WONDERFULLY MADE

Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist

Lk 1:57-66, 80 (Is 49:1-6 / Ps 139 / Acts 13:22-26)

We celebrate today the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist.  This feast is indeed very special.  We do not celebrate the birth of saints.  We celebrate their pious death instead because that is their entrance into eternal life and, therefore, glorious victory over sin and death itself.  We have two exceptions from this liturgical norm though: the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the birth of John the Baptist.  The importance of celebrating the birth of the Lord’s precursor is even more highlighted by the fact that though it is Sunday today – and all Sundays are solemnities of the Lord (they are “little Easters” so to speak) – the liturgy today nonetheless dictates that we say the Mass of the Solemnity of John the Baptist’s Birth instead of the 12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

The Psalm for today’s solemnity is Psalm 139.  This is a very famous Psalm.  We sing it often in the liturgy:

Yahweh, I know you are near,

standing always at my side.

You guard me from the foe,

and you lead me in ways everlasting.

Lord, you have searched my heart,

and you know when I sit and when I stand.

Your hand is upon me protecting me from death,

keeping me from harm.

Where can I run from Your love?

If I climb to the heavens You are there;

If I fly to the sunrise or sail beyond the sea,

still I'd find You there.

You know my heart and its ways,

you who formed me before I was born

in the secret of darkness before I saw the sun

in my mother's womb.

Marvelous to me are Your works;

how profound are Your thoughts, my Lord.

Even if I could count them, they number as the stars,

You would still be there.

(“Yahweh, I Know You Are Near” by Dan Schutte)

How beautiful this song is!  Every creature should have this prayer on its lips.

As we remember the holy birth of John the Baptist, whose name means “God is gracious”, we are led to reflect on the mystery of our own birth.  We stand in awe before our Creator and, in gratitude and adoration, we respond to Psalm 139 with “I praise You, for I am wonderfully made.”  Now, how many of us really uttered that response straight from the heart?  (Let us have a show of hands!)  How many of us here are truly amazed and thankful to God for wonderfully making us?  Do you believe that you are really wonderful?  Do you think the person next to you is also wonderful?  Those who are convinced that he or she is wonderful, please declare with me, this time as sincerely and loudly as we can: “I praise You, for I am wonderfully made!”

John the Baptist – whom Jesus once referred to as “most blest of all born of women” (Cf. Mt 11:11 and Lk 7:28) – was a wonderful creation of God.  He was God’s answer to his parents’ prayer.  He was a miracle himself, being born of a mother who was not only supposed to be beyond the age of conception but also barren.  He was a prophet of God’s mercy to His People, calling them to a change of heart so that the promised Christ might find a people worthy of His coming.  John did not only speak about the Messiah, he actually pointed Him to the people, declaring, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (Cf. Jn 1:29).  And when it was time for him to bow out, he did it graciously, humbly asserting, “He (Jesus) must increase while I must decrease” (Cf. Jn 3:30).  As he lived so did he die: a witness, a martyr.  John the Baptist was a wonderful creature of God who lived a wonderful life.  Jesus is the Word; John is the voice.

Each of us is a wonder of God’s creative power and loving plan.  We ought to live wonderful lives, too.  In doing so, we give witness not only to our wonderful Creator but also to how wonderfully He indeed created us.  I read this somewhere: “We enter the world with what we are given; we leave it with what we have given.”  What has each of us given to the world so far?  Can it honestly be said that we affect the world and one another as wonderfully as we were created?  We are God’s wonders; let us, therefore, make the world a wonderful place for all to live in.  We are miracles of God; let us make miracles by our love for one another.  For I believe in miracles, and they all begin with an act of love.

Today, we celebrate how wonderfully God made John the Baptist.  But our celebration of St. John the Baptist’s birthday does us no good if we ourselves do not strive to show proofs that we, like him, are wonderfully made by God, too.

Let us affirm one another.  Please tell the person next to you: “You are wonderful!  You are God-sent!”  That is not just as statement; that is a mandate.

A MEAL ENOUGH FOR ALL

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

Mk 14:12-16, 22-26 (Ex 24:3-8 / Ps 116 / Heb 9:11-15)

There is a classic movie, entitled “The Seventh Seal”, by Ingmar Bergman, that portrays our search for God.  In a medieval world suffering from plague, a knight returns home after fighting many crusades.  He survived a shipwreck, but Death makes known to him the time of his death.  Grief-stricken, he wanders through life, seeking signs of God’s presence for him to come to faith.  But signs of the Divine he sees not.  Finally, Black Death beckons him, but still he cannot find God in the plague-stricken streets of every town and village.

          

Thereupon, the knight chances on a poor family that shares with him a simple meal.  All that the family can afford to serve him are wild strawberries and fresh milk.  They partake of the poor meal together.

          

Yet, for the brokenhearted knight, more than the food and drink shared with him, the couple’s charity and hospitality, as well as the fruit of their love for each other seen in their sleeping child, Mikael, are treasures of immeasurable value.  All through the past years, the despairing knight realizes, he wandered through life, searching for God who seems to be illusive to him, but now he finds Him in this poor family, for he sees in it the presence of a love that has eluded him for so long.  Meanwhile, the father of the family plays a music with his lyre, mocking the plague that engulfs them all. 

Still absorbed in his thoughts, the knight prays:

“This moment in my heart shall be curved.  The silence, the twilight,

the wild strawberries and the fresh milk, your serene face

in the evening light.  Mikael sleeping, Jof with his lyre. 

Between my fragile hands I shall carry this memory

as carefully as if it were a cup filled to the brim with fresh milk. 

And this indeed is the sign I seek.  It is enough for me.”

What can be enough for us?  What will satisfy our hunger?  What shall give rest to our trouble souls?

Today we celebrate the mystery that quenches our every thirst and fills all our hungers.  We have come not to watch something being done before us; rather, we have gathered for something for us to do.  As a consecrated people, we remember Jesus who loved us to His death and, having been raised by the Father, gave us His own Spirit that we might be His sisters and brothers – all children of His Father.  We remember Jesus by sharing the bread that is broken and accepting the cup that is held out to us.  And He nourishes us with His own flesh and blood, thereby making us part of Himself.  When we remember Jesus this way, He does not only become present again in our midst; we also become one with Him and with all those who remember Him this way.  This is our Eucharist.  This is our thanksgiving.  This is the sign we seek.  This is the covenant foreshadowed to us by the first reading today from the book of Exodus.  This is covenant proclaimed to us by the second reading today from the Letter to the Hebrews.  This is good news of the Gospel today.  And, until the kingdom is established in its fullness, when we hope not only to see our dear Lord face to face but also to drink with Him the fruit of the vine, this simple, poor man’s meal is enough for us.

But will this meal be enough for others?  No.  Until this meal, no matter how sacred it is, does not transform us into what we eat and drink – Jesus Himself – this meal will never satisfy the many others who starve for love and mercy.  If this meal gratifies only you and me, leaving the many others hungry for our solidarity and effective care, this meal – even if indeed it were the Lord’s – shall not be enough for the world to see the sign it demands from its Maker.  This meal is not enough for others unless we ourselves give witness to the many others about the unity it effects not only between Jesus and us but also among our selves.  By our faith-filled partaking of this meal week after week we should strengthen one another and, together as a community of the Lord’s disciples, every man and woman in going through this life plagued by suffering and death.  Otherwise, this meal may be enough for us but not for all humankind.

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ challenges us to be more Christ-like to one another.  It speaks of the dangerous memory of Jesus – dangerous because not one can honestly keep the memory of Jesus alive in his or her heart without himself or herself becoming like Jesus – bread broken for others and blood poured out for the life of the many.  Satisfied by this meal that is enough for us, we are restless until every table has enough food for all to eat, until every child has a home enough to care for it, until every person has enough roof to shelter from the rain and the sun, until every man or woman has enough clothes on his or her back, until everyone is loved enough so as to see the sign of God’s presence in the world that dies of hatred and indifference.  We, who gather today in solemn adoration of the Body and Blood of Christ must be that body and blood for others.  Let us be the sign of God’s presence to all by our love that gives life to others.  We shall rise from this table nourished and satisfied, but not for our sakes.  We are being fed and invigorated for the life of the world.

We shall make this meal enough for all.

EACH OF US A MYSTERY

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Mt 28:16-20 (Dt 4:32-34, 39-40 / Ps 33 / Rom 8:14-17)

                             Persons are gifts of God to me

that come all wrapped so differently

Some so loosely, others so tightly

But wrappings are not the gifts.

I am a gift of God to me

Do I accept the gift I see?

I am a person and for this reason

A wonderful gift of love

I am a gift to others, too

That must be giv'n to you and you

We are all persons, gifts to be shared

So let's have a grand exchange of gifts

I like this song – easy to memorize, easy to sing but speaks the truth well about the mystery of persons, you and I included.  Each of us is a mystery.  No wonder because we are gifts from the most mysterious of all: God Himself.

People nowadays have a very limited understanding of what a mystery is.  Most of our young people understand the word “mystery” only in relation to solving something unknown.  That is not “mystery”.

A mystery is not a problem to be solved.  Problems seek for a solution while mystery begs for enlightenment.  Problems can be solved with finality but a mystery is always far beyond the complete grasp of human finitude.  There can be no last word about a mystery, but problems can be dismissed after they are solved.  That is why a problem requires skills and knowledge while a mystery demands faith which is best expressed by the submission of the intellect and by heartfelt trust and confidence in the very mystery itself.

Persons are not only gifts.  They are mysteries, too.  They are mysterious gifts.  We experience this first-hand when we realize that the longer we are acquainted with people, the little we actually know them.  Our family members, relatives, and friends surprise us every now and then – a clear reminder that there is always more about them that awaits our discovery, our understanding, our appreciation.  We even talk about re-discovering one another and re-inventing the self.

We hate being stereotyped.  We ought not to stereotype others, too.  Thus, we must accept that understanding people is indeed a lifetime’s task.  Should that surprise us?  We are God’s gift to others.  We came from Him.  We are His masterpieces.  And 1 Jn 3:20 tells us, “God is greater than our hearts.”  Infinite that He is, we must be infinite, too, to fully understand His mystery.

But to say that we do not know God simply because He is THE Great Mystery is not at all truthful.  God revealed Himself to us, and His mystery invites us to venture into the endless task of growing in the understanding and appreciation of His very life.  The more we know God, the more we do not know Him.  The more He satisfies us, the more we hunger for Him.  The more we find Him, the more we search for Him.  The final word about God is simply not in our human vocabulary.  The Solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity focuses our attention on this truth and inspires us not to abandon the adventure of knowing, loving, and serving God better.  Trinity Sunday teaches us that sharing in the life of God – which is our ultimate goal – begins, and is continuously and timelessly renewed, in our reflecting on and understanding the very life of God.

Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, is our only access into the mystery of God.  In Jn 14:9, Jesus said to Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”  In Col 1:15, St. Paul declares that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.  Truly, Jesus is God’s quest among us.  In making our journey to God we cannot begin with anybody else but Jesus.  Thus, the Gospel today is indeed good news to us because it echoes to us Jesus’ own promise to those who believe in Him: “I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

It does help a lot for the mystery of God to have a face, a voice, a body because otherwise God would totally be unknown to us.  Without any physical appearance, God would not only be the “Totally Other” but also the “Totally Unknown”, and we would not be able to meaningfully relate to Him.

Jesus is the physical presence of God in our midst, but He is more than God’s face, voice, and body.  He is also the love and life of the mystery of God.  To look on Jesus is to begin to understand and appreciate the mystery of God.  For, as Mt 11:27 teaches us, “no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”  And in Jn 14:6, Jesus declares further, “…no one comes to the Father except through Me.”

But one does not come to faith in Jesus simply by looking at Jesus just as knowing that Jesus is the only way to the Father does not automatically bring one to the Father.  We need the Holy Spirit to believe in Jesus.  In 1 Cor 12:3, we read, “…no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.  Thus, the relevance of celebrating, prior to Trinity Sunday, the Solemnity of Pentecost.  We reach the Father via Jesus and we believe in Jesus through the Holy Spirit.  Hence, we see that the mystery of the Most Blessed Trinity is at the heart of our life and faith as Christians.  This explains why we start and conclude everything in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

God is a mystery.  No wonder, each of us is a mystery, too.  The second reading today reminds us of our highest dignity: we are children of God!  Moreover, it stresses the point that we have been given the privilege of inheriting the glory of God.  No matter who we are, no matter what we’ve been, no matter what we’ll be, the truth does not change: we were created in the image and likeness of God Himself (Cf. Gn 1:27).  Further, St. Augustine wrote, “Since God became human, we can be sure that in everything human we can find something of the divine.”  Thus, each of us is a mystery in himself or herself.

It should not surprise us, therefore, that it takes us a lifetime to really know and understand one another.  But do we really go out of our way to unravel one another?  Do we respect one another’s self-revelation?  Are we generous with our time that is needed in knowing and understanding one another?  Or are we rather quick to stereotype one another?  Do we easily dismiss others because of the negative impressions they create in us?

Caritas Christi urget nos (2 Cor 5:14).  The love of Christ urges us to deepen our understanding of Him, and consequently the very life of God as well.  The love of Christ also moves us to know, understand, and appreciate one another better.  Should it not?