Wednesday of Holy Week

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Spirit Moments

This scene is my favorite from the movie version of the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar”. It is not in the original stage version. It is also the least “biblical” part of this rock opera, but, I think, the most human.

The rational and practical Judas saw thing coming to a head as Jesus kept on pushing up the stakes in his mission. Now, the rest of the apostles and the disciples were also seeing where things we leading to. They want to call timeout and to start again. Things were getting out of control and theirs is a plaintive cry of “Could we start again, please!” But they know that life does not give time-outs and when things rush headlong, the inevitable (bitter ending) happens.

I often pray asking God to act as God in the way I want to or need him to. Thus, I often get it wrong. It should be the other way around: God does his God-thing and I align my life to his will and his plan.

The followers of Jesus were asking if they could have a replay; although they know that life is not like that. And yet, here was a God, who believes in second chances. Event do not get rewound but our God is a God of second chances. He preached not only as gospel of love but also a gospel of forgiveness. Forgiveness gives everyone a another chance to do or get things right.

This God of Second Chances is also the God of the Unexpected. The disciples in this scene knew in their hearts of hearts that they were not getting a replay and that thing will unravel to their frightening, atrocious ending – their leader will be condemned and crucified as a common criminal.

And then, the unexpected happens! Most human stories would have ended at Jesus’ death on Calvary. But the God of the Unexpected turns utter defeat into one glorious turn-around. He raises the dead Jesus from the tomb. The real Deus ex machina. The story does not end there either. There is the Ascension. And then there is Pentecost. And the story keeps on unfolding to this very day. The great Paschal Mystery lives on today in our lives and in our hearts.

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Tuesday of Holy Week

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Spirit Moments

https://youtu.be/g-voeq7Cebo

Judas has often been portrayed as the foremost personification of treacherousness for having betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. People who are traitorous, deceitful, unfaithful, duplicitous are invariable called or branded as ‘Judases’. Yet, there is a bit of Judas in all of us.

Judas could have been Jesus’ right-hand man. Where Peter was impetuous and even petulant, Judas was the voice of reason and sanity in the group. When Mary wasted precious perfume to wash the feet of Jesus, Judas remarked, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Matthew was the tax collector among the twelve, knowledgeable about money matters, yet it was Judas who was chosen to hold the purse strings of the community. I am assuming, he was probably the most educated among the apostles, who were mostly simple and unlettered fishermen and laborers.

Judas was definitely touched and inspired by Jesus, his words and his works. He was a constant follower of this itinerant preacher and was probably the ‘logistics manager’ for this band of brothers, taking care of the arrangement for their food, accommodations, and paying for all their bills. But he grew fearful and his faith began to waver when he saw the stakes escalating too high. The crowds following Jesus were growing. The things they started saying of him were stunning. And Jesus did not seem to care that his was a revolution of rising expectations. Judas, being the the rational man that he is, saw the danger. As Jesus became more famous and his followers grew in numbers, he would be seen as a threat by both the Roman authorities and the Jewish religious leaders.  Judas was right. The Sanhedrin plotted to eliminate Jesus. With Caiaphas, they believed that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.

I often waver in my following Jesus when the stakes get too high, when following Jesus means giving some of the things that give me pleasure and satisfaction, when standing up for Jesus means being alone and different. There have been times I have betrayed him like Judas did. Like, Peter I have denied that I even know Jesus Christ.

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Monday of Holy Week

Posted on March 26, 2018 by Spirit Moments

When Christ entered Jerusalem in triumph, he was coming from his ministry in the Galilean countryside. In proclaiming the coming Kingdom of God, Jesus preached and taught the crowds; he healed the sick and raised the dead; he performed signs and wonders. But in everything he did, he always touched something deep in his listeners hearts. They have never heard nor seen anything like this before.

His message of LOVE was radical as it was revolutionary. The Jews said, “Tooth for a tooth” which was actually a call for commensurate justice. Jesus said “Forgive.” The Jews strove to be good and do good. Jesus challenged his listeners to go the extra mile, “Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.” It was the norm for Jews to do good for those who do them good. Jesus tells his disciples, “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless those that curse you, do good to those that hate you, and pray for those who speak evil about you, and persecute you.”

In this scene from Jesus Christ Superstar, Simon the Zealot is excited at all the excitement and devotion that Jesus was generating among the people:

There must be over fifty thousand
Screaming love and more for you.
And everyone of fifty thousand
Would do whatever you asked them to.
Keep them yelling their devotion,
But add a touch of hate at Rome.
You will rise to a greater power.
We will win ourselves a home.
You’ll get the power and the glory
For ever and ever and ever
Forever Amen! Amen! Amen!

The Zealots were a political movement in 1st-century Second Temple Judaism, which sought to incite the people of Judea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel the Romans from the Holy Land by force of arms. The Roman authorities and the Jewish religious leaders must have seen Jesus as part of this rebellion. Jesus preached against a lot of the common religious practices then. The Sabbath was sacrosanct to the Jews and no work was allowed to be done on that day. Jesus healed people even on the Sabbath and instructed his disciples to gather grains for food. Jews were very scrupulous about ritual purity. they did not socialize not consort with those who were ritually unclean less they themselves would become unclean. These included the sick (like lepers and women with hemorrhagic disease), public sinners (like prostitutes and tax collectors), or Gentiles (like the hated Samaritans). These were people that Jesus mixed up and had dinner with.

In the end, he condemned to death because he was indeed a rebel and a revolutionary, an image of Jesus that I loved to nurse and harbor in my younger years.

Posted in Discipleship, Love, The Good News | Tagged | 4 Comments

Palm Sunday

Posted on March 25, 2018 by Spirit Moments

Palm Sunday.
Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
The crowds were singing their praises and hosannas for him.
But the leaders and authorities were worried and
were plotting on how to get rid of him.
He rebukes them:

Why waste your breath moaning at the crowd?
Nothing can be done to stop the shouting
If every tongue was still, the noise would still continue
The rocks and stones themselves would start to sing:

Hosanna Heysanna Sanna Sanna Ho
Sanna Hey Sanna Ho Sanna
Hey J C, J C you’re alright by me
Sanna Ho Sanna Hey Superstar

Jesus was addressing some deeper in the heart of men;
while the Sanhedrin was trying to preserve and protect the status quo.
The religious practices of the Pharisees and Sadducees was based on exclusion:
* Gentiles and the Samaritans did not belong to the People of God.
* Only the clean and ritually clean were allowed to make offerings in the temple.
* The poor, the sick, the deformed were considered unclean and thus, excluded from the Temple rites.

Jesus taught and proclaimed a Gospel of inclusion.
To those who were thus excluded, Jesus proclaimed:

Sing to me a song but not for me alone
Sing out for yourselves for you are blessed
There is not one of you who cannot win the kingdom
The slow, the suffering, the quick, the dead.

The musical Jesus Christ Superstar is a modern rendition of the Christ story.
If Christ were alive today in flesh and blood, where would he be?
What would he be doing?

I imagine this and I see Christ out in the streets, joining the March For Our Lives.
Yes, while the leaders of the people were out playing golf
Or, tweeting about an upcoming movie.
I can see him ministering to the slow, the suffering, the quick, the dead.
Today, they are all around us:
the homeless, the hungry and those who have no one or nothing.
And if we do not see nor hear them,
the rocks and stones themselves would start to sing
and proclaim to us Jesus’ message of love, compassion and inclusion.

 

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Because I am, I Have Everything I Need

Posted on March 23, 2018 by Spirit Moments

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These are miner’s lettuce. They grow wild along many of the hiking trails we go to, specially in wide open fields. They add a dainty white delicacy to a scenery of wild flowers abloom in springtime. They are also a delicacy as a salad, introduced to us by Chef Camille.

I often wonder, were these plants created so men have some pleasant eye-candies to enjoy and something palatable to put on their tables? Or seeing how beautiful they were, men discovered they were also tasteful to the palate? But do those questions really matter? All that matters is that they exist. They are. There is a reason for them to be there. Otherwise, they won’t be there.

I am. There must be a reason why I am here. Like the miner’s lettuce, I have everything I need to be and to exist. That is the basic law of nature. For everything that exists, there must be a reason; there must be a cause.

And while praying this morning, I realized that I have no reason nor cause to ask anything from God. Because I am here, I have everything I need. Because I am, everything and anything is possible. If I am not, then nothing is possible. If I have everything I need, then why do I still pray for what I think or feel I need?

The only real and right thing to ask for in prayer is for me to discover why I am here. What is the reason why I exist? What is the purpose why I have been given my life? This realization really got me thinking.

 

Posted in Identity, Life | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Smells of Life

Posted on March 22, 2018 by Spirit Moments

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In the past few days, I have had the pleasure and the joy
playing with these cute little angels.
They were a bursting bundle of energy,
which seemed to never run out.
At times, they were more impish than angelic. B
ut what fun it was.

One of the things I enjoyed about being with them was their scent.
The smell they exuded was redolent of newly mown grass.
They still had baby’s breathe,
which I can never have enough of.
The whiff of their, yes angelic, smell was truly invigorating for me.

I have been noticing these days,
specially when I am alone,
that I can detect a certain odor around me.
It is not an offensive body odor,
which I have never had a problem with.
But it was strange and different.
I would check and smell my clothes to check if it was my sweat.
I realized that it was what I was naturally emitting.
It was the same smell that I had of my grandparents when I was younger.
It was also the smell that Tatang had in his later years.
It is not as invigorating as a baby’s breathe.
But it was kinda reassuring.

One time, Jane (the only princess in the photo) said, “Lolo, you smell different.”
Me: “Is it a bad or an offensive odor?”
Jane: “No, it is just different.”
Me: “How would describe it?”
Jane: “It’s kinda like lemon.”
Me: “I like the smell of lemons.”
Jane: “Yes, but it’s rusty lemons.”

It is amazing how even such a mundane thing body odors
can show me how amusing, enjoyable and, yes, wonderful life can be.

If we only be a little bit more mindful
and pay close attention to life.

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Spring Is Here

Posted on March 21, 2018 by Spirit Moments

 

 

 

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Spring always speak to me of hope and a new creation.
An assurance that after the gloom of winter,
the earth comes back alive with an explosion of colors and fresh life.
For no matter how dark and dreary winter is,
spring augers the the coming back to life of everything that lives.

You see, I sometimes struggle with belief in eternal life:
how can we live forever when everything eventually dies and rots?
I may find some affirmation of eternal live in science
It is now an accepted fact that matter is indestructible.
Ice melts and disappears but water it turns into is the same is the same H2O.
When heated up the water disappears
but the H2O persists and is transformed into steam or vapor or clouds.
And so it is with other matter.
One form may disappear; only to be transformed into another form.
But the amount of matter and energy remains the same.

I often think that out of single molecule (a singularity),
God can create a whole new universe.
In the beginning, the big bang was an intense explosion of light and energy.
The entire universe then was entirely made of simple elements, like hydrogen.
Over billions of years, these simple atoms habe been
transformed into more and more complex elements.
What Teilhard de Chardin described and termed as
Cosmogenesis – the evolution of the physical universe,
Biogenesis – the emergence of life,
Noogenesis – the development of consciousness,
the consciousness that we human beings are.

Even now, I believe my God is transforming me,
slowly but surely, into something more sophisticated –
bigger, better and more enduring, more loving and more giving.
Yes, somehow spring tells me how eternal life is possible.
A Creator who can make the whole universe from a single atom
can also guarantee that I will live forever.

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Being a Father

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Spirit Moments

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Today is the feast day of St. Joseph.
Today should be the ‘Catholic’ celebration of Fathers’ Day.
One of the names by which Jesus was known is “the son of the carpenter”.

There are a number of things about being a father I picked up from Joseph.
Fatherhood is very much like passing a threshold.
Or like crossing a bridge over to the other side,
excited by the unknown and thrilled by the adventure.
I had ideas what is on the other side;
but I got a lot more than I ever imagined.
Sure, there were difficulties;
but they fade into the background when I count the blessings and joys of fatherhood.

Joseph was a man of few words.
I can be very talkative and noisy yet there are many times
I have had to hold back my tongue as a father.
As a father, I learned to be kind more often than to be right all the time.

Like Joseph, I have been guided by dreams, of which I have a lot.
I have dreams for my family, dreams for each of my sons,
and now dreams for my apos.
And what a deep joy and delight it is when I get to see those dreams realized.

Joseph must have been bewildered many times
about the things happening in their family,
often not comprehending these things.
And so have I.
Life has brought us to so many places,
shared so many events and happenings,
enjoyed so many moments of sheer happiness and fun.
I would often wonder why and how;
but always grateful for all the blessings.

Joseph stayed on strong in his faith,
(He took Mary as his wife, where a lesser man would have abandoned her.)
a source of support and strength for Jesus and Mary,
(His influence on Jesus was palpable that he was referred to as a carpenter’s son.)
always compassionate and caring.
( Jesus’ first lessons about love and compassion must have been at the feet of Joseph.)
And so I pray that I too will be like him.

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It’s a Beautiful World

Posted on March 18, 2018 by Spirit Moments

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Market forces today drive businesses and the world economy.
Markets are supposed to be the most efficient ways to distribute goods and services.
If everyone worked for his own enlightened self-interest,
things would eventually work out right in the end for everyone.
People will get what they need and there will be no poverty.
But all too soon greed and selfishness come into the picture;
then inequalities happen and poverty spreads.
How can a handful of people be billionaires (about a thousand of them)
when almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.

Often, I think of all what is going wrong in the world
and it is so easy to lose hope and even lose faith.
But if I look closely and really pay attention to facts,
the world has actually gotten better.
In a special issue of Time magazine early this year, with Bill Gates as Guest Editor,
that is exactly what several people did.
And their conclusion, our world is indeed getting better.
Consider:

  • In 1990, more than a third of the global population lived in extreme poverty (the living on $2.50 a day threshold); today only about a tenth do. That is billions taken out of extreme poverty.
  • Infant mortality has gone down from over 12 million a year to about 5 million a year now, going from 1990 until today. And the goal now is to get it below 2.5 million by 2030. One of the reasons for these numbers are the concerted efforts to contain childhood diseases. We have, for example, gotten  rid of smallpox and on the verge of getting rid of polio.

 

Christ knew something about life and living
when he preached His Gospel of Life and of Love.
Yes, life can be difficult and He was willing to die on the cross
just to show us how to deal with life.
Life itself is a great gift and for that alone I am eternally grateful.
Like, nothing speaks better of the freshness and newness of life,
of hope and renewal than the streaks of first light at the break of dawn.
Every morning I wake up is another day in my gift of life.
Light is the energy that suffuses our entire world and keeps everything alive.
I imagine grace to be the divine light that sustains us
and enable us to be, to achieve and to become.

This is the Christ who promised eternal life to us, not death.
He proclaimed a good news where the hungry are fed,
And the lonely visited.
The last become first.
And sadness is turned into joy beyond measure.

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In Due Time

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Spirit Moments

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The splendor that was Egypt and Persia – buried.
The glory that was Rome and Greece – gone.
The magnificence that was the Aztecs and the Incas – in ruins.
Yet the world, our world, endures.
With even more lavish splendor, greater glory and more amazing magnificence.
And we, as a species, persist on wanting
to bury, destroy and ruin our best accomplishments.

There are days I am simply overwhelmed
by the magnitude of the problems in the world
and then feel utterly helpless at the puniness of what I can do.
I have to remind myself of the strength and beauty there is in smallness.
In the vastness of the universe, we are but stardust
but what we have built on earth is simply awesome.
Just a small fraction (about 1%) differentiates us from apes
and yet there is a world of difference between us.
Micro-nutrients, infinitesimal in quantities, are vital to life.
A pinch of salt adds infinite flavor to a dish.
A whiff of a favorite scent is enough to bring back a flood of memories.
And we get to live life one day at a time.
Things will get done in due time.
And ‘in due time’ is God’s time.

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