Gosple Reflection

December 15, 2012

Saturday – Advent – Year of Faith

by Rev. Fr. Catalino Arevalo (Society of St. Paul)

12:15PM Mass at Shrine of Mary, Queen of Peace (Our Lady of EDSA)

Reading 1 Sir 48:1-4, 9-11

In those days, like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijah whose words were as a flaming furnace. Their staff of bread he shattered, in his zeal he reduced them to straits; By the Lord's word he shut up the heavens and three times brought down fire. How awesome are you, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds! Whose glory is equal to yours? You were taken aloft in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot with fiery horses. You were destined, it is written, in time to come to put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD, To turn back the hearts of fathers toward their sons, and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob. Blessed is he who shall have seen you and who falls asleep in your friendship.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 80:2ac and 3b, 15-16, 18-19

R. (4) Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.
O shepherd of Israel, hearken,
From your throne upon the cherubim, shine forth.
Rouse your power.
R. Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.
Once again, O LORD of hosts,
look down from heaven, and see;
Take care of this vine,
and protect what your right hand has planted
the son of man whom you yourself made strong.
R. Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.
May your help be with the man of your right hand,
with the son of man whom you yourself made strong.
Then we will no more withdraw from you;
give us new life, and we will call upon your name.
R. Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.

Gospel Mt 17:9a, 10-13

As they were coming down from the mountain, the disciples asked Jesus, "Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?" He said in reply, "Elijah will indeed come and restore all things; but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased. So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands." Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.

HOMILY

Father Nilo asked me to celebrate this mass with him and the fathers here present. I guess it is because I am the only one among them who is present here for the dedication of this chapel and also for the small blessing ceremony because the chapel was not yet fully ready on December 8 prior to this particular feast. 

This area was all full of grass during the EDSA Revolution. All these buildings did not exist. It was, I think, a Sunday afternoon when thousands and thousands of people were pouring in from all over. They were gathered here and the tanks arrived. And the fear was the tanks will open fire on the crowd. The crowd was present here by the thousands, with no weapons but rosaries in their hands. If I am not mistaken, the picture that was taken of two nuns from St. Paul kneeling in front of one of the tanks, took place that particular Sunday.

The people were saying the rosary over and over again, for a peaceful solution to this revolt against the dictatorship. And it was a miracle that none of the tanks opened fire, not a single soldier shot a gun, and they withdrew after a few hours of peaceful confrontation. 

After the revolution was over, Bishop Gabriel Reyes was appointed by Cardinal Sin to start making negotiations and setting up the plans for this oratory, for this church. But just a week before this church was to be opened, there was the last coup d' etat which the military set up in Makati. We were having a meeting at the Villa San Miguel with Cardinal Sin and I remember sitting beside Bishop Cornelio de Wit of Antique. He turned to me and said, "Look, there is shooting in Makati. And we are supposed to open the church within in a few days." And on the television, we could see soldiers shooting across the street, soldiers on the other side.

Cardinal Sin overheard Bishop de Wit saying that, and he said, "It will be over by December 8." Bishop de Wit turned to me and said, "Either the Cardinal is just bluffing or the Lord is telling him something that He is not telling us." And sure enough, before December 8, the fight stopped. Cardinal Sin decided to have a very simple blessing of the almost finished church on December 8, then the solemnification was done on this day. Bishop Soc was then his secretary.  

Cardinal Sin said, "This place will be a place of prayer. It will never be empty. This is the place where the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary overturned a dictatorship in peace. People will flock here, and this will be the Shrine of Our Lady of Peace."

I don't know exactly by memory the quotation from, I think, the Book of Second Chronicles, which you can see on the side of this church facing Ortigas. It runs something like, 'If My people, upon whom My name is called, shall humble themselves and pray, seek My face, repent from their sins and turn to Me, I will hear their prayer from heaven. I will forgive them their sins, and I will bring the land back to them." That quotation from the Old Testament was repeated over and over again in the weeks that preceded the EDSA Revolution. And it was a kind of theme song for the EDSA Revolution.

Months later, I met Bishop Cornelio de Wit again and he said, "The Cardinal was certain that everything will be over before December 8. He must have been giving something to the Lord that the rest of God could not give. Now I am convinced that the Cardinal is hearing something from the Lord, which the rest of us could not hear."

All of us took part, by God's grace, in that peaceful revolution, and we felt sincerely that at that moment, God really stepped into our history. Two or three months later, I remember that in Novaliches, there was a workshop of about 300 people. And there was a Lutheran missionary there, with his wife and children, taking part in the workshop. After I have spoken, the missionary asked me and said, "Father, do you think there was really a miracle in EDSA?" And I said, "Pastor, you were there. What do you think?" And he started to cry and said, "If there was no miracle there at the EDSA Revolution, when God stepped into our history, I don't think there will be any miracles at all."

Today, we thank God that, through the efforts, especially of Cardinal Sin, this oratory, this church was built, as a remembrance of God's stepping into our history, who gave us peace, who gave us freedom. Let us remember the words of Cardinal Sin, "This church will never be empty." In this place, people will remember that God stepped into our history to save us. And people will know that when we come to this church and pray, and approach God with great humility, God will forgive our sins, He will hear our prayers, and restore our land to us. He will give us what we ask for, if it will help us in our pilgrimage toward the Kingdom. He will give us what we pray for, in this church, where Mary interceded for us, where thousands of people were here in this area, praying to Our Lady Queen of Peace.

For all of us who are here, the same is true. If we turn to God, if we turn humbly with our hearts, if we repent from our sins, and pray to God with humility and confidence to be with us, God will hear us. God will step into our history, whether it be our history as a people, or as individuals. God will give us the grace and blessings that we need.

It is good that you are here this afternoon, to remember that great grace, and to renew in our hearts, in this Year of Faith, the faith that God is with us and listens to our prayers, as long as our hearts are humble, and we have confidence in Him. Amen.

Gospel Reflection

December 14, 2012

Friday – Advent – Year of Faith

Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church

by Rev. Fr. Richard James Babao (Vice Minister, Archdiocesan Ministry on Ecumenical and Interfaith Affairs)
12:15PM Mass at the Chapel of the Eucharistic Lord, Megamall

Reading 1 Is 48:17-19

Thus says the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I, the LORD, your God, teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go. If you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would be like a river, and your vindication like the waves of the sea; Your descendants would be like the sand, and those born of your stock like its grains, Their name never cut off or blotted out from my presence.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6

R. (see John 8:12) Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.

Gospel Mt 11:16-19

Jesus said to the crowds: "To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another, 'We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.' For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, 'He is possessed by a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, 'Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is vindicated by her works."

HOMILY

Jesus was very sad when he talks about the Kingdom of heaven and speaks to the Pharisees and the Scribes. Jesus was saying that John the Baptist was preparing the way for the Lord. John the Baptist was the second Elijah, a sign that something is coming. John was preaching about penance, about going back to the Lord, about conversion. But the Pharisees and Scribes did not listen to him.

Jesus came to try to involve Himself with the people, to be part of them. He ate and drank with them. But they said that Jesus was a drunkard and a glutton, mingling with the poor and the sinners. For them, the Son of Man was supposed to be a man of dignity, that is why they could not accept him as the Son of God, as the Messiah. They were thinking of a different Messiah. That is why Jesus was saying they are like children. Either way, they did not listen, and could not accept that an ordinary son of a carpenter will be the Messiah. Remember that the Pharisees and the Scribes were schooled. They knew many things, they know the law. So for them, who is this son of a carpenter,  speaking about the Kingdom of heaven?

St. John of the Cross said that the greatest sin of man is pride. Why? Because a proud man does not see God, but sees only himself. In fact, he sees himself as God, believes only in himself, focuses on himself, and lives only for himself. Therefore, he forgets or does not realize that he is only an image of God. As we know, pride is one of the seven capitals sins - the root of our sins.

My dear brothers and sisters, as we prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus this Christmas, let us look at ourselves once again and realize that first and foremost, we have been made in the image and likeness of God. We were created by God, and we owe everything to Him. Unless we learn to approach God with a pure heart, we can never prepare for the coming of His Son, such that when He comes, we will never decipher, we will never know that it is He who has come. And Christmas will never be celebrated as it should be.

Christmas is supposed to be a homecoming of us to our Lord. When that happens, it will give us peace and joy, which is the purpose, the essence of Christmas. Amen.

Saint John of the Cross – Pray for us

You may also want to see: A Holy Life - Saint John of the Cross

A Holy Life

Saint John of the Cross

Doctor of the Church

Feast day – December 14

Saint John of the Cross was born near Avila in Spain. As a child, he was playing near a pond one day. He slid into the depths of the water, but came up unharmed and did not sink again. A tall and beautiful Lady came to offer him Her hand. “No,” said the child, “You are too beautiful; my hand will dirty Yours.” Then an elderly gentleman appeared on the shore and extended his staff to the child to bring him to shore. These two were Mary and Joseph. Another time he fell into a well, and it was expected he would be retrieved lifeless. But he was seated and waiting peacefully. “A beautiful lady,” he said, “took me into Her cloak and sheltered me.” Thus John grew up under the gaze of Mary.

One day he was praying Our Lord to make known his vocation to him, and an interior voice said to him: “You will enter a religious Order, whose primitive fervor you will restore.” He was twenty-one years old when he entered Carmel, and although he concealed his exceptional works, he outshone all his brethren. He dwelt in an obscure corner whose window opened upon the chapel, opposite the Most Blessed Sacrament. He wore around his waist an iron chain full of sharp points, and over it a tight vestment made of reeds joined by large knots. His disciplines were so cruel that his blood flowed in abundance. The priesthood only redoubled his desire for perfection. He thought of going to bury his existence in the Carthusian solitude, when Saint Teresa, whom God enlightened as to his merit, made him the confidant of her projects for the reform of Carmel and asked him to be her auxiliary.

John retired alone to a poor and inadequate dwelling and began a new kind of life, conformed with the primitive Rules of the Order of Carmel. Shortly afterwards two companions came to join him; the reform was founded. It was not without storms that it developed, for hell seemed to rage and labor against it, and if the people venerated John as a Saint, he had to accept, from those who should have seconded him, incredible persecutions, insults, calumnies, and even prison. When Our Lord told him He was pleased with him, and asked him what reward he wished, the humble religious replied: “To suffer and to be scorned for You.” His reform, though approved by the General of the Order, was rejected by the older friars, who condemned the Saint as a fugitive and an apostate and cast him into prison, from which he only escaped, after nine months’ suffering, with the help of Heaven and at the risk of his life. He took refuge with the Carmelite nuns for a time, saying his experience in prison had been an extraordinary grace for him. Twice again, before his death, he was shamefully persecuted by his brethren, and publicly disgraced.

When he fell ill, he was given a choice of monasteries to which he might go; he chose the one governed by a religious whom he had once reprimanded and who could never pardon him for it. In effect, he was left untended most of the time, during his last illness. But at his death the room was filled with a marvelous light, and his unhappy Prior recognized his error, and that he had mistreated a Saint. After a first exhumation of his remains, they were found intact; many others followed, the last one in 1955. The body was at that time found to be entirely moist and flexible still.

Saint John wrote spiritual books of sublime elevation. A book printed in 1923 which has now become famous, authored by a Dominican theologian,* justly attributed to Saint John and to Saint Thomas Aquinas, whom the Carmelite Saint followed, the indisputable foundations for exact ascetic and mystical theology. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1926 by Pope Pius XI.

 

Sources for this article were taken from:  http://magnificat.ca

 

Prayer

O God, Who didst instill into the heart of Saint John ot the Cross, Thy Confessor and our Father, a perfect spirit of self-abnegation, and a surpassing love of Thy Cross: grant, that assiduously following in his footsteps, we may attain to eternal glory. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Saint John of the Cross – Pray for us