The Power of Two: Desires and Healing

14 August 2005: 20th Sunday of the Year
Matthew 15:21-28 The Syrophoenician woman


The Gospel today can be read as indicating our desire for God whatever or whoever we are. The Syrophoenician woman was Greek, and thus she was a stranger, a Gentile, someone who does not belong to the Jewish nation. And yet, the woman in her need cried out, “Lord, help my daughter. Cast the demon out of her!” Her cry for help stirred from her deepest desire to be whole, and her deepest desire for her daughter to be healed. And this is what makes the incident moving and extraordinary in the life of Jesus. For Jesus the deepest cry of the human heart is primary, its response to the deepest need and want is not dependent on differences whether race or creed. We are all one in our deepest desires.

Julian of Norwich once wrote about desires in her Revelations of Divine Love: “Then we can ask reverently of our lover whatever we will. For by nature, our will wants God, and the good will of God wants us. We shall never cease wanting and longing until we possess Him in fullness and joy. Then we shall have no further wants.” St. Augustine of Hippo, who in his Confessions, wrote: “The thought of you stirs him [a human being] so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you”.

Thus, the question for us is this: Do you have this deepest longing for God? When do we cry in the very depths of our hearts, ‘Lord, help me’?

This leads us to the second point about casting demons. The point of the miracle is that Jesus was able to cast out the demon from the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman. The daughter was therefore healed and made whole, which is the very desire of the woman. Thus what are the things in ourselves that needs healing?

You see if we look closely into ourselves, we find ourselves wanting: no one is worthy of his or her profession. The teacher finds herself in a tension between what she teaches and how she practices it. The doctor finds himself not fully equipped because there are things which he does not know. The leader knows pretty well that she has limitations. The father knows that it is difficult to raise children. The priest who is very much in touch with his sinfulness admits that his being chosen by God to lead people to pray is unworthy of the honor. We are not complete individually, by ourselves. We complete each other, the way healing happened to the Syrophoenician woman: the daughter needs the deepest desire and faith of her mother, and the healing power of Jesus.

There is a song by the Indigo Girls called the “Power of Two”. The refrain goes this way:
So we’re ok, we’re fine
Baby I’m here to stop your cryin’
Chase all the ghosts from your head
I’m stronger than the monster beneath your bed
Smarter than the tricks played on your heart
Look at them together and we’ll take them apart
Adding up a total of a love that’s true
Multiply life by the power of two.

The power of two dispels the pain, the anger, the rejection and the wanting. It dispels our limitations and we then become whole and complete. The teacher teaches with the guidance of other teachers. The father raises children in partnership with his wife. The priest hears confessions conscious that it is not him who forgives but Christ.

Each one finds joy in the power of two. There is a shoulder to lean on. There is someone to cry on to. There is someone to laugh our demons away. The relationship of love allows healing. It drives demons away. Then we become ok. Then we become fine. We multiply life by the power of two.

In the Midst of the Storm

7 August 2005: 19th Sunday of the Year
Matthew 14, 22-27: Walking on Water

The significance of the Gospel is perfectly clear to us: in the hour of the disciples’ need, Jesus came to them. When the wind was contrary and life was a struggle, Jesus was there to help. In life, the wind is often contrary. There are times when we are up against it and life is a desperate struggle with ourselves, with our circumstances, with our temptations, with our sorrows and with our decisions. At such a time, no one needs to struggle alone, for Jesus comes across the storms of our life.

Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October is a great spy novel. Red October is the name of a Soviet submarine, a super submarine. The captain, Marco Remius, is defecting from the Soviet Union because he’s a Lithuanian who has seen the brutality of the Soviets who came in and took over his country, and who also suppressed the Roman Catholic church in that country. He’s gone through the ranks, and finally he’s going to steal the Soviet sub. Throughout the whole book he has the Soviet navy--and the Americans and the English--looking for him; it’s very exciting.
One of the early passages in the book describes his inner thoughts, particularly concerning his wife, Natalja, who died because of the bungling of the Soviet medical system. The passage reads:

Marco Remius watched the coffin of his wife roll into the cremation chamber to the solemn strain of a classical requiem, wishing that he could pray for Natalja’s soul, hoping that Grandmother Hilda, who had had him secretly baptized as an infant, had been right. That there was something beyond the steel door and the mass of flame.
Only then did the full weight of the events strike him. The state had robbed him of more than his wife--it had robbed him of a means to assuage his grief with prayer. It had robbed him of hope, if only an illusion, of ever seeing her again.”

I guess, this tells us why religion, or faith is very important to our lives. Often we can see that those who believe, those who pray, those who placed themselves in the hands of God are lucky because they know they have someone who will save them. The Gospel tells us about St. Peter who acted on impulse, but when he failed, he clutched on Christ. St. Francis of Sales said that he observed a farm girl going to the farmhouse to draw water from the well. And when the pail was brimming with water, she placed a block of wood into it. When asked why, the girl said, “Why? To keep the water from spilling and to keep the water steady.”

So when your heart is distressed, in grief and agitated by the storms of life, put the cross at its center to keep it steady. Like the storm, the presence of Jesus will keep it calm and give us hope. How do we put on the cross of Christ?

Let me give you an example from the life of Blessed Peter Favre, one of the founders of the Jesuits. He was a preacher and his work was to win the Protestants back to Catholicism during one of the greatest storms in the life of the Church. He had a good effect on people: in Germany, he persuaded St. Peter Canisius to become a Jesuit, and in Spain, influenced the Duke of Gandia, who later on entered the Jesuits, St. Francis Borgia. His way was simple: he said, “It is necessary that anyone who desires to be serviceable at this present age should hold those who disagree with them with great affection and love, then offering them their goodwill and friendship, and conversing not about controversial subjects which lend to bickering and mutual recrimination.

Thus, the things that unite us ought to be the first ground of our approach, not the things that keep us apart. This is what we take at present when we dialogue with other religions. And in our private lives, when we are in conflict, this is best remembered. To patch a relationship, do not begin with the things that you disagree with, but begin with things that unite both of you. This is what we mean when we put on Christ’s first, his values more than our need condemn others with our self-righteousness.

The Foundation of Our Faith

21 August 2005: 21st Sunday of the Year
Matthew 16, 13-23: The Foundation of our Faith: Who is Jesus?

Jesus in the Gospel asks his disciples two things: First, who is He according to other people? The disciples naturally answers Him that people think that He is John the Baptizer, that He is Elijah or one of the prophets. The second question is crucial: Who is He according to his disciples? And it was Peter’s proclamation that He is the “Son of God” that satisfied Jesus. It is Peter’s answer that made Jesus call Peter, the Rock. “And upon this Rock, I will build my Church.”

We take our lesson from here. It is thus clear that a strong faith foundation in Jesus is based on who Jesus is to us. How we know Jesus, Who is Jesus to us, will determine how we live our faith, and how we practice our faith. Thus the knowledge of Jesus will determine the quality of our love for Him, and the quality of service we render for Him.

For example, if Jesus is a friend to us, then our love for Jesus is that of a friend, and our service of Jesus is based on good friendship. A case in point: The case of Moses. In Exodus 33:11, we read that “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”

And in another place God chides the Israelites for their anger at Moses by saying: “Hear my words, When there are prophets among you, I the Lord make myself known to them by visions; I speak to them in dreams. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him, I speak face to face --- clearly, not in riddles; and he beholds the form of the Lord” (Numbers 12:6-8).

Friendship is not an image only: Jesus Himself clears our relationship with Him: You are no longer slaves but my friends. Jesuits, call ourselves, Compañia de Jesus, and our relationship is described as “friends in the Lord.” This relationship of friendship determines how we love each other and how we serve others. The song “Day by Day” in the hit musical, Godspell, is similar to St. Ignatius’ desire in the second week of the Spiritual Exercises, “to know Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, follow Thee more closely” day by day.

And thus, we look at who Jesus is to us. And we can know who Jesus is by praying. Once I directed young people in their retreat. One of them left me a note which says, “I do want to pray, Father, but it is also the last thing I want to do.” It is indeed true to all of us: in the very depths of our hearts, we yearn for God, and yet, we are also afraid that is why it is the last thing we want to do.

Because when we plunge ourselves in prayer, we know that we are not anymore in control of our lives --- God is. And we are not used to it. Rudolph Otto describes our encounter with God as a mysterium tremendum et fascinans, a mystery which evokes holy awe (tremendum) but which also fascinates (fascinans). The very God who awes us also draws us. It is like seeing a movie star: we are fascinated by the movie star’s presence, but we are afraid to approach him—not that we are shy, we just do not know what to say. The Psalmist says, “My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the Living God” (Psalm 84). And when we pray to God, we listen and we hear the words, “Fear not.” It is the same words God has spoken to our great biblical leaders: to Daniel, to Gideon, to our very own, Mary when the Angel announced the coming of the Savior.

Our experience tells us that the closer we are to God, the better off we are. Do not be afraid to pray; do not be afraid to know God. I guess the best way is to look at the deepest meaning of the fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast which tells of the fear of the human heart before God. God, like the Beast, wants us to know him as love, but we, like Beauty, are terrified by his size and what seems to us God’s anger at us, who are sinners. If we allow God to come close to us, if we kiss the Beast, we will find that he is only love and delights in us and in our love. St. Teresa of Avila expresses this desire:

If, Lord, Thy love for me is strong
As this which binds me unto Thee,
What holds me from Thee, Lord, so long,
What hold Thee, Lord, so long from me,
O soul, what then desirest Thou?
--- Lord, I would see, who thus choose Thee.
What fears can yet assail thee now?
--- All that I fear is to lose Thee.
Love’s whole possession I entreat,
Lord, make my soul Thine own abode,
And I will build a nest so sweet
It may not be too poor for God.
O soul in God hidden from sin,
What more desires for thee remain,
Save but to love, and love again,
And all on flame with love within,
Love on, and turn to love again.

Saving One's Life by Losing It

28 August 2005: 22nd Sunday of the Year
Matthew 16, 21-27 Saving One’s Life by Losing it

Let me concentrate on the passage, “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, will find it.” There is a Sufi tale that best illustrate this gospel passage:

Once upon a time, a stream was working itself across the country. It experienced little difficulty because it simply ran around the rocks and through the mountains and forests. Then one day it arrived at a desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, but it found that as fast as it ran into the sand, its waters disappeared. After many, many attempts it became very discouraged. It appeared that there was no way it could continue the journey.

Then a voice came in the wind. “If you stay the way you are, you cannot cross the sands. You cannot become more than a puddle of water. To go further you will have to lose yourself.”
“But if I lose myself,” the stream cried, “I will never know what I’m supposed to be.”
“Quite the contrary,” said the voice, “if you lose yourself, you will become more than you ever dreamed you could be.”

So the stream surrendered to the scorching sun. And the clouds into which it was formed were carried by the raging wind for many miles. Once it crossed the desert, the stream poured down from the skies, fresh and clean, and full of the energy that comes from the storms.

For Christ, the person who risks all --- maybe looks as if he had lost all --- finds life. To lose one’s life, to take risks, means to die from many things, to let go, to move on, to surrender. We can never do so unless we let go of whatever binds us to the past. If we have a heavy burden in our heart, it will drag behind us and create sadness and weariness in our spirits. There are many different ways and times when letting go needs to be part of us. We may need to let go of any of the following, and may I invite you to see which of these things you have to part with, to say goodbye to, or to die from:

A person: the death of a loved one, the termination of a friendship, a child going off to school or marrying. As we let go, we cherish the good memories. Life will never be the same as it was before those events took place.

Unmet expectations: These are expectations of ourselves, of our parents or of children, of friends or co-workers. It can be extremely painful to finally accept a parent as she or he is, to see their flaws and weaknesses and to love them in their incompleteness. When a child so dearly loved continually makes poor choices and develops attitudes foreign to a parent’s values, it can be a harsh and dreadful experience for a parent to let go of the child they hoped for and to accept the child that they have.

Dreams and goals: Especially at mid-life, but at any adult transition time, we come to “truth times” when we see who we are and how we are. We can’t be like someone else, or we won’t be wealthy, or we will not be whatever it is that we thought we might be.

Old injuries of the heart. We all have them and they claim a lot of our energies at times. It may be the person who never liked us, or the one who destroyed us with jealousy or untruths, or the one who wiped us out with silence. It may be the relative who started the fight or the parent who abused us verbally or physically. We must let go of our sinfulness. It is very hard to accept our own weaknesses or our failures and to trust in the mercy and forgiveness of God.

Old securities. It may mean letting go of the outer strongholds of the place where we have lived for a long time or our present job, our set of friends, our known skills. We must sometimes let go of our inner securities as well: the way we think or feel about things or about ourselves; even our image of God needs to change as we grow and develop.

Our riches. Good health is a treasure. Sometimes we are forced to let go of it in sickness or age; when the natural aging process is seen through wrinkles and less energy. There are also times when we have to let go of the riches of friends who are close by, when a job promotion takes us far away and time or travel prohibit regular conversations and enjoyable sharing that we once knew and valued so much.

Surrender walks hand in hand with letting go. It is like the stream that has to surrender to the scorching sun; to let go of what the stream thinks what it is, and what it is supposed to be. To surrender is to give over to God, to give up our power over something that keeps us down or holds us back.

When we surrender, we open ourselves up to the mystery of life, to the risks of the future, to the challenge of the unknown. For many of us it is scary to think of surrendering ourselves into the arms of God. “What might happen?” is the secret question in our thoughts. Part of what keeps surrender from happening in us is our desire to be in control of everyone and everything.

But surrender is a freeing event, like a person paralyzed for years and being able to run and jump and dance again. Like the stream transformed into clouds. To surrender is to live with a mind and heart that trusts in God who desires our good, to be open to the future, and to believe that all shall be well. When we let go and when we surrender, we are most surely that we will be able to cross any desert and with full energy water the earth. And when the rain pours, as we all see, as the passage teaches, it gives life.

Let me end with Rabindranath Tagore:

When old words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;
and where the old tracks are lost,
new country is revealed with its wonders.

Kapatawaran: On Forgiveness

4 September 2005: 23rd Sunday of the Year
Mateo 18, 21-35: Kapatawaran

Marami sa atin ang naghahanap ng isang ugnayan na magpakailanman. Sa mga love letters, hindi mo makakaligtaan ang mga katagang: sana tayo pa rin hanggang kamatayan. O sa mga magkakaibigan, parating may pangarap na kahit magkahiwalay, ang layo ay hindi magiging hadlang sa tunay na pagmamahalan. Ang minimithing samahang walang hanggang ay isang paraisong walang awayan, walang tampuhan, walang samaan ng loob, walang pansamantalang paghihiwalay; isang paraisong alam nating lahat na wala sa lupa. Wala sa mundong ito.

Ito ang konteksto ng ebanghelio ngayon ayon kay Mateo. Ang tanong ni Pedro kay Jesus, "Panginoon, makailan kong patatawarin ang aking kapatid na paulit-ulit na nagkakasala sa akin?

Tatlong bagay ang ating makikita sa tanong ni Pedro.

Unang una, ang nagkakasala ay isang kapatid. Isang malapit na ugnayan. Kapatid. Kaibigan, Ka-ibigan. Paano ko patatawarin ang isang minamahal? Wika nga, ang pinakamalalim na sugat ay yaong sugat ng ini-irog. Mas nasasaktan tayo kapag ang nagkakasala ay ang taong nakaukit sa ating mga puso.

Pangalawa, ang kasalanan ay hindi lamang makaisa gawin, kundi palagi. Hindi lang maminsan-minsan, kundi paulit-ulit. At kung madalas gawin, di mas lalong malalim ang sugat. At kung tayo ay nasasaktan ng madalas, at paulit-ulit, lumalabas tayong duguan, taga-taga, luray-luray.

At madalas kung gaano kalalim ang sugat, ganoon din ang lakas at bugso ng galit. At hindi iba na sa atin ang damdaming ito: sa galit, nagdidilim ang ating isip, nawawala ang tamang pag-iisip. Sa mga pahayagan, ang kadalasang panagmumulan ng krimen, ng pagpapatayan ay isang maliit na pinagtatalunan, pinag-aawayan. Maliit na pagtatalo na nauuwi sa barilan.

At tayo rin, sa ating mga isip, kung makakapatay lang ang ating iniisip, ang kagalit ay patay na. Pinatay na natin sa ating isip. Mahal ang galit: ang mga taong nagpadala sa galit, nagbabayad ng buhay. Hindi lamang sa bilangguan, kundi sa konsyensya.

Pangatlo, sa likod ng tanong ni Pedro, makikita natin ang isa pang tanong: Ano ang aking gagawin upang ang ugnayan naming magkapatid sa dugo, sa pananampalataya, o sa pagkakaibigan, ay manatili pagpakailanman; sa kabila ng paulit-ulit na pagkakasala? Hanggang makapito ba? Tapos, hindi ko na patatawarin.

Iisa ang sagot ni Hesus: "pitumpung ulit pa nito." Sa panahon ni Hesus, ang numerong pito, No. 7 ay numero ng "magpakailanman." Kung ang pagpapatawad ay pitumpung uulitin, ibig sabihin, ang kapatawaran ay walang-hanggan. Paulit-ulit mang gagawin. Malalim man ang sugat.

Sa tanong ni Pedro, "Ano ang aking gagawin upang ang samahan namin ay maging magpakailanman?" Iisa ang sagot ni Hesus, "Patatawarin mo siyang magpakailan man." Paulit-ulit. Bawat sandali. Bawat oras ng pagkakasala.

Ngunit isang babala: hindi ibig sabihin na palalampasin na lamang ang sama ng loob, ang galit. Kung minamaltrato ka ng asawa mo, hahayaan mo na lang ba dahil sabi ni Hesus, patawarin magpakailanman? Ang kapatawaran ay hindi pang-aalipin. Ang pagpapatawad naka-ukit sa dangal ng tao. Dahil ang utos na magpatawad ng kapwa nanggagaling sa Diyos na unang nagpatawad sa taong may dangal.

Pag-usapan nang magkaunawaan. Ito ang sikreto ng malalim na samahan:

Ang galit huwag sanang maging hadlang sa pagmamahalan.

Stages in Forgiveness

11 September 2005: 24th Sunday of the Year
Matthew 18, 21-35: Part II on Forgiveness

Toward the end of her almost epochal book, The Human Condition (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958), the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt turns finally to two neglected powers of the human spirit: forgiveness to heal our past, and promises to secure our future. The only remedy for the inevitability of history, says Arendt, is forgiveness. She means that in the natural course of things we are stuck with our past and its effects on us. We may learn from our history, but we cannot escape it. We may forget our history, but we cannot undo it. We may be doomed to repeat our history, but we cannot change it. Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That one thing is forgiveness. Jesus tells us that if we do not forgive our fellows, we should not expect God to forgive us (Mark 11:25).

Three Stages when we forgive. A. Suffering. No one really forgives unless he has been hurt. You can be hurt when you suffer at the hands of people you love. But not every hurt needs to be forgiven. There are some hurts that we can swallow, and shrug off. We should not try to forgive when all we need is simply a little spiritual generosity. Consider the following hurts: 1) Annoyances. People annoy us by being late for appointments, and by telling boring stories at dinner. 2) Defeats. Some people succeed when we fail; they get promotions when we are ignored; they always seem to be there ahead of us—and to make things worse, these people who beat us are our friends. 3) Slights. People we want to notice us ignore us; professors and priests we adored forget our names two years after graduation. These are all hurts, but they are not the kind that needs forgiving. Such bits and pieces of suffering require tolerance, magnanimity, indulgence, humility—but not forgiving!

There are two kinds of hurts that must be answered with the miracle of forgiving. They are acts of disloyalty and acts of betrayal. 1) Disloyalty. A person is disloyal if he treats you as a stranger when, in fact, he belongs to you as a friend or partner. Each of us is bound to some special others by the invisible fibers of loyalty. The bonding tells us who we are: we are who we are, most deeply, because of the people we belong to. This is why disloyalty is so serious. When someone who belongs to us treats us like a stranger --- he digs a deep ditch; and he builds a wall between the two of us. And in doing so he assaults our very identity. Words like "abandon," or "forsake," or "let down" come to mind when a husband has an affair with his wife's friend; someone who belongs to you by some spoken or unspoken promise such as friendships treat you like a stranger. 2) Betrayal. Turn the screw a little tighter, and disloyalty becomes betrayal. As disloyalty makes strangers of people who belong to each other, betrayal turns them into enemies. We are disloyal when we let people down. We betray them when we cut them in pieces. For example, Peter was disloyal when he denied he ever knew the Lord; Judas betrayed Jesus when he turned him over to his enemies. You betray me when you take a secret I trusted with you and reveal it to someone who is likely to use it against me or whisper my secret shame to a gossiper. These examples all have the same painful feature: someone who is committed to be on your side turns against you as an enemy. The moment of forgiving comes when someone who ought to be with you forsakes you, when someone who ought to be for you turns against you.

B. Spiritual surgery. The second stage of forgiving involves the hurt person's inner response to the one who wronged him. When you forgive someone, you slice away the wrong from the person who did it. You disengage that person from his hurtful act. You recreate him. He is remade in your memory. You feel him now not as the person who alienated you, but as the person who belongs to you. You recreated your past by recreating the person whose wrong made your past painful.

You do not change him, out there, in his being. But when you recreate him in your own memory, there, within you, he has been altered by spiritual surgery. God does it this way, too. He releases us from sin like a mother washes dirt from a child's face, or as a person takes a burden off your back. The Bible's metaphors point to a surgery within God's memory of what we are. Sometimes this stage is as far as we can go. Sometimes we need to forgive people who are dead and gone. Sometimes we need to forgive people who do not want our forgiveness. Sometimes our forgiving has to end with what happens in the spiritual surgery of our memories.

C. Starting over. The miracle of forgiveness is completed when two alienated people start over again. A man holds out his hand to an alienated daughter and says, "I want to be your father again." A woman holds out her hand and says, "I want to be your wife again." Or, "I want to be your friend again, your partner again. Let us be reconciled; let' us belong together again." Reconciliation is the personal reunion of people who were alienated but belong together. It is the beginning of a new journey together. We must begin where we are, not at an ideal place for reunion: We do not understand what happened. Loose ends are untied. Nasty questions are unanswered. The future is uncertain; we have more hurts and more forgiving ahead of us. But we start over where we are.

Forgiving is not forgetting. We forget some hurts because they were too trivial to remember or they were too terrible to remember: All we need to forget is a bad memory or a compulsion to suppress. We do the miracle of forgiveness when we remember and then forgive.
Forgiving is not excusing. We excuse people when we understand that they are not to blame for the wrong they did us. Patawarin mo na kasi pinabayaan yan ng magulang niya noon. His past is not an excuse for the wrong he has done.

Why forgive? First, forgiving creates a new possibility of fairness by releasing us from the unfair past. A moment of unfair wrong has been done; it is in our past. If we choose, we can stick with that past. And we can multiply its wrongness. If we do not forgive, our only recourse is revenge. But revenge glues us to the past. And it dooms us to repeat it. Forgiving removes us from the chain of wrongs; nagpapatong-patong na hinanakit. We start over to begin a new and fairer relationship. We will probably fail again. And we will need to forgive again. Seventy-times-seven, as Jesus said, always forgive.

Second, forgiveness brings fairness to the forgiver. It is the hurting person who most feels the burden of unfairness; but he only condemns himself to more unfairness if he refuses to forgive.
Is it fair to be stuck to a painful past? Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind. It hooks you into its instant replays. And each time it replays, you feel the clap of pain again. Is this fair?
Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory. Forgiving sets you free. Forgiving is the only way to stop the cycle of unfair pain turning in your memory.

How to forgive: What might help. I must say something about how we forgive—but I cannot; I do not know how. Essentially we cannot do it. Maybe we cannot. But we do it anyway—sometimes! Here are three things I have noticed about how people forgive. These might help.
First, they forgive slowly. There are instant forgivers, I suppose, but not many. We should not count on power to forgive bad hurts very quickly. Essentially, we cannot; but eventually we do. God takes his time with a lot of things. Second, they forgive communally. Can anyone forgive alone? I do not think I can. I need people who hurt as I hurt, and who hate as I hate. I need persons who are struggling as hard as I need to struggle before I come through forgivingly. It is fine if you can do it all by yourself; but if you are hooked into your videotape of past pain, seek a fellowship of slow forgivers, or the fellowship of people who knows how to listen to you. They may help.

The Gospel of Mark mentions that we are forgiven only when we forgive. Therefore, we forgive only when we have experience what it is to be forgiven. When it comes down to it, anyone who forgives can hardly tell the difference between feeling forgiven and doing the forgiving. We are such a mixture of sinners and sinned against, we cannot forgive people who offend us without feeling that we are being set free ourselves.

Joy to the Latecomers

18 September 2005: 25th Sunday of the Year
Matthew 20:1-16: The Workers in the Vineyard

A few things have to be said about the Gospel today. 1) Matthew only has this parable; 2) The vineyard owner normally goes to the market place only once, to hire the day’s laborers; on average, he hires all the manpower he needs for the day. 3) The structure of the story is a literary device to show a progressive contrast between the morning and the evening laborers, therefore, providing the setting for the story.

The point of the Gospel is simple. Just as a vineyard owner who hires laborers at different hours and times of the day and gives the same full salary to all, God rewards the Kingdom of God to all even to the latecomers. This is in contrast with what we know about justice: salaries are paid according to the labor rendered, and the hours spent at work.

This is very consoling to all those who think that it is too late to change. This parable is an encouragement to all Christians and a good thing to remember: God is concerned about the latecomers. The gesture of generosity comes from the love and kindness God himself.

And on our part, we do not seek a reward for every good thing we do; doing and serving God is itself the reward. This is easy to understand when you love someone. The lover--- that is you --- does not ask for a reward for all the good things you do for the one you love. Serving the beloved is pleasurable and enjoyable. The beloved himself or herself is the reward. This is what the happy prince did. His pleasure is giving out what he has to those he loved: the people in his city.

In The Happy Prince, Oscar Wilde’s classic tale, the happy prince is nothing more than an exquisite statue gilded over with gold leaf, standing on a pedestal high above the city. He looked down upon it with his blue sapphire eyes and guarded his domain with his sword in which was embedded a priceless ruby.

One night, a small lost swallow landed wearily at the prince’s feet to rest. But before he could fall asleep, he felt a cascade of water pouring down on him. He looked up and saw that it was the happy prince crying. For the prince could see from his lofty perch a sick child begging his mother for an orange, while his poor mother worked with bleeding fingers embroidering the gown of a rich woman. “Swallow,” said the prince, “please stay with me. Stay with me tonight and be my messenger. The boy is so thirsty and the mother is so sad.” The bird agreed and, following the prince’s instructions, took the ruby from the sword and dropped it on the table next to the thimble of the woman.

The next day the prince saw a young writer in his garret, which was so cold that his fingers, were frozen and he could not write to finish his play. So the happy prince had the swallow pluck out one of his sapphire eyes, and flies it to the young playwright. The next day it was a little match girl whose matches had fallen into the water. She would sell none and her father would beat her severely. Again, the prince had the swallow bring his other sapphire eye to her.
At this point the swallow knew that he could not leave the sightless prince alone, and so he stayed to act as his eyes and to pull off, one piece at a time, the gold leaf from his body to bring to all those who were hurting. Finally, one freezing day, the prince was completely stripped of all his riches. He had given everything--his ruby, his sapphires, his gold leaf. The swallow, too, had given his all. The bitter cold that he should have left long ago got to him. In a last effort he flew up to the prince’s lips, kissed them, and fell dead at his feet. At that moment, the leaden heart of the happy prince snapped in two.

Finally, the townspeople, disgusted at the eyesore that the statue had become, tore it down, and melted it in a blast furnace. But the broken lead heart refused to melt, so the townspeople picked it up and tossed it beside the body of the dead swallow.

Looking down on earth, God said to one of his angels, “Bring me the two most precious things in that city.” The angel returned with the leaden heart and the dead swallow. “You have chosen rightly,” said God, “for in my garden of Paradise the little bird shall sing forevermore, and in my city of gold, the happy prince shall praise me.”

St. Ignatius has a very good prayer that brings this point clearly: that working for God, knowing that we are doing what God wills for us, is itself the reward. It is a prayer for generosity.

Prayer for Generosity

Lord, teach us to be generous.
Teach us to serve you as you deserve
To give and not to count the cost.
To fight and not to heed the wounds.
To toil and not to seek for rest.
To labor and not to ask for reward.

Save that of knowing, that I do Your most holy will.

On Violence

2 October 2005: 27th Sunday of the Year
Matthew 21:33-43 On Violence

Today’s gospel can be interpreted on many levels, but today I want to focus on the violence it contains. This is, as you sadly know, a timely topic. Violence forms the subtext of our daily lives. Nations, peoples, individuals of all ages--even kids--are routinely hurting, damaging, and killing one another. It has all become so commonplace that we hardly pay attention anymore.
What is behind this proliferation of violence in our world? I want to suggest that part of it is a shocking lack of empathy for other people, for the victims, an inability to feel what those who are hurt or dying are feeling. We lack empathy and we hurt and kill others because we have divided the world into “us” and “them”--a distinction that is high on Jesus’ list of what is horribly and terribly evil in the world.

For Jesus, there was no “us” and “them,” no blacks and whites, no gay and straight, no Jew and Samaritan. Jesus taught that our neighbor is everyone--especially everyone who is hurting. We must understand and appreciate his or her pain. Yet more and more, especially among the young, a sense of empathy is evaporating. With this loss comes an inability to be compassionate. And when there is no empathy and no compassion, there is easy violence.

So, here is a question: where does this lack of empathy come from, people doing horrible things? First, there is the pervasive philosophical vacuum in our society, which has its origin in the universities. The university professorate is largely agnostic, and so what is their message to students? That there is no truth. Nothing can be known. There are no objective standards, only culturally conditioned attitudes. All institutions, the places that used to mediate meaning, are corrupt. Religion is slavery. Lacking any objective standards, the only way left to decide right and wrong is by one’s own personal criteria. “If it feels good, do it. You do your thing, I do mine. Who is to say who is right? Don’t impose your morality on me: we are all equally right.”

The second reason for the lack of empathy today is because of the media, which is, as you know, a powerful influence on how kids develop empathy as a basis for morality. We see this most prominently in the message of most advertising: anything goes. And if anything goes, then nothing counts. We see this attitude everywhere; “whatever” is its common expression. The media celebrates being “cool.” You are in control. You show power. You don’t show emotion when someone is riddled with bullets or the life blood is draining out of him or her. You’re cool. In promoting this type of attitude, the media consistently and routinely promotes desensitization, the opposite of empathy. After the umpteenth murder, how much can you feel for the victim? It is estimated that the average child witnesses over 200,000 acts of violence on television by the time he or she is eighteen years old.

Here is something to attend to. Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman is an Army expert on the psychology of killing. Throughout his Army career, Grossman’s job was to condition soldiers how to kill. He said that killing is a learned skill because there is an innate resistance to it. How did they do it? Grossman outlined the process. In the first step, the men are brutalized at boot camp. Their heads are shaved and they are herded together, naked. Then they are all dressed alike. In this way, they begin to lose all individuality and become desensitized to violence. In student organizations, initiations look like this: they are whipped by a paddle, so that in the end when they become officially members, they do it to the new ones.

The second step used by the Army is classic conditioning. Grossman pointed out that our kids watch vivid pictures of human suffering and death. They see graphic depictions of stabbings, kicking in the groin and head, vomit, blood, and decapitations and they learn to associate all this with their favorite soft drink or candy bar which immediately pops up on the TV screen during the endless commercials. The success of this conditioning can be observed when you go to the movies. Listen to the young people laugh and cheer when there is bloody violence and someone is painfully hurt or gruesomely dying. They keep right on eating popcorn. Empathy, feeling for the victim, is a non-issue, a non-emotion.

The third step in making soldiers killers is deploying what is called “operant conditioning.” This means that one no longer shoots at a bull’s-eye in a neutral round paper or straw target, but at realistic, human-shaped targets. Now think about this: in the video games, the kids do exactly the same thing and therefore get the same “operant conditioning.” They shoot at lifelike figures. Grossman commented, “It came as no surprise to me when I read that the two shooters in the Littleton massacre had allegedly been avid players of Doom slayers, two popular computer games full of realistic violence in which players stalk their opponents through dungeon-like environments to kill them with high-powered weapons.” One video game has the player kill children. The only way to exit this game is to put the simulated gun in your mouth and pull the trigger.

The fourth and last component in training killers is role models, that is, the drill sergeant who personifies violence and aggression. And who are the role models for our young people today? Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and Jean Claude van Damme.
We, as a culture, are conditioned to violence. Our children are conditioned to violence. What it needs is a return to Jesus’ teaching: there is no “us” and “them.” Put into the words of his disciple, St. Paul: “There is neither male nor female, Gentile nor Jew, slave nor free. All are one in Christ.” When we, like Mother Teresa, can look into the face of a victim and see Christ, violence will cease. Bear with me as I close with the words of the great Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

In 1941, Mama took me back to Moscow. There I saw our enemies for the first time. If my memory serves me right, nearly 20,000 German war prisoners were to be marched in a single column through the streets of Moscow. The pavement swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by police and soldiers. The crowd was mostly women. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans. They gazed with hatred in the direction in which the column was to appear. At last we saw it.

The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips pursed disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebeian victims. The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back….All at once something happened to them. They saw the German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty, blood-stained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades. The soldiers walked with their heads down. The street became dead silent. The only sound was the shuffling of boots, the thumping of crutches.

Then I saw an elderly woman in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman’s shoulder saying, “Let me through.” Something about her made him step aside. She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief, and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now, suddenly from every side, women were running towards the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had. The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people.

When the women saw the men hobbling through the streets, they were no longer the enemy; they were no longer those who killed their relatives. They were just victims, and the women felt for them. There was an outpouring of empathy and compassion. The violence they intended was no longer in their hearts.

Forever at a Wedding Feast

9 October 2005: 28th Sunday of the Year
Matthew 22, 1-14 The Wedding Banquet


In Palestine, when a man plans a party, the date was announced long beforehand and invitations were sent and accepted. But the hour of the party was never announced. When everything was prepared, the servants were sent to the invited guests. Thus, to refuse the invitation on the day itself was a great insult.

The master in the parable is God. God has prepared a banquet for all and promised sinners a seat in the dining table. But the excuses of the guests are as relevant and true today. Like the first man who bought a field and wanted to see it, it is possible that we can be so immersed in our own businesses, our own activities and personal concerns that we forget to pray and to find some time for God. Or like the second who bought five yokes of oxen and wanted to try them out, that new friendships, new hobbies, new possessions can take away what should be kept for God. And finally like the third who just had a wife, that something as beautiful as family can defocus us from the ultimate source of our happiness. We can get caught up with the gifts, and forget the giver.

Second, preparation is indeed very important in the Parable of the Wedding Feast. In Jewish custom, the date of the wedding is announced, but the hour is never announced. This means that the guests are given ample time to prepare for the feast, and that the feast becomes the event of the day. The wedding is therefore special to everyone. It is the highlight and the most significant celebration of all times. And furthermore, the host of the celebration becomes the central figure of their lives. That is why the King threw the man without a wedding garment. Not that garbs are important. It is because what we wear displays our inner disposition. We come to a party in party clothes. We come to mass appropriately dressed to show that the Eucharist is central in our lives. We wear uniforms because we believe in the dignity of education. We garb ourselves in formal wear when we meet somebody important to show our esteem for them. By not wearing a wedding garment, the guest showed that he did not respect the King.

A final word: it is indeed interesting that Jesus thought of the Kingdom in terms of a feast. There is a form of Christianity that is dark and gloomy, a Christianity that takes away the colors from life. There is indeed a danger for most of us to view our religion as a religion of sorrows. We remember our Good Fridays but we forget our Easters. We remember our helplessness but we forget hope. We celebrate because we believe that there is always hope. That there is heaven. Healthy laughter is very Christian. Hope must permeate the very core of our faith. To attend mass is to feast. Conversely, to refuse God’s invitation is to refuse to feast. It is to refuse to celebrate. We Christians should show the world that we are forever at a wedding feast.

The Two Great Commandments

23 October 2005: 30th Sunday of the Year
Matthew 22, 34-40

They said that Christianity is a simple religion. Today, we hear about how simple our faith is. Jesus has laid down for us only two commandments, a definite summary of all the commandments in the Old Testament, which we can memorize and live our lives with. He has laid the complete definition of religion.

First, religion consists in loving God. The verse which Jesus quotes is Deuteronomy 6,5, which is part of the Shema, the basic and essential creed of Judaism, the sentence which every Jewish service opens, and the first text which every Jewish child should memorize. It means that to God we give our total love, a love which dominates all of ourselves, a total commitment of life to God.

Second, Jesus quotes comes from Leviticus 19, 18. Our love for God must issue in love for people. But it should be noted in which order the commandments come: it is the love of God first, and the love of people second. Our love of people flows from its source: our love for God. Why should we love people? Because God loves us, that we become lovable and worthy to be loved. The biblical teaching about people is that we are not a collection of chemical elements, or a part of the animal species, but that we are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1, 26-27).

How do we love God and persons? Let me first begin with ourselves: What kind of love do you want? I have a story, The Kind of Love I Want:

It was a busy morning, approximately 8:30 a.m., when an elderly gentleman in his 80s arrived to have sutures (stitches) removed from his thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9 a.m. I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to be able to see him.

I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On exam, it was well healed so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

While taking care of his wound, we began to engage in conversation I asked him if he had a doctor's appointment that morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, and that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I then inquired about her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's disease.

As I finished dressing his wound, I asked if she would be worried if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now. I was surprised and asked him, "And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?" He smiled as he patted my hand and said, "She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is.”

I had to hold back tears as he left. I had goose bumps and thought, “That is the kind of love I want in my life."


If a love like this --- when people love us for everything that we are, even if we forget and neglect them --- is the kind of love that we want, then that is the kind of love we give of others. If they forget to thank you for the things you have done for them, love them anyway. Because that is the same with God. Our God is a faithful lover: even if we forget and neglect him, the Lord continues to love us anyway. Because, like the husband, it doesn’t matter that she forgets, what matters is that he knows her.

The Meaning of Visiting the Grave

Matthew 23, 1-12. 31st Sunday of the Year
Homily for All Souls Day and All Saints Day

The Gospel today speaks about practicing what we preach. But there are things which we practice but do not know why we preach it. For example, we come to Sunday mass but we totally do not understand what the mass really means. The same applies to our practice of commemorating All Souls Day and All Saints Day. We come to the cemeteries without actually knowing why we go and visit the dead. Media commercializes these two important practices by putting in the Western season of Halloween: Television shows like Eat Bulaga! and various commercial establishments wore Halloween costumes as themes, and many of us associate November 1 & 2 to horror stories of ghosts. I believe Halloween is an empty tradition. I shall therefore embark on an explanation of these two feasts using three perspectives that are easy to memorize.

First, the perspective of hope. When I visit the grave of my father whenever I find the chance to be home, the first thing I encounter is the reality of forever. At the grave, I talk to him about my life believing that he listens to me and he is present. Memories of him flood my mind, and in the remembrance of the times he spent with me and my family, he becomes present to me always. Death therefore as faith has it is never an end. In the preface for Christian Burial, it is said that life has not ended, but changed. The same thing with me: whatever challenges I face, I am always reminded not to lose hope, because in the end, there is life forever. And the proof is my father’s presence to me wherever I am, never anymore limited to physical presence. My father is with me always, all the time, wherever I go.
After grief and sorrow, I find myself feeling a deep joy: that I am happy for Daddy, that he is home in the arms of God. Oftentimes, our grief is about ourselves who are left behind, but that is a different story. We are also taught that Christians should be happy for someone else’s triumph --- the remedy for our envy and jealousy. And right at the grave, we are asked to go out of our own self-absorption and be happy for those who have gone ahead of us. That their life speaks about forever, about hope, about God.

Second, the perspective of love. Closely connected to the reality of forever, we are reminded that all our love, all our life finds meaning, direction, and goal in the desire to finally come home to the arms of God. It is not surprising therefore that true lovers promise to love each other until the end of time. This theme one finds in our literature, in our songs, and even in theater: “Hanggang sa Dulo ng Walang Hanggan”, West Side Story’s “Somewhere”, etc. We have known this reality since time immemorial. At the grave of those we love, we have found the meaning of love. My love for my father thus is beyond the grave: not even death will bring us apart.
Moreover, the grave reminds us of the things that are really important. Often we are swept with trivial things that do not last: temporal things that have become the source of our pride. These are our economic status, our educational background, our achievements, and our titles. If we look more closely, we are in a twisted world. The Gospel teaches us that all of these temporal things are to be used for service, in the love of others. Case in point: when we reach the highest educational attainment, post-graduate studies for example, it is expected that our expertise will make us great educators. But tragically, many of those with PhDs are the most boring and horrifying teachers or astutely proud individuals. Our faith tells us that the more we have, the more responsible we become of others: thus, they should be able to adapt to slow learners as well as to gifted individuals. Great service is carried until the next life; the others end at the grave. Proof: we remember the sacrifice of heroes, and are inspired to continue their legacy.
In addition, those who visit us when we die are the recipients of our love. They are the ones who matter. They are the ones whom we should dedicate our lives with. This is the direction of all our courses of action, our decisions, and our sacrifices. The grave redirects our lives.
Furthermore, I find myself connected with my ancestors. At the side walls of the 17th century church of St. John the Baptist in Camalig, Albay are the niches of my ancestors who have contributed to the construction of the church. I was baptized there. I played the Kawai organ there in high school. And my vocation grew there. I would not be a priest now without the church built by great ancestors. In the cemetery, my mother would give me a tour of all the people there. She would tell me that her mother used to sing at church, and her father used to play the organ at mass. Today, that is precisely what I do. All these ancestors of mine contributed to who I am now. When I visit the cemetery, I find myself connected to generations of familial love and service to the community. I belong there.

Finally, the perspective of faith. Every Sunday, the creed is recited to remind us of the basic tenets of our faith. In the creed, there is a phrase that is the source of the practice of commemorating the dead: the “communion of saints.” Just as I am connected with my ancestors, we who are pilgrims here on earth are connected with those who are still being purified and those who are already with God. And all those who are with God are holy people: they are saints, whether known or unknown.
And their presences are manifestations of God’s personal love for us. By their lives, we are guided. We are assured that we are never alone. I know my father is a saint: his life has been a good example to me and my family. His being father when I was a child was my first encounter of God’s fatherly love; and it continues to be until now, and in the future.

As we visit the graves of our loved ones, let us make our visit meaningful by keeping them in mind. And at the same time, re-evaluate our lives in the perspectives of hope, love and faith. And maybe ask just one question: what would I like people to remember me by when I die or what could be my contribution to the people who will succeed me? As we commune with them, we pray for them that they too pray will for us.