RETURNEES

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21 (Neh 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 / Ps 19 / 1 Cor 12:12-14, 27)

About the year 400 B.C., the Jews were finally freed from Babylonian captivity.  A contingent of them returned home from exile, led by a priest-scribe named Ezra, and immediately started reviving the Mosaic Law.  Ezra, as we heard in the first reading today, translated and explained to the Jewish returnees the Torah from daybreak till midday.  When he was done reading, the people expressed veneration for the Law by bowing down and prostrating themselves before Yahweh.  Realizing that it was their infidelity to the Law that caused all the sufferings they had to endure, the people also wept.  Thus, Ezra, the priest-scribe, said to them, “Do not be sad and do not weep.  Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our Lord.  Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength.”

          Fidelity to the Law of Moses – the Torah – around this the life of every good Jew revolved.  They attributed everything that happened to their lives – both good and bad – to their faithful obedience to the Torah or to their persistent disobedience to it.  It governed their lives.  It gave meaning to their existence.  It determined for them not only their future as a nation but their eternity as individuals as well.  Without the Mosaic Law, there would be no Jew.  Be faithful to the Law of Moses and you are faithful to God.  Violate it and you transgress not Moses but God Himself.

          In the Gospel, we have another returnee: Jesus.  After His baptism by John in the River Jordan, Jesus went home to Nazareth in Galilee.  Like Ezra, the priest-scribe in the first reading today, Jesus also stood up to read.  He was, however, given not the Torah but a writing of one of the great prophets – Isaiah – on which it is written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”  Moreover, unlike the Jewish returnee in Ezra’s time, the people in the synagogue who heard Jesus did not weep.  Rather, they looked intently on Him.  The scene was indeed filled with suspense, as “the eyes of all in the synagogue,” the Gospel reported to us, were on Him.  Then, Jesus, as it were, dropped the bombshell: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”  Unfortunately the Gospel today ended here.  “Abangan ang susunod na kabanata,” as we say it in Tagalog.  “Naman, bitin!,” we would probably remark.  For next Sunday’s Gospel will pick up from where it left today.

          But, please pardon me, I’m spoiling the suspense.  The people who heard Jesus read the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the Messiah, the “Anointed One”, the Christ, and claimed that it was Him, would first speak highly of Him and, amazed, would trace His roots.  “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” they would verify their knowledge of this famous returnee.  But the otherwise pleasant homecoming almost ended up with murder, for eventually, the people did not like Jesus’ words when He started convicting them for their lack of faith, so they rose up, drove Him out of the town, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their town stood, intending to hurl Him down headlong.  Jesus, however, unbelievably escaped death by simply passing through their midst and going away.

          We see in the first reading and the Gospel today the issue which, in the early Christian community, was to scandalize both Jews and some Christians alike, and the reason why St. Paul’s missionary efforts were riddled with controversy and even threats against his very life.  The Christian kerygma – Jesus is Lord – clearly implies that Jesus is greater than not only Moses but even the Torah itself.  Jesus Himself is the Law.  The Jews regarded salvation as fidelity to the Mosaic Law.  But St. Paul the Apostle wrote and preached that faith in Jesus Christ means freedom from enslavement to the Old Law.  In Rom 7:6 the Apostle declares, “…by dying to what once bound us, we have been freed from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written law.”  Thus, understandably, the Jews, who heard Jesus in the synagogue today, eventually went berserk and wanted to throw Him down the cliff.  They believed that the Law by itself gave life.  They held to the conviction that religion consisted in knowing perfectly the Mosaic Law – the Ten Commandments and the other more than 600 positive prescriptions and negative prohibitions that were added by rabbinical commentaries through time.  They placed their faith in the Law, but the Law, the Christian message taught, failed them, for despite their obedience to the Law of Moses, they, like the rest of humanity, were all sinners.  Indeed, the Law provided information about sin, for without the Law who would know what sin is?  But there was no strength in the Law, no life, no salvation.  For the Law could never give the very life of God.  Jesus could, did, and continue giving that life!  Thus, man is saved by faith in Him.  This is the action not of the Law but of grace that makes faith in Jesus possible.

          The post-exilic returnees in the first reading today did not only go back to their homeland.  They also wanted to go back to their old ways, rigorously and slavishly following the Law as the determinant of their salvation.  The Returnee in the Gospel today, however, went back to His hometown to invite His own people to move on by recognizing that the ancient prophecy concerning the Messiah was then being fulfilled in Him.  The first group wept for their infidelity to the Law of Moses.  The audience of the second turned into a furious mob for their lack of faith.  To which group do we belong?

          In the mind of St. Paul the Apostle, religion for us, Christians, should be about knowing Jesus, loving Jesus, and following Jesus.  Thus, our prayer, “Day by day, O dear Lord, three things I pray: to see Thee more clearly, to love Thee more dearly, to follow Thee more nearly day by day.”  As we strive to live out this prayer, the Spirit of Jesus, rather than the Law, takes control of our entire life.  This Spirit, who has anointed Jesus for His mission, becomes the force acting from within us, setting us free and gifting us with what is necessary to live as members of Christ’s body as the second reading today described to us.  A person who has been freed by the Spirit of Jesus avoids sin not because of the dictates of the Law but because sin is wrong in itself.  A person who has been gifted with the Spirit of Jesus – or, along the lines of the second reading today, who has been baptized in the one Spirit and who drank of the same Spirit – strive to actively, lovingly, generously, and humbly play his role in building up the body of Christ to which he belongs.  So, whose spirit then do we possess – that of the Law or that of Christ?

          We, too, are returnees when we gather together in and as a church every Sunday.  But, what have we really returned for?  How do we actually return?  After our gathering, how do we go forth?  And will we return again?

NAUGHTY JESUS…oooops!

Feast of the Sto. Niño

Lk 2:41-52 (Is 9:1-6 / Ps 98 / Eph 1:3-6, 15-18)

                                                                                                                 

Please pardon me, that I am somewhat amused while reading the Gospel today.  There is something in it that I find quite funny: Jesus seems to be rather naughty!  Just like any playful kid, He appears to be innocently naughty.  The Gospel sets the record straight: Mary and Joseph did not lose Him after all.  It clearly says that when His parents finished fulfilling what the Law required, they travelled back home, but “the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem” without the knowledge of Mary and Joseph.  So, Jesus wanted to stay behind, but, can anybody tell me why in the world did He not ask His parents’ permission to hang about for a few more days?  Or, at least, inform His parents that He wanted to stay behind?  Or, perhaps, requested His parents that they linger with Him in Jerusalem for some more days?  Jesus did none of those!  Rather, on His own volition, and probably even pre-meditated, He just stayed behind.  Hmmm…naughty kid!

I was once a kid, too, and pretty naughty.  More naughty than Jesus today.  I remember very vividly when on a New Year’s Day, many years ago, I went with my dad and sisters to one of our lolas’ house not only for the New Year’s celebration but for her birthday, as well, that falls on the same day.  After a few hours, I began to feel bored and insisted that we go home already.  On the contrary, my dad was really having a great time with my uncles and cousins over some bottles of beer; so he ordered me instead to go and play with the other kids.  I would have none of it.  But unlike Jesus, I did not stay behind.  I left them behind!  With great intent, neither asking permission nor informing my dad, for I knew he would not agree, I went home all by myself.  I walked away, took a jeepney ride, crossed several streets, rode a tricycle, and, voila, I was home!  My mom, who decided not to go with us to our lola’s place, was shocked to realize that her seven year old kid commuted alone.  I knew that my dad would be out of his wits searching for me but I didn’t care, for all I wanted was to go home.  So, mom telephoned my lola’s place to inform by exasperated dad that I was already home and was safe.  In less than an hour, dad came home, rushing and furious.  And unlike Joseph in the Gospel today, dad gave it to me really hard.

Naughty Jesus – sounds irreverent?  No.  Any normal kid can be naughty sometimes.  Besides, naughtiness is not sinfulness.  Doing something naughty is not necessarily committing sin.  Being naughty is being normal.  And Jesus grew up like any normal kid.  To claim the contrary is to deny His true humanity.  Heb 4:15 testifies that Jesus was like us in all things but sin.

I really think that Jesus was being naughty when He stayed behind in Jerusalem without telling His parents, but I believe even more that Jesus did not mean to make His parents suffer.  I am firmly convinced that Jesus never wanted to cause His parents any sorrow.  He appears quite naughty in the Gospel today without Him really intending to be naughty.  All He wanted, as He Himself said in the Gospel today, was to be in His Father's house.  In a much later episode, in Jn 2:17, having cleansed the Temple by whips and shouts, His disciples would actually see in Jesus the words of Ps 69:9 coming alive: "Zeal for Your house consumes Me."  Moreover, His food, as He Himself likewise said in Jn 4:34,  was to do the will of Him Who sent Him and to finish the work He had been sent to do.  He was passionate with God.  Very passionate that He sometimes even appeared naughty.  And we know His story already, as He grew up, Jesus would many times get into trouble with the elders of the people, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the chief priests until those whose authority He challenged had Him nailed on a cross.  But in all these, He got into trouble not because He committed anything bad but because He would remain more than in Jerusalem but in God most of all.  Jesus was faithful and obedient to God.

Many times we ourselves get into trouble.  But are they all because of God, because for God, and because we would rather take God’s side rather than be safe in alliance with God’s enemies?  We can all be naughty anytime, but when was the last time we were naughty for God?

As I continue reflecting on the Gospel today, I also begin to wonder if Jesus really understood what He was doing or was it simply an urge deep inside Him that pushed Him into what He did as a twelve year old kid.  This is not to doubt His divinity even as it affirms His human nature.  It is rather an attempt to challenge the stampita-type image most people usually have of Jesus as a child and as an adult alike.  I am more inclined to believe that the awareness that He was God’s Son came gradually to Jesus.  His understanding and acceptance of His true and complete identity, I am compelled to believe, grew in His consciousness as He grew, the Gospel says, “in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”  To claim otherwise is to deny that He is truly man and is, therefore, fooling us all when He acted like one.  But, no, Jesus, as we profess over and over again, is true God and true man.  In His one person, both natures exist in their wholeness.  Such is the ineffable mystery of Jesus!

I remember, when I was twelve years old, young though I was, I was already very passionate with my desire to become a priest.  I told my dad about it.  He didn’t agree.  He would not let me enter the seminary and study for the priesthood.  “You are my only son,” dad reasoned out.  “With your becoming a priest, my lineage will die.”  I told him, “Dad, your last name doesn’t sound nice.  Sometimes, I become the butt of jokes because of it.  So, Dad, how about letting your lineage just die with me?”  I told you, I was a naughty kid!  I was a good kid, but pretty naughty.  Dad got angry with me (again) and sent me to bed.  But before I went to bed, I managed to warn him: “Dad, it’s the seminary or no high school for me!”  There I was, as if I really knew what I was saying.  But I meant it.  Really.  More importantly, I really wanted to be a priest as young as twelve years old.  The truth is that I already wanted to be a priest as far back as I can remember my childhood days.  However, God made me understand what I wanted rather gradually as I advance in age and wisdom.  Even now, I am already seventeen years a priest but God is still showing me what those words of mine when I was twelve years old really mean.

Jesus grew up and so did I.  We all grow up and, like Jesus, need to leave behind our childish ways.  The challenge that Jesus issues to us always is to be childlike without being childish.  Indeed, responding to that challenge forms an integral part of our being His disciples.

Today, as we celebrate the feast of the Sto. Niño, let us, in a very special way, pray in this Mass that, like Jesus, we may grow not only in age but also in wisdom and favor before God and man.  May we never be just naughty, but if we are ever naughty, may we be naughty because of our passion for God.  May our passion to obey God grow in us and fidelity to His will consume us as it did Jesus.

The image of today’s feast – Nuestro Señor Sto. Niño – is a child.  Yes, probably, He was a naughty kid sometimes.  But let us not forget that He grew up and became a man.  Unless our devotion makes us grow, ours is nothing but fanaticism.  And all the dancing and pomp and pageantry in today’s feast may be nothing more than the naughty child in us playing again.

CONTINUING EPIPHANIES

Feast of the Lord’s Baptism

Lk 3:15-16, 21-22 (Is 42:1-4, 6-7 / Ps 29 / Acts 10:34-38)

Last Sunday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Lord’s Epiphany.  Epiphany comes from the Greek vocabulary, epifania, meaning “glorious manifestation”.  When Jesus was born on Christmas day, He allowed Himself to be seen by shepherds who represented the Jewish race, the poor, and the outcast.  When the magi from the East, representing the Gentiles, the wealthy, and the wise, visited Him, God’s universal salvific will is revealed: Jesus, His Son and the Savior of the world, was born for all peoples.  But the manifestation of the Lord did not end with the visit of the magi.  At the Jordan, as we celebrate in the liturgy today, Jesus continued revealing Himself.

Sinless though He was, Jesus went to John the Baptist to be baptized.  John’s baptism was certainly not the same baptism that we received.  His was a baptism of repentance from sin but was not a sacrament as we have ours.  Jesus had no sin to repent from, but He nonetheless joined the sinners who flocked to John for baptism.  In doing so, Jesus manifested God’s solidarity with the sinful human race.  Though God hates sin, clearly He does not hate sinners.  He loves them.  He cares for them.  He longs to be with them.  Jesus is God’s judgment on sin but God’s salvation for sinners.

Not one of us can boast of having so far lived a totally sin-free life.  We do strive and even struggle to remain in the state of grace always, but we lie when we say we do not sin.  1 Jn 1:8 declares, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  But our sinfulness, though must always be given a serious thought and the urgency of sincere contrition and conversion of life, cannot spell hopelessness for us unless we stubbornly persist in it.  On the contrary, even sin may well occasion our deep encounter with God, as exemplified to us by the life of great saints like Augustine of Hippo or Paul of Tarsus who himself wrote in Rom 5:20, “…where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”  This is so because God never abandons us even when we sin.  He gave us Jesus, His Son, who was never threatened to be in the company of sinners, like you and me, as seen in His baptism in the Jordan and elsewhere in the gospels.

This, indeed, is Good News to us!  The entire liturgical feast today – not just the Gospel read to us from Lk 3:15-16, 21-22 – is Good News to us.  Christmas day tells us that God became man.  The Solemnity of the Lord’s Epiphany tells us that He became man for all of us.  Today, the Feast of the Lord’s Baptism tells us that He did not only become man for all of us but remained aloof, on the contrary, becoming one like us in all things but sin, He nonetheless counts Himself as one of us.  He is not only one WITH us but one OF us!  Jesus is not only FOR us; Jesus is also FROM us!

The baptism of Jesus at the Jordan did not glorify sin but it certainly glorified us despite our poor nature.  He embraced our poverty so that we might be rich.  He came to share in our humanity that we may come to share in His divinity.  How about the baptism we received when we became children of God and disciples of Jesus, does it glorify Jesus in us?

At His baptism, Jesus inaugurated His public ministry.  And He was not alone in doing so, for the other Two Persons of the Most Blessed Trinity likewise revealed Themselves at Jesus’ baptism: the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove while the Father’s voice was heard, declaring not only that Jesus was His Son but that Jesus was His beloved and joy because on Jesus He was well pleased.  Another glorious manifestation!  The mission of Jesus is always the mission of the Three Persons of the One God.  It is always a communitarian mission.  Kanya-kanya nga sila ng papel pero hindi sila nagkakanya-kanya.  Iba-iba nga sila ng persona pero hindi sila iba-iba nang diskarte.  At mas lalo rin naman pong hindi sila magkakasama sa umpisa o nagkakaisa sa simula pero nang matapos ang misyon ay magkakaaway na.  Hindi po.  Sa simula, sa gitna, at sa kaganapan ng misyong ipagkaloob sa atin ang buhay ng Diyos, laging magkakasama, nagkakaisa, at nagtutulungan ang Tatlong Persona ng iisang Diyos.  God Himself is our example how to begin, go about, and accomplish our mission.

We know because we experience that one of the evil effects of sin in us is divisiveness.  Sin destroys and so sin divides.  Diabolos in Greek, from which our Tagalog word diablo comes, means “to divide into two”.  Whoever and whatever divides us – be it in our selves as individuals or in our communities – is a diablo, and that is the effect of sin.  It is in the midst of our sinful nature that we find Jesus today in the liturgy, mingling and falling in line with us.  It is in the reality of the divisive effect of sin in us that God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – reveals Himself to us in a communitarian mission.  Jesus shares His life with us.  God shares His salvific mission with us.

The baptism we received was not the baptism of John the Baptist.  The baptism we received was not the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist.  But the baptism we received was the baptism by which we were not only forgiven from our sins but by which we have also received the life of Jesus and mission of the Triune God.  Having given the life of Jesus, we are tasked to share the same life with others.  Having known the joy of Jesus, we are to bring that same joy to others.  This we must do not alone but always together and led by those whom God has appointed to be our shepherds in the Church. 

As both the first and second readings today highlight the anointing of Jesus as the Christ, so are we reminded that we, too, have been anointed for this mission.  That precisely is the reason why we are called “Christians”.  We are an anointed people.  In Baptism, we have been anointed with the holy oil of chrism.  We are “Christified”, conformed unto the likeness of Jesus, so to speak.

Christmas is over, but not our being Christians.  We continue the manifestation of Christ to the world.  We are the Lord’s continuing epiphanies to all.

MGA PANTAS NI JESUS

Dakilang Kapistahan ng Pagpapakita ng Panginoon

Mt 2:1-12 (Is 60:1-6 / Slm 71 / Eph 3:2-3,5-6)

Simula nang magkamuwang ang tao, binabasa na niya ang kalangitan.  Naghahanap siya ng mga tanda at kinikilatis ang mga ipinahihiwatig nito na may kinalaman sa kanyang buhay at sa iba’t ibang bagay-bagay sa mundo.  Likas sa tao ang paniniwalang may nakahihigit sa kanya na hindi lamang nagpapairal at nagsasa-ayos ng mga tala kundi nagpapahayag din ng mga mensahe sa pamamagitan nila.

Ngayong araw na ito, ipinagdiriwang natin ang pag-akay ng Diyos sa mga pantas mula sa Silangan patungo kay Jesus, ang bagong silang na Hari ng mga Judyo, sa pamamagitan ng isang tala.  Nagbunyag ang Diyos sa kanila sa tulong ng isang tala.

Inakay nga sila ng Diyos subalit hindi ito nangahulugang naging madali at mabilis ang paglalakbay ng mga pantas na ito.  Bagkus, malamang ay mabagal ang kanilang paglalakabay at maraming mga pagsubok sa kanilang dinaanan.  Naghanap sila.  At ang tanging gabay nila ay isang tala.

Sinu-sino ba ang gumabay sa atin para matagpuan ang Diyos?  Sinu-sino silang nagsilbing gabay natin sa pagtuklas at higit na pagkilala kay Kristo?  Magandang alalahanin natin sila ngayong araw na ito, ipagdasal, at pasalamatan.  Sila ang mga tala ng Diyos sa buhay natin.

Lalo na ngayong Taon ng Pananampalataya, nararapat na sariwain natin ang ating naging paglalakbay tungo sa una nating pakikipagtagpo kay Jesus.  Gunitain natin nang may taus-pusong pasasalamat ang mga naging kasangkapan ng Diyos para mayakap natin ang Pananampalatayang Kristiyano.  Tiyak, maraming mga tao sa landas ng pananampalataya na ating tinahak at patuloy pang tinatahak: ang ating mga magulang, kabiyak-puso, mga kapatid, mga kamag-anak, mga kaibigan, ang guro sa paaralan, ang pari sa simbahan, ang katekista, at marami pang iba.  Ipanalangin natin sila sa Banal na Misang ito.

Ang mga pantas na ginabayan ng tala ay hindi matatagpuan si Jesus kung hindi nila nilisan ang kani-kanilang pinagmulan.  May tala ngang gabay mula sa Diyos pero kung hindi sila mismo naglakbay, hindi pa rin nila makikita si Jesus.  At para makapaglakbay, kinailangan nila iwan ang kani-kaniyang comfort zone, ang kapaligirang pamilyar sa kanila.  Sa kanilang paglalakbay, ginagabayan lamang ng tala, nagtaya sila ng maraming bagay sampu na ang sariling buhay.  May nilisan sila kay may narating sila.  May binitiwan sila kaya nakapitan nila si Jesus.

Ano kaya ang pinabibitiwan sa atin ng Diyos para higit tayong makakapit kay Jesus?  Kaya ba nating talikuran ang hinihingi ng paglalakbay na dapat gawin upang higit tayong makalapit kay Jesus?  Ano ang comfort zone na hihingi ng Diyos sa ating ipagpalit para sa abang Belen ni Jesus?  Ano ang itataya natin para kay Jesus?

Dahil sa pagtataya ng mga pantas nang sundan nila ang tala patungong Belen, ang pagsilang ni Jesus ay nahayag hindi lamang sa Kanyang mga kababayang Judyo kundi pati na rin sa mga hentil.  Noong mismong gabi nang Siya ay isilang, minarapat ni Jesus na ang mga pastol na Kanyang mga kababayan at kapwa dukha ang unang makakita sa Kanya.  Ngayon naman, ang mga hentil, mga hindi Judyo, katulad natin, ang tinulungan Niyang matagpuan Siya.  Malinaw ang mensahe ng Linggong ito: Ang Pasko ay para sa atin din!  Ito ang ating Pasko.  Ngayon ang Pasko nating mga hindi Judyo.  Isinilang si Jesus para sa atin din.

Kanino naman kaya natin isisilang si Jesus?

Nang matagpuan ng mga pantas si Jesus, hindi nila Siya kinuha.  Maaaring kinalong nila Siya, pero hindi nila Siya kinuhang pagmamay-ari nila na parang gantimpala matapos ang malayo, mapanganib, at napakahirap na paglalakbay.    Hindi ginawang "finder's keeper" si Jesus ng mga pantas na naghirap maghanap sa Kanya.  Sa halip, sila pa nga ang naghandog sa Kanya.  Tatlong uri – hindi tatlong piraso – ang kanilang mga handog: ginto na sagisag ng pagiging hari ni Jesus, kamanyang na simbolo ng Kanyang pagka-Diyos, at mira na paalala ng sasapitin Niyang pagdurusa at kamatayan alang-alang sa sankatauhan.  Sila ang nagbigay.  Hindi sila ang binigyan.  Sapat na sa kanila ang makita at makasamba kay Jesus.

Ang Pasko ay pagtanggap natin kay Jesus.  Ano naman ang handog natin sa Kanya?  Ngayong Pasko binigyan tayo, pero tayo nagbigay ba?  Ano ang ibinigay natin?  At kung sa kabila ng tumanggap na nga tayo ay hindi pa tayo kuntento, ano ba talaga ang sapat na para sa atin tuwing sasapit ang Pasko?  Patapos na nga ang Pasko, baka nakalilimutan pa rin natin na hindi natin birthday ito.  Birthday ito ni Jesukristo.  Ano ang handog natin sa Kanya?  Kanino kaya natin ibinigay ang dapat ay kay Kristo ngayong kaarawan Niya?

Dahil sa nabatid nilang malagim na balak ni Herodes, ang mga pantas ay hindi na nagbalik sa kanya.  Sa halip, nag-iba sila ng daan pauwi sa kani-kanilang bayan.  Nag-iba sila ng daan.  Malamang kung binalikan pa nila si Herodes para iulat kung saan nila eksaktong natagpuan si Jesus, hindi natin ipagdiriwang taun-taon ang Pasko, baka ipagluluksa natin.  Subalit nag-iba nga sila ng daan pauwi.

Hanggang sa darating na Sabado na lamang ang Kapaskuhan.  Pagsapit ng susunod na Linggo ay Kapistahan na ng Pagbibinyag sa Panginoon, at iyon din ang Unang Linggo sa Karaniwang Panahon.  Namamaalam na nga ang panahon ng Pasko.  Matagal nang nagsiuwian ang mga namamasko.  Umuwi na rin ang mga bakasyonista.  Uuwi rin tayo, hindi sa anumang lugar o bayan, kundi sa ating kani-kaniyang pangkaraniwang pamumuhay sa araw-araw.  Paano tayo uuwi?  Handa ba tayong magbago ng daang pauwi, katulad ng mga pantas, kung kinakailangan?  O balik tayo sa dati nating gawi?  Para sa ating ikabubuti, may binago ba sa ating pag-uugali ang namamaalam nang Kapaskuhan?  O katulad pa rin tayo nang dati?  Ano nga kaya ang kailangan nating baguhin sa ating “pag-uwi”?

Magsilbi rin nawa tayong tala ng Diyos para sa mga naghahanap sa Kanya, para sa mga nagtataya para sa Kanya, at para sa mga nais maghandog sa Kanya.  Akayin din nawa natin ang marami pa patungo kay Jesus sa pamamagitan ng ating matingkad na mga halimbawa sa salita at gawa.  At sakaling kinailangang magbago rin tayo ng daan pauwi, sana ang pagbabagong ito ay tunay na para sa higit na ikaluluwalhati ng Diyos at ikabubuti natin at ng ating kapwa.  Sa taun-taon nating pagdiriwang ng Kapaskuhan, harinawa’y maging mga pantas din tayo ni Jesus.

REHEM

Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

Lk 2:16-21 (Nm 6:22-27 / Ps 67 / Gal 4:4-7)

Most life-forms begin in a womb.  I said “most” because we know that there are other life-forms that begin elsewhere.  But all human life-forms begin in a womb.

You and I are human beings and we all began in the womb of our mothers.  We did not only begin there, we also experienced our many “first” in the womb: first heartbeat, first movement, first sensations, first feeding, first thumb suck, first hearing, first attachment, first dependence.  We our true first love also happened there, when we were yet fetuses, for our real first love is our mothers.  As seeds from our fathers, we experienced our first fight even before we entered the womb of our mothers, for we competed with other seeds to get in there.  And because we actually made it against million other seeds, it is also in the womb that we had our first taste of victory.  When God assigned to us our particular genders, not all of us were given wombs, only the females, but all of us were nonetheless born from a womb.  Blessed are the women, for they have wombs – only they can carry life within them other than theirs!

The Hebrew word for “womb” is rehem.  Only women have rahammim, which is the plural form of rehem.  We all came from a rehem.  And we were born because the rehem we came from was very rehem!  What do I mean?  In Hebrew, the word “rehem” does not only mean “womb.  It is also means “mercy”.  Thus, rehem, in Hebrew, is both “womb” and “mercy”.  We were born because the womb we came from was very merciful.

In Hebrew, there are two words for “mercy”.  Rehem is one and the other is hessed.  Hessed is the less emotional between the two Hebrew translations for “mercy”.

Hessed refers to the loyalty of God to His covenant with His People; thus, it is often understood as “God’s faithful love”.  God’s mercy is experienced by His People in His fidelity to them through their covenant with Him.  Since we are God’s People, hessed refers to God’s consistent and unconditional promise to love us.  Nothing and no one obligated Him to do so except Himself.  Between the two Hebrew words for “mercy”, hessed and rehem, hessed is more commonly used in the Bible; so commonly that rehem is often not given much reflection or, even at least, a simple thought.

Rehem, as God’s mercy, tells us more how God feels about us.  God’s rehem towards us convey our being affectionately surrounded and protected by His love.  The tender love of a mother for her child within her womb clearly paints this kind of mercy.  Thus, in Is 66:13, though it speaks of God’s merciful love that is one and the same, evidently it is not God’s hessed, but His rehem for us, His children, that is being referred to in particular.  “As a mother comforts her child so will I comfort you,” says Is 66:13.  We feel God’s merciful love by His comforting us as a mother comforts her child.  Rehem – though same with hessed and means God’s merciful love – is emotional, affective, and more tangibly felt.

In Is 49:15, God speaks to us through the Prophet: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”  This beautiful declaration of God’s rehem to us has been popularized in the Philippines by the song, “Hindi Kita Malilimutan”.  Both the song and its biblical foundation clearly give one quality of God’s merciful love – His rehem – towards us: His refusal, and even inability, to forget us.  God is merciful to us because He never forgets us.  God cannot forget us and, therefore, He cannot but be merciful to us.  He has rehem towards us not because He forgets all our faults; rather, He has mercy towards us even as He remembers not only our goodness but, very much, our sins as well.

Please allow me to mention here briefly that this is one of the reasons why abortion – a mother’s killing her own child in the womb – is one of the most painful realities in our world today.  It is so hurting that I cry each time I hear it in the confessional even after seventeen years of my hearing confessions.  The womb, which in Hebrew is referred to by the same word for “mercy” – affectionate, emotional, tangibly felt mercy – should always be the most compassionate environment, most especially for the most defenseless among us – our babies.  But some have chosen to make their wombs tombs for their own child.  God  designed the womb to be a beautiful and meaningful reminder of His merciful love towards us, but, alas for those who never stop tampering with God’s design, turning the otherwise most merciful environment into the most horrifying place human life begins.

As the new year begins, we venerate the womb that bore and gave birth to our Savior.  Today is the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.  This solemn feast does not attribute to Mary what is not hers and can never be hers: divinity.  She is the mother of God not because Jesus received His divinity from her, but because Jesus, whom she conceived and delivered into the world was already divine before, during, and after He was born.  Mary’s child is not only human but is also truly God.  Thus, in recognizing and venerating Mary as the Holy Mother of God, we actually affirm the divinity of Jesus, her Son, even before we acknowledge her most singular and privileged role in salvation history.

At the start of another year is a womb, just as at the beginning of the Old Testament was the womb of Sarah, the otherwise old and barren wife of Abraham but who gave birth to Isaac nonetheless, and at the beginning of the New Testament was the womb of Mary who, though virgin, gave birth to Jesus the Christ.  As we pay tribute to the divine motherhood of Mary, so do we entrust our selves to her maternal care and guidance.  Like babies, let us enter into that womb that bore and gave us the Lord so that it may nourish us the way it nourished Jesus and form us into the very image of the Eternal Word to Whom it gave flesh.  From that same womb of the Blessed Mother, we make the Psalm today our own prayer: “May God bless us in His mercy.  May God bless us in His rehem.

For the Catholic Church, every New Year is Mary’s feast.  She is our companion through life and through all ages.  For if merciful love is best expressed by refusing and even in the inability to forget, the Blessed Mother is always the example and inspiration par excellence for us.  She would keep all things in her heart always.  And it is the heart, indeed, that remembers.  If ever it is the mind, the mind remembers precisely because the heart reminds it!  May we have hearts that never forget to care for others.  May we have minds that are humble enough to allow themselves to be reminded what they should not forget.

The past year ends by us remembering, not only circumstances, but most especially people.  And having remembered them, we cannot but see that all is grace and we are grateful and joyful.  But the year also begins by remembering.  More than gifts to give, we rememberrelationships to nurture and, if needed, to mend.  More than parties to go to, we remember lessons learned and resolve to grow more unto the best person God intends us to become.  More than things to buy, we remember the poor who have less and even nothing in life.  More than noise and merrymaking, we remember to come together and worship God at the beginning of another year to thank Him and entreat with Him for His rehem towards us.

As God is merciful to us may we be merciful to others, too.  May we be like “wombs” for one another where they are loved unconditionally and encouraged to live life to the fullest.  For, as the second reading today declares, “…you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son then also an heir, through God.”  That is what we must grow into.

With the merciful love of God, so beautiful represented by wombs among whom the most blest is Mary’s, I end this reflection by blessing you the way that the Lord God Himself instructed Aaron and his sons to bless the Israelites in first reading today:

                    וישמרך יהוה יברכך

                    ויחנך אליך פניו יהוה יאר

                    שלום וישם אליך פניו יהוה ישא

(Translitaration:)      Yeh-va-reh-cheh-cha Yahveh veh-yeesh-meh-reh-cha

                                        Ya-air Yahveh pa-naiv ay-leych-cha vee-chu-neh-cha

                                        Yee-sa Yahveh pa-nahv ay-leyh-cha veh-ya-same          

                                         leh-cha Shalom

                             Yahweh bless and keep you!

                             Yahweh make His face shine upon you, and be          

                             gracious to you!

                             Yahweh lift up His countenance on you, and give you peace!

                           

                             Amen.