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General, Homilies, Soul Food

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday comes like a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively. We gather in the less hot and humid evening air and sing the gloria with me wearing an immaculate white rather than somber purple stole. Our scripture readings this evening highlight Jesus performing two rituals marked by familiarity, affection, even intimacy. First, we recall Jesus’ last supper with his disciples, the Passover meal that celebrates Yahweh leading Israel out of slavery into freedom, and that binds them as his people. For us, this ritual meal taps beyond physical need and into all of our hunger and thirst for acceptance, community and equality. It also reminds us of the bonds that sharing a common meal creates. Thus, with our commemoration of the lord’s last Passover, every eucharist that we celebrate sums up all of our meals at table surrounded by family, friends and guests. Moreover, every meal we share—be it complete with pancit and lechon or spare with just kanin at galungong—becomes eucharist, a sacred meal. That is why our lolas would remind us, rowdy children around the dinner table, “hoy, igalang ninyo yung pagkain!” Second, Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet. This cleansing ritual by the teacher and master touches beyond the physical grime we gather along the way, and into purifying our hearts of the stains we smear each other with. It unmasks eager pretentions of fidelity like Peter’s, and reveals that Christian service is mutual, that is, “washing each other’s feet” including those of persons we euphemistically call ‘difficult.’ Apart from being intimate, even heart-warming, our holy Thursday rituals are signs that point beyond their ritual surface. With your kind permission, let me share two real stories. I wonder how many of us, Jesuits and Cenacle Sisters included, habitually (this is the operative word) think of saving this special piece of food for someone else, itong balunbalunan sa adobong manok o yung macaroons na paborito nitong si sr. X, y o z. (no names) [ad lib: story of husband accepting back an unfaithful wife] I find it hard to imagine what, after the husband opened the door to his wife, each following day was like for both of them, who have since remained together. My dear friends, beneath these holy Thursday rituals, what lies, almost hidden like Jesus’ divinity during his passion, are pure sacrifice, deprivation and even pain—in preparing, cooking and presenting food, in recognizing, accepting and welcoming at table and into our home those hungry in body and spirit for love and affection, in washing the grimy stains we have been used to, in living with the scars inflicted by others, in helping those near and far. These rituals then are also heart shattering. I take that word from a dear friend’s text message from San Francisco yesterday, about her teenage daughter’s suicide: “all our hearts are shattered.” Our sacrifice, deprivation and pain shatter our hearts, not because they are karma inflicted on us by the wheel of fate (some gulong ng palad), but because they are an offering of self to others, freely chosen and embraced. Like the sacred heart of Jesus, our hearts have become hearts of flesh, not stone, vulnerable and fragile until the end, hanggang masaid ang lahat sa kanyang krus. My dear friends, as we enact Jesus’ last Passover with his disciples and his washing of their feet, let us draw strength from his sacred shattered heart, offering our selves completely, as we struggle for unity in our communities, acceptance in our families and equality in our world.   Homily delivered by Fr. Mario Francisco, SJ at the Cenacle during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper 6 April 2023

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, Soul Food, Updates and Activities

Making ‘heart-sense’ of Suffering

Have you ever had the experience of feeling that you were being prepared for something but did not understand what you were being prepared for? I remember that I was just a year into a major responsibility when I had a powerful yet unusual experience in prayer. In prayer I felt very strongly that God was saying to me, I will be with you through all these. I was puzzled what “all these” meant since there was really nothing earthshaking going on in my life. About four months later, I was diagnosed with the dreaded disease – I had cancer. Initially, whenever I was asked how I was, I would bemusedly answer, “I think I’m shocked. I don’t feel anything.” For the next two days, I went about systematically cancelling my seminars, retreats, appointments, informing my family, our superiors in Rome – as though making arrangements for a stranger. Later, when the reality of the cancer sunk in, I cried out to God in fear asking, “Lord, how do we go through this together? Where will this bring me? Where will this bring us?”   We are once again in the season of Holy Week that we usually associate with the Lord’s intense suffering – that’s why it’s also called the week of the PASSION, a word to mean intense love. We come to times and places like these hoping to find some sense why there is so much pain and suffering in our lives, in the lives of those we love, in the world. We hope that we can find our own personal stories of suffering against the backdrop of the greatest story of love of Jesus. As we reflect on the reality of suffering, maybe we can ask ourselves: What is God’s invitation to me with regards my experience of suffering? How am I to be with it? How do I make ‘heart-sense’ of this? How am I to bring this experience into my relationship with God?   I like to see this experience of suffering as an inner journey that can have “landmarks” to help me go through this passage. I call these the “landmarks in the landscape of suffering”. (1st landmark)   Suffering is a lonely experience This hit me when the reality of what cancer could do to my life began to take hold of me. I felt very alone. Because of this, there were many moments when it was unbearably lonely. Although the whole Congregation, my family, my friends were praying for me and tried to be with me, there was still something about what was happening to me that I could not share with anyone even if I wanted to. There were times when I wanted to cry and no tears came. I wanted to talk about my fears, my inner turmoil, my questions but no words came. There were times when I felt like I was imprisoned within thick glass walls. I could see people, they could see me but I could not reach them. I seemed so isolated in their midst. (2nd landmark) Suffering takes us on an emotional rollercoaster ride Having worked through emotional problems – both my own and others’ – I know that we have a wide variety of feelings like the many colors of the rainbow, feelings that need articulation. I experienced the myriad of feelings and emotions in the short span of time as I agonized and waited for the surgery date, test results, doctors, healing to happen…just waiting. The most difficult part of the waiting was knowing that there was uncertainty ahead and the unknown before me. In the face of suffering there were two options possible – to fight the experience and take control of everything OR to let go of my control of how things should be and surrender to God’s healing process and the ministrations of the healers around me. (3rd landmark) Suffering opens us to experience the silence of God When we don’t understand things that happen to us, we ask questions. If we have tried to be a good person or “God-fearing”, we may ask why suffering visits us, like the title of a book: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People by a Jewish rabbi. Maybe that’s a good title for the questioning we go through. I hear people ask questions like: Is God punishing me? Is God testing my faith? What did I do to deserve this? In these times, we experience that God is so silent. Life seemed like one endless gloom in the valley of death. And yet, when I had moments of quiet within myself, I felt God’s presence in the silence. Even as I was hurting badly, I felt in some unexplainable way, that God was hurting with me. God understood my pain. God shared it. And that enabled me to move on and work through the pain and suffering. That consolation did not make the suffering less painful. It made it bearable. (4th landmark)   Suffering invites me to locate this experience in my on going love relationship with my God. The song If I Could by Barbara Streisand speaks of what a mother goes through for the sake of her child. I would help you make it through the hungry years but I know I can never cry your tears. But I would, if I could .. I have tried to change the world I brought you to and there’s not much I would not do for you and I would if I could. What parent does not want the best for their child? They would even want to spare their child from pain, but that is not possible. So when the child suffers, the parents suffer with them. When the one I love is in pain, I too am in pain. I share in whatever pain or joy my loved one is experiencing. Sharing the other’s suffering is called compassion. The invitation to receive the grace of compassion is

Soul Food

Betrayers

April 12: Wednesday of Holy Week Betrayers   Reading: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Matthew 26:14-25 Scripture: “It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” (Mt 26: 24)   Reflection: In the passion story, Judas and Peter have betrayal in common. Judas betrays Jesus to those who seek to kill him, apparently for no better reason than a handful of coins. Peter betrays himself on the eve of the crucifixion when he denies being Jesus’ follower, apparently for his own safety (Jn 18:17). Peter will repent (Mt 27: 3-4) and accept Jesus’ forgiveness. Judas will repent but he will accept no forgiveness, not even his own. Instead, he will hang himself (Mt 27:5). It is easy to say of him, as Jesus did, “better for that man if he had never been born.” Judas remains forever a mystery. However he began, he ended up a man of contradictions, chosen by Christ, reviled as a thief by John, despised by the authorities who paid for his information, and utterly despairing of himself. We don’t know why Judas’s life took the turns that led him to his end. But we do know his great mistake. During his years as a disciple he missed the most important thing about the Master he had agreed to follow. He may have learned all the right words, but he never learned the Person who spoke them. Jesus expressed frustration with hypocrisy and blindness. He even uttered dramatic woes against the towns that refused to accept him and his message (e.g. Mt 11: 20-24). But he never refused compassion to a repentant sinner. Never. And somehow Judas missed it. Lent offers us an extended time in which to seek what St.Paul calls “the supreme good” of knowing Christ more deeply, more intimately, more truly (see Phil 3:8-9). Whatever we may have done in the way of fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and other good works, the underlying purpose has been to free us of the claustrophobic self so we can plunge into deeper communion with the One who is God’s mercy. Missed it? Don’t worry. Lent, like every other liturgical season, is a rehearsal for all of life. And the invitation to know, and love and live in Christ remains open all year round.   Meditation: How have you come to know Jesus better this Lent? How do you feel called to grow toward knowing and loving him even more deeply in the months to come?   Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, grant that daily we may see you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly.  

General, Soul Food

The Heart of Discipleship

Daily Reflections for Lent by Sr. Genevieve Glen, OSB; Not by Bread Alone 2017, Liturgical Press: Minnesota   April 10: Monday of Holy Week The Heart of Discipleship Reading: Isaiah 42:1-7; John 12:1-11   Scripture: Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil. . . . and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair. . . . (John 12:3)   Reflection: Mary of Bethany—Martha and Lazarus’s sister, Jesus’ friend and disciple—reappears in today’s gospel. In Luke’s gospel, written earlier than John’s, she provoked her sister’s ire by choosing to sit at Jesus’ feet like a disciple and listen to him rather than helping with the meal. Now she again flouts convention buy anointing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfumed oil and drying them with her hair. Again she provokes ire, this time from Judas. Ironically, he protests her disregard for Jesus’ teaching about the poor, though he, not she, will prove to be the false disciple. In neither story does Mary utter a word of self-defense, but Jesus defends her in startling terms—in Luke, for choosing the one essential, a listening discipleship; here for expressing her discipleship in an act Jesus deems prophetic. In both cases, Mary goes to the heart of discipleship: the mystery of Jesus himself, in Luke as the Word of God speaking of their midst, now in John as the Anointed One who will die. She annoys her sister Martha by ignoring the precept of hospitality to a guest. She angers Judas by ignoring the poor. Jesus says once again that Mary, disciple to the core, has her priorities right: the person of this Messiah outweighs even his own ethical teaching. There are times, and this is one of them, when the disciple must let Jesus’ teachings fade into the background to focus attention entirely on him and own fully who he really is. And, as Jesus himself will, Mary sets aside all concern for her own good name to do what discipleship bids her because she above all of them has truly understood the Truth he will claim at the Last Supper to be (John 14:6) We live in a doing a world, busy about work of all sorts. As disciples, we do our best to carry out the works of the gospel. But Mary teaches us the core of discipleship: knowing Jesus, the source and definition of all good works. Meditation: What has your focus been this Lent? How has your Lenten penance brought you to know Christ more deeply? Prayer: Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, grant us the grace to recognize you as the source and center of our life as disciples.   (Image from the internet.)

Homilies, Soul Food

Don’t cross

Homily of Fr. Arnel Aquino, SJ, on the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, at the Cenacle Retreat House. Under normal circumstances, a right-handed person could slap somebody’s right cheek, but only if it’s a back-handed slap. Try & imagine it. Back in the Lord’s day, a back-handed slap was what superiors gave subordinates. Masters backhand-slapped slaves, for instance; commanders slapped centurions that way; & as it also happened, Romans back-hand-slapped Jews. Now, what did Jesus say must a person do in such a case? “Turn the other cheek.” Now to turn the other cheek means to stand up to the aggressor & challenge him to, this time, strike you with a front-handed slap—meaning, to strike you not as a subordinate, but as an equal. Interesting, isn’t it? When you’re slapped as an equal, your aggressor better be ready to take whatever might come right back at him. But I should hasten to say that turning the other cheek did not mean measure for measure retaliation either. Turning the other cheek was a dignified protest against injustice. By freely offering the other cheek, one valiantly affirms one’s dignified status while also exposing the aggressor’s contemptible beastliness. So, see, sisters & brothers, the point to turning the other cheek was not to acquiesce to abasement or abuse. That was never the Jesus ethic. He never allowed himself to be abased. But it did entail heroic, even stately self-discipline in the face of a presumptuous & bestial aggressor. By Roman law, Roman officers & centurions could command Jewish civilians to carry their gear, but only for one mile. There were sanctions if an officer abused this privilege. The rule itself was preposterous, of course. It served to only stress Jewish servility to the Romans. So Jesus said, if someone orders you to carry his gear for one mile, keep walking with it for longer—go another mile! Let’s see if the officer doesn’t get into trouble with the law & be de-merited for it. So you see, walking another mile did not mean being passive in the face of dishonor. It was a clever way of handling injustice. The funniest is the third. Jewish law entitled a creditor (usually rich) to confiscate the tunic of a debtor (usually poor) when the debtor was unable to pay in cash. Again, it was a pretty ruthless law that favored the rich. Now Jesus said, if a creditor goes to court to sue you for your tunic, give him your cloak, too. Well, these two pieces of clothing were about the only pieces of clothing poor peasants wore. So to give both tunic & cloak to the creditor meant to strip naked…in court. The public nudity would then bring shame on the unforgiving creditor. A pretty clever way of handling mercilessness! Jesus never taught abasement. He never meant for his followers to passively swallow cruelty & insult, & say, “This is what I, your Lord & your God, suffered through, so do the same. I want you, especially you Filipinos, I want your spirituality to be only Good Friday spirituality.” Well no. Submitting to cruelty does not make one holy. It makes one a dishrag & that’s an insult to God who created us with dignity. Secondly, our passivity emboldens the oppressor to sin, to sin even more, & to remain in sin. So allowing the sin to be committed on us makes us, strangely enough, accessory to the sin. But on the other hand, Jesus doesn’t want us to do eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth either. To make full use of our educated brains, our competent faculties, our gospel-informed will especially in the face of grievance, that’s what he wants us to do—to engage our whole person, in other words, & not just our bruised egos or our wounded hearts. That’s why we must also expose the injustice mindfully, & stand up for what is true, but as much as we can, to not sin; not even if we cannot help being angry… …Because there is fair anger, there is righteous anger. But then, there’s is also consuming anger, vengeful anger, rage. I’ve felt it in myself & seen it in other people, that dwelling on anger & feeding anger & soaking in anger—it really damages us more than the persons we happen to hate. Our rage might burn our “enemies”, sure; but only so far. Our rage burns us further & deeper. It makes us ugly. I’ve met people, priests included, who clearly feel very gratified when venting rage—whether physically, verbally, or, as Filipinos usually do, passive-aggressively (silent treatment is the favorite Filipino passive aggression, isn’t it?) And I’ve noticed that when we taste sweetness when venting rage, then poison has leaked into our hearts, into our souls. The poison of rage tricks us into thinking how powerful & intelligent & superior we are! But that’s just an illusion. It’s the poison that’s begun to ruin us & make us ugly. We have symbols of this in literature—people who confuse power with consuming anger, & have since been disfigured by the poison: Gollum & Saruman, Lord of the Rings; Emperor Palpatine & Darth Vader, Star Wars; Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter; the Joker, Batman, & all the rest. I’m sure you also know real people “uglified” by rage, but we won’t mention names. Baka matukhang tayo. “Anger is an acid that does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” Well said, Mark Twain.   I’m very sure there were times when Jesus himself came terribly close to the line that parted righteous anger & rage. But he didn’t cross it. That’s why he tells us today: “Don’t. Don’t cross it. Take a deep breath…many deep breaths, because this is the kind of ‘cross’ you should not do.” We are fortunate to belong to a faith where we believe that: “The Lord is kind & merciful, slow to anger & abounding in kindness.

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