The Bible in a Year podcast is a gem for me. Like most of us in some big or small ways, I have been facing with some sort of a debilitating physical condition for the past several months now. Of course, there are a number of moments wherein I would fall into hopelessness and despair.
Once again, hearing the word of God (thru the BIAY) reminds me and gives me a sense of comfort and pushes me to move forward despite and inspite of my personal circumstances. Like in chapter 43 of Isaiah. It's a long chapter but I will just give you the 1st 3 verses that I think in essence serves my point for today.
Isaiah 43:1-3 But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3 For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
To borrow Fr. Mike's commentary, God promised the Israelites to "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine." This is a double claim from the Lord: I have called you by name and you are mine. And this is so important for the people to hear, because the Israelites are kind of worried about the siege that is going to happen to them, probably feeling the same sense of hopelessness and despair as I do, only worse. But God is promising them this double claim even before the worse season of their lives will happen that God will be with them throughout.
This is so important for me and you to hear as well. Maybe you and I have been asking what if our lives don't get any better, what if we don't get out of this funk, what if you will about to experience the worst season of your life is coming? And yet God knows our lives, He knows our story, He is outside space and time.
God is using or allowing this suffering not to destroy his people but to bring us back to his heart. The message of the prophet like Isaiah is always this, to "Come back to the Lord with all your heart."
So maybe you might need to hear this Word and promise of God as well. Perhaps it might seem today like the Lord abandoned you too, maybe today is the worst day of your life, but God still says today and everyday, "I've called you by name and you are mine."
Let us then instead entrust to the Lord all our worries and concerns, to come back to Him with all our hearts with praise and thanksgiving, because our Almighty Father has claimed us His own, by our name, for He is the God of hope. The God of second chances. Our Redeemer. Our Savior.
This was an Advent talk I gave last year, December 2019, in a Christian Charismatic Community that I am a part of, edited for the purpose of this blog. May it help you prepare your heart to Jesus this Christmas.
I was asked to share perhaps a personal
reflection or insight as we approach this season of Advent. Well, before
anything else, I must confess the past few months I've been feeling, as the
saying goes, "down on my luck" lately. Work has been kind of slow,
and discouraging. And it distressingly affects me emotionally and makes me lose
interest in doing things. And so, as I pray on what the Holy Spirit wanted me
to share to you as we prepare ourselves for the season of Advent given my said
despondent disposition, I was reminded about the gift God had shown me during
my 1st deeper conversion of faith back in high school many eons ago, that helps
recollect my spirit in times such as these. And it's a timely reminder for me
because it's also something we are being constantly reminded of when Advent
season comes along. Perhaps someone here tonight who share the same, or even a
worse predicament or circumstance right now, may also need to hear this as
well.
AN ATHEISTS GROUP PAGE
To start, let me share a
couple of very brief narratives or accounts. Earlier this year, a stranger whom I
only got to know in Facebook invited me to a closed group he and his buddies
created. He said they created the group for members to talk about religion from
different denominations and beliefs. According to him, there are Catholics and
Protestants in the group along with Non-believers, a.k.a. Atheists, and claimed
that group members are open-minded, respectful and willing to dialogue. I said
to him that I am honored to be invited and will gladly join but informed him
that I may not have the luxury of time to be able to frequent the group page as
much as he and his buddies expect me to. He said it’s ok, so I accepted his
invitation. When I visited the page, I found out that it was run by a group of
4 or 5 Filipino Atheists, except maybe one Christian of some denomination as
administrators of the group. To be honest, before the dawn of social media, I
never thought there are a lot of atheists in existence, let alone Filipino
atheists, more than I had ever imagined or presumed. So it comes to me as both
shocking and sad. Indeed new atheism is on the rise and probably growing. Last
time I checked the page, there are currently a dozen members in that group. And
I was, you may say, culture shock to read the posts and comments these Atheists
make. Somehow you can sense a lot of angst, bitterness, hostility, animosity
and arrogance in the way they share their posts and comments, ridiculing and
mocking God, Jesus and Christians here and there, even bullying. They consider
Christians generally as irrational, illogical, and dumb, and Scientism seemed
to be their only lord and savior, even though they don’t seem to be aware of it.
For the few Christians in that group, it seems no matter what and how we try to
represent Christianity, doing it with gentleness and respect as what St. Peter
counsels us, we Christians can do no right, and they (the atheists) can do no
wrong. So much for open-mindedness.
Anyway, it’s been about 3
months now since I last checked-in (and it's not a good and fruitful use of my
time to be doing so anyway), but I do recall one time, one of the atheist
administrators was telling his buddies that they need to start inviting or
recruiting more new Christian members into the group (since it is beginning to be a little quiet), in order basically to
have more opportunities to question and challenge (and ridicule) Christian perspective and
rationality. It led me to wonder why they still need to constantly scratch that
itch, even though, at least on surface, they already appear very convinced to have "stumped" every Christian arguments and
overly confident of their atheistic worldview in the way they talk or rant. I
thought it was quite sad. I felt sorry for them, because I felt there was this
sense of restless longing and discontentment inside them, whether they are
aware of it or not and whether they admit it or not. For them, enough seems
never enough.
"WHY BE CHRISTIANS?"
Another account I would like
to share was from one of the famous Atheists, I forgot whether it was either Richard
Dawkins or Christopher Hitchkins. In his debate against a Christian fellow, he once asked, and
I am paraphrasing here, “Why do we have to be Christians? There is nothing
Christians can do that Atheists cannot do. If Christians build hospitals,
Atheists can do that too. If Christians donate to charity, Atheists can do that
too. If Christians help the poor, feed the hungry, visit the sick, etc.,
Atheists can do all of those as well. So why do we still need to be a Christian?
What’s the difference?”
ONE COMMON ANSWER
I brought these two
anecdotes out because for me, they share one common answer. Yes,
there is a difference to an Atheist’s benevolence from a Christian’s charity
and yes, there is an explanation to my atheist friends' desperate wandering and
restlessness. And the answer lies in the season we are about to celebrate in
the coming weeks: the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Because the birth of Our
Lord, the Messiah, inspires us and brings us the gift of HOPE, the one virtue
these atheists lack and easily take for granted. Without transcendent hope, particularly
when they hit rock bottom, they'll learn it is far tougher to be charitable,
and far easier to harbor resentments and animosity towards God and fellow men, because
they have nothing to cling onto, nothing and no one to hope for. Transcendent
Hope drives one to persevere and to be patient in all things, regardless if one
feels up or down.
MEANING TO SUFFERING
I have experienced this in my own spiritual journey. The gift that God had
shown me, as I mentioned when I began my sharing, is that gift of Christian
HOPE. This gift of hope is near and dear to my heart especially during my
deeper conversion to faith that began back in high school and early part of
college, those times in my life the virtue of hope was greatly manifested. It
is, I believe, the very first virtue I noticed that made a difference between
my Christian life and my old self. During my conversion days in high school
that extended through college, the virtue of Christian hope kept me back on
track when I wanted to stray away, and whenever I was faced with adversity,
most especially when I was falling into despair and discouragement. It kept me
from digging with my own hands a hole of rebellion and instability towards God
the moment I was experiencing anything that goes against my expectation or
upsets my plan. Christian hope I experienced in God gave me a sense of
certainty of being on the right path despite my failures and faults. Somehow,
through God’s grace, it led my spirit to resiliency and abandonment. It’s not
an abandonment like in the form of quietism (by quietism as defined in the
dictionary, we mean “the acceptance of things as they are without attempts to
resist or change them”), because somehow even when I felt discourage and
desperate, it obliged me to keep going, reminded me to persevere on my path and
how to always go back and start again whenever I fall. It instilled confidence
and serenity or peace. It gave me a sense of purpose. Instead of giving up, it
gives meaning to my suffering.
It was through the virtue of
Hope from the Lord that made it a little easier for me and somehow a bit
surprised to find myself thanking Him, not only for all the good things He
blessed me with, but for all the bad things in life that came my way: All the
No’s, the closed doors, the endings and goodbyes, the roadblocks and the
prayers that were never answered.
NOSTALGIC HEART
The two dilemmas I shared
earlier: one that of my Facebook atheist friends and the other that of Richard
Dawkin’s (or Christopher Hitchkins'), reminds me even more the words of St. Augustine that still holds very
true to this day as it was written 1600 years ago: “You have made us for
yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until it rest on You.” I heard
from Theologians that God rooted in our hearts a deep longing for Him whether
we are aware of it or not, whether we believe in Him or do not. And as long as
we are on the road on this earth, we carry with us this nostalgia for God and a
dark restlessness that sounds pretty much like what my atheist friends are
cluelessly clamoring or searching. And this sense of longing can only be
relieved by finding and knowing God. If, like my atheists friends, we keep
blocking this sense of longing in our hearts, our restlessness and nostalgia
would eventually turn into despair and anguish, an endless wandering,
purposeless seeking and discontentment. Nothing in this world perfectly quiets
the longing of the soul than God alone. No wonder our hearts are always filled
with excitement and joyful anticipation every time Christmas draws near, isn’t
it?
WORLD WITHOUT HOPE
In a recent article I came
across with regarding the new movie about the Joker, the writer reminds readers
what the real world in which we live in would potentially be like without God
in it. He writes that Joker came from an evil past and in which the world
around him was hopelessly infected with the evils of self-centeredness,
bullying, deception, and corruption. Perhaps like what my atheist Facebook
friends are experiencing, each day is merely a purposeless exertion of energy,
pushing the same boulder up the same hill. There was no basis for Hope. The
absence of God in the film sets before us a shocking and disturbing vision of a
mind and a world without transcendence, purpose, or hope.
Furthermore, he adds: “We
cannot live without hope. Lacking hope, we inevitably move toward hell—toward
absolute despair. The Joker is so painful to watch he said because it contains
enough truth to show us a future following the turn away from God. Once God is
“dead” in our lives, what is the real cause for hope, or the principle around
which society can unite itself? The very heart of Christianity is a hope
grounded in the infinitely good God (the Word became flesh one Christmas eve
and dwelt among us), who can bring us to the heavenly home in which we find the
peace that nothing in this world can give.”
CULTIVATE THE VIRTUE
So as we approach
this Advent season, first of all I asked that you keep me in your prayers to
experience and encounter that deeper sense of hope once again as I walk through
these temporal moments of desolation, and secondly to also invite all of you, in
our waiting for the coming of Jesus Christ our Savior into our hearts--amidst
the hustle and bustle of the holidays, amidst our being busy with technology
tinkering with our gadgets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram time, taking pictures
of our sumptuous Noche Buenas, beautiful Christmas trees and decorations; amidst
the Louie Vuitton bags, the latest IPhone gadget or ugly sweaters Christmas
presents you've received; and amidst the Annual Christmas family portraits,
selfies, gatherings and getaways we do and go to—I invite you to intentionally
spare some Advent time in our prayer life to ask the Holy Spirit to cultivate
that virtue of Christian Hope. Hope in our interior life, in our family life,
and in our community life. Because when we commit ourselves some time with our
Lord in prayer and meditation as we make our journey through Advent, more and
more light attends in our journey, we hear more about His promise, His
prophecy, about His Son and about His salvation if we listen to God’s word, you
get to be filled with greater faith and deeper Hope. Chik-fil-A came up with a
brilliant message in their latest Christmas ad this year of what it means to be
intentional this Advent. Entitled "The Time Shop", the message simply is this: “Give the Gift of Time.”
The Time Shop by Chik-Fil-A
MARY DID KNOW
As we reflect on the virtue
of Hope this Advent, let us imitate Mary--the Mother of Jesus, our Hope seat of
Wisdom, the vessel in whom the Holy Child was born--who not only for a few
short weeks that she awaited and ardently prepared herself physically and
spiritually as she carried our Savior in her womb, but nine long, enduring, yet
hopeful months. If anyone knows the true virtue of Hope, it is Mary. Pope
Francis said, Mary "is an example of strength and courage in accepting new
life and in sharing the suffering of their children... She teaches us the
virtue of waiting even when everything appears meaningless."
There is no better season in
our calendar year than Advent to reflect upon this gift of Christian Hope, for
this is the time of the year that redirects and points our minds and our hearts
more importantly to the source of that gift, and for which our Christmas
theme this year also fittingly affirms when it says "Rejoice, Jesus came
for us and to make His Father known." And the Father for whom in Christ
revealed is the Giver of Hope to mankind, the source of all that is good, the
Light in this world's darkness, the God of second chances. Hope that brings
true peace and inner joy amidst the storms and sense of emptiness in our
hearts.
"THERE'S SOME GOOD IN THIS WORLD"
To end, allow me to share
with you one last thing before you grab a pillow and drift to sleep. You know, one of my most, if not my most favorite movie lines of all time
(probably way up there on the top of my list), is from the movie “Lord of the Rings.” Written by the great Catholic Christian author J.R.R.
Tolkien, the trilogy is riddled with Christian themes and symbolism.
When Two Towers came
out back in the early part of 2000's, I was also in that time, I should say, in
a despondent, lowly state. A cloud of hopelessness, despair and uncertainty hung
over my head. Almost the entire movie, as I was watching, my mind was drifting
away on and off, out of focus, until it came close to the climax of the movie I
think, where Frodo and his loyal sidekick Sam Gamgee was taking cover against
flying dragons scorching the villages with flames coming out of its mouths.
Seeing all the helplessness, havoc and destruction, chaos and death, anger and
frustration, Frodo was ready to give up the journey. He was giving up on hope.
He said: "I can't do this, Sam."
Then what Sam said to Frodo
next was epic, it woke me up like a light switch and struck my heart that
fateful day, it must be providential.
Sam replied:
“I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here.
But we are.
It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were,
And sometimes you didn't want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy?
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.
And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something.
Even if you were too small to understand why.
But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.
I know now.
Folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.
Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo asked: "What are
we holding on to, Sam?"
Sam replied: "That
there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for."
Romans 5:1-5, 15:13 “Therefore,
since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in
which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of
the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we
know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and
character, hope. And Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been
poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
“May the God of hope fill
you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with
hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Amen.
Merry Christmas!
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*Six years
ago (2013), during the wake of one of the most deadliest typhoons ever
recorded--typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan--that devastated Southeast Asia, particularly
in the Philippine regions of Leyte and Samar, I wrote a blog recounting a
deadly flash flood I had experienced, also in the Philippines, brought about by the precedent typhoon Frank during my visit 5
years prior (2008).
Similarly,
I decided to share another account of another ordeal I had coming back to the Philippines last
January this year (2019) in the wake of another sad state that had struck the country just
weeks ago: the Dengue epidemic, notably in our hometown where most cases of the
virus have been reported.
The
account below I originally put in as an exhortation during my worship leading in
the charismatic community I am in, coming back to the US, about a month after
the dengue illness befell my family. My exhortation ran this way:
Good afternoon, brothers and sisters,
Let me
begin by reading Sunday’s gospel last week: Luke 5:1-11.
Jesus saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had
disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into
one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short
distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. After he had finished
speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets
for a catch.” Simon said in reply,
“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your
command I will lower the nets.” When they had done
this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to
come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that they were in danger
of sinking. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the
knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”…Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be
catching men.”
As I reflect on this gospel (although it is
fitting for today’s activity: The presentation of different ministries and our
call to service) there is another point that the Lord is trying to make aside
from merely telling me to be a fisher of men and women or to evangelize or serve in ministry, and this is in light of my family’s recent ordeal.
Some of you know that my 6 year-old daughter got
sick with dengue-like viral symptoms last month while in the Philippines (and it happened a day prior to our scheduled international flight back home, an added insult to injury). It
was really hard to see your loved ones, especially your children suffer.
Hearing her screaming and crying out loud at the doctors, nurses and
phlebotomists, almost to the point that we fear her having a breakdown; and
telling me and my wife that she is so tired already of all the procedures and
shots and injections, is so heartbreaking. Her fever doesn’t seem to go away
and her blood chemistry dropping down lower and lower by the day. I wondered how much
longer do we have to endure all these? Days seemed to be weeks, all the
sleepless nights and in a place away from home, while at the same time also
observing our son in the hope he won’t start having the same symptoms as his
sister and two of their cousins already contracted with the virus, especially
on days when he started having runny nose and cough and appeared lethargic. Not
to mention the added financial burden it incurred us for non-refundable flight cancellations
and medical bills on top of the financial crisis we already had to begin with.
When we are placed in these situations, be it
sickness, financial stress or family crisis of any kind, I felt a tremendous
sense of uncertainty and helplessness. So many “what-if’s”. And it is in these
times, my faith was tested to see whether it was an opportunity for me to trust
the Lord wholeheartedly or shake my fist against Him or just curl up in
despair. It is in times like these that you will definitely feel that “knowing
your faith” and “living your faith” are two entirely different things.
So I find myself like Peter in the gospel.
Throwing down nets everywhere yet came up empty. I have been praying the same
words all day everyday: How badly I would like my daughter to heal and recover
very soon, and how we all long to come back home (in the US) because we are running out of
resources. But it has not seemed to work. Or so I thought.
But like
the Lord said in the gospel: “Do not be afraid, put out into the deep and lower
your nets for a catch.” So I keep going, keep hoping, keep praying, keep
trusting in spite of my doubts, fears, frustration, anxiety and helplessness.
Until finally, indeed by God's grace--only by God’s grace--my daughter started
to feel better and her blood chemistry slowly improved. The doctor even
surprised us by letting us go after a brief stay in the hospital. The love,
prayers, help and support we received along the way from family, relatives,
friends, my home group, neighbors and the community were overwhelmingly
bountiful, both material and immaterial. It's like Peter’s boat, with so great
a number of fish caught--in our case blessings--our spiritual nets were tearing
apart, but in a good way.
I think
my daughter got the Lord’s message better and quicker than I did. Despite the
hesitancy and reluctancy, she never gave up as she bravely and courageously
stormed her weather and conquered her fears, pains and sufferings I cannot even
imagine I could bear myself, like the kind of bravery and courage she had also shown in
her surgery when she was just a tiny little 1 month old baby. We are so proud
of her.
Fr. Mike
Schmitz, a well-known social media priest has this similar and powerful line
that spoke timely to me in the light of my recent family ordeal. He said: “When
you're experiencing incredible pain and difficulties, and you are in the midst of
incredible suffering, you can still choose to act, even when things seem
hopeless.”
Perhaps for 22-23 years we as brothers and
sisters come here on Sundays, and so much of our spiritual life in general is
about devoted repetition of the same actions which we may feel sometimes seem
to have no effect. We pray the same words year after year, serve the same
ministries, and yet find it dry, or do not see any change at all. We can hear
ourselves in Peter's words to Jesus: "I have worked all night long but
have caught nothing. Yet if you say so Lord, I will let down the
nets." And so we will keep singing, we will keep praising the Lord, even
in our darkest moments, through our sorrow and our pain. We have to keep
putting our interior life out into the deep water and lower our spiritual nets
for a catch.
Like Dory
from Finding Nemo used to say, "Just keep swimming!"