Cycle C - Year I:

2 June 2013 - Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

(Liturgical color: White)

Luke 9:11b-17

The Eucharist: the source of our Christian Life!

The boast of the P-Noy Administration about economic gains should have been good news to the poor of this country. But they are indifferent and unaffected, because they remain hungry and poor still. In fact, even official government statistics negate the official government pronouncement, because according to their collected data the number of poor in our country has not changed at all for the last so many years.

To the poor, putting food on the table preoccupies their daily struggle. Because satisfying their physical hunger for food is a step to liberation from their poverty.

Today, as the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, the theme of the liturgy touches on the very core of poverty: the hunger for food. The gospel from Luke is about the multiplication of the bread and fish.

In the gospel about five thousand people who were following Jesus were hungry and have no food to eat. So the miracle of the multiplication of bread slowly started to unravel before the very eyes of the apostles. So that with just five loaves of bread and two fish that they originally have, they were able to feed more than five thousand people, with still so much leftover fragments of twelve wicker baskets filled.

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish emanated from the mercy and love of Jesus. Because our Lord Jesus cares for the whole man, body and soul, that he takes care of our physical needs as well, including our hunger for food.

This feeding of the multitude still happens today when we attend the celebration of Holy Mass. Jesus through the priest during Holy Communion still gives us his Blood and Body for us to partake.

The Holy Eucharist, or Corpus Christi as the Body of Christ, is the center and source of our Christian life. Even after his ascension, Jesus chose to remain with us in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Because in the Eucharist Jesus gives his Body and Blood to be our food through our spiritual journey.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is visus, tactus, gustus. That means, when we receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we actually see, touch, and taste him. His real presence is not imaginary in our mind. Because Jesus is an "edible" God, as some theologians would say.

In practical life, by partaking of the Body of  Christ we receive the grace, strength and energy to grow and become Christ-like. In other words, we too become like Christ to others. His mission becomes our mission for the salvation of mankind and the world.

As Jesus was merciful and loving to the crowd in the gospel and to us also now, He wants us also to be his channel of mercy and love to our fellowmen. So that as we remember this solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ we must commit ourselves to always make a big difference in the lives of those who are going hungry, those who have less in life, those who are poor in spirit and wealth, and those who are already desperate because of poverty, through our acts of Christian charity, generosity and love for the less fortunate in our midst.

A blessed Corpus Christi Sunday to all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Deo Optimo Maximo!

Cycle C - Year I:

26 May 2013 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

(Liturgical color: White)

John 16:12-15

The Trinity: One God in Three Persons!
 
This Sunday is the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. The Trinity is the most important Truth in our Catholic faith: three Divine Persons equal in majesty, yet one Lord, one God. Can the human mind comprehend that?

There is the story of the great St. Augustine of Hippo. He was trying to grasp the mystery of the Trinity while walking on a beach. Then he came across a little boy digging a small hole in the sand and transferring the water from the sea into his little hole. So St. Augustine asked what the boy was trying to do. "I am putting all the sea water inside my little hole," the boy told him. And St. Augustine replied, "But that's impossible, to contain the vast ocean into your little hole." The boy answered him, "And so with you. How can you grasp the vastness of God with your little mind?" For indeed, if we can explain God, then we must be greater than God.

The teaching on the Trinity is most difficult to comprehend and even more difficult to fully communicate with human words. We always end up acknowledging that the Trinitarian character of God is a mystery and will always be so for our limited mind.

Yet it is important to know that the Church did not invent or make up the teaching on the Trinity. Jesus Himself revealed it to the first disciples. In today's Gospel from John, for example, Jesus tells his disciples about the Trinity: "But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth... Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you."

We believe in the Holy Trinity: one God in three distinct Persons, from whom everything in the world and in history comes, and to whom everything will return at the end of time. In other words, the Trinity is our final destiny as children of God, when we behold finally the face of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In our human experience, what do we make of the teaching on the Trinity in our day-to-day living? What is its relevance to us, here and now?

Well, the Church teaches that the Trinity is a communion of three divine Persons in one God, "in an eternal gaze toward each other, an endless and omnipotent exchange of divine love." In the center of this Trinitarian communion is Love. As followers of Jesus, we, too, can live the Trinity within us in a relationship of love with each other, as the New Church, the People of God, in journey to the Father's house. Jesus Himself commands all his followers: "Love one another as I have loved you." Thus, by loving one another we become witnesses of the truth about the Trinity in our lives.

A blessed Sunday to all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Deo Optimo Maximo!

Cycle C - Year I:

19 May 2013 - Solemnity of Pentecost

(Liturgical color: Red)

John 20:19-23

The Holy Spirit empowers the Church!

Today is the Solemnity of Pentecost. It comes fifty days after the Resurrection of our Lord; hence, it is called Pentecost.

After Jesus ascended into heaven, he sends the Holy Spirit to sustain and empower the disciples and the new Church in their mission to evangelize the world. In the first Pentecost, the apostles received the Holy Spirit to mark the official start of their mission. So Pentecost Sunday celebrates the great beginning of the Church. Thus, today is a great feast and it is the birthday of the Catholic Church.

On the first Pentecost Jesus empowered the disciples with the gift that is the Holy Spirit in order to do their mission. So also today we are empowered by the same Holy Spirit to continue the Church's missionary work, to face the challenges of our time, especially in matters of faith and morality, and the preservation and defense of human life.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church is our assurance that her missionary work is not simply a human endeavor but in reality the continuation of Jesus' saving mission, and so therefore the work of God himself. So that when we feel overwhelmed by personal trials, like when we sometimes struggle to pray because of so many distractions, or at times when we want to pray but seem not to have the words to express ourselves, it is the Holy Spirit that links us to God and interprets our desire before Him. In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, "it is the Holy Spirit who helps our inability, who enlightens our minds and warms our hearts, guiding us as we turn to God."

In Holy Mass let us pray that the Holy Spirit showers us with his gifts (of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord) to keep us unwavering in our faith and remain committed to all the teachings of the Church handed down from the first apostles to the bishops and to the present Pope Francis. Let us make use of these gifts to build up and strengthen the Church as the Body of Christ through constant personal prayers and acts of Christian charity. Because it is through prayers that the Holy Spirit works best in our humanity, strengthening our weakness to transform us from men of material realities to men and women filled with the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A blessed Pentecost Sunday to all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Deo Optimo Maximo!

Cycle C - Year I:

12 May 2013 - Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

(Liturgical color: White)

Luke 24:46-53

The Ascension: witnessing for Christ!
 
Today is the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. Forty days after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus returns to the Father. It is the day of Jesus' homecoming. Thus, the feast of the Ascension of the Lord commemorates the event that brought Jesus' own mission on  earth finally to a close, and inaugurates the mission of the Church in history.

The Ascension of Jesus into heaven was seen by the apostles as an authentic manifestation of his divinity. So that as Jesus departs, the first Christians had no sense of bereavement, no sense of Christ's absence. The opposite was true: they had a powerful sense of his continuing presence because they are  to be "clothed with power from on high", as Jesus promises them the Holy Spirit.

So now, finally and without any ambiguity, the apostles knew Jesus not as a gifted teacher and healer, but as God. They understood his passion and death as the revelation of God's love in human history. And now, following his return to the Father, the apostles experienced their membership of his Body, the Church, as the place where the means of sharing God's life more fully than ever before had been made available.

In other words, although Jesus Christ ascends to heaven, the Church becomes his hands working in this world. Christ's human body, now glorified, is in heaven. But the Catholic Church is the mystical body of Christ on earth.

("The Church is called Mystical because she is a mystery, which God revealed to be true  but whose inner essence must be accepted on faith and without full comprehension by the mind; ... the purpose of the Church is not temporal or earthly but heavenly and eternal; its spiritual bond is the will of God;"... from CatholicCuture.org)

So today on the Ascension event Jesus' mission on earth comes to and end but our mission as the Church now begins. The missionary mandate entrusted by Jesus to the first Christians is passed on to us. Are we ready for this challenge? How do we response to Jesus' challenge?

Well, first we believe in Jesus and we trust him. We draw inspiration from the apostles themselves who were just ordinary people of their time. Perhaps much like them we, too, are ordinary mortals, weak and imperfect, with our limitations to boot. But we cannot be afraid to take on the mission, because the Holy Spirit will empower us to accomplish the work, just like in the apostolic times. And so a week later from today we will be celebrating Pentecost Sunday.

In practical sense, we need not leave home and family to become Christ's missionaries. Because when we are committed to live our faith in words and deeds we become powerful and effective agents of change for the Lord wherever we are, at home and in work, and even in social events. Our way of life becomes our witnessing of the Good News of salvation of the Lord. Thus, we become witnesses of the Lord's ascension in our times.

Also this Sunday the Church celebrates the 47th World Communications Day. The new technologies in the Digital Age present unprecedented opportunities to do our missionary work.

Our mission is to share God's Good News to others using whatever communications means at our disposal. That is the challenge; that is the Lord's challenge to us as his followers, to do our share of the mission work.

A blessed Sunday to all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Deo Optimo Maximo!