ANCIENT TEMPTATIONS

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 kingdom of God suffers violent assault as St. Paul puts it and uses the army of salvation (Ephesians 6:10-11). It helps to make use of these analogies. We must keep in mind that those who are not willing to battle for good in this world may not accomplish anything. Although it is also written that those who take the sword will perish by the sword but there are battles in other forms that we clearly should make a stand on.  As today’s 1st reading calls us to do, we should release our brothers and sisters from the fangs and claws of our present day culture of death. The battle of pro-life against abortion to defend our helpless fellow human beings who could not fight to preserve their own lives is one. We may not be totally aware of the gravity of this act but it is slowly eating away the moral fabric of our beings. This is something that we should all face and not turn our backs on. We are called by God to cooperate in His Divine will in maintaining justice and peace among His people, young or old. The Lord is calling us to go much further from the fast that we have all been used to doing. We need to come up with concrete effects within ourselves and the people around us when we fast as specifically stated in today's 1st reading. We can not just go on fasting for the sake of obligation but we need to do better than that. We have to do things right in order to really benefit from it. When we always associate fasting with food I'd like to quote, Mother Angelica from EWTN when she said that it isn't our stomachs that's in bad shape but it's our souls. Sometimes our souls could be very calloused and desensitized to sin and error that goes on today. It's the worst kind of evil when people totally push aside the truth and doctrines of the Church. It is extremely necessary that we become sensitive to error. Our thoughts are important to God. The worries of our lives is a form of penance and always offer the sacrifice of the moment to God. It should be a daily thing and should keep on going and live it up even after Lent and not end up being good for nothing. Sometimes we get too focused on the fasting and abstinence issue during the Lenten season, we tend to overlook and fail to see the real meaning of what we are doing. We are reminded to go further in our commitment to the Lord. God challenges us to face our daily struggles in life with a brave and courageous spirit. We should be true and genuine Christians inside and out. Amen. Hallelujah!

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!  

Psalms 51:3-4, 5-6, 18-19

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 Israel’s journey in the desert for 40 years. There are 3 basic temptations represented. Eve was tempted to eat of the fruit because it is pleasing to the eyes. This tempts us to greed because it looks good to eat and can satisfy one’s self. The desires of the flesh tempt us also to lust. It is also said that it is desirable for the knowledge so it can give power and prods a person to pride. From the very beginning since the fall of Adam & Eve in the garden, the devil has capitalized on these 3 things, greed, lust and pride. Even before the fall these were with us already and the devil capitalized on it to trick Adam & Eve hence the fall. As we can see, the devil also used these 3 basic temptations to Jesus. After fasting for 40 days, Jesus was hungry and tempted to turn the stone to bread for satisfaction of the flesh, which is connected to lust. The devil also told Jesus to throw Himself off from the top of the temple since the angels would be there to catch Him. This is the sin to get a hold of power and pride.  The devil asked Jesus to look at all the cities and offered to give Him power and glory which is the sin to greed. As we can see these are the same 3 temptations that Adam & Eve fell into but the devil is dumb to think that Jesus could be tempted with the same temptations. We may also want to look at Israel’s journey in the desert which took them 40 years trying to get to the Promised Land. This is the salvific meaning of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert. He is the new Adam, who remains faithful to fulfill the promise to Israel. He is totally obedient to the divine will and is the devil’s conqueror. He binds satan that tricked Adam & Eve in giving into and robbing us of all the graces we have before the fall. He takes back the plunder and anticipates His further victory at the passion on the cross which is the supreme act of obedience. Jesus’ temptation reveals the Son of God who is the Messiah. He is our high priest who has been tested as we are and yet did not fall into sin. This is the mystery that the Church wants to unite us with, Jesus in the desert who is the same Christ who vanquished the tempter for us. We should always keep this at the back of our minds and connect it to the mystery of Jesus at the desert which has a two fold character. First is by recalling our baptism. What it means to be a baptized person and what does it entail? Do we recognize that? Second is to recognize the need for penance. Think of what we have done to offend God. It is time to reflect at where the state of the world is heading and the culture which we have been disposed of. It calls us to pray more diligently and be faithful to the word of God.  We should become predisposed to a faithful reception of the graces that Christ merited on his death on the cross. We can also observe interior penance which can best be manifested in many ways which the scriptures insist on always. There are 3 forms, prayer, fasting and alms giving. These once again make connections to the mystery of Christ in the desert for 40 days. These 3 forms are what every person struggles with most of the time but can help us in many ways to fight those 3 main temptations. Prayer expresses conversion in our relationship with God. Alms giving make better our relationship with other people to overcome greed and selfishness. Fasting to one’s self which is the focus for today’s readings is to fight against lust and sensuality. It develops mastery over our instincts and attains freedom of heart. In this way, we are recalling our baptism as the Church unites herself to Jesus on the desert. Not to forget the 3 forms of penance which help us in conversion to fight the ancient temptations of pride, greed and lust. Everything we do should always have a clear and sincere intention and motivation to put Jesus in the center of it. If we find Jesus comfortably seated, happy and very contented in the midst of our activities just like a bridegroom on the day of his wedding then we can be assured that we are on the right track. God has always been giving us all kinds of reminders, be it direct or indirect, in the form of a parable or a simple story just like in today's gospel. If we would read on further the gospel for today we would find the practicality of the message being conveyed by Jesus is not only applicable to its direct and obvious meaning with regards to new clothes and wine but most especially to our daily lives. Come to think of it, although we all are very knowledgeable about life after having studied and experienced a lot of things we still end up, at times doing the wrong things and end up ruining not only ourselves but the people close to us. We might as well ask ourselves why we sometimes end up doing crazy things that we know already won't work! We all know that only Jesus can make things right and make us whole. If we only remember, we even sing this often, too. He can give us peace, sweet love, joy and heaven too for only Jesus can satisfy our souls. Amen. Hallelujah!

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.”