Love transfigures

+  RWS 535 February 24, 2013

2^nd Sunday of Lent

Gospel: Luke 9: 28b-36

28 … he said this, he took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. 29 While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.

Pray, pray, pray

By Bishop Precioso D. Cantillas, SDB, DD

The necessity of praying is taught by Jesus to His Apostles and disciples. He showed them how He prayed and brought them to pray. He spent hours, even the whole night praying. He cautioned them to be “keep watch and pray”. It is very clear then that anyone who wishes to follow Jesus must pray, pray and pray. But, how can busy persons, mostly occupied with work, pray always? How can we pray while working?

Without going into a voluminous treatise on prayer, the simple definition of prayer as “union with God” could shed light to our quest in praying even while working. One way of uniting ourselves with God is through our mind, or our intention. Putting the right intention of offering to God every action we do throughout the day somehow makes us and our work united with God the whole day even in moments when we do not think explicitly of Him. The habit of consciously, and attentively praying at the start of the day or of the work is a good practice of uniting one’s life and work with God. Others would celebrate the Eucharist, where they liturgically offer their work and the sacrifices they would bear in union with the sufferings, death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Any worker of whatever faith can unite with the God he believes in by whatever mode he is taught by his faith; such union is possible before, during and after his work by giving his mind and heart in his work and to God.

Praying is not taking time out from one’s job; but, it is putting in quality time in one’s activity. The intention or motive for an act is what gives quality to the human act. A work, great or small, is great when it is done for someone great. One is also most likely to do a great job even on a very simple task when he knows that he does it for a great Boss. Even those who may be addicted to work, the so-called workaholics, could transform their addiction to something which could benefit their soul as well. Working then could be praying as Jesus advised us.

Blooming siya!

By Teresa R. Tunay, OCDS

        When a glum-faced, old-maidish female supervisor who had always been known as a “supladita” came to work one day smiling, and continued to smile for days on end, we all guessed she must be in love.  Something about her had changed— “Blooming siya,” we said, no longer the terror that she used to be.  Of course—it is but natural to be in good spirits, and therefore “blooming”, when you are in love with someone who also loves you. 

        This may be a crude analogy, but this is what today’s gospel reminds me of, where Jesus’ appearance changed as he prayed.  Prayer is nothing but an intimate conversation with a friend whom you know loves you very much, according to the very down to earth Saint Teresa of Avila.  At prayer, Jesus was in an intimate conversation with the Father, someone He knows loves Him very much.  Is it any wonder then that Jesus “bloomed” too in the eyes of His disciples then?  If you haven’t yet prayed personally this way, as St. Teresa of Avila suggests, try it.  Not only can it erase the frown on your face; it could even lower your blood pressure.

        The best thing about this Teresian style of private praying is you can do it anywhere, whatever you’re doing, alone or not.  “The Lord walks among the pots and pans,” St. Teresa also wrote, meaning that God is with us as we perform even the most mundane tasks of our day.  So, as you earn our daily bread (or rice and fish), have the confidence to keep an ongoing “conversation” with your Friend who loves you very much.  If you do it with childlike faith, others will notice in due time that you have changed into a much better co-worker, more pleasant to be with, sensible, dependable, poised, prudent, and therefore, productive.  When others say of you “Blooming siya!” you just smile because you know very well that love transfigures.

Serving God alone

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 +  RWS 534 February 17, 2013

1^st Sunday of Lent

Gospel: Luke 4:1-13

8 Jesus said to him in reply, “It is written: 'You shall worship the Lord,

your God, and him alone shall you serve.’”

Serve God alone

By Bishop Precioso D. Cantillas, SDB, DD

Serve God alone?  This is simply not acceptable to anyone who wants to do what he wants in his life.  Yet, Jesus categorically declares that this must be so.  The reality is that God is Lord, and we human beings are creatures of God together with all of His creations.  The norm therefore is to serve God alone, with all our heart, mind and soul, and in every moment of our existence here on earth and in life-after.  Thus, we should consider how every act we do, including your daily works, can be our act of service to God and for God alone.

Doing one’s work could very well be a way of serving God, as the only Master worthy to be served.  The worker should do his job not just in order to please his employer or his boss, but to please God above all and to render Him due worship.  The worker’s acceptance of the Lordship of God in all of his being will make him give all the best he can to do his work, thus, making him an excellent worker in all standards of work performance.  While a worker who is unmindful of the reality of God’s kingship in his being, could do his job as much as he thinks and feels commensurate with how much he is given for his work.  If he sees that he is paid highly, he could give the corresponding effort and energy to his job. He could also endeavor to work harder and better if he wants a higher salary and greater work benefits. But the worker who totally adheres to God will work with his entire mind, his heart and his being for the love of his Master. Working totally for God can happen to one who loves God with all his being.

Serve God alone? Why not, after all, He alone can compensate us with our work with every satisfaction which our being truly needs. We need only to believe and trust in Him.  Then, it would be easier to love Him with all our work.

                  A holy burnout

          By Teresa R. Tunay, OCDS

For the first time after 718 years, another pope resigns.  If it’s any consolation to us ordinary laborers, we see that even His Holiness can experience workplace burnout.  If someone so chosen and blessed can get weary from doing his work, so can we who primarily take on jobs to sustain our families.  Now Pope Benedict XVI becomes the second pope of the Catholic Church to resign, the first being St. Celestine V who was elected pope at age 79 in July 1294 and who resigned after five months.

We learn that Benedict XVI had in 2009 and 2010 visited the St. Celestine’s earthquake stricken hometown of Sulmona, Italy, and laid his stole over the relic of St. Celestine.  In retrospect we surmise that as early as then, Pope Benedict XVI may have been drawing strength from the example of the saint he has so admired.  Benedict, like Celestine, voluntarily resigned due to old age, but people endlessly speculate on the “real reasons” behind his earthshaking resignation: Hampered by health issues?   Weakened by clergy-related scandals?  Shamed by his butler’s betrayal in leaking Vatican documents to media?  Did he give up because he was fed up with Church politics?

That’s just it—he “gave up” because he was “fed up”—that’s how a world which knows of no other reality than itself will see a man’s abdication of the papal throne.  Mass and social media are abuzz with speculation, many of them judging the pope’s “quitting” as an indication of failure.  On the contrary, I believe his resignation has been the most luminous move of Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy, for now he is radically leading the people to what alone matters.  Renouncing the power of his position, he will go on serving the Church through a life of prayer. Surrendering your all to the Divine and dying to yourself—isn’t this what the gospel asks of all Christians?  In resigning, the pope is practising what he preaches, serving God alone, imprinting the love of God in the conscience of Church leaders.  Thus begins a new spring for God’s people.