Wednesday

Romans 2:1-11
The Righteous Judgment of God
Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say,‘We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.’ Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.

Luke 11:42-46
‘But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the market-places. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.’
One of the lawyers answered him, ‘Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.’ 46And he said, ‘Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them.

Monday

Romans 1:1-7

Salutation

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Luke 11:29-32

The Sign of Jonah
When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!

Twenty-Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wisdom 7:7-11

Solomon’s Respect for Wisdom
Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me;I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to sceptres and thrones,and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her. Neither did I liken to her any priceless gem,because all gold is but a little sand in her sight,and silver will be accounted as clay before her. I loved her more than health and beauty,and I chose to have her rather than light,because her radiance never ceases. All good things came to me along with her,and in her hands uncounted wealth.

Psalm 90:12-17
So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.
Turn, O Lord! How long?
Have compassion on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Let your work be manifest to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!

Hebrews 4:12-13

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Mark 10:17-30

The Rich Man
Now as Jesus was starting out on his way, someone ran up to him, fell on his knees, and said, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” The man said to him, “Teacher, I have wholeheartedly obeyedall these laws since my youth.” As Jesus looked at him, he felt love for him and said, “You lack one thing. Go, sell whatever you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But at this statement, the man looked sad and went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were astonished at these words. But again Jesus said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” They were even more astonished and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and replied, “This is impossible for mere humans, but not for God; all things are possible for God.”
Peter began to speak to him, “Look, we have left everything to follow you!”Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, there is no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive in this age a hundred times as much – homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, fields, all with persecutions– and in the age to come, eternal life.

“BETRAYING OURSELVES”

We are opposite to the animals; we are rational. We care for reasoning. Most likely, we do things because we have reasons of doing them. Because we are rational, we make principles. The principles that we have, serve as our guide in our daily lives. Most often, our established principles are being expressed through our words.

But, do we really mean what we are saying? Do we really believe on what we think we believe? Do we really fight for what we believe is right? Seldom have we neglected our words. A concrete example of which is based on my experience as a seminarian. Many people say to us not to engage on women and avoid temptations. People always say don’t engage on relationships while you are a seminarian; “asa raman na ug mapari na” (you can do it when you’re a priest) But when a priest commits relationships, these people are the same individuals that criticize them and look them downwards. I’m not saying that we should encourage seminarians to engage in a relation I just want someone to be honest to a seminarian.

We are always being proud of having been blessed and say we love God. But, do we really show our love to Him? In a restaurant, only a small number of individuals who make a sign of the cross before eating and yet, these individuals boastfully acclaim their love to God. Many people say that they do love their neighbors because they do not hate them. But is “not hating” a big reason for claiming that we love them? Is it not that the concrete example of loving our neighbor is helping them? Which is which?

Another instance is found in our political concepts. All of are absolutely in opposition to those officials who are corrupting our money. All of us hate them because they are the reasons why we are still poor and why our economy is still down. We often show our protests through rallies in which, pictures and images of officials are being burned. But during the elections, we still vote them even if they are proven corrupt officials, and the reason, because of money. We forgot that those money are the money that they corrupted; thus you are just participating in the corruption.

These show that we are against ourselves though we do not really put them in mind, we just become passive. It’s because sometimes we really don’t care for what we are saying. We fool someone including ourselves.

On the other hand, not all betraying of the self is bad. We call it sacrifice. In sacrifice, what we act hurts us for the sake of others. It is the greatest act of life; giving away our own interest for the sake of others. We try to neglect our being ourselves, and we try to leave our principles for the sake of others. That’s the best betrayal we could do to ourselves. We disregard our interests because we prioritize something that ourselves cannot benefit. Imagine a world of people thinking about each other’s need and not their own needs. What a wonderful world it could be. It’s realization is very hard but the challenge of Christ remains the same when he offered His life on the cross for the sake of His people. We are also challenged by Christ to nail on the cross our personal interests for the sake of His people.

In the end, we may find that what is important does not lie on what principles we are holding on (no one will follow them if you are not doing them). What matters is what we have done while we enjoy the gift of life. Let us not be afraid to take a step to change our ways of life. It is not yet the end. A popular saying may inspire us: “everything ends up right; if things go wrong, then, it’s not yet the end.” Be part of making things end up right.

“GOD IS A MYSTERY; BEYOND DEFINITIONS”

“No statement about God is simply, literally true. God is far more than can be measured, described, defined in ordinary language, or pinned down to any particular happening.” David Jenkins

God is explained through the opinions of every individual. They were able to explain their ideas through their own experiences, which are convincing to us. They are indeed intelligent persons. But of all the ideas and explanations, I am more convinced on the idea of Rudolph Otto. He said that for him, “God is Mysterium Tremendum”; God is a mystery. In his conclusion, “mysterium denotes merely that what is hidden and esoteric, that which is beyond conception and understanding, extraordinarily and unfamiliar… we can experience in feelings, feelings which our discussions can help to make clear to us, in so far as it arouses them actually in our hearts.”

We humans are emotional beings. We feel sad when we are affected by unhappiness, happy when we feel delighted or pleased, lonely when we are alone, angry when we are hurt, and among others. These experiences are reactions from our direct experiences of reality. However, there are feelings which we cannot really explain even if we feel that our experience can tell us. We cannot express them in our own words. There is something different that we cannot explain and we feel that God is working on us.

I agree on Otto’s idea that God is a mystery because we have feelings that God is present but we cannot define him. As to what we know, there are many ideas from different persons but their ideas are different even if they only mean one God. Their ideas are different and unique which only implies that God is a mystery and his existence is mysterious. We cannot define God because he is not bound to limitations. Only those that have limitations can be defined. The statements about God are not literally true. Our knowledge about what God is, is only analogous. We cannot even reconcile God as immutable and God as merciful, and God who has no extension and Trinity. Explaining God firmly with our own ideas implies that we are limiting God in our minds. True indeed because if we can explain fully on what God really is, then, it is not God at all and we are not different from God anymore. God is beyond definition and beyond man’s mind because he is unlimited. Thus God is really a mystery; mystery is in God and it makes him different from us who are limited. His mystery makes us feel that we are limited and that God is superior to us. If God can be defined, then, He will no longer be our concern.

The Holy Spirit Constantly Guides; Listen To Him

Someone asked me a favor which moved me to write this article. This article does not intend to embarrass her; instead, this article serves as a way of thanking her because she pushed me to reflect and made me realize her faith to the power of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. She made me realize how I forgot the constant guidance of the Holy Spirit.

She wants to look for a job and she was still working on it. She asked me to pray for her, asking the Holy Spirit to guide her. Then my reflection begins.
I then began to ask myself: Do we need to ask the guidance of the Holy Spirit? If God’s guidance to us is unconditional, why ask Him to guide us? Is it about the guidance of the Holy Spirit or is it about the person guided by the Holy Spirit? These questions bothered my mind and made me think deeper.
In our everyday life, we feel some anxieties to the extent that we don’t know what to do. We feel alone and need someone to cling to. Sometimes we feel that God does not love us and begin to think of our sins as reasons why. We feel that we are on our own and there is no way of mending our hearts except moving alone. But then we find many options that suggest us what to do. Then we became anxious of what to choose to. Finally, we pray and ask the Holy Spirit to embrace, enlighten, and guide us so that we can be at peace.
But we did not realize one thing; we did not realize the constant guidance of the Holy Spirit. We believe that God is always in our side to guide us; God is always there guiding us. Thus, we do not need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us because He always guides us unconditionally; instead, we need to ask ourselves, “Am I listening to the Holy Spirit guiding me? Am I careful enough in my decisions?
The Holy Spirit does His part of guiding us, so we need not to pray for His guidance because it’s constant; instead, we need to reflect in prayer to know what and where the Holy Spirit is guiding us. It’s a matter of redirecting the way we pray and the way we behave as faithful. I don’t mean to neglect prayer. I only want to say that the Holy Spirit is doing His part; thus we also need to do our part that is, reflecting. We do not need to rush things as we always do. We need to sit, close our eyes, and reflect in prayer to find peace and see where the Holy Spirit guides us. By this way, in my opinion, we can find the Holy Spirit guiding us.

On History of Christianity:Persecutions

It is necessary to note that the spread of Christianity, especially on matters of its diversity was primarily not the work of the preachers, but as a result of the circumstances with which, the traders, slaves, and others came to the preachers and received God’s message. Later then did the work of the missionaries to the non-Jews or Gentiles was done, through the works of the Apostles who followed Christ example in proclaiming the good new to the Gentiles.
As Christianity grows, its challenges regarding faith were also grown. There were remarkable persecutions such as the martyrdom of St. Stephen which gives a profound example of embracing the faith. Then Christians, especially during the time of Nero and Domitian, were persecuted not for the reason of believing what they believe but because of their denial of what the law or the state ordered. Such example was the emperor’s order to worship the Roman gods, which was rejected by the Christians and resulted to some persecutions.
Those persecutions became agents of awareness to the following believers on defending their faith. Then, in some circumstances, another persecution occur but not because of conflict with the state or intellectual matters but because of class prejudice. Christians faced many accusations and criticisms especially regarding on their gatherings in communion, which were interpreted by non-Christians as act of barbaric people or uncivilized. Then there came the Church’s apologist who defended such criticisms. Later on, the Church faced the Gnostics (who claimed that they have the secret avenue to salvation) and the Marcionists which were responded with the Canon, the Creed, and the Apostolic succession. Then these responses were strengthened by the Teachers of the Church; Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria who harmonized faith and reason, Tertullian of Carthage, and Origen of Alexandria.
If we try to reflect on the events that happened, every challenge of faith gets its response, and those responses are all for the defense of faith, which were handed to us from generation to generation. They were able to defend their faith to the extent of giving their lives all for the greater glory of God. In this generation, our challenges of faith are found in some issues regarding morality. We are challenged by the issues regarding abortion, divorce, same sex marriage, fornication, and all other immoral realities which seem to be a common thing to everyone. As disciples of Christ, it is our responsibility to guard our faith and to restore our morality. It is our duty to be an agent of God to bring His people back into his merciful arms. Yes, martyrdom is no longer an issue these days but we can find it in our daily encounter with those challenges in which we are given opportunity to deepen and defend our faith.