The 1st reading for today reminded me of my experience in St.
Martha's Church when I was just new in the parish in 2008. I was so surprised
when I saw the statue of Jesus in St. Martha Church here in West Covina .
It was a first Friday of Feb 2008 when I envisioned this statue of Jesus
with an extended right arm holding His heart on his hand. Tita Piling was with
me then so I asked her if that is a statue of the Sacred Heart because I have
never seen anything like one before, but she simply nodded her head. That was
how I saw it. It appeared to me like He was handing over His heart to me. But
on the day we went for Sunday mass I found out that the image/statue which I
envisioned was not how I saw it on that day with Jesus extending his arm
offering His heart on his hand. To my
surprise when I came closer to the statue, I realized that it is indeed the
Sacred Heart of Jesus but not as I had seen it on the 1st Friday of
that month. The heart of Jesus was not in His hand but on His chest. I was
almost in tears and felt God's love being offered to me as symbolized by His
heart held on His extended hand. A lot of people may find it hard to believe
that I have seen Jesus holding His heart on His extended hand but the eyes of
my faith can not deny it and with that I proclaim God's miracle for His greater
glory. When Moses met God in the burning bush, Moses asked God “What is your
name and whom shall I say sent me?” He said My name is “I am” not I was nor I
will be but I am. God lives in the eternal now where it is neither past nor
future. If we are going to realize that at this very moment God sees us not
only at this lovely day He created but He sees us already dead, buried, judged
and safely home with Him forever for the ecstasy that He has planned for us. He
sees us now as we are worrying and fretting about a future that may never come.
Moses told the Lord, who am I to go to pharaoh. But God was with Moses as He is
with us. He said I shall be with you and He was with Moses, as He is with us,
too. Amen. Hallelujah!
Exodus 3:1-6. 9-12
...As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush,
though on fire, was not consumed. 3 So Moses decided, “I must go over to look
at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned.”
We can never fathom the wisdom of God but we can always
remain confident in the truth that His kindness is perfect and everlasting. He
makes all things work for good. When we feel so helpless, miserable and alone,
never ever doubt that He can't help but be the loving God that He is. God loves
us so much that he will adjust to our needs and make things work for good.
There is no reason for us to even doubt and hold back anything from the Lord
for nothing is too difficult for Him. If we are confident of God's Providence in our lives
then nothing should even make us doubt that God is able to redeem us and take
us out of misery. God has made known His kindness, mercy and secures justice
for all. He knows exactly what we need at the precise moment and brings forth
everything in its appointed time. Furthermore, God wanted to take our
transgressions as far as the east is from the west. How far is the east from
the west? Only God knows. We know that the distance is unfathomable, that’s
what the Lord does with our sins. How much does He loves us? We know that His
love and mercy is immeasurable. There is really none like our God. And reading
part of the psalm reading made me remember the song "Loving and
Forgiving". He is our best bet for always and there is no one or nothing
else that could or should take first place in our lives more than the Lord.
Whenever we receive goodness and kindness from people we meet we are very much
delighted and pleased with it. How much more would we feel if we have God's
favor resting upon us. There is nothing else better compared to this. We may
search long and hard but we can never really find true satisfaction and remain
restless unless we have God in our life. We only have to believe in God's
kindness and mercy and we will surely see it happen in our life before our very
eyes. He is our refuge and strength. To whom can we go but to God alone. The
world’s point of view is very contradictory to the message that God wanted us
to live by. We need to pray hard for the
desire to always follow what is pleasing before the Lord and not forget that it
is what really matters first and foremost. We are so blessed that we did not
live during the time when Christians were being persecuted and martyred and
what we are enjoying right now are already the benefits of God's marvelous work
wrought by His mighty hand. This is why we should stop complaining and just
keep our hope if we truly believe that we have a God and Father who is full of
kindness and goodness. This reminds me of the prophet Amos. He is a prosperous
herdsman/farmer, well educated and traveled. His time (746-786) was an age of
prosperity but severely marked with moral decay and spiritual bankruptcy. He
experienced a luxurious life, lived in the garrison city a place dominated by
people of power and had all the time to study the scriptures. He lived in
affluence, belonged and embraced the "clan system/wisdom" which is a
guild or crusade to maintain the purity of the tradition of the temple of Jerusalem
P S A L M
Psalm 103:1b-2. 3-4. 6-7
R: The Lord is kind and merciful.
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name. 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. (R) 3 He pardons all your iniquities, he heals all your ills. 4 He redeems your life from destruction, he crowns you with kindness and compassion. (R) The LORD secures justice and the rights of all the oppressed. He has made known his ways to Moses, and his deeds to the children ofIsrael
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name. 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. (R) 3 He pardons all your iniquities, he heals all your ills. 4 He redeems your life from destruction, he crowns you with kindness and compassion. (R) The LORD secures justice and the rights of all the oppressed. He has made known his ways to Moses, and his deeds to the children of
Matters of the faith are very difficult to accept and
understand for some people for they will always question and rationalize things.
The vision I had of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is quite difficult to believe.
There are some things that can not be explained and we simply have to pray to
God to reveal them in our hearts. This is why Jesus in today's gospel
emphasized the importance of being like the little children. We, grown ups are
always caught up in the cares and concerns of this world that we sometimes
forget who really is in charge of
everything and tend to overpower God. The same way a child entrusts everything
to his/her parents we, too should learn to trust that God our Father will take
care of us. We can learn a lot from the children who are full of trust and
confidence in their parents. I am also reminded of Jude since he is a product
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus miracle. When he was still a little boy, he used
to move and act like his father in many ways. There are certain mannerisms that
he got from his father even as a little boy which are really noticeable. As he
was growing up I noticed that he has this peculiar attitude to his father that
I have mistaken as fear since his father is very strict and very much a
disciplinarian. There was one time when I was so irritated with his father and
started venting out my anger verbally. I never expected that Jude who was very
young at that time would say, "You are always angry at my father." He
really sounded like he was in favor of his father and I never forgot that.
Despite the many times that his father exercised rigid discipline on them which
I thought was too rough, he remained loyal to his father. It made me realize
that all the while what I thought was fear was really respect. If we will only
learn the secret of the childlike then we can surely acquire the wisdom of God.
If we always maintain in us, a high level of confidence in God who is our
loving Father then we are not far from achieving it. May we acquire the
trusting attitude of the children and continue to discover the wonders of God’s
love as a perfect father to us. Amen. Hallelujah!
Matthew 11:25-27
25 At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.
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