We read in today’s 1st reading a reference to the
stiff necked nature of the Israel
people and the contrast as Moses displays a deep friendship with God as he
speaks in behalf of his people. The Israel people thought he’s not
coming back. Despite of the wonders that their very eyes have seen they had the
nerve to complain, gripe and abandon God. They were grumbling against God. It
is an apostasy, abandonment and rejection of the faith that they had been
entrusted. They forgot the God who had saved them. Somehow this reminds us of
ourselves, midway in this season of lent. Here we are in our own desert, we
sometimes very quickly think that God has abandoned us. In the middle of
fasting, penance and prayer we quickly forget God who has saved us, abandon and
reject our faith in our living of life today. Sometimes we feel guilty about
something that we didn't directly or indirectly cause. Or we feel responsible
for the actions of other people especially those who are close to us. We must
keep in mind that we are not supposed to own the decisions and actions of other
people since there are certain limits to this and must know up to where our
responsibilities extend. In the same way we must not blame other people for
things we ourselves have caused. We must be brave enough to accept the
consequences of our actions and not point fingers. We have to be clear about
these things for God said that sins will be punished accordingly in its
appointed time. So while we still have the time let us see to it that
everything is in the right order before it gets too late. We need to remain
steadfast no matter how difficult it may seem. We quickly turn aside from the
way that God is pointing out. The love that this world can’t imagine and
comprehend is not dormant, it is the love of God. We tend to set ourselves up
to be our own little god and soon turn aside from the way God has pointed out.
We need to cry out for mercy to God and listen to Moses as he points out to us
our wrong doings. The plea of a righteous person is always heard, answered and
never refused by God. Moses was heeded by God in his request which tells us
that if God listened to Moses all the more should we be always rejoicing
knowing that Jesus the Lamb of God not only pleaded before God for our sake but
offered Himself on the cross in order to save us. We are blessed to have a
glorious background much more than the heritage of Abraham, Isaac and Israel .
We have the blood of Jesus who took upon Himself on the cross, the guilt of all
our sins that have won for us His perpetual kingdom. People during the time of
Moses don't know better than any of us living today. Only the legacy of the
patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Israel
was known to them and haven't come to this point in our time when we already
have the Incarnation of Jesus as the highlight of the glorious background of
our faith. Moses pleaded with God in behalf of His faithful servants, the
Patriarchs and was heard by God. We have to be aware of the fact that looking
back more than 2,000 years ago and even way back to the time of Abraham, God
has already been extending His desire to be in a loving relationship with man.
If we are to visualize and construct a timeline for this, we would find that
God has already invested so much in His people. Aren't we filled with joy and gladness
that we are living at this time when we already have the legacy of not only the
patriarchs, the Kings, Judges, and the Prophets but most especially and
importantly, Jesus. He is the fullness of God's love and came in the fullness
of time. God is unchangeable and remains Holy, Mighty and Immortal. We might
misunderstand these words in today's 1st reading when it said, "the Lord
relented..." We must keep in mind that it is not God who changes but
ourselves who change in the process. God is the constant we are the variable.
What God has ordained He will forever sustain and it is up to us, to accept and
respond to the challenge. One thing is sure, His grace is always enough. Amen.
Hallelujah!
Exodus 32:7-14
7 The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once to your people,
whom you brought out of the land
of Egypt Israel , and how you swore to them
by your own self, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the
stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your
descendants as their perpetual heritage.’ ” 14 So the LORD relented in the
punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people.
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 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!
Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 17, 19
R: I will rise and go to my father.
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) 10 [12] A clean heart create for me, O
God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me. 11 [13] Cast me not out from your
presence, and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
Is there anything more that God could have done for us that
He has not done? After accepting freely, the most humiliating death on the
cross more than 2000 years ago, this act of love has not lost its effect and
continues to benefit us in the most amazing and unfathomable way. If only we
fully accept what Paul is telling us in today's 1st reading then we are all
saved. It is a consolation to know that though we are sinners God will always
have mercy on us because He knows exactly what our hearts are made of and filled
with. We may not be doing the right thing because we are totally unaware of the
truth but God will never leave us in our ignorance. I remember one time when I
attended a Catholicism Study and learned a lot of things that I thought I
already know. I was shocked to find out that even though I was educated as a
Catholic from Kinder to College there are still some things that I do not know
of yet. Since the times are changing fast there are also other issues in the
Church which are non- existent before but is now a major issue like the stem
cell research and in vitro fertilization. There is really a need to update and
upgrade our knowledge in our faith so that we can be truly effective in the
ministry that God has appointed to us in the same way that Paul was in today’s 2nd
reading.
1 Timothy 1:12-17
...Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant, along
with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 This saying is trustworthy
and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners...To the king of ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, honor and
glory forever and ever. Amen.
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
...“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance...“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his
father, ‘Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So
the father divided the property between them. After a few days, the younger
son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he
squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. When he had freely
spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in
dire need. So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him
to his farm to tend the swine. And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on
which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any. Coming to his senses he
thought, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to
eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father
and I shall say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one
of your hired workers.” ’ So he got up and went back to his father. While he
was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with
compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to
him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve
to be called your son.’ But his father ordered his servants, ‘Quickly bring
the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his
feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a
feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was
lost, and has been found.’ Then the celebration began. Now the older son had
been out in the field and, on his way back, as he neared the house, he heard
the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what
this might mean. The servant said to him, ‘Your brother has returned and
your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and
sound.’ He became angry, and when he refused to enter the house, his father
came out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in reply, ‘Look, all
these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never
gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son
returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter
the fattened calf.’ He said to him, ‘My son, youare here with me always;
everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because
your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been
found.’ ”
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