COULD IT BE?

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lk 16:19-31

The philosopher Aristotle believed that all created realities move toward their respective telos. Telos is the fulfillment of every created reality. For example, we are human beings; thus, our telos is to be humane. Until we have not achieved our telos, we are not really happy.

One of Aristotles’ admirer was St. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar renowned for his outstanding holiness and wisdom in philosophy and theology. St. Thomas used Aristotles’ philosophy ang gave it a Christian bent. What Aristotle called telos, St. Thomas named summum bonum. Summum bonum literally means “highest good” According to St. Thomas, our summum bonum is the beatific vision. Beatific vision is seeing the Almighty face-to-face, look at God forever. This is our highest good, the perfection of our joy.

Both Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas agree that, in this life, we cannot fully achieve our telos or summum bonum. We may have a foretaste of our telos or summum bonum but its fullness remains illusive in this life. Nonetheless, achieving our telos or summum bonum largely depends on the quality of our earthly life. Living according to our nature is a step closer to our telos or summum bonum while living contrary to our nature is a step away. In short, the more we are good the closer we are to our telos or summum bonum while the more we are bad the farther we are from our telos or summum bonum.

Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, however, differ in identifying exactly where we achieve our telos or summum bonum. For Aristotle, our telos is found in what Plato, another famous philosopher and mentor of Aristotle, called “World of Forms”. “World of Forms” is a where an original and perfect form of whatever exists on earth is found. Instead of talking about a “World of Forms”, St. Thomas spoke about heaven. In heaven, we achieve and experience our summum bonum. And heaven is not so much a place as it is the state of being after life on earth. That state is the experience of seeing and living with God for ever; in short, beatific vision.

What significance does my daring philosophical exposition has on our reflection on this Sunday’s gospel? Nothing. Except three.

First, the desire to be happy is inherent in us.

Second, belief in the after life is inherent is us.
Third, the awareness that our earthly life is significantly related to and has an effect on our after life is inherent in us.

First, both the rich man and Lazarus in the parable today want happiness. But they have different views on happiness. For the rich man, happiness is wealth, expensive clothes, and lavish meal. For Lazarus, in the height of poverty, happiness is being able to pick up food from the long procession of various dishes from the rich man’s gate to the rich man’s table. As it is with the experience of the countless poor people until today, poverty teaches the poor to make their joys simple and their contentment easy to achieve. The poor is already happy to survive a day with just one meal – if ever there is a meal – but the rich whose table overflow with food is never satisfied. A makeshift house is already a palace for the urban poor but the condominium unit of the rich is empty.

Second, both Lazarus and the rich man know Abraham. They believe in the afterlife, and when they finally are in it, the truth surprises them. The exchange fate: the rich suffers in sheol, the world of the dead, while Lazarus rejoices in the company of the blessed. Similar to what we continue to observe today, belief in the afterlife is never a guarantee that the believer orients his or her values in life according to that belief. There are even those who live by the twisted philosophy: “Let us eat, drink, and get drunk! For tomorrow we die.”

Third, the earthly life of the two main characters in the parable today has a direct effect on the reversal of their fate in the afterlife. But the rich suffers and the poor finally rejoices not because God blesses poverty in itself. Rather, God blesses those who, in their poverty, place their ultimate hope in Him. Therefore, it is not merely a matter of poverty or affluence. The crux of the matter is in answering the question as regards what or who we really trust in life: our wealth or our God.

It is intriguing to know that the rich man in the parable is not a wicked man at all. The gospel is silent about his moral state. Likewise, nothing is mentioned if he does something evil against Lazarus. On the contrary, he even allows Lazarus to linger by the entrance of his mansion and to gather what falls from his seemingly bottomless banquet. The rich man does not seem guilty. But is precisely why he is culpable. The rich man does nothing evil against Lazarus but he likewise does nothing good for him. He simply let Lazarus be. He let him gather food. He let him linger by his gate. He let Lazarus remain poor. You may wonder if the rich man truly sees Lazarus at all.

The final point is quite heavy to bear. It can also be very disturbing for us. in the magnitude of the problems concerning poverty in the world or even, at least, in our local community, what can we really do to alleviate the plight of the poor? But the such a question is misleading, if not grossly wrong, because the question should really be: In the midst of the poverty of our fellow human being, what are we really doing?

We cannot conclude without noting that in the parable of Jesus, the poor is named while the rich man is nameless. Indeed, it is wrong to say that God is impartial. God is always partial to the poor. In the gospel today, He names, recognizes, and calls the poor “Lazarus”. But the rich man is never named and has always been so even to this day. Could it be because that rich man’s name should really be our name? Could it be? Just asking.

FOLLOWING THE BROAD SHADOW OF THE MASTER

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lk 14:25-33

His mother advised him: “Whatever you say, say nothing.” However, Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet, did not heed his mother’s advice. Reflecting on his relationship with his father who was a quiet farmer, Heaney wrote how his father’s silence was a constant challenge for a son who wished to know him more and be closer to him. In his poem entitled, Follow, Heaney wrote:

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.

That son started trying to follow the footsteps of the father, but he realized later on that, because their skills were different, their harvests were not the same: potatoes for his father, poems for the son. Truly, very different! Nonetheless, despite the great difference between their skills, their roots kept them attached to each other. It is correct to say, indeed, that no matter how close to each other, each one has to figure out for himself or herself his or her own vocation in life.

In our first reading today, the author of the book of Wisdom keeps our eyes open to the truth that it should not surprise us to find how difficult it is for us to grasp the mind of God because just to understand one another is already hard for us. In fact, sometimes we fail to understand our selves too. While the author of the book of Wisdom talks to God, he actually address himself to us when he says, “For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans.”

In the second reading today, we have part of the letter of St. Paul the Apostle to a man named Philemon. Whoever wishes to understand the contents of this letter needs to know its context. From Jerusalem, where he was arrested, Paul – because of his dual citizenship – demanded that he be tried in Rome by the Roman curia. Upon disembarking in Rome, Paul was immediately put under house arrest. What we read today in the liturgy is the part of Paul’s letter where he figured out how to send back a runaway slave to its Christian master. The Christian master was Philemon while the runaway slave was Onesimus. When Onesimus ran away from his master, he met Paul and was converted into Christianity. Thus, the former slave was returning to his former master as a brother already. The words of Paul were carefully written from the heart: “I, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus, urge you on behalf of my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment; I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. Perhaps, this is why he was away from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother, beloved especially to me, but even more so to you, as a man and in the Lord. So, if you regard me as a partner, welcome him as you would me.” Pulling some strings, Paul, though imprisoned, set his love into action to set free one who was formerly imprisoned by slavery.

Indeed, our readings today have many figuring out to do. Even in the gospel, Jesus advises us to think really carefully. The demands of following Him are difficult. While Christian discipleship absolutely does not mean going around wearing long faces, it is also certainly not a laughing matter. Thus, anyone who wishes to truly follow Jesus must first carefully figure out over and over again the cost of Christian discipleship. He or she must also consider well if he or she has the resources to meet the cost of following Jesus.

To underline the value of His advice, Jesus gives us a pair of parables today. whoever plans to build a tower must fist sit down and calculate if he has enough resources to spend because if he has none and has started to build nonetheless, the tower of his dreams will be nothing but a colossal monument to his stupidity. In the same way, the king who discovers that his forces are outnumbered by his enemies must also first sit down and discern if he will attack or detract. In this pair of parables, the wise advise given to us is as clear as the sun: sit down, pause, do not rush, study the cost, reflect on the demands, discern well.

In essence, Jesus’ advise to us and to all His followers is simple and practical. The difficulty lies in accepting the result of what we must do, most especially if the result is contrary to what we expect if not totally unfamiliar. Worries about inordinate self-preservation and illusions of earthly grandeur have no part in Christian discipleship. There is no security in Christian discipleship, except in the total commitment of the self to Jesus. In the life of every Christian, Jesus must never have a competition. Between following the footsteps of Jesus or following the footsteps of one’s own father, the Christian must, without any doubt, choose to follow the footsteps of Jesus. Christian discipleship is following the broad shadow of a Master who traveled through a life of loving, carrying a cross over his shoulder. And not one us can do that casually.

X-RAY VISION

22nd Sunday in the Ordinary Time
Lk 14:1.7-14

When I was a kid, Superman fascinated me a lot. I often wondered how it was to have his superpowers and what I would do if I had them. One of his superpowers that intrigued me a lot was his x-ray vision. Superman could see through walls with his naked eyes.

But as I grew older and continued watching my favorite superhero, I noticed that his x-ray vision was limited after all. He could see though closed doors and thick walls, but Superman could not see through a person’s heart. His x-ray vision was simply just that – an x-ray vision – as an x-ray machine reveals a person’s bones but not a person’s bone marrow.

I wonder what would happen if we were all gifted with an x-ray vision that makes us see not only that lies behind closed doors but also within closed hearts. What would happen if, through our naked eyes, we could perceive the motives of every person for every thing he or she does? Everything revealed; nothing concealed. Then we would know why we are invited to a party and others would also know why we invited them to ours. Motives would be clear like never before. The revelation might really be very surprising! It can likewise be very disturbing.

Superman had his x-ray vision but still could not see people’s motives crystal-clear because x-rays do not reveal a person’s intention and the eyes can be deceived so easily. But God can see the heart and all that is in it. And God cannot be deceived.