Happy Feast Day: the objective Aquinas!

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. Details about his devouted life and intellectual prowess are well known. However the question remains whether his teachings are still relevant after seven centuries. What I find particularly relevant today is his overall approach as one of the best exponents of a philosphical tradition known as realism.

Truth has been reduced to empirical facts and knowledge to different opinions, with a consistent effect in a relativistic and utilitarian ethics. We have naively started to unquestionably believe the dogma that “I think it is, therefore it is.” While a debate between realistics would try to assess what is the true nature of marriage, for example, today’s debate simply claims that marriage is nothing in itself, and will only be what we want it to be. In other words, marriage, human nature, normal behavior is “nothing” per se, and we are entitled to give it the definition, (or reality) we want.

In our mentality, the human mind becomes a creative power, a source of being, instead of attempting to be a receptacle of reality “as it is”. The human mind can certainly interpret, and in this vein, be creative; but its creations should never be a substitute for the real reality.

If there is one word that keeps being repeated in Aquinas’ writings is “object”. And what we need today is objectivity as opposed to the over-subjectivity of today’s mentality.

We look at everything from the point of view of the subject. Positive (good?) emotions are emotions good for the subject; negative emotions are emotions the subject does not want to experience. However the value of emotions doees not lie  in what the subject experiences, but in how suitable they are to the object of the emotion. A speeding truck towards a subject that experiences no fear is lethal. The important bit  is not that fear stresses the subject; but that fearing the right object of fear will save his life.

For most this is plain common sense. But it is precisely this common sense for the importance of the object what is missing today. What we say about the object of fear, equally goes for the object of marital love. And while most will see fearing an incoming truck as common sense, just as many will see loving with marital love any person I choose depends on me, the subject, and not on whom I love, the object.

Our lives today are measured in terms of subective experiences. A life with lots and exciting experiences is worth living and actively pursued and proposed as the “ideal” style of life. We admire adventurers, travellers, those who achieve the ultimate thrill. In contrast the unasumming life of the ordinary folk is dismissed as boring and, of course, the life of the commatose patient a total waste. Experience is the mantra of our times.

We therefore need people who questioned that dogma. That life should not be measured in terms of experience, but in terms of fidelity. Humanity has always admired unassuming heroes that were steadfast in their commitments, even if this made them pass through undesireable experiences.

Fidelity needs an object (of fidelity). Truth is the subject knowing faithfully (as it is) an object as it is. Truth about the shape of the earth is knowing faithfully how the shape of the earth really is. Honesty is being faithful (accountable) to someone.

A  life centered around experiences will make of us coach-potatoes of life, sitting in the sofa of our lives waiting for things to happen to us, even if that implies changing constatly the sofa. Fidelity however makes of us active subjects in the search for the right object of our relationship. Fidelity is a true journey; experience-thirsty subjectivity is simply to be a spectator.

We need new (truer) cultural dogmas. Perhaps some dogma that says “the life full of experiences and devoid of fidelity is not worth living”. When we look back, how do we measure our lives?

While you won’t see people reading St. Thomas Aquinas on the MRT, although I have tried, his philosophy will always remind us that there is a right and wrong object out there that will change and transform us. Being more objective and less subjective, in the end, opens ourselves to God and his recreative power. Insisting that all depends on us, will simply isolate ourselves in an increasingly archipelagic world.

Happy feast day!

The depth of the matter: 2nd Sunday

My grandmother never underwent plastic surgery. Not because she did not need it, but because I am sure she would have considered it a kind of cheating. A piece of silicone is not a piece of a person. It is like wearing 3-inch stilettos and say that one is taller. Today however, many people have come to accept that if they could improve how their bodies look like, they would. Why not? After all, it is a natural desire to want to look good.

In today’s first reading, Samuel had a problem of discernment. He heard a call in his sleep and, with good common sense, assumed it was a human call. Eli, with more experience in dealing with God, helped him in discerning that that was not a human call, but God’s. What is important for us here is to know that God knows us by our name and calls us personally.

The gospel illustrates how Jesus called his disciples. Jesus called like God. He borrowed some disciples from John the Baptist, showing a continuity with the Old Testament. John the Baptist gave way to the New Testament by giving up his disciples, who were unsure of what they were getting into. The invitation of Jesus should help them clarify their vocation: “Come and see”.

Most of us are more likely to find ourselves in the first situation than listening to God’s voice in dreams. Discerning human voices, psychological tendencies and personal inclinations from God’s voice is still difficult; but the invitation of Jesus still holds useful. Experiencing first hand how it feels like to follow Jesus is the best way to discern in order to give an affirmative answer.

But accepting the invitation is only the beginning, what happens next is  change. Peter received a new name with his new vocation. The practical question would then be, ”How great was the impact of Jesus’ call?” When Jesus calls, what does he want us to change? Is God’s call a new activity among the many we have? Is it a change of personality? Would His call imply a change of lifestyle as well? In other words, how deep is His call?

It is at this point when the second reading clarifies the nature of the call and at the same time receives clarification within the context of the call.

“We are not our owners” Paul tells the Corinthians (1 Cor 13:19). That is difficult to accept today. If we don’t own ourselves, who does? In a world where autonomy has become an unquestionable cultural dogma, the mere thought that we don’t own our bodies in property sounds simply unacceptable. “I can do with my life or my body what I want” has today become the first basic and most unalienable right. Is St. Paul’s discrepancy not only counter-cultural but also unreasonable?

Things don’t get serious until they get material. Let me explain it. In our dualistic world, we tend to take material things as superficial while we regard spiritual matters as crucial and essential. The spiritual realm becomes as it were the depth of the material surface. But is this true?

When the early church tried to define and concretise their mutual love, they did it in a material way: “they have all their possessions in common”. What is love? A feeling? A common delight in the company of the other? Or a willing and concrete commitment? The best way to find out is to translate the answer into, “how material is your love?” For the early church, loving had to be so deep that it needed to be material. They shared, not only their faith, ideals and sentiments but their material possessions as well.

How deep is God’s love? It is as deep as its material implications. As deep as becoming flesh and matter for us. God knows that the matter is the depth of the spirit. How true is it that we are the body of Christ and that God is still with us? As true as it is materially a fact. As true as the Eucharist is the material presence of God among us. If the Eucharist is a symbol, then God is still too spiritual for us. If the Eucharist is materially the body of Christ, then God’s presence is true enough. The resurrection itself affects not only our souls but our bodies as well. “Blessed the poor in spirit” does not mean that you can be materially rich while spiritually poor, but that you are so poor spiritually that it becomes material poverty (as a Spanish Bible translation suggests: “blessed are those who choose to be poor”).

We can now understand that God’s call, to be authentic, needs not only  a change in our activities, our ideals and emotions, but in every single cell of our mortal bodies. If we belong to God, then so do our bodies as well. This is not a case of God’s abduction. It is an issue of true transformation and conversion. God does not stop at the spiritual level, it continues until it reaches the whole person, that is, even the material person.

We want our bodies to be better or to look better? For looking better, we still have plastic surgery. But true conversion is not plastic at all. It is deep and true. It involves also our bodies, which truly become “temples of the Holy Spirit”

St. Francis de Capillas

St. Francisco Fernandez de Capillas was proclaimed Protomartyr (First Martyr) of China on 16 September 1748 by Pope Benedict XIV. Two centuries later, Pope Pius X was to beatify him on 2 May 1909. Almost another century after his beatification, he was canonised by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000. His feast is celebrated on the 15^th of January.

Angelic, penitential and mortified, it was declared that even if he had not been martyred, he could still have been beatified. The saint who was the first to shed his blood for Christ in China was born in Baquerín de Campos in Palencia, Spain, on 14 August 1607. He eventually entered the Dominican Priory of St. Paul of Valladolid. In February 1632 he arrived in Manila and was ordained to the priesthood. He then ministered for several years in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.

In 1641, at the Provincial Chapter in Manila, he asked permission to evangelise in the Celestial Empire (China). This was granted and he left with his friend, Father Francis Díez, for Formosa, where they stayed at the House of All Saints in Jilong. In March 1642 they crossed to Fujian, where Father John García welcomed them. Due to persecution, he was the only Dominican priest left in China.

St. Francisco de Capillas began his pastoral ministry at once, and these years, 1644-1646, are called the Golden Age of the mission. Along with Father Díez, he founded the Lay Dominicans in China. He also converted huge numbers of Chinese in all the towns and villages. Especially worthy of mention were his highly virtuous life and conduct, which won him the love and respect of all whom he met. On 4 November 1646 Father Díez died, assisted by the gentle saint. On that same day, the Tartars entered the city, destroying, looting and killing, and with an Imperial edict to kill the missionaries.

The apostolic works undertaken by St. Francisco de Capillas were innumerable. One witness testified that “when he was on the road, he had such a great desire to help souls that to climb the steep mountain roads seemed easier than to walk on level roads.”

One year after Father Díez’s death, St. Francisco de Capillas was captured. He had gone without fear at the height of a local riot to a small village on 13 November 1647 to administer the Sacraments to a sick person. Upon his capture he was taken with a rope tied around his neck to the Mandarin tribunal. Put in the worst jail, he was subjected to the torture of crushing the ankles while being dragged all over the floor. Then he was flogged and incarcerated for two months, condemned to death and enduring patiently the horrible torments inflicted on him.

While in prison, he wrote: “I am here with other prisoners and we have developed a fellowship. They ask me about the Gospel of the Lord. I am not concerned about getting out of here because here I know I am doing the will of God. They do not let me stay up at night to pray, so I pray in bed before dawn. I live here in great joy without any worry, knowing that I am here because of Jesus Christ. The pearls I have found here these days are not always easy to find.”

On January 15, 1648, the judge came and ordered that he be flogged again and put into the sentry box of the city wall. He was ordered to step down from the box, and as he did so, the executioner beheaded him, separating his head from his body with a heavy blow of the sword. His body was thrown outside the city wall and found two months later. It was preserved incorruptible for two months, and was left untouched by a fire that reduced to ashes the house where his coffin was kept. Of the many relics of St. Francisco de Capillas which have been preserved, the most important remains his head, which is found in the convent of St. Paul of Valladolid, where began his religious life.

It is all about timing!

 

At the beginning of this Ordinary Time we read the beginning of the letter to the Hebrews and the beginning of the gospel of Mark. Both readings refer to the importance of timing. “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; 2 in these last days, he spoke to us through a son” (Hb 1:1). In the gospel, Jesus acknowledges this timing: “This is the time of fulfilment. The Kingdom of God is at hand.” (Mk 1:15).

It is good to tell the truth. It is not good to tell all of the truth, all at the same time. Truth telling, to be good, needs to be timely.

We don’t disclose the secrets of “birds and the bees” to children until they are ready. In the same way, God spoke only in “partial ways” to the ancestors until “the last days” when the people were mature enough to receive the message. Even the church comes to discover the truth gradually and with the development of time.

The measure of truth is reality. The measure of truth telling is the audience.

How true is what we say, depends on how what we say, agrees with the reality we are talking about. The truth about the shape of the earth depends on the actual shape of the earth. How much or when we can say this particular truth will depend on whether the person is ready to receive that truth. The fact that we are all going to die is true. How and when we should communicate that truth, will depend on the disposition of the person to accept it. In fact, truth revealing can at times be inconsiderate if we fail to take into account the disposition of the person to understand and accept that truth.

To intentionally hide or deprive the people from truth, is an injustice. To disclose the truth without consideration of the receiver, could become a kind of cruelty. Both truth and sympathetic consideration need to go hand in hand.

As we begin the season of ordinary time, we need to ponder carefully what the truth is, that needs telling here and now. Ideas only become fruitful and useful when they are presented in the right time at the right place. Discerning the times is our urgent mission “this time.”

The mystery of the Baptism of the Innocent

The season of Christmas ends only today, even if  most people whose minds are already set on the Lunar New Year think that Christmas is long over. However, there are good reasons to include today’s feast, the Baptism of the grown up Lord, within the festive, joyful and child-like season of Christmas.

Each gospel narrates the scene with different colors but all coincide in the scandalous historical nucleus of the event: the one who is sinless wanted to be baptised with a baptism meant to signify repentance from sins. The question is why? Either Jesus thought Himself a sinner in need of baptism or He was making a statement. The gospel of Mark offered the driest and probably the most original version, while the other evangelists tried to deal with the scandal of the Lord being baptised with a clarifying dialogue between the baptised and the baptiser. The only clue that Marks gives us is the opened heaven, the Spirit and a voice from heaven that certainly pointed more towards a critical revelation than towards a genuinely needed baptism for sins.

So the question is what kind of revelation was that? In the words of Saint Paul, He became “sin” and the symbolic beginning of this ministry started when he joined the sinners in their attempt to purify themselves.

Without the baptism of the Lord, Christmas remains  purely a God’s walk in the park of humans. God would be a kind tourist who came to picnic with His creatures. With the baptism of the Lord, Jesus did not come to see or check, but to immerse Himself in the destiny of sinners. The whole mystery or our redemption can be paraphrased in this way: the sinless can undergo the destiny of sinners justly so that sinners may undergo the destiny of the innocent justly as well.

It may look strange that we celebrate the baptism of the Lord only one week after the Epiphany. Is this a case of Jesus jumping straight into adulthood? A way the liturgy parallels the silence of the Scriptures over the growing-up years of Jesus?

The revelation that the baby Jesus has to offer unfolds into the Epiphany as a revelation to all nations and into the Baptism of the Lord as the One who comes to deal with the purification from our sins.

This is the perfect setting of the stage to observe Jesus during ordinary time, doing what He ordinarily does best, rescue people from their miseries.

Happy Ordinary time to everyone!

St. Raymond of Peñafort

- Today he is the patron saint of the canonist, and in Spain, the patron saint of lawyers as well.
- He entered the Dominican Order in 1222.
- He compiled the different decrees of ecclesiastical laws for the first time into what would be considered in 1917, the Canon Law. His work was declared by the Pope as the only authoritative reference to be used in theological schools.
- He was appointed the Chaplain to the Pope
- He was instrumental in the foundation of the Mercedarians (an Order founded with the purpose of rescuing prisoners and slaves).
- He declined the bishopric of Tarragona
- Reviewed the Dominican Constitutions
- He asked Thomas Aquinas to write a work to present the Catholic faith to non-believers, known as the Summa Contra Gentiles, the first Summa of Aquinas.
- He made it compulsory for Dominican formandees to study Arab and Hebrew in order to present the faith to the Muslims in Europe.
- He organized a debate on faith before the royal court where Jews, Muslims and Christians could explain and examine their beliefs.
- He died at 100 years old in 1275.

Epiphany for dialogue

This was rescued from the previous deleted blog:

In ancient times, when I still combed my hair, we did not need mobile phones to meet people. We only needed to agree on two parameters: time and space. You asked where and when, and you made sure you were there on time. That’s all.

Today’s gospel tells us of a particular encounter. Before GPS technology, people relied on the stars to know the times and the places. Some people were good at it, others not so. Today’s gospel tells us of some astrologers that were good at it. They saw a new star and they knew that a new king had been born. How to find him? They knew the time, but not the exact place. So they needed help.

They started to enquire about the place and they were helped by the most unsuspecting character: Herod the Great. Herod felt most uncomfortable with this new king,  but Herod was probably the only person who could summon the most knowledgeable scribes to find out the exact location. Still he did not know about the time when this was supposed to happen. So, with twisted intentions calls the astrologers secretly to his palace. There the fruitful exchange of information takes place. Herod tells them the place, the astrologers tell him the time. And voilá! It works, once you have the two parameters, finding and meeting the baby Jesus is possible.

The prophecies were not enough. Science was not enough. Albeit corrupted by the evil intentions of Herod, and vulnerable by the naiveté of the astrologers, a fruitful dialogue made due homage possible. The Second Vatican council has acknowledged that the world needs the Church, but that the Church also is helped by the world. Thus,  only a fruitful dialogue can help both.

This dialogue started when the Baby Jesus was born and provoked one of the main endeavors of the first evangelization: the epiphany. Epiphany means manifestation. It is acknowledging that the good news of salvation is not for a few selected but destined to reach the ends of the world.

The gifts the wise men offered to the baby have been interpreted as symbols of Christ, gold for a king, frankincense for a priest, and myrrh for a deceased. However the first reading hints to us that what Matthew is trying to tell us. The prophecies have been fulfilled: God has made his people the center of the world. Or, in more realistic terms, the whole world is called to turn its gaze at this baby of the People of God if it wants to receive the fullness of the promises of old.

St. Maximus, the Confessor, took the star the astrologers discovered as a sign from God, another expression of the word of God. The whole creation speaks of the seasons and times to those who are attentive to read them. The astrologers did not know of the promises of Israel. However, they had the insight to read the signs of creation. They had the constancy to pursue their goal, the humility to ask for what they did not know and the devotion to “fall on their knees to pay homage”.

To discover the saving action and direction of our lives today we also need to work together, to learn to ask, to learn to respond. Anyone, even Herod, may have something good to tell us about God’s plan. Anyone, even we, have something good to tell others about God’s salvation plan.

Friday before the Epiphany

Sometimes dreams are shattered. We yearn to do this or that, only to find that life has different plans. St. Basil and St. Gregory Naziancen had plans. They wanted to become hermits but were appointed bishops in times of persecution. Their dreams of being in solitude and quiet were shattered by a daunting mission. Had they become hermits, we may have never known of their inner spiritual riches. Sometimes, some good dreams are well shattered.

 ”Wealth, explains St. Basil, is like water that issues forth from the fountain: the greater the frequency with which it is drawn, the purer it is, while it becomes foul if the fountain remains unused”

From a homily on prayer of St. Basil,

“Ought we to pray without ceasing? Is it possible to obey such a command? These are questions which I see you are ready to ask. I will endeavour, to the best of my ability, to defend the charge. Prayer is a petition for good addressed by the pious to God. But we do not rigidly confine our petition to words. Nor yet do we imagine that God requires to be reminded by speech. He knows our needs even though we ask Him not. What do I say then? I say that we must not think to make our prayer complete by syllables. The strength of prayer lies rather in the purpose of our soul and in deeds of virtue reaching every part and moment of our life. ’Whether ye eat, it is said, ’or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God.’ As thou takest thy seat at table, pray. As thou liftest the loaf, offer thanks to the Giver. When thou sustainest thy bodily weakness with wine, remember Him Who supplies thee with this gift, to make thy heart glad and to comfort thy infirmity. Has thy need for taking food passed away ? Let not the thought of thy Benefactor pass away too. As thou art putting on thy tunic, thank the Giver of it. As thou wrappest thy cloak about thee, feel yet greater love to God, Who alike in summer and in winter has given us coverings convenient for us, at once to preserve our life, and to cover what is unseemly. Is the day done? Give thanks to Him Who has given us the sun for our daily work, and has provided for us a fire to light up the night, and to serve the rest of the needs of life. Let night give the other occasions of prayer. When thou lookest up to heaven and gazest at the beauty of the stars, pray to the Lord of the visible world; pray to God the Arch-artificer of the universe, Who in wisdom hath made them all. When thou seest all nature sunk in sleep, then again worship Him Who gives us even against our wills release from the continuous strain of toil, and by a short refreshment restores us once again to the vigour of our strength.

New Year! Mary, the Mother of God

Just like a new person, the new year is full of great expectations. The liturgical year opens the civil calendar with the solemnity of Mary, the mother of God.

The primitive church had an interesting way of saying things. To claim that Jesus is one and God in an univocal way, they said that Mary is, not only the mother of Jesus, the man, but also, of Jesus, the God. In this way, what appeared to be a rather abstract concept becomes a “familiar” one.

At the council of Ephesus, the bishops commented that it was not the business of bishops to do philosophy or to debate with philosophers, but to speak like “fishermen”. Certainly, fishermen would speak of mother and children rather than of substance and divinity. In other words, to say that Mary is the mother of God, is not claiming that Mary is the mother of God the Father, but simply to say that Jesus is one person, one agent, who is both 100% human and 100% God.

Even in this statement, the true mission of Mary is clearly subordinated to her Son. To claim that she is the Mother of God is basically to reveal something about her Son. The Church can hardly say something about her that is not a profession of  faith in her Son.

Today we seldom have debates about the nature of Christ, or about any other philosophical argument for that matter. However, there is an underlying similar dilemma in our culture. Not about Christ, but about us, the human person. Is the human person a thinking autonomous entity, travelling in a material capsule we call body? Are our bodies mere external tools that our mind (soul, spirit) uses? When we say “I” do we include the body as part of the “I”?

The answer to that question is far from being abstract, because it permeates the ethical decisions of our age. If our bodies are extrinsic material characteristics, we should be able to deal with them as we please. In that case, selling human organs would not be very much different from selling any other personal possession. Terminating the life of a body in pain would be an act of mercy since what really counts is the liberation of that soul from than burdensome body. And sexual use of the body would not be a serious ethical concern when “no body is hurt”.

Although our age is not particularly keen in debating about abstract issues, we do engage in those debates unknowingly every time we express our opinion on the above issues. Only one of the two versions can be true. Either the body is an intrinsic dimension of the person or it is not. The big question is, which one is true?

A extremely efficient and speedily way to answer that question would be to ask a rape victim if what they did to her was something done merely to her body, or a extremely severe offence to her as a person. Any state that recognizes that rape should be punished more severely for that physical aggression, acknowledges that intimate dimensions of the body are intrinsically linked with the spiritual intimacy of the person. In other words, that our mind cannot inhabit a different body, because we are our bodies as much as we are our minds. This means, that a living human body is a living human person or nothing at all and that non-thinking or non-autonomous human beings are human persons from the moment their bodies become human bodies until their bodies cease to exist.

Dualism has haunted the history of human thinking for centuries. Today, we are not an exception. The church had found ways to express the unity of Christ with a single word, theotokos (the Mother of God). What are we going to use today to fight our dualism? Shall we start a campaign that says “we are bodies”, “what you do you to your body, you do to yourself”? We need creative thinking to continue the legacy the church has to be the  ”light to Gentiles” (Lk 2:32), even if the Gentiles feel more “enlightened”.

Mary could be the mother of God because she was her body. She did not loan her body to God for nine months. She gave herself to Him in the exclusive manner a wife gives herself unreservedly to her husband. This is why her virginity had to be “postpartum”, after birth as well. She could only do this with a total possession of herself through her gift of the immaculate conception, which, in turn, could preserve her body from the corruption that ensues material bodies not perfectly aligned with the spiritual soul. Virginity, motherhood of God, assumption and immaculate conception are all tied together.

This year, I received a picture of me sent by my mother along with a prayer she was given just after giving birth to her son on the day of the Immaculate conception. It helped me to look back and wonder what I have done to myself, and how much I still need to do before my life is over. New year, new beginnings. May the mother of God, the perfect integrity of body and mind, help us to see who we really are and show us how to live up to it.

Old year

Yes, I have been away. Literally away to Hong Kong and Cambodia. Sorry, no pictures. When I came back, I encountered a hardware problem which took me a while to sort. Just before 2009 comes, I should point out that this blog was born out of a new year’s resolution. It could have been much better, much more regular and more impactful, so, in that sense,  it has been a bit disappointing. On the other hand, it has helped me to keep striving to write and to keep struggling to put into sentences, the chaotic labyrinth of ideas that inhabits my mind. Let us hope, next year is better.

“Playing God”, the good way: 33th Sunday of the year

How would you feel if someone gave you $200, 000 ? Would you start wondering how many things you could do with it? Today’s gospel tells how someone received that much money, not only did nothing about it, but was afraid and just hid the money in the ground. Strange? Why on earth would someone do that?

Before reading today’s parable, we need to get rid of some mistaken ideas we might have. Talents, in English, are qualities or capabilities a person may have. If we read today’s gospel with that idea in mind, the interpretation would go like this. Every one examines himself to see which talents he or she has, and puts them to work to avoid being the “wicked servant” who buried his talent.

If that were the case, this homily would finish here. But that is not what the word “talent” actually means. A “talent” is a coin that was 15 years worth of wages. We can do now a little math and conclude that the first servant was given 75 years of wages, the second 30 years, and the third 15.

We know nothing of this master, but certainly he was not a king, as in the parallel parable of Luke (19:12-17). This was not a king testing the fidelity of his servants. This was about a master leaving behind everything he had and entrusting it to his servants in hope that they would deal with it as he would.

Perhaps now we can understand better the harsh words the master had for the “wicked” servant, who seemingly in good reason, stores away the money for fear of losing it. His sin was not laziness, nor even paralyzing fear, but the fact that he missed the point. He received the money, not as a gift but as a debt. In his mind, the money was not “his business” but his master’s problem and he did not want it to become his problem.

The two worthy servants treated the master’s property as a gift, not as absolute property. But they dealt with the master’s property as if it were their own, or even better, because they knew their master, they could handle his property as if the master was still around. Intimate knowledge of their master’s ways helped them become better administrators. However, intimate knowledge of the master’s ways also paralyzed the “wicked” servant, precisely because he refused to assume ownership of the master’s gift.

The first reading does not describe the “perfect wife” as a servant to the husband, as we may expect of an ancient text from a chauvinistic society. The text tells us how the perfect wife is a good administrator of the household, the gift entrusted to her care according to her culture. In this sense, the same would apply for the “perfect husband” or the “perfect” mother or father – those who assume responsibility for the gift they have received.

The readings are not about “personal talents or abilities” but about responsibility for the gifts we received in life. In this sense, a millionaire is not more fortunate than a middle class citizen; just like the servant who received 5 talents was not more fortunate than then one who received two. The more you receive, the more responsibility is demanded of you. How much the servants possess is not an issue, just as the “beauty” in the wife is a fleeting matter.

Today, it would seem that God had travelled to a distant land and refused to interfere so as to allow us to deal responsibly with God’s matters. We could reject this responsibility, we could abuse it, or we could embrace it as if it were our own business.

We are given spouses, children, friends, opportunities, creation, material possessions, etc. What are we doing with them? To be responsible means to “respond” to the owner when he comes back. Can we say, of this “person” that God entrusted to me, ” I have touched his or her life in a way that made a difference”? Or are we shying away, saying that God’s business is God’s and our business is ours?

Up in our ivory tower of self-sufficiency, we might be tempted to say “Why should I bother?”. It is just too easy to become adverted versions of the “wicked” servant who refused to bother about his master’s business. Do we understand God’s business as our business?

Like the master of the parable, God gave us all He had. That is not a ingenious story. It is the most serious history. He entrusted his only begotten Son to his servants and from a distant region, He allowed them to do with Him as they pleased.

In every Eucharist, we have the chance to receive the Gift anew and learn from the Son how to make God’s work, our work. In a way, we are called to “play God” not “in the place of God” as, but “as God would play”.

One commandment, many implications: 30th Sunday

Do we really love God? How do we know? Just because we say we do? Just because we feel we do? Just because we think we do?

What is the difference between really loving God and loving our idea of God, which will always be imperfect? We can be praying for hours to the convenient fabrication of our imagination and making us feel like we have indeed loved God deeply.

That seldom happens with people of flesh and blood. When we love Peter and want Peter to be what Peter is probably not, reality bites back. Peter snaps at our presumptions or we simply get disappointed when we find out that Peter does not act as our image of Peter is supposed to act. We perceive with our senses the reality of Peter. The real Peter would always contrast with the Peter of our fantasy.

Relationships are largely about learning to make our images of people realistic. Sometimes it will happen through pleasant surprises. At times, through gentle reminders and other times, through bitter disappointments.

But God, how we do contrast our idea of God with the real God?

Our neighbour is the answer. We only love God as much as we love our neighbour. In fact, it may happen that we only really love God as much as we love our worst enemy.

Loving our neighbor is thus not a second commandment after the first, but the same commandment, even more, the realistic side of the first commandment. After all, can I say I love God if I do not love the people He loves?

Love cannot be forced. If we try to force ourselves to love we may end up acting as if we loved them, but that would not be a very honest performance. We would become sheer hypocrites.

Love is more than a duty. It is a commandment, because commandments are conditions for life. “Choose life, and you shall live.” That is a conditional sentence. If you love life, you will live.

Love is the condition for a truly human life. Without receiving it, we don’t have dignity; without giving it, we don’t have purpose.

Signs of the times

The world is very “astute” when it comes to thinking outside the box and solving its own problems. Internet and google have grown incredibly in just few years mainly because it does work. It solves new problems with effective solutions.

The church has and will always have the same standard of morality, in spite of travelling through different times and cultures. However, the church has also different needs in different times. For example, orders were founded to satisfy these historical needs. And just like world inventions, they spread fast and wide. Today the church has even more new and pressing needs and the Holy Spirit has inspired men and women to satisfy those needs. Mother Teresa’s sisters grew into thousands in just few years. And new Lay Movements are spreading far and wide.

However the average catholic still seems oblivious to this duty– we all have to read “the signs of the times”. Vatican II made of it a technical term, but its practice has been as old as the church itself.

How much time do we spend thinking about the new needs of the world and the church? How are we called to make a difference?

How big is His love? 29th Thursday

We pray in the opening prayer, “Heal our blindness”. This is the kind of blindness that makes us reluctant to receive Jesus Christ and causes His message to bring fire to earth (Lk 12:49). It is the blindness to see how much we are in need of healing. Jesus’ message needs to burn before it heals; needs to split before it unites; for there will always be resistance to listening to his message and accepting it.

This is why St. Paul prays that we know Christ’s love (Eph 3:19). A love that surpasses all knowledge but that has been revealed to us as part of the mystery hidden from all ages. How much is the breadth, the length, the height and the depth of His love? This is not a conceptual question. It should be the question that perpetually animates our lives, because in its answer lies the healing of our blindness.

We do not always accept love. Tales of unrequited love plague love stories. Just because someone loves you, does not necessarily push you to love him or her in return. We are not inclined to love the lover per se. We are inclined to love what appears good for us.

To say that God loves us, is not enough to push us to love Him. To ponder on the immensity of Christ’s love opens ourselves to its grandeur and becomes attractive and lovable to us. It helps us to take His side on the irreversible division and fire He has already started.

Responsible stewards: 29th Wednesday of the year

Many of our ethical dilemmas can be solved by understanding with precision, what it means to be a servant of the Lord.

In the New Testament, the word “doulos” is translated indistintively as servant or slave. However, in Jesus parables, servants are always given a certain ownership and responsibility, while slaves of the ancient times was just part of the property of the master.

God has given us “some” ownership and the ensuing responsibility. We can use creation, but not abuse it. We are called to dominate creation but not domineer it. We may respect and serve persons, but we may not use them. We should be each other’s keepers or stewards, but not lord over them or be enslaved by them.

From the very beginning, Adam and Eve were called to be mere stewards, were tempted and sinned in their attempt to become lords like God. Satan again tempted Jesus with the same temptation–to betray His service to the kingdom and to the Father. Jesus was tempted to abuse His power (jump from the pinnacle of the Temple) and to acknowldge the lordship of Satan.

This continues to be our temptation too. Biotechnology offers a unique possibility to domineer others’ lives and bodies. Political power continues to tempt authorities and systems with the opportunity to lord over others. In our daily lives, we seem to forget that we are all stewards, but at times we insist that some stewards are more equal than others.

“… as for the servant who says to himself, ‘My master is taking his time in coming’, and sets about beating the menservants and the maids, and eating and drinking and getting drunk, his master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know. The master will cut him off and send him to the same fate as the unfaithful.” (Lk 12:39-48)

We are not called to be masters, slaves or abusive servants, but to be responsible stewards.

The Servant Master: 29th tuesday of the year

Today’s gospel is one of those St. Luke’s pearls that is unique to him and are not found in the other gospels. While other gospels abound in parables where God is the master and the disciples are just “useless” servants, in today gospel, Jesus assures the disciples that the master will “put on an apron and serve them”. In other words, the Lord becomes a servant to the servants:

“Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them.” (Lk 12:37)

But for this service of the master, the servants cannot afford to fall asleep. They need to be constantly of service until the master returns.

We do not like to be servants. We have been trained to become masters, to be in control, to fight and to climb until we are on top. The paradox is that by doing that, we will never get the true only master to serve us.

The foolish dream of retirement: 29th Monday of the year

Earn and save money fast so that you can retire early and start to enjoy life. What is wrong with that? Isn’t that everybody’s dream?

Jesus told a story  of someone who also longed for early retirement. His plan was easy, 

“I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, `Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Lk 12:19-21)

This man deals with his soul as a slave serves his master: Eat, drink and be merry. A kind of navel-worship that encloses him into his little world and forgets the world out there.

We envy people who have what we struggle for. We admire people who are the kind of person we wished to be. We envy achievers; we admire devotion, fidelity, courage, determination, passion, freedom and integrity.

The question is how do we measure our lives? In years? In minutes? In merry moments? In achievements? In laughter? We should make up our minds before it is too late. Maybe “This night your soul is required of you.” What are we really struggling for? We do not need an early retirement plan as much as we need an early working plan.

Mission Sunday

In my days in Guam, a little spot in the middle of the Pacific, I used to sit down at one of the most beautiful of its sites by the sea: the Magella Bay. That was the bay where Magellan landed in his attempt to be the first to go around the world.

His fortune in arriving at this micro stop in the middle of the immensity of the Pacific ocean was like striking the lottery. By then Magellan and his crew were running out of fresh water and food and had not seen land until that day, they would most certainly have starved in their own ships.

What pushed them to jump into the unknown? With no maps and extremely primitive navigation systems, they had no idea of where they were going. Their adventures have more merit than the astronauts of our time who know exactly where they are going and what they are going to find.

Along with this adventurers came other kinds of heroes I have always admired. Missionaries. They too knew little of the place and the challenges ahead. They did not go to the extreme lands looking to be acclaimed adventurers or conquistadors, they did it simply because they thought the gospel should be spread to the ends of the world. As soon as they found out that the known world had new frontiers, they would go to make sure the gospel was preached there too.

Perhaps it is time for me to wake up. There is no unmapped territory now. Even if you want to climb Mount Everest, you have to line up and wait for your turn since the place seems to be packed with people eager to climb the highest peak in the world. All seems to have been discovered. From the comfort of our living room we can even google the remotest part of the world with a click of a mouse. There is no place in our world for explorers and old-fashion missionaries.

Or is it? Even as we watch the global village shrinking under the forces of technological communication, the new frontiers of humanity are not to be crossed geographically but technologically.

As the access to information becomes more and more readily available, there is perhaps no chance of presenting the good news as new news. It is perhaps time to learn to let go the new and focus on the good. Presenting the good news in a good way might well be the challenge of the new missionaries.

The agents of today’s missionary zeal, might not be today, the friars of the Old World who had the luxury of freedom from family duties and social concerns. Instead, the Christians of today are in touch with the world because they are in the world as the laity. They won’t have to sail to distant lands to meet the destinations of God’s good news. They meet their audience every day, in their office, in the work place, in their social relationships, in the families, in the new virtual communities, etc.

Missionary activity is suffering a revolution. The message is still the age old message — that God has fulfilled his promises in Jesus Christ. The way to communicate the message, how to reach out to the audience and who delivers the message, needs to be radically reviewed.

How to be a missionary today needs as much imagination as it needed courage in the age of the discoveries. Are we up to the challenge?

Daily Wisdom

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either.”

C.S. Lewis

 

 

St. Ignatius of Antioch: feared no evil

After the section where Jesus criticized the Pharisees for their legalism, Jesus continued His teaching with words of encouragement: “Do no be afraid of those who kill the body.” (Lk 12:4).

While civilizations sing their heroes who are examples of courage, the church has continually sung her particular example of courage–those who did not fear even death, the martyrs. The church’s message is not a more or less strict legal code or a list of forbidden behavior but it is above all else, a witness that life in Christ reaches heights unknown to human power.

A saint is someone who has virtues, namely, who is predisposed to do good. A canonized saint is someone who practised those predispositions to a heroic extent. Thus, all martyrs are automatically saints because they lived to a heroic extent the virtue of courage.

When St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote his letters to the church in Rome, he knew that, being a bishop, his persecuted church would try to avoid that he be caught and tortured by the Romans. However he pleaded with them earnestly,

“Show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread.”

What must be proclaimed is not, that apostasy is a sin, but that the church makes people who are capable of overcoming the most paralyzing fear–the fear of death.