The Epiphany challenge

WITH the celebration of the Solemnity of the Epiphany of
Christ, we are actually left with an invitation that can very well be
a big challenge for us who profess to believe in Christ. This is none
other than the duty to show or reveal Christ, as he is, to others.

            This is no mean responsibility to be carried out by us who
are his disciples. The ideal to aim at is to have those words of
Christ to his disciples said of us as well: “He who hears you hears
me, and he who rejects you rejects me. He who rejects me rejects him
who sent me.” (Lk 10,16)

            Epiphany means to manifest or to reveal. It’s Christ
revealing himself as he is in all his Christological and
soteriological nature to the whole world. Making use of the visit of
the three kings to the child Jesus, Epiphany is the feast that reminds
us that Christ is not only for the Jews but also for everyone, not
only for a few but also for all.

            It’s a feast that reminds us that Christ is the Son of
God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity who became man for our
salvation. He is actually everything to us. He is the way, the truth
and the very life for us. He is the very pattern of our humanity. How
we ought to be is defined for us by him.

            So, this is the big challenge. How can we present Christ
to others as he is with our presence, words and deeds? A tall order,
indeed!

            I remember that back in 2000, the Vatican issued a
document, “Dominus Iesus” (The Lord Jesus) that talked about the
“unicity and the salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the
Church.” It was penned by then Cardinal Ratzinger, later to become
Pope Benedict XVI, with the approval of St. John Paul II.

            The purpose of the document was to show Christ as the lone
mediator between God and man, and “the real possibility of salvation
in Christ for all mankind and the necessity of the Church of this
salvation.” The aim was to show that the belief of the Catholic Church
in Jesus Christ is based on Christ as having the fullness of truth and
revelation.

            Judging on the reactions and reviews of it, especially by
the secular press, the document did not make waves, indicating the
difficulty this effort of showing Christ to the world met.

            I was not surprised by that development since even in the
story of the three kings, difficulties and dangers abounded their
effort to find Christ. Herod even attempted to trick the three kings.
And when he was frustrated by them, he went into a rampage of killing
the holy innocents.

            This business of showing Christ to the world and finding
him is not going to be an easy task. We have to expect difficulties,
but remain calm and hopeful, since God does not abandon us. Yes, there
are a lot of skeptics, and worse, people who are hostile to the idea
of the spiritual and supernatural life, but God knows what to do with
them.

            But the truth about Christ as the lone mediator between
God and us, and our duty to show him to the whole world, are not and
should not be undermined by these difficulties and dangers.

            This task simply has to be done the way Christ himself did
it—quietly but consistently, with words and deeds, unafraid of
sacrifices and even death on the cross, all done in the spirit of
love.

            Everything has to start with showing love and affection to
everyone, including those who may not love us, because that is how we
can be known to be truly Christian. Christ himself said: “By this
everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another.” (Jn 13,35)

           This is the secret of tackling the Epiphany challenge. We just have to
show love and affection to everyone, doing it with consistency and
starting with little details of understanding and compassion. And from
there and making it a foundation of the other things we need to do,
let us undertake the bigger demands of love.

            We have to do a lot catechesis and evangelization,
reaching out to more and more people. We have to humanize and
Christianize the different structures of society—political, economic,
cultural. Let us undertake personal apostolate, starting with the
family and radiating to ever wider circles of society. We have to
sanctify whatever work we do.

            This way, we can manage to show Christ to all.

Mainstream and marginalized

WE all make distinctions from time to time. We do them for
us to know things better, and especially to know how we can cope with
them. We like to know the different parts, components, aspects,
levels, etc., of things so we can handle them better or fairly.

            We just have to make sure that the distinctions we make do
not fragmentize the whole but rather strengthen it, are not divisive
but unifying, not destructive but constructive, not discriminatory but
discriminating.

            We analyze things, breaking them up into their different
parts, in order to synthesize them again later on, and even to come up
with a new thing as we get to know more about the potentials of the
different parts.

            So there’s virtue in making distinctions. A biblical basis
for this could be what St. Paul said in his first letter to the
Corinthians: “For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to
the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.

            “And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do
not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the
body. ‘If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If
the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?’”
(14-17)

            We just have to make sure that while we treat the
different parts differently, according to their respective nature and
function, they should not be made to conflict with each other.

            Thus, we should avoid making the distinctions an occasion
for conflicts to arise among the different parts.

            In the Bible, this is clearly illustrated. “Show no
partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ…For if a man
with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a
poor man is shabby clothing also comes in, and you pay attention to
the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘Have a seat here,
please,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘Stand there,’ or, ‘Sit at the
my feet,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become
judges with evil thoughts?” (James 2,1-4)

            In all this talk about reaching out to the marginalized,
we should not antagonize those considered in the mainstream. Everyone
actually belongs to the same family of God and has the same dignity
and vocation.

            We should try to acknowledge their differences according
to our human categories, be it social, economic, political, etc. They
could be in the mainstream or the marginalized, lefty or righty,
liberal or conservative, rich or poor. But we just have to try to put
them together to work for the good of all.

            The secret to all this is to infuse our efforts with the
ultimate motive which is none other than God’s love for all of us.
This is the only kind of love that is universal though it gives a
certain special attention to those who have strayed from God. It’s
that part of God’s love which is called mercy.

            This is only possible if we try our best, always with
God’s grace, of course, to make ourselves another, ‘alter Christus,’
as we are meant to be. When we have the mind and heart of Christ, we
can acknowledge the differences among us and at the same time, we can
also transcend them so as to unify everyone into one family of God,
breathing in love.

            As a biblical basis for this, we can cite St. Paul’s
letter to the Galatians. “For as many of you as were baptized in
Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are
all one in Christ Jesus.” (3,27-28)

            This point is reiterated in his letter to the Colossians.
“Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised,
barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.”
(3,11)

            We have to realize then that this preferential option for
the poor in this Year of Mercy has to be understood more in the
spiritual and supernatural sense than in the merely human sense
defined simply in social, political or economic terms.

            Thus, more than just doing corporal works of mercy, what
is more important and is, in fact, indispensable, is to do the
spiritual works of mercy. These two sets of works of mercy should go
hand in hand.

New Year, new life?

TELL that to the Marines! Unless we do something concrete
and drastic, such aspiration would just remain as empty words, a gust
of hot air, a joke, a sheer piece of nonsense.

            For the new year to be truly a new life for us, we need to
identify an area in our spiritual life where we can do some spiritual
warfare. 0nly then can we expect some improvement, some progress,
development  and newness in our life.

            Only then can we be brought closer to our human and
Christian fulfillment, maturity and perfection as defined by St; Paul
in his Letter to the Ephesians: “mature manhood, to the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ.” (4,13)

            A mature person knows himself objectively. He knows how to
distinguish between what is possible and what is doable, what he wants
and what is truly good for him. He knows how to act serenely and react
to events properly.

            We should realize the indispensability of this spiritual
struggle. Nothing grows and develops, nothing is improved and renewed,
unless this spiritual struggle is undertaken. We have to see to it
that we understand this truth well and get to conform ourselves to it.

            We cannot underestimate the enemies of our soul. We all
have our weaknesses, our personal miseries, our feet of clay. We all
have our mistakes, falls, sins and their consequences. We should not
ignore them, though we should remain hopeful and optimistic. God is
always around. His providence never fails unless we want it to fail.

            To top it all, St. Paul told us that we are actually
ranged against formidable spiritual nemeses that have to be tackled
with spiritual and supernatural means, like prayer, sacrifices, hard
work, recourse to the sacraments, skills with dealing with weaknesses,
temptations and the consequences of our sins..

            “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,” St.
Paul says, “but against the rulers, against the powers, against the
world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of
wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6,12)

            But in all of this, we have to remain calm and confident,
because as long as we have faith, we know that God will always be with
us. He will never abandon us, and he will do everything so we can
properly deal with any predicament we can be in. “In this world you
will have trouble,” Christ says, “but take heart! I have overcome the
world.” (Jn 16,33) Very reassuring words, indeed!

            Besides, we can always count on the powerful help of our
guardian angels and saints, and especially of our Mother Mary who one
time reassured the doubting Juan Diego of the Lady of Guadalupe
episode: “Are you not in the folds of my mantle? Is there anything
else that you need?”

            Mary will always be a mother to us. She will move heaven
and earth to help us. There’s no need to be overly worried and
fearful. In fact, we should have a kind of a winner’s attitude,
because victory is assured as long as we stick with Christ. We should
be able to echo St. Paul’s words: “I have fought the good fight, I
have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (1 Tim 4,7)

            It’s important that in this concern of our life, we
maintain a supernatural outlook, otherwise there will be no other way
but to be dominated by fear, sadness, pessimism. The challenges and
the many bad experiences that we will be going through in this life
would be tremendous and overwhelming.

            Faith and the supernatural outlook would give us the
assurance that everything will always work out for the good. Even our
mistakes and difficulties can be made use of to advance our spiritual
life. The temptations, sins and falls can be great occasions to be
more intimate with God. They can be stronger magnets for God’s grace
to come to us. They can occasion deeper conversions, strengthening of
virtues, etc.

            But we also have to do our part. Let’s make realistic
plans and strategies. Let’s monitor the growth and the different
developments of our spiritual life and come out with realistic ways to
tackle them.

            “What king, when he sets out to meet another king in
battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong with
ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty
thousand?,” Christ asks.

            We have to realize that we are already given everything
for us to win the war and every battle. Only when we wage this warfare
can we expect the new year to give us new life!