Order: “Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.” (Mark 14:36)
Reflection:
Holy Week which is an important event for us Catholics brings to a close the period of sacrifice and self-denial that was the underlying theme of the Season of Lent. Beginning on Palm Sunday, our focus shifts to the passion of Jesus Christ and his Resurrection.
Some may ask why we continue to commemorate Holy Week, and the usual response is that it reminds us of the sacrifice and suffering that Jesus Christ endured to save us and restore us to the image and likeness of God. Those who made a vow to spend the entire paschal event – from the Ash Wednesday to the Holy Week, the Easter Triduum and the 50 days of Easter – in deep reflection will find that their lives are changed forever because there is now a deeper appreciation of what Christ went through for love of us. The feeling that we are special reaches its crescendo during the Easter Triduum because it provides us with the opportunity to understand what it is to be a Christian.
Order: “Praise the Lord, for he is good; sing praise to our God for he is gracious; it is fitting to praise him!’” (Ps 147:1)
Reflection:
In three weeks time, on February 22, Christians all over the world will observe the beginning of the Lenten season with Ash Wednesday. And how appropriate are the messages of the readings on the 5th Sunday of Ordinary time in preparing us for this very important event in our Christian life and setting the tone for our personal conduct and guiding our spiritual disposition. There are three important factors to consider in making the Lenten season more meaningful to us and for our relationship with the Triune God.
Order: “Say to them: ‘The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!’” (Nm 6:22-26)
Reflection:
As we start the New Year 2012, the word for the month of January – Obeying the Will of God makes us a blessing to others, reminds us who the disciples of Jesus Christ are. They are those who follow the Will of God our Father just as Jesus did, (Jn 5:30). As we obey God’s Will, we will not lack in anything; we will fear no harm; and only goodness and love will pursue us all the days of our life, (Psalm 23). By our obedience to God’s Will, other people will also be blessed when they witness the peace and joy of Christ within us whatever circumstance we are in. They will recognize our generosity by how much we share our time, talent, and treasure with the poor and those around us. Even when we are beset with problems, we are open to help and we ourselves will be compassionate with others who are also undergoing trials in their life. When they are in the midst of suffering, they can approach us to pray with them and for them. Slowly, as they open their hearts to Jesus because of our witnessing, they too will be blessed with the presence of Jesus in their lives. More»
Bukas Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community
Global Districts
Amidst the excitement of preparing for Christmas festivities, the season of
Advent reminds us that we have to make preparations for the deeper meaning of what
Christmas is all about, namely God’s presence among his people in the person of Jesus
Christ. Echoed and re‐echoed in the readings is the warning “Be on your guard, stay
awake because you never know when the time will come.” It is a grim reminder that a day
of reckoning lies ahead. To be found wanting and unworthy of the kingdom on that
occasion will be painfully frustrating.
Advent, therefore, is a time to be alert. One is alerted that Christmas is soon at
hand, the birthday of the Savior. He became one of us to bring peace, joy and fellowship,
to make us one family of God. All the preparations during the weeks of Advent are
directed to that happy event, even though many are no longer aware that Christ is the
focal‐point of Christmas. These preparations are meant to renew us in the true spirit of
Christmas, which Christ set before the world in the proclamation of the Good News.
Renewal in Christ, as each succeeding Advent season rolls around, has a further
purpose, namely to keep us alert that this is a passing world, so it is futile to attach
ourselves too strongly to it, because the world and everything in it is passing away (1 Jo.
2/17), to be transformed into a new world by the glorious coming of the Savior when He
inaugurates the end‐kingdom. Then all our preparation of the present time will be amply
rewarded and everyone will receive from God the praise he deserves (1 Cor. 4/5). Then
the just will share in the glory of the Risen Christ, when he comes to reward everyone
according to his works.
+ ANGEL N. LAGDAMEO
Archbishop of Jaro &
BLD Spiritual Director
November 29, 2011
Order: “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.” (Mk 13:33)
Reflection:
From the eschatological liturgical readings of the past several weeks, we now come to a season that is brimming with hope. And from reflections on end times, we now come to a new beginning, a time of joyful preparation that will clear the way for us to enter into a relationship with the Lord.
1st Week
It would also be good to know that there are actually three ways in which our Lord came and made himself manifest to us. First, as the Word made flesh through his birth into an ordinary human family, thus enabling him to dwell among us (Jn 1:14). It is this co-mingling of the divinity of Christ with our humanness that transforms us into supernatural beings. Second, he came to us through the indwelling Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, a transforming event. Having received power from on high (Acts 1:8), man will never be the same again. In the third and final manifestation, Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead (CCC682).
As the Advent season is also referred to as a “little Lenten season” it presupposes that we are also called to a life of prayer and fasting. CCC522 also tells us that “The coming of God’s Son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. He makes everything – all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and symbols of the First Covenant – converge on Christ. . He announces him through the mouths of prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. Moreover, he awakens in the hearts of pagans a dim expectation of this coming.”
2nd Week – Prepare the Way of the Lord
The preparation begins with Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary, from whose womb John the Baptist will come to announce the coming of the Messiah to the world. Scriptures tell us that John the Baptist’s life was committed to one burning mission – to point others to Jesus Christ and to the coming kingdom.
Like Jesus who emerged victorious and with great wisdom from the temptation in the dessert, John was likewise tested in the wilderness, but grew in the Word of God and began to call the people of Israel to repentance. Do we, like John, also point others to Christ in the way we live, work, and speak?
We must remember that through John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit began our restoration into the divine likeness of God, prefiguring what would be achieved with and through our Lord Jesus. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance – a turning away from sin to a new way of life based on God’s word. Our baptism of water in Jesus Christ, and baptism in the Spirit results in a new birth and entry into God’s kingdom as his beloved sons and daughters (John 3:5).
Through baptism, Jesus gives us the fire of his Spirit that we may radiate the joy and truth of the gospel to a world in desperate need of God’s light and truth.
3rd Week – Who are we?
“Who are you really?” It was not difficult for John the Baptist to answer this when the authorities posed the question to him. But supposing someone challenges your identity with the same question. How would you answer? There’s an identity crisis in the world today and many are confused. While we can manufacture our identity with an assumed personna, our true nature rests in God who made us in his image and likeness.
John the Baptist had no identity problems. He appeared in the Judean landscape speaking and urging the people to prepare the way for the Lord. He bridges the Old and New Testaments. He was the last of the Old Testament prophets, pointing the way to the Messiah and was the first of the New Testament’s witnesses and martyrs. He is known as the herald who prepared the way for Jesus and who announced his mission to the people: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” John saw from a distance what the Messiah came to accomplish — our redemption from slavery to sin, and our adoption as sons and daughters of the heavenly Father.
Like John, we too must recognize our identity as children of God and citizens of heaven. So too, must we live like John, as a humble and faithful servants of God, pointing others to Jesus, through our example and witness.
4th Week – Be obedient by saying Yes!
Christ’s birth into the human family largely depended on Mary’s response to the announcement of the angel Gabriel. It determined our salvation, and aren’t we glad she did respond positively, in all humility and obedience. It couldn’t have been an easy decision to make, because what the Gabriel told her surpasses all human understanding.
Her question, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” was not prompted by doubt or skepticism, but by wonderment! But Mary was a genuine listener of God’s word and was able to respond with faith and trust. Her “Yes” to the divine message should be the model of faith for all believers. Mary believed God’s promises even when they seemed impossible. She was filled with grace because she trusted that what God said was true and would be fulfilled. She was willing and eager to do God’s will, even if it seemed difficult or costly.
Like Mary, God will also give us the grace to respond with the same willingness, obedience, and heart-felt trust. When God commands us to do something, he also gives us the strength and the means to respond in faith. We can either yield to his grace or resist and go our own way. But if we believe in God’s promise of eternal life to those who will believe in him and remain obedient in faith, he will fill us with grace as he did Mary.
It’s Christmas – the King is born!
Why does John the Evangelist begin his gospel with a description of the Word of God? The “Word of God” was a common expression among the Jews. Thus, John presents Jesus as God’s creative, life-giving and light-giving word that has come to earth in human form. Jesus is the wisdom and power of God that created the world and sustains it by assuming a human nature in order to accomplish the promised salvation
Gregory of Nyssa, one of the great early church fathers (330-395 AD) wrote: Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?
Pope Paul VI says in his encyclical Gaudium et Spes: “The Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. The Son of God …worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin.”
Indeed, if we are going to behold the glory of God we can only do it through Jesus Christ. Jesus became the partaker of our humanity so we could be partakers of his divinity (2 Peter 1:4). God’s purpose for us, even from the beginning of his creation, is that we would be fully united with him. By our being united in Jesus, God becomes our Father and we become his sons and daughters. Indeed, we should be grateful to our Father for sending his only begotten Son to redeem us and to share in his glory.
Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17 Solemnity of Christ the King
Psalm 23:1-3, 5, 6 November 20, 2011
1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28
Matthew 25:31-46
Word: Christ’s disciples stay awake and are vigilant for the Lord’s second coming
Theme: We stay awake and are vigilant for the Lord’s second coming when we respond to the needs of the poor.
Promise: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Mt 25:34)
There are two words in this Gospel passage that we must all try to understand because these are the only two choices we have. It would also be good to pull out from your book shelf your Thesaurus to be able to comprehend what these choices are.
One is punishment which is associated with chastisement, retribution, torture, suffer, beating, flogging, scourging, and judgment referring to providential punishment. The other is the term righteous which refers to those who are virtuous and godly. Those who are virtuous act with moral rectitude, saintliness, godliness, right-minded. They can also be described as good persons, respectable, pillar of the church and society. Godly persons are those possessing purity of heart, spiritual-minded, good-natured, and unworldly.
“Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Mt 25: 13)
Serendipitously, the Church has associated the end of liturgical year with the month of November – a time to remember the dead and also a good time to examine how well we have done with our own lives. The order for this month is “Stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour,” (Mt 25: 13). As Christ’s disciples, we are exhorted to prepare, and to be vigilant for second coming of the Lord.
Order: “Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you.” (Phil 4:9)
Reflection:
“Therefore I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.” This is the last verse from our Gospel reading for the 1st Sunday of October, Year A, otherwise known as the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. It is clear from the words of Jesus that God expects results from us. He expects us to act on His words and to be faithful and fruitful. It pleases Him the most when we bear fruit, because as we do, we glorify God.
On the other hand, He reserves the severest judgment for those who are unfruitful and are deaf to His words and His calling, like the fig tree in Mt.21:19: “May you never bear fruit again. Immediately the fig tree withered and died.” Israel as a nation lost its privilege because of the people‘s unbelief and unfruitfulness.
Our Community Word for the month of October speaks of fruitfulness as a gauge of our love response to the Lord. He is the landlord who calls us to work in His vineyard, and whose stamp of ownership is upon us, for we are truly His own. As a community of believers, ‘Open in spirit to God,’ we express our allegiance to Him by adhering to our Community Values, Norms and Culture, and by responding in love to the Community Vision and Mission, because BLD is a vineyard, whose cornerstone is Jesus, and we are guided by His Word and inspired by His Holy Spirit. More»
Order: “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” (Mt 14: 27)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “Faith is first of all personal adherence of man to God.” It means we must entrust ourselves wholly to God and believe absolutely in what He says, (CCC150). As disciples of Jesus Christ, we must listen to His word and act on them (Lk 6:47). We are to persevere in our walk with Jesus, remain firmly rooted in Him and established in our faith, and abound in thanksgiving, (Col 2:6-7), for there is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to man by which we are to be saved, except the Name of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).
And as we follow Jesus and His commandments with unwavering faith, when we cry out to Him,. He will save us from useless anxieties – what to eat, what to drink, what to wear (Mt 6: 33. Jesus will shield us from the storms of life, from our fears and from our sinful inclinations and give us the reward of eternal life. Therefore our Community Word for August reminds us that ‘Jesus saves all who have faith in Him.’ More»
With the shortage of priests in some areas, there developed prayer services for Sundays, which were called “Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest” (1993). This has sometimes led to an ambiguity or even to some confusion as to the meaning and value of the Mass. This reflection is intended to rejuvenate the sense of awe and reverence for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and to locate Holy Communion within its essential context of the Mass.
The Sacrifice of the Mass is the sacrificial offering of Christ, offered on the Cross on Calvary but made eternal by virtue of His divinity. He is King, Glorious in Heaven, yet He also remains Priest and Victim–Priest because He offers His one eternal Sacrifice to God the Father forever on our behalf, and Victim because the Sacrifice He offers is No One other than His very Self. This eternal Offering of Himself, begun on Calvary and eternal in Heaven, becomes *present* in reality at *every* Mass, but hidden and invisible.
The infinite power of the Son of God’s divine love, expressed ultimately through His complete sacrifice of His human Body in His Crucifixion, is *made present* at every Mass on earth. Only a sacrifice by God the Son could atone for the Original Sin against God the Father, the Sin which originated all suffering and allowed death into life. Only the Son of God could suffer the pain of every victim of every sin in history; only the Son of God could suffer completely the entire punishment deserved by every sinner in history.
In reality, there is only One Priest and One Mass. The One Priest is Jesus Christ, the High Priest, Who ministers through fallen men whom He ordains to stand in His Person; and the One Mass is the unimaginably perfect and glorious liturgy in heaven, with conceivably billions of angels and saints, exulting in their praise of God, with music and a chorus that is beautiful beyond imagination. What we experience on earth in the Mass is like seeing a hazy image behind dark, smoky glass–or hearing faintly through tinny loudspeakers; we receive only a taste of what is perfect beauty and perfect Adoration of the Creator in Heaven.
Some may ask why we continue to commemorate Holy Week, and the usual response is that it reminds us of the sacrifice and suffering that Jesus Christ endured to save us and restore us to the image and likeness of God. Those who made a vow to spend the entire paschal event – from the Ash Wednesday to the Holy Week, the Easter Triduum and the 50 days of Easter – in deep reflection will find that their lives are changed forever because there is now a deeper appreciation of what Christ went through for love of us. The feeling that we are special reaches its crescendo during the Easter Triduum because it provides us with the opportunity to understand what it is to be a Christian.
