ASI's 48th Foundation Anniversary

The frenzied preparations and the agitated state in which most of the organizers find themselves in a week before October 2, 2010, finally ended. The much-awaited day came and went without much of a reason to fret or mull over mistakes and miscues.

The processional started exactly at 10 in the morning and when the main celebrant started the Holy Mass everyone was seemingly transfixed by a spell so solemn and yet, joyful, that the Eucharist, the religious and the laity became one.

Truly, the almighty God joined us in that event for I don't think there can be any other plausible explanation for the profusion of blessings and grace on that day.

The program right after lunch was also a success with the ASI foreign students serenading the Apostolic Nuncio with their song and dance numbers while some of the organizers and guests, crowded around the Most Rev. Edward Joseph Adams to express their gratitude and joy for his kindness and warmth. It was indeed a pleasant surprise that a person of his stature can be so approachable and accommodating.

It was a celebration among equals... where there was a union of wills to give back the glory and praise to our God of life and love.

Offertory Prayers on October 2, 2010

1. For the gift of light

O light eternal and ever resplendent

We bask in the comforting warmth of your rays

Like spears cutting through the sinuous darkness

Of our frailties and follies that shackled us with dismay

With heads bowed low and lips quivering in reverence

To Your ethereal throne, we lift up, all glory and praise

For Your truth which awakened us from our sinful reveries

Has now welcomed us to a life where fear has no place

2. For the gift of flowers

Festooned with radiance, colors and grace

In varying hues, luminosities and shades

Constant companions though in muted presence

In all of life’s subtle and defining moments

Neither kings nor emperors could ever surpass

Or any artists could fully on their canvas express

The loving creator’s most tender of face

That on their regal habiliments is forever arrayed

3. For the gift of nourishment

Before You, O Lord, we offer the works of our hands

Which from Your munificence we have drawn our strength

To nurture and nourish the earth’s verdant foliage

And all creatures of the fields, air and seas, to flourish

We thank You for the gift and challenge of stewardship

That bears Your affirmation on the divinity of our being

That in our hands lay the chance to share in co-creating

A world – vibrant, humane and in goodness ever growing

Tough Love

On the cross, I stare while basking in silence

With nary a thought traipsing in my head

Merely taking my time in tracing each crimson path

That from His crown and nails had spread.

Then my gaze fell on His eyes, and was shaken

From there, a disconcerting truth, revealed

That despite the enormous weight of pain

There reigns a love unparalleled, pure and still.

Then I wondered if even for a moment, He wavered in His belief,

While under the blistering heat of the noontime sun, which offered no reprieve

His sight sweeping across a sea of angry faces, hoarsely screaming for His blood

When days before, His words and works, to their brokenness soothed and salved.

It could have had been more acceptable if in His dying breath

The fiercest condemnation from His lips He did not repress

But then, off-guard they were all taken, hardly did they expect

Because before His eyes fluttered to a close, forgiveness was all He said.

On hindsight, I am filled with gratitude that things turned out according to His way

Since like the people of yore, I too, because of sins have been badly frayed.

If He had given up on them, then now, to whom should I turn for relief?

Moreover, with all the lies around, then in whose truth should I believe?

And so, to the high heavens, with head bowed, I whispered my thanks

Since He chose to rise from the challenge and to us, He gave an awesome grace

That is, though truly undeserving, through a promise He faithfully keeps,

That to anyone who asks, knocks, and seeks, endless second chances He would give.

The Wider Circle

There is a wider circle

That every soul should know

Where pain stings much deeper

And spirits are brought so low.

In there, are plaintive voices growing louder

From hunger and misery unappeased

From homelessness and hopelessness

That has yet to cease.

Do not speak about never having enough

When others have nothing to speak of

Do not fret about the clime while fully clothed

And on the near nakedness of some, still have the gall to gloat

Look closely and carefully at that circle

And please, please do not take delight

On the knowledge that you enjoy a greater edge

Or in their filth and decay, them, you must despise.

For if you do, then you have done the same

To me, whom you call, “my Lord”

Because once, I was in that circle too

And on its shores was moored.

So do not resort to indifference or apathy

If you would want to be true

To the faith that you profess so ostensibly

Since there is still so much work to do

So take my hand and hold on tight

For the toil ahead would be tough

However, rest assured that in the end

Your cause will not go to naught.

You may expire from weariness

With your friends forgetting your name

But in my kingdom, your room awaits

With my love for you, timelessly set aflame.

Stilled Bliss from Unfettered Time

Dusk silently settling all around, moving surreptitiously

Without breaking man’s reverie... in such effortless pace

Waltzing between diaphanous lights and thickening shades

Till now and then, are tightly twined into a nocturnal embrace.

The inevitability of letting go of how was and how is

In passing moments, like sands sifting through clasped hands,

Providentially unbridled in their undulating dance,

While smithereens of life, strewing all over with each prance.

Then with nary a sign, the music would come to a halt

Often not with dissipating faintness or even a hallow thud

But through an intrusive new tune that would tear and rob

Of a dreamer of his hope or a lover of his love.

If only man be excused from such foreordained lot,

Never to be unwittingly caught in a state of regret or distraught

Over chances missed in words unuttered and feelings unexpressed

But forever, to live in the moment when he is most blessed.

Alas! Reality would always remind, this cannot and will not be so

For even a thousand dawns would not make for a day

Since the radiance of morn through the velvety shadows, relayed,

Like an instance of courage is birthed from its progenitor’s dismay

Still, there is solace in this seemingly inescapable plight

Because such frivolous pursuit is only half the slight

If in each bliss, man would live and give, as if it is his last

Then such moment is his, eternally to bask.

Reflection on Matthew 10: 7-15

Why would we want to rock the boat when we can just enjoy the ride?

As Christians, we are called to become God's prophets - witnesses to and bearers of His Good News. However, being a prophet is no walk in the park since one is bound to disturb comfort zones in order to present better possibilities and broader horizons, or as Fr. Jerry Orbos puts it, "to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."

Moreover, there are problems more intractable than the challenges of changing hearts like say, the formidable task of dealing with frozen hearts.

So what are we to do?

In such circumstance, Jesus tells us, in today's Gospel, never to give up on people despite the fact that there will always be moments that people may not be willing or not yet ready to move forward with us. We are not to badger, or get angry or to condemn them but just to move on - to hold these people in prayer, to hope for the future, to commend them into God's hands and let go.

Reflection on John 10:31-42

In today’s gospel we would hear Jesus make a bold assertion on his divinity – of the unity of his holy human nature with the one Person of the Word, equal to the Father, and one entity with Him. The religious Jews to whom this assertion was addressed understood it as a blasphemy that, driven in their anger, they wanted to stone Jesus to death.

Same is true with the fathers of our faith who were accused and persecuted because they chose to uphold Jesus’ assertion. Among them was Saint Basil who said, “For two charges at the same time are made in the accusation against me. One, that I separate the Persons, and the other, that I never employ in the plural any of the names appropriate to God but speak in the singular, of one Goodness, one Power, one Godhead, and all the others similarly.”

Oftentimes, we are driven with maddening frustration and anger whenever we could not provide rational explanations or contain feelings, events or phenomena into the limited confines of letters or words, more so, of our intellect. However, Jesus implied, in the preceding lines before this assertion, a different kind of “knowing” in order for us to embrace his divinity. A kind of knowing that stems from deep love of and for God, an unwavering faithfulness to His promise and a generous self-surrender to Him. Just like in the case of Abraham, who according to Pope Paul VI, “rejoiced at the thought of seeing the Day of Christ, the Day of Salvation: he ‘saw it and was glad.’