Cycle B - Year II:  

9 September 2018: Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Liturgical Color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading:        Isaiah 35:4-7a

Second Reading:   James 2:1-5

Gospel:Please Read  Mark 7:31-37

Healing the whole person, body and soul!

Recently the Catholic Church is the favorite punching bag by top government officials. Often it is accused of meddling in secular affairs not only by politicians affected by its moral teachings, especially on corruption and sanctity of life, but also by certain groups who disagree totally with its preaching. But the Church must make its voice heard when humanity is in peril. It has the duty and obligation to speak out because the Church cares for every human being, body and soul.

Now the Church gets its authority directly from God. Because God wants the restoration of the whole person, not just the salvation of the soul. This is clear in the example of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. His public ministry was not just preaching the Good News but life witnessing through healing of the sick and attending to the poor and neglected of society. Recall that Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law, made the lame walk, the deaf hear and the mute speak. He even brought back to life Lazarus and the daughter of a government official.

In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus cures a deaf-mute who was brought before Him. People wanted Jesus to place His hands on the man. But our Lord did more. He leads the man aside from the crowd, puts His finger into the man's ears and touches his tongue, looking up to heaven in prayer. Jesus sighed deeply and said: "Ephphatha!" that means, "Be opened!"   And at that very moment the man;s ears were opened and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly.  Thus, our Lord demonstrated both the beauty and the goodness of God in this healing.

Some religious writers and theologians attribute a deeper meaning to the healing of the deaf-mute man. Notice that it happened in a Gentile territory, which Jesus often visited in His ministry. It also involved a foreigner, a pagan, who is looked down upon by the Jews. Its significance is to highlight the universality of God's gift. It means Jesus came to save all, with no exception.

What lesson do we learn from this healing event by our Lord Jesus? Well, Jesus heals the sick and disabled so that people can praise the heavenly Father and the Son. Our Lord's example should inspire us to also care for the sick and needy in our midst with Christian charity and love. We are God's caring heart and healing hands when we minister to their needs.

But also the miracle of the healing of the deaf-mute is very significant spiritually, since many human beings in our times suffer spiritual deafness when we reject God's voice, and suffer spiritual muteness when we don't want to speak to Jesus in prayers and meditation, or in defense of Church's teaching when it is unjustly criticized and attacked.

We also suffer from spiritual deafness and muteness when we do not care for the needy of our society, and when we don't react before the divine greatness by expressing our thanksgiving, fidelity and praise for the gift of life we enjoy up to this very moment.

And lastly, despite the fact that a great number of people are neglected in the world today who need care and help, let us pray for a greater number of generous and caring people who are dedicated to the poor and the sick. This is a gift from God, both for them and the people the care and help.

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

Ad Jesum per Mariam!

Cycle B - Year II:  

2 September 2018: Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Liturgical Color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading:        Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8

Second Reading:   James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27

Gospel:Please Read  Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Love God from the heart!

It is true that traditions and customs are noble and admirable when observed and practiced with the sincerity of the heart. Because, as the great poet Helen Keller said, "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart."

In the Gospel incident for this Sunday, our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us that what comes from within gives meaning and importance to our external actions.

According to St. Mark, the scribes and pharisees were upset with Jesus because He

allowed His disciples to break with their ritual traditions by eating with unclean hands. Now remember that washing of the hands before meal was an important religious ritual for the Jews. And in their zeal for holiness many elders developed many other elaborate traditions which become a burden for the people to carry out in their everyday lives.

Bear in mind that Jesus was not primarily concerned with justifying His disciples' omission of washing their hands before eating, but instead He used this incident to clarify what true holiness is in the very eyes of God. And so Jesus accused the scribes and pharisees of hypocrisy because they appear to obey God's word in their external practices while they inwardly harbor evil desires and intentions. So Jesus reminded them of Isaiah's prophesy: "This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vein do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts."

Unfortunately, this attitude of "hypocrisy" in serving the Lord is still with us even in our generation. For example, many of those who profess their faith in Jesus are so much focused on external rituals and practices but forget the reason and meaning for observing them.

So then, the message of this Sunday's liturgy is a timely reminder that religious traditions are practices are good, but then they become meaningless without our personal intimacy with the Lord. In today's Gospel incident, our Lord Jesus is actually reminding us that external rituals of cleaning are really empty physical acts without inner purification from within us. Such "inner purification" is essentially the work of the Holy Spirit in a human heart that is open and receptive to divine intervention.

In sum, our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us that true holiness is first and foremost a matter of the heart, a personal intimacy with Jesus our Lord and God. And we become close to God primarily because of His grace rather than own merits.

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

Ad Jesum per Mariam!

Cycle B - Year II:  

26 August 2018: Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time  

(Liturgical Color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading:        Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b

Second Reading:   Ephesians 5:21-32

Gospel:Please Read  John 6:60-69

Are we Catholics by choice?

Are we Catholics by choice? Perhaps this is a timely question during these most challenging times in our national journey. It challenges us to witness and live our Catholic faith.

In one of his homilies, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Cardinal Tagle has expressed disappointment that many Christian Filipinos fail to draw inspiration from the Good News at Holy Mass. According to him, many parishioners often grab the opportunity to nap when the Gospel is being proclaimed at Mass. And he asks, "Why is it easier to spread gossip than the Good News?"

Our Lord Jesus was in the same predicament when He reveals to His listeners  and disciples  that He is the Bread of Life. This Sunday's Gospel proclamation is the conclusion of our Lord's discourse on the Eucharist. Jesus confronts His followers to make a choice. Either they believe Him and ask for this bread, or reject His claim on Himself as the Bread of Life. So it is decision time for His followers.

The religious leaders and many of Jesus' followers were scandalized by His claim. They find His teaching difficult to swallow, and so they no longer want to follow Him. They cease to be disciples and deserted Him.

So Jesus asks the twelve Apostles: "Do you also want to leave?"

It was Simon Peter who answered Him: "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the 

words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that You are the Holy One of God." (Jn 6:68-69)

Now Peter's profession of faith and loyalty was based on a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. Through the gift of faith Peter knew that Jesus was the Messiah, the Holy One of God, and he believed in His words.

And so faith is our response to God's revelation. It is the key to seeing God work in our lives. But we have to make the difficult choice of accepting our Lord Jesus, or rejecting Him. We cannot be content with merely drifting through life.

Real faith seeks understanding. That is why God gives us the help of the Holy Spirit to enlighten the eyes of our mind to understand His truth and revelation.

In practical life, so many things are happening in our lives and in our world today that shock us. But the Lord invites us to receive Him as the Bread of Life. We can refuse Him, or like Peter we respond to our Lord's invitation, "Lord, to whom shall we go?"

In sum, our life is made up of many choices, big and small, human, spiritual and religious choices. But our choices must come from within us. And so we need our Lord Jesus Christ with us, if we are to follow Him in our earthly journey.

Let us pray. Lord Jesus, You have the words of everlasting life. Help me to cast aside doubts and fear and to embrace Your word with trust and joy. I surrender my life to You. May there be nothing which keeps me from You and Your love. Amen.

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

Ad Jesum per Mariam! 

Cycle B - Year II:  

19 August 2018: Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Liturgical Color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading:        Proverbs 9:1-6

Second Reading:   Ephesians 5:15-20

Gospel:Please Read  John 6:51-58

Jesus, the living bread!

 We used to take pride that Filipinos are known as hospitable people. But now that the nation is bitterly divided, one wonders whether the well-known Filipino hospitality is now just a myth.

Hospitality is simply an opportunity to show love and care, which is now wanting in our national consciousness at these most trying times of history because of political differences.  It is sad.

But the Good News is that our Lord Jesus Christ reveals to us the hospitality of God in this Sunday's Gospel reading, where Jesus speaks about the Bread of Life: I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." (Jn 6:51)

Now, eating His flesh and drinking His blood is not an invitation to cannibalism, as the Jews feared. Instead, in the Eucharist the bread and wine are given a new and awesomely deep meaning: they become the very person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

To our human mind, the Holy Eucharist is a mystery of faith. But we believe because

Jesus Himself teaches us this Truth. For the Holy Eucharist is the very center and source of our Christian life. Even after His ascension, Jesus chose to remain with us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, where Jesus gives His Body and Blood to be our food through our spiritual journey to the Father's house.

In other words, Jesus wants us to share in His very self while in journey in this world. That is why He gave us His Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The human flesh of Jesus continues to link us and the people of every age with the timeless sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Thus, the Holy Eucharist fills us with a lasting sense of communion with Jesus Himself and with one another.

For Catholics, the doctrine of the Real Presence asserts that in the Holy Eucharist Jesus is literally and wholly present, that means body and blood, soul and divinity, under the appearances of bread and wine.

The great St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that Jesus's presence in the Eucharist is visus, tactus, gustus. That means, our Lord's presence is not just imaginary in our mind. Because when we receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we actually see, touch, and taste Him. He is an "edible" God, as some theologians would say.

Thus, in the Eucharist, we deepen our relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, not mechanically but by becoming more and more like Him over the years. We meet God in this mysterious and dramatic way: God gives Himself to us, and we try to shape our lives into a loving gift for God. 

So in heaven there will be no Eucharist as we know it here, because our bonding with God will then be complete.

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

Ad Jesum per Mariam!

   Cycle B - Year II:  

12 August 2018: Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Liturgical Color: Green)

   Readings:

First Reading:        1 Kings 19:4-8

Second Reading:   Ephesians 4:30--5:2

Gospel:Please Read  John 6:41-51

The Bread that sustains life!

It is said that bread is the universal symbol of food. We need food to nourish our body and sustain life while in journey in our world.  

But then the reality is that even with food that we partake our physical body can still perish, and the food that nourishes life can get spoiled sometimes, if not properly cared for.

The Good News this Sunday has something to do with food, but food that sustains us to life eternal and food that cannot spoil.

Our Lord Jesus Christ reveals Himself as the Bread of Life. Now recall that two Sundays ago the Gospel readings served as the springboard to Jesus' discourse on Himself as the Bread of Life.

Jesus is actually showing us the depth of His humble and self-effacing love in His claim that He is the Bread of Life. And this revelation lies at the very heart of our Lord's teaching, which also forms the very foundation of our belief in the Holy Eucharist. As we reflect deeper into this mystery, we realize that it was not enough that our Lord Jesus Christ took our humble nature upon Himself in all things but sin. It was not enough that He also died at Calvary for our redemption. And now He goes the extra mile, so to speak, by choosing to remain physically with us always until the very end of time in our world, in the sacramental form of the Holy Eucharist.

But then Jesus' hearers at that time cannot believe the seemingly unbelievable claim of "Bread of Life". Because the Jews cannot accept something even more fundamental in Jesus' claim that He is indeed the Son of God. That is why they murmur among themselves that to them Jesus is simply the son of Joseph and Mary, and so just another man like them.

Generations have passed since Jesus' time and even now the murmuring of disbelief continues in our time for those who do not accept the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is particularly sad, and disturbing, when the "murmuring" comes from within our own fellow brothers and sisters in the faith who want to call themselves "Catholics". But we cannot be Catholics without believing the Real Presence of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to open our hearts so that we may understand the teaching revealed to us in this Sunday's Gospel. Let us pray that we continue to grow in our belief of the seemingly unbelievable because our Lord Jesus Christ Himself has revealed the truth to us, and to teach others to love our Lord in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

So then in every celebration of the Holy Mass, let us open ourselves to the Father's invitation that we listen and believe in His beloved Son: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." (Jn 6:51) Amen.

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

Ad Jesum per Mariam!