OVERCOMING THE WORLD

Who have overcome the world, together with death and sin? Those who have Jesus and live by His commandments; those who have truly and genuinely embraced eternal life which they have receive from Christ in their baptism; those who truly participate and live the Paschal mystery of Christ.

Sin prevents us from living the life Christ offers to us. Like leprosy, sin covers us with sores of every kind making us unworthy to receive this gift of eternal life. Furthermore, sin disables us in seeing ourselves as fit for eternal life. Thus we move further and further from Jesus, from the Church, from the sacraments. Because of shame brought about by our sinfulness, we distance ourselves from God, from the Church and from the sacraments. Christ sees our situation differently. Our unworthiness and shame make us qualified, in fact necessitate us, to go to Jesus that we may be made clean. For Christ came into the world not only for the righteous but all the more for the undeserving.

Christ made Himself available for those who desire to be healed from the maladies and leprosy of sin. We can be made clean every time we are soiled by our sinfulness. Christ can restore our dignity as children of God. How? This is possible by approaching Jesus tirelessly; to go to Jesus and stretch our hands and beg Him for forgiveness. In the gospel (Luke 5:12-16), Jesus healed a leper who expressed his desire to be healed. And the Lord conveyed likewise His desire to heal him. The Lord desires that we overcome this world (materialism, sinfulness, and death). This is possible if only we approach Jesus and cooperate in His divine plan (to be with Him in Paradise).

The greatest temptation of Satan to man is to drill in his heart pride: that he can be a god himself; that he can save himself. We can never save ourselves by our own merits but only through Jesus. The good news is, Jesus provides ways through which we can be saved: the Church and the sacraments, especially the sacrament of the Eucharist and reconciliation. Through the Eucharist we are nourished by the heavenly food that can strengthen us to continue struggling and living the eternal life Christ granted to us. Through reconciliation, we are constantly made clean by the absolution of sin granted by God to us.

Conquering this world and living the eternal life Christ gifted us with is possible if only we believe in Jesus; if only we approach Jesus and express our desire to be healed. We will be surprised that all this time, Jesus was only waiting for you to express the same desire of His heart: "Yes, I want to. Be clean."  

RECOGNIZING GOD'S LOVE

We have a brother who is a regular Sunday columnist in a leading broadsheet in the country. This is his form of preaching the good news. One Sunday, another brother told our brother-columnist in jest, "It is almost past the hour of twelve, and your news paper is still neatly folded. Why don't you crumple it yourself a little so it would appear that someone has read your article!" There are a lot of good things in this world which results from the best efforts of good people. How many of us appreciate them? 

God loves us, as He is love Himself. Through the Love incarnate, Christ, He proclaims and lives by loving: proclaiming liberty to captives of sin, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. Christ has done wondrous things in our life. Through Christ, we experience God's love.

Sometimes, we fail to appreciate the graces and blessings we receive from God and easily dismiss them as mere coincidences or ordinary things (Who is this but Joseph's son?). We fail miserably to recognize the love of God. Our PREJUDICES AND BIASES prevent us from seeing God's work. We have our expectations. We hold on and insist on them but God has His own way. We lack faith to recognize the love of God manifested in His will for our lives.

Our failure to recognize Christ's love disables us to love like Jesus; to love God and our neighbor. Instead of love, hate and displeasure reigns in our heart, for we are not convinced of the power of Christ over our lives. Christ is the model of love we ought to pursue in faith. Without an inspiration, without experiencing God's love through Christ, we are at a loss on how to love. Faith and love compliment each other. Believing in the goodness each person possesses enables us to love even the unlovable. Loving enables us to believe this love is possible. Faith and love facilitates appreciation of the goodness of God and of neighbor, and moves us in faith to love our neighbor as God loves us.   

EUCHARISTIC SPIRITUALITY

Christ desires the good for us. He realizes this through our openness and cooperation with His plan for us. The good Christ has for us takes place in our life in the same manner with which He realizes our salvation: through the Eucharistic spirituality of offering, breaking, and sharing.

Offering

We give and offer whatever we have to God. The disciples had five loaves and two fishes. They thought these might not suffice to feed a multitude of people. We often have the same disbelief that our abilities may not be good enough to be God's channel of grace and blessing to others. We devalue our abilities and ourselves as worthless and useless; not good enough to be presented before the Lord.

But all that we have comes from the Lord and therefore bears the goodness its origin intrinsically possesses. There is goodness in us, and goodness can be generated from it. (I never thought I could sing and chant until I gave it a try. Though I may not have an operatic or a pop star’s voice, I realize I can pray twice by singing).

In the Eucharistic spirituality, we offer the good God has given us. This may entail difficulties and sacrifices: difficulty of giving up whatever is precious to us for the good of others (for sometimes we are tempted to keep the blessings we have received for ourselves); difficulty of believing there is good that we can offer (that our five loaves and two fishes may not be good enough). We offer our "five loaves and two fishes" nevertheless, with faith in God that He will bring forth miracles from our offerings. 

Breaking

Our offerings placed in the hands of God are broken into fragments; broken from our egotism and self-centeredness; broken from our own ambitions and plans in life. Breaking facilitates the emergence of a new self; as the bread is consecrated in the Eucharist, it turns into the body of Christ. It is broken that it may be shared later in the communion.

There is always that obsession to maintain our wholeness by self-preservation. We secure our future through the worldly riches we keep for ourselves (money, beautiful houses, luxurious cars). Our wholeness can only be attained by being broken to pieces (and shared to others). Devoid of the trappings of this world, our broken selves reveal who we are, what is essential in our life. We can only realize who we are, whom God intends us to be, when we cease to focus on ourselves and begin to be concerned on the needs of others, like God who never remained for Himself. By self-emptying ourselves (kenosis), God can fill us with goodness that will truly satisfy us. We are broken that we may be shared. There lies our true wholeness.  

Sharing

Communion is the culmination of every Eucharistic celebration. We are not stuck in being broken. We are shared. Being shared is the fulfillment of every offering and breaking. For if we are to assume the identity of Christ, for us to tread the footsteps of Jesus whom we follow, we are to be led to sharing ourselves; to empty ourselves for the sake of others. In sharing, in emptying ourselves (kenosis), we find fulfillment. Emptied, God can finally fill us. God fills us more than we deserve (even with twelve baskets of excess).

Through the Eucharist, we find a spirituality.  We offer whatever good we have received from the Lord; whatever good we have worked through our hands, we empty ourselves. Placed on His hands, the Lord breaks our offering; breaks our selfish ambitions and egotistic desires that we may be shared to others. We share our brokenness touched and blessed by the Lord. In the process of sharing, we are made full and we find fulfillment. This is the goodness Christ desires for us.