This Lenten season we may want to think of ourselves on a spiritual journey. We should travel very lightly and take no baggage at all. In this so called journey we might want to consider also how each of us has been planted with a seed. We should develop but must not miss the fact that in the parable of the sower it didn’t all grow. All developments grow in a hostile environment especially if we are engaged in spiritual warfare. Life is a battle with evil that we can see in our own selves, in the world and the principalities. The
Isaiah 58:1-9a
...“Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?” Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. 4 Yes, your fast ends in quarrelling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high! 5 Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance that a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? 6 This, rather, is the fasting that I wish releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; 7 sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own. 8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am! If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech;
Organizing all my daily reflections since 2007 made it
easier for me to locate and retrieve them. I have found it very rewarding and
beneficial. It has given me the opportunity to access with ease, the insights
and reflections I wrote in the past. Thus paving the way to recall, reflect,
and share it again. In light of the readings today I am reminded of Fr. Alex
Amayin, the associate priest in St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. His talk was about
reconciliation which is very much in line with the 1st & psalm readings for
today. It was centered on 4 things which is 1. SIN 2. GRACE 3. FORGIVENESS 4.
RECONCILIATION. He said that the 1st 3 are all a reality but #4 is only a
possibility. There is no doubt that SIN happens but the GRACE of God is always
present and available for us even before we ask for FORGIVENESS. When we ask
FORGIVENESS, God is always ready to give it.
RECONCILIATION calls us to true conversion. We should always find our
way back to God and never doubt His mercy. He cited the example of a snake and
caterpillar since both of them undergoes conversion. The snake sheds off its
old skin but comes out the same while the caterpillar emerges into a butterfly.
We can either choose to be the snake or the caterpillar. Take your pick. It is
important that we always maintain a clean heart and a steadfast spirit so that
we are constantly in God's presence. It's not that God loves us any less, no
matter what we do, He will always love us. It's just that a Holy and Loving God
can not dwell in an impure heart and spirit. The sacred heart of Jesus should
be our model and guide as we strive to live out the call to be a genuine
follower of God. “When we open our heart to the love of God and to others, it
makes us capable of shaping history according to God’s plan.” - said Pope John Paul II. In His fourth apparition
to St. Margaret Mary, our Lord revealed His Sacred Heart, declaring:
"Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it spared nothing, even
going so far as to exhaust and consume Itself, to prove to them Its love.” The
center of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Enthronement of the
image of the Sacred Heart in the home. By the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart,
we link the tabernacle of our parish church to our home, inviting our Lord to
be our constant and most intimate companion.
The Enthronement is a way of life. It means that Christ is King of our
hearts, and we desire Him to be present with us always. In other words, by the
Enthronement we signify our desire to make our hearts and our homes holy, to
sanctify our lives in every aspect. God will not refuse nor turn His back on us
if we are truly sorry for our sins and are willing to mend our ways. Let us not
be so naive into thinking that we can get away with anything and cheat God. Let
us be fair and truly square in dealing with things that concern not just our
future but our eternal destiny. Whether it's heaven or hell, we would have to
decide for that not God. If we choose to do evil then we are surely headed
where it's bound but if we remain faithful to God and all that He represents
then we are headed to a place prepared for us by God in heaven. We are sure to
go where our hearts lead us. The problem is that there is a great propaganda
out there. It makes sin appear with all its fun, excitement and glamour. It
makes virtue appear boring, lame, bland and unexciting. But the truth of the
matter is, it’s not. The pleasures that God created in this world are enjoyed
the most by those who don’t abuse them and use it simply. Who do we think
enjoys food most? The person who doesn’t know how to fast and engorges all the
time or a person after a fast experiences a feast? The virtuous person enjoys
life the most. The person who uses creation and all things according to God’s
plan enjoys it the most. It is because pleasure is God’s idea. All the good
things in the world that people want are God’s idea. Satan can’t invent even
one bit of pleasure. But God commands
them to be used so that it leads to life and a part of life is joy. The way to enjoy
life is to follow God’s commands. Life is not all about rules and regulations.
God did not just give us a bunch of rules and regulations that we are supposed
to obey like machines. What we do does not just proceed from who we are but
also makes us who we are. The actions we
engage, the words that we say and the things that we do have an impact on us.
We are making ourselves all the time. God created us when we came out of the
womb, our mothers and father have a great role in that but our creation continues
every single day of our lives. We’re even becoming someone more beautiful,
mature and stronger or someone weaker and more despicable. There’s no middle
ground. We’re going one way or another. Life leads either to heaven or to hell.
That’s what the acts that we commit do. Let us always ask God's mercy for our
sins and repent of it. The Lord said that He is not sent for the well but for
the sick. We have a disease in our souls that if left uncared for can cause
death. We all have a terminal disease called sin, we need a doctor to give us
advice. We have been saved by God but we can lose it just as we can lose our
human life for not caring for it. We go to God who is our Divine Physician to
be healed. He alone can make us whole. God's presence in our lives is
inevitable just like the coming of dawn before the break of day and if we have
mastered the art of loving back God then we become a pleasing sacrifice before
Him. And in his good pleasure makes us prosper, then we find ourselves
rebuilding the walls of our boundaries as we expand our borders. It is of prime
importance that we take extra care in attending not only to our temporal needs
but our spiritual as well. We have this mindset that it pleases God whenever He
sees us going through hardships and difficulties in life. We tend to equate God
to an oppressing tyrant that would pin us down for every wrong move. Or worst
to a slave driver that would not be satisfied unless his subjects exhaust all
their strength to his service. The people during the time in the Old Testament
could borrow a good excuse for having this kind of mindset because Jesus has
not come yet. We who live in this time of the New Testament do not have a good
alibi because God already demonstrated the greatest expression of His love for mankind
when He sacrificed His only begotten son, Jesus, to suffer and die for our
sake. With this truth always engraved in our hearts and minds we could no
longer harbor wrong impressions and mindsets of our God. Whenever a particular
human right is being violated certain activist groups passionately rally to
defend such right that is in question. What about the right of God? We are so
concerned about our own personal agenda and we fail to realize that we need to
address it more than anything else. According to Pope Benedict XVI, Jus Divinum
is the right of God which constitutes the proper and correct response of God’s
creatures such as man to his Creator. This we ought to realize and take action.
We should do all the good that we are supposed to do to a God who created us.
There is something more to what we see, hear and feel about people. We
really couldn't judge a book by its cover. It's in knowing what is hidden in
the heart that we can truly say for sure what is real. But who can see through
our hearts? Nobody but God alone. What is unknown and hidden from us, God
knows. We may be able to hide from men but never from God. We can only pray to
God to create in us a clean heart. For where our treasure is, there also will
be our hearts. This should all be our prayer, “Change me Oh God, mold me in
accordance to your pattern and plan and not mine” Dirt stain in clothes
sometimes doesn't want to come off even after several times it has been machine
washed. There are really some dirt and stain that do not go away that easily
with regular washing. There is a need to scrub it manually with soap and water
so that it will come out clean. Our souls are just like clothes which are
stainable by our sins. It is a consolation to know that our sins are washable
in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We can always come to Him and
acknowledge our sins with a sincere and repentant heart so He can cleanse us,
wipe out our offenses and blot out all our guilt. There is nothing that could
separate us from the love of God. Let us not be deceived nor dissuaded to
believe otherwise. Just like clothes that need to be washed after being worn and got dirty so our souls need to be cleansed too by the blood of the Lamb. God’s love ever present in the body and blood of Christ is always present and available for us. All we
need to do is reach out for it because God is a gentleman and would never force
Himself on us. There has always been a raging battle between God and satan.
Though it has already been won, satan just won’t give up. He continues to wreak
havoc and evil among us in his desperation to bring misery into our lives and
share in his condemnation. He doesn’t have the tiniest power over us and he can
only have it if and only if we give in to his lies, deceptions and false
promises. We need to make this conscious decision each and every single day for
the Lord. We need to purge ourselves of the impurities of our souls we have to
go through a certain process that will render us with a clean heart. As we
strive to nurture a heart that beats for God alone we also go through a process
of cleansing as stated in the psalm today. God's mercy is greater than any of
our sins. If we are to repent and turn away from our sins then we've got to do
it right now and really do it fast. God sees through our hearts, our motives
and intentions. What God wants of us is to truly acknowledge His great mercy
and goodness to us that in doing so will abound a natural inclination to repent
and repair all our iniquities and lead to a brand new, wholesome and clean
Christian in the truest sense of the word. We need to stand in all humility
before God and confess our sins. The body and soul are good but it demands a
need for physical asceticism. We have to submit our bodies to an act of
sacrifice without neglecting that conversion is first of all interior. Total
conversion demands not only expression in works of penance but also of the
heart. God is able to do anything. All the more should we be full of confidence
that He can create a clean heart and steadfast spirit for us if we truly ask
for it. God our Father will never turn His back on us. Let us get this
straight, it is the sin that God hates and not the sinner. If we are in sin
then that's the time we drive away God's Holy Spirit dwelling in us for it is
impossible for God's presence to exist with sin. It's our call then to respond
to the psalm's invitation to rise and go to God or remain slumped in the mud of
sin. Our God will always be the best Father a child could ever have, the best
Brother/Friend and the best Comforter and Guide all in one. Bottom line, to Him
alone shall we go because we don't know that much and if we don’t then we end
up doing one of these things, take for granted, ignore, forget or neglect the
things God is telling us to do. What's worse it could be all of the above! We
get blinded and become preoccupied with a lot of things that lure us away from
doing what God wants us to do. We are deceived into believing all the lies of
this world disguised and packaged by the enemy in an inviting and convincing
truth. We should realize that it is always for our own good that He commands us
to do the right thing. It is not merely to impose but for us to freely decide
for a life lived to the full. There is no other way to maintain the Holy Spirit
dwelling in us but to let it reside in a clean heart. We drive away God's Spirit in us if we don't
strive to let our hearts remain clean. Today's psalm is a song that I have come
to know and sing by heart without the aid of a song book. I always love to sing
it and hear it being sung most especially by the choir during mass. It is well
for us to not just love to sing it with our voices but with the sincerity of
our hearts. The words "take not your Holy Spirit from me" made me
realize that God has the power to give and take. The thought of the Holy Spirit
being taken away from us is the worst thing that could ever happen. If we don't
feel God's presence in our life anymore and we've become numb and insensitive
to the promptings and guidance of the Holy Spirit then now is the time to
reconnect and realign ourselves to God's Spirit most especially during this
Lenten season. It is important that we always maintain a clean heart and a
steadfast spirit so that we are constantly in the God's presence. It's not that
God loves us any less, no matter what we do He will always love us. It's just
that a Holy and Loving God can not dwell in an impure heart and spirit. It is of prime importance that we take extra
care in attending not only to our temporal needs but our spiritual as well.
Amen. Hallelujah!
R: A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
1 [3] Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. 2 [4] Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me. (R) 3 [5] For I acknowledge my offense, and my sin is before me always. 4 [6] “Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight.” (R) …For you do not desire sacrifice; a burnt offering you would not accept. My sacrifice, God, is a broken spirit; God, do not spurn a broken, humbled heart.
God created us with a brilliant mind and a loving heart. In today's gospel Jesus was questioned by John's disciples, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast (much), but your disciples do not fast?" Sometimes people question us, too. May we think and feel just like Jesus and always be guided in the things we say or do. May we always find ourselves justified in Jesus name. It is not just what we see that matters but what we truly value and treasure in our hearts. Our innermost motives and intentions should always be in line and conformity to the values of Jesus. We may be doing one thing but may be intending to do another, there is no unity in our actions, words and deeds when we are just after the outward appearances and does not really mean what we are doing. Or worse we're just doing something for the sake of just doing it without really putting our hearts into it. We get carried away by what seems to us as important but fail to see what's most essential. People are not blind to all these and we can not deceive people for long or if even sometimes we can, there is a God who knows everything. We are called to conversion and holiness. It is helpful to take hold of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus and keep this constantly before us. We may want to look at what’s behind the particular mystery of Jesus’ life when He fasted and prayed in the desert for 40 days. Immediately after His prayer and fasting, was the temptation of Jesus in which Jesus rebuffs this attack and points to Adam & Eve’s temptation and
Matthew 9:14-15
14 The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do
we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 Jesus
answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with
them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then
they will fast.”
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