Easter 2009

Behold the risen Savior who gives us life.



















Happy Easter !

Surprised by sin

To capture the breadth, depth, and pervasiveness of sin, I propose that sin is simply the failure to bother to love".
- James F. Keenan, SJ

In his book "Moral Wisdom - Lessons and texts from the Catholic tradition", Jesuit theologian Fr James Keenan has the above interesting proposition.
He cites biblical support as he further expounds.
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As the medieval theologians understood well, every narrative in the Gospel is not about sinners sinning out of their weaknesses, but out of their strengths.
When the publican and the Pharisee are praying in the temple, the sin of the Pharisee is in his strength (Luke 18:9-14). He specifically considers what he has. When the rich man steps over Lazarus and ignores Lazarus at the gate and in need, the rich man's sin is not in his weakness, but in his strength (Luke 16:19-31). He could have done something, he did not - he sinned, precisely out of his strength. The steward who asked forgiveness for his debt is forgiven, but he is punished because he does not forgive the minor debt by his own employee. Out of his strength, the steward is convicted (Mat 18:21-35). Think of the parable of the Good Samaritan: Where is the sin? Even the robbers who committed the crime of beating the poor man on the road to Jericho are ignored: the focus is on the Levite and the priest: they could have acted but they did not (Luke 10:25-37). They sinned precisely out of their strength. Or think of the Last Judgment. Note that the sheep and the goats are separated by what they could have done, and whether they did it. The goats ask: "but when did we not feed you? when did we not visit you?" (Mat 25:31-46)...

Our sin is usually not in what we did, not in what we could not avoid, not in what we tried not to do. Our sin is usually where you and I are comfortable, where we do not feel the need to bother, where, like the Pharisee...we have found complacency, a complacency not where we rest in being loved but where we rest in our delusional understanding of how much better we are than others. It is at that point of self-satisfaction that - like Speer, the Pharisee, the prodigal's older brother, or the rich man - we usually do not bother to love.
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Some food for thought in this period of Lent.

Your will be done

March 25, 2009

Today is the feast of the Annunciation (Luke 1:28-38)

..."May it be done to me according to your will"...

Before Mary assented, she pondered for a while and asked with some seeming trepidation: "How can it be?, I have no relations with a man".

I guess it is ok to ask questions first, to study implications, to think with a God-given brain, and to understand. After this process, humility should kick in.

As we ponder this, we will realize that our prayers are not always "according to your will", but "according to MY will". Lord, thy will be changed?

At these times, the angel Gabriel may talk to us in many ways. How often have we turned down opportunities in the past to serve the Lord? Remained deaf and indifferent? On this very day that I turn a year older, I ask myself the same question and conclude: I have done very little. And so this day being also the feast day of St. Dismas, I pray for his intercession in pleading to the Lord: Jesus, remember to include me into Paradise! In the meantime, I pray for grace in hearing, wisdom in understanding, and humility in heeding God's will.

I took this picture of my youngest child early today. As far as he is concerned, I am almost always humbled. He just imposes his will on me, most of the time. I wonder why he gets away with it. Maybe it's because of my full assent. Just looking at him, I guess a more apt word is: surrender.
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The Practice of abstinence

The Practice of abstinence
- Fr. Joel O. Jason

This Friday of Lent is offered as a special day of abstinence. How does the Christian tradition understand abstinence? It is not only a physical sacrifice
but a spiritual one, too. It is a spiritual sacrifice because it is a way of showing our contrite heart to Jesus who bore all the suffering of man's sin. It is an expression of repentance for our sins and a manifestation of our humble imploring of His mercy and sincere regret of the transgression of His will. Bishop Fulton Sheen told of his experience one Lenten season while on a plane to a speaking engagement. When the flight attendant offered him his lunch, he excused himself saying, "I'll just have a sandwich, it's Lent.". The woman beside him also settled for just a sandwich. "So you're also Catholic," Bishop Sheen asked. The woman with a surprised look said, "No, I'm a model."

The fasting of Lent differs in essence from just plain dieting. When we diet, the aim is usually to look better. When we fast (although beautification may be its consequence), our aim is beatification - to be beatified, to be better. We become better because we are able to control our desires. Instead of being dominated by the senses, we regulate our senses because we are ruled by the Spirit. Then we become blessed, then we become better disciples and witnesses of our Lord. The discipline of Lent can never be dissociated with discipleship. Discipline without discipleship is like practicing for a marathon without running it. Discipleship without discipline is running a marathon without practicing.

In these 40 days of spiritual preparation, may we all become disciplined disciples of the Lord.

(En)countering Temptation

First Sunday of Lent
Mk 1:12-15

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the desert for forty days,
tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts,
and the angels ministered to him...
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First, a few explanatory words from New Advent

"Temptation is here taken to be an incitement to sin whether by persuasion or by the offer of some good or pleasure. It may be merely external, as was the case of Christ's encounter in the desert after the forty days' fast; or it may be internal as well, inasmuch as there is a real assault upon a person's will power. It arises sometimes from the propensity to evil inherent in us as a result of original sin. Sometimes it is directly chargeable to the intervention of the Devil, who can furnish the imagination with its sinful subject-matter and stir up the lower powers of the soul. Not infrequently both causes are at work. Temptation is not in itself sin. No matter how vivid the unholy image may be, no matter how strong the inclination to transgress the law, no matter how vehement the sensation of unlawful satisfaction, as long as there is no consent of the will, there is no sin."

Further on, it expounds on how to avoid tempation:

Temptations are to be combated by the avoidance, where possible, of the occasions that give rise to them, by recourse to prayer...

Now this last one I believe is the most powerful weapon against temptation. Overnight, my mind was filled with murderous thoughts (a hyperbole) so that I had terrible difficulty sleeping. It had to do with extreme disappointment with some people whom I perceived were very passive in our mission, to the point of being in dereliction of our covenant. The very people whom I thought should be leading the charge! I was thinking of ways in telling them off in no uncertain terms during our next meeting.

Anyway, after a fitful sleep we missed our usual Sunday mass schedule at 7:15am and went for the next one at 8:30am. My wife and I found out that the family assigned to lead the prayers of the faithful were not there, so we took over, together with my son who was then serving as a Sacristan. After communion as I knelt down in silent prayer, just then something went over me. I suddenly realized I was allowing negative thoughts to control me. There was another way and it has to be "in His steps". That moment was a WWJD moment for me. I thought about Jesus' 40 days in the desert, and then I thanked God. Tonight I know I will sleep blissfully.
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On fasting and abstinence

A good reminder on fasting and abstinence, published last year in cbcpnews.
Related posts here and here.

Canon lawyer says fast, abstinence on Good Friday is mandatory

DAVAO CITY, March 19, 2008—While other forms of penance are left to the personal choice of the individual, fasting and abstinence is mandatory.

Archdiocese of Davao Oeconomus Fr. Junar de la Victoria said that in the Catholic Church, Catholics are joined together in a certain common practice of penance not simply as a conglomerate of individuals but as a unified body in Christ.

De la Victoria, a Canon lawyer said the practice of abstinence from meat is devoted to repentance and it is mandatory on all Fridays throughout the year except on all solemnities.

A solemnity of the Roman Catholic Church is a principal holy day in the liturgical calendar usually commemorating an event in the life of Jesus, His mother the Blessed Virgin Mary, or other important saints. The observance begins with the vigil on the evening before the actual date of the feast.

In the Philippines , he said, fast and abstinence may be substituted with exercises of piety such as reading the Bible, going to Mass, visiting the Blessed Sacrament, praying the Holy Rosary or with acts of charity, such as visiting the sick and prisoners, giving alms to the poor or teaching catechism.

However, the canon lawyer emphasized that all these forms of substitution is not permitted on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) norms.

De la Victoria said the law of abstinence binds those who have reached a sufficient use of reason, and who have completed their 14th year of age.

Meanwhile, De La Victoria said that fasting is a physical process of restricting one’s level of use of such things as food, drink, play and others.

During the season of Lent, he said, fasting is primarily in preparation for the Easter feast, and secondarily, where a reconciliation process is observed, a penitential act.

He also explained that the law on fast means that only one full meal may be taken during the day; two light meals are permitted in accord with local custom as to the amount and kind of food.

“The consumption of solid food between meals is prohibited but liquids may be taken at any time,” de la Victoria added.

The law of fasting binds those who have completed their 18th year of age until the beginning of their 60th year.

“Fasting is also to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday but Vatican II also recommends fasting on Holy Saturday or Black Saturday,” added de la Victoria.

The canon lawyer also said that the law of fast and abstinence do not bind the seafarers.

It was also learned that there are official days of penance wherein Catholics are called to prayer; to engage in works of piety and charity; to deny their selves in twofold ways: 1. by fulfilling the obligations in their state of lives more faithfully and 2. by observing the prescribed fast and abstinence.

De la Victoria also is also a columnist of Davao Catholic Herald, the archdiocesan community paper.

(Mark S Ventura)

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Lent –A Call to Moral Renewal

Lenten Message of Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo

Lent is an opportune occasion for profound re-examination of life, for confronting ourselves with the truth of the Gospel, which demands radical moral renewal. Jesus Christ begins his public ministry with the message: “The time of fulfillment has come… Repent (i.e. change your mind and behavior), and believe in the Gospel!” (Mk. 1/15). St. Paul the Apostle gives his rejoinder: “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4/23).

Along this line, the scientist, Albert Einstein, offered a formula for solving the problems and crises that churches, institutions and governments are facing when he said: “The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created these problems and crises.” We will not solve our problems – religious, social, economic, political – by insisting on doing the same things that have produced the problems. The call of Lent is for moral renewal. To achieve this we need at least a critical mass of citizens-leaders who are willing to “break out of the box,” to jump on to the beginning of a new wave, to move into a new cycle of development, to operate with a new social consciousness and conscience, not for their individual or group security, but for the good of the greatest number.

We stated, some years ago, at the National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal, that “failures in renewal have come from a deeper source: our hardness of heart and resistance to conversion… We, as Church, have to confess responsibility for many of the continuing ills of Philippine society.” In a Pastoral Statement on “Renewing Our Political Life” (January 29, 2006), we said, and we can say it again, that “at the bottom of our political chaos is a crisis of moral values, a crisis of truth and justice, of unity and solidarity for the sake of common good and genuine peace.”

The most seriously affected by the crisis of moral values are the poor, the marginalized, oftentimes treated like commodities. Graft and corruption breed widespread poverty. Widespread poverty in turn breeds graft and corruption. There is a concatenation of crisis and corruption that goes down to the barangay level, up and down and up, infecting the whole society, like a contagious cancer.

To cure this social cancer we need a new breed of leaders in our country. The forthcoming national elections must not simply be a changing of hats for the same persons, or change of faces but with unchanged hearts. We must be able to gather a critical mass of citizens-leaders with a genuine passion and obsession for good governance and prophetic leadership. This critical mass will be the training ground of other citizens who will lead our country with the values of honesty and justice, truth and integrity, credibility and accountability, transparency and stewardship. These are the moral values that citizens must use to criticize and measure the present brand of leaders and raise up a new breed of leaders.

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