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General, Homilies, Soul Food

The Upper Room

Homily on The Feast of Our Lady of the Cenacle | 4 June 2022 by Fr Oliver Dy, SJ In Jerusalem of the time of Jesus, it was typical for the house owners in the city to own a second floor or an upper room to be rented out to pilgrims. It is in such a room that the Last Supper was held and many other occasions, the disciples celebrated in the Upper Room for the feasts in Jerusalem, thus, also the name Cenacle or dining room. It’s in this Upper Room that the election to replace Judas, the betrayer, was held. And it was also in such a room where “All these [the apostles] were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.” The Upper Room. I would like to share my thoughts related to this Upper Room which for me symbolizes and mirrors the heart of Mary, Mary of the Cenacle. That there is a certain congruence of meaning of the Upper Room and the heart of Mary related to the three gifts of the Cenacle – Apostolic Service, Prayer and Community Life. First of all, the Upper Room is a holy space between heaven and earth. It is grounded on the earth and yet also elevated above it to indicate a sense of perspective and spiritual transcendence. The Upper Room is grounded on the cry of the people who cry and with the groan of creation, so the vibrations of the earth, as it were, is felt in this Upper Room, and yet this Upper Room is also the meeting place between heaven and earth or rather the meeting place or the point of transition between the old heaven and old earth and a new heaven and a new earth. The Upper Room’s sense of apostolic service is that place where the old is transformed into the new. The Upper Room symbolizes the hill country of Judea where Mary visited Elizabeth in the sense that it is elevated and here, Mary’s Magnificat was heard for the first time, the revolution of the heart and the reversal of order in the world. And this perspective and this vision of Mary continues here in the upper room in a new way, in the apostolic service. There’s both a typical distance from the earth and yet also a certain typical intimacy. One should not succumb to the subtle temptations of the world but to live amidst them with a sense of perspective of Mary. And so, it is in the sense of spiritual deviation with the world that we can transform into a new heaven and a new earth just like Mary did in her time. The second one is the Upper Room is the place of prayer. As it is located in this in-between space, the heaven and earth, it is the place of radical openness related to the virtue of hope and the act of waiting. The radical openness to God’s possibilities. Not so much to give in to the earthly projects in the act of presumptiveness or over-planning like the apostles did or thought when Jesus ascended, “Would He restore the kingdom of Israel?” It’s not that, rather, the radical openness to something totally new , totally unheard of. An openness by that which came forth from the heart of Mary from the womb, that Incarnate God himself, something unthought of before. This radical openness demands that we detach ourselves from our earthly project and have that clear space for prayer. The German word for this is “abgeschiedenheit” or “detachment” in English. The word is “gelassenheit” or “letting things be”. Not to give in, on the other hand, to utility and despair but to allow our pondering in prayer, the gradual pondering while waiting to allow the plan of God to unfold in His due time. So, we must maintain that radical openness in prayer like Mary in the Upper Room. Finally, Mary and Community life. In the year 2018, Pope Francis also declared Monday after Pentecost as the Feast of Mary as Mother of the Church, and it is also related to the Feast of the Cenacle in this Upper Room where Mary became part of the emergent Church and in fact, became also a witness to the maturation of the disciples, the apostles in the Spirit. They were with one accord, a single heart. And this means spiritual conversation and fruits of prayer. I can imagine Mary sharing the stories about her Son to encourage the apostoltes. I can hear Mary entering into dialogue with the apostles in the spirit of the Lord’s absence. I can see Mary co-discerning in their fellow pilgrims here on earth. Mary was at the side of the apostles. She was with the apostles. She was companion to the apostles. She was telling the apostles, “You are not alone, I am here, your mother.” She died with the apostles and lived with the apostles at their side. The word Paraclete incidentally is someone called to one’s side. I can imagine the Paraclete as somebody beside us. Somebody who strengthens us when we need strength. Someone who speaks for us like a lawyer. Paraclete symbolizes God by our side. In the same way, Mary in community life is a woman, a person by the side, beside the apostles, being with, being together with the apostles in the place of prayer, in the place of emerging apostolic service. In this Mass today, let us pray for the spiritual blessings related to this Upper Room, that symbolizes and reflects the very heart of Mary, Mary in the Cenacle, apostolic service, in prayer and community life.

General, Homilies, Soul Food

The Voice of Love

(Homily given by Fr. Arnel Aquino SJ on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, at the Cenacle Retreat House.) When I was in high school, I was sort of forced into playing marriage counselor to mom & dad. Kuya had gone to Manila for college. Jonathan was still in grade school. So, whenever mom & dad quarreled, priest wannabe took it upon himself to patch them up. I always felt anxious whenever I was around mom & dad. I could smell the sl whiff if something was wrong. So, I stayed in my room most of the time because ignorance was bliss. Whenever they came home, though, I became super sensitive to the sounds they’d make downstairs. Many times, I’d suddenly sit up because I thought I heard yelling again. But then, the next day, they were fine. I only thought I heard they yelled. But it must’ve been just a dog that barked, a chair that screeched against the floor, or a car that roared past the house. Until I left home for college, I continued hearing what I thought was yelling. Unfortunately, 2 out of 5 times, it was! People with schizophrenia have it much harder. They hear voices physically, like you hear my voice now. And the voices are unmistakable from a dog, chair, or car. The voices are often male, repetitive, commanding, & nasty. “You, fat slob; you’re ugly; you’re garbage; useless. Everyone’s talking about you; they don’t want you here; they hate you; they’re planning to get rid of you.” That’s why many schizophrenics also develop paranoia. “Just end it all; go jump off a ledge. Pop all your pills in one go.” That’s why schizophrenia can also drive a person to suicide. But what I think is most chilling is when the voice says: “I’ll always be here; you can never run away from me; you can try but I’ll always come after you.” That’s why schizophrenic patients are trained to say, “No. No. Don’t.” I figured, though, things that voices tell the schizophrenic, you & I also hear them once in a while in some measure, don’t you think? “You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re a failure. They’re talking about you behind your back. They don’t like you. They want you out. You’re a bad person.” Thankfully, we know they’re merely negative thoughts, voiced in our own voice. We shake them off & not act on them. Problem is, sometimes, we only think we don’t act on our negative inner voices. When, in fact, we do. We make patol the voices (as the Assumptionista would say! Joke.) When we’re unaware that the voices are already taking charge, we transfigure into what’s called a reactive personality. Matalim na tayo magsalita, first response natin suspecha, reklamo, pintas. Madalas na tayong defensive, thinking that anyone who differs with us is out to prove us wrong. When we feel strongly against something or someone, kahit hindi fact-checked, we believe we’re absolutely right. (Kaya reactive personalities ang mga Marites!) In general, reactive people are difficult to live & work with because, well, they become the negative voice for people around them. See, that’s just the tragedy. Our negative voices say, “You’re not lovable. You’re no good.” Then, we’re roped in & prove them wrong. Then, we become reactive. Vicious cycle. That’s why we all desperately need a download. We need to download Jesus’ voice into this gadget, our heads. And update it. Constantly. One way we can do this by going back to the Gospels, reading them prayerfully & contemplatively, imagining ourselves as part of the story, observing Jesus, what he says, how he says them, & why. The Lord’s voice there is unmistakable. In fact, Jesus assumes not just any voice, but a very particular voice: the voice of a shepherd, a good shepherd who loves what he does & whom he’s doing it for. What a good shepherd says is completely opposite to what our negative voices would have us believe. Unlike a drill sergeant who rips into us to “make us stronger,” our shepherd strengthens us by pulling us together & giving us courage. Unlike a school marm who belts us so we learn our lesson, our shepherd teaches us the lesson we need to learn while he heals our pain; shearing us, not skinning us alive. Unlike a tiger parent who invalidates us to raise our esteem over the others, our shepherd prizes us by surrounding us with friends who love us. Finally, the shepherd doesn’t bark lofty standards of holiness for us to jump at to reach. Rather, he says, “Come, come, sheep. Let’s go to a better place. You & your friends. Come with me!” “I’ll always be here,” the shepherd’s voice says. “You can never run away from me. You can try. But I will always come after you.” To him we can say, “Yes. Yes. Do.”   image from kidshelpline.com.au

General, Homilies, Soul Food

Good Friday Homily | 15 April 2022

In the Third Week of the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius proposes that we “ask for grief with Christ in grief, anguish with Christ in anguish, tears and interior pain…” During today’s contemplation on Christ’s Passion and Death, we perhaps face no great difficulty, as we have no shortage of pain and suffering brought by Covid-19, natural calamities and conflict. With Jesus shedding tears at the death of his friend Lazarus, we have lost to illness and infirmity many of our dearly beloved, some of who have passed on with only the company of PPE-covered medical professionals. With Jesus worried for the hungry crowds following him, we feel the pangs of need of those who have lost life and livelihood because of the pandemic, the Taal eruption and the litany of typhoons, Odette and Agaton being the latest. With Jesus welcoming and embracing the little ones, we are even pained by the wide-eyed incomprehension of faraway Ukrainian children and young girls, cramped into trains, sometimes with no family, relying on the mercy of strangers. Like Jesus carrying his Cross, we all carry the heavy burden of these overwhelming and different faces of pain, suffering and anguish that seem to be the many-headed beast of ancient stories. It does not leave us unscathed, and we have felt how it eats us up inside. I have seen marriages break up, the young pushed to self-harm, and many suffering from anxiety and depression. Thus we have become more attentive to what is clinically called “mental health.” Social psychologists describe how this pandemic of interior suffering isolates us more than the strictest lockdown, and how we find ourselves languishing, as in a prison cell without walls. Thus we understand why the Evangelist Matthew would not hesitate to put the Psalmist’s cry on the very lips of Jesus, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” But being with Jesus carrying his cross is not enough, as Jesus reminds the women of Jerusalem, “Weep not for me.” There is more to being one with Jesus in grief, anguish and pain. In his Passion and Death, Jesus is no mere victim of power-hungry Jewish elders in collusion with Roman colonizers. Much less is he the warrior-king out to win victory for his own glory. Jesus suffers on account of and for others. As we profess at every Sunday Eucharist, “for us and for our salvation, Jesus came down from heaven.” Ignatius’ contemplation even makes it so personal: “Jesus suffered for me.” I wonder how deeply we feel this. All this invites each of us to examine our own suffering. Is my suffering brought about by external circumstances, created by outside forces, catching me in the wrong place at an inopportune time? Aminin na nating minsa’y katangahan o, para hindi masakit, naivete? Is my pained resignation to extra judicial killings, creeping authoritarianism and the trampling of truth the disguised surrender to apathy and convenience? Is my suffering self-inflicted, caused by willful selfishness and intensified by self-pity? Are my broken relationships the bitter fruit of anger, envy and jealousy? All these forms of self-violence are nothing more than the absurd struggle of Sisyphus up the mountain or, worse, a mad dog running after its tail. But with Jesus in his Passover from suffering to new life, we break out of our prison when our own suffering is also on account of and for others. Like Jesus, an OFW mother sacrifices her isolation and safety in war-threatened places for her family and children. Like Jesus, countless volunteers spend themselves, time and resources, to safeguard the integrity of elections and to hold those in office accountable. Like Jesus, life-partners learn to live with their shadows and to forgive each other. Like Jesus, an urban poor family shares their ayuda with a neighbor in greater need. My dear friends in Christ, it is no coincidence that the Filipino word for moving on, for continuing is “magpatuloy.” This can only suggest that for us to move from suffering to new life, we must allow others to enter into our home. by Fr. Jose Mario C. Francisco, SJ Cenacle Retreat House | 15 April 2022

General, Homilies, Soul Food

THE BANALITY OF EVIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARINESS OF LOVE

Fr Paolo Consonni, MCCJ After more than a month into the war in Ukraine, we have already gotten used to images of houses destroyed, long lines of refugees, columns of smoke after bombardments, burned-out tanks and, sadly, hundreds of wounded people and dead bodies. We are so overexposed to this kind of news that we risk becoming immune to horror. For young people it is even worse – war is a virtual reality that can be treated like a videogame. The banality of evil causes us to become inured to it. Famous author Hannah Arendt, in a controversial book about the motivations of prominent Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, responsible for the killing of millions of Jews during the Second World War, used the term “the banality of evil”. She realized that many of those who committed those crimes were neither perverted nor sadistic monsters, but “terrifyingly normal” people, acting out of a sense of duty, to advance their career, make money or even simply to blindly carry out orders as diligent bureaucrats. History shows that an accumulation of small choices made for banal motivations, without thoroughly thinking of their consequences, can provoke tragedies of unimaginable proportions. This Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week, we will listen once again to the narration of the Lord’s Passion (Lk 22:14—23:56). Will we pay attention, or we will hear it as the same sad story of violence and death, similar to many others in the news? Will we view the evil in the events leading to Jesus’ death dispassionately because of their banality? There is nothing demonstrably alarming about Jesus’ Passion. It is a story of jealousy, greed, fear of someone upsetting the status quo, powerful people getting rid of a troublemaker through a corrupted justice system, zealous people trying to defend the purity of their traditions… we see these things happening every day all over the world. Besides, the narration of the Passion in each of the four Gospels is very sober. While Jesus’ sufferings are well described, there is no emphasis on the tortures, blood and all the gore that makes a horror movie or a videogame morbidly exciting. The point of the description of the Passion in the Gospels is not to make the death of Jesus, the Son of God, appear more painful than others (pain cannot be compared!), but to show its significance as the conclusion of Jesus’ extraordinary life. The life of Jesus was one of total self-giving, a gift given to the world by the Father who sent Him. A life in which He “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). A life in which He carried upon His body all the darkness and tragedy of human experience, especially the ones coming from evil and death, only to return compassion, mercy and forgiveness. A life of unconditional love. We might become indifferent toward evil owing to its banality, but our hearts long to find something, or better still, someone, to save us from the cynical routine in which our lives become stuck. Something – or someone – that can embrace our struggles, our failures and our limitations. Something or someone to whom we can entrust our last breath, saying: “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” In other words, we long for the unconditional love Jesus’ revealed throughout His whole life and death. The early Christians understood that the narration of Christ’s Passion and death was important not only because it was expiation for our sins, but also because they understood that it was worth living and dying like Him. They also realized that only by inserting their own lives and deaths into His life and death, their existence might also become meaningful, worth living, worth the pain. Christ’s death saves us not only from the eschatological Hell, but also from a hellish, dull existence and relational life. Jesus’ disciples of every time and place, no matter whether married or not, all the young people who left everything to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola or Mother Teresa of Calcutta (among many), all made this choice in their ordinary lives with an extraordinary sense of gratitude for having found what matched their hearts’ desire to live a meaningful life. They answered the unconditional love they received from Christ with the gift of their lives. Only this love can overcome the inexorable passing of time, the cruelty of the world, the banality of evil, the weariness caused by sickness and the inevitability of the tomb. Jesus’ Passion and Death is not simply another story of pain and death. It is the only one which can bring light and meaning to all the others, including yours. Listen to it, once again, like the first Christians did, with an overwhelmed and grateful heart. (Original article appeared on https://www.oclarim.com.mo/en/2022/04/08/the-banality-of-evil-and-the-extraordinariness-of-love/)

Homilies, Soul Food

Third Sunday of Lent: “The God of Extravagant Tenderness”

Fr Greg Boyle, an American Jesuit, is the founding director of Homeboy Industries in LA, the world’s largest gang-intervention and rehab center for inmates and gangsters.  He started working with them in the mid-1980s.  His latest book titled, “The Whole Language: the Power of Extravagant Tenderness” has an insightful reflection about who God is.  Greg writes:  A homie says to me: “I see now that I never made it easy for my parents to love me, and yet, they never stopped loving me.”  The God who never stops.  So, God, in this same way, has a limited vocabulary.  God never knows what we’re talking about when we judge our own worthiness or let ourselves get fixated on God’s ‘deep disappointment.’  Often when we think God is silent, this Tender One is just nearly speechless. God is monosyllabic. Love. I’m afraid that’s it.  Never stopping.  Many a time in our lives we are so focused on what appears to be God’s “deep disappointment,” disappointment perhaps of a failed marriage, an unsuccessful career, a dysfunctional family.  Disappointment in bad decisions we made, stupidities we did, lack of compassion, failures, fears, inadequacies, unworthiness, sinfulness, name it.  One priest told me that he could never forgive himself for what he did in the past – again an indication of our perception that God is so deeply disappointed with us. Our readings today turn this “deep disappointment” narrative upside down.  The call of Moses is a great revelation of who God is, one who rescues God’s suffering people.  In the burning bush, God says “I am who am.”  This does not have a philosophical or existential meaning.  It means: “I am actively involved.  I am acting. I am liberating my people.”  Even if God’s people would turn away from him, worship other gods; yes, even they are so stubborn and sinful, God’s fidelity is constant, never quick to give up.  This is very different from the prevailing idea of God as somebody who rewards the good and punishes the evil. We hear a similar tone in the Gospel. The suffering of the Galileans was not because they were more sinful than others, nor was the death of 18 people when the tower at Siloam fell on them an indication that they were more guilty than others in Jerusalem. Rather we see an image of God who gives us time to yield and produce a good fruit.  Jesus is like the gardener in the parable, always ready to push the boundaries of possibilities rather than making judgements or assessing our worthiness.  Our God does not get tired of expanding his patience threshold: “Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future.”  God does not easily give up on us!  We may easily give up on ourselves, but this is not our God.  The subtitle of Fr Greg Boyle’s book says it all: God has “the power of extravagant tenderness.”   In his TED talk in 2017, Pope Francis called for a “revolution of tenderness” amid so much violence and intolerance we find in our world. He says: “Tenderness is not weakness; it is fortitude.  It is the path of solidarity, the path of humility.  Please, allow me to say it loud and clear: The more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly.  If you don’t your power will ruin you, and you will ruin the other.”  In this season of Lent, we can never go wrong if we stay and relish in God’s extravagant tenderness, if we simply allow God to be God who is all-loving, never judgmental, never impatient with us.  If we can’t change our lives, however much we try and try, let us turn to the God of mercy and allow the Lord’s power of tenderness to take possession of our lives. Tony Moreno SJ 19 March 2022

Homilies

Fourth Sunday of Lent: “The Elder Son”

Whenever we hear this parable of the prodigal son, we would often think about the sinful behavior of the younger son and how he had to go through an experience of degradation before he realized that his proper place was to be at his father’s home. We are often moved by the touching encounter between the father and the younger son, where the sinful son receives the unconditional love and mercy of his father. It seemed like a story with a happy ending. But it is not the end of the story. In fact the real focus of the story is the elder son. We must remember that Jesus was telling this story to the scribes and Pharisees who are self-righteous and lacked compassion for sinners. Jesus wanted the scribes and Pharisees to see themselves as the elder son, and Jesus wanted to touch their hearts and make them realize that they are being called to forgive those who have committed great sins. The whole story is not really about asking forgiveness but it is a story that challenges us to forgive like the Father. It is easier to imagine ourselves to be like the younger son. We all had our experiences of sinfulness and the need to repent before the Lord. But we know that the Father will forgive us because we believe in his love for us. It is harder to place ourselves in the place of the elder son. It is so hard to forgive others who have sinned especially if we have tried very hard to be good. Like the Pharisees, we sometimes think that we have to earn the love of God and so we believe that if you work hard at being good God will love you more. If you are careless with your life, then you should receive less love and maybe even be punished. Shouldn’t the younger son repay the property that he had wasted? What guarantee do we have that the younger son will not sin again? Isn’t this they way we sometimes judge others? Isn’t this the way we often withhold our forgiveness from those who are sinful in our eyes. Like the elder son, we sometimes we think it is unfair for the Father to give the same love to a good person and a bad person. The parable does not tell us what the elder son did after his father asked him to accept his younger brother. Did the elder son join the family to welcome his brother? Did he stay with his anger and cut himself off from both his brother and his father? The ending is ours to make. Jesus did not put an easy ending to the parable because trying to forgive is not easy. It is something we ask the Lord to help us with. Just as Jesus appealed to the Pharisees and scribes to put away their self-righteousness, we are also being asked by the Lord, especially during this Lenten season, to allow compassion and reconciliation overcome any anger or judgment of others. Whenever we find ourselves in the place of the elder son, and are called to forgive a frequent or serious sinner, let us not forget that we too were treated with mercy and compassion by God. Just as God has loved us not according to what we deserve but according to what we need, let us also love others not according to what their sins deserve but according to what their souls need. (Homily of Fr. Ritchie Genilo, SJ on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, 27 March 2022)

Features, General, Homilies, Soul Food

Transforming Gentleness: the Grace of St. Thérèse Couderc

Homily of Fr. Daniel Patrick Huang, SJ on 26 September 2020, Feast of St. Thérèse Couderc in Rome. I hope you don’t mind, but this afternoon, I would like to reflect a little on your Mother, St. Thérèse Couderc, as a water purifier or filter. I realize that it’s not a very dignified or poetic image, but I hope that it helps explain what has struck me most these days about St. Thérèse: what I would call her transforming gentleness or her fruitful non-violence. A water purifier. This is not an original image, but one I learned from the spiritual writer Ron Rolheiser when he describes how the suffering of Jesus on the cross takes away the sins of the world. How does Jesus, the grain of wheat who dies, bring forth new life? Rolheiser suggests he does what a water purifier or a water filter does. “It takes in the water that contains impurities, dirt, toxins and occasional poisons.” The filter “does not simply let the water flow through it.” It “holds the dirt and toxins inside of itself and gives back only the pure water.” (1) This is what Jesus does on the cross: he holds in himself, bears in himself, the hatred, envy, anger, and violence of humanity, and instead of simply passing it on, somehow purifies all this in his own person, so that what flows out of him instead is love, graciousness, blessing, forgiveness, peace. Doesn’t this describe too what Thérèse Couderc lived in her sufferings? Reading various accounts of her life, I couldn’t help but be struck by the suffering and humiliation she went through, at the hands of a Jesuit Provincial and her own sisters. Looking back, one can see that Fr. Renault’s decision to replace Thérèse as superior general and foundress with a rich widow who had barely begun novitiate was not only ill advised but actually idiotic! What was he thinking? Till today, the writers I consulted struggle to explain Mother Charlotte Contenet’s inexplicable animosity towards Thérèse. I found myself asking: Why didn’t Thérèse fight back? She certainly would have had reason and justice on her side. Or why didn’t she just leave? Why didn’t she just start again, with a group of more congenial companions? Earlier accounts of Thérèse explain her response as humility: Thérèse as “une grande humble.” This seems to have been what was emphasized in her canonization process 50 years ago. But, as some of your sisters have pointed out (2), these accounts tend to speak of the humility of Thérèse in terms of uncomplaining submission, self-abasement, blind obedience to ecclesiastical authority, usually male. Although there is no doubt that Thérèse was deeply humble, this version of humility sounds suspiciously ideological. The more I reflected, the more I realized that Thérèse’s silent suffering was, in fact, less self-abasement, and more like the Gospel beatitude of meekness, what I have called transforming gentleness or fruitful nonviolence. Like her Lord, her dying was akin to the work of the water purifier. Instead of responding to stupidity, prejudice, pettiness, injustice in an aggressive, violent way, which would have continued the cycle of violence, Thérèse takes in all this and holds it in herself, and through the workings of grace in her deepest person, gives back instead kindness, reconciliation, peace, new life. By somehow absorbing in her person all this negativity, at great personal cost to herself, she kept the fragile congregation she so loved alive and united, for the sake of the work she so believed in, the revolutionary, till-that-time-unheard-of work of women religious giving the Spiritual Exercises. Even towards the end of her life, when she went through her “dark night” and could be seen weeping while she prayed for hours in the chapel in Lyons, she brought into her person all the pain and suffering of the Church, her beloved France, humanity estranged from its Creator. Somehow, mysteriously, like a water filter, what emerged from her was light and peace. There is that lovely story of the troubled novice who saw Thérèse in the novitiate in Versailles in 1880, not knowing who the elderly religious was, only seeing somehow light emanating from her, and feeling a deep sense of peace when that older sister looked into her eyes. (3) That this process involved crucifying pain for Thérèse seems clear. How did she do it? Where did she get the inner strength to respond with transforming gentleness to what would have provoked many of us to retaliation or escape? One of the favorite words of our former Superior General, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, was the word depth, depth in the midst of a world of distraction and superficiality. I believe too that depth is the only word to describe Thérèse Couderc. Although her vision of goodness and her Se Livrer came decades later, those two documents capture the depth of her vision and her love throughout her life. Unlike many of us who can only see the surface of things and events, Thérèse was blessed with a vision that pierced beneath the surface to perceive the infinite goodness of God, like “letters of gold,” (4) gleaming and beautiful, present and active in the depths of all reality. And unlike those of us whose attention and desire are distracted and captured by so many lesser things, Thérèse was a profoundly centered woman, whose loving act of total surrender meant being so spiritually free that she held nothing back from God and lived completely from and for God. Because of the depth of her vision and the depth of her love, Thérèse was able to respond with depth to the events, even the most painful and difficult, of her life. Perhaps that is the reason why she so valued the ministry of the Exercises that her sisters were engaged in. It is precisely a ministry of depth that invites people to delve deeply into themselves to see the good God at work in their lives and in their world, and to respond with loving surrender to this

Homilies, Soul Food

Gravity

Homily by Fr. Arnel Aquino, sj on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord 11 Jan 2020 “I need to be baptized by you and yet you are coming to me?” That’s how I imagine John to have said that. It’s highly unlikely he said it that way, though, with the personal pronouns in italics. But the point is John did not expect Jesus, the Messiah of all people, to descend to the river Jordan and go down to the back of the line of sinners. John knew that baptizing the Messiah was not his place. He also knew well that this queue of sinners wasn’t a Messiah’s place either. “There’s something misplaced here,” John must’ve thought. “A reversal  that’s short of scandalous.” So, when he said, “I need to be baptized by you and yet you are coming to me?” His pronouns were in the right places. John knew what was his place and what wasn’t. We say it better in Tagalog: alam ni Juan kung saan siya lulugar. If it hasn’t happened to us, nevertheless, you and I are familiar with the situation where we or someone loses the sense of place, ‘yun bang nakakalimutan na natin kung saan tayo lulugar.’ This usually happens when we are taken from a place of non-privilege and placed in a situation of privilege. Raised to such a place we’re given unbelievable access to private spaces, both physical and personal spaces. We are given access to sensitive information, access to money, access to property, etc. And then, sadly, it gets to our head. Then, we lose our place. Nakakalimutan natin kung saan tayo lulugar. Classic examples of this are familiar to us. There are no specific faces to these examples, but we know and have seen them happen. Like a boy starts out as a sacristan, then becomes the head of the altar boys, then sacristan-mayor many years thereafter. Then…he loses his place. Whereupon he conducts himself as if he knows better than the priests who privileged him to be sacristan-mayor. Or like a faithful driver or body guard of many years who’s raised to army general as his boss becomes president. Then… he loses his place. He starts using his power to “liquidate” detractors of his master. Or like a group of parishioners who volunteer to help run a baby parish, outlaying their own resources, efforts, connections. Then… they lose their place. They now have control over who gets to see the parish priest and who doesn’t, whose donation can be accepted and whose shouldn’t, which surnames should appear on the benefactors’ wall, etc. I can go on, but I’m sure you’re familiar with the situation. It usually happens when someone is raised to a privileged place and granted access, then the person gets lost. Nalilimutan na niya kung saan siya galing at saan siya lulugar. Italicized pronouns are telltale signs of this: I, me, my, mine. Then they turn into phrase: through me, with me, because of me, should be me. And the saddest thing about it is that it all started out from such spirit of service, gentle kindness, generosity without any hooks, and true selflessness. In other words, it all started from a place of descent. Now, however, it’s all “disordered affections,” to use Ignatius’ words. Ad majorem Dei gloriam is really ad majorem mei gloriam. Mei in italics, please. Sisters and brothers, we forget our rightful place when we lose our sense of gravity. We lose our sense of gravity when we start believing hat the natural way for us to go is up, and higher, in privilege and access; when the natural way to go is really down and lower, in greater service, in more humility. Jesus never lost gravity, in all his privilege and access as Son of the God Most High. Rather, he always descended. He began his ministry by descending to the level of sinners chest-high in sin. He descended to the level of people’s life-stories and told parables off of them. He descended to the impure, never once vaunting himself pure, though he was. He descended to the realm of illnesses, demonic possessions, gender separation and declared that “the Kingdom of God is here.” He just kept doing and doing good things selflessly, “not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the streets,” never self-referencing, never lording himself over his friends, never italicizing his personal pronouns. “A bruised reed he did not break, a smoldering wick, he did not quench.” No suffocation, no throttling, no emotional blackmail. Even as Messiah of God, Jesus knew his place. From the beginning of his ministry in the Jordan river to his last meal in the upper room, Jesus, Messiah that he was, was servant. That was his place, the place he always believed he should be, a place he loved being in: the place of descent. No wonder the heaves above opened up that day with the Father saying, “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.” God was so proud of him! And that should be no surprise to us because we know what that feels, don’t we, sisters and brothers? People we privilege and grant access into our lives endear themselves to us when they remember their place. All the more we want to make them part of us. They become such joy. But the opposite is also true. When someone loses gravity, our heavens darken and close and become silent. “I need to be baptized by you and yet you are coming to me?” “Allow it now,” Jesus tells John. “For thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” The Messiah always knew his place as God’s Son. His personal pronouns were always rightly placed, modestly subdued. They never sounded like they were in wearisome, attention-seeking italics. Sisters and brothers, as we move back to ordinary time, if we sense that our egos have led us astray after being granted privilege and access

Homilies, Soul Food, Updates and Activities

The Star of Christmas

Homily at Mass on Christmas Eve 2019 by Fr. James Gascon, sj One Wintry Christmas evening in December, in a faraway land in Minnesota, a father and his 5 year-old son decided to take a walk to the park after the family Christmas dinner. As they pass through the snow filled streets of the village, the father noticed his son staring at each house they would pass by, as if absorbed by what he saw in these houses. Finally, in a soft perplexed voice, the son asked his father. “Why are there purple stars hanged outside the doors of the houses in our neighbors?” With very caring voice, the father answered, “Each purple star represents every son who used to live in those homes, went to war, and died defending our country’s freedom.” And the father continues, “That is why, some have one, two, or three. Each star represents a son given away. That is our way of honoring them, and thanking them for giving their lives for our country.” And there was silence between them. As they continued walking until they reached the neighborhood park and had a perfect view of the clear sky, the got more excited.  He looked up and with great awe and excitement pointed to the brightest star in the sky. “How about that star, dad?” Without hesitation the father replied, “That’s the star at the Father’s house. The star of Jesus. Our heavenly father gave us his only begotten son, that we might know how much he loves us and win our war against sin in the world.” And without hesitation the boy replied, “When I grow up, I too will give myself for our country, so that you can hang a purple star on our door, dad.” And the father could not utter a word. I think this is what Christmas is all about. For four Sundays we prepared for this day; for nine simbang gabi we listened to stories; stories that lead to The story, to the manger where Jesus gave of himself as a gift. We must remember that what was given is not a thing, not a material gift but a person, a baby. Helpless, but will grow into a man to save his people. And similar to the gifts we give each other, it is precious. Jesus is he who was sent, offered, and given up. But what kind of a gift does Jesus represent? Jesus is a gift for all. When the son of man became man, he was given to all. Not because everyone deserves him, but because all of us needs him. He was given 2000 years ago, he is given yesterday, today, and continues to be given every day, even beyond our generation. In our present consumerist culture, we always long for what we want, for what we like, which many times are not also what we really need. We truly need Jesus, thus, the father gifted us with Jesus. Thus, we need to know him, love him, and follow him, as the second week of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius summons us to do. Jesus is a gift that is priceless. What was offered in Jesus is not only his person, but more than his person, he offered a relationship. Through him we become sons and daughters of God. In him, we can call God “Abba,” our father. Because we have been connected and related with the Father, through Jesus, we can pray and ask for our needs. Priceless gifts and graces are showered upon us, and we cannot but respond in gratitude. Jesus is a gift of challenge. The gift should not stay with us alone. We need to re-gift Jesus. Perhaps in a new wrapper. “Parang recycled gift… uso na yan ngayon.” The more we recycle the gift, the better. And come to think of it, it is the best gift, because it is never consumed. Rather it consumes, and brings out the best in us as well as in others. So, Jesus is a gift for all, a priceless gift and a gift that challenges. So where does this bring us? To the real disposition of being a Christian. As a gift for all, we are called to interreligious and ecumenical dialogue. Jesus is not only for Christians. Incidentally, this year is year of interreligious and ecumenical dialogue, a recognition that Jesus is for all. We don’t own Jesus, He is for everyone. And if we really have received Jesus the priceless, we must give gifts that are priceless: forgiveness, love, time, listening, visiting the sick, caring for those who need us. These are the priceless gifts we can share having experienced the priceless gift who is Jesus. And finally, this is our challenge. Can we live the life we are called to live as Jesus lived? Our life is an eternal challenge. We should never give up. It is not easy, but through God’s grace, we can. We can accept the challenge. And perhaps, this is the reason why Filipino houses hang not purple stars but colorful parols on their windows and doors. Kumukutikutitap, bumubusibusilak, ganyan ang indak ng mga bombilya ng parol. Because we can offer of ourselves in many unique ways, through many means, not only with our lives, not only with what we have, for our love ones, for our neighbors, for our country, for the world. This is the reason why we have many kinds of parols, with many shapes and colors. If you hang a parol this Christmas in your home, now you know what it really, really means: Are you a gift for all that is priceless and a constant challenge? Otherwise, your parol will remain a decoration, a piece of paper or kapis that hangs there for nothing. And how would you explain it to a 5-year old boy? Maligayang Pasko sa inyong lahat.

Homilies, Soul Food, Updates and Activities

Gazing on the Cross

Homily of Fr. Peter Pojol, S.J. at Cenacle Retreat House on September 14th, 2019 (Saturday) I think it may be safe to say that everyone has had an experience of recoiling at something horrible, of being so distressed by something that it makes us turn away in order to, momentarily at least, block out whatever evil confronts us. It could be the replay of that crucial helmet-and-glove catch by David Tyree, if you’re a New England Patriots fan. It could be a scene of extreme violence, or of a loved one suffering in sickness. It could be a reminder of anything depressing, or anything frightening, anything that threatens life, anything that seems to assert the victory of death, of the anti-life. Have you ever, in such an instance, fought against your instinct to turn away and to forget, and instead steeled your resolve to face that evil squarely and not let it determine your choices or your life, not let it have the last word? If you have, you may have experienced the power of paradoxically drawing life from death, of gaining strength from fear. The story of Moses and the Israelites in our first reading from the book of Numbers illustrates how God saved them from their deaths precisely by having them confront the cause of their death. I must admit that it is a mysterious account written with many of the mythical elements of story-telling and faith proclaiming that was standard practice at that time. But what we can glean from the story is that the Israelites were dying in the desert, whether literally or figuratively from snake bites, and recognizing their fault for turning against God in their distress, they sought the forgiveness and help of God. What is interesting in this account is the way God saved them.  Rather than introducing something different to counter the serpents, God instructed Moses to make an image of the serpent, and to tell the people to look at this image, a stark reminder of their ills. Rather than giving them something to take their attention away from the source of their death and destruction, God as it were made them stare death in the eye and in this way enabled them to defeat death and to have life. There is something to be said about gazing on evil that threatens to envelope and overwhelm us. The wisdom of staring death in the eye is not simply to desensitize us or to make us numb, which is what seems to drive some trends in popular media and culture. For even when we have become desensitized and numb, we can still die, just as we can die running away from death. Rather, the wisdom of gazing right at death is to see what we had not seen before: that is, the power of God that surpasses death and evil—not just death and evil in the abstract, but this death and this evil that taunts me; and not just the power of God in general, but the unrelenting power of this God who loves me persistently no matter how many times I have foresaken him. We may have become desensitized to the paradox of bannering the very cause of death as the promise of deliverance, from the sheer repeated exposure to the image. In fact, one of the universal symbols of medicine derives, I think, from the Old Testament story we just heard: the image of a serpent on a pole, especially as it is being carried by the figure of the greek god Mercury symbolizing the speedy delivery of cure. The other ubiquitous paradoxical symbol of cure and life, whose power to jolt us into recognizing the profound truth of “life through death” is easy to lose, is the cross of Jesus Christ, the exaltation of which we celebrate today. It is easy to forget the impact of raising high the symbol of the standard instrument of torture and death that was the very same one used to kill the one we proclaim as Messiah and Savior. If Jesus had been executed by an electric chair, we would be adorning all our Churches and altars with it. By exalting the cross, whether by the crucifixes we place prominently in our homes and places of worship, or by the habit of the sign of the cross with which we call upon God to bless us in prayer, we not only remind ourselves of our death and of the death of the one who came to save us, but more importantly, we recommit ourselves to the truth that Jesus exemplified and willingly gave up his life to tell: that God is love and love is the final word, not death, not failure, not evil. By exalting the cross we humbly beg the Lord to help us make our own the saving mystery that plays out from death to life. By living by the sign of the cross, we hope to embrace whatever makes us cringe and cower in fear and in so doing to find God embracing us and leading us from darkness into light. As the evangelist John set down in those immortal words we heard in our gospel today: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

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