 2:00 A. M. today (March 1, Philippine time; Feb 28, 8PM in Italy) is a living sign of this truth: that the Church rests on its cornerstone – Jesus Christ – and not on the Holy Pontiff. His Holiness, the Roman Pontiff Emeritus, simply witnessed to the truth that the Papacy is simply stewardship, not ownership. He saw that the time has come for a younger and a stronger tenant, who could yield the fruit necessary especially in these very trying times, to take the lead for the good of God’s vineyard. Docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and out of humility and his great love for the Church, the Bishop Emeritus of Rome decided to serve the Bride of Christ in another way – through prayers and sacrifices in the silence of his retirement abode. What a lesson of humility and docility to God’s will!

 Catholics in all ages should see in this historical event, in the light of the Parable of Wicked Tenants, the exhortation of Jesus for us to be faithful stewards of our respective parcel of God’s vineyards. Through faith and good works, let us carry out our apostolate and mission with awareness that our cornerstone is Christ and that we are not indispensable. Let us not fall into the mistake of the Jewish generation in the parable.

As we are on the sede vacante, we should be filled with hope and a sense of security that, despite the difficult moments the Church is facing today – by the way, the Cardinals starting today receive a briefing on the situation of the Church in the world – the Catholic Church is built upon a solid rock: Jesus Christ. In the end, the Church will surely come out triumphant, with God’s grace. As our Lord promised: “Not even the gates of hell could overcome God’s Kingdom on earth”.

We commend ourselves and the whole Church to the maternal care of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and Mother of All Christians. Amen.

Of strengths and weaknesses

         There is a very interesting observation that Fr. Paulson Veliyannoor, an Indian Claretian Missionary, had of today’s Parable of the Prodigal Son (or the Merciful Father) that caught my attention while preparing this homily. He said,

Our very strength, without blessing, can become our weakness; and our weakness, when redeemed, can become our strength. The younger one’s strength is his eros, the capacity to enjoy life to its fullest. But left to itself, it wreaks havoc. The strength of the elder son is his reason, but the very same rational capacity leads him to find fault with his brother and alienate him (Bible Diary Reflection, March 2, 2013).

Fr. Paulson also noted how the father of these two sons approaches each of them through their unique strength and weakness. In the process, he teaches them how to use their uniqueness redemptively, at the service of life and love.

When the younger son formulates a reasonable confession of his sins, the father dismisses it immediately by ordering an eros-filled celebration. The younger son is a happy-go-lucky guy. The father welcomes him with merriment so he could easily feel at home.

The elder son uses reason and logical thinking to alienate himself from the father (“I was faithful to you and you did not even have me celebrate with friends”) and his brother, whom he called “This son of yours”. The father uses reasoning and logical arguments – “All that is mine is yours” – to persuade him to join the celebration. The father teaches the elder son to use his strength redemptively to build bridges rather than walls.

It is good to know our strengths and weaknesses. Knowledge of our strengths makes us grateful to God for His gifts. On the other hand, knowledge of our weaknesses makes us humble and trustful in God. When we know we are weak, it is easy to abandon ourselves in God’s hands. Cardinal Ratzinger once said: “Abandon yourselves in God’s hands, so that when you stumble, you’ll fall in God’s hands”.

While self-knowledge is important, it is imperative that our weakness must be redeemed while our strength must be blessed. Otherwise, our good qualities can only cause us vanity that weakens our soul. And our weakness can generate only despair that wreaks havoc to our spirit.

To redeem our weakness, we must always consider that, as St. Josemaria Escriva once said: “Our defects and weaknesses can become ‘fertilizers’ to our sanctification or holiness”. Just as the farmer makes use of dead leaves and excretion of animals to fertilize his plants, so God makes good use of our failures and defects to make us closer to Him.

Every day, we must not forget to give thanks to God for the little successes in our endeavors, for our strength in the apostolate and for our talents. Gratefulness is the secret of happiness. One author writes: “It is not happiness which makes us grateful; it is gratefulness which makes us happy”.

We ask the Blessed Virgin to help us to be grateful for our strengths and to be redemptive of our weaknesses.