TENDER AND TOUGH

4th Sunday in the Ordinary Time
Lk 4:21-30

There is something strange about today’s Gospel. It begins with Jesus’ townspeople admiring Him. They are all amazed at the eloquence of a homegrown preacher. Then a sudden twist: the same admirers turn into an angry mob. Why? This is why: Jesus throws cold water on their hope that He will do in His own town what His townspeople hear Him doing elsewhere. “Surely,” Jesus says, “you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself’ and ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” Then, Jesus delivers a series of more punches. “Amen, I say to you,” He says, “no prophet is accepted in his own native place.” “Indeed,” He continues, “I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.” “Again,” the punches seem relentless, “there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” Thus, the episode that starts with a warm round of applause ends for Jesus ends with Jesus almost thrown headlong from the brow of the hill on which Nazareth stands.

If read without a correct understanding of the person of Jesus, one may say that Jesus is to be blamed for being literally kicked out of the synagogue and almost killed. A misguided reader of this episode in Luke’s gospel may misjudge the situation as Jesus unwittingly provoking His townspeople unto fury. A cynic may likewise question the compassion of God that we, followers of Jesus, claim to be Jesus Himself.

But was Jesus really imprudent? Did He really provoke the people to anger that led them to wanting to hurl Him headlong from top of a hill? Was He, after all, not God’s compassion?

Jesus is always God’s compassion. But what do we really understand by the word “compassion”?

Too often, many people misunderstand “compassion” as doing always what is pleasant to other people. Because of this misunderstanding, the same people waste their life by spending it in trying to please everyone always. They are the same people whom we often find incapable of making firm decisions. They call diplomacy what is pure but disguised compromise. They name “compromise” what Jesus may call “cowardice.”

But sometimes, compassion may be very painful. When a person, for example, needs to know the truth, he must be told it even if it hurts. And, truly, it often hurts. I read a wise statement that read, “The truth will set you free. But it will hurt you first.” When a surgeon’s knife cuts through a body part of a patient, we do not say that the surgeon has no compassion toward his patient. Rather, we consider to be lacking in compassion a doctor who refuses to operate on his patient for the absurd reason that he does not want his patient to go through the pain of a much-needed surgery.

Yes, to be compassionate is to be loving. But the love of a compassionate person is both tender and tough.

No matter how others may misunderstand Jesus’ words and actions in the Gospel today, no one can rightly say that Jesus does not love His own people. The love of Jesus is both tender and tough. And that is the kind of compassion that God has for each of us.

In a few days from now, my family and I will commemorate my father’s ninth death anniversary. No wonder, lately, I find my self indulging in nostalgia about my dad. Pardon me for concluding this reflection with a story about my father, Carlos Bautista Titco.

Dad was a very gentle person. My memories of him are all beautiful despite his share of human imperfections. I notice that when I think of him, now that he has gone home to God, there are two images of him that keep on flashing in my mind. One is dad working and the other is dad spending time with me. He was a hardworking man. But he had time for my sisters and me. He used to play with me and tell me many stories when I was a kid. Except for very few occasions when discipline truly called for it, he almost never spanked my siblings and me. He was a very gentle person. But once, I saw him very, very, very furious. It was when his eldest eloped at a very young age. His anger seemed uncontrollable and, though hurting inside, I knew even though I was then just a kid, he was firm in trying to separate my sister with her boyfriend. His many attempts, however, failed. Then he stopped talking to them. But everything of that changed when the first grandchild arrived. He welcomed them back with his usual, sometimes, even over-pampering, love.

From hindsight, I see my dad’s love to be both tough and tender. It reminds me of God Himself whose love is both bitter and sweet. It can be bitter when He confronts us with the truth about our selves. But it is always sweet, for no matter how ugly the truth about our selves is, it never ceases.

Unlike the townspeople of Jesus in the Gospel today, may we welcome the compassion of God in whatever form it comes upon us. May His tough love lead us to conversion and bring out the best in you and me. And may His love so tender make us love Him more and better.

As God is compassionate with us, may we be compassionate with one another. But let us not forget what compassion truly means: tender and tough. If our love is tender but not tough, it is not loving but patronizing. If our love, however, is tough but not tender, it is oppressing not loving.

THE TWENTY-FIFTH HOUR

Wednesday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time
Mk 1:29-39

Jesus just began His public ministry in the Gospel of Mark today, and yet He has work already up to His neck.

Yesterday, He started teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. In the course of His lecture, He also freed a man from an unclean spirit. The people who heard His teaching and saw His first exorcism were all amazed. “Here is a new teaching,” they said, “one with power and authority. He gives orders to unclean spirits and they obey Him.” On day one, Jesus was already an instant celebrity as His reputation rapidly spread everywhere through all the surrounding Galilean countryside.

Today, Jesus conducts a healing session in the house of one of His first disciples, Simon Peter. First, it was the host’s mother-in-law, then the whole town, said Mark. He cured many who were sick and released others from the clutches of many devils. Like yesterday, today is a very busy day for Jesus. It is only day two in His public ministry.

Indeed, there is so much work to do. But time does not multiply according to the amount of work that Jesus has to accomplish. On the contrary, human experience taught us that the more work there is the lesser time there is. Being truly human Himself, Jesus is certain to have known that lesson and learned from that experience. However, Jesus always has time.

Jesus always has time not because He is God, and therefore owns eternity. Jesus always has time because of three reasons.

First, Jesus is prayerful. He is always centered on the Father. The Gospel today allows us to glimpse into Jesus silent commune with the Father. No matter how busy He is, He keeps on returning to the Father whose love for Him gives Him the strength and motive to love, in the same way, those who come to Him. He is focused on God’s work because He is focused on the God of the work.

Second, Jesus is free. He is not confined to a group of patrons in whose adulation He can otherwise wallow. Jesus knows His mission and nothing can hold Him from leaving an adoring crowd in order to accomplish His task. When told that everybody is looking for Him, He tells His disciples that it is time for them to move on. He does not waste time building and maintaining a fans club for Himself. He is busy building and establishing the Kingdom of God instead.
Third, Jesus is selfless. He spends His very self for others. This does not mean that He has no time for Himself. His time for Himself is either time with God or with others. He is never alone. This does not mean that He has no individuality or that He has no self to call His own apart from another. His self is a celebration of His individuality as gift to God and to others.

No matter how much work He has in His hands, Jesus always has time. He has time for God, for others, and for Himself. He is prayerful, free, and selfless.

Next time, we feel we are running out of time, the best option for us to take is not to continue running. We need to stop and access how prayerful, free, and selfless we are.

We do not find time; we make time. Prayer, freedom, and selflessness are the essential ingredients to make the twenty-fifth hour.

THE BATTLE JUST BEGAN BUT ALREADY WON

Tuesday of the 1st Week in the Ordinary Time
Mk 1:21-28

Jesus begins His public ministry today with an open confrontation with the devil. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus immediately encounters the devil. If the opening sentence of an essay states the thesis of the whole article, today’s Gospel gives us the perennial battle Jesus has to fight throughout His earthly life. His life will be a war between evil.

Recall that Mark wrote his gospel for the persecuted Christians. He wrote in a time when hostilities against the followers of Jesus were high. It was a period in the history of the Church that saw the birth of many Christian martyrs, as the fight between good and evil, between God and the devil, relentlessly ensued. The war Jesus fought cannot be but the same battle that His early followers engaged themselves in. The same battle is ours too.

As the Christmas season ended yesterday and the Ordinary Time in the Church begins today, we are reminded that the fight between good and evil remains with us. Christmas was not a holiday but a prelude to the battle waged by Jesus against sin and death. The “silent night” of Christmas was like the stillness before a storm. In that storm, Jesus would rise victorious. The Baby born in a manger would conquer the Prince of Darkness.

We can say this reflection because we are looking at hindsight. Jesus already won the battle even before we take our place among the ranks of His followers. We are already victorious in Him even before we fight our own battle against the devil. But unless we believe so, we are losers.

WE REMEMBER SO WELL

8 January 2007
Solemnity of the Lord’s Baptism

WE REMEMBER SO WELL
Lk 3:15-16.21-22

“I remember so well the day that you came into my life. You asked for my name. You had the most beautiful smile. My life started to change. I’d wake up each day feeling all right. With you just by my side, makes me feel things will work out just fine” – these are the opening lyrics of a very beautiful song entitled, “How Did You Know”. The song is very beautiful because it reminds the beloved how everything started between him or her and his or her lover. It immortalizes through music the origin of a love affair.

Sometimes beginnings are not remembered because they did not seem important at the time: it was just another manic Monday with all the pressures of a new week, with nothing new under the sun. Songs like “How Did You Know” refuses to abandon into oblivion the memory of an otherwise ordinary event that turned into an extraordinary beginning. Events in our lives too often become important because we later on see that it was then that something began. And when it was a beautiful beginning, the past is thanked for as a beautiful gift in the present. When we remember “that time” we invest a significance in it that was not there at the time, or at least that was not yet visible to our limited vision then.

The Feast of the Lord’s Baptism should remind us of our beginnings. I am not referring to our own baptismal days. I wish to remind you of something more prior than that. The Lord’s baptism should remind us of our origin in God, more original than original sin.

In Gen 1:26-28, we read that we are created in the image and likeness of God. We carry in our selves the blueprint of grace, not the draft of sin. The Church teaches that this “likeness” of God is God’s own glory, His own Spirit (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #705). The glory of God dwells in us. His Spirit is in us. Indeed, the Holy Spirit is the “God-in-us”. In Eph 1:1-5, St. Paul further asserts that we have been chosen in Christ even before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless, full of love, and are destined to be God’s adopted children. We are clothed in the glory of God and this is what it means to be “clothed in that glory”. However, this is also what Adam and Eve (or whatever the names of our first parents were) and all of us, their children, lost when they sinned.

Their sin of disobedience stripped our first parents of the glory of God; thus, the immediate effect of sin upon them was that they realized that they were naked. With the disobedience of our first parents, sin entered our race and we, too, stand naked, stripped of the glory of God. The unique and unequal gift of Jesus to us is therefore this: sent by the Father, He assumed our image and restored in “in the Father’s ‘likeness’ by giving it again its glory” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #705).

Today, on the Feast of the Lord’s Baptism, we solemnly commemorate Jesus, in His human Body, standing before John the Baptist in the River Jordan, receiving the anointing of the Spirit from the Father. As Jesus counts Himself as one of us, though sinners we are, He receives the Spirit from the Father on our behalf. He wants us to share His anointing. As He shares in our humanity, so does Jesus shares with us His divinity. As He is the Father’s Son, so are we God’s adopted children. As the Father claims Him to be His Beloved, so does God claim us as His own.

This Feast of the Lord’s Baptism, after all, is not only the Lord’s feast. It is also ours. We remember that we are children of God before we are sinners in need of His forgiveness. We remember today that there is something more original than original sin. And that is original grace: we are predestined to be God’s beloved children in Christ even before the creation of the world.

As the Father claims us as His own in Christ as we celebrate the Lord’s Baptism, let us also reclaim our correct view on God’s Fatherhood. This reclaiming of our correct view on God’s Fatherhood may prove to be not always easy in our days, for we live in a period where we struggle under the attacks against the whole concept of fatherhood. Sadly, the reality of fatherhood seems almost to have disappeared. Without discounting the fact that certainly there are still good fathers around, many homes suffer from absent fathers, many families are victims of imperfect fathering.

Psycho-spiritual directors are not slow to say that our experience with our own fathers affects our relationship with Father God. We tend to view God they way we tend to view our own human fathers. We relate with our Father in heaven the way we relate with our fathers at home. If we experience our human fathers to be distant, patriarchal, disapproving, and unloving, we tend project to our Father in heaven our impressions on them and react in either extreme.

This distorted image of fatherhood is vividly and dramatically present in one of Jesus’ parables: the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-32). In that parable, both sons nurture a distorted view on their father. The younger son feels he no longer deserves to be called a son because he has broken all the rules, while the elder feels that he has earned a special treatment because he has kept all the rules. Mistakenly, both sons think that the father’s love depends on how they behave.

But the love of God our Father does not depend on how we behave. He loves us even before we love Him. He loves us even when we love Him less. He loves us even when we love Him not. He loves us when we are good. He loves us even when we are sinful. He loves us more than we know. He assures us of His kind of love today as we stand with Jesus at the River Jordan. As He is pleased with Jesus simply because He is His Son, so is He pleased with us simply because we are His children.

The essence of fatherhood is to delight in your children. The essence of God’s Fatherhood is to delight in us, His children. This is how it all started in our love affair with God. This is our beginning, more original than original sin. This we remember today so well.

ARE YOU A STAR?

Solemnity of the Lord’s Epiphany
Mt 2:1-12

There is a lot of searching going on during the first Christmas. First, God searched for a womb where His Word would took flesh. God found Mary. Second, Joseph searched for the father of the child Mary was carrying in her womb. Joseph found God. Third, Joseph and Mary searched for a place to deliver Jesus. They found no room in the inn but a cave where animals were kept. Fourth, the shepherds searched for the Child whose birth was announced to them by the angels. They found Jesus just as they have been told. Fifth, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, searching for the newborn King of the Jews. They found Him with His mother. Soon, Herod, the king of Galilee, would likewise search for Jesus. But Herod found Him not.

Anyone who searches for God finds Him. Anyone who searches for himself finds nothing. Anyone who searches in love finds God. Anyone who searches in anger, envy, and fear, as in the case of Herod searches in vain and will never find God.

We celebrate today the Solemnity of the Lord’s Epiphany. “Epiphany” means “glorious manifestation” in Greek. Jesus, the Son of God, gloriously manifests Himself. The whole of the Christmas season is in fact a manifestation of God. On Christmas day, Jesus first manifested Himself to the Jews who were represented by the shepherds. In a distinct way also, He manifested Himself to the poor because shepherds are among the poorest in Jewish society. Today, the Solemnity of the Lord’s Epiphany, Jesus manifests Himself to the Gentiles who are represented by the wise men from the east. Jesus, after all, is not only for the Jews. He is for everyone – Jews and Gentiles alike. In the Epistle for today, St. Paul explains to us the meaning of this feast: “God’s secret plan was revealed to me and was unknown in past generations; it means that the Gentiles now share the same inheritance as the Jews, they are members of the same body, they share the same promise in Christ through the Gospel.”

We are not Jews. We are counted among the Gentiles. In the persons of the wise men, we see our selves: Jesus manifests Himself to the wise men from the east so does He manifest Himself to us. Today is our Christmas. Jesus is also for us, for we, too, search for Him and Him we found.

As the final days of the Christmas seasons are upon us, it is a fitting reminder to you and me that, because Jesus is for all of us, when we search for Jesus – with love, not with anger or fear or envy or any evil motive – we will find Jesus, He will manifest Himself to us. As the days of the new year pass, may no moment in our life pass without us searching for Jesus with love. And finding Jesus in every single detail of our day-to-day living, may we – like the star that guided the wise men in their search for the King of kings – lead to Jesus the many others who search for Him.

In the Philippines there are many searches. To begin with, the Philippines was discovered by Ferdinand Magellan accidentally. Magellan was searching for spices when he landed on the shore of Limasawa, Cebu, thinking that it was India. From then on many searches followed: the search for the Yamashita treasure, the search for the illegally gotten wealth of a dictatorial regime, the search for the “Hello, Garci” tapes and for Garci himself, and many more searches. Nowadays, when the allure of instant fame and easy fortune is irresistible, searches are very popular among the youth as well. There is the search for the Philippine Idol (a copycat of the search for the American Idol), the search for beauty queens, the search for the “Star in a Million”, the “Star Circle Quest”, the search for the Pinoy Grand Dreamer, the search for the new housemates of Pinoy Big Brother, the search for this and the search for that. In the midst of all these searches, may we never fail to embark on the greatest and most rewarding search of all: the search for the star that enlightens the world with the light of Christ. This star is the true superstar, the real star for all seasons, the genuine megastar.

That star might be you! Are you not that star?

AFFIRMATION -- ANY ONE?

Saturday in the 2nd Week of Christmas
Mk 1:7-11

Who among us does not need some affirmation every now and then? Being affirmed is one of our basic human needs. Affirmation of our self-worth prods us on to do great things, to stretch our selves to the limit, and bring out the best in us.

In the Gospel today, the Father affirms His Son. God claims Jesus to be His own: “You are My Son, the Beloved; My favor rests on You.” The Father funds Jesus with the affirmation that will supply Jesus with the much needed consolation, inspiration, and determination to accomplish His mission.

Let us affirm one another and provide the support we need to fulfill the mission God entrusted us with in this life. More than Jesus, we are very much in need of affirmation.

By the way, when we affirm one another, let us make sure that we give one another only sincere affirmation. Otherwise, thanks but no thanks.

GOD OF SURPRISES

Friday in the 2nd Week of Christmas
Jn 1:43-51

In the Philippines, most people tend to ask where you are from. After inquiring about your name, their next question is about your geographical origin. They seem to need to register people on a particular place before registering them in their memory. This may be helpful, but, unfortunately, some people tend to judge you also on the basis of where you are from.

Filipinos seem to classify fellow Filipinos according to their province of origin. Take for example, if a person comes from the Ilocos region, he is said to be frugal. If a person hails from Iloilo, he is “malambing” (“sweet”). If a person lives in Tondo, people tend to be cautious about him because Tondo used to be known for many years as a haven of gangsters. People who come from Pampanga are said to be the best chefs wile those who hail from Capiz are teased to be “aswang” (“creatures of the other world”).

Jesus seems to be not exempted from this kind of experience. He is from Nazareth. And Nazareth does not enjoy a good reputations, it seems. When Philip told Nathaniel that he found the Messiah, the One Moses wrote about in the Law, and said that He is from Nazareth, Nathaniel immediately replied, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Jesus is judged today on the basis of His geographical roots.

But Nathaniel is in for a big surprise because Jesus is the best to come from Nazareth. Later on, Nathaniel also becomes an apostle of Jesus and comes to be known as Bartholomew.

Is not grace like that? Just when we think there is nothing good to come out of something, the best suddenly happens. Just when we consider something or someone to be good for nothing, that thing or person actually is a great blessing. Then at hindsight, we name that good-for-nothing thing, person, or event as a blessing-in-disguise.

Graces are God’s surprises. People who always go by the logic and technique miss a lot of graces. People who are hate being surprised and so are frightened by the unfamiliar fail to welcome and receive many blessings from the God who love surprises, who love graces.

The birth of Jesus, as well as His whole life and His resurrection, is God’s protest to a world tired of the familiar that says, “There is nothing new under the sun. I have seen it all. There is nothing good to come out of it.” Jesus Himself is Grace-personified. He is God’s surprise from Nazareth. Just when we are tempted to think that God loves us less or loves us no more due to our sins and blunders in life, think again. Jesus of Nazareth surprises us with the truth that God loves us more than we know.

God is surprising you today. Are you surprised?

LETTING GO

Thursday in the 2nd Week of Christmas
Jn 1:35-42

After almost twelve years in the ministry, I would be lying if I say I have not developed some following. There are people who follow me whatever parish I am transferred. Some of them follow me with a respectful distance while others are almost already stepping on my toes. Sometimes it feels good to know that people follow me because I inspire them, but oftentimes it can be very embarrassing before the Lord, knowing that perhaps I inspire them to follow me instead the Lord Himself.

When a priest develops a considerable following, it can be very difficult at times to let go of it. More than eleven years in the ministry showed me many faces of priests; some of them are faces threatened by diminishing number of followers. Perhaps, more often than I realize, sometimes such a face is also mine.

What could John the Baptist’s face be when his disciples started leaving him to follow Jesus? I suppose, it was a happy face. After all, he himself claimed, “He must increase while I must decrease.” John never lost sight of his mission: to point the Lamb of God to the waiting world. He was never sidetracked from his goal: to prepare a people for the Lord. John must be overjoyed as he saw his disciples becoming disciples of Jesus. He had no problem with letting go…even literally with his head…for the Lord.

John the Baptist continues to disturb us who rather hold on to than let go.

NO MORE SUBSTITUTE

Wednesday in the 2nd Week of Christmas
Jn 1:29-34

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” says John the Baptist as he points to Jesus Christ who came to be baptized by him. The title “Lamb of God” is highly significant for any Jew.

On the night they ran unto freedom from slavery, the Israelites witnessed the saving action of the blood of the lamb. Upon the instruction given by Yahweh to Moses, every Jewish family slaughtered an unblemished lamb; and if the family was too small to consume a whole lamb, it shared with another family. The lamb was roasted while its blood was wiped on the doorpost of the houses of the Jews. That very night, the angel of death came upon the land of Egypt and took the life of every firstborn male – man and animal – in all Egyptian households. While there was intense wailing in the houses of the Egyptians, the homes of the Israelites were haven of security and life. The angel of death passed over the houses of the Jews upon seeing the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of their houses. One may say that that night, the night of their freedom, the blood of the lamb spared the firstborn male of every Jewish household. It should have been their children but it was the lambs instead. The lambs were literally substitutes for their firstborn sons.

When they have finally settled in the Promised Land, the Jews erected the Temple where sacrifices were offered to Yahweh. While their pagan neighbors sacrificed human flesh to their deities, the Chosen People offered lambs as burnt offerings to God.

The lambs during the Exodus event as well as the lambs offered in the Temple later on where substitutes. The lambs spared human lives from being sacrificed. Jesus, however, put an end to all sacrifices by substitution.

When Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist, He took bread and said over it, “This is My Body.” Then He took a cup of wine, blest it, and said, “This is My Blood.” These actions happened during the last supper that Jesus had with His disciples in the Upper Room. That same supper was in commemoration of the Passover Meal that, in turn, immortalizes the memory of the Exodus event. Jesus, however, changes everything by changing bread into His Body and wine into His Blood. He was actually putting an end to all sacrifices by substitution. It was as if He was saying, “From now on, there is no more need for a lamb to take your place on the altar of sacrifice. From now on, there is no more substitution. From now on, I Myself am laying down my life on the altar of sacrifice. I am Your Lamb forever.”

The words of John the Baptist today about Jesus state the definite orientation of Jesus’ life: sacrifice for the salvation of the human race from sin. But Jesus as the Lamb of God is more than a soteriological definition of His identity. Jesus as the Lamb of God is also the missiological statement of our Christian character.

Our mission is to follow the example of Jesus by not substituting others but by volunteering our selves for others. It means that the perennial call to each one of us is to lay down our lives for the life of the many. This resonates well with Jesus’ own words, “Greater love no one has than to lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13) and, “For whoever saves his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for Me and for the Gospel will save it” (Mk 8:35) and again, “Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24).

Substitution is a common escape for many. Even in the Church, when it comes to sacrifices or difficult and menial tasks, substitution is never absent. The temptation to ask, worse force, someone to substitute for one’s self when the task is hard and humbling remains in our midst. And many give in to it. So called “church-people”, not exempted. The Lamb of God challenges that perennial tendency of some and inspires volunteerism in the hearts of the many.

When we hear the words “Behold the Lamb of God”, we need to look at our selves and ask, “Do I sacrifice my self for others or have I made others my sacrificial lambs?” If we are really honest with our answer, we will be surprised about the truth.

WHO ARE YOU

Tuesday in the 2nd Week of Christmas
Jn 1:19-28

One of the most important questions in life is the question on identity. We search for who we really are. Each of us wants to know his or her identity as an individual. Cold facts in our curriculum vitae do not satisfy us. Neither do a list of our talents, skills, and traits. We thirst for more knowledge about who we really are. We want to know what makes us different from the person standing next to us and from the rest of humanity.

John the Baptist helps us today in our quest for self-knowledge. When asked by the priests and Levites, “Who are you?” He replied, “I am a voice in the desert, crying out: Make straight the way of the Lord.” With his response, John teaches us how we can truly know the answer to the question “Who am I”.

We realize our real identity only in relation to God who created us and gave us our mission in life. Our sense of self grows in direct proportion to our sense of God in our life. We come to know who we truly by who God is.

Any self-knowledge that is bereft of knowledge of God is a false sense of self. It is not only an incomplete self-knowledge; it is, to say the least, false self-knowledge.

As another year begins, let us renew our quest to know God more and more. Only in doing so will we be able to answer the question “Who are you”.

MOTHERHOOD AND MEMORY

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
Lk 2:16-21

Do you know Rose Kennedy? The last name rings a bell, does it not? Yes, she is the mother of the very charismatic and only Catholic President of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy or commonly called “JFK”.

Rose Kennedy is a one of a kind mother. She lived past her nineties and witnessed her children’s days of triumph and tragedy. No woman other than Rose, so far in the annals of American history, had three sons who became U.S. senators, one of which is JFK who later became a resident of the White House. All her three sons, however, she also lost in tragic deaths: Joe Jr. in a plane crash while John and Bobby in separate assassinations. But through it all, Rose kept her faith. What gave her the strength?

When interviewed once, Rose Kennedy remarked, “I have always believed that God never gives a cross to bear larger than we can carry. I believe in heaven and expect to see my husband, Joe, there, my three sons, and my daughter, Kathleen.” Moreover, reviewing her life, she said, “I would rather have been the mother of a great son than to have written a great book or painted a great masterpiece.”

Today we honor a greater mother of a greater Son: Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. She, too, like Rose, saw her Son’s moments of triumph and tragedy. But Mary’s Son is no ordinary son. And so Mary is no ordinary mother. Her Son is God’s own Son. And so Mary is God’s own mother. Not that she gave divine personhood to her Son but that her Son favored her with divine motherhood. More than honor, but less than adoration, we venerate Mary, the Mother of God, today.

Great mothers have great memories. Both Rose reflected on her motherhood while Mary, as the Gospel today tells us, kept all things in her heart and pondered on them. It is a very painful experience for anyone of us if our aging mother can no longer remember our names or the life we once shared with them. It seems that motherhood and memories go perfectly together. Mothers like Rose and Mary seem to be keepers, not only of family secrets, but of family memories as well. They keep family memories not only by remembering them but also by reminding us of them whenever needed and, after reflecting on them, providing meaning and value to whatever we face in life as we grow.

Because motherhood and memories go together, mothers keep alive the family heritage and traditions. They do not only engage in periodic nostalgia about the past, but, most importantly, pass on to us the stories about our ancestors so that no matter how far we go and tall we grow, we remain rooted in our beginnings that tempers our pride but challenges our potentials to contribute our own part to a collective family history. Mothers do not only pass on life to us; they give us our memories.

Mothers give us our memories by both words and deeds. They give us our memories by telling and retelling our family history. But by every single kind word, by even the minutest token of affection, by each gesture of love, by the most silent presence and the loudest celebration ever in the family, mothers likewise give us our memories. These memories eventually become very deeply part of us that we may say we ourselves become our memories. Yesterday’s memories walk and talk today and continue to evolve in us.

Because the memories our mothers give us take on flesh and blood in us, they provide us bearing in our moments of triumph and strength in our moments of tragedy. They guide us in our confusion and help us leave our own good memories to our children and even our children’s children.

As another year begins, Mama Mary stands by our side. With her one hand, she holds our hands while the other points to her Son to remind us of our glorious heritage, which St. Paul describes thus, “God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba! (Father!)’” (Gal 4:6). So we are not slaves but sons and daughters; Thus, heirs of God’s kingdom.

It is very good to be reminded of our collective, glorious family heritage in Christ as another year begins because the humdrum of daily routine and the struggles of human survival may easily obscure our memory. It is fitting that we dedicate the first day of the year to the motherhood of Mary, for she, who once pondered in her heart the things told her by the shepherds in Bethlehem, reminds us today of the core message of Christmas: at the birth of Jesus, the soul felt its worth.

JFK had a great mother with a great memory. But in Mary of Nazareth, we have a greater mother with a greater memory. May Mary, the mother of God and the keeper of the story of Jesus, inspire and help us contribute our own part to our collective, glorious, family heritage in Christ.