REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

4th Sunday of Lent (Mar 14, 2010)

Fr James McTavish FMVD

The merciful embrace of the Father

In the beautiful portrait of the Prodigal son, the artist Rembrandt shows the father mercifully embracing his wayward son. The evangelist Luke describes this moment “So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” If the father caught sight of his son it means that he was on the lookout for him, waiting for him to come home after such a long time away. And what a state the son was in when he came home! Rembrandt depicts the son wearing just an undertunic having lost all his money and all his dignity. The son is kneeling down in front of the father, and you notice that his sandals are falling apart. He has a scabbard for his dagger at his side perhaps representing some fear to come home. He has little hair perhaps lost from the ravages of syphilis contracted from his dissolute life with prostitutes. But this son is enveloped in the merciful embrace of his father. The red cloak of the father represents his overflowing love for the son. Even noticing the hands of the father holding his son, the left is bigger than the right. This represents the mercy being both masculine and feminine – firm but tender, strong but gentle. In fact one Hebrew word for mercy is rahamim. The root word here is rehem which means the mother’s womb. So it is a love that springs from deep inside, a merciful love of a bond that cannot be broken.

A fascinating feature therefore is the face of the son. His facial features are poorly defined. it is like the face of an unborn child. Being far from home, far from the merciful love of the father the child has been cut off from its womb and remains underdeveloped. The proper place to grow and develop is in the environment of merciful love. If we are cut off from this we do not grow as human beings. Yes we can grow and develop many capacities. Our bank balance can grow, our power and influence can grow but as human beings our growth remains stunted if we do not constantly experience the mercy of God. One clear example of this is our capacity to forgive. This is the litmus test of whether we are growing. How many people are tormented by hell fire because they cannot forgive, burning with anger, consumed by a desire to get even. One lady told me about the situation in her office where she could not forgive a colleague. Now six years on she is still dwelling on it. St Francis de Paola said that to remember an old injury is itself wrong. Why can’t we forgive? Because we don’t want to! Why are we not more merciful? If we realize how merciful God is to us then we will be merciful to others. Let us not remain in stubbornness but implore God to experience his mercy.

Experiencing the loving embrace of our heavenly Father renews us and regenerates us. St Paul in the second reading today describes this experience thus “Brothers and sisters: Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” (See 2 Cor 5, 17-21). Wow! A new creation, I want that. How many times people will search for newness in clothes but then the novelty wears off, in a new haircut even in expensive plastic surgery. Much better to place ourselves under the gentle and healing knife of the Word of God, which is sharper than a sword. Lent is a time of conversion, of reconstruction let us say. Lord renew the face of the earth and as I always add in the prayer ‘Lord renew the face of the earth and this face too!’

After having experienced the embrace of our Father that makes all things new, after having tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord (our responsorial psalm today, psalm 34) we may ask ‘Lord how can I repay all your goodness and mercy to me?’ For sure the best way is to help others experience the mercy of God. One definition of mercy I like very much is that of the moral theologian Fr James Keenan, S.J. He said that ‘mercy is the willingness to enter into the chaos of another’. A beautiful insight. It is not simply a feeling as we can feel merciful and feel for the other but do nothing about it. Enough of a mercy that does not move us to lift a finger! Authentic mercy will move us to act, to do something. And our good God equips us well for this task, this task that St Paul describes as to be “ambassadors for Christ”. Many people would just love to be an ambassador, to represent their country. How dimly this compares to the glorious task of being an ambassador of Christ himself.

This task of being an ambassador of Christ has been entrusted to us since baptism when we were incorporated into the priestly, prophetic and kingly mission of Christ. These three aspects of our mission are represented by the gifts received by the prodigal son on his homecoming – a robe, representing the priestly dignity, the sandals for the prophetic task to go and announce the good news, and a ring for the king. We are so fortunate to have a mission! It is the remedy for a terrible virus rampant in our world of today – selfishness. This is a terrible and destructive sickness. One friend of mine told me he had a 20 year reunion of High school friends. When they were in University and college they used to meet to discuss the future, and they talked of money, owning a car and a house. How sad this friend was when he met them 20 years later now that they have all these things and the conversation was only about earning more money, getting a bigger car and a larger house. HOW BORING NOT TO MOVE ON IN LIFE! Imagine them meeting at say in a funeral in 20 years time. How will the dialogue be? Exactly the same!

Selfishness is such an insidious thing that is why we need to pray. Why to pray? Someone asked me that and said that we pray for the same reason as a car has brakes. ‘Why does a car have brakes?’ he asked me. ‘To slow down?’ I replied. ‘No’, he said ‘to be able to go very fast!’ If you find you have no time to pray because you are too busy better to be a little more honest with yourself. The truth is that you are not so busy at all, in fact you are quite disorganized, wasting a lot of time, not disciplined and often running around but without direction. Prayer allows us to go very fast in life but we can come back to the embrace of the Father to experience his mercy and then set off again. Without prayer even one struggle, one awkward person will stop you in your tracks.

How wonderful the gift of mission we have. We need mission to grow, to develop as human beings. If we don’t have a mission we get lost in ourselves. Mission is a little moment to think of others. What is your concrete mission? Woe to the man who has no mission. He will soon be trapped in himself. You have a right to share the Good news so exercise that right! If you don’t believe it is a right then just read number 225 of the Canon law of the Church – “All the Christian faithful possess the right to work so that the divine message of salvation is made known and accepted by all persons everywhere in the world. This obligation is even more compelling in those circumstances in which only through them can people hear the gospel and know Christ.”

Let us enjoy the merciful embrace of our Father. May his mercy be the motor of our missionary response as Christians. And may Mary our Mother accompany us day of this short life as try to bring many prodigal sons and daughters back to the house of the Father. Amen.

REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

Homily for 3rd Sunday of Lent
Fr James McTavish FMVD

Needed: A good gardener

I have just finished my teaching a course for Moral theology in a nearby Jesuit university. How much I have enjoyed it! Seeing as it was my first time I was very open to learn how best to teach the students and also quite modest in my aspirations – I would just try my best. A good fruit. Now at the end of the semester I see that the course went very well. The students are delighted and some were even saying that it was wonderful and inspirational. They want to canonize me already or maybe they are just saying that to please me just before I give them their final exam! In one moment I was daydreaming imagining myself receiving the non-existent best teacher of the year award and how many students would flock to my future courses. This is why St Paul advises us to be vigilant as “whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.” (1 Cor 10, 12) What could the fall be? To lose the freedom I have in teaching. At the beginning I lived it as a gift and with freedom. When we appropriate it for ourselves it is a hard task to live up to. We stop seeing it as a gift, as the work of the Spirit in us. We feel under pressure to perform, to live up to expectations. Instead of living in freedom we feel as the rock band Queen sang “Under pressure”! We need to keep a gentle eye on our spiritual garden, to see if there any weeds among the wheat.

What helps us on the Lenten journey is humble self knowledge. As St Thomas a Kempis reminds us in his spiritual classic The Imitation of Christ ‘A humble farmer who serves God is better than a proud intellectual who neglects his soul to study the course of the stars.’ (Book 1, ch.2) Of course there is nothing wrong with astronomy as long as we do not neglect our soul. As is said of the man who does little to care for his spiritual life ‘A man who cares little for his soul will only understand its importance after he dies’. Humble self knowledge comes from the encounter with the living God. In the first reading of today (Exod 3, 1-8a, 13-15), Moses encounters the living God. God speaks to him “Moses! Moses!” and he responds “Here I am”. Here I am as I am, in my truth. This is me. Only I know who I am in front of the great I am. The Second Vatican council stated that the mystery of man is uncovered only in the mystery of Christ (Cf. Gaudium et spes 22).

Constantly we need to look at Christ, to seek his face in different situations. Lord let me see your face in this person, in this situation. What do you want Lord? At the moment here in Manila we have a beautiful apostolate. So many invites to give talks, retreats, recollections. Today I will be involved in a silent retreat. Many people have been approaching our community and asking for a day of prayer so 75 have signed up so far. So many people eager to listen to the Lord, to seek his face. Personally I am involved in teaching, giving talks, seminars, retreats. Last week I went to celebrate a mass in a deaf school and they are asking me to learn sign language. The mission is such a wonderful gift! As Christians we should all be totally absorbed by the mission entrusted to us such that there should never be a dull moment. Our founder Rev. Fr Jaime Bonet stated “The Total Christ, Head and members, opens to us in this way the most beautiful setting for our prayer, more than enough to clear up any routine and to stay totally taken by a living Jesus that needs me with all my being and constitutes the strongest motivation and reason for our mission. Our vocation becomes urgent and all the preparation and formation to correspond to Him, commit and claim in an urgent way all our capacities. Only a complete and full-time dedication to the mission fulfils us”.

Of course for our Christian life to blossom, to bear much fruit, we need a good gardener! May Christ the good gardener be the one taking care of the garden of our lives. He desires to work so that we can bear more fruit. He cuts off every branch that does not bear fruit, so that it can yield more. Constantly turning to him he helps us be fruitful and fertile. In the gospel of today there is a fig tree that does not bear fruit. The owner is complaining that it has not borne fruit for 3 years but the gardener pleads with him to leave it for one more year. The gardener offers himself to cultivate the earth, to fertilize it and nourish it so that it can bear fruit. Christ is that merciful and hardworking gardener who nourishes us with his Word, who softens the hard earth with his sweat and his tears. He is patient and kind and believes in each one if us. He will not rest until we are fully enjoying this short life. He has come to give us life to the full. Lord thank you for your patience with my life. We pray in this year ahead that our lives can really bear fruit!

Homily for 2nd Sunday of Lent (25 Feb 2010)

Fr James McTavish FMVD

A time for change.

Today I was talking to an elderly man and he said to me “This world is not as it should be. Something needs to change”. Have you ever felt like that? Looking at the world around you feel a desire to improve things, to change things. When I was 19 years old, I was travelling on a train in Czechoslovakia. In our carriage a man asked me what I wanted to do in life. I told him I wanted to change the world, make it a better place. He said “Do you know your problem?” I didn’t realize I had a problem! What was it? “You are too young,” he said, “when you grown older you will realize there is nothing you can do”. Out of my surprise I reacted and answered him back. I said with so much conviction “I believe it is possible!” Even then I knew that it was not me speaking but the voice of the Spirit in me.

Sometimes it is tempting to believe it is not possible. To think that nothing can be done. But today’s feast of the transfiguration gives us hope. Why? Because transfiguration is about change. In fact the Greek word for transfiguration is metamorphosis. Now anyone who has done biology will know that a caterpillar becomes a butterfly through the process of metamorphosis, through a change of form. It is a process, a slow one at times, from egg to lava to pupa but finally what emerges is a beautiful butterfly. Our whole life is called to be a metamorphosis, a process of constant conversion. How is this possible? Let us learn from Jesus himself by looking at the gospel of today (Luke 9, 28-36).

Jesus takes the three musketeers – Peter, James and John up the mountain. He takes them to strengthen their faith. St Leo the Great comments “By changing his appearance in this way he chiefly wished to prevent his disciples from feeling scandalized in their hearts by the cross. He did not want the disgrace of the passion to break their faith”. Jesus is praying and he is transformed. Without prayer there is no transformation! St Paul says “He will transform our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.” (Phil 3, 21). Wow! But this is one of the privileges of our union with the Lord, that he will transform us. Jesus is talking to Moses and Elijah who represent the Law and the Prophets respectively. One old lady I know always prays to Moses when she needs anything. I asked her why and she told me because he is not so busy as no one prays to him so he is a good person to ask for help! But do you know that sometimes we really need to change from a Christianity of mere rules and regulations (the Laws) and seeking visions and apparitions (the Prophets) to the person of Christ. For example going to mass on Sunday for fear of breaking the Law that you must go, or going because I love Christ and have a dinner date with him! Or even for us priests and religious. Many times here in the Philippines people ask “You don’t have a wife because it is forbidden?” I always say “I don’t have a wife not because it is forbidden but I freely choose not to have one.” Anyway I remind them, I have a beautiful girlfriend and a nice photo of her. They usually looked surprised and in that moment I say I will show them the ‘photo’ and then pull out my rosary beads! Yes, the most beautiful woman in the world – Mother Mary!!!

The event of the transfiguration takes place ‘8 days later’. Eight days after Jesus told them about his Passion and death but number 8 is significant. Some baptismal fonts in Rome have 8 sides. Why? Because number 8 is 7+1. Obvious you say! One week (7 days) plus the first day of a new week. It is the first day of the new creation. But there is no newness without transformation or transfiguration. What would you like to change? Are there things in us we would like to change? Sometimes we become discouraged and think that we can do nothing. But change starts in each one of us. Like the man who came up to Mother Theresa and asked her what he could do for world peace. She told him to go home and love his family!

There are some great figures who inspire us that change is possible. William Wilberforce who fought for the abolition of slavery in England (see the film "Amazing Grace") and Sophie Scholl the young German woman (see the film "The White Rose") who spoke out against the Nazis. A concerned citizen is someone who believes in their country. But we are not mere earthly citizens, of England or Germany or Philippines. In the letter to the Philippians St Paul reminds us of our true ‘nationality’ – “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3,20). You and I are citizens of heaven. Now a citizen has certain privileges and rights. The right to speak the truth, the right to travel freely in certain countries, the right to pay too much to renew their passport! But a citizen of heaven also has rights and privileges one of which is the right to work for a better world, to build the Kingdom of heaven here on earth. It is not only a right or a privilege but a responsibility.

We cannot spend time only enjoying the glory of the mountain. Perhaps Peter wanted to stay on the mountain because he did not want to touch the lepers anymore, or try to heal the sick or he got stressed out trying to affront and cast out the demons. But now is not the time for glory and honor but for sweat and hardship said St John Chrysostom. As citizens of heaven we believe in eternity. There is plenty of time to relax and retire upstairs but down here there is work to be done. Today we heard the sad news of another teenage suicide. How many people in our world of today are hopeless. We need to ask for a transfiguration, a conversion every day. To reach out to more and more people while there is still time. Just meditate on the fact that millions and millions of people in our world of today, especially here in Asia have never even heard of Christ, never had the Eucharist or had the chance to discover the wonderful transfiguration that occurs with the sacrament of Confession. Of course if we never make any effort to share our faith and our love, many may still go to heaven but I doubt we will.

What is the secret of the transformation? What do we need to change? Sometimes we don’t know as our vision is clouded. Even we can feel anxiety about where to invest our efforts as the harvest is big and the laborers are few. On the mountaintop a cloud covered the disciples. Their vision too was often clouded and they experienced fear. But in that moment comes the voice of the Father -‘This is my beloved Son. Listen to him” This is the secret, listen to Jesus! This will change your life from a BC to an AD. Lord transfigure us, change us. Teach us how to pray, to listen to your voice. I need to be transfigured. I don’t want to remain a caterpillar all my life. And the Lord may tell us “I made you to be a butterfly. It is time for change”…

First Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

Fr James McTavish FMVD

He overcame temptation for us and for our salvation

Jesus went into the desert for us and for our salvation. Thank you Lord for suffering and enduring for ME. He was there for 40 days to undo the disobedience of the people of Israel’s 40 year sojourn in the desert. In the desert Jesus enters into mortal combat with the devil. 

Often the devil is presented in the media in quite a playful way. The sports car is advertised with the slogan “Bring out the devil in you” or the ice cream called lust with the line “Lust, give in to it!” Dear oh dear. Anyone who knows about combat will warn you ‘never underestimate your opponent!’ Pope Pius XII realised that “the sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin”.

Who is our opponent then? Is it possible to overcome him? The whole of man’s life as the Catechism of the Catholic church tells us is a hard battle, “a grim combat with the powers of evil...Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God's grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity”(CCC 409). The devil is out to kick us where it hurts. Just look at the first temptation. Jesus is hungry so the devil tempts him with bread. The devil is smart – he knows the weak spots of man. As St Ignatius of Loyola tells us, the Evil one is like a military commander intent on attacking a fortress. He does not attack the main gate as it is too well guarded. Instead he circles around the walls looking for the weak spot to ATTACK! What are our weak spots? We need to know where we are weak so we can reinforce here. Like the man I know whose weakness is alcohol and that is why he abstains totally. Bravo! Don’t play with the opposition.

Jesus in fasting is practising self-denial. He makes a space for the Spirit. Fasting is a great weapon. The other night I was being teased for abstaining from my favourite dessert, chocolate cake. But I am happy to fast and enter the desert (not the dessert!). Fasting strengthens us for the battle. Try it and you will see. You will not die! Even it is good to fast at times from things like TV, or Facebook . What could you fast from to strengthen yourself? Man cannot live on bread alone, or TV or the Internet alone, but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God.

Ding a ling, round two. The devil then offers our Lord in an instant all the kingdoms of the world with all their wealth. Wow! The devil is powerful. How does Jesus resist? Our Lord knows one thing for sure. The devil is a liar. In fact, Jesus referred to him as ‘the Father of lies’ (John 8,44). What the devil promises is enticing but he is a liar. Take for example an affair. A young woman we know has started to date a married man. What is promised is love, passion and fun. But the road to hell is graduel! As C.S. Lewis wrote ‘the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts’. For sure this relationship with the married man is going to end in tears. We must see the deceit of the father of lies.

Once St Anthony had a dream and he saw the devil going around putting spikes, nets and hooks all around. When St Anthony awoke he asked Jesus what it meant. The Lord explained that the devil enjoys to place many traps around. Who can be saved? Only the one who is humble. When we are provoked, don’t bite the hook. When we are enticed by a no-go situation don’t take the bait.

Often the devil traps unwary victims offering an easy path or a short cut. To gain riches quickly but by dishonest means. Jesus is offered all the kingdoms but in fact they already belong to him. What is the temptation then? To get them without going through suffering, without passing through the cross. Jesus chooses the human way, a way of patience, perseverance and suffering, a way of love.

Round three and the devil (obviously in the red corner) attacks Jesus by questioning his identity “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you, and: With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”. Pope John Paul II said that the temptation here is to use God for my own interests. In other words not to put him first, not to put the Kingdom first. To use God, even my faith, my status as Christian for my own ends. Let us not put the Lord to the test.

Let us pray that the example of Jesus will inspire us. We too will have challenges and temptations this Lent. As St. Augustine reminds us “We cannot win our crown unless we overcome and we cannot overcome unless we enter the contest and there is no contest unless we have an enemy and the temptation he brings”.

May we be strengthened by the Lenten practices of fasting, almsgiving and prayer. May we not lose courage in the battle but stay close to our Lord who overcame despite being tempted “in every way”. We have a God who knows what it is to struggle with the Evil one but he also knows what it is to overcome. He reassures us “You will have struggles in the world but be brave. I have defeated the world” (John 16,33). Thank you Jesus for enduring, for overcoming the temptations, for us and for our salvation.

Lent, REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

“Remain united to me and you will be fruitful!”

(Fr. James McTavish FMVD)

In the Philippines there are many types of fruit; jackfruit, starfruit, bananas, melons, coconut and of course delicious pineapples and mangoes. In a document of Vatican II, the Church exhorts all the Christian faithful “to bear fruit in charity for the life of the world” (Optatam totius 16). We are called to be fruitful! Jesus calls each one of us in the gospel of today to bear much fruit (Jn 15, 1-8). He is the good gardener and says “I am the vine and you are the branches. Remain united to me and you will bear much fruit”. What are these fruits? Fruits of the Holy spirit! Joy, peace, love, understanding, kindness, courage and many more. The secret to a Christian life that bears fruit? Remaining united to Jesus. Cut off from him we can do nothing. Once a man said to Jesus “I can do many things not united to you”. And the Lord responded “Yes, but nothing good”. Jesus insists on this vital union with him. “As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.”

What is this vital union with Jesus? It is a living connection, listening to his word and putting it into practice. To be rooted in his word. Can a Christian still bear fruit if he is not rooted in listening to the word of God. Yes, but the fruits will always remain small. Like the fruits of a Bonsai tree. A Bonsai tree looks pretty. It has cute little fruits but they do not serve anyone. Why are the fruits so small? Because the roots are shallow. When Jesus was explaining the parable of the sower he talked of the man with shallow roots “He who has no roots lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away.” (Matt 13,21). However a deep listening will give us deep roots. The one who dedicates time to listen to the Word of God “is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: It fears not the heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; In the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit.” (Jeremiah 17,8). How deep are our roots? Deep enough to bear the drought? 

I remember a leader of a Church group sharing about the lack of vitality in his group. They were so very active, doing many things but producing little fruit. They decided to dedicate to prayer for one year and actually stopped the regular activity. When they recommenced the group blossomed and bore much fruit. Jesus tells us in the gospel today “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask what you will and you shall get it”. Jesus is the first one who wants us to bear much fruit! He knows that fruit bearing makes us happy. When our lives have bitter fruits like anger, resentment or jealousy then we have faces like someone who has bit a sour lemon! Jesus wants to see us happy! That is why he insists “Remain united to me and you will bear much fruit. When you bear much fruit you give my Father glory”. Oh that our lives could be like the display of the fruit sellers here in the Philippines – full of choice, juicy, colorful fruits of all shapes and sizes. Lord help us to remain united to you, to be rooted deeply in your word so that our lives can be truly fruitful! Amen. 

Lent, REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

     ¨Peace be with you!¨ 

(Fr. James McTavish FMVD)

In today´s gospel (Luke 24, 36-48) Jesus once again appears to his disciples in a so-called Post resurrection appearance. He stands in their midst and announces ¨Peace be with you!¨ The disciples are startled and terrified. They think they are seeing a ghost. Jesus tells them that it is he himself. After this the disciples are filled with joy and amazement. We see the disciples going through the gamut of emotions – in one minute fearful and afraid, then doubting and not believing, then amazed and joyful. In many ways a parody of our own human experiences. Some days we are up, sometimes we are down and sometimes we do not know where we are! We are changeable! But Jesus is constant and his choice and love for each one of us is constant and unchangeable. He could have said to the disciples ¨Right, I have had it up to here with you all. Enough is enough. I am going to find some others who might believe in me more¨. But no, the election of his beloved is permanent, stable and everlasting. He is faithful even when we are unfaithful. He appears to the disciples and announces to them ¨Peace be with you!¨. He comes to strengthen them, to strengthen their faith and give them courage. 

Perhaps we could wish for the same experience – to witness the risen Lord standing in our midst and telling us ¨Peace be with you¨. But is this not what happens in every Eucharist? The Risen Lord himself appears to us in the communion of believers, in the Word of God, and in the breaking of the bread. And do we not hear Jesus telling us in every mass ¨Peace be with you¨? How different our lives would be if we really believed these words of Jesus. In these days I caught an infection in my foot which made me feel a bit sick and a bit worried. I started to take antibiotics but I needed something to calm my soul. Man cannot live on antibiotics alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. I was praying and understood very clearly from the Risen Lord ¨Peace be with you¨. I felt calm. Later in the day, while resting my foot, I became anxious thinking of the many things I could otherwise be doing. I told Jesus and I listened to the same words ¨Peace be with you¨. Then later on I realized I could have explained something better to a person and again I heard those words ¨Peace be with you¨. How different our lives are when we listen to the words of the Risen Lord and not merely to our worries, concerns and anxieties! 

What happens when we don´t listen to Jesus and instead listen to ourselves? In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 3, 13-15/17-19), Peter addresses the crowd and referring to the crucifixion of Jesus says to them ¨the author of life you put to death¨. This is very dramatic. How is it possible to put the author of life to death? But every time we listen more to ourselves, our whims, our changing feelings and ignore the voice of Jesus, when we don´t listen to his words then we live more in death than in life. We live in anxiety and fear more than in peace and harmony trusting in the words and constant love of the Risen Lord. What is stronger in my life – what I see, what I feel or what God sees and feels? St Peter pleads with the crowd and asks them to repent and be converted. We need a humble daily conversion. 

When we don´t listen to God, when we say no to him this is sin. In the second reading of today (1st John 2, 1-5) St John reminds us that if we sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ. An Advocate who loves us and gave his life for us on the cross. He is our defender and shield. Even in the middle of faults and failings our God tells us in Christ ¨Peace be with you¨. Christ comes not to condemn but to save. He gives us a medicine to strengthen us too. What is the medicine? His Word. St John reminds us ¨the love of God is truly perfected in the one who keeps his word¨. To keep his word we must first receive it in prayer. To make space to listen to it, and then treasure that Word in our hearts, like Mother Mary did. What words of Jesus do you treasure in your heart? 

Once the famous 4th century preacher St John Chrysostom wrote ¨Why should I fear when the waves threaten to drown me? I have the rock of Christ´s love to protect me. Why should I doubt in the middle of turmoil when he has given me his written word?¨ We too have the love of Christ which is firmer than a rock. ¨The mountains may crumble and the rocks may fall but my live for you will never fail¨(Isaiah 54,10). We have received the written promise of God – the Sacred Scripture. And we have a Risen Lord who appears to us this day and tells each one of us ¨Peace be with you¨. 

Lord, you are the author of Life. Increase our faith. Help us to believe more in your love for us than in our shortcomings. Help us to believe more in your Word than in our changing feelings. Lord open our eyes to see your risen presence, protect us from the anxiety of the tempter, and help us to live in the peace of your risen presence. Amen.

Lent, A real historical event

The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical event 

Thus it is fundamental to our Christian faith and witness to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as a real historical event testified to by many authoritative witnesses. We strongly affirm this because, even in our times, there is no lack of those who deny its historicity, reducing the Gospel account to a myth, to a "vision" of the Apostles, taking up again and presenting old worn-out theories as new and scientific. Certainly for Jesus the resurrection was not a mere return to the former life. In this case, in fact, it would be a thing of the past: 2,000 years ago someone rose from the dead, returned to his old life, just as Lazarus did, for example. The resurrection is oriented in another direction; it is the passage to a dimension of life that is profoundly new, that also implicates us, that involves the whole of the human family, of history and of the universe.

This event that introduced a new dimension of life, an openness of our world to eternal life, changed the existence of the eyewitnesses as the evangelical accounts and the other New Testament writings demonstrate; it is an announcement that entire generations of men and women through the centuries welcomed with faith and often bore witness to at the price of their blood, knowing that precisely in this way they entered into this new dimension of life. This year too, at Easter there resounds unchanged and always new, in every corner of the earth, this good news: Jesus, who has died on the cross and been resurrected, lives in glory because he has defeated the power of death, he has brought human beings into a new communion of life with and in God. This is the victory of Easter, our salvation! And so we can sing with St. Augustine: "Christ's resurrection is our hope," because he leads us into a new future.

It is true: Jesus' resurrection founds our certain hope and illuminates the whole of our earthly pilgrimage, including the human enigma of pain and death. The faith in Christ crucified and risen is the heart of the whole evangelical message, the central nucleus of our "credo." Of such an essential "credo" we can find an authoritative expression in a famous passage in St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (15:3-8), where the Apostle, responding to some of the members of the community at Corinth who paradoxically proclaimed Jesus' resurrection but denied that of the dead -- our hope -- faithfully transmits that which he -- Paul -- had received from the first apostolic community about the death and resurrection of the Lord.

He begins with an almost parenthetical remark: "Now I am reminding you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you indeed received and in which you also stand. Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain!" (15:1-2). He immediately adds that he has passed on to them what he himself had received. Then the pericope follows that we listened to at the beginning of our meeting. St. Paul first of all presents the death of Jesus and then, in a very simple text, makes two additions to the news that "Christ died." The first addition is: he died "for our sins"; the second is: "according to the Scriptures" (15:3). This expression, "according to the Scriptures," puts the event of the Lord's death in relation to the history of the Old Testament covenant of God with his people, and he makes us understand that the death of the Son of God belongs to the fabric of the history of salvation, and indeed makes us understand that this history receives its logic and meaning from this death.

The Apostle pauses over the Lord's resurrection. He says that Christ "rose on the third day according to the Scriptures." Again: "according to the Scriptures!" Not a few exegetes see in the expression "[he] rose on the third day according to the Scriptures" a significant reference to Psalm 16, where the Psalmist proclaims: "You will not abandon me in the netherworld, nor let his faithful one undergo corruption" (16:10). This is one of the texts of the Old Testament that was cited by early Christians to prove Jesus' messianic character. Since, according to the understanding of Judaism, corruption began after the third day, the word of Scripture is fulfilled in Jesus who rises on the third day, that is, before corruption set in. 

Dear brothers and sisters, let us allow ourselves to be enlightened by the splendor of the risen Lord. Let us welcome him with faith and adhere generously to his Gospel, as did the first privileged witnesses of the resurrection; as St. Paul did, some years later, encountering the divine Master in an extraordinary way on the road to Damascus. We cannot just hold onto the proclamation of this truth -- which changes the life of everyone -- only for ourselves. 

And with humble confidence let us pray: "Rejoice, my soul. It is always Easter, because the risen Christ is our resurrection!" 

Once again, a happy Easter to all of you!

Lent, REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

Palm Sunday 

(Fr James McTavish)

Today the whole Church celebrates Palm Sunday. This commemorates when Jesus entered Jerusalem to accomplish his Passion, and was greeted by the crowds waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”. In the account of the evangelist Mark (Mark 11, 1-10), Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him to find a young donkey which he will humbly ride into Jerusalem. In this way the prophecy of Zechariah will be fulfilled “Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, Meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.” (Zech 9,9). 

Jesus then gives instructions to his disciples - "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately on entering it, you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone should say to you, 'Why are you doing this?' reply, 'The Master has need of it and will send it back here at once.'" The disciples go ahead and find the colt just as Jesus had told them. Jesus is the Word through whom all things come into being. He speaks and it happens. This is an expression of his divinity. “So they went off and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. Some of the bystanders said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?" They answered them just as Jesus had told them to, and they permitted them to do it” 

Although divine, Jesus does not cling onto his divine nature to save himself. He knows that at any moment he could call down 12 legions of angels to save him but he chooses another Way, a way that is both divine yet very human. He chooses to suffer out of love for us. He empties himself, as St Paul so beautifully describes in Philippians 2, 6-11 – “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” However behind this ignominious death is a passionate love for us. Only a love that is passionate about another could give itself up. Like a mother whose baby was sick. She wanted to take the sickness of the child upon herself. This is love. Jesus seeing the sickness caused by sin takes the suffering upon himself and goes to the cross with it to put it to death. The love of Jesus is passionate and strong. He will be mocked, betrayed, handed over, tortured but behind the scenes is a great love in the heart of Jesus, who goes to his Passion for us and for our salvation. To enter into this great quality of love and not just remain on the surface of the events of Holy week requires an attentive and contemplative gaze. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote “The death of the Lord is a mystery discovered in the silence of God. It is a mystery hidden from the princes of the world and only revealed through love”. 

Jesus is a man of conviction and he knows that riding on a young donkey is part of God’s salvific plan. He enters on to the scene of the drama of his Passion play with so much humility! Many kings and emperors would make their appearance with fanfare, trumpets and horse drawn carriages. This King is different. The other day I was going to a computer shop in a Trisikad (in Philipines this is a motorcycle with a sidecar) and I was reflecting on the humility of Jesus. When I arrived in the shop I was trying out my tagalog. I asked the computer technicians if their work was ‘mahirap’ (difficult). Their answer surprised me. They said that what is mahirap was not the computers themselves but rather the attitude of some customers especially “the educated ones”. It seems that many customers are arrogant especially those who think they are in the know. It made me reflect “When I am in front of others, is my attitude of arrogance? Or is it humble like Jesus, coming on a donkey?” One teacher of mine during my studies in Rome was a very humble man. He was so intelligent but he never made you feel stupid. On the contrary he was so happy to listen to you. He did not have to try and impress you and prove himself. Lord, help us to be more humble! 

The image of Jesus choosing a donkey to enter Jerusalem and begin his Passion week really helps me. The donkey is known as the beast of burden. Donkey’s are also known for their stubbornness. I imagine that donkey carrying Jesus was complaining and moaning. But when he saw the crowds, the welcome, the smiles, the applause, imagine the donkey saying “Thank you, thank you. You are very kind.” How great to remember that we are not the Saviour! The merit belongs to Christ. As the Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias of Bombai said “The bishop, like the donkey, must carry Jesus high on his shoulders for all the people to see and hear and follow. The hosannas and the alleluias, the palm and olive branches, the clothes strewn before it on the roadside are not for the donkey, but for his lord and master". This applies for all Christians too, we are just little donkeys, a bit stubborn, sometimes complaining, but Jesus loves us and chooses us for his work. 

Let us remember this Holy Week that Jesus is the real protagonist of all the events. Let us not lose confidence in him and his ways when he is betrayed, let us not fall away in faintheartedness when he is handed over. May we live the events of the next week with a contemplative gaze so we can understand the great love Christ has for each one of us. The love of a God who becomes man, suffers for our ignorance and indifference but he loves us so passionately that he goes to his death to save us from our sins. Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Lent, REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

"We want to see Jesus"

(Fr. James McTavish FMVD)

Some Greeks come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and announced to the disciples “We want to see Jesus”. Perhaps the disciples are surprised as the Greeks were Gentiles, non-believers. How great when we are surprised in our journey of faith. How great when the search of others inspires us more. Searching is important for Christians and Lent is a privileged time for it. Forty days of searching, scouting and scouring. Moses gave forty days to a group of men to go ahead to the Promised Land and scout around, to check it out and bring back the first fruits. He told them to be courageous. We too have forty days to search, to explore, and to seek the first fruits of the resurrection. All great explorers were courageous, they had a dream and were motivated. What is your dream this Lent? What or who is motivating you? 

We too want to see Jesus but we also need to search for him. Why though? We are Christians. Haven’t we already found him? But Jesus is not static! He says in the gospel “If a man serves me he must follow me”. Jesus says follow me because he is moving! If he was static how could he say follow me? Jesus is on the move. There is a film called ‘Catch me if you can’. But Jesus wants us to catch him, to catch a taste of his great love. Jesus knows that his love is the best thing for us. Our hearts can only be fulfilled by his love. He is convinced of this, that his love is the best for all men. Even enduring his Passion but he knows that only his love can fulfill the human heart. Like a boy I saw once in medical school elections for the new President. After a long and boring afternoon listening to campaign speeches he was the last candidate to be interviewed. When he was asked why he should be voted as President he took the microphone and started to sing a line from a Tina Turner song - “Simply the best! Better than all the rest”. The whole medical school voted for him and he won. Jesus too wants to win our hearts. His love is simply the best, better than all the rest. Our hearts are made for this love. As St Augustine said “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God”. 

The search for God involves our whole being. St Augustine describes how we wasted so much time searching in the wrong places - “Too late did I love You, O Fairness, so ancient, and yet so new! Too late did I love You! For behold, You were within, and I without, and there did I seek You; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty You made. You were with me, but I was not with You.” But when he did encounter God it was a total encounter, an experience involving the 5 senses “You called, and cried aloud, and forced open my deafness. You gleamed and shone, and chased away my blindness. You exhaled odours, and I drew in my breath and do pant after You. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.” (See Augustine’s Confessions, Book X, Ch. XXVII). Referring to this, the renowned Jesuit theologian Gerald O’Collins comments that the experience was an involvement of the human senses, of the intellect, the feelings, the will, the memory, of the entire being of St. Augustine. 

It is a total experience and that is why we need to keep on searching! It is interesting to examine what I am searching for and what moves me. What makes me sad also can help reveal our hidden motivations. And not to become discouraged or scandalized by ourselves when we find our motives less than perfect! But to keep striving and searching - “Rejoice, O hearts that seek the LORD! Rely on the mighty LORD; constantly seek his face.” (Psalm 105:3-4). 

We see this searching for God in the life of Jesus. The second reading of today (Hebrews 5, 7-9) tells us that during his life on earth, “Christ offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears… Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered” so that he could become “perfect”. And in the gospel Jesus tells us that his soul is suffering. Sometimes testing is needed to reveal the true quality of something. Mother Theresa had moments of being tested in a kind of dark night of the soul. Jesus had moments of tension and difficulty searching to fulfill his Father’s will. How great when we experience restlessness and dissatisfaction at times in our Lenten journey. Don’t dismiss them straightaway. Perhaps it is the Spirit stirring our hearts to search for Jesus. Our hearts are sensitive to all that is not genuine or authentic love. 

Our hearts are just like the sensors of modern printers which can detect when the ink is not genuine or authentic. We cannot cheat our hearts. We can try to fill them with a love that seeks to impress others, or a love for the worldly things but we detect that this love is not genuine. Only the love of Christ can fill us. Keep us moving Lord, help us to keep searching for you. Fill us with courage so that we can be bold explorers. Jesus we want to see you, to hear you, to experience your love in its fullness.

And ultimately our search as Christians is that others can come to know Jesus too. Our prayer is not only to ask for God’s blessings but to ask that our lives can be a blessing for others too. Not only to ask to see Jesus but that we can help others to see him. As St Theresa of Lisieux noted “A soul in love with Christ draws many others”. May our lives, and our search for Christ help others to know and encounter him too. 

Christian humor

Lent, REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

“You are God’s work of art” 

(Fr James McTavish FMVD)

Here in our missionary house in Manila, Philippines we have been very busy making a chapel. In all the Verbum Dei chapels in the world there is Christ in the tabernacle, a cross, an image of Mary and a world map. The map reminds us that our lives are for the five continents as each Christian is called to have a universal love for all. We asked a young Filipino artist to make us a map, Filipino style. We gave her a kind of bamboo shell and left the rest to her creativity. When we saw the finished map, wow! A work of art, with bright vibrant colors. It is quite gorgeous. In the readings of this Sunday St. Paul uses the same terminology. He says we are God’s work of art. Wow! Have you ever considered yourself ‘a work of art’? Sometimes we feel more like work in progress! The reality is we are God’s unfinished masterpieces. 

What fills us with more love and appreciation is when we remember where we have been rescued from. The first reading is a list of the faults and failures of the chosen people. God chooses to act through King Cyrus to bring his people back from Babylon. God does not get tired of loving. He is a very patient artist. Even in our sinfulness, when our hearts become hardened like stone, he does not lose sight of the masterpiece in the block of marble. St Paul reminds us “God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ” (Eph 2,4-10). There are stories of old masterpieces lying in tatters and abandoned, gathering dust and unrecognized. Then an art collector spots the real value of the painting, seeing beyond the grime that has collected. God’s vision on us never changes. Even when our lives attract some dirt and grime he does not lose sight of our true colors which can remain hidden. We have been made in the image and likeness of Christ. And with so much love.

God’s masterpiece of love and mercy is most clearly revealed on the cross. John the evangelist tells us that ‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only son’. Sometimes we hear negative things abut our world of today but we must never forget that God loves this world SO MUCH. So much that he sent his only Son, so much that he sent you and me. And the gift of the Son is this; “The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”. In the desert Moses mounted the deadly snakes on a pole so that all looking at them would be saved. Christ is lifted up on the cross and all who fix their gaze on him and believe in him will be saved too. God’s mercy is so great that it can reconstruct broken lives and restore a person to their original beauty. 

It is like the famous statue of the Pieta in St Peter’s basilica. Once a deranged man attacked it with a hammer, striking Michelangelo’s sculpture, breaking the marble nose and arm of the Virgin Mary. After painstaking reconstruction the statue was restored. Part of the mission of the Church is to restore damaged lives, through the sacrament of reconciliation, through her charitable works to give back dignity to lives that have lost their shines and to eyes that have stopped sparkling. Like the religious sisters here who have an orphanage for abandoned children. One of them was found on a garbage tip. But now after being rescued she is once more smiling again. 

God continues to ask each one of us to participate in his work of restoring his masterpieces – the lives of each person. May we be like Mother Theresa, a pencil or paintbrush in the hands of the Lord, offering to him our hearts as colorful palettes of mercy, joy and forgiveness for him to continue his work of art in the lives of many people.

Lent, REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

Your heart is the place of parayer 

(By Fr James McTavish FMVD)

In today’s Gospel we find an all-action Jesus causing havoc in the temple. He is all fired up ‘with zeal for his Father’s house’. The temple had become a market place and ‘a den of thieves’. Jesus enters and single handedly starts operation clean-up. He is on a one man mission. He makes a whip out of cord and begins to drive out all the animals there – the oxen, sheep and doves. Then he knocks over the tables of the money lenders, spilling their coins everywhere. "Take these out of here, and stop making my Father's house a marketplace." (John 2:16). Zeal for his Father’s house consumed him. What is the significance of this act for us today? We are on the journey of Lent, a time of purification, a time to clean up our act. Jesus has the same passion for each one of us, for our following of him. He desires that our hearts be a house of prayer. He does not want our hearts and minds to be a market place. 

Let us consider the animals present in the temple. Oxen don’t budge, they are typically animals that are very slow to respond, slow to react. If we are not careful our heart can become full of oxen. When we are so dominated by laziness that our will power is overrun by it. There are good things we can do but we lack the strength or desire. We become slow to react to the promptings of the Spirit. Our Lenten generosity becomes labored. Jesus enter into my heart and drive out all the oxen. And as for the doves well they are the symbol of peace but have you ever watched their behavior when they are together? They often fight each other! Sometimes we are the same, externally seemingly with peace but maybe with violent criticisms within us. As part of our spiritual preparation this Lent it is important to examine our hearts. 

The third animal present in the temple are the sheep. Now they typically follow blindly. They lack personal initiative and creativity. In the first reading we have the ten commandments. Sometimes we can complain that the Church is full of commandments and rules. There are only 10 written on stone yet to drive a car, the highway code gives us thousands of rules and regulations! Are those rules of driving to hinder us or to help us? To help us! Maybe the problem is that I am driving too slowly in my following! We have a heart that is like a Ferrari engine, with so much capacity of love and self-giving. Yet if I drive this Ferrari in first gear of course I will be bored and will complain. But the real problem is that I am not adventurous enough! You should be going at 300 kilometres per hour in a Ferrari! That heart you have is designed in the image and likeness of Christ. Don’t put limits on our loving! Do you put speed limits on your self-giving? I will help in this situation up to this point…I will give but only so much…these are self imposed rules and regulations, they do not come from Christ. Look at him hanging on the cross. Jesus did not put limits on his loving and does not want us to either. As St Paul reminds us in the today’s second reading we preach a crucified Christ. A man who loved to the very end. He did not limit his loving! Looking at him on the cross will help us remember that we have a heart designed to love to the maximum! Jesus did not put speed limits on his love for others. So go the extra mile, or even the extra mile per hour in our self giving this Lent!

As for the money lenders, well the love for money is often all too present in our world of today and in each one of our hearts. Like the boy in the big city who shouted “Help!” and no one noticed. Then he took a coin, dropped it on the floor and it hit the ground. The ‘ching’ as the coin hit the ground stopped everyone in the city their tracks. Let us not become so sensitive to money that we become insensitive to the needs of others. 

This Lent, as 2000 years ago, the temple of our hearts still needs a good clean out. The oxen, sheep and doves are still present in the temple of our hearts. Lord, come to us, save us. Help us to purify our hearts as we continue our Lenten journey to Jerusalem with you.

Lent, REFLECTION Sunday´s Gospel

The Transfiguration  

(Fr James McTavish FMVD)

The Transfiguration, recounted by St Mark in today’s Gospel, served to strengthen the weak hearts and drooping knees of Peter, James and John. They were led to a high mountain and before them Jesus was transfigured. His clothes became dazzling white and in the middle of this spectacular scene Moses and Elijah appear and begin conversing with Jesus. What about? Mark does not tell us but Luke is more revealing or chismoso! They “spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem” foretelling his suffering, death and glorious resurrection. The Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah) all concur that Christ is the glory of the Father and in him is the fullness of the revelation, both the Old Testament and the New.  The placing of the Transfiguration in Mark’s gospel is immediately after the announcement of Jesus’ Passion and Death. The disciples could not understand the announcement of his suffering or even accept it. They were afraid. As Pope St Leo the Great declared “The great reason for the transfiguration was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of his disciples and to prevent the humiliation of his voluntary suffering from disturbing the faith of those who had witnessed the surpassing glory that lay concealed.”

And how we long for the same experience of transfiguration, especially in the moments of suffering, in moments of darkness. We easily conclude that those disciples were really lucky to see what they saw and to hear what they heard. And what about us, poverini, the poor ones? But Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and so are his disciples! Like them we lose trust very easily, when the road gets bumpy, when it starts to become cloudy in our following. The Father gives us the same advice as he gave the fearful disciples on the cloudy mountain-top “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to Him”. Listen to him even if he is talking about his suffering and death. Trust him! Listen to him when you are lost, when in the darkness of temptation, when fearful of your weakness, when your vision is clouded and you have lost sight of the way. And lo and behold, listening to Jesus in his Word you are enlightened! Transfigured! If we want to be transfigured we must listen. The key to the transfiguration is listening. Only the one who listens will be transformed from a caterpillar to a butterfly this Lent. Listening helps us grow in a trusting relationship in this God who loves us and who supports us. 

I remember a meeting of our community before the World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005 when I was in charge of accommodating 200 people in tents. The weather was terrible, cold, windy and worst of all with torrential downpours. What encouraged me was the help of my dad with his 30 years experience in the military and also the faith of the overall organizer, a German sister in my community. Whenever I shared to her about the worsening situation she would always respond “If God is for us who can be against us?” And sure enough all the guests survived the unforgettable camping experience! How important it is to really trust in God. On the dollar bill it states “In God we trust”. But do we really? Our experience is often like that of the disciples whose faith was shaken in the announcement of the Lord’s Passion. They could not understand and were afraid. It is as if God’s tender care for us is conditional and so when things are going well “He loves me”. But when suffering comes, when we don’t control everything, when we don’t understand and have to wait, we conclude “He loves me not”. But is God’s love for us really inconsistent? Or are we the ones who are just a little bit fickle at times?

God’s love for us is steady, total and constant. He does not even spare his own Son. In the first reading today we see the trust of Abraham who was ready to sacrifice his son Isaac. But in the moment of the test God provides a ram for the sacrifice, prefiguring the offering of God’s son, the Lamb of God. This is why St Paul exclaims so boldly “ If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?” (See Romans 8:31-34) With God on your side that is already a majority. God is for you. “Who will bring a charge against God's chosen ones? It is God who acquits us.” As we read in the Jerome biblical commentary on this verse “God the judge has already announced sentence in our favour; hence there is no reason to expect anything different from him thereafter”. And as St John Chrysostom noted “If He gave His own Son, and not merely gave Him, but gave Him to death, why doubt any more about the rest, since you have the Master?” We should not doubt God’s love for us, this Father who to ransom a slave gave away His Son. 

Let us listen to the beloved Son this Lent, to trust him even when he talks of his Passion and death. With his disciples when they heard the voice of the Father they fell down afraid. Jesus touched them and said “Rise!”. Jesus will not be slow to respond. His touch transfigures moments of fear and darkness. He will not let us down. With his grace we too can become agents of change, able to transfigure the world around us. Let us journey this Lent with added confidence. To wait patiently for the transfiguration in moments of suffering. Surely this is the best training for the Easter experience where we shall share in the suffering and death of Jesus, by hoping and fixing our gaze on the eternal Transfiguration of his resurrection. Amen.

LENT: MESSAGE OF BENEDICT XVI 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

At the beginning of Lent, which constitutes an itinerary of more intense spiritual training, the Liturgy sets before us again three penitential practices that are very dear to the biblical and Christian tradition – prayer, almsgiving, fasting – to prepare us to better celebrate Easter and thus experience God’s power that, as we shall hear in the Paschal Vigil, “dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace and humbles earthly pride” (Paschal Præconium). For this year’s Lenten Message, I wish to focus my reflections especially on the value and meaning of fasting. Indeed, Lent recalls the forty days of our Lord’s fasting in the desert, which He undertook before entering into His public ministry. We read in the Gospel: “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry” (Mt 4,1-2). Like Moses, who fasted before receiving the tablets of the Law (cf. Ex 34,28) and Elijah’s fast before meeting the Lord on Mount Horeb (cf. 1 Kings 19,8), Jesus, too, through prayer and fasting, prepared Himself for the mission that lay before Him, marked at the start by a serious battle with the tempter.

We might wonder what value and meaning there is for us Christians in depriving ourselves of something that in itself is good and useful for our bodily sustenance. The Sacred Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition teach that fasting is a great help to avoid sin and all that leads to it. For this reason, the history of salvation is replete with occasions that invite fasting. In the very first pages of Sacred Scripture, the Lord commands man to abstain from partaking of the prohibited fruit: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gn 2, 16-17). Commenting on the divine injunction, Saint Basil observes that “fasting was ordained in Paradise,” and “the first commandment in this sense was delivered to Adam.” He thus concludes: “ ‘You shall not eat’ is a law of fasting and abstinence” (cf. Sermo de jejunio: PG 31, 163, 98). Since all of us are weighed down by sin and its consequences, fasting is proposed to us as an instrument to restore friendship with God. Such was the case with Ezra, who, in preparation for the journey from exile back to the Promised Land, calls upon the assembled people to fast so that “we might humble ourselves before our God” (8,21). The Almighty heard their prayer and assured them of His favor and protection. In the same way, the people of Nineveh, responding to Jonah’s call to repentance, proclaimed a fast, as a sign of their sincerity, saying: “Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not?” (3,9). In this instance, too, God saw their works and spared them.

In the New Testament, Jesus brings to light the profound motive for fasting, condemning the attitude of the Pharisees, who scrupulously observed the prescriptions of the law, but whose hearts were far from God. True fasting, as the divine Master repeats elsewhere, is rather to do the will of the Heavenly Father, who “sees in secret, and will reward you” (Mt 6,18). He Himself sets the example, answering Satan, at the end of the forty days spent in the desert that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4,4). The true fast is thus directed to eating the “true food,” which is to do the Father’s will (cf. Jn 4,34). If, therefore, Adam disobeyed the Lord’s command “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” the believer, through fasting, intends to submit himself humbly to God, trusting in His goodness and mercy.

The practice of fasting is very present in the first Christian community (cf. Acts 13,3; 14,22; 27,21; 2 Cor 6,5). The Church Fathers, too, speak of the force of fasting to bridle sin, especially the lusts of the “old Adam,” and open in the heart of the believer a path to God. Moreover, fasting is a practice that is encountered frequently and recommended by the saints of every age. Saint Peter Chrysologus writes: “Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others, you open God’s ear to yourself” (Sermo 43: PL 52, 320. 322).

In our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning, and has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being, a therapeutic value for the care of one’s body. Fasting certainly bring benefits to physical well-being, but for believers, it is, in the first place, a “therapy” to heal all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God. In the Apostolic Constitution Pænitemini of 1966, the Servant of God Paul VI saw the need to present fasting within the call of every Christian to “no longer live for himself, but for Him who loves him and gave himself for him … he will also have to live for his brethren“ (cf. Ch. I). Lent could be a propitious time to present again the norms contained in the Apostolic Constitution, so that the authentic and perennial significance of this long held practice may be rediscovered, and thus assist us to mortify our egoism and open our heart to love of God and neighbor, the first and greatest Commandment of the new Law and compendium of the entire Gospel (cf. Mt 22, 34-40).

The faithful practice of fasting contributes, moreover, to conferring unity to the whole person, body and soul, helping to avoid sin and grow in intimacy with the Lord. Saint Augustine, who knew all too well his own negative impulses, defining them as “twisted and tangled knottiness” (Confessions, II, 10.18), writes: “I will certainly impose privation, but it is so that he will forgive me, to be pleasing in his eyes, that I may enjoy his delightfulness” (Sermo 400, 3, 3: PL 40, 708). Denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving word. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God.

At the same time, fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live. In his First Letter, Saint John admonishes: “If anyone has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, yet shuts up his bowels of compassion from him – how does the love of God abide in him?” (3,17). Voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of his suffering brother (cf. Encyclical Deus caritas est, 15). By freely embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make a statement that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger. It is precisely to keep alive this welcoming and attentive attitude towards our brothers and sisters that I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving. From the beginning, this has been the hallmark of the Christian community, in which special collections were taken up (cf. 2 Cor 8-9; Rm 15, 25-27), the faithful being invited to give to the poor what had been set aside from their fast (Didascalia Ap., V, 20,18). This practice needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent.

From what I have said thus far, it seems abundantly clear that fasting represents an important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person. Quite opportunely, an ancient hymn of the Lenten liturgy exhorts: “Utamur ergo parcius, / verbis cibis et potibus, / somno, iocis et arctius / perstemus in custodia – Let us use sparingly words, food and drink, sleep and amusements. May we be more alert in the custody of our senses.”

Dear brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God (cf. Encyclical Veritatis splendor, 21). May every family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor. I am thinking especially of a greater commitment to prayer, lectio divina, recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist, especially the Holy Sunday Mass. With this interior disposition, let us enter the penitential spirit of Lent. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Causa nostrae laetitiae, accompany and support us in the effort to free our heart from slavery to sin, making it evermore a “living tabernacle of God.” With these wishes, while assuring every believer and ecclesial community of my prayer for a fruitful Lenten journey, I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.

Lent: an inside story

(by Jason Baguia)

HOUSTON, Texas—Social commentators have dubbed our time as the “information age,” an era unfolding on the stage of a “globalized world” inhabited by peoples with a predominant “media culture.” Some homes in this city, the fourth largest in the United States of America, exemplify the milieu.

Within the said dwellings, whether or not Fox television is slated to broadcast the popular singing contest “American Idol” may significantly determine the plot of a working person’s weekday evening. That person’s mood, too, may be aggravated if she happened to be someone who did not vote for sitting US President Barack Obama at the country’s elections last November and the “Idol” telecast is pushed back by 24 hours to make way for the live airing of the chief executive’s address to the nation on economic revival. Obama’s stimulus plan is something that our working person frowns upon on account of possibly implying greater tax contributions from and lower take-home pays for her.

But our working person may take some consolation in fresh memories of the laughter she shared with friends over luncheon while their eyes and ears were engaged by the noontime local TV news of how a pet owner had to call in the cops to calm a chimpanzee gone berserk. She may also choose, on another night, to rid herself of negative energy by hyperventilating with indignation (not necessarily righteously delivered or intended) about how some Oscar awardees hijacked segments of the well-produced show to flaunt their advocacy of same-sex marriages.

Even so, vast, quietly spreading pockets of hope continue to thrive in many places in our showy, ultra-mundane, media-confused age. In the case of our supposed Houston everyman, “Boob tube-, Playstation- and Xbox 360-struck” are only partial descriptions. Saving grace is at hand for him, in that part of him which belongs to the States’ actively evangelical “Bible Belt,” a part that may or may not be a member of the parish of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton under the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, which is headed by Daniel Cardinal DiNardo.

Less than a fortnight ago, the church, which offers Holy Mass in Vietnamese, Spanish or English, heard, through the ministry of 10 diocesan and Basilian priests, the first individual confessions of about 300 of its children and teenagers. Their First Reconciliation Day received poetic affirmation from the weather: Winds tailing a cold front ushered in passing winter rain showers that not only signalled the imminence of spring to squirrels, birds and people but also evoked the divine mercy that touches both the good and the wicked.

It is this mercy that the Christian is called to live with greater depth in this Holy Season of Lent. The Lenten penitential practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, while ultimately communitarian in their ends, should be lived with that personal intensity which philosopher Soren Kierkegaard calls “inwardness.” Inwardness has nothing to do with being anxious to the point of paranoia or scrupulosity to hide one’s Lenten or non-Lenten asceticism, but has everything to do with spiritual interiority, being on the road of intimate friendship with the Lord.

The Christian’s response to God should be personal in the sense of aiming at pleasing God and not at pleasing crowds, though it may be public in obedience to our Lord who named each of his followers the light of the world. Nowadays, the Lenten Fast is publicly proclaimed, just as a fast of repentance was publicly enjoined in the time of the prophet Joel, not so that righteousness may be self-righteously showboated before human eyes, but so that as many individual hearts as possible may be broken and penetrated by him who loves truth in the heart, who in the quiet and secret of our hearts can teach us wisdom: Christ who is the Truth and is Wisdom himself.

The Lenten exercises have no meaning outside their being our collaboration in God’s work of opening our hearts to the Son of Man who seeks its depths—molded by our Heavenly Father—as the place to lay his head. This is why our fasting, praying, and giving fail when made a spectacle of just like every other publicity stunt, act of keeping up appearances, item of media curiosity or political gimmickry: To do so would be to treat one’s heart cheaply, selling it for the price of fickle audience adulation when the real, promised prize of the heart’s training is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit commended to our heavenly Father's hands by Jesus Christ as he breathed his last on Golgotha.

If we go for the promised prize, we will gain the joy of realizing that, in the words of Saint Paul, now is the acceptable time of salvation. We will have let our hearts be broken open through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, to the One who, in letting his heart be pierced by a soldier’s lance one Friday afternoon nearly 2,000 years ago, first unleashed in the flesh the floodgates of divine mercy upon our love-starved world.

God always honors our sincere, though imperfect efforts at renunciation of self for love of him and our neighbor. This honoring comes in our increasingly “felt” presence in our hearts of the Crucified and Risen One, our reception in the Spirit, indeed in the Eucharist, of Christ’s most meaningful and empowering dying and rising. Thus are we enabled in turn to become saving manna for one another on this exodus towards eternity in the deserts of our time.