Jessel Gerard

Sunday Homily for All Souls and All Saints Days: Matthew 22, 1-12

                                               The Meaning of Visiting the Grave

The Gospel today speaks about practicing what we preach. But there are things which we practice but do not know why we preach it. For example, we come to Sunday mass but we totally do not understand what the mass really means. The same applies to our practice of commemorating All Souls Day and All Saints Day. We come to the cemeteries without actually knowing why we go and visit the dead. Media commercializes these two important practices by putting in the Western season of Halloween: Television shows like Eat Bulaga! and various commercial establishments wore Halloween costumes as themes, and many of us associate November 1 & 2 to horror stories of ghosts. I believe Halloween is an empty tradition. I shall therefore embark on an explanation of these two feasts using three perspectives that are easy to memorize.

First, the perspective of hope. When I visit the grave of my father whenever I find the chance to be home, the first thing I encounter is the reality of forever. At the grave, I talk to him about my life believing that he listens to me and he is present. Memories of him flood my mind, and in the remembrance of the times he spent with me and my family, he becomes present to me always. Death therefore as faith has it is never an end. In the preface for Christian Burial, it is said that life has not ended, but changed. The same thing with me: whatever challenges I face, I am always reminded not to lose hope, because in the end, there is life forever. And the proof is my father’s presence to me wherever I am, never anymore limited to physical presence. My father is with me always, all the time, wherever I go.

            After grief and sorrow, I find myself feeling a deep joy: that I am happy for Daddy, that he is home in the arms of God. Oftentimes, our grief is about ourselves who are left behind, but that is a different story. We are also taught that Christians should be happy for someone else’s triumph — the remedy for our envy and jealousy. And right at the grave, we are asked to go out of our own self-absorption and be happy for those who have gone ahead of us. That their life speaks about forever, about hope, about God.

Second, the perspective of love. Closely connected to the reality of forever, we are reminded that all our love, all our life finds meaning, direction, and goal in the desire to finally come home to the arms of God. It is not surprising therefore that true lovers promise to love each other until the end of time. This theme one finds in our literature, in our songs, and even in theater: “Hanggang sa Dulo ng Walang Hanggan”, West Side Story’s “Somewhere”, etc. We have known this reality since time immemorial. At the grave of those we love, we have found the meaning of love. My love for my father thus is beyond the grave: not even death will bring us apart.

            Moreover, the grave reminds us of the things that are really important. Often we are swept with trivial things that do not last: temporal things that have become the source of our pride. These are our economic status, our educational background, our achievements, and our titles. If we look more closely, we are in a twisted world. The Gospel teaches us that all of these temporal things are to be used for service, in the love of others. Case in point: when we reach the highest educational attainment, post-graduate studies for example, it is expected that our expertise will make us great educators. But tragically, many of those with PhDs are the most boring and horrifying teachers or astutely proud individuals. Our faith tells us that the more we have, the more responsible we become of others: thus, they should be able to adapt to slow learners as well as to gifted individuals. Great service is carried until the next life; the others end at the grave. Proof: we remember the sacrifice of heroes, and are inspired to continue their legacy.

In addition, those who visit us when we die are the recipients of our love. They are the ones who matter. They are the ones whom we should dedicate our lives with. This is the direction of all our courses of action, our decisions, and our sacrifices. The grave redirects our lives.

            Furthermore, I find myself connected with my ancestors. At the side walls of the 17^th century

church

of

St. John

the Baptist in Camalig, Albay are the niches of my ancestors who have contributed to the construction of the church. I was baptized there. I played the Kawai organ there in high school. And my vocation grew there. I would not be a priest now without the church built by great ancestors. In the cemetery, my mother would give me a tour of all the people there. She would tell me that her mother used to sing at church, and her father used to play the organ at mass. Today, that is precisely what I do. All these ancestors of mine contributed to who I am now. When I visit the cemetery, I find myself connected to generations of familial love and service to the community. I belong there.

Finally, the perspective of faith. Every Sunday, the creed is recited to remind us of the basic tenets of our faith. In the creed, there is a phrase that is the source of the practice of commemorating the dead: the “communion of saints.” Just as I am connected with my ancestors, we who are pilgrims here on earth are connected with those who are still being purified and those who are already with God. And all those who are with God are holy people: they are saints, whether known or unknown.

            And their presences are manifestations of God’s personal love for us. By their lives, we are guided. We are assured that we are never alone. I know my father is a saint: his life has been a good example to me and my family. His being father when I was a child was my first encounter of God’s fatherly love; and it continues to be until now, and in the future.

As we visit the graves of our loved ones, let us make our visit meaningful by keeping them in mind. And at the same time, re-evaluate our lives in the perspectives of hope, love and faith. And maybe ask just one question: what would I like people to remember me by when I die or what could be my contribution to the people who will succeed me. As we commune with them, we pray for them that they too pray for us.

18 October 2005: Luke 10, 1-12, 17-20

Harvesting our Blessings

The Gospel today gives us a wider mission: as workers for the harvest. This mission is intended not just for special people like priests and nuns, but for all of us. You see the Gospel mentions “seventy men” who were sent by Jesus. The number 70 was for the Jews symbolic. It was held that during Jesus’ time that there were 70 nations in the world. And thus, Luke whose Gospel we read today used the number 70 to mean that the mission of Jesus is for all nations; and therefore, the mission is for all of us. We are sent that all people will hear about Jesus, love Jesus and follow Jesus. Secondly, it also means that the harvest is assured. What are needed are laborers to harvest. We can be laborers. But what can be harvested, and how can we harvest? What can be harvested are blessings or graces; and thus we harvest by receiving our blessings.

Most of us have been given many more blessings than we have received. We do not take time to be blessed or make the space for it. We may have filled our lives so full of other things that we have no room to receive our blessings. Blessings are all over our lives, but they are waiting for our time and our attention for them to enter our hearts.

Martin Buber reminds us that just to live is holy. Just to be as we are is a blessing. If he is right, what prevents us from receiving our blessings? I believe it is not the lack of time. Often times we may have not realized or recognized a blessing when it is given or we may have ideas about how life should be, how people should behave, how events should have happened that keep us from experience life as it should be. We may have frozen ourselves in the past that we believe that what we had experienced before, our past decisions which made us who we are, our past triumphs should and must always happen to those who come after us, particularly our children. It is often difficult to accept that their dreams are not the same as our dreams, their decisions are not the same us our choices, and the events that happen to them are not the same as the struggles we had encountered. But being frozen and being caught up in the past shields us from receiving the blessings of the present. Or, we may become so caught up with what is missing in the world, what is lacking in people, what is events should have never have happened, that we allow our hearts to break, that we may have felt empty in the midst of all our graces.

We can bless others only when we feel blessed ourselves. Blessing life sometimes means that we should learn how to celebrate life than how to fix it. With a lot of darkness in the world, we may have lost our eye for joy. Often we look and judge life in order to move things forward, or we may have let our anger change the world, and we may have been too critical of others including our children and co-workers, hoping that our being critical of them will change them and their decisions. To receive our blessings often means having the humility to accept that we cannot change the world, or restore the world alone.

I guess this is what it means about Jesus’ saying that the harvest is plenty but the laborers are few. The laborers are few because there are many things that shield us from recognizing our harvest. Some blessings do go when not recognized at the right time. A good friend is right in front of you, but you let them pass. A deeper relationship is right ahead of us only if we take a 360-degree turn of telling the truth about how one feels, but we let it go afraid the present relationship might change. An opportunity to be closer to a loved one comes right by and we let them pass because our fears to express our love prevent us from expressing them. Only to realize that receiving the blessing is too late. As Peter Parker said in Spiderman II, “In doing the right thing, sometimes we need to sacrifice our dreams.” Let me add, “In order to love someone as dearly as possible, sometimes we need to sacrifice our work and our one way of dealing with life.”

Sometimes our wounds open us to see our blessings and thus see different ways of receiving such blessings. People who have suffered serious illnesses and great tragedies often have let go a great deal, but their wounds have allowed them to realize what and who is more important to them.

Therefore, as laborers, let us harvest our blessings by opening our eyes to see them in our lives. We desire the greatest blessing possible. Well, in Latin, desiderie or desire means to be beside the stars. To be beside our blessings.

20 October 2005. Luke 12, 49-53: Fire, baptizein, and division

Fire, Baptizein, Division

1. In Jewish thought, fire was always the symbol of judgment or divine punishment. But Jesus is not speaking of a vengeful and destructive fire, as one who would exact punishment. As we can see in Luke 9, 54-56, Jesus sternly rebukes James and John who plan on “bidding fire to come down from heaven” on those unwelcoming Samaritans.

St. Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Cyril of Alexandria and Jerome say this fire as a symbolic fire, like the Holy Spirit. Jesus speaks of a fire in the hearts of men (Luke 24, 32 as the fire in the hearts of the disciples of Emmaus). “Are not our heart burning.” And this fire as Jesus encouraged to be kindled.

2. “I have a baptism to be baptized with.” The Greek verb baptizein means to dip, to be submerged. It has several use and meanings:
   1. as a ship sunk beneath the sea.
   2. as a man submerged in wine, that he was dead-drunk.
   3. as a student submerged in a teacher’s questions/exam.
   4. as a person submerged in some grip or terrible experience. “Malas talaga ako.”

= Jesus used the word baptizein is the last sense (d) to mean that he is going to experience a terrible thing, but through which he has to pass to emerge triumphant.

3. His coming eventually means division. Over and over again, Christianity divides people— not just families, friends but even groups. We are presented with always a choice of priority and importance: which do you love most, your family or your God? Essence of loyalty is with Christ. As they said, “we belong to our families, our line, but we also belong to God.”

Points to Ponder:

1. The fire which must be always burning is a fire burning in the heart of Christ; a fire that is not of this world, a fire which comes from God. It is the will of God that something in our hearts is kept burning and hurting. We have met people whose hearts are consumed by a passion for justice, peace and healing. We have seen people who have dedicated their lives for noble cause: they are in the hospitals caring for the sick, they are those who go teach catechism, etc. They have in turn set us afire.

·   QUESTION TO PONDER: What person are you? Cold or Warm? Are you contented with just what is there, or are your hearts burning and desiring for something more?

2. And inasmuch as we want to light up the earth with fire of love, to bring about a change, or a revolution of mentalities and structures, then we are also driven to the same baptism as that of Jesus. We are thus asked to suffer division, pain and failure and rejection; whether we are asked to choose between our friends and the ideals we would live by.

·   QUESTION TO PONDER: Christianity is not just being nice. It means being angry at times, confronting injustice, making a stand. This Gospel is meant to shake us from being cold-hearted, into Christians with a stand.

Sunday Homily for 23 October 2005: Matthew 22, 34-40

They said that Christianity is a simple religion. Today, we hear about how simple our faith is. Jesus has laid down for us only two commandments, a definite summary of all the commandments in the Old Testament, which we can memorize and live our lives with. He has laid the complete definition of religion.

First, religion consists in loving God. The verse which Jesus quotes is Deuteronomy 6,5, which is part of the Shema, the basic and essential creed of Judaism, the sentence which every Jewish service opens, and the first text which every Jewish child should memorize. It means that to God we give our total love, a love which dominates all of ourselves, a total commitment of life to God.

Second, Jesus quotes comes from Leviticus 19, 18. Our love for God must issue in love for people. But it should be noted in which order the commandments come: it is the love of God first, and the love of people second. Our love of people flows from its source: our love for God. Why should we love people? Because God loves us, that we become lovable and worthy to be loved. The biblical teaching about people is that we are not a collection of chemical elements, or a part of the animal species, but that we are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1, 26-27).

How do we love God and persons? Let me first begin with ourselves: What kind of love do you want? I have a story, The Kind of Love I Want:

It was a busy morning, approximately

8:30 a.m.

, when an elderly gentleman in his 80s arrived to have sutures (stitches) removed from his thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at

9 a.m.

I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to be able to see him.

I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On exam, it was well healed so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

While taking care of his wound, we began to engage in conversation I asked him if he had a doctor’s appointment that morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, and that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I then inquired about her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer’s disease.

As I finished dressing his wound, I asked if she would be worried if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now. I was surprised and asked him, "And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?" He smiled as he patted my hand and said, "She doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is.” I had to hold back tears as he left. I had goose bumps and thought, “That is the kind of love I want in my life."

* * *

If a love like this — when people love us for everything that we are, even if we forget and neglect them — is the kind of love that we want, then that is the kind of love we give of others. If they forget to thank you for the things you have done for them, love them anyway. Because that is the same with God. Our God is a faithful lover: even if we forget and neglect him, the Lord continues to love us anyway. Because, like the husband, it doesn’t matter that she forgets, what matters is that he knows her.

John 6, 1-15 Feeding the Multitude & Gospels about banquets

The banquet is a very powerful image to the ancient Israelites where everyone partakes of the food and wine in perfect friendship and equality with one’s neighbors. It is easy then to see why Jesus would use the table as a symbol of God’s kingdom. Whether in the great banquets of kings to the meal time of shepherds, the table was a place of peace and equality. Everyone regardless of status shares a basic need as hunger, and a common reason to celebrate as the presence of a great prophet. In the Gospel of John, the

Kingdom

of

God

as the great banquet is mirrored in the simple meal of barley loaves and fishes.

And thus, all meals are not just acts of physical replenishing, to be done quickly so that one can rush to the television or dash to the computer. Meals are important events. First, it is an event of gratitude for all that God has given us. It is a time to praise, honor and thank our Creator. Today, seldom do families and friends pray before meals. “Bless us, O Lord, and these Your gifts, from your bounty…” Hardly do we remember that each meal— or snacks for that matter — are events of God being a good parent and a good provider. In John’s Gospel, the miracle of feeding the multitude happened after Jesus took the loaves and had given thanks (John

6:10

).

Second, it is an event to celebrate the bonds of family and friends and eventually deepening relationships. Today, many families do not anymore sit at table together. The reason can be work-related or simply that today’s culture does not give importance to common family time. For example, with the advent of telenovelas, primetime television affected common family meals. People eat to replenish themselves and then hurry to their favorite soap operas, afraid to miss a segment of the story. Little do we realize that we are missing an important part of our lives: we would miss a day’s events in the life of our loved ones, an opportunity to listen to their stories, a time to strengthen our bonds, and most importantly, to remember God’s miracle of love during the day, shared in a simple meal. In the Gospel of John, the crowd is not only hungry, but weary, lost and detached from one another. With the lost of interacting between family and friends, people easily becomes detached from one another.

A miracle happens when everyone shares the same food and drink. A miracle happens when everyone shares their whole lives in openness to one another like a personal problem, a common concern, or a day’s triumph. A miracle happens when even a single person, like a simple boy, shares what one has like fish and the poor’s barley loaves (Judges

7:13

; Ezekiel

4:12

) used as feed for animals (1 Kings

4:28

) to a hungry crowd. The single person is not only contented, but is no longer an isolated individual, but a member of a community, like a family around the dining table. The multitude becomes a community. It is what happens to each individual person in the congregation at mass: we, who shares Christ, the bread of life himself, become one. The table of the Lord becomes a place of peace and love, and the stranger who once felt alone and rejected, is never turned away.

And so, when we receive Christ in the Eucharist, it also means that we must also be the genuine presence of Christ in our own community: feeding those who are hungry for food or our love, we must make our tables a place of peace and friendship. If we look into our past, we see that families did take extra care to prepare the meals so that the family table became an important event, not just a refueling of physical hunger. So we must take extra care to prepare ourselves so that when we have given ourselves as food for our neighbor, the quality of service is excellent.

Many of us hold a great devotion to our Blessed Virgin Mary. Many of us have set certain days within the week such as Wednesday for our Mother of Perpetual Help, or certain dates within the year such as the Feast of the Assumption on the 15^th of August, the Immaculate Conception on the 8^th of December or the Birthday of our Mother on the 8^th of September to particularly express deep love towards our Mother. And many of us have used the rosary to show such devotion. In many Catholic schools, October is marked by what we call the “living rosary” in which students recite the rosary together. Today, it is with deep sadness, that such devotions are slowly fading and many of us do not even know how the devotion to our Lady of the Rosary was promoted.

Apart from the signal defeat of the Albigensian heretics at the battle of Muret in 1213 which legend has attributed to the recitation of the rosary by St. Dominic, it is believed that heaven has on many occasions rewarded the faith of those who had recourse to this devotion in times of special danger. More particularly, the naval victory of Lepanto gained by Don Juan of Austria over the Turkish fleet on the first Sunday of October in 1571 responded wonderfully to the processions made at

Rome

on that same day by the members of the Rosary confraternity. St. Pius V thereupon ordered that a commemoration of the rosary should be made upon that day, and at the request of the Dominican Order. In 1671 the observance of this festival was extended by Clement X to the whole of Spain, and somewhat later Clement the XI after the important victory over the Turks gained by Prince Eugene on 6 August, 1716 (the feast of our Lady of the Snows), at Peterwardein in Hungary, had commanded the feast of the Rosary to be celebrated by the universal Church. And thus this devotion is specially done in times of danger. It is not surprising that at crucial moments— moments that spell danger — we see ourselves clutching the rosary: whether at sea, or in total darkness when we are afraid.

      One of the greatest questions about the rosary is its repetitive prayer. The Hail Mary’s are repeated several times. And many— including those who are not Catholics — have questioned the practicing of mindlessly repeating the vocal prayers. In fact we heard from tradition that they explained the repetitive Hail Mary’s like a bouquet of roses to our Mother. We seek a better answer than that.

      First, it is good to know that Catholics are not the only ones who use repetitive prayer. Zen Buddhism, for example, meditates using several mantras in order for them to achieve inner peace. Second, it is good to know that in Catholic tradition and prayer, repetition is not a strange thing. St. Ignatius’ Repetition, for example, is a help to prayer which he uses constantly. Repetition is an important way to notice the interior spiritual movements in one’s heart and thus listen for the prompting of God’s Spirit. It sometimes takes a repetition or two before we can deeply see what is going on in a prayer that is challenging us and, thereby, achieve the fruit of the contemplation. St. Ignatius would recommend its use both during the directed retreat and for one’s daily prayer exercises.

      However, we only have to look into our daily lives in order to know how important repetition is. There are many things that we repeat in order for us to learn from it. Studies are repetitions. What the teacher has taught us, we repeatedly review until we begin to understand it. Then it becomes part of us.

      The same thing with values and change. For example, when one repeatedly becomes grateful for the many blessings he has been given, eventually, he becomes the virtue itself— he becomes a grateful person. They said that you need to repeatedly do a thing for 30 days, and it will become a habit. Moreover, certain events, such as going to church also have meaning. Let me tell you this story.

A churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I’ve gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So I think I’m wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

"I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"

The same thing with the rosary. When we remember the events in Jesus’ life—- from the Joyful, Light, Sorrowful, and Glorious —- we repeatedly become familiar with his life. So that as we repeat, and repeat his life, Jesus’ life becomes our life. When we repeat and repeat the Hail Mary, we hope that Mary’s life becomes our life as well. And when we come and pray repeatedly, we say to the Lord how much we actually love Him.

In our home, my mother has taught my family to pray the rosary every night. To me, it is much, much similar, when I repeat and repeat the words, “I love you, Mom” to assure her that her son loves her. The repetition of “I love you, Mom” is much, much more significant in my life today especially that my mother is sick. You see when we get sick, our wounds are healed with repeated words of love.

Wednesday, October 5, 2005. Luke 11, 1-4. Lord, teach us to pray.

A useful way of praying in the spiritual life is the examen, which St. Ignatius himself counseled was the single most important exercise for a person to do every day. In essence, it is about taking a good look at our choices in life and asking whether they have made us better persons. Over time, the examen helps us to take regular inventory of our spiritual lives. By praying the examen, we become more adept at listening to God and working with God in the ongoing project of building a good life.

There are two types:

The First Type of Examen. The first type of examen is the kind we undertake when we come to a life stage that makes us think about where we’ve been— what the previous weeks, months, or years have been like for us. Often, this kind of examen happens with some big event, good or bad: graduation, illness, the birth of a child, a family tragedy. Big events in our lives force us to confront the way we’ve been living and the choices we’ve made; sometimes we are thankful, and other times we have regrets. When we perform this kind of examen, we are asking about how our past attitudes have affected our choices over time.

The Second Type of Examen is about looking at our consciousness of the past day. It is this practice that becomes the regular maintenance of the spiritual life: it is about paying attention to highs and lows, things we are grateful for and things we regret. In this examen, we go through our memories of the day to see what emerges. The steps below:

1. Pray for Understanding. Pray that God might help you understand how he is working with you in your everyday life. We choose to believe that God is present to us in every moment, and so we pray that in reviewing the day, we may come to know God’s activity with us.

2. Give Thanks. Recall and give thanks for the good things God has given you. Practice thankfulness for basic goods, like being alive, being with people you love, having food to eat, and so on. The practice of gratitude alone is a valuable exercise for many, particularly those who are at difficult periods in their lives. I came to understand this point recently. Many things in my life seemed wrong, and so my spiritual director instructed me to practice this exercise of gratitude. Instead of focusing on all the negative feelings, I focused on what was good.

3. Pay attention to your feelings. Pay attention to strong feelings, both positive and negative, that emerge in your recollection of the day. For Ignatius, feelings were a barometer of the spiritual life, for they tell us things about ourselves and our relationship with God. In looking over the past day, ask yourself what feelings were most strong and why. Try not to “censor” your feelings, determining in advance which are permissible and which are not. Simply ask God to help you understand where the feelings come from and what they tell you about your spiritual life.

4. Examine one of your feelings. Choose one strong feeling from the past day, then dig deeper; let it be the source of your prayer. If this feeling has emerged in your memory of the day, then it surely points to something important. What is it? Is the feeling positive or negative, and how does it move you? Do you want to be angry at God, or do you want to praise God? Whatever the feelings move you toward can be a source of prayer. Again, remember that honesty and openness are important here. Don’t try to predetermine what a prayer should be, any more than you would predetermine what a friendship is supposed to be. Simply allow the feeling to lead you in conversation with God.

5. Look ahead. Move towards looking ahead. As you wind up your prayer from the feeling of the past day, start thinking about how this will affect your choices in the future. Ask God to be with you as your prepare for what lies ahead. Again pay attention to your feelings: are you looking forward to the next day or are you afraid of it?

6. Make a Closing Prayer. Close with a standard prayer, like the Our Father, or use some words that connote your willingness to listen to God in the coming day. Again, pray for the grace to discern God’s will and the courage to do it.

Final Note. The examen does not need to be at a time set apart. It is good to do this once in a while, really taking stock of ourselves and the choices we’ve made, but it is also good to integrate elements of the examen into our everyday thinking. It’s possible to do an examen while waiting in life, eating lunch, driving, listening to music. At the most basic level, the examen is your response to the question, “What has God been doing in my life?” It is about paying my attention to my relationship with God: the ways my personality, strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, choices and dilemmas tell me about God’s movements in my life. It is the chance to simply see God in our lives and to be conscious of His abiding presence in our life. He said, “I will be always with you till the end of time.”

Practical Suggestions for Prayer

Some Questions:

1. What has been the most important thing I’ve done today (this week, this month)?
2. How have I been an instrument of God’s love toward others?
3. Who has shown me God’s love? In what way?
4. Have I hurt anyone today (this week, this month)?
5. Have I treated anyone as a means to an end rather than as a person?

Some Meditations

1. Review your day slowly. What stands out? What are you thankful for? What do you regret? What caused you pain? Pay attention to small things, like feeling satisfaction for doing a good job or feeling sorry for missing something important. Pay attention to the memories of the way you felt about things.
2. Ask God for the grace to know God’s will for you life and so see the ways God is working in your life.
3. What do your actions (or failures to act) tell you about your relationship to God? Does anything stand out — a conversation, a time you got angry, something that moved you, an unexpected event, a regret? With patience, ask yourself what you feelings at the time tell you. Did your feelings manifest a willingness to listen to God or to ignore God?
4. What patterns do you see over the last day, week, month, or year? What do these patterns tell you about your relationship to God?
5. Take your observations into prayer, telling everything to God and asking God for understanding. Allow God to move you — and to surprise you if necessary.

Material taken from Tim Muldoon, The Ignatian Workout: daily spiritual exercises for a healthy faith. Jesuit Communications Foundation Inc. 2004

Matthew 11, 25-30 St. Francis of Assisi

One day a devil decided to close his shop and sell all his tools, except for one. He sold laziness. He also sold lying and the rest of his tools, except for discouragement.

One of his fellow devils asked him why he chose to keep discouragement as his only tool.

He said that if he ever decided to open his shop again, all he would need was discouragement to lead people to all other kinds of sin. “Once a person is discouraged,” he said, “it follows that he will stop praying, he won’t bother about trying to be patient, he won’t mind gossiping, and if life becomes challenging and many things fail, he would lose hope.”

The devil knew all this because he is the most discouraged of all. He has lost companionship with God forever and he wants as many people as possible to join him in his misery, and he knows that discouragement is the fast road to misery.

For all of you who are graduating this semester, or for many who are finishing the requirements and taking the final exams, do not listen to discouragement. When the devil asks for a ride, do not let him. He will want to drive you as well.

In today’s gospel, Jesus says to us, “Come to me, all you are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you.” Thus, come to the Lord if you’re tired and need rest. Take a break. If we can spend a few moments with a friend at a coffee shop when are done with work, take the Lord out with you too. Nothing is more needed today than this rest of body, mind and spirit. We live in a world that exhausting and controlling, manipulative and straining, anxiously hurrying and running out of time. St. Francis of

Assisi

has found delight and rest in the beauty of nature: the birds of the air, and the flowers of the fields. And we are asked to stop for awhile and delight in the flowers.

God gives us several ways to rest. Every week, Sunday is the time when we are made to realize that we need to rest in God. No longer do we take things into our own hands. Rather we place all things into divine hands; Sunday teaches us that we actually do not control our lives and thus it is a day of trusting in God. When we spend Sunday with those who matter to us, do not think of work. Second, we can go into hesychia. Hesychia is the Greek word for rest; and hesychasm refers to the spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers in the old days. In the desert, they spend their days in solitude. However, we do know this is difficult since we have our work, families, and social responsibilities. But we can experience hesychia by scheduling some time off from everything. Just like a spa experience, a half-day per semester for example. Finally, we can go on occasional recollection. Recollection means focus. It means tranquility of mind, heart and soul. We can cultivate a life of reflection. We can wrestle with existence clarification — who we are and what our purpose for being is. We can take a private retreat just to consider our direction in life. All these ways to pray for rest keep us from discouragement and refocuses us to what is true of us. It is good to know that when we rest, the eternal Lord keeps praying for us too. It is in fact why the first prayer often taught to children is the “Angel of God.” It is the prayer that we adults should continue to pray because we forget that God is always at our side, as we rest, refreshing us.

Jesus encourages us who are beginning to be discouraged to come to him for a “coffee shot”. He will energize us, so that once more, prayer, patience, determination, hope and other virtues will be worthwhile to us.

Matthew 21:33-43 The Vineyard Owner

Today, I want to focus on the violence the Gospel contains: the servants and the vineyard owner’s son were brutalized and killed. This is, as you sadly know, a timely topic. Violence forms the subtext of our daily lives. Nations, peoples, individuals of all ages–even kids–are routinely hurting, damaging, and killing one another. It has all become so commonplace that we hardly pay attention anymore.

What is behind this proliferation of violence in our world? I want to suggest that part of it is a shocking lack of empathy for other people, for the victims, an inability to feel what those who are hurt or dying are feeling. We lack empathy and we hurt and kill others because we have divided the world into “us” and “them”. For Jesus, there was no “us” and “them,” no blacks and whites, no gay and straight, no Jew and Samaritan. Jesus taught that our neighbor is everyone–especially everyone who is in pain. We must understand and appreciate his or her pain. Yet more and more, especially among the young, a sense of empathy is evaporating. With this loss comes an inability to be compassionate. And when there is no empathy and no compassion, there is easy violence.

So, here is a question: where does this lack of empathy come from, people doing horrible things? A large part of it is the media, which is, as you know, a powerful influence on how kids develop empathy as a basis for morality. We see this most prominently in the message of most advertising: anything goes. And if anything goes, then nothing counts. We see this attitude everywhere; “whatever”, “kahit ano” are its common expression. The media celebrates being “cool.” You are in control. You show power. You don’t show emotion when someone is dying or when all things around you are in confusion. You’re cool. “Ma at Pa at we (short for malay ko at pakialam ko at e ano ngayon!) Filipino masculinity or femininity has it that to show strength in the midst of life’s storms, one must not cry because it is a sign of witness. In promoting this type of attitude, the media consistently and routinely promotes desensitization, the opposite of empathy. And if one looks closely, by not crying for example, we violate our natural way of healing, we become alienated from ourselves. We desensitize ourselves from our very self. Violence begins with us. And thus, after the umpteenth murder, how much can you feel for the victim? It is estimated that the average child witnesses over 200,000 acts of violence on television by the time he or she is eighteen years old.

Sanayan lang pagpatay (You can get used to killing!). Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman is an Army expert on the psychology of killing. Throughout his Army career, Grossman’s job was to condition soldiers how to kill. He said that killing is a learned skill because there is an innate resistance to it. How did they do it? Grossman outlined the process. In the first step, the men are brutalized at boot camp. Their heads are shaved and they are herded together, naked. Then they are all dressed alike. In this way, they begin to lose all individuality and become desensitized to violence. In student organizations, initiations look like this: they are whipped by a paddle, so that in the end when they become officially members, they do it to the new ones.

The second step used by the Army is classic conditioning. Grossman pointed out that our kids watch vivid pictures of human suffering and death. They see graphic depictions of stabbings, kicking in the groin and head, vomit, blood, and decapitations and they learn to associate all this with their favorite soft drink or candy bar which immediately pops up on the TV screen during the endless commercials. The success of this conditioning can be observed when you go to the movies. Listen to ourselves laugh and cheer when there is bloody violence and someone is painfully hurt or gruesomely dying. They keep right on eating Nova chips. Empathy, feeling for the victim, is a non-issue, a non-emotion. Violence becomes entertainment.

The third step in making soldiers killers is deploying what is called “operant conditioning.” This means that one no longer shoots at a bull’s-eye in a neutral round paper or straw target, but at realistic, human-shaped targets. Now think about this: in the video games, the kids do exactly the same thing and therefore get the same “operant conditioning.” They shoot at lifelike figures. Grossman commented, “It came as no surprise to me when I read that the two shooters in the

Littleton

massacre had allegedly been avid players of Doom slayers, two popular computer games full of realistic violence in which players stalk their opponents through dungeon-like environments to kill them with high-powered weapons.” One video game has the player kill children. The only way to exit this game is to put the simulated gun in your mouth and pull the trigger.

The fourth and last component in training killers is role models, that is, the drill sergeant who personifies violence and aggression. And who are the role models for our young people today? During my time it was Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Robin Padilla.

We, as a culture, are conditioned to violence. Our children are conditioned to violence. What it needs is a return to Jesus’ teaching: there is no “us” and “them.” Put into the words of his disciple,

St. Paul

: “There is neither male nor female, Gentile nor Jew, slave nor free. All are one in Christ.” When we, like Mother Teresa, can look into the face of a victim and see Christ, violence will cease. Bear with me as I close with the words of the great Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

In 1941, Mama took me back to

Moscow

. There I saw our enemies for the first time. If my memory serves me right, nearly 20,000 German war prisoners were to be marched in a single column through the streets of

Moscow

. The pavement swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by police and soldiers. The crowd was mostly women. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans. They gazed with hatred in the direction in which the column was to appear. At last we saw it.

The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips pursed disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebeian victims. The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back….All at once something happened to them. They saw the German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty, blood-stained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades. The soldiers walked with their heads down. The street became dead silent. The only sound was the shuffling of boots, the thumping of crutches.

Then I saw an elderly woman in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman’s shoulder saying, “Let me through.” Something about her made him step aside. She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief, and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now, suddenly from every side, women were running towards the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had. The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people.

When the women saw the men hobbling through the streets, they were no longer the enemy; they were no longer those who killed their relatives. They were just victims, and the women felt for them. There was an outpouring of empathy and compassion. The violence they intended was no longer in their hearts.