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Homilies, Soul Food

“Yes, I will”

Homily by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, at the Cenacle Retreat House on the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Gospel is from Matthew 21: 28-32. On my first week as a newly ordained priest, a man stopped by Sacred Heart School in Cebu where I was assigned, and asked if he could confess. So, I sat with this very earnest, very gentle man and listened. “Father,” he started, “there’s one thing in the past 12 years I’ve long wanted to do: to receive the body of Christ again. I’ve been separated for 12 years, and I know there’s a rule against people like me, so I’ve kept myself away from communion since. I go to mass every day though.” His wife had left him for another man after just four years of marriage. He himself had met another woman since, with whom he was now living and had a child. They all went to church every Sunday. But their daughter was the only one who would line up for communion because mom and dad took it upon themselves to, well, keep away, according to the rule…even if they’d been wanting to share of the Body of Christ, truly, deeply, longingly all these years. This man had always believed without a shred of a doubt, that Christ’s body was his source of inspiration and healing and strength all his life. If you were there to hear him talk, sisters and brothers, you would realize he would not have come to confession if he were not sincere. Because he was. It was unmistakable. He did get around to confessing his sins. But it was more a confession of a long-standing wish, the granting of which he well knew he didn’t deserve; at least according to the rule, because he was a separated man. I gave the gentleman absolution. I also gave him the Body of Christ after that. I thought I had already understood his hunger for the Eucharist, until he broke down in big, loud, cathartic, heaving sobs upon receiving Christ’s body. I had no idea. He missed the Lord more than I could fathom. What greater faith could I ask to be shown, seeing someone long for the Lord so powerfully like that? So, his deep faith made me question my faith: When was the last time I longed for God like this? Never. The one verse that played over and over in my head all that day long was that there would be more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner than over 99 righteous who think they have no need of repentance. Pope Francis’ message in Amoris Laetitia is very clear, but only if priests care to read it carefully, receptively, and intelligently. I hope I did. Because after I read it, the most crucial message I heard in my crazy Jesuit head was twofold. “Arnel,” Pope Francis seemed to say, “Be very careful to not lump together in one basket all the divorced and the separated and the cohabiting, and think of all of them as self-driven enemies of God and of the church.” And you know, in my work as a priest and confessor, that is so true. I have met divorced, separated, and cohabiting people who have sincerely set aright their ways, even if they can no longer change their past wrongs. Should I keep using the past wrong as the sole criterion to doubt their present goodness? If we priests do that, then we are no better than the Pharisees, Jesus’ pet peeves. They regarded as impure and disgusting to God anyone and everyone who wasn’t pure like they were, pure in their sense of the word, according to their standards, and to their construal of the law. Secondly, the Pope seemed to say, “Count how many times I wrote the word ‘discern’ and ‘discernment’ in that document: that priests must carefully ‘discern each situation,’ that ‘special discernment is indispensable for the care of the divorced, separated, abandoned;’ that these situations require ‘careful discernment and respectful accompaniment.’” 44 times. In other words, nowhere did the Pope imply or even order that all priests must all the time give communion to all the divorced, separated, and cohabiting, regardless of the circumstances. No. We are to carefully listen to people, accompany them, discern with them—in the spirit of compassion and mercy. Because not all the divorced, separated, and cohabiting are the monsters that many churchmen far too easily judge them to be. But I have met a few who really reject the faith and even mock God and the church. So, yes, there are separated, divorced people like that who couldn’t care less about God or church or decency, because they want to have their cake and eat it, too. Yet, there are others who did say “no” to God at some point in their lives, but they’ve since gone back to the vineyard, to work with the Father—like the first son in today’s gospel. But how will priests know, if we antemanothrow all of them into one basket, and then keep sterile distance from them? On the other hand, for all we know, some people we do give communion to,  they may well be legitimately wedded and living together, but have become cruel or apathetic to each other, in a marriage that is lawful, but loveless. Wouldn’t that be the second son in today’s parable—who said “yes, I will,” or as marriage would go, “yes, I do,”—but did nothing more? “’Which of the two did his father’s will?’ Jesus asked them. They answered, ‘The first.’ ‘Amen, I say to you, tax collectors & prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.’” Then we protest this as in the first reading, “The Lord’s way is not fair!” “Listen, Israel,” the Lord says. “Is it my way that is unfair, or yours?” I end with a quote in Amoris Laetitia. The Pope says, “I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church that’s attentive to the goodness which

Homilies, Soul Food

Fixer

*Homily given by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ at the Cenacle Retreat House on the Feast of the Transfiguration 2017.  We had a Himig Heswita concert in Tokyo over 2 weeks ago. Out of the 6 singers who were supposed to sing, only 2 made it. The other 4 didn’t get their visas on time. It wasn’t really their fault. Last May, our very well-meaning secretary volunteered to do the run-around for the visas. But then, things got very busy in the office. So what he did was—he entrusted all their papers to a very good friend whose mother knew her way around travel agencies. But, long story short, our secretary’s friend sat on the papers. The documents never reached his mom. Worse, he charged my friends outrageous fees for this, that, & the other, inventing “requirements” w/c they later found out were bogus. In the end, no visa. So, imagine: Sakura Hall, Shibuya Cultural Center, famous for classical concerts, a huge place. But instead of 6 singers promised, only 2 came. We had to convince to sing with us 1 of the organizers there who sang in a church-choir, & he agreed. But imagine all the re-adjustments of solo parts, the 3-part harmonies coming to naught, the last-minute rehearsals. Everything hung on a thread all because of a fixer. Fixers don’t care for anyone other than themselves, do they? Or anything other than your money. A very good friend used to work with government. I remember him saying, “Mula sa mga clerk sa front desk na nagpapa-pedicure o kumakain ng maruya during office hours, pataas hanggang sa mga boss na walang ginagawa, the whole system is just crawling with ineptitude & corruption.” I guess that’s why we have fixers. We part with good money on them because we can’t be bothered by long lines & waiting & rudeness. It’s not entirely our fault, after all, that government gets a pedicure & eats maruya & goes on junkets while we wait in line. In a bizarre & annoying kind of way, fixers “save” us, like “saviors” of some kind. But then again, maybe this is why our country has never seen a transfiguration—the way South Korea, Thailand, Japan have gone through thoroughgoing transfiguration. We’ve relied too much on fixers to do the dirty work for us, & expedite our cause; & from the passion & suffering of it all, to spare us. Allow me to go into catechism mode for a while. We Christians understand the Lord’s Transfiguration in 3 ways. First, in the bible, the mountain is a privileged place where God & human persons meet. But this time on Mt Tabor, Jesus is the privileged point, our bridge to our God. Secondly, in the Transfiguration, God’s confirms & affirms that Jesus is not only the Messiah prophesied, represented here by Moses & Elijah. God also confirms & affirms that Jesus is most importantly, his beloved Son. Lastly, the Transfiguration previews & anticipates the Resurrection. So, gloriousness & majesty; that’s what we read in the Transfiguration, a mysterium tremendum et fascinosum, a mystery that terrifies us yet fascinates us, as it did Peter who said, “Wow, let’s just stay up here!” No, Jesus says. Baliktad. You don’t get to the glory by leaving the struggle. You stay with the struggle & leave the glorifying to God. So, despite his stature as our bridge to God, the fulfillment of all prophecies, the beloved Son who will rise again—Jesus has had to climb down Mt. Tabor. He’s had to resume being our “fixer”—fixing our ills & disabilities, our demons & our despair. Worst, a real part of that descent will be an ascent…but to a cross. But see, Jesus entrusts none of these to fixers. He will have none of these expedited…not if he really wants humanity to be transfigured into the image & likeness of God. Because isn’t that the reason why God sends us the Messiah: to transfigure us all into his image & likeness? Dear sisters & brothers, the image & likeness of God is not all glory & majesty. Jesus is the image & likeness of the Father. If we are to be transfigured into that image & likeness, then we will have to reckon with being a picture of pain for the sake of a good cause, being a picture of despair over thanklessness, a picture of sorrow when people we love don’t & won’t love us back the same way. So the image & likeness of a glorious, majestic God includes an image & likeness of a suffering Messiah. It’s like a watermark, this image of a suffering God. It floats beneath the much bolder ink of God’s glory & majesty. Jesus has had to go through the long & arduous way towards the Resurrection. Only then is he finally & irreversibly transfigured. No short-cuts, no excuses, no fixers. And then there are these incredibly wealthy parents who give their children everything they ask for to compensate for their constant absence. Money as fixer of an ailing family—no transfiguration, walang pagbabago. And then there’s the man who promptly goes to confession to get absolution, but never apologizing to people he hurts & harms. A sacrament as fixer of sin—no transfiguration, walang pagbabago. And the terror professor who delights in flunking students, but passes a high-pointer varsity player who hardly shows up for class. Favoritism as fixer of school victory—no transfiguration. And what about the men who kill & kill & kill again. Bullets as fixers of society—no transfiguration, surprise, surprise. Walang pagbabago. But then there’s the alcoholic who finally surrenders himself to a laborious rehab…& the weary couple who are on the via dolorosa of marriage therapy…& OFW’s who soldier on through loneliness & slavery…& the cancer-stricken wife & mom who never loses faith in God & keeps serving her family & her church even when she feels her very strength leaking out & away day by day…. there, sisters & brothers, there happens the

General, Homilies, Soul Food

God’s freebies

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.

Homilies, Soul Food

Don’t cross

Homily of Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, on the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, at the Cenacle Retreat House. Under normal circumstances, a right-handed person could slap somebody’s right cheek, but only if it’s a back-handed slap. Try & imagine it. Back in the Lord’s day, a back-handed slap was what superiors gave subordinates. Masters backhand-slapped slaves, for instance; commanders slapped centurions that way; & as it also happened, Romans back-hand-slapped Jews. Now, what did Jesus say must a person do in such a case? “Turn the other cheek.” Now to turn the other cheek means to stand up to the aggressor & challenge him to, this time, strike you with a front-handed slap—meaning, to strike you not as a subordinate, but as an equal. Interesting, isn’t it? When you’re slapped as an equal, your aggressor better be ready to take whatever might come right back at him. But I should hasten to say that turning the other cheek did not mean measure for measure retaliation either. Turning the other cheek was a dignified protest against injustice. By freely offering the other cheek, one valiantly affirms one’s dignified status while also exposing the aggressor’s contemptible beastliness. So, see, sisters & brothers, the point to turning the other cheek was not to acquiesce to abasement or abuse. That was never the Jesus ethic. He never allowed himself to be abased. But it did entail heroic, even stately self-discipline in the face of a presumptuous & bestial aggressor. By Roman law, Roman officers & centurions could command Jewish civilians to carry their gear, but only for one mile. There were sanctions if an officer abused this privilege. The rule itself was preposterous, of course. It served to only stress Jewish servility to the Romans. So Jesus said, if someone orders you to carry his gear for one mile, keep walking with it for longer—go another mile! Let’s see if the officer doesn’t get into trouble with the law & be de-merited for it. So you see, walking another mile did not mean being passive in the face of dishonor. It was a clever way of handling injustice. The funniest is the third. Jewish law entitled a creditor (usually rich) to confiscate the tunic of a debtor (usually poor) when the debtor was unable to pay in cash. Again, it was a pretty ruthless law that favored the rich. Now Jesus said, if a creditor goes to court to sue you for your tunic, give him your cloak, too. Well, these two pieces of clothing were about the only pieces of clothing poor peasants wore. So to give both tunic & cloak to the creditor meant to strip naked…in court. The public nudity would then bring shame on the unforgiving creditor. A pretty clever way of handling mercilessness! Jesus never taught abasement. He never meant for his followers to passively swallow cruelty & insult, & say, “This is what I, your Lord & your God, suffered through, so do the same. I want you, especially you Filipinos, I want your spirituality to be only Good Friday spirituality.” Well no. Submitting to cruelty does not make one holy. It makes one a dishrag & that’s an insult to God who created us with dignity. Secondly, our passivity emboldens the oppressor to sin, to sin even more, & to remain in sin. So allowing the sin to be committed on us makes us, strangely enough, accessory to the sin. But on the other hand, Jesus doesn’t want us to do eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth either. To make full use of our educated brains, our competent faculties, our gospel-informed will especially in the face of grievance, that’s what he wants us to do—to engage our whole person, in other words, & not just our bruised egos or our wounded hearts. That’s why we must also expose the injustice mindfully, & stand up for what is true, but as much as we can, to not sin; not even if we cannot help being angry… …Because there is fair anger, there is righteous anger. But then, there’s is also consuming anger, vengeful anger, rage. I’ve felt it in myself & seen it in other people, that dwelling on anger & feeding anger & soaking in anger—it really damages us more than the persons we happen to hate. Our rage might burn our “enemies”, sure; but only so far. Our rage burns us further & deeper. It makes us ugly. I’ve met people, priests included, who clearly feel very gratified when venting rage—whether physically, verbally, or, as Filipinos usually do, passive-aggressively (silent treatment is the favorite Filipino passive aggression, isn’t it?) And I’ve noticed that when we taste sweetness when venting rage, then poison has leaked into our hearts, into our souls. The poison of rage tricks us into thinking how powerful & intelligent & superior we are! But that’s just an illusion. It’s the poison that’s begun to ruin us & make us ugly. We have symbols of this in literature—people who confuse power with consuming anger, & have since been disfigured by the poison: Gollum & Saruman, Lord of the Rings; Emperor Palpatine & Darth Vader, Star Wars; Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter; the Joker, Batman, & all the rest. I’m sure you also know real people “uglified” by rage, but we won’t mention names. Baka matukhang tayo. “Anger is an acid that does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” Well said, Mark Twain.   I’m very sure there were times when Jesus himself came terribly close to the line that parted righteous anger & rage. But he didn’t cross it. That’s why he tells us today: “Don’t. Don’t cross it. Take a deep breath…many deep breaths, because this is the kind of ‘cross’ you should not do.” We are fortunate to belong to a faith where we believe that: “The Lord is kind & merciful, slow to anger & abounding in kindness.

General, Homilies, Jubilee, Soul Food

When Jesus sees the depths our heart

Homily by Fr. Ritchie Genilo, SJ, on the Thursday before Epiphany, at the Cenacle Retreat House, Quezon City. The Gospel is from John 1 :43-51. In our gospel reading we read about how Nathanael became one of the apostles of Jesus. Many scholars believe that the apostle Bartholomew that we read in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, is the same person as the apostle Nathanael that we read today in the gospel of John. In our gospel story, Philip, a friend of Nathanael, had been called by Jesus to follow him as an apostle. Philip was so excited about meeting Jesus that he went to tell his friend Nathanael that he has found the long awaited Messiah. What was the reaction of Nathanael to the news of Philip? Nathanael said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Why was this the reaction of Nathanael? There was nothing in the Old Testament which foretold that God’s Chosen One should come from Nazareth.  Nazareth was an ordinary town.  Nathanael himself came from another town in Galilee, which was Cana. In those days, there would be rivalries between towns. Nathanael’s reaction was to declare that Nazareth was not the kind of place that will produce anything good. Nathanael was putting down Jesus because of his bias against the town of Nazareth. But Philip did not argue with Nathanael about his bias. Philip simply said to Nathanael.  “Come and see!” So Nathanael came; and when Jesus saw him, Jesus saw into his heart. Jesus recognized in Nathanael a simplicity and innocence that will make him a good apostle. Even if Nathanael had a bias against Nazareth, Jesus praised Nathanael by calling him a genuine Israelite, a man in whose heart there is no guile. Jesus. Nathanael was surprised that a person like Jesus who came from Nazareth could praise him like that even if it was the first time they met. Nathanael asked how Jesus could possibly know him.  Jesus told him that he had already seen him under the fig-tree.  What is the significance of that? The fig-tree was leafy and shady tree and it was the custom to sit and meditate under its branches.  Probably was what Nathanael had been doing; and no doubt as he sat under the fig-tree he had prayed for the day when God’s Chosen One should come.  No doubt he had been meditating on the promises of God. And now he felt that Jesus had seen into the very depths of his heart. It was not so much that Jesus had seen him under the fig-tree that surprised Nathanael; it was the fact that Jesus had read the thoughts of his inmost heart.  Nathanael said to himself: “Here is the man who understands my dreams!  Here is the man who knows my prayers!  Here is the man who has seen into my most intimate and secret longings, longings which I have never even dared put into words!  Here is the man who can understand my soul!  This must be God’s promised anointed one and no other.”  Nathanael immediately believed in Jesus because Jesus was the only one who could read, understand and satisfy his heart. What can we learn about the story of the call of Nathanael or St. Bartholomew? First, we should not be ashamed or embarrassed to tell our friends about Jesus. In the same way that Philip became the instrument for Nathanael to come and see Jesus we should also be ready to share Jesus with the people who are close to us. Sharing Jesus with the people we care about is the best gift we can give to our friends. Second, we are challenged to go beyond our prejudices and biases against other people and try to see Christ also present in people who are different from us. We should also be ready to recognize the goodness present in other people even if these people are against us. Jesus recognized the goodness of Nathanael despite the biases he had against Nazareth. And Nathanael allowed Jesus to break through his pride and his prejudices and opened himself to the Good News that Jesus brings. Lastly, we should always turn to Jesus as the only one who can read, understand and satisfy our hearts. Jesus understands our dreams and hopes, our sadness and fears, and the deepest desires of our hearts. It is only in Jesus can our souls find rest and true happiness. At the end of the gospel, Jesus quotes the old story of Jacob at Bethel who had seen the golden ladder leading up to heaven (Gen.28:12-13). It was as if Jesus said: “Nathanael, I can do far more than read your heart.  I can be for you and for all persons the way, the ladder that leads to heaven.”  It is through Jesus and Jesus alone that our souls can mount the ladder which leads to heaven. May we be inspired by the story of Nathanael or St. Bartholomew, that we have a friend in Jesus who can truly see and understand our souls and lead us to our heavenly home. Image from the internet.

Homilies, Soul Food

Heavens Deep

Homily by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ. Christmas Eve 2016. Cenacle Retreat House.   As a child, I used to love the Christmas tree. But the older I got, the parol very naturally supplanted the tree, & became for me the symbol for Christmas; especially the simpler ones, the parol ribbed with kawayan, skinned with papel de hapon or cellophane, & with the flowing buntot reminiscent of Bulacan pastillas, na sa tuwing hinihipan ng hangin, lumalagaslas na parang mga dahon! The fabulous Christmas tree sits in a designated place in our homes. The parol, however, it hangs outside, mostly alone. But to me, it hangs with quiet splendor, watching over us. The tree is mostly Scandinavian & doesn’t bring you back to Bethlehem. The parol is truly ours, truly Pinoy; & the star will forever beam memories back to the 1st Christmas. The last time I saw a dust storm of stars was in Culion, Palawan, 26 years ago. Every night, they turned off all the generators on the island at 10. Then the stars almost suddenly come out to play, wide-eyed & sparkling. The darker the island, the brighter the stars. Iniisip ko nga, sana madala ninyo ang mga bata sa kung saan kaunti pa lang ang ilaw, para malaman nila kung ano talaga ang sinasabing “starry, starry night.” For hundreds of years, travelers charted their journeys according to the stars. In fact, the word “dis-aster” comes from the Latin which literally means to lose one’s star, to drift from your star-charted course, or to be ill-starred. And for hundreds of years, people have divined the future by the stars, which is why we have the Horoscope or astrology, the “logic” of the stars. Today, we know that stars are really suns, each with a solar system. So a star actually holds together a rosary of planets that float nicely together, yet also nicely apart. In a sense, stars fasten the universe in cosmic stasis. Today, however, many stars seem to have vanished because there’s just too much light that outshines them in the cities. But, oh, they’re still there. They’ve been there far, far longer than humans. In fact, many stars we see today are the very same stars our ancestors also beheld. Can you imagine? Long after humanity blows itself out, the stars will remain in the same quiet magnificence; God proving to us yet again that true beauty is heavens deep. Our humble parol reminds us Christmas after Christmas that we have one such star, the one true Star, in fact. And it’s not Ate Guy, the superstar, the star for all seasons, Ate Vi, nor megastar Ate Shawie. True to his mission, our one true Star persistently shows us, travellers, the way…even if we deliberately lose our Star sometimes when we we’re drawn by the glare of our own accomplishments, our blazing ego, our blinding control issues. Secondly, our humble parol reminds us that it’s not how our stars are fixed that sways our fortune. The fault does not lie in our stars, sisters & brothers. No, it’s how we arrange our lives according to the one true Star that governs our future. I have yet to meet anyone whose life changed for the better because he consulted his horoscope daily. I do know that many of us here, we’ve discovered our deepest sense of purpose because, though we fail many times, we still try to chart our course according to the movement of the Star of Bethlehem. Thirdly, many times unbeknownst to us, our one true Star persists in holding humanity in mysterious equilibrium. Humanity left to itself, we would alter the laws of gravity & make ourselves the center. Our Star, however, has the steady hands of the divine & holds us with loving care. Sisters & brothers, don’t you feel that now, more than ever, we need our Star desperately? In tonight’s readings, Isaiah & Paul could very well have been talking about us: “a people who walk in darkness,” a people who frantically need “to see the great light,” waiting for God’s glory “to deliver us from all lawlessness.” Marami na pong nagtanong sa akin, “Father, what are we going to do? We must do something!” At nahihiya po ako dahil hindi ko po alam ang sagot. Matagal na pong lumipas ‘yung mga panahon na ang pari may sagot sa lahat ng bagay. Like you, I’m staggering in the dark for an answer. There’s so much I don’t know, so much I no longer know, & honestly, there are things that I don’t want to know. What I do know very well is that if your way is violence in word & deed, then you cannot be the way. You do not know the way. And if you’re constantly smoldering with anger & resentment & vendetta, & are even proud of it, then you are light-years away from the truth. And if your idea of brightening up the future is snuffing out human life & bringing back men who have once already darkened our history, then you do not bring light, you bring darkness. You are darkness. Surely, it was heartbreaking for Joseph & Mary to have brought Jesus into the world in such harsh conditions, through no fault of theirs. Even the national situation was terrible then. This census that governor Quirinius imposed on Judeans, this was the beginning of the Roman occupation of Judah. Judah was once a kingdom: free, sovereign, & glorious. Now, Judeans were about to devolve into 2nd class citizens in their own land. Who knew what deeper horrors the Romans had in store for them? So, the Messiah is no stranger to darkness, to dictatorship, & to bloodshed—to history repeating itself, in other words. But I’ve always believed that humanity is God’s biography. That’s what God has done in the Incarnation. We are God’s life-story. Niloob ng Diyos na maging kwentong-buhay niya ang kwentong-buhay ng sangkatauhan, kwentong-buhay natin. So even if many times, human history

General, Homilies, Soul Food

Kings

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.

General, Homilies, Soul Food

Breathe

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

Homilies, Soul Food

“Come down…”

Homily by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, for the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, at the Cenacle Retreat House, Quezon City. The Gospel is from Luke 19:1-10. Ah, Zaccheus, one of my favorites. I wonder why (!) You should hear the gospel in Tagalog. “Pumasok si Jesus sa Jerico…May isang tao roong ang pangalan ay Zaqueo, pinuno ng mga maniningil ng buwis at napakayaman. Sinisikap niyang makita si Jesus, ngunit sa dami ng tao, hindi niya ito makita dahil sa siya’y pandak.” How brutal ‘no? That sycamore Zaccheus was on, that must’ve been only one of the many things he had had to climb so he could to get to be where he wanted to be, what he wanted to be. But Zacchaeus was already a full-fledged, card-bearing, dignified Jew. He was healthy; no illness or debilitating deformity. He was smart; he certainly knew his percentages. He was Jewish, albeit working for the Romans. And he was male. So he had quite enough going for him. But, as life would have it, he didn’t turn heads because he was healthy, smart, a Jew, or male—but because he was pandak. And a tax collector at that. “How worse could a man get?” people must’ve snorted. “Pandak na nga, buwaya pa!” But much deeper still, Zaccheus must’ve always had to climb the hard way to get to where he was now, to climb many such “sycamore trees” so he could be head & shoulders above the rest in some desperate way; above the mocking, prejudicial lot of them! For he must’ve always come up short & diminished & made to feel like “damaged goods.” Ah, but the best “sycamore tree” Zacchaeus had thus far climbed was being tax collector for Rome. And excuse me, chief tax collector; really up there, rich, powerful. You could almost hear him say, “Sure, go ahead, mock me for being short, for being a systematic thief, a traitor to the nation, sleeper with the enemy, bloodsucker extraordinaire. But whom do you run to now when you need a swift capital? Who ransoms you from your despicable arrears? Who funds your pathetic shortfalls & saves your lousy necks?” His existential sycamore couldn’t grow high enough to counterweigh the depth of damage he harbored in life. No one could make him get back down now. And one day, Jesus walks into his life, or from under him for that matter. After the Lord must have spoken to a faceless, nameless crowd, & was on his way again, he cares enough to stop, raise eyes & face to this little monkey & calls him by name! “Hey, Zacchaeus,” which in Hebrew, means pure, innocent, unblemished; can you imagine? “Come down, for I must stay at your house today.” Not just “eat” at his house today, not just “drop by” his house today. Stay. Which should come as no surprise to us, brothers & sisters, because whenever Jesus demonstrates the quality of God’s forgiveness—quantity is quality! Divine forgiveness is scandalously extravagant. “I’m staying at your house today, your home. Bring us there, where you are truly yourself, where you are loved & not judged, where you truly are a ‘Zacchaeus’ in the eyes of those who love you.” Dear sisters & brothers, like Zaccheus, we are all somehow “damaged goods,” too. Almost all of us bear deep scars from the injury that’s been dealt us, especially while we were growing up. At some point, we felt short-changed. We were short on the love of people who were supposed to protect & love us. As we grew up, we were short on respect because people seemed to look at what we lack instead of what we could offer. We weren’t talented enough, weren’t beautiful enough, weren’t wealthy enough. We grew older still, we came up short on opportunities because people preferred some other guy & they did so with a different metric, but on that never measured from our head up. No wonder, when are the worst of ourselves, all this damage starts talking & taking over. So, when we found our sycamores, we started climbing. Some of us started to think that people are mere branches upon which to leverage our dream-catching. So we grabbed at them & climbed all over them, including even our loved ones. In our desperate ascent, we became injurious. But we shrugged off our casualties as “collateral damage.” After all, we were someone’s collateral damage ourselves once upon a time. The Lord never thinks we’re beyond repair, that we’re beyond forgiving. And incidentally, you never hear the Lord say, “You see my kingdom up in the heavens? Well, way up there is also my metric, my standards. Now, until you reach that kind of perfection, you will not reach me, nor me you. So, get busy. Work your way up there & only than shall I grace you.” (Believe it or not, to this day, there are religious congregations that still teach & live by that grandiloquent, counter-Incarnational theology. They think they’re building up God by putting humanity down.) No. “Come down from the tree & meet me down here, where I am,” Jesus tells Zacchaeus. Funny, but do you notice that when Jesus calls someone to follow him, it’s the Lord who first follows the person back to where that person lives? He did this with Matthew, too, another tax collector. “Come to me,” Jesus always says, which really means, “Let me come with you. Let’s walk to your home where you cannot pretend, where you don’t have to. Let’s walk home where you can tell me how you feel life has short-changed all these years—so I could restore to you everything about yourself that you’ve sold out, just to feel that you’re not a nobody.” Dear sisters & brothers, it’s not that we don’t like to climb back down from our sycamores; I don’t think. Maybe we just don’t know how to do it anymore. We’re not even sure if it’s safe down on

Homilies, Soul Food

Signs

Homily by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, on  the Twenty-eighth Monday in Ordinary Time, at the Ateneo University Chapel, Quezon City. The Gospel is from Luke 11: 29-32a. I have a few good friends who at some point in their lives prayed a particular novena. And while they did, they hoped to be given a sign at the end of 9 days whether God’s answer to their petition was a yes or a no. If they were given a rose, whether or not there was an apparent reason, or if they smelled roses whether or not there were roses around, then that was God’s yes. Otherwise, it was a no. And you know, some did get roses & the others smelled them–& they were really granted what they asked for in the novena. I understand how we would want God to give us a sign—especially when we need some form of initial certitude over God’s yes or no, or what’s going to happen according to his will. What I find just a bit dangerous in this is when we subconsciously want God to send us a sign that we want, a sign in our terms. Very often, the more dramatic a sign is, or the stranger it is, the more we believe it’s from “heaven”—like a white butterfly out of the blue, or the time 11:11 on a digital clock, or a dream. When we start expecting those kinds of signs, then we might have begun looking for our own sign of confirmation rather than seriously discern God’s will. “This generation is perverse,” Jesus says in the gospel, “It seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it.” By the time this story happened, Jesus had already fed 5000, already healed a demon-possessed boy, already raised a dead girl back to life. But to a people who envisioned a Messiah in their own image & likeness, the signs must be tailored to their specifications. So, even if the Messiah stood right before their very eyes with signs aplenty, he was lost on them. If we wish to see signs from God, maybe we shouldn’t first resort to the other-worldly or the preternatural. God’s signs are all around us, God’s signs are also within. How is your relationship with your spouse going? Or your teen-ager? Or your parents? That’s a sign. How is your body feeling, what do you weigh, how’s your cholesterol? That’s a sign. If you’re a boss in your office, are people happy to see you when you come in? Or do you say you really don’t care anymore if your people like you or not? That’s a sign. What’s the predominant inner dialogue you hear in your head: is it often immediately critical? Is it about gratitude? Is it always a list of things to do? That’s a sign. If you were to pie-chart your overall moods at the end of each day for a week, how does the slice of “awesome” compare with the slice of “don’t ask”?  Well, that’s a sign, & God is telling us something through them. In other words, when we need a sign from God to help us to know his will, his desire—we take a good, contemplative look at people around us, & we take a good, contemplative look inside us, what we think, & feel. We look at our bodies & we look into our hearts. We heed what people say, then watch our reactions. We listen to what we say, then notice their reactions. Because through all of these, God signs his presence & his will. In theology, we say that God is a revelatory God & that his will is to constantly disclose himself to us. We can be sure then, that God doesn’t want to keep us guessing. God would love for us to get the message.

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