Thank you Jesus…

Jesus thank you for the gift of my life and the gift of my good friends.

Thank you even for the trying times my enemies put me through.

Thank you for healing me of my spiritual, emotional and physical illnesses in the past. Thank you for my mother, my brothers and sisters, my dear loved ones, and people who love me. Thank you , too, for people who do not love me. Thank you for people who praise me and also for those who humiliate me. Thank you for people who make me happy and for people who annoy me.

Jesus, you are so good and everything is grace for those who believe in you. Jesus, You are so great. You even transformed the humiliation of Your Cross into glory. Jesus, You are so magnificent. With You, my problems, troubles, hurts and pains from the wounds of the past were transformed to blessings.

My trials become gifts; my difficulties become graces.
Indeed, Lord Jesus, if I trust in You, everything will turn into grace. Thank You for such love and magnificent power.

You are so good to me, Lord Jesus, even if I am not as good as You. You know that I am not a bad person. I am just weak and so broken. You know how much I love You. You know, too, how much I have failed not because I do not love You but because I am broken, confused, and weak. I am lost.

Thank you Jesus for sustaining me in spite of what I am. I have tainted my vocation to holiness and yet You have never abandoned me. You have never forgotten me. Never.
How great is Your goodness to me!…

the good one...

The parable of the good Samaritan in Lk 10: 25-37 is probably the most popular and famous from among the parables of Jesus. It is so famous that when we say 'Samaritan', we automatically attach to it the word 'good'. I am certain you have heard many reflections about imitating the good Samaritan and not imitating the student and the priest.

Let us not deal on the negligent priest, or the the hard-nosed stubborn student, nor the good Samaritan.

Let us focus our attention on the victim of the robbery.

What am I trying to say here? Well, it is no that in our journey along the road of life, we have often been stripped, robbed, and left half-dead? We can very much identify with the victim on the road who's left half-dead, stipped and robbed.

We may not have been robbed of material possessions. But many of us have been robbed of our self-seteem, our dignity and our good name.

Many of us have been robbed because we were betrayed. Our trust was never reciprocated with trust. Our love was never reciprocated with with selfless love. We have been stripped of our securities, and in manner of speaking, left half-dead along the road of life.

We thought that because we were left half-dead, people would take pity on us, particularly friends, family and loved ones, whom we thought would always be there. But sometimes to our great disappoinment, they let us down.

In the parable, we expect the priest to do better that leave the victim on the road half-dead. But he thinks only of himself. Haven't there been times when we were left half-dead on the road of life by friends and loved ones we thought we could depend on in the hour of need.

We have had friends who would tell us they would be our friends forever, but when trouble and problems came, when the storms in our life pass-by, when we were half-dead and gasping for dear life, they would tell us: "I am too busy."

On the other hand, there have been times when we have been let half-dead along the journey of life, and unexpectedly, someone comes along whom we thought would never give us a hand, but they do. Oftentimes, the person is a total stranger. But this same person, this same Samaritan in our lives, takes pity on us, says the right word at the right time, gives us what we need most, then unexpectedly, we are up and about again.

Let us see ourselves as the victim of the robbery. Now let us ask ourselves, who is the neighbor of the victim? the answer is, of course, the Samaritan, because he saved the life of the victim.

If the situation were reversed. and you saw the good Samaritan lying on the road half-dead, wouldn't you help him, out of a debt of gratitude?

It is understandable if we are neighbors to those who have been neighbors to us. It is understandable if we are good to those who have been good to us.

I think the appropriate title of the Gospel is not the Good Samaritan. I think the most proper one is: teh Gospel of the Good Victim. We all have been victims. We all have been hurt. We have been all left-half dead in the woods. We all have had friends who did not help us when we most needed them.

But we also have met strangers who came to our rescue and did or said the right thing at the same time, and brought us back to life.

Let us reflect on this my dear brothers and sisters and may the good Lord inspire us to be like the good one who is complete stranger to others whom we meet in the crossroads of life yet willingly extend our helping hand to their rescue.

Bless us all...

the sign…

It is very human to seek a sign. Husbands and wives seek signs from each other. A kiss is a sign of affection. An embrace is a sign of love. A gift is a sign of concern.

There is nothing wrong with signs. Human beings need signs so that they can communicate on a more civilized manner. A sign can actually take the form of human language or a body language. We need signs to be able to communicate.

What the Lord condemned was not the desire of the Pharisees for signs. What the Lord did not like was that the Pharisees wanted to test him.

It is not bad to ask for a sign. But the Pharisees were not merely asking for a sign. They were testing the power of God. This is obviously wrong. If all they wanted were signs, there were many signs available. The presence of the Lord was already a sign; the miracles performed were signs. Even the very air they breathed was a sign. Being alive was a sign. What other signs could they possibly be asking for?

What angered the Lord was that the Pharisees were testing the power of God.
It is the same with us.
People tell us that they love us and then we ask for a sign of this love. Are we asking for signs or are we, in effect, testing their love?

Are we asking for a sign from God or are we actually testing God’s love for us?
If we are only asking for signs, then signs are there for us to clearly see. Without asking, the signs are given for us. However, what most of us are actually asking for are proofs.

The reality is we do not believe. We lack faith. This is why, if all the signs were given to us, we would still choose not to believe.

For somebody who believes, no sign is necessary. For somebody who does not believe, no sign will be sufficient; signs are of no use. Signs are not needed for people who believe. While for those who do not believe, signs become utterly useless.

Under the pretext of testing God we use language as signs. Be honest and truthfully ask yourself: do I believe or do I not believe ? If you believe, there is no need for a sign. If you do not believe, no sign will convince you. Therefore, don’t ask for it.

If there has to be sign, let it be us. Let us be signs for each other. Signs of our love, and signs of God’s love for each other.

Bless us all…

the truth...

Jesus Christ is the King and He explains His kingship in a very short statement in the Gospel of John 18:38 that says: “The reason I was born is to testify to the truth. Anyone committed to the truth hears my voice.”

Christ is King because Christ is the truth. Without truth, His kingship would be empty.

Our parents at home and our teachers in school taught us to value truth in our lives. I must admit that I have not been faithful to my parents upbringing. I guess everybody falls into the temptation of living in half-truths and surviving in white lies.

Just before I entered the monastery in year 2002, my mother told me, “Speak the truth, and live by the truth. And I have to remind you that if you live by the truth, you must be ready to stand alone.”

Proclaiming the truth can be a lonely task, as it was for Jesus. Jesus proclaims the truth before Pilate but He is alone. His disciples who know He is the truth, the way and the life, are all silent because they are afraid to be arrested with Jesus and given a death sentence along with Him. His family, relatives, and loved ones, are no longer there. Jesus stands alone.

Indeed, it is lonely to live for the truth and to proclaim the truth, because the truth can be challenging and not all people want to be challenged.

The truth can be difficult and not all people want to face difficult lives.

The naked truth can be embarrassing and not all people can endure embarrassment.

Piercing truths can sometimes hurt and not everybody is willing to endure that pain.

When was the last time you suffered for telling the truth? If you have not suffered recently for telling the truth, could it be because you have become so at home with lies?

Could it be because you have started to call lies half-truths? You must remember that even if they are one-fourth truths or one-eighth truths, they are still not truths. They are incomplete and still are mutilations of the whole truth.

Could it be because instead of calling them lies, we call them white lies? Even if they are red or violet lies, they are still lies and are displeasing to God.

When was the last time we stand alone to proclaim the truth?

When was the last time we were willing to die for the truth?

When was the last time we were willing to face shame because of the naked truth we needed to proclaim?

Unless we are willing to speak the truth, and come out with it, the truth is useless.

It is only by the truth that we can be set free.
If we are living in half-truths and white lies, the kingdom of Christ has not yet taken over us.

Be blessed by proclaiming the truth!

let go....

The obstacle to unity is prejudice and the Gospel of Mt 13:55 speaks clearly against it.

Prejudice is a mind-set that tells us, "I know where this person came from. I know who this person is and where he is going."

It is easy to put people in Boxes. As a matter of fact, we also put our own selves in in our own boxes.

Prejudice is easy to recognize. For instance, we may be prejudiced against the dirty, the foul-smelling, the dark-coplexioned, the sick.

We may be prejudiced against the Muslims or Buddhists, Caucasians or Eurasians, Mormons or Seventh-day Adventists.

Prejudice can be biased. Is it not true that there are some people we feel so uneasy around? For no reason at all, we just do not like their presence. We just can't stand being near them. Without any explanation, our blood pressure and temper starts to boil, in a manner of speaking, when we see them. That is how prejudice gives us biases.

Prejudice also affect our relationship with ourselves.
For instance, when we were children, a person we respected and loved may have told us, "You are good-for-nothing spoiled brat." We grew up with that remark, with that bias against ourselves, that indeed, we are good for nothing.

Our parents may have told us when we were children, we would never succeed and that negative thought stuck in our minds all these years.

We then carry that prejudice against ourselves in our school, office, community, in our own family. We think we cannot succeed, we can never be happy, we can never make it in life.

But life is beautiful and life can even be more beautiful if we LET GO of the limitations we have set upon ourselves... If we let go of our own Prejudices.... If we let go of negative thoughts and biases.

There is a miracle waiting for us- but only if we LET GO....

Have a blessed weekend to all of you....

everything that comes...

God speaks to us always. God talks to us in every instance, situation, event, scenario of our life. But we have different ways of receiving God's word. Some receive God's word with faith. Others receive God's word with joy.

On the other hand, when God's word is not easy easy to follow, many of us receive it with grumbling.

Many of us receive receive it with despair and discouragement. Many of us receive it with much questioning.

For instance, the word of God is proclaimed to us and this same word of God is a commandment.

Many of us see commandments as restrictions. But they are not restrictions to our freedom. They actually promote our freedom.

A commandment from God is like a string that links the kite to the kite flyer. If the kite will complain and say the string is restricting its freedom because it prevents the kite from flying more, then the kite cuts himself from the kite flyer and eventually gets lost.

It's the same thing with the commandments. God's commandments are God's strings. They are God's lifeline to us. Without the commandments, we are cut off from God.

But sometimes, God's word is proclaimed to us not in terms of commandments or easy living but in terms of difficult living.

During times when our lives are easy and comfortable, do not easily believe that God is giving us the blessing. It may be the evil one tempting us to forget God.

How many people have forgotten God because they were too successful, life was too easy, and there was much money?

On the other hand, when life becomes difficult for us, do not immediately conclude that God has forgotten us.

How many of us have remembered God because of a difficulty, a sickness, a condition?

Well, the only message that the Readings from Exodus 20: 1-17 tells us today is, everything that comes from God is good. It may not be as good to our eyes, but it is good. If it comes from God, it must be for our good. We might not understand, but God knows what is best!

Blessings to us all!...

who must pass judgment?...

When I was still teaching in the grade school department of San Beda College in Manila, Philippines wayback in the 90's, and my classes would be inspected by the supervisors or the principal, I would become uptight, nervous and tense, because I wanted to get a good evaluation of my teaching.

I think and I guess, it is natural for us to seek the approval of our bosses. There is something within each of us that makes us aspire to be liked by as many as people as possible.

Everybody wants to be liked. Everybody wants to be appreciated and admired. Everybody wants to be popular. And according to the world’s standards, the more popular you are, the better for you.

Unfortunately, this obsession to be liked by many people, this desire to be approved by our bosses, this aspiration to always get a good evaluation of ourselves and our work’s performance, can make us very tired and unhappy in life.

Sooner or later, we will realize it is not possible to make everybody happy all of the time.

Sooner or later, we will realize it is not realistic to make everybody like you, admire you and appreciate you every time.

St. Paul had that in his mind. That is why he said in Cor 4:1-5, “It matters little to me whether or not human court pass judgment on me. I do not even pass judgment on myself.”

Who passes judgment on Paul? Who passes judgment on us? - It is only God.

It is only God whom we should please and it is only God whose approval we should be obsessed with getting.

We know we could get carried away by popularity.

We know we could get carried away by fame and glory.

We know we could get carried away by approval and evaluation.
Nowadays, the higher the evaluation, the better the grades in school, the better for you.

My dear friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, when shall we give up on trying to please our superiors, bosses, parents, everybody?

We are already tired, exhausted, worn out.

We are already stressed out and are already in the brink of bitterness and resentment because no matter what we do, there are always people around us who will say we are wrong, we are a failure.

God is very easy to please. We only have to do His will. Let what others say be the last of our considerations.

Our rule in life is, we must get a hundred percent grade from God.

We must please God rather than man. In pleasing God, we will find that life is easy. We will find life no longer a big burden but a peaceful one.

Bless us all…

Keep going…

Matthew (Mt. 14:15) begins this Gospel reading with “After the death of John the Baptizer…” This portrays to us the grief of our Lord over the death of His cousin. The Lord was mourning the death of a beloved friend. He was extremely saddened because He knew that John the Baptizer was killed because of Him.

Most of us, at least once in our life, have felt grief. It could be that moment in our life when we become vulnerable, so hurt that we become inconsolable. And for some time we refuse the comforting touch of others, whether sincere or with element of sarcasm and hypocrisy. We refuse even to think and look back at people who have hurt us, whether living or dead, because this will bring on so much pain in our hearts.
The Lord experienced that Himself. He grieved over the death of a beloved-- a cousin and a friend. At that moment of sadness, all He wanted was to be by Himself. He went up to the other side of town, to a mountain where He could be alone. He longed to nurse His heart and sorrow in solitude.

But after He had crossed to the side where the mountain lay, He was again confronted by a multitude who presented their need to be cured and attended to. If the Lord were only human like us, He would have barked at these people: “Can’t you understand? Can’t you see? I just want to be left alone, by myself with my grief.” But no such words ensued from our Lord’s lips, instead, He performed one of the greatest miracles in the New Testament: the multiplication of loaves of bread.

This points to all of us the fact and the reality that our grief and our hurts are not enough reasons to excuse us from living a normal life, doing a normal routine in everyday of our life, associating ourselves and serving our community and people in God’s name. I don’t mean that we steel ourselves from grief or deprive ourselves of a period of mourning by non-stop service to our community or to others. There is a time for grieving and mourning and the Lord understands we need this time. The Lord makes us see, through His actions in the Gospel, that our grief should not make us so self-absorbed that we fail to see the grief and needs of our community and others.

We will continue to encounter this situation in our lives and when we do, we must remember how the Lord grappled with His own grief and sense of loss over the death of John the Baptizer. Let us remember, how, despite His grief, the Lord continued to love and serve others.

We will ask the Lord to fill us with greater generosity so we can continue to serve even if we are hurting and overcome with heartache.

Let us ask Him to enable us to look beyond ourselves, beyond our personal sorrows and aches and allow us to once again, in the midst of our loss, be able to find ourselves and be back with our usual and daily routines, (without minding the sarcasms and insults of those people around us who have no other purpose in life but an evil intention to aggravate and worsen the situation of our grief and hurts), integrate ourselves with our community, associate with our loved ones and reach out to our family and the larger community. Come out from our nutshell and keep going despite of everything; just remember what Jesus did despite His grief and loss.

Bless us all…

a friend...

If I see a man who is deeply in trouble and tell him to cheer up, I am almost sure and certain that I will instead get a bitter smile. He would probably reason out that I could say such words because I do not feel his pain.

There are moments in our life when we just want to lock ourselves up and hide in our room for days and nights wanting to see no one but our own mirror reflections and the painful wounds of traumas and phobias inflicted to us by our loved ones and friends from the past. These moments are moments when we feel so desolate, lonely, and depressed, and then when a friend or loved one comes along and tells us, "Cheer up and come out", we will probably counter, "How can you say that to me? You do not understand what I am going through now."

But there is a friend who is much much better and greater than your best of best friends. That friend is Jesus.

Jesus, our greatest friend, tells us, when we are troubled, "Come to Me all you who are weary and find life a total burden. You will be refreshed. Come to Me, cheer up, it is not the end of the world." But unlike Jesus, we cannot tell Him, "Come on, Jesus, You tell me to cheer up, You don't even know what I am going through." We cannot tell Jesus that because He went through every pain that we are now going through.

If you are mourning or grieving for the death of a loved one, please do not forget that Jesus also grieved over the death of Lazarus and Joseph, His foster father.

If you are grieving over finances, remember that Jesus faced the same difficulty because He had to feed 12 apostles while He Himself did not have any bed on which to place His head for the night.

If you feel you have been experiencing post traumas from your hurts and pains inflicted to you by your own father or your elder brother when you were a toddler, remember that Jesus was lambasted, prejudiced, and insulted infront of the public by His own people and followers.

If you feel you have been betrayed by a friend, remember that Jesus was betrayed by His best friend.

If you feel that your schedule is terrible, if you feel that your boss is bearing down hard on you, do not forget that Jesus also felt the crowd always pressing on Him, the crowd always running after Him, the crowd practically clawing to get everything out of Him.

When you are in trouble and Jesus tells you: "Come out from your room and I will refresh you, come out and I will cheer you up, come out and share with Me your hurts, pains, and wounds, it is not the end of the world", you cannot tell Jesus, "You have never experienced what I have gone through."
Because He did experience what you are going through. Every pain, every ache, every wound, every fear, every anxiety, every anger and resentment, every distress that you have to face. Jesus has faced them ahead of us.

So, the good news today is that Jesus, our greatest friend, tells us, "In the face of all your pains and hurts, cheer up. I have gone ahead of you, but I am always here for you because I love you."

Have a blessed day to all of us....

a dangerous life...

Yesterday, while I was on our way back from Albuquerque to the monastery, I saw a car on the street with a revolving red light on its roof. I knew that it was a police car or an ambulance car. The flashing red light atop tells us to move aside and make way. It is an emergency signal.

In our medicine cabinet when we find a bottle marked with a picture of a skull and two crossed bones, we know that it contains poison. It signifies danger.

Today, the red light is on. The skull with crossed bones is being presented to us. In the Gospel of Mt 4:18-20 and the Readings from Jonah 2:1, God is calling all of us to follow Him. It is very dangerous. It is very risky to follow the Lord.

Jonah saw that in the First Reading. That is why he was called to be a prophet and disciple of God, and he said: "No way! You cannot fool me. I will not do that." Jonah tried to escape but the Lord pursued him. Jonah continued to escape but the Lord continued to pursue him more. Then in a raging storm, a big fish swallowed Jonah and before he knew it, the big fish expelled him. Where did Jonah land? Right in front of the island where he is supposed to preach!
It is very dangerous to follow the Lord. Jonah realized that and that is why he was afraid.

People who preach repentance eventually ask their listeners to hurt themselves. In the Gospel, Simon, Andrew, John, and James were called by the Lord. They were sent to preach repentance. They were sent to proclaim: "People, you are in sin and you must run away from sin."
Look what happened to Peter- he was crucified upside down. Andrew was also crucified on an X-cross. James was also killed in Jerusalem. John was not killed but he lived till a ripe old age of 95. Lonely. Alone.
It is dangerous to follow the Lord!

From the world's point of view, it could be very dangerous and risky to follow the Lord because you could be asked to do a difficult mission. It is dangerous because you have to give up the glitter of popular acclamation. It is dangerous to follow the Lord because you have to give up the selfishness of your own ambitions. You have to give up being popular and famous. You have to give up your wealth, fame and glory. You have to give up your riches. Because when the Lord calls you, He deos not ask you to be successful. He asks you only to be faithful.

From the point of view of God, it is only by living a dangerous life that we can discover the meaning of life. If you are ready to live a difficult and dangerous life, a holy and pious life with cross on your shoulders, then you will see the fulfillment of God's promise in your life.
The promise of the Lord is that you will discover peace, joy and achieve happiness. On the other hand, we could live a life of leisure and pleasure. We could stuff ourselves sick with food. We could also make ourselves really famous. Yet, after all of these are done, we still find our lives worthless and find ourselves meaningless.

So, what is our choice today? Is it a life that is difficult but meaningful or a life full of the world's pleasures but utterly meaningless?

Bless you all!

through pain...

I just arrived from a whole-day trip. I went to the USCIS office located in Albuquerque with my monkbrother Dom Marcus who's assigned as the monastery's in-charge of immigration issues and problems. So, this morning, while I was hurriedly preparing myself for our 7:30Am departure and while I was briskly polishing my shoes with such pressure, I suddenly got hooked of wanting to talk to my shoes and force them to talk back to me.

If only my shoes could talk back, perhaps they would say, "Why are you doing this to me? It is very painful." As I kept on brushing, I could only imagine how my shoes would complain of pain and would certainly say, "Ouch, ouch, ouchh." Then I guess I should have explained to my shoes, "I have to brush you so that you will be clean and shiny. If I do not brush you, you will look dirty and awful. It is by allowing yourselves to be brushed, that you can allow your luster to come out."

The Lord speaks along the same line. He speaks about pain. He speaks about joy. It is also the same in the Acts 18: 12-16. Paul faced the pro-consul of Corinth and was accused unjustly. But the fear, apprehension and anxiety of Paul before the civil court disapperaed because the pro-consul dismissed his case.

Name me one saint who did not have to face pain in his/her life. Name me one person who discovered real happiness without having the courage to endure and overcome pain. Name me one person who gained success without having to undergo trials. None.

Pain is a reality in our lives. Sometimes, we feel the Lord doesn't see us when we are in pain. But the Lord assures us that even if sometimes we do not see Him, He sees us when we are carrying our pain. And the Lord who sees us carrying our pain courageously and faithfully is the same Lord who turns our pains into joy.
Name me one happy, sucessfull life that never faced pain. You will not be able to do that because the Lord's promise is "Glory through pain is joy in pain."

Have a blessed day to all of us...

Wounds…

It is still Eastertime. My favorite character at Eastertime whom I’d like to consider a “friend” is Thomas. Prefixed to his name always almost is the adjective “doubting”. He doubted because he was hurting. The first time he met the Risen Lord was one week after Easter. At that meeting, two wounded men met. The first wounded man was Jesus. He met the apostles and showed them His wounds. It sounded like Jesus showed them His wounds with an element of pride. Aptly so, because those wounds were not wounds of defeat. They were wounds of love. They were wounds of victory and triumph. They were not aching wounds. They were not stinking wounds. They were wounds of glory. They were wounds of love that is ready to sacrifice without measure.
He showed them His hands and His side. He did that not to rebuke or to accuse. He did that to show them the depth of His tender love.

The other wounded man was Thomas. He did not have wounds on his skin. He had no bleeding wounds on his flesh. His wounds were from within. His heart was wounded by disappointment. He felt deceived by the Master. He felt defeated after having staked everything in Jesus. He thought Jesus was the Messiah. He thought Jesus was the King. He questioned why Jesus died like a criminal. He thought Jesus would save Israel. Why could he not even save Himself from His oppressors? Thomas was disappointed. He felt duped. He was almost fully convinced that he made the wrong decision in following this Carpenter from Galilee. He really had a deep and gaping wound- within.

The wounds of the heart take longer to heal. The wounds of the heart are settled deep within for years and years. They take longer to heal because we can hide them and pretend that they do not exist. We smile from the outside but we cry deep inside our hearts. We can talk and act and move along and do things and function normally as if there were nothing wrong with us, as if there was nothing lacking inside of us.
Some of us can walk around feeling wounded and beaten for all these years without our closest friends and family even noticing or seeing them through the ‘masks’ we conveniently wear as we go through our suffering for so many years.

Not for long enough. Sooner or later, as we get older, we begin to fall into severe self-pity and think that our family and friends are too great or too busy to listen to our heartaches and inner wounds. The wounds start to re-surface. The pains we so long have been hiding all these years start to bother us. They start to bother people around us, too. We become very vulnerable and overly sensitive to slight provocations. We easily react in the highest degree to people around us who do slight errors and mistakes against us. Later, we even think they are insensitive for not detecting our woundedness and offering us the balm we secretly seek and crave for.

At Eastertime, two wounded men met. The first one had glorious wounds. The second one had gaping, aching wounds inside of him. The first one was ready to heal by the power of His wounds. The second one needed healing for his wounds but he had nobody to heal them.
Then they met. The first one healed the second. At the end of the meeting, both of them had glorious wounds, ready to heal more wounds.

Thousands are wounded around us. Some carry anger against unfaithful spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers. Some carry hatred and resentment against merciless fathers and brothers who had repeatedly abused them physically and sexually when they were young, innocent and helpless. Some carry anger against officemates and classmates who sow intrigues and spread gossips. Some carry secret anger and disgust because of problems and conflicts of decades ago within the family that were not faced squarely and resolved openly. There are so many of them, as many as the stars that we see in the clear evening sky.

But unfortunately, even if we try to mask our deep-seated anger and resentments, the human person in us has its way of seeking some kind of expression someday somehow.
These resentments, thoughts of revenge and resisting actions and actuations begin to take different forms. They are sometimes expressed in sarcasm, irritability, physical distress, annoyance, insecurity and violence. These pain we have been keeping inside our hearts all these years slowly takes a different shape and comes out in our everyday dealings with our family, friends, and community.

The point is that truly wounded people cannot hide their wounds behind masks for long. Time will come a time when they will start to affect every inch of their being and also their environment. If they succeeded in making people believe that everything in themselves are fantastically alright for sometime, sometimes, they cannot fool themselves for a long time, for all the time in their lives. Because inner wounds are too painful to bear as time goes on. They need to be healed. These wounds must need healing.

If given a choice, they all want to touch the wounds of Jesus. They want to know for sure that someone loves them enough to be wounded and maybe even killed for the love of them. The problem is: they cannot see Christ anymore. They can only see the people who claim to carry the name of Christ. The question is: Are they like Christ? Do they really live their lives as Christ did or prescribed? Are the Christians today wounded enough in the name of love that they can heal those who are wounded? Are our Christians of today wounded in such a way that allows them to heal those who are wounded?

Are our Christians truly risen from the death of indifference and selfishness, and antipathy that they can resurrect shattered hopes and bring back lost and broken lives?

Have a blessed Easter to all of us!

I am sorry…

Such a short sentence. These are strictly speaking three words, but said fast and sound like only three syllables. Yet they carry so much weight.

Imagine a scene in a public utility bus or a subway train: A woman who is accidentally hit on the head by a passenger’s bag turns around, with eyebrows crossed, to see who did it. Just when she is about to yell all kinds of invectives at the culprit, her eyes meet another lady’s fawn eyes as she pleadingly and humbly says, “I am sorry!” The aggrieved woman merely opens her mouth wide, takes a deep breath and sighs heavily, without saying a word. She shakes her head a bit and says nothing and her anger slowly dissipates into mere annoyance and irritation.

Another scene: A mother cries silently in her room because her teenage son just screamed at her and blamed her for a day devoid of fun. She waits patiently for the moment when her son will quietly enter her room or slip her a note or simply ease his way beside her and whisper, “Mom, I’m sorry.” In a situation like this, of course, a mother understands her son. Of course, a mother forgives her son long before he acknowledges his fault but what music it is to a mother’s ears when an erring son says, “I’m sorry.” Yes, when the son behaves better the following day, mother knows he’s sorry. Bu it is just not the same. Sometimes, not saying, “I’m sorry” explicitly at this point could really aggravate the situation. Even if the mother understands, there is still no replacement for the overt statement of sorrow.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is one of the Sacraments that many Catholics find difficult to accept. They ask why they should confess their sins to a priest who himself is a sinner. They can confess directly to God. There are many good Catholics who say: “Why go to Confession when anyway they have not committed any mortal sins? Why waste the priest’s time?” There are more people though who do not go to Confession because they are too embarrassed to make the priest hear their confession because the priest knows them. In short, they really would rather go to any priest who does not know them to avoid embarrassment.

Have we ever stopped to think how much we like to hear “I’m sorry” said to us when we are wronged or offended by people in our community, by our officemates or our classmates, by our friends or our loved ones? If these three words mean so much to us and we are happier when we hear them said by an erring son or by our daughter, or by our father or mother, or by our brother or sister, can you imagine then the joy and satisfaction our loving God gets when we formally go to Confession and in some manner say in a formal way through His priest: “God I’m sorry!”

God loves us too much to ever let sin separate us from Him. Again, it is we who leave His loving embrace. He does not leave us and will never leave us. But each time we err and hide our faces from Him, we distance ourselves. Each time we rationalize that we will just confess our sins directly to God and not course it through the priest, it is as if we are not saying the words “I’m sorry.” Of course, God can see our hearts. He can see how truly sorry we are for our sins if we truly are. Yet the gesture of going to Confession has the value of saying the all-important words, “I’m sorry.”

The first greeting of Christ after rising from the dead was “peace!” Peace is possible for those who have been forgiven. How then, can we be forgiven unless we beg for it? How can there be peace without saying, “I’m sorry”?
There are so many opportunities for us to attain peace and the only key to it is a sincere and loving “I’m sorry!”

Blessings to us all…