Our New Heaven And Our New Earth

Behold, I make all things new! (Rev21:1 and ff.)

I give you a new commandment: love one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. (Jn 13:31 and ff.)

A new way of loving!

A new way of living!

Loving the old way has long lost its power. Living the old way has long lost its life.

Loving the old way is loving MY way. Living the old way is living life MY way.

Loving MY way is expecting others to accept the terms of my loving them. It means leading them and ordering them in such a way as to direct everyone into an inward spiral that culminates in their thanking me, in their admiring me, in their marveling in awe at my own imagined greatness and superiority over them. Loving MY way is siphoning life out of the other. Loving MY way is making others hate themselves for not being like me. Loving MY way is to create others in MY own image and likeness. Loving MY way is the antithesis of the Divine Creation. Loving MY way is usurping the place of God in my life and that of the others. Loving MY way is losing my way to God and to others. Loving MY way is actually hating myself for it necessarily implies getting God and others out of my way. It means removing them from the equation of the whole economy of Divine Love, and in so doing, reducing the said equation into nothing but a dung heap.

Jesus reminds us quite emphatically of what it truly means to love the new and renewing way. Loving the NEW way is loving the Jesus Way. Living the new way is living the Jesus Way.

To love like Jesus is not to be a clone of Jesus. To live like Jesus is not to be a facsimile of Jesus. He thus reminded his disciples: “I shall be with you but only for a little while.” “I will be returning to the Father, you will be left on your own; go on and do as I did with you.” To love and live like Jesus is to strive to love and live in humility and selflessness. To love and live like Jesus is to discard our old way of measuring others’ worth by the love that they give back to us. To love and live like Jesus is to freely and happily dispose of all that is in us that others may live life to the full. To love and live like Jesus is to die like Him that the seed of love may take root and grow and bear much fruit in others. To love and live like Jesus is to share in His resurrection through the harvest of the love that we have so planted in others.

It is only by truly loving and living like Our Lord that we effectively and actively participate in the building of our New Heaven and our New Earth!

OVERCAST

Though the world changes quickly,
Like shapes of clouds,
Everything once finished falls
Back to ancient grounds.

R.M. Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, I,19 (trans. G. Kinnell and H. Liebmann)



An apt reminder from Rilke. “Everything once finished…” fun times, old and new friends, new things, discoveries, sights and sounds, accumulating debris…all shall come to an end.

It is a fact, an inescapable reality. That ever imminent dark cloud, that shadowy overcast that gets in the way of the ephemeral sun rays that fall on each of us, is simply there waiting for its cue to dawn upon us at the appointed time.

This I suspect is the cause for many a desperate soul to scamper for temporary shelters and all manners of cover. It is there. It is coming. One day it’s here! Before we knew it, we are already smothered by it.

So why worry? Why the anxiety? Why the futile attempt to hold on to things that shall one day be swept away together with all the rest?

Nothing that we could firmly grasp with our hands shall remain; but only those that has latched onto the innermost chamber of our hearts.

YOU ARE MINE (GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY)

It is an assurance, a pledge, a declaration of ownership. They are my sheep says the Good Shepherd. They recognize my voice. They follow me. I know them. They are MINE.

These words of the Lord Jesus has a ring of parental certitude in them, the kind that just hits you and stops you right on your tracks the moment you get an inch closer than the acceptable boundary near some zealously protected children by a feisty mom who’s all too ready to pounce on anyone who would spell danger to her offspring.

They are MINE!

This is the loving Savior proclaiming to the entire world: they came from me! I am their Mother! They came from my womb! I knew each and every one of them! I am their Father! Don’t you dare come near and endanger any one of them! Not one of them will be lost. No one among them shall perish. No one can take them out of my hands!

The good news is that it is for our sakes that Jesus speaks these words. We are his sheep. We are his children. Not one of us shall be left in the cold and dark. Not one of us shall be made to suffer mercilessly in the hands of the hirelings. We are his sheep. He is our shepherd.

We are HIS!

This is an invitation for us to reexamine the way we live our lives, the way we regard ourselves, the way we look at others, the things we busy ourselves with, the many things that preoccupy our every waking and reposing.

This is an invitation for us to quit living in fear and insecurity! This is an invitation for us to dare step out of our miseries and anxieties; the uncertainty and the belief that we are all aimlessly and purposelessly headed nowhere after all that we have done with our daily grind in life. This is our God telling us: listen to my voice and get right back on track! You all came from me and will one day head straight home to me! This is Jesus assuring us: it is alright to be happy and free! It is perfectly fine to enjoy a life which is delightfully spent serving and caring for the other! This is the Lord telling us: do not be afraid to come back to me! To make friends with me and your neighbors! To savor the sweet scent of a holy and simple life! To love and be loved!

No one can take you out of my hands! Nothing can take you out of my sight!

You are MINE!

Below Heaven and Over the Earth

A few thousand feet above the land, above the sea; above everything else that make up my world - my environment, my earth, my paradise, my hell; way beyond the limits of yesterday and far away from enemies and friends, here I am on top of them all, suspended between heaven and earth.

it is surreal as it is so real, this freedom, this newness, this precise moment in my life when I am cast right at the center of my two worlds, spiritual and physical. I am an anonymous drift in the midst of faces I cannot recognize, and tongues I cannot comprehend.

The ship's all crowded yet it feels that it's now just me and the "Great Other." It's Genesis all over again. I am now shod with the shoes of Adam, who was tasked with the role of "giving a name," of "calling" those around him with something he can relate to, and in so doing, define the kind of relationship he'd like to have with Him from whose "womb" he has emerged.

How shall I call Him?

What name shall I give Him?

HAUL A CATCH...IT IS THE LORD!

When it's Jesus who says "throw your nets into the deep,"

one could expect that he's in for a big catch;

even when it is dark,

even when it is stormy,

even when it seems that the sea is empty...

It is the Lord!

COME, LET'S HAVE BREAKFAST... (3rd Sunday of Easter)

It was a simple invitation. An invitation so typical and familiar of Him; an invitation that sounded so similar to the one that they all heard when they first met him…”come, follow me…”

It was an invitation not to participate in some spirited discussion or debate about metaphysical and intangible concepts. It definitely was not an invitation to blind submission. It was an invitation to share the table. It was invitation to break bread. It was an invitation to enter an intimate and transforming kind of friendship. It was an invitation to communion.

To follow the Lord is to share his table. To follow Jesus is to breakfast with Jesus. To follow God is to break bread with God. To follow Him is to “enter” His life.

Only through sitting at table with the Lord could we truly participate in the mystery of Easter. Only by having a meal with Him as our friend could we fully appreciate his insane love for each of us that led him to suffer and die on the cross, so that we may not anymore suffer the same, but instead share in the glory of His rising to new life.

To breakfast with the Lord is to be reconciled with Him. To breakfast with Jesus is to stop running away from Him. To breakfast with the Lord is for us to begin to stoop down and start washing the feet of one another in imitation of Him. To breakfast with the Lord is to cast away our disbelief and to throw our nets deeper into the vast sea, with the firm conviction that we are in for a bountiful catch. To breakfast with Jesus is to cast our nets deeper into the depths of one another’s hearts, with the intent of drawing God’s beauty and goodness out of each one of us; this entails that we dive past the limitations, the weaknesses, the quirks, the differences, the oftentimes petty and ridiculous frictions with which we strangle and demolish our many relationships. To breakfast with Jesus is to look at those with whom we share the same invitation not as rivals and enemies, but rather friends and siblings.

Come…let’s have breakfast with Our Risen savior!

HOLY THURSDAY-NINE YEARS AFTER (IN MEMORY OF ALING SONIA)

Over mounds of swahe and heaps of steaming rice, I was in the company of friends, gorging on our midday banquet of seafood and gossips, in a busy Baclaran Market. Our table that day was an extension of the earlier, holier one over which we concelebrated our morning Eucharist. It was Chrism Mass 2001.

To be precise, I was just a deacon then, a mere servant waiting on the table of the Lord. But I was king in that rowdy, Formica-topped version of the other-worldly one, happily chattering and chewing away, completely unaware of the impending gloom that a certain phone call would cast on me and my family only a few minutes later.

Sonia’s gone I would later learn. But the shattering impact of that rather rude announcement would not hit me immediately. The refusal, the denial on my part was just as immediate. It simply cannot be, my reconnoitering senses would argue. Or perhaps it is true. But what else is new? Sonia’s always gone…that is, to a nearby mall for instance, when the mercury shoots beyond 35; or to the market, when she fancies a dish she wanted to regale the hungry pack with; or to Tita Dory’s house, when she wanted to smuggle some treats. It was routine for her to be always on the go, and in haste at that, to the point sometimes of failing to realize that what she has just slipped on her sore feet was a non-pair of a sandal and a rubber flip-flop. She seemed to have always been on the go for something, or to some place, for a meeting or an errand, or a leisurely escape from the daily cares of household management. But as quickly as her going away is her prompt return back home, often with some stray kittens or diseased pups she has picked up on the way. These orphans she would then unfailingly and magically nurse back to their former cuteness, and would most definitely make them legitimate members of the family, enjoying the same privileges and rights as that of the rest of us.

But there was something in the hoarse, warble-ridden voice at the other end of the line which tells that Sonia’s departure that afternoon was unlike any of her previous ones. There was this frightening hunch in me which says that she has finally left for good. It was this finitude and permanence of that afternoon departure of hers, as what was coldly relayed to me, that finally froze me on my tracks. There’s no way one can shield himself from the suddenness of it all…she already took off with her one-way ticket to heaven.

Haste has always characterized her many journeys and escapades…got married when she was barely in her 20’s, gave birth to me on the first week of Advent of 1975, less than a year after the wedding; impromptu picnics at the nearby Luneta, her many trips to the seminary, often in her house dress and non-pair of footwear for my weekly allowance and fresh clothes. That Holy Thursday, hours before she left, she first attended to a dozen of things like she has always done: wake up early morning and do the laundry, prepare breakfast for the family, feed her four-legged children and a couple of ducks, go to the market, cook lunch, spare a dish for that old widower who lives beside our house, set the table, laughed hard with tatay and my siblings, a glass of water…and she’s gone.

As always, she has to go in a hurry…that afternoon, she doesn’t want to be late, because it will be her first Mass of the Lord’s Supper in Heaven!

THE WORK OF EASTER CONTINUES...(2nd Sunday)

...So an ever increasing number of men and women, believed in the Lord...(Acts 5:12-16)

Conversions followed the Easter proclamation. Thus reported the account in the Acts of the Apostles. We have just celebrated the holiest of our festivals. We have just celebrated the Holy Pascha of Our Lord's Suffering, Death and Glorious Resurrection. We are still in the great season of the Lord's Rising to new life. The mission of Easter continues.

But needless to say, our Easter can only be authentic if it indeed echoes that which our forebears experienced and witnessed, that is, the conversion of a multitude of new believers, which added up to the numbers of those who believed in the Lord after they have heard of the Gospels and saw for themselves how the Christians conducted their lives. We need what our ancestors in the faith have had in their midst. We need to relive amongst us the heart of the Easter proclamation.

Three things describe what true Easter means:

Easter is about being at PEACE with the Lord and with one another. It speaks of complete and genuine reconciliation with God and with our fellow;

Easter is about being SENT by the Lord; it is about receiving the mandate from the risen One, to proclaim the Good News to all the world, the Good News of His love and mercy, the Good News of his saving work;

Easter is about being at the SERVICE of our brothers and sisters in the name of the Lord. It is about doing what Jesus did to others; it is about sharing what Jesus shared with others; it is about establishing friendships with our neighbors the way Jesus befriended and loved his.

Easter witnessing is my being at PEACE and RECONCILED with the Lord; it is about my being SENT by Him to bring Good News to all; it is about dedicating myself to the SERVICE of my brethren just as Jesus did. It is through this new way of living that the church can indeed experience the influx of "an ever increasing number of men and women" who discover this intense love for God and for neighbor.

EASTER IS BEING AT PEACE!

EASTER IS BEING SENT!

EASTER IS BEING AT THE SERVICE OF MY SISTERS AND BROTHERS!

FOR AS LONG AS THERE ARE STILL THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD OF JESUS NOR HIS RISING TO NEW LIFE, OUR JOB AS EASTER PEOPLES'S NOT DONE YET; FOR AS LONG AS THERE ARE IN OUR FAMILIES, IN OUR COMMUNITIES, IN THE MARKETPLACE AND ELSEWHERE, THOSE WHO ARE YET TO MEET AND EXPERIENCE JESUS, THE WORK OF EASTER CONTINUES...

Hey, It's Easter!

Sunday morning. Children laughing and playing and running about…it’s Easter!

Old men and women in their Sunday best, Father Parish Priest is watching from his terrace, coffee in one hand, waving the other…it’s Easter!

Even the resident dog is extra friendly this time around, total strangers smile at one another like they are the best of friends…it’s Easter!

No trace of last Friday’s gore can be found on anyone, no dint of wailing and the requisite lamentations, there’s only joy and warmth and ice-cold lemonade for everyone…it’s Easter!

It seems for a while that the world has always been like this. It feels so new, so fresh, so pure and pristine…perhaps it really was…perhaps it really is meant to be this way…it’s Easter!

From this Sunday on, I shall not anymore look at every empty plot, pot, nook, box…even niche and cave the same way again. Something’s been there. Somebody’s been there…only they cannot contain it for long, only they could not detain him for long…it’s Easter!

An upturned rock would from now on be for me a symbol of tyranny disarmed, of false delights gone stale, of darkness washed with the bright rays of a new dawn, of stains made clean, of sins forgiven, of death itself consigned to its pitiful demise…it’s Easter!

TAHIMIK NA BIYERNES

Tahimik ang pasimula ng liturhiya natin sa gabing ito. Walang entrance hymn, walang musika; may takip ang mga larawan at poon; walang sapin ang altar, walang kandila, walang bulaklak, walang kahit anong dekorasyon. Walang imik ang langit, walang imik ang mundo, walang imik sino man sa atin…tahimik, walang masabi, walang kibo, walang ibang maaaring gawin…kundi ang sumamba ng tahimik!
Bakit tayo tahimik? Bakit tayo walang imik? Bakit tayo tulala sa harap ng Krus?

TAHIMIK TAYONG LAHAT, TAHIMIK ANG KALANGITAN, TAHIMIK ANG SANLIBUTAN, TAHIMIK ANG KAPALIGIRAN, DAHIL SA HARAP NG KRUS NI KRISTO…NAROROON NA ANG LAHAT-LAHAT!

NAROROON NA ANG KASAGUTAN! NAROROON NA ANG LAHAT NG ATING KAILANGAN! ANG MGA HINAHANAP NATING SAGOT SA LAHAT NG ATING MGA KAKULITAN AT MGA KATANUNGAN! NAROROON NA ANG ATING MGA ALITAN, SAMAAN NG LOOB, SUMBATAN, LAMANGAN; NAROROON NA ANG ATING MGA KASALANAN, NAROROON NA ANG ATING KAMATAYAN…LAHAT-LAHAT, WALANG TINIRA, WALANG NAKALIGTAAN…NAROROON NA’T NAKAPAKO NANG LAHAT SA KRUS!

Sa gabing ito ay tahimik ang lahat sa langit at sa lupa dahil walang sino man sa atin ang may karapatang magsalita, manumbat, dumaing, humiyaw, mang-husga, gumanti, mag-hari, maging Panginoon at magpakita ng kapangyarihan kundi ang Diyos na itinakwil, tinraydor, itrinatong kriminal, at ipinako sa krus!

SA GABING ITO AY WALANG IBANG MAY KARAPATANG MAGSALITA KUNDI ANG NAKAPAKO LANG SA KRUS!

Ngunit tignan nating mabuti, makinig tayong mabuti, mapapansin natin…wala din siyang imik. Siya rin ay tahimik. Walang pang-huhusga, walang galit, walang pait, walang ngawa. Mayroon lamang nag-uumapaw na awa. Ang kaniyang dapat sabihin, kanya na lamang ipinakita sa gawa…

Masdan natin ang Krus na Banal. Sambahin natin si Kristong nasugatan. Pakinggan natin ang sinasabi ng matahimik niyang gawa…

MAHAL NA MAHAL KO KAYO! GUSTO KO, MABUHAY KAYO! GUSTO KO, MASAYA KAYONG LAGI! GUSTO KO’Y MALAYA KAYONG UMIBIG, MAGPATAWAD, MAGLINGKOD, MAGING TAPAT, MAGING MABUTI, MAGING GANAP, MAGING MASIGLA AT BUHAY NA BUHAY!

IPINAKO KO NA SA KRUS ANG LAHAT NG INYONG MGA KRUS! Inako ko na sa Krus ang lahat ng inyong mga kalaswaan upang hindi n’yo na salaulain at saktan ang bawat isa! Inako ko na sa Krus ang lahat ng inyong kasuwapangan, upang ‘di n’yo na pagdamutan at pagkaitan ng biyaya ang isa’t-isa. Inako ko na sa Krus ang lahat ng inyong galit at poot, upang hindi n’yo na saktan at paulit-ulit na gantihan at lamangan ang bawat isa. Inako ko na sa Krus ang lahat ng inyong kahinaan, upang hindi n’yo na gamitin ang mga ito bilang palusot at dahilan sa hindi ninyo paglilingkod sa bawat isa.

INAKO KO NA ANG LAHAT NG INYONG KASALANAN AT KAMATAYN SA KRUS, UPANG MAGING MALAYA NA KAYO NA KAYO SA BANGIS NG MGA ITO, UPANG HINDI NA KAYO PAULIT-ULIT PANG IPAKO AT IBAGSAK AT PARUSAHAN NG MGA ITO. INAKO KO NA ANG LAHAT NG MGA ITO, SINAID KO NA ANG LAHAT NG PWEDE NINYONG IKATWIRAN AT IDAHILAN UPANG HINDI SUMUNOD SA AKIN, UPANG LUMAYO SA AKIN, UPANG HINDI TUMULAD SA AKING HALIMBAWA, UPANG MAGTAKWIL SA AKIN, UPANG MAGDUDA SA AKIN, UPANG HINDI MAGTIWALA SA AKIN, UPANG TUMALIKOD SA AKIN.

INAKO KO NA ANG LAHAT NG MGA ITO SA KRUS NG PAG-IBIG KO SA BAWAT ISA SA INYO, UPANG MAGING MALUWAG NA PARA SA INYO ANG DAAN PATUNGO SA AKING TAHANAN, UPANG MAGING MALAYA NA KAYO SA PAGKAALIPIN, UPANG ‘DI NA KAYO MULING MATAKOT AT PANGHINAAN NG LOOB SA PAGMAMALASAKITAN, SA PAGPAPATAWARAN, SA PAGLILINGKURAN, SA PAG-IIBIGAN!

INAKO KO NA ANG INYONG KAMATAYAN AT KAPARUSAHAN SA KRUS…NANG ANG MATIRA NA LAMANG AY ANG INYONG KALUWALHATIAN AT BUHAY NA WALANG-HANGGAN!

P.S.

Paki bulong na lang sa akin kung mayroon pa akong nakaligtaan…

NAME IT...I NAILED IT...

Name it…I Nailed It…

Violence, crime, greed, sufferings…name it, I nailed it! Gore, smut, envy, lust…name it, I nailed it! Anything else you haven’t yet tried? Anything else you want to indulge in? Name it, I nailed it!

Can there still be something more pornographic than my raw and open body dangling on a tree? Can there still be something more repulsive than my taut and beaten trunk? Can there still be any wound, or stripe, or bruise, or lesion un-opened; or insult, or mockery, or abuse unspoken? Name it, I nailed it!

O yes I did, I already nailed ‘em all! For I cannot bear any minute longer, the many times you inflict any or all of these, especially to the least of your brethren. I already nailed ‘em all, so that you’ll not anymore harm and hurt each other. I already nailed ‘em all, that they may not anymore cast their curse upon you. I love you! I want you! I created you exclusively for my pleasure and love! All I have is yours! All that you are is a treasure in my eyes! Every one of you is precious to me! My life is all yours, my death, your resurrection!

Come now to the festival! Come now to your home! I already nailed on the blessed cross all your deaths, and passions and failures, there to remain forever maimed and rendered inutile. All these I already nailed on the shameful beam of hate, that you may already be free, and loving and holy! I already nailed 'em all on the tree, that you may already stop fighting, and begin to be forgiving; that you may already stop crying, and begin to be rejoicing; that you may already stop dying, and begin to be happily living...!