CHOOSING GOD

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Am 8: 4 – 7 / Ps 113 / 1 Tm 2: 1 – 8 / Lk 16: 1 – 13 or 16: 10 – 13

“Namamangka sa dalawang ilog (paddling the banca on two rivers).” A Tagalog idiomatic expression which means that a person has a divided heart. Here are some examples: a married man having relations with another woman; or an altar of the Santo Nino placed side by side with an image of a golden cat; or your friend backbiting you when you are not around. Simply said, the Tagalog saying means living a double standard lifestyle.

Our Gospel this Sunday explicitly rejects a double standard lifestyle. Jesus tells us, “no servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Even St. Paul in our second reading today tells us that there is only one God. “There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all.”

And so, we ask ourselves, why only one? Isn’t it that the more, the merrier? Why not two? Why love one and hate the other? Let me answer our questions with the three F’s.

Loving God alone makes us focus our heads, hearts, and hands to God alone. When we love the Lord alone, then, we focus ourselves to things in our lives which can help us love the Lord more. We work only for things that can make us focus on our relationship with Him.

Loving God alone makes us faithful to our relationship with Him. When we look for other loves, then, our hearts become divided. When we entertain the other side of the fence, then, time will come when we fall out of love for God and become unfaithful to him. Hence, we must love God alone.

Loving God alone brings us to our finish line we call heaven. If here on earth, we only love God and our neighbors then surely we are brought to our finish line that is heaven. If students learn to love their studies, then, surely, they will reach their finish line which is graduation and ultimately the fulfillment of thier dreams. This is also true with us, children of God. If every day we practice loving and serving the Lord, then, surely, at the end of our lives, we are brought safe and sound to our finish line which we call heaven.

My dear friends, Jesus’ instruction of serving one master and loving God alone is not about selfishness. Rather, it is about preserving a relationship that has been wounded because of the presence of a third party – which is sin. Just as we set rules to preserve order and harmony in our human relationships, this is also the same context of our Gospel instruction today.

This is therefore our challenge that in this life, we choose God and him alone. By choosing him, then, we focus our lives to Him. By choosing him, then, we become faithful to our relationship with Him. By choosing him, we are led to our finish line, our home which we call heaven.

Our world today is like a marketplace. We have a lot of options and choices. However, in any marketplace, despite the abundance, customers only choose what is best for them. I hope and pray that in this worldly marketplace, we also choose what is best for us that is to love God and neighbor alone. By doing so, we focus and remain faithful to Him and for sure we will be led to heaven, our finish line.

LOSING AND FINDING

Twenty – Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ex 32: 7 – 11 / Ps 51 / 1 Tm 1: 12 – 17 / Lk 15: 1 – 32 or 1 – 10

Have you experienced losing something very important to you? I recall this incident with my father inside the retreat house during the Legion of Mary conference a few years ago. Early morning, he was calling home because he was looking for his sandals. Awakened by his angry voice, I helped him search for his sandals. It was nowhere to be found! After some time of deliberate search, we both sat down and surrendered. What did we discover? He was all the while wearing them.

The Gospel we read is just part of the long Chapter 15 of Luke. I forgo reading the second part of this Gospel which is about the parable of the prodigal Son. Let us just reserve our reflection on that beautiful parable during the season of Lent. In the first 10 verses of this Gospel, we see a divine action of God – he is a God who searches, who is willing to look for the lost in order to complete the whole. And this is beautifully portrayed in the story of the shepherd who looks for one lost sheep and the woman who searches for the one lost coin.

If we look into our salvation history, we realize that God has also been looking for us. In our first reading today, the Lord commanded Moses to go down from the mountain because the Israelites were already getting lost; they were now following the golden calf. In the Second Reading, St. Paul also admitted that he was once a persecutor and a blasphemer but God has mercifully treated him. At one point in his life God found him and appointed him to be His minister.

My dear friends, this Sunday, we are reminded of a God, a Father, who constantly searches for us through his Son. For sure, you will agree with me that both the shepherd and the woman in our Gospel today have to undergo a lot of sacrifices in their search for the lost sheep and coin respectively. You could just imagine the danger of the shepherd being attacked by wolves, or the woman meeting an accident while searching for the lost coin. This is also true with Jesus. Our Lord, while he was looking for us, has to carry the cross up to Calvary and die on the same cross that he carried. He sacrificed his very self so that the Father will find us worthy to be his sons and daughters.

The question therefore that lies before us now is: “Has God found us?? Or the better question would be, “Have we allowed ourselves to be found by God?”

My dear friends, this is our problem. We only allow ourselves to be found by God during Holy Week. But after that Holy Week, we continue to hide away from him and wallow ourselves into our favorite sins. We only allow ourselves to be found by God when something bad happens to us like a life threatening accident or a terminal illness. Otherwise, we continue to run away from him.

After our graduation from Theology studies, my classmate took a leave from his seminary formation. And so, he found himself working in a car dealing company. After some time, he was doing well and earning well with his job. In fact, he planned that on his birthday, this was three years ago, he would have already purchased his own car. A few weeks before his birthday, however, typhoon Yolanda came. And such event was a turning point in his life. Being a survivor himself, he realized that such super typhoon destroyed not only many lives but also his own dreams in life. He lost everything. Yet, God found him. He found God. Come November, he will be ordained a priest.

Now, let’s go back to our question, “Have you experienced losing something very important for you?” Have you experienced losing God in your life? Then, what did you do? Did you allow him to find you back?

My dear friends, today may I invite you to allow yourselves to be found by God because finding you means great rejoicing in heaven. And so today, sin no more and be seen by God. Amen. 

STRIVING TOWARDS PERFECTION

Twenty – Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 9: 13 – 18b / Ps 90 / Phlmn 9 – 10, 12 – 17 / Luke 14: 25 – 33

I remember Ai Ai delas Alas in Tanging Ina saying, “Practice makes perfect but no one is perfect, therefore why practice?”

You will all agree with me that the journey towards perfection is an uphill climb. To be perfect means having to go through a lot of sacrifices, which in turn, requires a lot of endurance. No wonder some people would say, “Buti pa ang fairy tale, may happy ending, samantalang tayo, ay palaging to be continued (fairy tales are better than us because they all have a happy ending while we are always to be continued).” To dream for a perfect life, a perfect family life, and a perfect love life is not an easy dream to realize.

In our Gospel today, Jesus enumerates for us ways on how to become his disciple. Allow me just highlight one of the ways which He offered. In the Gospel we heard that whoever wishes to construct a tower must first sit down and calculate to see if there is enough for its completion. Otherwise, people will be laughing at him for he is unable to finish it. With that analogy, Jesus points to us an important task of a disciple and that is to always strive for perfection. But why should we strive for perfection anyway, one may ask. Jesus in another part of the Gospel challenges us to be perfect just as the heavenly Father is perfect.

To strive for perfection is like building a tower as it is mentioned in our Gospel today. It does not happen overnight. To be able to reach perfection, we must sit down and calculate; one must work for it. The problem with us is that we are only good in the beginning. If you notice, after we go to Confession, we are in high spirits to be good. However, as time move on, slowly our goal to perfection fades, and instead of finding ways and means on how to be perfect, then, we simply say to ourselves, “mas maayo pa mangitag Pokemon kaysa mangita ko sa Ginoo sa akong kinabuhi (it’s better to look for Pokemon that look for God in our lives)”.

My dear friends, this is therefore our challenge: that in the journey towards perfection, we must persevere along the way. Yes, there will be challenges, there will be temptations, and there will be moments when we become tired and weary. People would even hate us for trying to be good and for being truthful. However, what is important is that we use these difficulties to challenge us all the more for that perfection. I hope and pray that we do not easily surrender and believe on the saying that if you cannot beat them, then, join them. If people will hate you because you are doing good, because you are defending what is true, do not worry, after all, at the end of your lives, it is only between you and God and no one else.

My dear friends, at 4:00 this afternoon, Philippine Time, Blessed Mother Teresa will be raised to the altar as a saint. Mother Teresa who was born in Macedonia was given the name, Agnes. Attracted to the Loreto Sisters, she went to Ireland to join the community. It was there that she took on the name Sr. Teresa after St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Since she was not English speaking then, she studied English well until she became a teacher herself. A few years later, she felt a call within a call; she realized that she must move from teaching to touching lives of people especially the poor. It was during her immersion with the poor especially children when she was being called “Mother Teresa.” Since her apostolate involveed the caring for the sick, she also studied nursing in order to be effective in her ministry. On October 2003, six years after her death, she was beatified by the then Pope John Paul II. And today, she will finally be called Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

My dear friends, Mother Teresa is an example of someone who builds the tower of perfection slowly but surely. Despite the challenges that she needed to face, she did not surrender. Rather, she used these challenges to strive more towards perfection.

How about us? How about you? How do you spend your life every day? Do you spend it working towards perfection or do you spend it working towards your own self destruction? Amen.