To Fish or Not to Fish

“For the one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest.” Luke 9:48

When Taal Volcano acted up, many people gave clothes, shoes, food and other things. But it was so sad because some of the things donated were very old, and could not be used anymore. And winter clothes and snow boots were obviously useless to the refugees. 

Mother Teresa always said do not give our left overs to the poor, that we should not treat the poor like a garbage bag and give what we have no use for. We should be ashamed of ourselves if we gave Jesus, the King of Kings, an old rag to clothe Himself!

Sometimes I have to grapple with my conscience because there are so many in need. And, I have to admit, there are those I am willing to help more than others. What if someone continually asks from you because she or he says their family is hungry, but you see that they are all getting fatter and fatter? What if you’ve given money already because they promised they would find a way to start a business? What if others have already given and provided a way for livelihood, and still nothing has happened? In 2 Thessalonians 3:10-13, we can read, “For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” In all good conscience, I believe we should also help others not to continually beg. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said 'give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’. 

After all, Jesus said that what we do for the least of our brothers, we do for Him (Matthew 25:40). What are we doing for the least of our brothers? Let us definitely not give them rags but as much as possible, if we can, help them find a way to support themselves. 

How wonderful that there is a record of Jesus’ instructions and stories that we can read and read again. If we want to obey God, to learn about Him and His ways, we can do nothing better than to ponder His words and follow them. 

Perfect!

“The law of the Lord is perfect..." Psalm 19:8

I read in pencilled notes on the margin of my Bible that Raniero Cantalemessa, preacher to the Papal Household, gave an example of how love and grace fulfill the law.  "A pregnant woman was told by her doctor exactly what rules to follow during her pregnancy. The woman was so taken by the miracle of new life growing within her that she lovingly observed all the rules until her baby was born. That's how we should see the commandments. Simply as a means to a far greater end. If we keep them, we will be that much more open to the Holy spirit, as He brings Christ to birth in our lives." (The Word Among Us)

We may not like following rules, but just as we realize when we are older that our parents had the very best in mind for us, we should know that God's commandments are given to us because of His love for us. 

Number Our Days Aright

Last Saturday, my young friends and I made collages. What a lot of fun we had from 10 am to 3 pm! 

 It was a huge mess but all worth it! 

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.” Psalm 90:1

We read in verse 4 of the same Psalm, “A thousand years in your sight are as yesterday...” When we are young, time seems endless. Now that I am older, it seems the years pass so quickly. To God, our sojourn here on earth is like the blink of an eye. So I suppose, he also sees our sorrows and travails as fleeting and necessary for what He wants us to learn. But sometimes we just do not understand and have to repeat the lesson. 

A young Filipino farmer and a Texas rancher were conversing about their land. “See that tree over there? That is how wide my land is. How about yours?” The rancher responded, “If I take my car and drive for hours, I still will not see how wide my land is.” The farmer concluded, “I know what you mean! I had a car like that!” 

When we are older, hopefully we can see more clearly the hand of the Lord, how He has brought us places we never would have reached without Him. Let us not be like the young farmer who has such a narrow outlook, he only understands what he wants to understand. He cannot see beyond his personal experience. Whether we are old or we are young, we should pray, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart!” (Psalm 90:12)

Our Choice

“There is an appointed time for everything...” Ecclesiastes 3:1

Today, saying, “Keep your fingers crossed!” may mean, “Wish me luck!”, or one does it behind one’s back to invalidate a promise. But the original meaning behind the gesture dates back to early Christianity when two people would cross their index fingers to form a cross. In the early centuries of the Catholic Church, a person would also cross their fingers to invoke the power of the cross to ask for protection from evil. It even became a custom for Christians to cross their fingers as a secret sign of the cross just as the sign of the fish was also used. 

In Ecclesiastes 3:1 we read that, “There is an appointed time for everything”. Then in Chapter 1, there is a verse which says there’s really nothing new under the sun. History merely repeats itself. (1:9) The writer of Ecclesiastes had a sad verdict about life. His conclusion is it is meaningless and a dead end which he repeats about 35 times. 

We have a choice. We may think life is pointless, and use the crossed fingers sign as a way to bring luck into our corner. OR we can be like the early Christians who knew the power of the Cross and the name of Jesus. Their life was not meaningless and they were willing to die for what they believed in. We can believe that there is an appointed time, a blessed time for everything in our lives, and that even when hard times come, God is there, on top of it all, in full control. 

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecc. 3:11)

Vanity of Vanities

“What profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun?” Ecc. 1:3

I am sure all of us know of some people who work hard and cunningly to amass money and power. If we listen to the Senate Hearings, we will get amazed and disgusted at how much of our taxes are being stolen and how some leaders refuse to account for millions and even billions of pesos in their budget. Enough said. 

The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes identifies himself as a King in Jerusalem who searched for understanding and wisdom. He built many beautiful palaces, and had more slaves, treasure, and concubines than many kings combined. “I had everything a man could desire! Anything I wanted, I took!” he claimed. 

“I did not restrain myself from any joy...but as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless. It was like chasing the wind,” this mighty King wrote in Ecclesiastes 2:10-11. Ecclesiastes is a journal, a diary of a man who accomplished much, experienced almost everything the world could offer during his time. From the vantage point of his privileged life, he found that one could not enjoy life apart from God. 

“What do people really get for all their hard work?” he pondered. People may work hard to accumulate wealth but at the end of our lives, we cannot bring anything more than a poor man may take with him. We can have many trophies, recommendations, and streets in our name, but when we lie on our deathbed, none of that matters if we are not right with God. 

Although as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!”, we know that what God values is not vanity. When we die, we will find that faith, truth and love remain, and the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13) 

Take Nothing!

“Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic…” Then the disciples set out …proclaiming the good news… (Luke 9:3-6) 

My family knows that when I travel I make such a fuss about packing. The earlier I start packing, the more I bring. If I am going to a cold place, I think twice, thrice, four times about how many jackets, sweaters, blankets, thermal underwear to bring. I always pack so much, because I bring art materials, or a sewing kit, or both. But I'm not the only one who brings odd stuff on a journey. My brother once brought out some cheese and a cheese grater when we went to Coron. 

When Jesus sent the disciples on a mission to proclaim the good news, He told them to take nothing for the journey except a walking stick. No food, no traveling bag, no money. The disciples couldn't depend on anything but what they learned from listening to Jesus, and asking Him questions. Obviously, Jesus thought they were ready or He would not have sent them out to be laughed at or ridiculed. They passed the test because verse 12 and 13 says “they preached repentance. The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”

We should try Jesus' way sometimes. I don't really mean going off without anything at all, but without the baggage of needing to wait for the right time to talk to others about faith and how God is just waiting for us to approach Him. Wherever we go, there are so many hurting people in the world, needing to hear about our Savior who cares, and who loves us enough to die for us. We are all called to be missionaries. 

Pope Francis in a 2015 Spiritual Reflection tells us: “It is Baptism that makes us missionaries. A baptized person who does not feel the need to proclaim the Gospel, to proclaim Jesus, is not a good Christian.”

Act Upon It

"My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act upon it." Luke 8:21

When I was young, I liked pretending I was a princess, or daughter of some important person. I would imagine where I lived, what I wore, what I did. Sometimes my sisters and I would play make believe and choose what actress we wanted to be. I chose Debbie Reynolds and one of my sisters chose to be the more radical Jane Fonda. My other sister wanted to be the lady who advertised Sunsilk shampoo because of her beautiful hair. 

We can't choose our families, can we? But sometimes, especially when we are mad, we wish we could! In a very real sense we CAN be part of a royal family. Jesus tells us how in Luke 8:21. If we want to be REAL princesses and princes, sons and daughters of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we need to HEAR God's word and ACT upon it. 

Imagine, the gates of the Kingdom of heaven are open to us! I definitely want to walk in and belong there! No matter how much of our creativity we use, we will never be able to imagine the treasures, the glory, the magnificence of the Kingdom we are invited to be a part of! Jesus' arms, the Father's arms are open wide for us! Lord, thank You for Your love which makes all this possible! 

God’s Light Bearers

“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.” Luke 8:16-17

I remember a very well known, very beautiful woman once commenting, “I don’t know why people would want to shake my hand. They don’t know what I was doing and where I came from.” I couldn’t forget her saying this when I was quite young because I remember wondering what could she have been doing to make her say that! All of us have secrets like the most embarrassing thing to have happened to us, or where we keep our passwords, but Jesus said in this same passage that there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nothing secret that will not come to light. 

Today it is not politically correct, especially in the West, to talk about religion and politics. There’s a lot of talk about relativism and about how we should respect others’ beliefs. We tiptoe around sharing the truth, the Word of God, because what is my truth may not be another’s. This is another way the world wants to stifle us from telling others the Good News. We are God’s light bearers and what God has revealed to us, we should not hide or be shy about proclaiming. The disciples and the saints were willing to die to proclaim the truth. 

Last Friday, September 20 was the feast day of Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn and Saint Paul Chŏng Ha-sang and their companions who were beheaded in Korea for being Christians. The government in Korea tried to suppress the spread of Christianity, and over ten thousand believers were martyred, because these men and women were willing to die instead of snuffing out the light of the Good News. Today the Church in Korea is one of the most vibrant and fastest growing in the world. According to a 2023 Korea Research regular survey, 51% of South Koreans practice no religion, about 17% are Buddhists and 31% are Christians.

And today is Padre Pio’s Feast Day, the favorite saint of my mom. Because of his stigmata, because he levitated and because of all the miracles, the Church was concerned and tried to hide him and restrict his activities. But one can’t hide the light! The light of what God wanted to do through this awesome saint shown through and they had to let him do what God wanted to do through Padre Pio, pray for people, hear confession, heal the sick and do extraordinary miracles! 

“Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father.” (Matthew 5:16) 

Servant of All

“If anyone wishes to rank first, He must remain the last one and the servant of all.” Mark 9:35

Many conveniently forget or ignore this in the pursuit of their goals and dreams. There are many rich and powerful men and women today in government who live as if their goal is to become richer and more powerful still, unmindful of the people they swore to serve. 

I prefer to look for my examples in men and women who have become “small” in the eyes of the world, in order to be “first” with God, in the hopes that something of their virtue might rob off on me. 

Marion Mill is little known, although she wrote an autobiography titled, “All I Want is Everything”. She wrote: “Albert Schweitzer says there are two kinds of people. There are the helpers, and the non-helpers. I thank God that He allowed me to become a helper, and in helping, I found everything."

Marion Mill was born in a royal palace, the daughter of a European diplomat, who ate with spoons of gold. She went to the best schools. When she was married to the famed director Otto Preminger, she led a glamorous life and charmed everyone with her wit and beauty. Living the fast life had its perils and she soon began to drink, take drugs and tried to commit suicide three times. 

One day she met Dr. Schweitzer in Vienna. After talking to him about his work in Lambarene in the Congo, she pleaded with him to take her there. She went, and spent many months every year nursing his patients, cleaning bedpans and the putrid sores of leprosy. 

“One outgrows things,” she said. “The world I knew was suddenly meaningless and without purpose. I am quoting Dr. Schweitzer, who says, ‘Sometimes in our lives our inner light goes out and can be put into flame again only by the encounter of another human being.’ Albert Schweitzer is such a human being. I was so impressed with the idol of my childhood that I became his most faithful follower.”

May we surround ourselves with people who can enliven the flame of our inner light. Perhaps we ourselves can be that person who inspires others to serve God and our fellow man the way Jesus wants us to. 

Follow Me

”Follow me.” Matthew 9:9

Ever since I can remember, my mom would take things that other people would throw

into the trash, and she would transform it into something useful, something she could sell or something we could play with.

Scrap cloth would become stuffed toys. I particularly remember a Santa Claus with a bag full of gifts and miniature toys. A toilet paper roll and some paper mache she made into a gnome. A plastic bottle a piggy bank. Seeds and twigs picked up from the ground would transform into a beautiful wreath someone would want to buy. She fashioned empty and cleaned eggshells into ornaments for our Christmas tree. She taught us to look at things and see their potential.

As Jesus passed by, He SAW a man named Levi. He was a tax collector, and when other people saw him, they despised him. But Jesus SAW what Levi could become.

Jesus said, "Follow me, in the gospel of Matthew 9. Levi followed Jesus and became

Saint Matthew!

Jesus sees our potential too! He sees what we can become. It doesn't matter what we or others think of ourselves. If we follow Jesus we can become saints too!

He is Risen Indeed!

“…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain…we are the most pitiable people of all.” 1 Corinthians 15:17-19

Christ is risen from the grave? Fact or fiction? One would think that most skeptics would debunk Jesus’ resurrection with theories like mass hallucination or the idea that He did not really die, but they can’t. Our belief in Jesus’ resurrection is based on eyewitness accounts written by men willing to die for it. Those men, Peter, James and John, knew the truth. They saw Jesus. They preached it, and they were able to convince so many others by the power of their conviction. St. Paul, a skeptic, became a Christian three years after Jesus’ death. Bart Ehrman, a very well known skeptic, a non-Christian, says, "Paul got to interview Peter and James. I'd like to interview Peter and James. This is as close to eye witness testimony as we can get.” 

Another proof of the resurrection is that the gospel account tells us that WOMEN discovered the empty tomb. Women in those times couldn’t give a testimony in court. They were second class citizens. They were not considered credible witnesses. If the story was made up, it would never have included women as the first to be at the scene. And then there were the radical transformations of Peter, who went from coward to a champion of the truth, James who had thought Jesus was crazy to the leader of the Jerusalem Church, and countless others martyrs of the faith. 

Charles Colson, who gained notoriety at the height of the Watergate scandal said, “I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible!”

God made sure that what we believe in is based on defendable facts. There is SO MUCH MORE EVIDENCE about Jesus and His life, death and resurrection than there is about Julius Caesar and Alexander! Yes, Jesus is risen! Alleluia!

Little is Forgiven

“Her many sins have been forgiven...” Luke 7:47

In Luke 7, we find one of the most dramatic stories in the Bible. Jesus is invited to dine at a Pharisee’s home and a sinful woman comes, uninvited, to the gathering. She brings with her an alabaster flask of precious ointment. She then bathed Jesus’ feet, wiped them with her hair, and anointed them with the ointment. 

The Pharisee, and most probably, his other guests, are shocked. In the Talmud, if a woman lets her hair down in public, it was grounds for divorce. Here was a notorious sinner, with not only her hair down, she was touching a man who was not a relative. Although in Old Testament times, women could become leaders and were held in high repute, by Jesus’ time, women were separate from men in private, public and religious life. Respectable women stayed within the confines of their homes, and only the poor and disreputable would go, as it was called, “abroad”. 

Jesus knew exactly what Simon the Pharisee was thinking. “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner,” Simon thought, probably making the judgment that Jesus was no prophet! Jesus then proposes a story about two people who were in debt. One had a debt of 500 days’ wages, and the other just owed a paltry 50. “Since they were both unable to pay, the creditor forgave them both. Which of them will love him more?” 

Simon then replies, “The one, I suppose whose larger debt was forgiven.” We probably do not realize how much we have been forgiven. We usually go blissfully on with our lives ignorant of the price Jesus paid on the cross. If we knew, we would be grovelling at Jesus’ feet, wanting to kiss them like the sinful woman. But how do we do that now? 

The answer lies in Matthew 25:40: “Whatsoever you do for one of these least brothers of mine, you do for me.” Whenever we help the victims of a fire, feed the hungry, visit those in prison, teach a poor child to read, we are able to wipe Jesus’ dirty feet. When we speak out against injustice, forgive those who have hurt us, show love to the unlovable, pray for the sick, we bind Jesus’ wounds. We are such great sinners, that we have to go “abroad”, and find ways to visit Jesus and show our gratefulness. 

A More Excellent Way

“I shall show you a still more excellent way.” 1 Cor. 12:31

Saint Paul founded a church in the Greek city of Corinth on his second missionary journey. After he left, the Corinthian community was beset with many problems and Paul wrote trying to fix them. 

In 1 Corinthians 12, he explained about the many wonderful gifts of the Spirit, about how we all have different gifts, but one body. Then he concludes by saying that although we should strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts, there is something that is better than all the gifts combined! 1 Corinthians 13 is the beautiful letter about love being more important than speaking in angelic tongues, or prophecy, or even the gift of faith to heal or to move mountains. If we do not have love, we have nothing and we are nothing in God’s eyes. 

I was listening to the testimony of Carolyn King. God taught her many things from scripture, but God also told her, it did not matter if she knew so much about the Bible, and was so wise, if she did not love others. I enjoyed her stories about how she goes about her day, being sensitive to where God wants to lead her. Most of the time, she is “sent” like an apostle, to those who need God’s assurance that they are loved and valued. Sometimes she’s in a grocery line, where the cashier is stressed, and instead of being impatient, she speaks nicely to her. Or the time she tells a stranger in church that her hair is beautiful. The lady starts to cry because she was wearing a wig and she was feeling self-conscious and did not want to go to church. She prays for people in traffic, and has led many to Christ. 

Sometimes it is hard to love, when we are too busy to stop and notice people around us. But let us take heed. We may be missing golden moments to make a difference in some person’s life. 

God Visits His People

“God has visited His people.” Luke 7: 16

God always visits us, but we do not always see Him. We usually fail to see Him in our busy-ness, our preoccupation with things of this earth, in our anxieties and worries, sometimes even in our excitement for things to come.

But when we need Him, invariably, we plead for His intervention. In the story in the 7th chapter of Luke, Jesus happens upon a funeral procession for the only son of a widow. The woman was weeping and the crowd around her could not fail to weep with her. It was bad enough that her husband had died, now her son had left her as well! How could she have known that the God of life would cross her path, and speak words that would raise her son up from the grave? 

The crowd witnessed the miracle, and fear seized them all. They glorified God, and exclaimed, “God has visited His people!” We should never forget that God is always with us, even when we do not see things out of the ordinary. After all, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen as St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Hebrews. 

Faith is essential to us Christians. We need to confidently believe in God’s promises. We need to trust and rely on God even in difficult circumstances. Is our faith alive? Or is it dead like the young man in the coffin? The priest in this morning’s mass said we can tell our faith is alive if we pray every day. If we don’t speak to our Heavenly Father, we are losing our faith. 

That is why it is good to arm ourselves with God’s Word, and with the stories of the saints who were victorious in their earthly battles. We should never ever give up on ourselves. God is always with us, making sure that just as He began the good work within us, He will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. (Philippians 1:6)