Welcome, sinners!

WITH the papal declaration of the Jubilee Year of Mercy,

and especially if set in the context of this wonderful Christmas

season, what seems to readily come to mind is Christ telling us,

Welcome, sinners! Be not afraid.

            He seems to say, I have come to save you, not to condemn

and punish you. I have come to give you comfort and joy, not to simply

give you a hard time. I want you happy, not sad. I have come to love

you and to show how to love, not to hate and be afraid.

            He seems to say, I am your God, your Creator and Father. I

am your friend, your buddy. Come! Don’t feel shy toward me. Do not

worry so much about your sins and all the negativities of your life. I

understand you completely.

            He seems to say, Your sins certainly offend me. They break

my heart. But as your father, I know how to take your offenses. I am

not scandalized by them. They, in fact, make me love you more. And I

will give you a way of how to make up for your offenses. Do not be

afraid. Just do your best with me.

            He seems to say, I want you to be my children as I have

intended you to be. I want you to be like me, full of love, goodness

and mercy, since you are my image and likeness. It may take time and a

lot of effort for you to learn all this, but I am patient. I will

never grow tired if you take a long time.

            He seems to say, I want you to spread that love, goodness

and mercy around. Give special attention to those most in need,

whether materially, spiritually or morally. Don’t be afraid to go into

the deep. I assure you that you will catch a lot more of fish there,

even in the worst of times.

            He seems to say, Now that it’s Christmas, and I appear to

you as a child, hug me, kiss me, carry me in your arms, and grow with

me, live with me in both your good times and bad. I am your way, your

truth, your life. I am your guide, your comfort and rest when you are

tired, your healer when you are sick, your forgiver when you fall into

sin.

            He seems to say, Learn to be humble, because that is how

you can find me. Never be proud, much less, self-righteous, because

that can only cut you from me. You’ll end up seeing only bad things in

others and good things only in yourself—a funny anomaly.

            He seems to say, Don’t be afraid of the pains, sorrows and

suffering that may come your way in your earthly sojourn. I am always

around and in control of things. I know how to derive good from evil.

Just stick by me and trust me.

            He seems to say, Those sufferings will always be for your

own good, for your purification, for the atonement of sins, yours and

those of others. Nothing happens without my permission. And if I

permit them, it’s for some good purpose. Remember the story of Job,

the story of Joseph sold by his own brothers, and my own crucifixion.

            He seems to say, Try to follow me as closely as possible.

I am making myself completely available and accessible to you. I am

near you. In fact, I am at the very core of your being, at the very

center of your heart. I am the voice in your conscience.

            He seems to say, I am also around you. Wherever you look,

however you find yourself in, I am there. Everything around you, big

or small, special or ordinary, joyful or sorrowful, can lead you to

me, if you care.

            He seems to say, I am especially present and most

accessible to you in the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist. I

have made you part of my body which is the Church. You and I are

actually together all the time. I am with you always. But try to be

with me also. That’s because I don’t impose myself on you.

            He seems to say, in the Holy Eucharist, I make myself a

bread for you to eat, so I can enter into your life even physically.

In confession, I am most happy to always bestow forgiveness on you. In

the gospels, catechism, etc. you will find my living word. The Holy

Spirit will take care of all this. Just try not to abuse my goodness.

            So, welcome, my dear sinners!

Dying and rising

THE week between Christmas and New Year is good time to

make a deep and general examination of conscience, so we can see and

assess the state of our spiritual life, and figure out what to do to

move on.

            It’s also a good time to make a most heartfelt

thanksgiving because, in spite of whatever, we are still around.

Nothing less than a Te Deum is in order. Let’s hope that the practice

is taken more seriously and becomes widespread.

            It’s a week where we do, in a more dramatic way, some

dying and rising in the tenor of St. Paul’s words: “You fool! That

which you sow does not come to life unless it dies…” (1 Cor 15,36)

            The same truth was expressed more impressively by Christ

himself who said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat

falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it

bears much fruit.” (Jn 12,24)

            We need to accompany the transition of the old year to the

new with some dying and rising in our spiritual life, which is

actually the law that applies to us in our earthly condition.

            We have to learn how to leave behind the old and rotten

things of our life, and embrace the new and fresh things. Or better

said, let’s make the old things give rise to the new, like the

Phoenix. St. Paul puts it very bluntly: “Purge out the old leaven,

that you may be a new paste.” (1 Cor 5,7)

            We need to keep on renewing ourselves because no matter

how we keep ourselves young, fresh and new again, there are conditions

in our life that are beyond our control and they make us old.

            And I am not referring only to our physical condition that

by definition will degenerate simply with the flow of time. I am

referring more to our spiritual life which needs to be renewed

constantly because even in its good and ideal condition, it can still

degenerate because of our poisonous tendency to be complacent or to be

self-satisfied.

            That’s when we allow whatever good we have achieved to

spoil us. That’s when whatever good we have achieved and have

refreshed us for a while, becomes a source of pride and vanity and,

worse, a breeding ground for more insidious forms of malice.

            An old philosophical principle can describe that

frightening phenomenon. “Corruptio optimi pessima,” the corruption of

the best is the worst. That’s why the downfalls of erstwhile heroes

and extraordinary people cause greater scandals than those of ordinary

people.

            The good news is that this principle can have, I believe,

its reciprocal: “Conversio pessimi optima est,” the conversion of the

worst is the best. The story of St. Paul can lend credence to this.

Let’s hope that this is the principle that we follow more in life.

            With God’s grace, let’s be brutally frank to plumb deep

into the motivations of our thoughts, desires, plans, words and deeds,

and strike out whatever is not in keeping with charity, goodness,

mercy as defined and shown to us by Christ himself.

            Maybe what is simply needed is some tweaking, some

tightening of screws in our spiritual life, some toughening of what

has gone unduly soft. Or it could be that we need a major overhaul, a

refocusing of our whole life, a reengineering or reinventing of

ourselves to conform more to our proper dignity as image and likeness

of God, children of his.

            In this regard, it’s good to pay close attention to the

voice of our conscience. There we can hear God begging us, “My son,

give me your heart.” (Prov 23,26. It’s moving to hear God begging of

us to give what is most precious to us, our heart. He does this

because he does not impose himself on us. He respects our freedom,

which is actually his gift to us, making us precisely his image and

likeness.

            And on our part, we should not be afraid to give it,

knowing that what seems a loss to us by giving our heart to God would

actually be a tremendous gain. Christ spoke much about this

self-giving that actually enriches us rather than impoverishing us.

            So, our attitude should sound like what is expressed in

Psalm 50. “Create in me a new heart, O Lord.” If we really know who we

are or how we stand before God who is everything to us, I suppose we

cannot ask him in a tone other than this.

            Let’s not be afraid to die and rise again.

Proclamation and dialogue

THIS is both the task and the challenge of a good teacher.
He has to know how to proclaim the truth about the subject he teaches.
He has to dish out the pertinent data, information, and other trivia.
But he also has to wage a continuing dialogue with all the relevant
references of his job, so that his stock of knowledge would not grow
idle, stagnant, if not dead.

            A teacher who has been teaching the same subject in school
for years has to make continuing research and study, and be sensitive
to the developments of his field that these days are in a galloping
state. He has to pay attention to the authorities and experts of his
field, as well as to his students in their concrete situations and
conditions. In a sense, he is like a mediator, a bridge.

            In fact, if he has to stay afloat in his work or business,
he has to continually find new frontiers. He should not be contented
with what he already knows and has achieved. Though there are things
that by their nature will stay permanent and unchangeable, he should
not forget that there are also things that can and should change
depending on the circumstances and developments.

            In this regard, it might be relevant to cite some words of
that Chinese business wonder by the name of Jack Ma, founder of
Alibaba:

            “What I said on the occasion of our IPO last year when we
raised US$25 billion bears repeating. What we earned was not money,
but trust. Maintaining that trust means we must listen carefully to
the views of others. It also means we must reflect on the challenges
we have been communicating with our shareholders and the public.”

            And this task of engaging in continuing dialogue with
others is especially true when we have to preach the living word of
God. We should not only proclaim it. Sooner or later, if we just
contend ourselves with proclaiming it, we will realize that in spite
of our best efforts at rhetoric and oratory, it will sound stale and
meaningless, and our proclamation will just fall on deaf ears.

            One has to make his preaching an occasion to dialogue
vitally with God and with others. Otherwise, what is living and
life-giving in it can freeze and become ineffective. When we notice
that our preaching does not have some sensible impact on us and on
others, we have good reason to suspect that our preaching has not been
a dialogue with God and with others.

            When our proclamation of God’s living word is also a
dialogue with God and with others, there will always be some palpable
effects, some transformation, some conversion. That’s because God’s
word is always effective, as the Letter to the Hebrews says: “For the
word of God is living and active…” (4,12)

            We have to understand that this living word of God is both
old and new, divine and human, supernatural and natural. It embraces
both time and eternity. There are things in it that will never change,
but also things that have to change and adapt to circumstances.

            In the end, the word of God is his Son, the second person
of the Blessed Trinity, who became man to save us. Christ is the Word,
who is both God and man, the lone and perfect mediator between God and
man.

            That God became man and continues to be man in Christ can
only speak of how God himself undertakes a continuing dialogue with
man. His interventions and involvement in the life of man are constant
and ongoing.

            This is also the attitude we have to have when we preach
God’s living word, or put in another way of saying it, when we preach
Christ. We just have to keep on dialoguing with God and with others,
to the point that we become like them somehow.

            With God’s grace and with our utmost faith and generous
efforts, we can achieve this ideal. The crucial point here is our
effort to identify ourselves more and more with Christ. That’s because
it’s only with him that we would be able not to get lost in our task
of dialoguing and adapting ourselves to others, even as we proclaim
God’s word.

            And so, we need to find time always to have a very
intimate prayer and conversation with God, meditating on his word,
making it our own and applying to our condition at the moment and to
that of the others.

            This is always possible, since God’s word will always
adapt to us in all our circumstances and situations.