We really never know what's exactly in store for us. We would just have to trust and hold on to God who knows and sees all. It makes all the difference in the world and what matters most. Amen. Hallelujah!
Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4
2 How long, O LORD? I cry for help but you do not listen! I cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not intervene. 3 Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord. 2: Then the LORD answered me and said: Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily. 3 For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. 4 The rash man has no integrity; but the just man, because of his faith, shall live.
Today's psalm reading is used as a preparatory psalm in the Liturgy of the Hours just as it was used in the Old Testament. Each time we hear it, there is an emphasis to the fact that is just the same as it is proclaimed today. During the time of Moses there had been an incident of great rebellion and testing on the part of the chosen people of God. The same message is being said to us because there is a possibility that we also harden our hearts today. Massah means rebellion and Meribah means testing. It refers to the time they rebel when they had no water. Moses struck the stone in the desert and water came out. We can read in Numbers 13 when Moses sent out spies to check out the promise land and when they returned in Numbers 14 they were full of discouragement. They came back and reported that the Land of Canaan Canaan . But the people believed the spies and concluded that it’s impossible to overcome these barriers. They wanted to choose new leaders and kill Moses & Aaron and go back to slavery in Egypt . Due to their unbelief the whole generation never entered Canaan only the new generation with both Joshua & Caleb did. The goal is to enter into rest in the land of Canaan but they refused because they believed their fears rather than believe what they’ve already seen in God’s miracles in Egypt . Psalm 95 is used so often in the Liturgy of the Hours and encourages us how today we must listen well. They do not just apply to the people in Numbers 13& 14. It also applies to the Church and we consider ourselves the New Israel. Let God call us to attention. We don’t have to fall back to the same sin of disbelief. No matter how hard the world makes us do so. The Church is beginning to experience persecution. Today we have to keep in mind what God already said in the past especially as we hear the words of His Son today. Jesus Himself gives us a greater authority than the prophets and the angels. When we look at our day, there are a number of strains that we have to alert ourselves. There are New Age beliefs that everything is God including the forces of nature. It is moving towards the act of depersonalizing God by a vague force. It clouds the truth of God the Father, God the Son & God the Spirit. There is this New Age notion vs. the Christian notion of God. The catch here is the fact that there are no demands upon the faithful to be obedient. A hardened heart is equivalent to disobedience. There is no longer a clear distinction about the truths of the faith. It's just a matter of loving nature and taking care of the environment. No other demands like obeying the 10 commandments. The truth is not existent with the New Age. They water down the Person of Jesus and lead others to disbelieve in Him. Certain scholars deny Him as a historical figure or is believed that He had a wife as depicted in the fictitious Da Vinci Code. These are all things that are far from the authentic gospel. The image of Jesus is being shaped to imitate our worst moments and sins. It makes him appear like He is no better than we are and attack His moral character. It is an act of impunity to God’s character as if He is just a character of fiction. It looks like God is on the dock as C. S. Lewis put it. Instead of us being on trial, God appears to be the one who’s on trial. Let us not fall into this kind of thinking nor continue in our lack of faith or let anything shake our faith. Some dogs are amazing in their ability to show devotion and faithfulness although they do not even measure up to the dignity and standing of human beings they are capable of obeying their master with so much love and respect. This should make us realize all the more can we do it and a whole lot better than that. We have to make a decision to be with Christ. God is the Good Shepherd. He will not scatter but draw people to holiness, righteousness and goodness. How can we be lost or led astray? There are things we need to do if we want to be under the care of the Good Shepherd, listen to His voice, follow His guiding hand and stay within the circle of the flock He tends. The truth is that we should never have any doubts about our decisions for as long as we know that it is all for the glory of God first and foremost and everything else will follow. We have this faith and confidence in God as in Philippians 4:6-8, "Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." When someone speaks to us we sometimes ignore, refuse to listen, simply pretend that we haven't heard anything or misunderstood what we heard because we are too distracted or busy to give time to listen well. Let us always open our hearts and mind so that we become sensitive to the voice of God talking to us. Surely there were times when we heard and experienced the voice of God giving us “out of this world” instructions and we responded nonchalantly as if we never heard anything, refused outright and rejected it. If before we just choose to do it whichever way we wanted it without much thought from now on let us respond to God in the best way we can with hearts full of love and obedience. When we grumbled and complained we all know for a fact that it didn't make things any better. We would have to practice more and make perfect the art of trusting and hearing God's voice. God is never short of anything. God is God and He will always be. Let us no longer confuse ourselves with the inaccuracies and discrepancies of our human hearts and minds. Let us keep it focused on Him who is Holy and Perfect. Let us all acculturate ourselves to the Kingdom of God
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9 (8)
R: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
...Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the LORD who made us. 7 For he is our God, and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides...
Just in case we lose sight of who we really are before the Lord, Paul in today's 2nd reading reminds us of the gift that God gave us which is the Holy Spirit who dwells in each one of us. Sometimes we forget, neglect, take for granted or worse are not aware or deny this wonderful reality that God is with us. We ought to exercise our minds to always think of this and be conscious that we have the power. Amen. Hallelujah!
Today's 2nd reading is a call for us to remain true to the faith which reminds me of charismatic seminars like LSS, (Life in the Spirit Seminar) LLS, (Living in the Light Seminar) CLP (Christian Life Program) or whatever they call it wherein people are laid hands on, get baptized and received God's gifts of the Holy Spirit. We all have to recall and not leave to be forgotten the good memories that strengthened our faith the way Paul is doing for Timothy and Titus. Paul one of the greatest apostles did not do everything by himself. He had these 2 greatest collaborators who help him fulfill God's mission. Timothy and Titus served the church and carried out good deeds in whatever situation they are in even in times of challenges. We are encourage also to stir in into flame the same grace given to them, the laity and all the baptized to participate in the mission of the church. When Jesus called the first apostles who were mending their nets to be fishers of men, at once they dropped their nets and followed the Lord. We have to make a decision even in the midst of trials and crosses. We need to surrender to the Lord for He’ll surely lead and show us the way. Our job is to follow, obey and continue in our service to the church and the gospel. We ask the Holy Spirit to strengthen us with the strength that comes from God. Our natural strength tires and we need the gift and inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the way that strikes people’s hearts. We can never deny the fact that one way or another somebody has influenced who and what we are today. For most people it is always the parents or someone very close to us. I have this feeling that today's 2nd reading invites us to look at this aspect of our lives too. It is always nice to make a total recall of good memories. As for me the person I can point to with regards to this is my mother. She got widowed when we were still very young and I guess it has developed in her a great faith in God. She would always say that widows are special to God. We all grew up hearing her quote bible passages and words of wisdom to live by. Our loved ones who have impacted our lives so much may not be present with us anymore but we have to remain strong in memory of them for the Spirit of God lives on. Just in case we lose sight of who we really are before the Lord, Paul reminds us of the gift that God gave us which is the Holy Spirit who dwells in each one of us. Sometimes we forget, neglect, take for granted or worse are not aware or deny this wonderful reality that God is with us. We ought to exercise our minds to always think of this and be conscious that we have the power. After the “know what you're missing” stage comes the feeling that there is something more to knowing what is written in the scriptures. God gives us His Spirit that transcends all knowledge and understanding that leads to a spontaneous overflow of His love, grace and mercy. Let us be more sensitive to the Holy Spirit who dwells in us and really feel and acknowledge His presence in us. The Holy Spirit's action in our lives is most often gentle and not immediately felt and works quietly. It's sometimes hardly perceptible at all. The Holy Spirit's specialty is in sanctifying men and women throughout history from the beginning of time until the end of the world. He is the saint maker of all times. He is the one who transforms sinners to become saints for as long as their willing to cooperate with Him. He is the one who converts the weak disciples of Christ to strong ones. Lukewarm souls turn to zealous ones. He converts coward disciples to bold and courageous disciples. It is like a symphony orchestra made up of a dozen instruments but the conductor is the one who's the focus of the musician and the audience and yet the conductor is not the real sense of the music, the composer is. In front of every musician is a music stand holding a few pages marked with black dots to score the music. This is what the choir looks at and how they are able to sing together, the organist, the conductor, all with same mind, with the same objective and the same purpose. Yet, no one in the audience sees the score and this music score is what brings them together, it coordinates everyone's effort and produces a beautiful and inspiring performance. This is what the Church is like, the Pope is the conductor, guaranteed by God to remain faithful to the music score. We are all musicians contributing our own unique talent to the symphony of holiness that resounds to the world throughout history. The Holy Spirit is the living musical score, Composer of all composers and the one that tells us what to play, when to play them, how fast to play them, how loud or soft to sing them. The Holy Spirit is the silent force behind the power of everything, of every Christian in the Church as a whole. Mother Teresa said, God is the friend of silence. We see how nature grows in silence. The fields, grass and flowers grow in silence. See how the stars, the moon and the sun move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls. We need silence to be able perceive the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in our lives since He works in our lives quietly. The amazing thing that the Holy Spirit does quietly is how he transforms the apostles. Particularly how they were fearful men, and we remember when the Lord was captured at the Garden of Gethsemane Avila , the Holy Spirit was instrumental in transforming her life which was not until her Spiritual Director started to instruct her to pray the Veni Creator. One of the most widely used hymns in the Church, Veni, Creator Spiritus, is attributed to Rabanus Maurus (776-856). It is used at Vespers, Pentecost, Dedication of a Church, Confirmation, and Holy Orders and whenever the Holy Spirit is solemnly invoked. A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who recite it. A plenary indulgence is granted if it is recited on January 1st or on the feast of Pentecost. It was after that her life was truly transformed. This is how much we are to invoke the Holy Spirit and we are dependent upon Him in our lives. Pope Leo XII said we ought to pray to the Holy Spirit and ought to invoke Him for each one of us greatly needs protection and His help. Come Holy Spirit, come by me through the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to her Beloved Son, Jesus. Amen. Hallelujah!
2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14
6 Beloved: I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. 7 For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. 8 So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God. 13 Take as your norm the sound words that you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard this rich trust with the help of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us.
In all the readings for today there is one thing that God wants to teach us. He wants us to increase our faith and move on from our baby faith to a grown up one. If before we are used to just crying out loud and getting our way just like when we were babies it is time to grow up and mature in our faith. God tells us that following Him is not always easy but if we persist and persevere then we can get there. Jesus wants us to realize that we can not always expect things to happen the way we want it. We are supposed to do the good that we have to do regardless of our situation. We have to stick with Him through thick and thin. It is in doing so that we grow and have faith that can move mountains. We often find ourselves or other people say that life is not fair. But it doesn't really matter whether life is fair or not since we have a God who is fair who knows and sees all. Today's gospel tells us that for as long as we know in our heart, mind and soul that we've done what we're obliged to do and did everything right in accordance to what God would have wanted it then we should realize that we are really what the gospel speaks about, "We are unprofitable servants..." Nothing that we do can benefit God nor add anything to His greatness and glory for He is already who He is with or without us. The bottom line is that everything we do for the Lord is really meant for our own good. In fact, nothing that we ever did for Him is lost, it all comes back to us to the overflowing more than a hundredfold if we dedicate our service and all that we do to the Greatest Master for all eternity. We must be aware of the truth that it is by His power that we exist in this world, it is only fitting for us to be always humble and upright before our Creator because that's what we are called for to do. God is the source and reason for everything. We pray that God who is our Master and King will continue to sustain us, His lowly servants, in the things that we have committed to do for Him. He's an awesome God! We should continue to trust God's will in our life and understand that we needed to go through certain experiences not just in accordance to our own delight and liking but first and foremost to make us better persons for God. In the end, we are always at His disposal, a servant and handmaid, for the Lord who never needed anything from us being God, the ultimate and infinite LORD will always be a kind and loving master to us all. Amen. Hallelujah!
Luke 17:5-10
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” 6 The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 “Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? 8 Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? 9 Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’ ”
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