Soul Food

“God created human beings to praise, reverence and serve God and by doing this, to save their souls.” Anyone who has made the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius will recognize that right away as the preliminary prayer of the Saint or what he calls the first principle and foundation. I have to admit though that when I first encountered that, I was taken aback and misunderstood it. I reacted negatively. I thought, this God of Ignatius was so needful of attention. He created human beings just so they can praise, worship and serve him like slaves. Isn’t he being too narcissistic, too egoistic and too self-referential. Of course, now I know better. As they say, I am older and wiser. I remember all this, my initial incursions into the spiritual exercises, because of the Gospel we’ve read today. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God with everything we’ve got. And the second one is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Like many, I have had no problem with the second one. As a social activist in my youth, I have always advocated for love of neighbor in terms of social justice, basic services for the poor, human rights, etc. And as for the first one, the greatest commandment, I have always seen it from the viewpoint of the second one. You love God whom you do not see in your neighbor whom you see. But a Jesuit early on corrected me. No. You have to take on God separately. Yes, you find him in his creatures but he is more than your neighbor and creation. You seek him out in prayer, in silence, in the Bible, in the sacraments, in his daily engagements with you. And so, as Jesus tells us today, you have to love God, as he is, for who he is, in himself. That is settled. God is an entity unto himself, and must be reckoned with, as it were, in his own terms. But still I struggle with the order of priority. Why is loving him the greatest of all commandments. In other words, why should he go first? Why should we love him first? I have a friend. He got married to a beautiful and loving wife and they had three children. I had never seen him so happy, so contented with his life. And he would say that literally. He had a perfect wife, a perfect life. Admittedly though, God was not part of that life, except for the routinary Sunday mass. He was never spiritual or religious, but he was nonetheless a very kind and generous person. But one day, his wife got terribly sick, and in just a few months, passed away. My friend understandably went through depression; but when I spoke with him after some time, he said, only when his wife had passed away that he discovered God, that life was this enormous mystery bigger than himself, his wife, his family, and at the center of all of that is God. He thought life ended when he lost his wife; but it continued, life, love continued. Because God remains, he said. What my friend discovered or realized is what philosophers have been telling us about God. God is the very ground of everything. He is being itself, life itself, beauty itself, love itself. And creatures like us only participate in God’s very life. And so to understand ourselves, our world, we must deal with him, with mystery. And that is the reason why he comes first. When Jesus tells us to love God first, it sounds a command, an order, a summons. In fact, as many of us know as we get older, he is merely sharing with us the deep truth about our lives. We love God first, because he is at the center, the core of our very lives, our very selves, our very existence. He is alpha and omega. He is not one other being competing for our love, but Being itself, life itself, love itself.   Homily delivered by Fr. Emmanuel “Nono” Alfonso, SJ 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time 29 October 2023 Cenacle Retreat House

You know how difficult it is to enter Ateneo, right? It’s legendary now. These past months, there’s been regular turnover of new guards at the gates. So, all faces are unfamiliar to them including ours, campus residents. So, whether we’re in a car or on foot, we also get stopped & scrutinized, understandably. It’s their job. They’re just doing what they’re ordered to do. But it can get exasperating, esp. when you’re in a rush. So, I confess, dear sisters & brothers, if with embarrassment, that when I was stopped at the gate a third time, I came this close to blurting out, “Alam mo hijo, hindi ka pa pinapanganak, dito na ako nakatira,” out of sheer exasperation. Or is it…out of entitlement? I think it’s fair to say that most of us are host to this lurking germ in our egos: the sense of entitlement. I’ve seen entitlement not just among the rich, by the way, but also among the poor; not just in bosses & administrators, but also down rank & file & union members; not just in lay communities, but also in religious congregations. It comes in differing degrees. There’s entitlement that’s fleeting & harmless. But there’s one that’s enduring, scheming, & nasty—a lifestyle. In first century Israel, there was no such thing as a “Jewish landowner” because Caesar owned Israel & all its lands. “Landowners” were really Caesar’s cronies. They had to pay tribute to Caesar. So, they leased the lands to tenants & charged rent. To be chosen as a tenant was a huge blessing esp. at a time when Jews languished in poverty. A tenant earned not just a salary, but also a share in the harvest. For a master to leave his property to tenants was an act of enormous trust & empowerment. Pero ‘yun nga ang problema natin ‘di ba? With great power comes not just responsibility, but also entitlement. So, the tenants in today’s parable go from grateful to greedy, from blessed to malevolent to murderous, from untitled to entitled. Among many causes of entitlement today, the three most common I’ve seen are: (a) “This place & the people here owe me for bringing us all to where we are now;” (b) “I’m a survivor of humble & persecuted beginnings; I owe my success only to myself & to people loyal to me;” & (c) “I will never be bullied or poor or ugly again.” As a result, the entitled believe they’re exempt from rules, from correction, from vows. They regard higher authority as also beholden to them. They groom yes-men to perpetuate their power. And worst of all, as they ingratiate themselves with patrons & benefactors, they scheme to silence their critics & quash perceived competitors. I guess, underneath the sense of entitlement lies the sense of ungratefulness. Kapag mapagpasalamat tayo, nakakaala tayo kung saan tayo galing noong tayo’y nabiyayaan. When we’re ungrateful, we forget. We forget what we basically & still share w/ everybody else: creaturehood, na tayong lahat nilalang ng Diyos, pero hindi tayo Diyos. Na lahat ng kabutihan, kayamanan, at kapangyarihang ikinagagalak natin at ipinagdiriwang natin ngayon, ang Diyos ang nagmamay-ari at nagkaloob, hindi tayo. Tayo’y pinahiraman lamang. Nangungupahan lamang, tenants. All power & position, plus the prestige, praises, & possessions along with them, may expiration date lahat ‘yan. Eventually, we’re x-ed: ex-president, ex-vice-president, ex-consultor, ex-fundraiser. How much people miss having us around, or how relieved they are that we’re finished & gone from their lives—that might be a good gauge of where we fall on the entitlement seismograph. Sisters & brothers, a cornerstone is a fascinating piece of architecture. For centuries, it was the first stone set in position before any construction of a temple, palace, or cathedral went underway. The cornerstone was once a huge, unshapely, quarried boulder. Then, it was carefully measured & painstakingly carved until a magnificently beautiful block emerged. The size & shape of the cornerstone determined the size & shape of the rest of the stones for building. The cornerstone was placed with deliberate precision because it defined the orientation of the whole building. Artisans set cornerstones according to the advice of astrologers. They believed heavenly bodies regulated human life, fortune, & success; as well as failure, misfortune, & death. So, not only was the cornerstone structural & architectonic, it was mystical & prophetic. When the temple, palace, or cathedral is up & running, we don’t really pay much attention to the cornerstone anymore, do we? Oh, we marvel at memorial stone at the doorway, all shiny, ceremonial, & screaming, “me, me, me.” But the cornerstone? It sits in a corner outside, as it quietly carries all the weight, the orientation, the direction, & the history of everything that presses & bears upon it. How do we guard & restrain ourselves from being a self-absorbed, gaudy, entitled, imeldific memorial stone? Maybe we can beg our Father to always remind us of our Cornerstone. For upon his shoulders, he carries all our weight. From where he stands, sets our orientation. From where he walks, charts our course. From his rejection by the builders, his suffering & death, he retells our histories & heals them. So, if we really think about it, we actually don’t need much entitlement… any more than we’ve already been richly, constantly, lovingly blessed. And we already have a title. Mga anak ng Diyos; children of God.   Homily delivered by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ on the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time 8 October 2023 Cenacle Retreat House

In graduate studies, we were a big community of 8 houses. One day, a Mexican Jesuit ran back to our house & said, “The American scholastics are going from house to house, removing non-metal vessels from the chapels.” We were an international community. From their native cultures, Jesuits brought back chalices, ciboria, patens made of ceramic, clay, stone, wood, all exquisitely crafted & sublimely designed. For some strange reason, the American scholastics went on this zealous purge of non-metal vessels one fine day, leaving only the usual silver & gold. The Roman Missal instructions do say that metal vessels are preferred. But they allow vessels of other materials, so long as they don’t easily corrupt. Either the zealous scholastics read past the rules they didn’t like, or, they didn’t do their homework. I had asked myself, if Jesus were physically there that day, how would he have countenanced this purge & his person & message & ministry? The recent proposal to forbid you, mass goers, from doing the orans (praying) posture in the Ama Namin bewildered me. Biblically & theologically, the Our Father is a prayer of petition from start to finish. In its entirety, it expresses our desperate dependence on God for everything. I love that we Filipinos physicalize this dependence, if only w/ our hands, & if only in one part of the mass. After all, nothing in Scripture, Tradition, & Magisterium forbids us from assuming such harmless, sinless, yet sincere, & very human posture…of begging. So, I had asked myself, if Jesus were physically there that day, how relevant was this proposal to his person & message & ministry? In the Transfiguration, God showed in no uncertain terms that his Son was the fulfillment of the Law & the Prophets represented by Moses & Elijah. See, sisters & brothers, the phrase “the Law & the Prophets,” that was the catch-all term for Israel’s entire religious tradition based on hundreds of rules pursuant to the 10 Commandments. These rules governed a Jew right from when one got up at sunrise to one’s last wakeful moment after sunset: what to pray, how to wash, whom to avoid, what to not touch, what sacrifices to burn, how often to show up at synagogue, etc., etc. But in the Transfiguration, God showed that the Law & the Prophets were not just rules inked on sacred parchment. The Law & the Prophets was a Person, w/ a beating heart, w/ hands that touched, held, & healed, w/ breath that gave life, w/ a body that blended in esp. with the poor. So, from here forward, whatever law you obeyed, whatever prophecy you were told, all of it must mirror how God’s beloved Son obeyed them. Contrary to popular thinking, Jesus did not violate an iota of the Law & the Prophets. He fulfilled them the way God meant them fulfilled. How? With utmost care, attention, & priority to the human persons & their desperate need for a better life & their longing for God No wonder God promptly said, “This is my beloved son. Listen to him.” Meaning: “My son shows you how I want the Law & the Prophets obeyed.” Listen to him daw, sisters & brothers; to his Son. Alam na alam kasi ng Diyos that when we make ourselves the norm of the law, we tend to listen only to ourselves. The next thing we know—we’ve become harsh on others, & yet, lenient on ourselves. We impose the letter of the law on others, & yet, we invoke the spirit of the law as an alibi when we violate it. Worst, when we presume to be the norm of God’s law, we become quite exclusivistic, bigoted, holier-than-thou, & dismissive of the poor, na para bang sinosolo natin ang Diyos. Exactly what became of the Pharisees & the Sadducees. What did they do? They set themselves as the norm for how people must obey the Law. You could almost hear them say, “Become like us! Transfigure yourselves!” To Jesus’ eyes, though, they really disfigured the image of God into a ritualistic, legalistic, formalistic, moralistic deity. Ever the karpintero, Jesus went about fixing what the hierarchs disfigured. So, he told eye-opening parables about God. He extended God’s touch in all his healings. He connected people to God & with each other by teaching them to call God, “Father.” He forgave sins. So, in a miracle filled with light, God showed Peter, James, & John his face…in the face of his Son. “This is my beloved Son who pleases me. Listen to him. For he is the norm, the image & likeness of how I want you to understand, to interpret, & to operationalize…ME.” Sisters & brothers, never mind non-metal chalices, or whether the lay should or shouldn’t assume the orans along w/ the priest during Ama Namin, or whether we should receive communion w/ our hands or w/ our mouths. Our Church has more compelling issues that need our study, our discernment, our decision-making, & our constant praying. Artificial Intelligence, gender diversity, Evangelical & Pentecostal church expansion, Mother Earth’s moan & groan…these & so much more…they demand new eyes & ears, new hearts & mindsets from us Catholics. For us to see Jesus’ countenance & hear Jesus’ voice through all of these bewildering realities, we must be Transfigured, anew, afresh, & unafraid.   Homily delivered by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cenacle Retreat House

The parables, finding the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price, have three distinct moments: finding, then selling and then buying. In both parables, something very very precious is found, something so important, so valuable is found. And so much so that sometimes by accident like the guy who finds a treasure in a field but sometimes after a longer searching like a merchant looking for pearls. Finding that these are so valuable, in joy, both go and sell everything they have in order to buy the field and the pearl of great price. Like us religious especially at one point in our lives we discovered that the value of the Lord was the most important and most valuable thing in our lives and so in joy, I think, we went and sold everything — we gave up our families, we gave up family life, we gave up our careers and we “bought” religious life. We committed ourselves to religious life.  The more I think about it, the real challenge is what at one point seemed so important, sometimes we find it less important or see it less important. At least that’s what I’ve seen. I’m reading a very good book by Miraslov Volf. The title of the book is called, “Life Worth Living”. It’s based on a course he and others give to undergraduates to help them discover what matters most in life. It’s a course that helps people discover what makes a human life worth living, what makes a life truly human,  what matters most. Because you can succeed professionally and still be a failure as a human being. Early in the book there was an example about Albert Speer, the architect of Hitler who ended up building concentration camps and the gas chambers. He wanted really to be a great architect and in the end he became a great architect but he was a failure as a human being. But at the end of the book, Volf says that for most of us the problem is not that we’re going to live evil lives, that’s still a possibility. It’s a possibility that we choose wrongly; we betray our humanity by living evil lives. But what struck me most was, for most of us, the problem is, the temptation is to live trivial ives. We may have seen what mattered most at one point and then there are forces in our culture that made us forget what matters most and to start living trivially not exactly betray our humanity but to give up on our potential as human beings. And he said that there are two temptations to trivial lives. First is what we see all around us — advertising, the media — everything dresses up unimportant things that they conceal much more important ones. So we might say, “I really want to serve God and my neighbors but when I look at my time and where I spent my money on, I discover that my priority might not be that. I might see that appearance is more important or entertainment is more important, or fame is more important, or titles and positions.” Our culture dresses up all these things that make them seem so important so we can get distracted to run after those things and at the end we find the life we live is hollow. The other temptation to triviality is to think of our lives as trivial. We say, “The world is so big, how do I count? What I do, what I decide, what does it do to many? Who am I? I can’t do anything.” And so the temptation is to believe that our lives are really not that important. Maybe we’re not a separate greatness, maybe we’re not the most important in this world but we count. The way we live our lives, the decisions we make, the way we treat others, make a difference maybe not for the whole world but for the people we live with, the people who are entrusted to us.  I think the invitation of the Gospel is to not allow ourselves to be tempted to live trivial lives and to try to focus on what matters most — the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price. Whatever that is to us. There are moments when we see so clearly what matters most often during retreats. I just finished my retreat in Baguio last week and I realized so many of the things I am concerned about — my appearance, aging, health, achievements, comparing myself with others, titles, positions — all of those are unimportant. But there was a moment that God made it clear to me that what matters most to me, especially at this stage of my life, is to live as a beloved child of God and to live the example of Jesus. It was so clear to me…then I went down the mountain… 😉 Let me just end by reading a section from the book which I found very helpful: “𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨, 𝙛𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙞𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙗𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙩. 𝙐𝙣𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙠 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙚𝙡𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙙, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙥 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙬𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙞𝙩 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙪𝙥. 𝙐𝙣𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙭𝙘𝙖𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙛𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙮, 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.  𝙎𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙞𝙩. 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙫𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙢𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙌𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣. 𝙀𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙗𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙞𝙨𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙖𝙮 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙨. 𝙇𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙢𝙤𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙞𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙣. 𝙍𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙞𝙙𝙙𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙙𝙖𝙮, 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙬𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙖 𝙛𝙚𝙬 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙪𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚’𝙨 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨. 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣, 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙌𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣. 𝘿𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙖 𝙩𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙘 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙫𝙖𝙡𝙪𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩.” “𝙄𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙫𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣—𝙩𝙤 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩. 𝙀𝙭𝙘𝙖𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙞𝙩.

After the great feasts of Easter, Ascension and Pentecost, which with Holy Week highlight the key mysteries of our salvation, we had three complementary feasts to round out our sense of the saving God: Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart. They express the mystery and wonder of God beyond our comprehension, who is still close to us and bound to us in love. Today’s readings continue that theme: a God who is utterly concerned and seeking what works for our good. The Old Testament passage from Exodus is put in terms of Israel’s covenant with God, a somewhat legal sounding relationship where God tells his  people to stay close to him — much as a mother or father would tell a child to hold my hand while we cross the street.” I don’t want harm to come to you.” But even if expressed in legal terms of “listening to my voice and keeping my covenant,” there is God’s reaching out to Israel. They will be “dearer to me that all other people, … a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” There’s a closeness and valuing. And not simply to leave non-Israelites out. Remember that Israel was ultimately intended to be ‘light of the nations,’ priest-mediators through whom God would reach out to everyone, a vocation that would, by many, be squandered except for Jesus and his Jewish disciples. Romans pushes even more deeply how much God reaches out to us. Beginning with how “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us,” there follows today’s reading which spells out how not even our sinfulness and unworthiness can get in the way of God’s desire to give us life. “Greater love no one has,” Jesus tells us, “than to lay down his life for friends . . . and you are my friends.” But Romans fills out the picture: sinful friends, whom nobody would die for except a loving Lord, who saves us by his death and life, his cross and resurrection. So we can now boast of this God who through Christ brings us back to himself. The gospel too points in the same direction. Jesus goes about curing every disease and illness, Matthew says, and then today’s reading: “because his heart was moved with pity for them, because they were troubled and abandoned like sheep without a shepherd.” Then he reminds us what ministry in the Church is meant to be: not privilege or power, but labor to let all share God’s harvest. Ordinary people like Peter, James, John, etc., are called to embody God’s concern and care for people starting with Israel (since God remains faithful to his promises to them), but ultimately to “all nations.” Certainly, a theme that Pope Francis has urged over and over- inclusiveness, leaving nobody out of the picture. So let us give thanks that this is the way God is constantly inviting us to share grace upon grace, concerned about us, not casting us off when we go astray but reaching out more lovingly to bring us home. And as we “boast” in this Lord, we want to be reminded of our vocations to be extensions of God’s love and kindness wherever we find ourselves. “Without cost you have received,” Jesus tells his apostles; “without cost you are to give.” Let us continue to be very much aware of what we have received, and ever more ready to be givers and sharers of that same love and concern that the Lord extends to us.   Homily delivered by Fr. William (Bill) Abbott, SJ 17 June 2023 Anticipated Sunday Mass Cenacle Retreat House