General

Homily of Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, on the Fourth Sunday of Lent 2017 at the Cenacle Retreat House, Quezon City. Fr. Joe Roche was our professor in the theology of Grace, oh, 500 years ago. Most of you are familiar with the teaching method back in the day. Straight lecture, exposition of concepts & terms, arguments, counter-arguments. Very informative, if anything, but pretty much cut & dried. But there was this one rare morning when Fr. Joe stopped lecturing & broke into a story. “There were two orphan girls—a teen-ager & her 7-year-old sister. They begged on the street all day, everyday. And on their way home, they’d often stop by a small store that sold little knick-knacks. Big sister always had her eye on a small bracelet of fancy stones. After a bit, they’d go on home. Then came the birthday of big sister, during which they still begged out on the street. On their way home, they stopped by the store again & just when big sister was about to admire the bracelet, it was gone. She was crestfallen & went home sad. When they got home, little sister fished something out of her pocket, something wrapped with scrap paper, & gave it to her big sister—happy birthday. When big sister opened it, it was the bracelet. Little sister thought big sister would be happy. Instead, she said, ‘How did you get this? You stole this. You stole this from that store! Don’t you remember what mother told us before she died? That we should never steal? You little thief!” And she dragged her crying little sister to the store to return the bracelet. The little one couldn’t get a word in edgewise no matter how she tried. In the store, big sister put the bracelet on the counter & started apologizing profusely to the clerk. The clerk shook his head as she tried to explain & apologize, explain & apologize; whereupon, little sister just ran out of the store, sat on the sidewalk & buried her face in her little hands. After big sister stopped talking, the clerk looked at her in the eye & sternly said, ‘Your little sister did not steal this bracelet, young lady. She bought it & gave everything she had.’” Apparently, little sister had been saving a little bit every day for many days, so she could buy her sister a birthday present. Whereas everybody noticed that the man blind from birth could now see, nobody appreciated it. Instead, every person he turned to said he should not be seeing. “You were blind from birth, how could you see now?” “You were healed on the Sabbath, when healing is forbidden.” “Whoever healed you is a sinful man, as sinful as you are.” Even the poor guy’s parents wanted nothing to do with him because they were afraid of “the law.” So, there was something beautiful that happened that day: a poor beggar, blind from birth, received the gift he must’ve dreamed of all his life. But what he got was a scolding all around, because he wasn’t supposed to receive that gift. It was all wrong. He should’ve stayed blind because (a) he didn’t deserve the gift of sight for being a sinner, & (b) the day he received it outlawed it. Magagalit ang Diyos, they all seemed to say. Magagalit ang Diyos. “But I could see,” you could almost hear the man whimper. “Hindi. Magagalit ang Diyos.” Spit & dust…that was all it took to heal the man blind from birth; two virtually worthless stuff, spit & dust; free, no charge—but resulting into a dream come true. Libre, walang bayad! But as it happens, dear sisters & brothers, we are often scared of divine gratuity. When God gives us a freebie, especially an extravagant freebie, & turns “spit & dust” into, say, a “favorite bracelet” or the gift of light & a dream come true—we go grateful but we get nervous. Underneath our gratitude quivers an anxiety: “Hmm, ano kaya ang hihingin ng Diyos bilang kapalit? What’s the catch?” Because we figure, it must written somewhere that when God waxes magnanimous, we better be ready for what he’s going to ask for in return. If you think about it, this no-such-thing-as-free-lunch, this is really what rules human freebies, isn’t it? It forms part of how relate with each other. What has happened, though, is we’ve transmuted it to God. So just as we become anxious when someone is terribly magnanimous to us, so, too, do we second-guess what God’s generosity might be all about, because sooner or later, he’d be sending a bill. And if we don’t pay the bill, magagalit ang Diyos. Magagalit ang Diyos.  Divine gratuity terrifies us, doesn’t it? Even if we see more than enough signs that God gives us pretty much everything that we need—our life’s “favorite bracelets”, so to speak, our dreams-come-true, healing from our suffering, safety for our family, unrelenting forgiveness—even when barely deserve half of it all—something about divine gratuity terrifies us. “But I can see,” the man blind from birth tells us. “From worthless spit & dust, the Lord has made shining light for me!” But something in our hearts somehow says, “No. Magagalit ang Diyos. No.” For what is left of Lent, dear sisters & brothers, let us pray to God to really open our eyes so we could really appreciate divine gratuity, God’s extravagant freebies. Let us pray in such a way that we really get God’s message that might go something like this: “Anak, did it ever occur to you that I give you what you need—& much, much more besides—because I love you & that’s it? Because I love you. I love all of you. Libre. Walang bayad.” God really gives us his everything, sisters & brothers. Jesus, our Lord, was everything to God. So God gave us no less than his everything.

Homily by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ on the Solemnity of Christ the King, at the Cenacle Retreat House, Quezon City. Neuropsychologist, Dr. James Fallon has studied the neuropathology of dictators. In a brief summary, he says in Psychology Today: “So, what binds dictators across history and geography? What traits do they share? They are usually charming, charismatic, intelligent. They brim with self-confidence & independence, & exude sexual energy. (From an accompanying video) Many of them are hypersexual, some are asexual, but sexually, many of them are off. They are also extremely self-absorbed, masterful liars, compassionless, often sadistic, & possess a boundless appetite for power.” Sound familiar? Hitler, Stalin, Quadafi, Putin, Kim Jong-il, Assad, etc., & of course, the latest “Miss Universe” of leaders today, Donald Trump, they all fit the bill. Pinoys aren’t exempt, are we? It’s interesting, but dictators do have things in common. Grandiosity—the rich ones, in lifestyle; the not-so-rich, in behavior; ballistic attitude against opposers; victorious rhetoric of being champions for the poor, even if everybody knows they all connive with aristocrats who, with them, do not care a whit for the poor. Dr. Fallon says that dictators show the same behaviors as ordinary psychopaths. Psychopaths are the way they are because of an underdeveloped, scarred, or damaged pre-frontal cortex. That area of the brain is abnormally low-activity. This predisposes them to aggression. Their amygdala is also abnormal so they can’t regulate their fear very well, or their rage, sexual impulses, & emotional memory. Organized chaos, that’s how their neurochemicals fire. I guess that’s why they’re charismatic yet aggressive, brilliant yet deeply hateful, friendly yet coldly vindictive. In all this, they feel very good about themselves! See, when you read & listen to Dr. Fallon, you’ll find that he’s very professional. He doesn’t make value judgments. He simply reports his fascinating neurological findings. So, listening to him, you start to get the impression that psychopaths aren’t that way by choice; that it’s not them, it’s how their brains are wired; that they’re, well, more or less, “normal” rather than bone-deep wacko. After all, for us, wacko means mental hospital crazy. Right? These men, however, are out loose, & something about them appeals to thousands. Do we not, after all, remember that it’s people who sit “kings” on their thrones? So, something in these pathological “kings” stirs people profoundly. I’m not sure what it is, but more & more, I think that their strange mystique appeals to people’s core issues of powerlessness. The helpless, the edged-out, the forgotten, the mass of everyday humanity seem to enthrone with these “kings” their long-standing yearnings—in spite of signs aplenty pointing right the opposite! But they’re also enthroned by the self-seeking wealthy who would befriend anyone & anything to perpetuate themselves. Question: is it fair to say that pathological dictators do not make themselves kings, but rather, that people crown them? Maybe. Maybe we do choose our kings. And from the way we, Pinoys, have freely elected sovereigns—& I wish to emphasize that word, “freely”, something not many nations today happen to enjoy—from the way we’ve crowned our kings, it isn’t clear if we really know what we’re doing, even if we might know what we want. In the 1st reading, Yahweh chooses David & makes him king, a breath of fresh air after the troubled reign of manic-depressive Saul whom, by the way, people hailed as their first king. David was the greatest king of Israel. Everything their past kings were, David wasn’t. He was merciful. He made mistakes but admitted he was wrong & repented. He cared for his subjects rather than lorded it over them. Most of all, may takot siya sa Diyos. David feared & was faithful to God more than anybody else, even more than himself. The next greatest king would be born from David’s lineage. And like David, this one was merciful. He was deeply in touch with his strengths & weaknesses. He had a soft spot for the helpless, the edged-out, the forgotten. He repudiated human evils & human suffering, not his enemies. With great respect & captivating gentleness, he carried himself in simplicity. But the self-righteous angered him, the overbearing, the snobbish; because they added burden to the already burdened. Most of all, he was wise because his heart was his Father’s. ‘Yun nga lang, hindi handa para sa isang hari tulad niya ang sarili niyang mundong ginalawan. So they parodied his sovereignty with thorns for a crown, a cross for a throne, & a mocking supertitle, “king of the Jews.” We know better today, don’t we? Then again, I’m not sure. Maybe, had we kept our eyes fixed on the “king of the Jews” every time we exercised our God-given freedom to elect our “kings,” then maybe, we would’ve reached that day when our potential leaders really worked themselves up to the criteria—the criteria of the crucified king of the Jews who healed our suffering, or at least, made sense of our suffering through is own—instead of worsen it. Unless we keep our eyes lifted towards the our king of the Jews, we will be choosing time & again, & giving tremendous power to psychopaths. And, you know, dear sisters & brothers, I hate to say this, but unless we learned to apply the criteria of the king of the Jews to our potential kings, we’d most probably keep deserving these psychopaths. May this season of Advent be a time of repentance & forgiveness. Maybe we can also repent over, & later forgive ourselves, for many of our questionable choices for “kings”. May the Lord look with mercy upon all of us from his cross & free us from our own crosses, some of which have been self-chosen. Amen.

This homily on Luke 21: 5-19 was given by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, on the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), at the Cenacle Retreat House, Quezon City. This past week was a tough riddle for many of us, Jesuits. The other night, some brothers & I got together. We all wondered: “Are we the ones missing something here? Have we been standing for the wrong principles all this time?” Because no sooner did the Supreme Court rule on a burial that left us reeling, than the US proclaimed Trump president. Right in his victory speech, he said, “You’ll be so proud of your president, you’ll be so proud.” He couldn’t help it; not for a minute could the man help praising himself! Then my phone beeped; an email from my American friend: a link to Time Magazine, entitled, “Philippine leader sends olive branch to US after the election.” Sub-title? “We both like to swear.” If the world had come to this, what were we missing? My asthma attacks were horrible when I was younger. They were precipitated by my own disobedience. Sinabi nang h’wag magpapatuyo ng pawis, sinabi nang h’wag magpapagod sa laro, sinabi nang ‘wag maninigarilyo. I disobeyed. Kaya ayon, hika. I’d stay awake at night, finding it hard to breathe. But my dad would stay up, rubbing my chest & my back, which was my only comfort. Then, after a couple of days, my dad would ask, “Anak, nararamdaman mo bang gumagaling ka?” Then I’d realize, yes. I did feel better. “’Wag kang mag-alala, anak. If you feel better now, you’ll feel better tomorrow than you do today. Then you’ll feel better the day after that. May awa ang Diyos.” Dad has no idea how these simple, old words have carried me through the deepest, darkest episodes in my life. Now that I’m 50, I do a lot of looking back. I can honestly tell you that my most difficult crises were my own doing. They were the fruit of my own impulsive & wrong choices. They were once blessings, yes, but they turned into poison because I either misused them or took them for granted. Sure, sometimes I felt that the consequences of my faults far outweighed my misdeeds. Still, I will say, I reaped what I sowed. And, you know, in my deepest despair & self-regret, a voice in my head would go: “’Wag kang mag-alala anak. You’ll start feeling better tomorrow, & the next day, & better each day after that. May awa ang Diyos.” In the first part of today’s gospel, Luke describes the destruction of Jerusalem through Jesus’ words. We’re not sure if Jesus actually predicted the destruction. But we can be sure that the words Luke put in the Lord’s mouth accurately describe that dreadful day, year 70AD—when the Romans plundered Jerusalem. Actually, the Jews erupted into many rebellions against Rome in years previous. But this time, Emperor Titus finally decided to teach Israel a lesson. Listen to a Jewish historian named Josephus who lived to see that day: “As soon as the army had no more people to slay or plunder, because there remained none to be objects of their fury, Titus gave orders to demolish the entire city & the Temple. Jerusalem was destroyed so completely that nothing was left to make anyone believe it was ever inhabited.” Then, Luke segues the gospel by describing his present situation: the persecution of Christians. “They will seize you, imprison you, embarrass you before the powerful of the land.” It’s all very dark, this gospel. But it ends with a reassurance: “But not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” Well, today, Israel is still alive & Christianity is still growing in number. Someone texted me yesterday & asked: “Has the world gone mad for choosing & giving power to mad men?” Then again, we who think we’re the ones seeing straight, especially the clergy—could we be the ones so maddeningly blind? Who knows? But dear sisters & brothers, we have no satisfying explanation to the troubling things happening lately. No matter; while we’re looking for an answer, hatred is still on the rise, & arrogance, its fuel. Integrity in the supposedly “highest” places of respect has hit rock-bottom. But worst of all, please remember that people are being murdered. Whether it’s the innocent or the guilty who die, killed the way they are, it’s still murder, every day. Asthma? Are we suffering from socio-political, spiritual, moral ‘asthma’? We’re not quite sure if all of this should make us heave a sigh of relief. But as a country, our breaths are shallow & labored, & that sigh of relief we desperately want to breathe, we don’t know if it’s safe to do so just yet. But come to think of it, sisters & brothers, we Pinoys have been through the best & the worst, & many times over, haven’t we? Our dear country is none the worse for wear, but we’re still up & our faith is strong. So, we have enough proof that whatever happens, the good always eventually conquers the evil. God pulls through. We’ve seen that in our personal lives. We’ve seen that in our families. And we’ve seen that, more or less, in our country. Goodness may suffer at the beginning & fall sick, & mostly because of our doing, our wrong choices as a community. But coming back to dad’s simple words, it will feel better tomorrow, then the next day, & better each day, because “may awa ang Diyos.” The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice, our psalm today says. So, we wait until goodness is up & running again because then, it will strike the evil & teach them a lesson. Call it grace, call it divine justice, or call it karma. But while we’re waiting for this, we have to do our part by staying up all night to nurse goodness back