THE GOOD NEWS

Today’s 1^st reading brought back tender memories of my 2 sons when they were still babies. It is always true that the love between mother and child is something very precious and would always hold a special place in every heart. The most intimate and unforgettable bonding time we had was when I nurse them. I would hold their tiny hands and would not let go until their asleep and full. While they were breastfeeding I would try to communicate with them in our made up baby language and they would mutter incomprehensible sounds not understandable by verbal language but by the heart. Human relationships are based on human trust, respect and need. And so it is with God’s relationship to us. Isn’t it true that God needed the Virgin Mary to be born, needed John the Baptist to be baptized, needed Simon of Cyrene to help Him carry the cross, needed  the woman in the well to give Him a drink, needed Joseph of Arimathea to give him a place where to be buried and needed the apostles to spread the Good News. God even entrusts Himself to us in Holy Communion. When we hear a cry for help we respond. The Lord is the master and we are the servant, He is the teacher and we are the student and He is strong and we are weak. But He has no hands but our hands to help. He has no lips but our lips to proclaim the good news. Day after monotonous day we must think of God who proved to us His great love by dying on the cross. Let us respond to Him to prove that it is not in vain that he died and rose again for our sake. It should be our inspiration and this should be our prayer, as St. Francis said.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen. Hallelujah!

Isaiah 66:10-14C

Oh, that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort, that you may nurse with delight at her abundant breasts! For thus says the LORD: Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent. As nurslings, you shall be carried in her arms, and fondled in her lap; as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort. When you see this, your heart shall rejoice and your bodies flourish like the grass; the LORD’s power shall be known to his servants.

Looking back all these years at the glorious background of our faith that has been handed to us, we can say that we are so blessed among all of God's creation. We have been endowed with such a great blessing beyond our comprehension. Just imagine ourselves meeting someone who is very admirable and impressive, we can't help but be proud and share with others our wonderful experience. That's how it is with the apostles and even more once we've come to know God. We have to be strong and of good courage. Each and every moment is a clear manifestation of God's tremendous love. No words can ever be enough to describe it. Blessed is Mother Mary for believing that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled. We can also come to a point when we can also sing our own "Magnificat" and raise our hands to God in prayer and thanksgiving for every gift He has given to us. Even those gifts of sorrow. God is in charge and He will make all things work for the good. We have a God who is fighting our battles for us. God is in control. Although God will not stop every adversity but if we stay in faith, He will see us through. He did not promise life to be smooth sailing all the time but He definitely assured us of a safe landing. God has already lined up the right people, right places at the right time. He has prepared for our victory and so we should be ready for God's favor. I remember when we went to San Francisco we joined the bay cruise, were able to come up very close to the Golden Gate Bridge and went under it and see the amazing structures that hold it. The engineering of the bridge was amazing and very strongly built. During the cruise we got information that the bridge can withstand the powerful forces of the wind and can hold a tremendous amount of weight. It was as if this bridge was really built to last a long time and still be of service to various forms of transportation. Man's ingenuity is so impressive to come up with such a bridge that used to hold the world's longest suspension span record for a long time since 1937 when it was built. And what's amazing is that it continues to draw people to it up to the present time. Just like this bridge we have to be strong and of good courage as spoken of in Joshua. We can always render service to God in our own personal humble and little ways. And be assured that the Big Boss does not fail a single moment in fully compensating all the work that has been rendered for Him. I know that someday these things that used to impress us will cease to amaze us any longer once we've reached the place that lead us to our eternal destiny with our Almighty God. Today's psalm reading suggests a scene that pictures God's footprints side by side with each person. God makes Himself known to all in every part of the world and every where we turn is indeed a declaration of  God's undeniable presence. Let's open up our senses to the Lord's call and take action. We should give back to our Life Giver what is due Him who make us live another day in order to continue proclaiming God's goodness and mercy. Amen. Hallelujah!

Psalm 66:1-3a, 4-5, 6-7a

R: Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.

...Come and see the works of God, his tremendous deeds among the children of Adam. (R) 6 He has changed the sea into dry land; through the river they passed on foot; therefore let us rejoice in him. 7 He rules by his might forever. (R) 16 Hear now, all you who fear God, while I declare what he has done for me. 17 When I appealed to him in words, praise was on the tip of my tongue. (R) 20 Blessed be God who refused me not my prayer or his kindness!

Pope Benedict XVI said that holiness is not doing extraordinary things but following the will of God everyday by living one’s own vocation really well. This we can do through the help of prayer, with the word of God, the sacraments and with the daily effort for consistency to live a humble life like the life of the saints. Humility is often seen in the life of the saints in seeking out the low things of the world. By not striving to seek out the things that are showy that would give worldly respect. The saints respect the humility they saw in our Lord in the Incarnation of God becoming man. The humility of God who lowered Himself and assume our human nature and then He gives us Himself in the Eucharist. He comes to us daily in the outward appearance in the form of bread. Not just the humility but the obedience of God to His Father’s will. The plan of God that Jesus would be offered up, to suffer and die for us. This is extreme humility that even to the point of death, Jesus is obedient. Jesus tells us in the scriptures, “Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart.” St. Augustine in common understanding said that Jesus did not say “Learn from me to make heaven and earth, make wonders and miracles, heal the sick, expel devils, raise the dead but learn of me to be meek and humble of heart.” Humility, St. Thomas said, principally governs the will but also involve the intellect. In our thinking we have to recognize that God alone is the source of all good. He distributes His gifts as He wills. The humble person is not envious of the other people’s gifts as he knows that God is the source of all these gifts. It forms our thinking if we have this reverence for God and know our status as creatures which is the bedrock of humility. As St. Thomas says, it governs the will and our moderate striving to reach things and goals that are beyond us. Humility recognizes that all good and excellence is in God. Thus all creaturely good comes from God. Our pride tells us that we are the source of our own excellence. Jesus always warns us of pride because of feelings of worthiness. Although we strive for virtue we keep falling because we see ourselves as the source and not really depending on God and asking Him for the strength. We are not pleading to Him to win the victory in us. We are still trying to do it ourselves. According to St. Paul we have to cloth ourselves in heartfelt mercy, humility, kindness, meekness and patience. We have to practice humility with our neighbors by bearing with one another and the faults we all have, forgiving the grievances we have against one another as the Lord has forgiven us. Sometimes we tend to say that some sins against us by our brother or sister are unforgiveable in effect. St Paul tells us to put on love that binds all the virtues. Our love for God and our neighbor has to drive all our virtues into perfection.

Galatians 6:14-18

Brothers and sisters: May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision, but only a new creation. Peace and mercy be to all who follow this rule and to the Israel of God. From now on, let no one make troubles for me; for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.

We are blessed to have a line up of brilliant and anointed preachers who share their knowledge and zeal for the word of God in EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network). But there are only a few people who take on this mission of spreading the word of God because we don't fully realize this as baptized Christians, we are all sent by Christ on this mission. We should accept God's invitation and receive the word of God by living its message. We have a great responsibility in our hands and should respond to His Word for indeed the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few. The time is now to become part of this great harvest. Jesus knows exactly the kind of life we are headed to if we heed His call. What He expects from us is courage to go on and He will do the rest. Let us trust that God is truly the Good Shepherd who never abandons nor forsakes the lambs in the midst of the wolves. We, Catholics believe that God gave human beings reason although it sometimes gets darkened by sin but still human reason can figure out some things. One of the things that human beings figure out without God having to reveal it, is that human beings need to meet 4 qualities to be deemed a human being. The philosopher, before even Plato, Aristotle and Socrates, had this figured out. We find it mentioned in Wisdom 8:7, the 4 virtues or qualities are also called the hinge virtues because it is where all the other virtues or qualities of good people would hinge. The word cardinal means hinge. The Cardinals who surround the Pope are the doorway to the Pope. They are also the ones whom he rely the most for advice. Everything else depends on the cardinal virtues. (Prudence or wisdom, justice, temperance and courage or fortitude) Prudence is the ability to make right decisions in complex situations. They are decisions that lead to the best and right thing. Without this we can be in big trouble. We’ve got to be able to decide in a situation that we’re in what the right thing to do which is the best thing to do. How do we get something done? There are some folks who probably just can’t figure out what to do. There are other folks who look at the problem and they can figure out a solution. It’s a core and they execute that core. It’s practical wisdom. We’ll find in the Book of Proverbs a lot of things about wisdom even in Sirach, Ecclesiastes and all the wisdom literature in scriptures. We can also find all the other 3 cardinal virtues, like justice which means giving each person his or her due. We all know even as kids instinctively how important justice is. The first thing that a kid cries out as soon as he learns how to talk if he has brothers and sisters is “Not fair, he got more than I did” or “You ask me to do more than what that person is doing.” This is because we have instinctively or natively offensive justice. Each person has rights and ought to get their due. There’s also another part of justice that we forget, that is, we have obligations and duties to everyone. A person who is unjust is not a good person. To be just, we need to control our passions. Temperance is a virtue that balances and controls our passions. It is like controlling our desire for that last piece of cake if we know that it belongs to our sister. In order to be just, we’ve got to control our appetites. Make our appetites come into line with justice, truth and goodness. We’ve got to have that balance in our life in order to be a good and effective person. Temperance makes this happen. We also have to be courageous. If we are not courageous then every time a difficulty arises we’re going to shrink back. If there’s any danger involved in doing the right, just and wise thing then we’re just going to crack out and find an excuse because we’re afraid. Courage or fortitude helps us to master fear and not let fear keep us from doing what’s right. We’ve got have all these things but here’s the problem. When Adam & Eve decided to sin they let loose a weakness into our race and nature that impacts all of us. We call it original sin. Sin is not so original, we just copy what other people have done. There’s nothing creative about sin. Adam & Eve’s sin was the only original sin. What they did has an impact on us. By weakening their own nature, sin weakened man’s nature. They passed on to us a weakened nature. They separated themselves and the whole human race from friendship with God and were born into that. There’s a tendency in our nature to go on a downward drift, a drift off course and a tendency to a great degree is dealt with through grace. How do we get grace? Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has made possible for us, healing of our humanity. He gives us other gifts, faith, hope and charity that make it possible for us to really have wisdom, justice, temperance and courage. Without faith, hope and charity in this life, no one can really become truly wise. All throughout human history we see people who exercise these gifts. They may not be Christians, deeply spiritual people, or in a state of grace and can exercise some of these potentials here and there. But ultimately original sin means we are going to sin seriously and mess up. We need God’s grace for those 4 great virtues to be perfected. Faith, hope and charity are supernatural. These are things that human beings would never know that they need or could have without God giving them supernaturally that’s why they are called the theological virtues. We only know about them through divine revelation and we couldn’t know about them by reason. We can only have them through God’s grace. The theological virtues, faith, hope and charity are the crown of the first 4 cardinal virtues that transform and make them possible. God doesn’t want us just to be whole human beings and restore us to what Adam & Eve were when they blew it in the Garden. God wants us to be more than that. He wants to elevate our human nature and divinize it. He wants us to share in His own Divine nature. Charity is all about loving with God’s love. Loving as the 3 persons of the Holy Trinity love each other and sharing in that goes way beyond human nature. This is an incredible thing and call. It was only possible because God became man and we can share in his virtue. This is what the real Catholic life is all about. It’s not just about making it or going to heaven by the skin of your teeth after struggling. It’s about growing in holiness and becoming like Jesus all throughout our life, a champion not without struggles. As a matter of fact without the struggles we can never become a champion. It is possible with victory and excellence not with hopelessness, despair and frustration. This is God’s desire for us which is a fantastic calling. The power to do this is given to us. We are never alone because God is always with us. We should be so thankful to God for all the wonderful things He allowed us to think, feel, see and hear. Not only for the things that are visible but also the invisible. God has given us everything that we need, the love, care and protection that a child needs from a Father who loves us so much. The readings for today from the 1st, psalm to the gospel all speak of the importance of our senses. Sometimes we have this tendency to overlook these things and dwell more on the less important things. We must train our minds and hearts to know the top priority which is everything that connects us to God at all times. All we have to do is be aware that God reveals Himself in a very mysterious way that we have to continuously work for a heart and mind that is focused on the Lord, remove all distractions in our life so that He will reveal Himself to us. God is infinite and unlimited in nature and our minds can only comprehend as far as our limited brains allow. Let us seize every moment and opportunity in order to daily grow in our knowledge of the Lord. Let us all come to our senses. Once we've seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched, felt and experienced who the Lord is in our lives then we are really blessed in the truest sense of the word. Although we can only come to the full understanding and knowledge of God when we die, we can still work our way to knowing God using the best of our abilities for it is written, if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. Have you ever experienced talking to someone but it seems that he/she is not paying attention. Let us not miss a single detail about our Lord and always be attentive to Him. If we are caught up in our own personal lives then we have a tendency to misunderstand the messages sent our way. Let us develop an attitude of total surrender to God and He in His goodness will make known to us things beyond our understanding. When we're on the phone we sometimes fail to hear what's being said to us on the other line. We can always hear this being said, Hello are you still there? It may be due to a low signal, our lack of attention and other things that disrupt the communication. We are reminded by God through the gospel to remove all hindrances and be able to hear him loud and clear. It is imperative that we heed his call and the time is now. Sometimes we end up doing things that we are not supposed to do and we get confused and that's because we are not attuned to our Life Coach, who is God and no one can lead us to the right direction only Him. We need to sharpen and make our senses very keen so that we will not miss out on anything. Some people who lack one of the senses like for example the blind people develop a keen sense of hearing, feeling and smelling. The blind have mastered well their other senses that they can hear, feel and smell the slightest sound, touch and scent that can be unnoticeable for some.  We should say from this point of view that the lack of one sense can enhance the other senses. We can also say that there are moments in our life when we have to shut out one of our senses, too. There are a lot of things being presented to us day in and out. We should know that some things are better left unsaid and ignored. In times like these we need to know exactly what we need to take in and which of our senses do we need to pay attention to and focus on in order to see and hear what the Lord is showing and telling us and be truly blessed. Amen. Hallelujah!

Luke 10:1-12 ; 17-20

Jesus appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. 2 He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves... ...Behold, I have given you the power ‘to tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”