MAY WE NOT BE FOUND WANTING!

Around 31.2 % of Filipino children are underweight according to the 2015 Food and Nutrition Research Institute report and almost the same number of children is under height or stunted. Lack of food is the main culprit for this dismal phenomenon. In other cases, children have something to eat. However, the food they take is questionable in terms of their nutritional value. Many children eat junk food from which they derive nothing of value for their health. That is why when they are weighed on the scales, they are found wanting concerning the ideal weight they should possess.

Malnourishment is true not only in our bodily health but also in our spirituality. One can have a glimpse of the health of Filipino Catholics through the dismal status of our country run by Catholics, educated by Catholic schools. With the prevalence of miserable poverty and corruption in government and ideologies that are contrary to Catholic teachings, one would realize how spiritually underweight some Filipino Catholics have become. These spiritually malnourished Filipino Catholics might have been feeding their souls elsewhere with something else than the Word of God. Probably they belong to the 63% Filipino Catholics who do not attend the Sunday masses or participate in Church activities. As they move away from Jesus and His Church, they have become spiritually malnourished and acted incongruous with their Catholic identity.    

In the Book of Daniel (DN 5:1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28), King Belshazzar was weighed on the scales and was found wanting as Daniel interpreted it through the inscription on the wall. He was found wanting as he transgressed God by defiling the sacred vessels of the temples, and persisting in worshipping their gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. King Belshazzar and his companions failed to take the spiritual nourishment which was readily available for them through Daniel.

In the same way, Jesus offers to us spiritual nourishment that would strengthen us, and enable us to overcome great difficulties and trials in our faith journey (of persecutions, of being hated because of His name which we bear, and being handed over to our tormentors, and in some instance shedding one's blood in the name of our faith in Christ). Jesus said: I shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. The Lord is our sustenance as we aspire to live by the ideals and standards he set before us. This is the food that nourished and sustained Christians around the world that endured persecution. But sadly, sometimes, we choose other food to sustain us; worldly values and selfish intentions contradictory to what Jesus teaches us; to what Jesus feeds us with. This leads to our spiritual malnourishment, if not to our eventual spiritual death. And so, when we are weighed on scales, we too, like King Belshazzar, might be found wanting.

By our perseverance, in taking Jesus into our life, in taking the food that He offers to us, we will secure our lives; a healthy spiritual life. We pray that when the day comes that we are weighed on scales, we may not be found wanting. Nawa kapag tayo ay tinimbang, hindi tayo matagpuang kulang.