Wrong Motivation

First Reading: LV 19:1-2, 17-18

The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.

"You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart. Though you may have to reprove your fellow citizen, do not incur sin because of him. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.".

Responsorial Psalm: PS 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13

Second Reading: 1 COR 3:16-23

Brothers and sisters:

Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool, so as to become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, for it is written: God catches the wise in their own ruses,  and again: The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

So let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you,  Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God.

Gospel: MT 5:38-48

Jesus said to his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand over your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.

"You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Reflection 
By Bernard M. Borja

A man watched his brother die when his tormentors finally executed him after hours of torture. He couldn't do anything. He just swore by himself to avenge his brother. Ten years later, he looked for each of his brother's tormentor one by one and killed them with several gunshots. He tried looking for another meaning in his life after he successfully avenged his brother.

***

A young girl and her mom were literally kicked out of their house after a filthy rich rival of the mother forcibly bought the property. The young girl swore that in time, she will make that person pay for what she did to her family. When the girl grew up, she became successful and wealthy. Remembering how her family suffered, she then promised herself that she will dedicate the rest of her life in giving to the homeless. She is now one of the people who build homes for the poor.

***

Two stories, similar beginnings, different endings. Both can be a good plot for a movie or a teleserye. But people today may find the first story more interesting. It can involve more action scenes especially the vengeance part when the main character did his best to find those who killed his brother. Scenes may include gunfight, fistfight, driving a truck then hitting one of his targets... etc. It can be a blockbuster hit for the "thrill-seeking" moviegoer.

The second story, though inspiring, may not interest most audiences. It can be a common story of struggle in life, rising above, and helping others. But how do we really look at the common nowadays? What is uncommon for us? Maybe if she avenged her family and made her mother's rival suffer, it would be a more interesting story as people will be motivated to do the same. To get back at those who have wronged us. To fight fire with fire. In the more common language today, revenge is how we can rise from our adversities in life. If one commits theft, everything will be taken from him when proven guilty. If one commits murder, people will say it is right and he deserves death because of what he did.

Jesus reminds us that giving will always be better than taking. When we give, we actually gain. When we take something away from someone, we actually lose something. But we ask, what would that gain be? It might be less interesting if I say, we can gain selflessness when we give. It's a more common path that most of us want, but do not choose because we are more interested in "thrill-seeking"; where we give much complicated meanings since we are motivated in a way that seeing someone who has wronged us suffer the way we did (oftentimes, we wish they suffer more). But we can also say, the more we give the more we receive. But in this saying, the motivation of receiving becomes our only mindset and reason why we really give.

Why don't we look at giving as a never ending path to be perfect just like Jesus, and we become better as we go on even though we don't really arrive at perfection? That we become higher than our adversities because we live above those wrong motivations that oftentimes control us and blinds us from what is the better path?

***

Every time there is a fire, may it be as small as the fire in a grill or as massive as it takes away homes, we all know that we cannot stop fire with fire. It can be stopped mainly by water, but it can also be turned off by covering it with a large blanket, reducing the air around the fire that sustains it. We can never fight fire with fire.

Prayer

I would like to pray one of the most common prayers that we Catholics know, and yet, one of the most powerful for us to realign our motivations:

Prayer for Generosity (by San Ignacio)

Dearest Lord, teach us to be generous. Teach us to serve You as we should. To give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds. To toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and ask not for reward. Save, that of knowing that we do Your most Holy Will.

With the intercession of our dear Mama Mary, we pray for our country and our people, that we may find peace in our hearts to forgive and love those who have wronged us:

Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.

To give all glory to God as we realign our motivations and love our enemies:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, As it was in the beginning is now, and will be forever. Amen.

My Holy Dad

Solemnity of All the Saints
01 November 2009



Come, let us worship Christ, whose bride is the Church.

First reading Apocalypse 7:2-4,9-14

I, John, saw another angel rising where the sun rises, carrying the seal of the living God; he called in a powerful voice to the four angels whose duty was to devastate land and sea, ‘Wait before you do any damage on land or at sea or to the trees, until we have put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.’ Then I heard how many were sealed: a hundred and forty-four thousand, out of all the tribes of Israel.

After that I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands. They shouted aloud, ‘Victory to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels who were standing in a circle round the throne, surrounding the elders and the four animals, prostrated themselves before the throne, and touched the ground with their foreheads, worshipping God with these words, ‘Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen.’

One of the elders then spoke, and asked me, ‘Do you know who these people are, dressed in white robes, and where they have come from?’ I answered him, ‘You can tell me, my lord.’ Then he said, ‘These are the people who have been through the great persecution, and they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb.’

Psalm or canticle: Psalm 23:1-6

Second reading 1 John 3:1-3

Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us,
by letting us be called God’s children;
and that is what we are.
Because the world refused to acknowledge him,
therefore it does not acknowledge us.
My dear people, we are already the children of God
but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed;
all we know is, that when it is revealed
we shall be like him
because we shall see him as he really is.
Surely everyone who entertains this hope
must purify himself, must try to be as pure as Christ.

Gospel Matthew 5:1-12

Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up the hill. There he sat down and was joined by his disciples. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them:
‘How happy are the poor in spirit;
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Happy the gentle:
they shall have the earth for their heritage.
Happy those who mourn:
they shall be comforted.
Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right:
they shall be satisfied.
Happy the merciful:
they shall have mercy shown them.
Happy the pure in heart:
they shall see God.
Happy the peacemakers:
they shall be called sons of God.
Happy those who are persecuted in the cause of right:
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you
and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account.
Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will be great in heaven.’

Reflection
By Mayzelle Atienza

Perhaps the most poignant suggestion of heaven and eternal perspective can be found in the Beatitudes – it is a promise of better things to come, a promise of reward in exchange of sufferings bore here on earth by our temporal bodies.

I’ve always liked the Beatitudes, maybe because of how it was written -- I like it for the seeming dramatic irony and being part of the telenovela generation, I like how it paints poetic justice – how one suffered and eventually becomes victorious at the end! But the ‘end’ painted here is not literally ‘here’ – it can be – but it points to more lasting than the here and now, it points to a more enduring and eternal goal of heaven.

As Christians, we are taught to look at the eternal perspective, to search for meanings in light of an eternal heaven and an eternal God. I am currently serving as a full-time staffer for my Catholic community; I had to forego several lucrative job offers in other countries because I wanted to serve God full-time first. There are times that I regret my decision and I doubt the wisdom why I’m doing what I’m doing but I am always reminded and grounded of the eternal perspective and I am fired up in serving once again. What we do and the decisions we made for God may seem pointless, trivial and even downright stupid at times, but we always need to look at it in the light of an eternal God.

By Pietro S. Albano

We are such a lucky people because God loves us 24/7! And because of that love He adopted us as His own. These first two days of November – All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day - I believe are intertwined in the sense that, heaven is for real and is the reward that awaits all who would remain in God’s love. And those who enter heaven are called saints. Why? Because they now share in that perfection which God has called each of His children. Imagine when we all gain eternal life, we would be seeing God face-to-face in that future not yet revealed as indicated in St John’s Letter (Second Reading) and sitting side-by-side with the Blessed Virgin, St Joseph, and our other favourite saints. And not just those saints canonized in the Church, but others who spent their lives on earth doing God’s will – it could be a grandparent, parent, friend, or just any ordinary person you may have met or heard of.

All Souls’ Day is connected to All Saints’ Day because we have that virtue called hope. When we pray for the dead we have that hope that in God’s own time they will share in the eternal happiness proclaimed and promised by Jesus Himself in today’s Gospel. We remember the dead full of hope that they will be in that state when there will no longer be any problems or heartaches, only peace in the presence of our Savior.

We are all called to be in heaven in the future. I must admit that at times I feel so unworthy of it because of my sins, yet I never lose hope that the Lord would have pity on me, always giving me the nth chance to mend my foolish ways, and allow me to join the rest of His big family in heaven soon. I have that hope so I could always strive to be holy just as my Dad and yours (i.e. God) is holy.




Prayer

Lord, May we always look beyond the temporal and focus on what’s eternal. May we always look at our lives here on earth in the light of eternity and be always reminded of the promise of better things to come once we’re home with you in heaven. Amen.

May the souls of the faithful departed through Your mercy, Lord, rest in peace. Amen.

Next week on God-speak
Giving-All-I-Have