Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B

Jeremiah 31:31-34 See, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant of mine, so I had to show them who was master. It is the Lord who speaks. No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive – it is the Lord who speaks. Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people. There will be no further need for neighbor to try to teach neighbor, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord!’ No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest – it is the Lord who speaks – since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind. Psalm 50:3-4,12-15 A pure heart create for me, O God. Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offence. O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. A pure heart create for me, O God. A pure heart create for me, O God, put a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, nor deprive me of your holy spirit. A pure heart create for me, O God. Give me again the joy of your help; with a spirit of fervor sustain me, that I may teach transgressors your ways and sinners may return to you. A pure heart create for me, O God. Hebrews 5:7-9 During his life on earth, Christ offered up prayer and entreaty, aloud and in silent tears, to the one who had the power to save him out of death, and he submitted so humbly that his prayer was heard. Although he was Son, he learnt to obey through suffering; but having been made perfect, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation. John 12:20-33 Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. These approached Philip, who came from Bethsaida in Galilee, and put this request to him, ‘Sir, we should like to see Jesus.’ Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip together went to tell Jesus. Jesus replied to them: ‘Now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you, most solemnly, unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest. Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for the eternal life. If a man serves me, he must follow me, wherever I am, my servant will be there too. If anyone serves me, my Father will honor him. Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say: Father, save me from this hour? But it was for this very reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name!’ A voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ People standing by, who heard this, said it was a clap of thunder; others said, ‘It was an angel speaking to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not for my sake that this voice came, but for yours. ‘Now sentence is being passed on this world; now the prince of this world is to be overthrown. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men to myself.’ By these words he indicated the kind of death he would die.

* In the first reading, Jeremiah urges the Israel to stop following other gods and to start following Yahweh alone.  God, all throughout Israel’s story, has continuously renewed His covenant with His people despite Israel’s continued unfaithfulness.  In His mercy, He has continued to be faithful, forgiving Israel and re-establishing the covenant ever anew.  Israel is His people and He is their God.

* The Responsorial Psalm prays to Yahweh that He might grant the one who prays with a new heart, a heart which knows to follow God alone and no other gods.  The heart continuously looks for someone to love and many a time the choice falls on passing things of no real value.  But when it finds the One, God who is Love, then it looks no more but becomes content as a child in his mother’s embrace.

* In the second reading, the holy writer synthesizes nicely Jesus’ life.  He is the model of Israel because He has ever followed the Will of God, through thick and thin, through suffering and pain, even unto death on the Cross.  Jesus is portrayed in the Letter to the Hebrews as He who has the heart wholly at one with the Heart, with the Love who is God.  His obedience to the Father for all and everything He has done on earth is an example to each and every of us.

* Finally in the Gospel reading, John describes the “Hour” of Jesus as the hour of his ultimate obedience to the Father.  Here John describes how Jesus was obedient to the Father, even unto pain, suffering and death.  Everything the Father commanded, the Son did.  And so the glorification of the Son is great indeed because it is the Father, Himself, who glorifies the Son who did not have His own way but always followed the dispositions of the Father in heaven.

* Obedience is natural to us.  As children we dutifully obey our mothers and fathers, elder brothers and sisters, and grandparents and aunts and uncles.  We do not question, we obey.  As we grow older, questions start to arise from us regarding the commands and requests of our elders.  Sometimes the questions gather to the point of causing disobedience.  But as we grow older and wiser, wisdom and hind sight show us that although our elders are not all-knowing, the motives behind their commands to and choices for us have always been for our betterment.  There are sad exceptions but the general rule is that our elders want the best for us.  So from obedience to disobedience, we learn to obey again.  We have to learn to obey again.  We realize that if we do not obey these who love us, we anyway continue to obey either people who do not really love or do not really care about us, or ourselves, our caprices, who really only care in satisfying their own wants whatever the consequences to us, to you and me.  If we do not obey our betters, if we do not obey God, then we will obey someone or something else.  The former may cause pain and suffering for a little while but then glorification comes, but the latter may offer immediate gratification but later on eternal damnation.  Obedience is natural to us.  But the question is: whom shall we obey?

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B

Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year B, March 18, 2012 Readings: 2 Chronicles 36:14-16,19-23 All the heads of the priesthood, and the people too, added infidelity to infidelity, copying all the shameful practices of the nations and defiling the Temple that the Lord had consecrated for himself in Jerusalem. The Lord, the God of their ancestors, tirelessly sent them messenger after messenger, since he wished to spare his people and his house. But they ridiculed the messengers of God, they despised his words, they laughed at his prophets, until at last the wrath of the Lord rose so high against his people that there was no further remedy. They burned down the Temple of God, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, set fire to all its palaces, and destroyed everything of value in it. The survivors were deported by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon; they were to serve him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. This is how the word of the Lord was fulfilled that he spoke through Jeremiah, ‘Until this land has enjoyed its sabbath rest, until seventy years have gone by, it will keep sabbath throughout the days of its desolation.' And in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfil the word of the Lord that was spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord roused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to issue a proclamation and to have it publicly displayed throughout his kingdom: ‘Thus speaks Cyrus king of Persia, “the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; he has ordered me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him! Let him go up.”’ Psalm 136:1-6 O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, remembering Zion; on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps. O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! For it was there that they asked us, our captors, for songs, our oppressors, for joy. ‘Sing to us,’ they said, ‘one of Zion’s songs.’ O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! O how could we sing the song of the Lord on alien soil? If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not, if I prize not Jerusalem above all my joys! O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not! Ephesians 2:4-10 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 – it is through grace that you have been saved – and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus. This was to show for all ages to come, through his goodness towards us in Christ Jesus, how infinitely rich he is in grace. Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it. John 3:14-21 Jesus said to Nicodemus: ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Yes, God loved the world so much that he 

gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be condemned; but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son. On these grounds is sentence pronounced: that though the light has come into the world men have shown they prefer darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear his actions should be exposed; but the man who lives by the truth comes out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is done in God.’

Reflections:

* The bronze serpent was raised up by the command of Yahweh to Moses so that all the Israelites in the desert who were bitten by the snakes may be healed.  This serpent is somehow contradictory: it deals mortal blow because of its deadly poison but now Yahweh uses it to heal His people.  The serpent did not have the power to heal in its own.  The bronze serpent is just bronze.  What healed the Israelites was their faith which was encouraged and channeled by the raising up of their eyes to the serpent.  All who were bitten and saw it with faith in their hearts were healed instantly.  The bronze serpent is taken up by Jesus in today’s Gospel as a figure of His Cross.

* The Cross of Christ was raised by the Will of God the Father.  Everything the Son did the Father willed.  He could have saved us by just one drop of His Precious Blood but He saved us by giving His Life.  He was raised up on the Cross: a sign of contradiction to unbelievers and believers alike for the Romans used the Cross to punish most severely the most hideous of criminals but here God used it to forgive most mercifully the worst of the sinners.  The Cross, the Crucifix with Christ crucified on it, heals us not only of our bodily hurts but more importantly it heals us of our spiritual hurts.  With our faith given to us as gift by God Himself we are not only healed but also saved.  On the Cross He pours on us His overflowing grace and love. 

* The Cross has become the symbol of Christians since Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice.  What once was a terrible punishment is now a wonderful grace.  We have it in and on our churches.  We have it in our homes.  We have it in our pockets and around our necks.  But we see today that either the cross has become a banal object or it has been relegated to oblivion or shame as a sign of faith and removed from public places.  The cross continues to excite different feelings to different people and it continues to call us to gaze at it and make a stand: to believe or not to believe.

* The dreadful difficulty here is the radical decision which the Cross demands for those who follow Christ.  The decision to follow Christ does not merely consist of intellectual assent and empty promise to follow Him but to really make the choice, to really make the decision.  When we look at the Cross, yes we are healed and saved, but we are also called to heal and save others, in a way to put ourselves on the Cross as well.

Saturday, March 10, 2012 Reflection for the Third Sunday of Lent Year B


Readings: Exodus 20:1-17 God spoke all these words. He said, ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ‘You shall have no gods except me. ‘You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God and I punish the father’s fault in the sons, the grandsons, and the great-grandsons of those who hate me; but I show kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.‘You shall not utter the name of the Lord your God to misuse it, for the Lord will not leave unpunished the man who utters his name to misuse it. ‘Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath for the Lord your God. You shall do no work that day, neither you nor your son nor your daughter nor your servants, men or women, nor your animals nor the stranger who lives with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that these hold, but on the seventh day he rested; that is why the Lord has blessed the sabbath day and made it sacred. ‘Honour your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God has given to you. ‘You shall not kill. ‘You shall not commit adultery. ‘You shall not steal. ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his servant, man or woman, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is his.’ Psalm 18:8-11 You have the message of eternal life, O Lord. The law of the Lord is perfect, it revives the soul. The rule of the Lord is to be trusted, it gives wisdom to the simple. You have the message of eternal life, O Lord. The precepts of the Lord are right, they gladden the heart. The command of the Lord is clear, it gives light to the eyes. You have the message of eternal life, O Lord. The fear of the Lord is holy, abiding for ever. The decrees of the Lord are truth and all of them just. You have the message of eternal life, O Lord. They are more to be desired than gold, than the purest of gold and sweeter are they than honey, than honey from the comb. You have the message of eternal life, O Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:22-25 While the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, here are we preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle that they cannot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. John 2:13-25 Just before the Jewish Passover Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers’ coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.’ Then his disciples remembered the words of scripture: Zeal for your house will devour me. The Jews intervened and said, ‘What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?’ Jesus answered, ‘Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary: are you going to raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said. During his stay in Jerusalem for the Passover many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he gave, but Jesus knew them all and did not trust himself to them; he never needed evidence about any man; he could tell what a man had in him.


Reflections:
*Homo faber we are thought by the philosophers to be.  Man works, is born to work, lives through his work.  He makes himself better by his work.  We are even born with inlaid instruments.  We have voices for singing, hands for making and head for those ideas which innovate and make the world a better place to live in.  We work, we build, we create.
*Our contemporary society highly encourages work.  We get our bread and butter form the work of our minds, hearts and hands.  We build our homes and our building and our common areas and places.  We beautify our surroundings with our ideas.  We make this world a better place to live in.
*Since childhood all of us are trained to engage our minds and hearts for the construction of whatsoever that may be useful to us and to the community.  We are educated and disciplined in the arts of building and construction.  Although only a fraction of us such as the engineers and architects dedicate their lives in direct building of edifices, all of us one way or another build and create.
*Our readings today challenge us to build another kind of building, another kind of edifice.  We build on earth, let us build on heaven.  Our bodies are made of flesh yes, but we have souls too, inseparable from our bodies.  The obedience to the Ten Commandments of Exodus chapter 20 helps us build ourselves, our families, our communities and the world in general.  It is true that these commandments directly guide us by encouraging us to avoid what is evil but inversely we can understand them as invitations, even injunctions, to do what is right by ourselves, our neighbors and our God.  A life lived by these commandments is surely a life lived in the light of the Lord and far from the darkness of sin.
*Some people tend to think that to focus only on spiritual things is really foolishness.  If you say to your family that you have no house here on earth because what you are really trying to build is a magnificent house in heaven, they will probably make fun of you.  It is good and proper to look for success on earth, especially because many may be depending upon your labor and profit.  But the point here is this, that we can not only think of our buildings here on earth but we have to think also and even more of our future in heaven.  And some even, with a greater degree of courage and love, dedicate their lives almost exclusively only on things of heaven.  They are examples for all of us.  Their foolishness is wisdom for God and therefore for our emulation as Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians chapter 1 reminds us.  It is better to be temporarily called foolish on earth and be perpetually wise on heaven than the inverse of that.
*Finally John chapter 4's message is spot on on what is being set upon here.  As we build a temple fitting for our God, a cathedral worthy of Him for example, it is His overpowering desire that we build our Temples, our bodies, fitting for God, for the Holy Spirit to dwell upon us.  In this way, we are also preparing our abode in heaven.

Second Sunday of Lent Year B

Genesis 22:1-2,9-13,15-18 God put Abraham to the test. ‘Abraham, Abraham’ he called. ‘Here I am’ he replied. ‘Take your son,’ God said ‘your only child Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him as a burnt offering, on a mountain I will point out to you.’ When they arrived at the place God had pointed out to him, Abraham built an altar there, and arranged the wood. Then he bound his son Isaac and put him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and seized the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven. ‘Abraham, Abraham’ he said. ‘I am here’ he replied. ‘Do not raise your hand against the boy’ the angel said. ‘Do not harm him, for now I know you fear God. You have not refused me your son, your only son.’ Then looking up, Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. Abraham took the ram and offered it as a burnt-offering in place of his son. The angel of the Lord called Abraham a second time from heaven. ‘I swear by my own self – it is the Lord who speaks – because you have done this, because you have not refused me your son, your only son, I will shower blessings on you, I will make your descendants as many as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants shall gain possession of the gates of their enemies. All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, as a reward for your obedience.’ Psalm 115:10,15-19 I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living. I trusted, even when I said: ‘I am sorely afflicted,’ O precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful. Your servant, Lord, your servant am I; you have loosened my bonds. A thanksgiving sacrifice I make; I will call on the Lord’s name. My vows to the Lord I will fulfill before all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Romans 8:31-34 With God on our side who can be against us? Since God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up to benefit us all, we may be certain, after such a gift, that he will not refuse anything he can give. Could anyone accuse those that God has chosen? When God acquits, could anyone condemn? Could Christ Jesus? No! He not only died for us – he rose from the dead, and there at God’s right hand he stands and pleads for us. Mark 9:2-10 Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his clothes became dazzlingly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them. Elijah appeared to them with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus. Then Peter spoke to Jesus: ‘Rabbi,’ he said ‘it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say; they were so frightened. And a cloud came, covering them in shadow; and there came a voice from the cloud, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.’ Then suddenly, when they looked round, they saw no one with them anymore but only Jesus. As they came down from the mountain he warned them to tell no one what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They observed the warning faithfully, though among themselves they discussed what ‘rising from the dead’ could mean.

The Gospel of Mark narrates to us today his account of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ on a mountain on chapter 9, where he took Peter, James and John with him a little before He was to suffer on the Cross on another mountain.  They climbed the mountain because Jesus wanted to pray and when they reached the top Jesus was seen communing with Elijah, representative of the Prophets, and Moses, that of the Law.  Jesus was transfigured, his body and raiment, so white he was that it was whiteness in its purest.  Peter was beside himself and talked but did not know what he was saying.  God the Father certainly had a clear message to the three Apostles and to us today, the Second Sunday of Lent: “This is my Beloved Son.  Listen to Him.”

The importance of listening cannot indeed be overemphasized.  We are told by the medical doctors that we should listen to our bodies for us to be healthy.  The psychologists tell us that we should listen to ourselves, our ways of talking and our ways of acting and our way of life, every now and then for self-evaluation and self-betterment.  Family counselors counsel us to listen to our wives and husbands and to our children and parents for us to have a happy family.  We listen to our friends for their pieces of advice and recommendations.  We listen to our neighbors and co-workers for community and social issues.  Now God the Father invites us to listen to His Son.

Lent is a special time for listening to Jesus.  Alms-giving is listening in action.  Fasting and abstinence are listening in action as well: we listen and respond to the needy.  Especially prayer, it is listening to God Himself.  We kneel and dispose ourselves to Him, soliciting His grace and mercy and insights.

His message for us today is clear: as Jesus was transfigured, so we are as well transfigured, so we will as well be made like Jesus.  There is more for us than this world, than what this world offers, than what this world would have us believe achievable.  Yes, we can have more, do more, be more than just what we have now, what we do now, what we are now.  Worldly things pull us down like strings pull down a finch, a maya bird.  The Lord wants us to soar high and be free from human bondage in sin.  They make us be content with the physical things of this world while the Lord wants us to inherit the Kingdom in heaven.  They tell us that we can only do so much, and we can only achieve so much, that we must be content with what we have.  The Lord tells us that to us belongs more than just passing pleasures and fleeting moments.  He in His Transfiguration is showing us that we are called to be like Him, that we will be like Him, that we Children of God, of God Himself, no less.

Our contemporary society has been numbing us and lulling us to believe that what we really want and need are those things it offers: fame, fortune and success.  It does us great good to turn off once in a while the TV and the radio and to close down our external ears to the worldly things and to open up our internal ears to God in alms-giving, fasting and abstinence and prayer this Lent.

Lord we are your beloved sons and daughters.  We want to listen to you: help us, Lord, to listen to you in prayer today.  Help us to realize that we can have more, do more and be more.  Help us be transfigured to what you have destined for us and not to what the world wants us to stay with and be content with.  Help us not be content with the offers of this world but aspire always to the treasures you have in store for us in heaven where you prepared our dwelling place with you.  Amen.

4 March 2012, Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, Cathedral and Macabog Chapel, Sorsogon City, Philippines.