The Word Today - June 2004

The answer of Jesus to the “trick” question of whether or not to pay the Roman taxes serves as a springboard for understanding the so-called “legitimate autonomy of temporal affairs.” By saying “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God, the things that are God's,” Jesus recognized that there is a realm of activities that must be considered independent of direct religious intervention. Of course, everything is subject to God. But God has also wanted that there be areas of concern where man must use his God-given talents to address the different issues.

Everything has a religious and moral dimension. But in many fields, the “technical solutions” have been left to man's ingenuity. Religious authorities must recognize and respect these fields where lay persons can exercise their expertise.

“When they rise from the dead, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven.” This is what Jesus said in order to clarify the application of the Jewish law that required a man to marry his brother's widow in order to raise descendants for the deceased brother.

The religious state or the consecrated life, among other things, is meant to be a sign to the world that there is a world after this life, and that new life is what really matters. Hence, it is very fitting that consecrated persons, such as nuns and monks, practice apostolic celibacy. The same can be said about priesthood. Priests, because of the sacrament of Holy Orders, are constituted as sacred persons. Hence celibacy is very fitting for the priest who is, after all, a witness to all that what matters most is our eternal salvation.

“You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind, and with your whole strength.” This commandment was already stated in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ confirmed the primacy of this radical commitment to God.

We must learn to put God always in the first place. We cannot truly love God if we prefer any other thing, noble as it might be, above God. By renouncing all things and committing ourselves to God, even those very same things we renounce acquire their proper place and we end up appreciating them better.

As far as human lineage is concerned, Jesus Christ is a descendant of the royal Jewish house of David, from the tribe of Juda. But in the gospel today, Jesus makes his listeners realize that there is something more to the Messiah than being a descendant of the ancient kings. Even King David referred to his promised descendant as his Lord. This is a suggestion that the Messiah would be more than his human descent would allow. In fact, it is our belief as Christians that Jesus Christ is God.

The Divinity of Jesus Christ is at the heart of the Christian faith. We cannot see Jesus as a mere man who taught wonderful doctrines. He is God, the second person of the Most Blessed Trinity, who became man to redeem us from our sins. If Jesus were not God, we would have no possibility at all of salvation. That is why those groups who deny the divinity of Christ cannot properly be called “Christians.”

The gospel today contains the incident of “The Widow's Mite”, when Jesus called the attention to his disciples to the generosity of a poor widow who had put in a very small amount of money into the collection box of the temple. One can almost imagine the glint of excitement in the eye of Jesus as he addressed his disciples and explained to them what a wonderful event they were witnessing. Relative to their capacity for donating, this widow had given more than anyone else because she had surrendered all she had to live on to the temple.

We must be generous when it comes to the service and worship of God. Everything we own and all the qualities that we have come from God. He gave these to us not for our personal satisfaction but for doing good things with them, all for the glory of God. More than the actual amount we may offer to God, it is the disposition of abandonment, trust and surrender to God that He looks for. In our deeds of service, let us not be stingy or calculating. Let us give as much as we can.

The mystery of the Blessed Trinity is the central and most important revelation that God has made to us. We believe that there is only one God, for there can be only one Supreme Being. But Christ has revealed to us that the one God is not a solitary or lonely God. He subsists in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in complete unity. We cannot fathom this truth but we can only accept it with humility.

There is a beautiful and ancient prayer that has gained popularity with the spread of the Hour of Divine Mercy devotion. God is addressed as follows: “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One.” It is an echo of the so-called “Angelic Trisagion” or the “Triple Holy prayer of the angels.” This prayer, echoed at the Mass in the “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” is a veiled allusion to the mystery of the Trinitarian God.

If we take a look at our Christian beliefs, we will see that without this teaching on the Trinity, everything else will fall flat. Christ came to redeem us because he was sent by God the Father. Our redemption is a gift of God. Jesus Christ, who is the only-begotten son of the Father, is the son of God and therefore is of a divine nature. Christ is our redeemer because he is the God-made-man. As man, he represents us. As God, his actions are acceptable to the Father. The Holy Spirit, who came fully at Pentecost, is sent by the Father and the Son to complete the work of our redemption. The Holy Spirit applies the power of the redemption to us. He is the sanctifier.

That is why the prayers of the Church invoke the Trinity. We see this connection between the Trinity and our salvation in the sign of the cross.

The gospel reading today is about the beatitudes. It is part of the “Sermon on the Mount” when Jesus Christ addressed a great multitude of people. The contents of that sermon were not meant for a few selected souls. They were meant for all who would like to follow Christ and enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

The eight beatitudes can be considered like a blueprint of authentic Christian life. It shows us that being a Christian does not mean just being a “decent chap” or a “nice guy”. The values we find in the beatitudes surpass the usual standards of goodness set by the world. For example, the first beatitude says that we must strive to be poor in spirit. This clashes with a materialistic outlook, so often sanctioned and even encouraged by society. Let us slowly consider each one of them and evaluate ourselves honestly if we are at least trying to live by the standards set in them.

Word Today, June 8, 2004 (Tuesday in the 10th Week of Ordinary Time)

Readings: 1 Kgs 17:7-16/ Mt 5:13-16

In the gospel today, Jesus compared his disciples to salt. He then says that salt would be useless if it were to lose its strength.

We are all familiar with the use of salt as a table condiment. It gives tang to insipid food. In ancient times, salt had an even more important use. It was necessary to preserve food from decaying, much as we preserve “daing” and “tuyo” (dried fish) in the Philippines. On both counts (giving taste and preserving from decay) the Christian presence in the world can be compared to salt. So we can apply the Lord's advice. If a Christian does not sincerely cultivate his Christian life, his spirituality, then he cannot give his flavor to the surroundings. He will not be able to fight the forces of decay and corruption in society.

Word Today, June 9, 2004 (Wednesday in the 10th Week of Ordinary Time)

Readings: 1 Kgs 18:20-39/ Mt 5:17-19

Jesus said that he did not come “to destroy the Law or the Prophets” but rather “to fulfill them” or to bring them to perfection.

There is a “nataural law”, based on human nature, which applies to all men. This law is contained in God's revelation of the Ten Commandments. No matter what their belief may be, these basic demands of morality are applicable to all men. But Jesus came to bring us the “law of grace” which brings along with it the help of God to be able to fulfill the requirements of natural law and even go beyond that. For example, natural law (“Thou shalt not steal”) requires that we be just in respecting the property of others. But Christ requires more than justice. We must practice generosity with others and detachment from our own goods for the needs of others.

Word Today, June 10, 2004 (Thursday in the 10th Week of Ordinary Time)

Readings: 1 Kgs 18:41-46/ Mt 5:20-26

In the gospel today, Jesus warns us against harboring hatred towards our neighbor. So important is it to have a heart free of hatred that it even takes precedence over the external fulfillment of our acts of worship. Indeed, our acts of worship to God would be meaningless or contradictory if we harbored hatred towards any person, because God loves each one and goes out of his way to seek out the lost sheep.

Conflicts with other people, differences of opinion or preferences, are inevitable. But these do not have to lead to hatred. When clashes arise, we should seek to minimize it and, if it does occur, we should remove any rancor from our heart. This is more easily said than done. Quite often, we need to ask God to give us a heart like Christ's, ready to forgive even those who were unjustly crucifying him.

Word Today, June 11, 2004 (Saint Barnabas, Apostle)

Readings: Acts 11:21b-26; 13:1-3 / Mt 5:27-32

St. Barnabas was chosen by God to be an apostle together with St. Paul. The two together started to preach the gospel to the gentiles or non-Jews. They had a fruitful partnership but they eventually went on different ways over a disagreement about the young St. Mark. Mark had joined Paul and Barnabas in their first missionary journey. But Mark later abandoned them because he found the task too difficult. On the second missionary journey Mark wanted to come along again. But Paul did not want to take him because he had failed them the first time.

Yet Barnabas gave him a second chance. Barnabas was not mistaken in giving Mark a second chance. Here we see that even saints may disagree. But such disagreement is not a matter for lacking in love and understanding. In fact St. Paul would, many years later, indirectly acknowledge Barnabas' wise decision, when Paul himself would seek the assistance of the more mature and experienced Mark.

Word Today, June 12, 2004 (Saturday in the 10th Week of Ordinary Time)

Readings: 1 Kgs 19:19-21/ Mt 5:33-37

“Let your speech be, 'Yes, yes'; or 'No, no'.” We can consider these words of Christ as an injunction to be very truthful. It is very refreshing to know that one is dealing with a person who is sincere. On the other hand, it is very difficult to deal with a person whose words are not trustworthy.

In order to grow in the virtue of sincerity, we should cultivate a genuine love for the truth. We must abide by the truth, even the truth brings difficulties along with it. Lying tends to feed on itself. One lie requires another lie in order to cover up. After a while, a lyer may even end up believing his own lies and living in a make-believe world of fantasy.

Word Today, June 13, 2004 (MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST)

Readings: Gn 14:18-20/ 1 Cor 11:23-26/ Lk 9:11b-17

Today the Church wants to honor the Holy Eucharist in a special way. In the gospel, we recall the words of Christ to the people, telling them that his flesh was indeed food and his blood, drink. This scandalized most of his listeners. Yet Christ did not back out from that statement. Later on, at the last supper, it would be made clear that the bread would be transformed into his body and the wine into his blood, at the words of the consecration.

This is the reason why we must firmly believe in the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. He is truly present, not just in a symbolic way. He is present really and substantially, but under the appearance of bread and wine. This is a great mystery of our faith. But we must believe whatever Christ has revealed. It seems difficult, but it is not impossible. But, in the words of the hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas, “What the truth (Christ) has spoken, that for truth we hold.”

Word Today, June 14, 2004 (Monday in the 11^th Week in Ordinary Time)

Readings: 1 Kgs 21:1-16/ Mt 5:38-42

Jesus Christ rejected the law of Talion which said, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Instead, he encouraged us to be forgiving. It is in this light that we can understand better what the Church teaches regarding the death penalty. The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains the position expounded by the Pope that, at the present time, there can hardly be any justification for the application of such a severe form of punishment.

If we consider it objectively, the goods that we may want to achieve from the death penalty could be gotten in other ways, without snuffing the life of the criminal. To execute out of a desire for revenge only prolongs the chain of evil, hatred and suffering that we all want to avoid.