May 29., 2016   /   Homilies, Soul Food

God’s “divine weakness”

This homily was given by Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ; Cenacle Retreat House, May 29, 2016.

There’s something that only a few single people might fully understand & deeply appreciate about parents—& this is their constant worry over their children going hungry. Regardless of social status, whether a father is awash in wealth or a mother is dirt-poor, a parent will always worry about the children going hungry. It is a quiet but persistent concern it seems to me, parang isang bombilya na parating nakailaw sa ulirat ng isang magulang.
I remember when I was in grade school, mom always prepared a ridiculous bagful of groceries for me to take to a class night—chips, cookies, canned juice, may loaf of bread pa plus bottled palaman. I couldn’t shake off the memory of a particular grocery bag because one time, my uncle saw it & exclaimed, “For goodness sakes, will you be camping out for week?!?”
Same story with my dad today. Every time I go home, & he & I have a heart to heart, his 80-year-old body & soul always find the words to say, “Kapag wala na ako, ang laki ng takot kong maguton ang pamilya ng kapatid mo.” He’s referring to Jonathan, his bunso—who’s never worked a day in his life & whose family’s been totally dependent on him, to this day.
So, hunger & thirst are very powerful parental anxieties. Parents will do anything to keep their loved ones from going with an empty stomach, mayaman man o mahirap. Whether it’s a bagful of groceries for a class night, or kaning lamig with fish crackers sawsaw-sa-suka everyday, no food or drink is too lavish or too impoverished. Parents will gamble anything to keep their loved ones from going hungry. It’s occurred to me at times, when parents think “hunger & thirst,” I wonder if it’s just a corner away from thinking “sickness” or “collapse” or God forbid, even “death”. I hear many parents say, “Bahala na kami ang magkasakit o mamatay sa gutom, huwag lang ang aming mga anak.” And we use a beautiful Filipino word for this, pagtitiis. Parents say, “Titiisin namin ang gutom, kumain lamang ang aming mga anak.” That is because over & beyond food & drink lies the deeper kind of tiis, for which we all say: “Matitiis pa ng anak ang kanyang magulang, pero hindi matitiis ng magulang ang kanyang anak,” not for hunger, not for thirst, not for anything. Starvation does not have a stake in the whole vision that parents have for their family, least of all their children. For as long as they live & breath & have full use of their bodies, the whole plan is for the children to not just survive, but to live & never have to go hungry.
Jesus likens his body & blood to food & drink because for as long as he & his Father have anything to do with it, nobody must go hungry & thirsty. All must be fed. Whether the hungry are believers or atheists, holy or sinful, perpetrator or victim—no distinction has ever stopped God from sustaining all of us. This is Salvation History, that all are saved from their hunger. Left to our human machinations, however, we fancy turning salvation history into starvation history. Natitiis natin kung may mga nagugutom, basta tayo busog. Pero ang Diyos kailanma’y di tayo kayang tiisin. In fact, he put his own body & blood at stake to feed the hungry, to relieve the burdened, heal the sick, include the ostracized. Buwis-buhay ang Dios para lahat busog at maligaya. Kaya nagkasugat-sugat ang kanyang katawan at dumanak ang kanyang dugo.
Last year, my friend, Debbie, took me to a feeding program in a public school. You should check one out if you haven’t already. I gained deeper gratitude just by watching how the kids appreciated & ate the very simple fare. I realized the hundreds of thousands more who would go hungry everyday. I reckoned that this starvation could not be Salvation as God had meant it. Because Jesus offered himself as food & drink, then feeding the hungry is constitutive of Godliness. In fact, feeding the hungry is constitutive of salvation itself. We are all being saved when we feed the hungry. The oligarchs & the government pay the hungry but token attention because the lot of them are really strangers to starvation. But we who are the Body of Christ, we who know what it’s like to go hungry, we who partake of bread & wine at every Holy Communion, we can’t & shouldn’t be able to resist those who starve. Hindi man tayo makapagpatayo ng bahay para sa mga dukha, di man tayo manalo sa Lotto para balatuhan ang mahihirap, di man tayo konggresman na may pork barrel, maari pa rin tayong tumulong upang makakain ang nagugutom; kahit kaunti, kahit bahagi.
The feast of Corpus Christi always reminds me that we are God’s “divine weakness.” He who is all-powerful, he cannot resist us. In one mighty blow, God can create us at one moment & demolish us the next. Instead, God became flesh & blood like us. He even offered himself as food & drink because it wasn’t enough that he stay apart from us. He had to be part of us. Saan ka naman nakatagpo ng Dios na ganyan na lang kung magmahal, Dios na hindi tayo natitiis? Talagang isang Nanay, isang Tatay ang Dios. Natitiis natin siya, pero tayo, hindi niya matiis…kailanman.