Homily

[dropcap style=”font-size: 16px; color: #745cb2;”] This homily was given by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ in the Cenacle on the Gospel according to Mark 10: 35-45 (Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time). [/dropcap]   On my last year in Boston, a friend of mine, Fr Joe Bagetta, invited me to give a Lenten talk to parishioners of Boston Cathedral. Back in the day, people refered to Boston as “Catholic Boston” because all through the 19th century, Catholics made up the largest religious community in the city. Fr. Joe welcomed me into the sitting room of the cardinal’s residence while we waited for the parishioners to fill in the church downstairs. I was just a few doors down from Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s office. It was an old sitting room; wooden panels, heavy red velvet curtains, a matching wine-red rug, and the smell of old mansions. On the walls of the room hung larger-than-life oil portraits of cardinals past, shepherds of the Boston flock, the kind that you see in haunted mansions in the movies. The portraits were very beautiful up close, especially how their eyes were painted, and how the brush captured the grain of their priestly vestments. I guess portraits like these were supposed to coax out of you, a breath of awe. It certainly did out of me. You wouldn’t miss the regality about them: gold-threaded vestments, dainty lace around the cuffs, the velour of the miter, the shine of lacquer on the throne-like chair, the rings of gold accentuating hands that never seem to have done laundry or chopped wood. The cardinals were now mute, Yet every portrait whispered of the power and affluence that came with the position of shepherd of the Church; really fit for royalty, fit for a king in a king-dom. In fact, I was thinking that afternoon, if the apostles were with me in that sitting room, they’d probably have asked, “Where are we?” “It’s the Cardinal’s sitting room,” I would answer. Maybe they’d ask, “What’s a cardinal?” And I’d be hard put at explaining that to them, especially to try to connect cardinals with the apostolic line (?) which is their line? Maybe I can start: “Well, cardinals are descended from you, guys.” And it would probably blow their minds. Some of them might even say, “Wait, it has all come to this, what we started?” And I’d know what they mean. Because Jesus taught them about the kingdom of God, but not this kind, I suppose. They’d probably be mystified that what before was a kingdom of fishermen, tax collectors, the blind, the lame, the hungry, the widows…had now become very similar to the kingdom of…well…Caesar and Roman centurions and thrones, goblets, jeweled rings, velvet capes, subjects. In other words, we would think that the apostles would be nonplussed at all this royalty, wouldn’t we? They’d never have ambitioned for this kind of a kingdom, would they? But today’s gospel says that at least two apostles did have the wrong notion of the kingdom: James and John, the sons of Zebedee. “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. Grant that in your glory, we sit one at your right and at your left.” And that’s getting the Kingdom all wrong. For it bears no difference from the kingdoms of the world—kingdoms with a throne on which a potentate sits, and on two sides of him, trusted advisers whose whispers carry sway. The worst thing about it? It was Jesus’ apostles themselves who did not get the point of the Kingdom of God, which meant that they still did not get Jesus, what he was all about. We are all prone to that, are we not? Self-entitlement. Self-entitlement is a very gradual slope. In self-entitlement, we steadily go from being thankful for blessings freely given us, to being demanding of blessings we now believe are due us. We go from grateful undeserving recipients of gifts, to begrudging strikers for our rights to them. We go from saying, “Who am I (to deserve this grace)?” to saying, “Do you know who I am (and my right to this grace)?” Whereas before God was giver; now, God is ower. In self-entitlement, mas pinapansin na natin kung anong ipinagkakait, imbis na mas ipagpasalamat natin kung ano ang ipinagkakaloob. Yet, look at the servant of God as the first reading characterizes him. God says, “My servant gives his life as an offering for sin,” not demand it as though owed him. “Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, their guilt he shall bear.” The servant of God walks off as a scapegoat of sinners, not a chancellor of kings. In the second reading, Paul says that the great high priest “is able to sympathize with our weaknesses because he has been similarly tested in every way,” instead of demanding to be exempt. In other words, if there’s anyone truly entitled to the share of glory and honor in God’s kingdom, it should be Jesus himself. Yet he privileged himself nothing. Everything that he enjoyed, even his power, he saw as the Father’s gift. When the ungrateful crushed him under the weight of a cross, his last breath was still never a claim, but a surrender. “You know that the rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. It shall not be so among you. Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first…will be the slave of all.” Jesus paints a portrait of true greatness, doesn’t he? Notice: there is no royal velvet in that portrait, no shimmer of gold, no throne, no royal estate. Yet, that is what kingship is all about in the kingdom of God: faded white tunic, sweaty brow, rough hands, folded knees that draw the body down to towards the earth where the feet of friends might be washed, and a beautiful, warm smile in his  eyes that

[dropcap style=”font-size: 16px; color: #745cb2;”] Homily in the Eucharistic celebration on the Feastday of St. Therese Couderc, foundress of the Cenacle Congregation. [/dropcap]   Presider, Fr. James Gascon, SJ began his homily with this story: The Story of Three Trees Once there were three trees on a hill in the woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when the first tree said, “Someday I hope to be a treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver and precious gems. I could be decorated with intricate caring and everyone would see the beauty.” Then the second tree said, “Someday I will be a mighty ship. I will take kings and queens across the waters and sail to the corners of the world. Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull.” Finally the third tree said, “I want to grow up to be the tallest and straightest tree in the forest. People will see me on top of the hill and look up to my branches, and think of the heavens and God and how close to them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all time and people will always remember me.” After a few years of praying their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. When one came to the first tree he said, “This looks like a strong tree; I think I should be able to sell the wood to a carpenter,” and he began cutting it down. The tree was happy because he knew that the carpenter would make him into a treasure chest. At the second tree the woodsman said, “This looks like a strong tree, I should be able to sell it to a shipyard.” The second tree was happy because he knew he was on his way to becoming a mighty ship. When the woodsman came upon the third tree, the tree was frightened because he knew that if they cut him down his dreams would not come true. One of the woodsmen said, “I don’t need anything special from my tree, I’ll take this one,” and he cut it down. When the first tree arrived at the carpenters, he was made into a feed box for animals. He was then placed in a barn and filled with hay. This was not at all what he had prayed for. The second tree was cut and made into a small fishing boat. His dreams of being mighty ship and carrying kings had come to an end. The third tree was cut into large pieces and left alone in the dark. The years went by, and the trees forgot about their dreams. Then one day a man and a woman came to the barn. She gave birth and they placed the baby in the hay in the feed box that was made for the first tree. The man wished that he could have made a crib for the baby, but this manger would have to do. The tree could feel the importance of this event and knew that it had held the greatest treasure of all time. Years later, a group of men got in the fishing boat made from the second tree. One of them was tired and went to sleep. While they were out on the water, a great storm arose and the tree didn’t think it was strong enough to keep the men safe. The men woke the sleeping man, and he stood and said “Peace” and the storm stopped. At this time, the tree knew that it had carried the King of Kings in its boat. Finally, someone came and got the third tree. It was carried through the streets as the people mocked the man who was carrying it. When they came to a stop, the man was nailed to the tree and raised in the air to die at the top of a hill. When Sunday came, the tree came to realize that it was strong enough to stand at the top of the hill and be as close to God as possible, because Jesus had been crucified on it. ˜°˜ Mother Therese’s spirituality is rooted in a deep mystical experience of the goodness of God, characterized by self-surrender and total abandonment to the will of God under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. What does Mother Therese tell us in our time? We offer our weakness: Omnipotence of the Father,communicate yourself to my weakness and deign lift up from its profound misery, so that it may perform works of being offered to Your Divine Majesty and procuring its glory. We offer our weakness, and precisely in these weaknesses that we become effective instruments of God’s love.  Part of offering is the awareness of them; and the grace of understanding that comes with our offering. For example, one who directs a retreat is able to journey better with a retreatant who has difficulty praying because she herself experienced how difficult it is to pray.  Sometimes, when we are “good” at praying, then we fail to hear a retreatant who shares us nothing but his struggles in prayers. Just like the three trees who offered their own pride, arrogance, and slef-absorption, were deemed worthy to experience Jesus most close, Therese today summons us to surrender the self, not in its perfection but in its rawness and feebleness, to a God who transforms and makes wonders in His work in us.   Photos from the Feastday celebration  

  Homily of Fr. Jose V.C. Quilongquilong, SJ on the first day of the Novena to the Blessed Trinity through the intercession of St. Therese Couderc 17 Spetember 2012 My dear friends, the message of our gospel today is very appropriate as we open the novena of masses in preparation for the coming Feast-day of St. Therese Courderc on September 26. The message of our gospel captures very well the two characteristics of the spirituality of St. Therese Couderc: goodness and surrender. Our gospel reading described how Jesus was amazed at the faith of the centurion. We can say that the centurion’s faith was characterized by goodness and surrender. First, the centurion’s faith was characterized by goodness. He was a good man. He showed “cura personalis” – personal care for his slave (doulos in greek). The Jews in the area also recognized his goodness as they begged Jesus to help him. They told Jesus: “He deserves to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation and he built the synagogue for us.” In other words, the centurion was a “benefactor” (bene facere), someone who did so much good to others. His goodness transcended cultures and religions. The centurion’s goodness was also marked by great humility. He considered himself not worthy to be visited by Jesus. His humble words are what we say now before taking communion: “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof…” We have here a person who embodied goodness. His goodness was the foundation of his faith. Second, the centurion’s faith was characterized by surrender. He was helpless before his sick slave. He was a man of great authority, a commander of 100 soldiers, but he was powerless as he sought the healing hand of Jesus. He relied on the help of other people to communicate to Jesus about the condition of his slave. He sought the help of Jesus but he felt unworthy of his presence. He believed that only the Word of Jesus was sufficient for healing to happen. He surrendered to the power of God’s word—Dabar Yahweh.   Thus, the gospel story of the centurion reminds us of the spiritual experiences of St. Therese Couderc: her spiritual experiences of goodness and surrender.   I believe that St. Therese must have perceived the goodness of this centurion as coming from the goodness of God. In her experience she perceived “the goodness of our God, who has communicated to them something of his infinite goodness, so that we may meet it in everything and everywhere.” If St. Ignatius exhorted others “in omnibus amare et servire Domino” (in everything to love and serve the Lord), I believe that this would be the exhortation of St. Therese for us: “in everything is goodness of the Lord!”.   St. Therese must have also resonated with the centurion’s experience of surrender. She knew the power of God’s word as described in the following: “How he (GOD) communicates himself to the one who seeks him sincerely and has known how to surrender herself. Let them experience it and they will see that here is found the true happiness they are vainly seeking elsewhere. The surrendered soul has found paradise on earth, since she enjoys that sweet peace which is part of the happiness of the elect.” We say the following before taking communion: ‘Lord I am not worthy to receive you but only say your word and I shall be healed”. We can adapt this prayer with St. Therese: “…only say your word and I shall be happy.” Truly, our Mass today is a fount of so much goodness and surrender!

Homily of Fr. Jett Villarin SJ during the Perpetual Vows of Sr. Susay Valdez 27 Dec 2008 Our Lady of Pentecost Parish Good has many senses which can reflect the many moods and movements of our life. You can say that the moods of Susay or of anyone here can swing about these many senses of good. One sense of goodness is that of “goodness gracious.” I’m sure Mother Superior Meny here and the sister have gone through this mood many times. “My goodness” has nothing to do really with goodness; it is an exclamation or sigh of exasperation, of surprise or wonder over nothing good or gracious at all. You can also understand goodness in terms of being “good at something,” that is, being competent, clever, or skillful. I’m sure that Sister Susay is professing the vows not because she is an expert in poverty, chastity and obedience. On our own, we’re never really good at these things. They are an invitation to shape a life patterned after the Christ we profess to love.