Sep 28., 2016   /   Homilies, Jubilee, Soul Food

Self-awareness and Conversion

LAUNCH OF THE 50TH YEAR CELEBRATION OF
THE CENACLE IN THE PHILIPPINES
September 25, 2015: Sunday
Cenacle Chapel, Quezon City

HOMILY

Fr. Edmundo Martinez

Today the Cenacle launches its year-long celebration marking its 50 years in the Philippines. They were all young, then, the first batch of five sisters, when they set up house here in Nicanor Reyes. And so was I who helped them with odds and ends like setting up their temporary extension phones. And now, fifty years after, for the original five, youth is gone; old age has set in.
And yet, while the age of youth may be gone, the enthusiasm, anticipation, and joy of youth remain—but this time in a deeper, more sober, and wiser way. How can one say this? Because it is impossible to remain committed to the work of the Cenacle for 50 years unless there is the enthusiasm of moving forward, the anticipation of success, the joy of knowing that what one has done and continuous to do are worthwhile, meaningful, and fulfilling. For these seem to be an unmistakable sign of God’s work: life and joy. One is reminded of the priest’s opening words in the old latin mass: “Introibo ad altare Dei; ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam:” I will enter into the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth.”
For what is the work of the Cenacle that is the work of God?
It is to lead others to God, that they may find Him in their lives, in themselves, in their families, in their communities—not once, not occasionally, but habitually, in a continuing, incrementally pervading manner. And this is a task that requires such great discernment that it would be impossible unless it is done in, and with the Holy Spirit.
Let us look more closely at what is involved in the Cenacle’s work.
All men seek God, and all religions are an institutionalization of that seeking for God. But it is only in the Christian faith that that unknown, transcendend, fearful, utterly-other God has found a face: it is the face of the man, Jesus. And it is only in the Christian faith that the way to God is clearly marked: it is the way shown by Jesus, the way taken by Jesus himself—the way of the cross.
How does one, in this age when no person or institution is held sacrosanct or infallible, lead another to Jesus, hung upon a cross?
The answer is the selfsame answer for which the gospel is preached, for which the Church labors, for which every religious congregation exists: conversion. And while we commonly talk of the conversion of the “human heart”, in fact, the critical issue is the conversion of the human spirit. For the objective in the conversion is not in the eradication of poverty, or the fight for justice, or the imposition of law and order. The objective of conversion is that which is the cause of all these evils in human society and in ourselves. It is the healing of the diseased spirit of man that is the cause of all these irrational, deceitful, and destructive palpitations of the human heart. To paraphrase the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman: God is spirit, and those who seek him must seek him in spirit and truth. Or more pointedly, to the learned Nicodemus: “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”
In our time and age, with all our advances in scientific and historical understanding of the world and ourselves, we would transpose the term classical term “spirit” into the more modern term, “spirit-as-experienced”, and identify it with the experience of self-awareness. Anyone who hears what I am saying can be called “aware”, and once one is awake, one is aware. So awareness is something quite familiar. However, awareness of self or self-awareness is not something as familiar. We are all, of course, self-aware. Even as I am aware of talking to you now, I am simultaneously aware, looking at your faces, that you are asking yourselves questions. Now that “I” that is aware of myself talking, and aware of myself as aware of your questioning, is me as self-aware, as spirit. I realize that all this may be confusing stuff, and professional philosophers do continually struggle and debate about it. Although the philosophical explicitation of it may be difficult, the reality is simple enough. When I blow my top and later say, ”I forgot myself,” what I am really saying is that I, even as I was blowing my top, I was ignoring the demands of my self-awareness to control myself. When I live a lavish ostentatious life, and later feel shamed because so many live with so little, what I am really feeling is that even as I was living such a self-centered life, I was refusing the insistence of my self-awareness to change my ways.
Self-awareness is the locus of our self-responsibility. It is that from which defilement comes, as Jesus said. It is that on which the law of the Lord is written. It is also that from which springs what true love we are capable of; that in us which longs for God as the deer longs for running water; that which is the image of God in us. Self-awareness is who we are.
When then I mentioned that the work of the Cenacle requires great discernment and that it would be impossible unless it is done in, and with the Holy Spirit, it is of these matters that I speak. Out of the welter of all the conflicting, compounding, confusing matters that make up a person’s life, the focus of the Cenacle work is the inner person, the self., To draw out that inner person from the morass and confusion of a troubled life, to guide another to discover his or her inner person so that one can even just talk at it–that by itself is already no mean tas, as any psychiatrist or psychoanalyst can tell you.
And yet, the work of the Cenacle is not just that of the psychoanalyst or psychiatrist, it is the work of Christ, of conversion. It is to turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, or to paraphrase the words of our Lord for John the Baptist: it is to give sight to blindness of the human spirit caused by rationalizations, proud pretensions, false assumptions. It is to heal the lameness of the spirit born of fears, worries, and sense of helplessness. It is to cleanse the leprosy in the spirit eaten up by betrayals, disappointments, and failures. It is to give new life to a once forlorn and downcast spirit so that now, made whole, free and clear-eyed in the light of life, it becomes fully self-aware of what it truly is.
And what does one become self-aware of? A two-fold reality: on the one hand, that the self-aware self is a mere creature, totally empty, and insignificant and, yes, sinful. On the other hand, and simultaneously, it becomes aware of the overwhelming love of a Father so forgiving and compassionate that he gives for him his one and only Son. (Jn 3:16).
To become truly aware and self-aware of such a tremendous, forgiving, and self-sacrificing love of God for one’s self is to be converted.
For the human heart, now humbled, can affirm: “Lord I love you.” And Lord’s response, as in the case of Peter, is: “Feed my sheep.”
And so, we come to the crux of the Christian faith: To discover God, to abide by Him, to be with him—in this world—is to be engaged in the world. We cannot love God whom we do not see, if we do not love our neighbor whom we do see. And to love the neighbor is to come face to face with the reality of evil in the world.
To know God, is to gain a sixth sense for what is not God, of what is evil; and to be aware of God’s love in one’s self-awareness is to be impelled to do what is pleasing to him. And so, to love God is to embrace the world that he loves, and the world that God loves, that he impels one to love, is ridden with evil.
And so, if one seeks God in this world, and longs for His presence in one’s self-awareness, one cannot but address the issue of evil in one’s self and in the world. In this world, it seems, it is only through the undoing of evil that one finds God.
But to undo evil is to follow the path of the cross that Jesus trod. For evil cannot be undone by evil. No amount of extra-judicial killings will change the hearts of criminals. Evil can only be undone by good–by the self-sacrificing love shown by Jesus on the cross. And because the sixth sense for evil, born of familiarity with God, reveals all the nooks and crannies of evil in the world, one who is self-aware of God’s love becomes equally aware of the enormous lifetime task that one is called to accomplish. It is a task that calls forth all the expertise, experience, wisdom, and skills that a person has.
Undoing evil in one’s self, in others, and in the world so that the glory of God’s love may be burst forth in creation is the task of those who believe and love Jesus. It is the task of the Cenacle. It seems to be an unending task that defies completion; it seems to be a overpowering task that is just too exstensive to address; it seems to be foolish task, in which the grain must die before it can bear fruit. And yet, like all things relating to God, it is a task filled with confidence, peace, and joy. In the words of St. Paul:
“. . . . we hold this treasure[f] in earthen vessels, . . .So death is at work in us, but life in you. . . . Everything indeed is for you, so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God. Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”

As 50 years have passed away for the Cenacle in the Philippines, and more years to come will pass away, we who care for them and their work pray that the Lord may continue to renew their inner self day by day so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.