Care a lot

What best describes the first Christian community was the way they loved each other. This greatly puzzled their contemporaries. These Christians gave up their personal resources so that the apostles may distribute them to the other members of the Church, so that nobody may be wanting.
This was certainly unusual. It still is, in fact. Our security and the security of those closest to us is always our  top priority. That is why we have all sorts of investments and insurances. It is, therefore, not easy for us to understand when people give up something (material or otherwise) for the sake of others.
The good news is, this is not something that is only history. It still happens everyday, in big and small ways. When we care for others, when we let people's struggles and pains touch us and make us change and have a different perspective, then we are really followers of Jesus.
I once watched a Christmas film and one of the characters said: "the difference between our town and the big city is, here, we care for each other."
I like the word "care." It denotes a certain strength that becomes vulnerability to be touched by others' suffering and pain.
Caring is love that warms the heart.
I remember how my youngest brother, Stephen, used to repeat the Care Bears slogan "we care a lot."

Among you this is not to happen

A young Filipino archbishop was very recently nominated cardinal. He is really a well-known and very charismatic person, that soon comments started to come out that he could be a future pope.
Of course this event comes as we Filipinos are still caught up in the euphoria of our second saint. These are both definitely high moments in the current bleak horizon of miserable poverty, violence, corruption and a laissez-faire lifestyle adopted by many. So I don't really blame people who harp on events like this since they sort of put us on the map in a positive way.
What actually puzzles me is when I hear it from "Church" people: priests, nuns, active lay persons.
It seems like this desire to put ourselves at the center, or far above than the other or with privileged positions, is too deeply rooted in the human person. It manifests itself in our comments, in our catchphrases.
What would Jesus say about this? I remember Jesus' words to his apostles in last Sunday's Gospel (Mark 10:35-45): "among you this is not to happen". Yes, Jesus calls us to be converted to His criteria. Saint Paul expresses it as "having the mind and the heart of Jesus".
When we serve, we don't look for titles. Roles are not important for us. What matters is to use the occasions of our everyday life to show the love of God, which we personally experience, through concrete acts of service.  When we serve, with the mind and the heart of Jesus, the good deed itself is already our reward.

Choices

One of the root causes of our miseries is our tendency to limit our criteria in making judgments to expediency and self-interest. Instead what is needed is to become persons whose judgments are based on principles. Perhaps my choices may cause me to suffer or to let go of certain comforts, but in the end they are truly beneficial not only to me but to my community and to the future generations.

Adoration

Letting go is the beginning of true adoration.

New life

It is one of the great paradoxes that in order to have life one must die. And what is death if not the cutting off of everything that is familiar!
When we were born we had to leave the security of our mother's womb. This deatchment is rendered more clearly by the cutting of the umbilical cord.
Then we pass on from the safety of our home to something bigger. On our first day in school we had to struggle, holding on to mommy's hand. It wasn't easy to let go of that familiar hand but we knew that we cannot go and run around with the other kids unless we let go of that hand.
And so our life is marked by different kinds of dying; some of them more painful and more permanent than the others. There is always the resistance to enter into the unknown, to let go of the present state of things since, for all its imperfections, the present state gives us a sense of security.
But you know, deep in your heart, that you have to make a choice. You may either let go of the present and enter into the unknown, armed only with the certainty that the One who has been with you through your many deaths will continue to be with you; or you may choose to resist, to wallow in bitterness and disappointment or to live in a dream world that is only in your mind .
We were born without our permission, but our birth into new life is a choice only we can make.

Perspective

If you always think that your idea is the best, you have a vey poor perspective, indeed.

Salvation

The rich young man asked Jesus, "What must I do to have eternal life?"
Strange how normal it is for us to think that if we want something we have to "work" for it.

"To have eternal life"
I think that this is one question that we all have in our heart. Probably it is not "eternal life" in its religious sense. Perhaps it is the silent prayer that the present state of life, when everything goes well, just continue. Or perhaps it is the wish for better days.

"I have done that since childhood"
I read disillusionment behind these words. It is as if the man was saying "the formula is wrong".
I believe that each one of us experiences this disillusionment once or more in our life. You keep the rule, you live within the expected parameters, and life seems to be fine until one day you just find that everything crumbles or an ache nagging at your heart. Then you cry out to God or to "anybody" out there to get you out of the rut, out of this uneasy place.

"Go and sell what you have ... give away the proceeds ... then come and follow me"
This is God's response, and it totally baffles us. In going and selling everything I am invited to see the futility of thinking that I can get what I want if I just work for it.
After the disenchantment brought by my past experiences of self-sufficiency, it would seem easy to "sell everything", but it is not.
The invitation really is to let go of control. And I hesitate because i want to hold on to something, no matter how small it may be, but hold on to something that gives me security.
The invitation is to let God work in me. It is an invitation to trust, that fullness of life is a gift ... that God generously gives this fullness of life without any merit on my part ... that when I open my heart to God, the laws, the rules don't lose their meaning at all, rather, they find their proper place not as a burden but as my participation in God's creation of His Kingdom here on earth. Then my heart enlarges and there is room there for everybody.

The young man went away sad ... he had many possessions"
What a pity! Burdened with his many ties to comfort and security, the young man loses his chance to true joy. He fails to see the eyes looking at him with love.
And this story repeats itself again and again.
May it not have the same ending in our life story.

For it is indeed only in God that we find salvation: salvation from the original sin that still leaves an imprint in our lives, both personal and communitarian, poisoning our chance to true joy; the original sin is our illusion that we are the center of the world, that we can live without God.

Quiet joy

I am not an expert in words but there is something about the word "joy" that fascinates me. I used to interchange it with the words happiness and cheer. But more and more I prefer the word joy. I cannot yet fully explain, but something in my heart says that "joy" expresses something deeper and more lasting.
Other synonyms for joy according to thesaurus are mirth, pleasure, hilarity, bliss, liveliness, revelry, etc. But they seem too superficial for me, too boisterous.
Instead for me joy is something deep. It is not something spectacular or bombastic. Joy is something that is so transparent you cannot see it but you sense it and you feel its absence.
Joy isn't a result of being in a state of perfection or absence of problems and worries.
Joy is the fruit of an ongoing journey of coming to terms with our imperfections and with the imperfections of life. When we accept these imperfections not with a skeptical nor defeatist attitude, but rather on bended knees, knowing deeply that somehow, in a way that surpasses our understanding, we are Loved with a love that endures and which has no end. This is joy. So it is necessarily something humble and quiet, free from grandstanding. Then the other face of joy is necessarily gratitude to the Love that accompanies us and never lets us be crushed.
Yesterday evening Pope Benedict XVI addressed the crowd gathered at St. Peter's Square in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. He said that it is indeed a moment of joy; but ours is a quiet and humble joy as in these 50 years we have come to terms with the weaknesses within the Church. But we have joy in our hearts all the more because we know that the People of God depends at all times in the God of everlasting and gratuitous love. This is the cause of our joy.