HOLY WEEK--TUESDAY

Simon Peter said, 'Lord, where are you going?' Jesus replied, 'Now you cannot follow me where I am going, but later you shall follow me.'

 Peter said to him, 'Why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.'

'Lay down your life for me?' answered Jesus. 'In all truth I tell you, before the cock crows you will have disowned me three times.'

JOHN 13: 36-38

Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. You would think this is a soap opera. Today's Gospel reading features Jesus and a bunch of traitors--a.k.a. his disciples.

Yes, I am being really harsh. But you know what, these men knew Jesus, they lived with him, ate with him, witnessed all the marvels and miracles he did. And at the end of the day, they all turned their backs on Him.

and Peter, PETER!! The rock, the one upon whom the Church would be built-- He's all talk, telling Jesus that he's willing to die for Him. But Jesus knows what will happen: Peter, the coward, will deny Him three times.

Well, let me tell you... I am Peter. I am a traitor, a coward. I have a personal relationship with Christ yet constantly find myself denying Him through my actions (and sometimes even by my words). I tell Jesus that I love Him and that I surrender my life to Him but when the time comes, I chicken out. And so do you. If the apostles, who were to become the representatives of Christ on earth, were weak enough to leave him and flee when the time of hardness came, imagine how much at a disadvantage we are!!

We make such a big deal about Judas being such a traitor and we just hate on the guy all the time. Of course we have reason to be mad at him--but what is the difference between Judas and Peter, after all? Moreover.... what is the difference between Judas and I? At first, nothing really. BUT--

What Peter did that Judas didn't was to believe that the Jesus he had betrayed was the God of love and mercy and could forgive him if he repented from the heart. Judas, meanwhile, doubted that he could be forgiven, thus rejecting God's grace and separating himself eternally from God. 

Peter, the coward, the traitor, the broken man who had sworn and cursed when confronted about being a follower of Jesus, wept bitterly in contrition. And you know what? Ultimately, Peter (and the rest of the disciples) left all his fear and his doubts behind and surrendered himself to God to the point of losing his life for the Gospel.

So are you a Peter? Or a Judas?

Lord, I know I am like Peter: fearful, doubting, stubborn, and flawed. But You still love me and forgive me. I am so sorry for constantly denying you and for constantly crucifying you with my inequity. Wash me with Your most precious blood. Give me the grace and strength to offer my life up to you fully. Please put my weak heart inside your Sacred Heart. 

You're Peter, so? He can work with that. May you hear His voice in the silence of your heart, may you be forgiven, healed, and strengthened in Him.

Day 39--The Blood of the Covenant

'They will no longer defile themselves with their foul idols, their horrors and any of their crimes. I shall save them from the acts of infidelity which they have committed and shall cleanse them; they will be my people and I shall be their God.'

EZEKIEL 37:23

The history of salvation consists on God making covenants with His people and His people going around and screwing up, only to suffer the consequences of their wrongs and ultimately turn back to God, who then establishes a new covenant. It's the same old, same old throughout the whole of the Old Testament. But here, God, through the prophet Ezekiel, is promising a kingdom in which His people will be cleansed and well, his once again... but this time forever. 

God would establish these covenants with men like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, etc. But every time, His people would eventually turn away and break the alliance. So what did He do? Well, He became man. 

Jesus' blood is the new covenant, as we hear in mass everyday. His sacrifice is the covenant of covenants and we don't need another contract/agreement with God after this because His is the ultimate sacrifice. It is through the passion and resurrection that we may be God's people again, that we are purified, forgiven, brought back to life. 

Yet, isn't it confusing that, even after Jesus' sacrifice, we still sin, we still have idols (money, friends, fame, drugs) and we are still unfaithful to God? Yup, that's pretty messed up. But remember that God doesn't force us to anything. He might have died on the cross to redeem us, but sometimes we reject this redemption, this grace, by committing sins and putting other things before God. We still have our free-will, so the ultimate decision to be God's people is ours. God's invitation is there: 'Be mine, I love you, look what I've done so that we may be together'. How will you respond?

Our lives are a struggle to live up to the covenant--and we will fail every single day. But it's all about truly trying to be that holy people of God. Ask the Lord to give you a pure heart and to help you sin no more! We are all in this together, remember that. 

Day 35--the Bronze Serpent

'Moses then made a serpent out of bronze and raised it as a standard, and anyone who was bitten by a serpent and looked at the bronze serpent survived.'

NUMBERS 21:9

Yes, this one is pretty odd. So the Jews were walking around the desert for a very long time after Moses got them out of Egypt, and they became impatient and began speaking against God, so God sent snakes to them and many died. So the Jews tell God 'oh no, we're really sorry, please stop this!' and what does God do? He commissions Moses to make a bronze serpent, just like the ones that were biting the people, and lift it up on a pole, and those who looked at it were healed.

Symbolism much? Just to give you an idea...

Does it look familiar? Ringing any bells? Anyone? Anyone?

LET ME GIVE YOU A HINT--

BOOM!

The bronze snake is lifted up so the people  could be healed of the attack of the snake. The Son of God, Jesus, is lifted up on a cross so that we can be healed of the attack of the snake--the devil, sin. And why is a snake the cure for snake bite? Well, it's not that the snake is the cure--it's that the snake up in the pole is rendered powerless. And our sins, nailed up in that cross, are rendered  powerless!! Jesus, the Lamb, the blameless victim, is covered in our sins--he rips them away from us and takes them up on his shoulders and up to be crucified with Him. 

This is why, in today's gospel, Jesus tells the Jews 'When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am He' (John 8:28). When we look up at the crucified Christ, lifted up in humiliation, we see how great is His love! A symbol of death,  the most horrible method of torture and humiliation became to us the biggest demonstration of the most pure, beautiful, overwhelming love of God, stretching up His arms towards us, shedding every drop of His blood for us, who can never possibly deserve it. Breaking our chains, setting us free, healing our wounds, giving us the peace we so long for. That is the awful and awe-striking truth of the cross.

Day 26--Open the eyes of my heart, Lord

35 Jesus heard they had ejected him, and when he found him he said to him, 'Do you believe in the Son of man?'

36 'Sir,' the man replied, 'tell me who he is so that I may believe in him.'

37 Jesus said, 'You have seen him; he is speaking to you.'

38 The man said, 'Lord, I believe,' and worshipped him.

JOHN 9:35-38

This passage of the Gospel according to John makes my jaw drop to the floor. A man, who had been blind his whole life, is healed by Jesus and immediately realises that He is the Christ, the Messiah. Let me break it down for you:

Jesus: 'Do you believe in the Messiah?'

Blind guy: 'well, who is it?'

Jesus: 'It's me!'

Blind guy: 'Okay!' *starts worshipping him*

Now, our society might look at this guy and say 'whoa, take it easy man! How are you just going to start worshiping some guy you just met?'

But, you see, this guy was blind. Had always been blind. He had never, ever, ever seen the world, a human face, himself! And here comes Jesus and opens his eyes for the first time. And the thing about the blind man's story that is very ironic is that, while he was physically blind, the "eyes" (so to speak) of his heart were open to the revelation of God through Jesus. Meanwhile, the pharisees, who didn't have visual impairments, were blinded by their arrogance and could not recognize Jesus as their saviour! I mean, if you read the passage, the blind man tells them: "You think he's bad? SERIOUSLY?  Like, God doesn't do miracles through bad people. We all know this...right?"

SO, my friend, who are you: the blind man or the pharisee? Remember, I said yesterday that I am the pharisee. Well, God loves even the pharisees, and there's hope for us. Notice how in this passage, the evangelist also says that there was conflict among the pharisees because some of them did kind of believe Jesus was special! 

The ultimate question is: are you blind? Then ask Jesus to heal you.

Day 25--Pharisee or Tax Collector?

10 'Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.

11 The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, "I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like everyone else, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here.

12 I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get."

13 The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

14 This man, I tell you, went home again justified; the other did not. For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, but anyone who humbles himself will be raised up.'

LUKE 18:10-14

We, human beings, have a tendency to be arrogant. When we wander around the world without God, we think that we can do it all on our own. And once we realise that only God is our happiness, we can still fall in the trap of holier-than-thou. It's sooooo easy to see how God blesses us and how He acts in our lives, that we can end up acting like the pharisee, saying "thank you God for making me a good person, not like them..."

Don't get me wrong--everyday, I thank God because He rescued me from the person I was becoming and He protected me in very dangerous situations I kept putting myself in as a teenager and young adult. And I feel so lucky that Jesus and Mama Mary protected me (thanks to the prayers of my mother, mostly) from falling deeper into sin. But this doesn't make me better than you, or you, or you! And I ask God to please give the not only the humility to recognize that I am nothing without Him and that all that I have is thanks to Him, but the love to see you, you, and you as His beloved and not feel that I am better than any of you.

Because I was that pharisee. And I am fighting not to be anymore, and I pray that God helps me not to be it anymore. Because, see... pharisees were not murders, or thieves... they were righteous people, role-models even. But in the process of going through a checklist of "things to do" they forgot that the number one thing to do was to love God, and their neighbours as themselves (which we talked about yesterday).

And I'm not saying that "oh, since being a pharisee is bad, let's just be sinners!" No! Because Jesus explains to us that the tax collector was truly sorry for his sins and clamoring for God's mercy. It's not like "oooh.. well, I'll just do this and I'll just say I'm sorry later " (which many people think that is what the sacrament of confession/reconciliation is like. HINT: it's not).

All I'm trying to say here is that we should all strive for the perfection of the pharisee while at the same time recognize that we need God's mercy, like the tax collector did. It is important to do good things that appear good and not good things that appear evil because we need to give testimony of our relationship with Christ. But our relationship should be a thing of the heart, the will, the soul, and the mind as well as an external demonstration. 

So, what if instead of pointing fingers and saying "thank you God that I'm not like her or him" we say "Lord, have mercy on this friend, or this family member, or this coworker. He/she needs you so much. Please reveal yourself to him/her. May he/she encounter you and feel your love!"

I want you to know that the purpose of this blog is not to point fingers in a pharisee-like way. This blog is me saying to you "Hey, I'm broken, I'm plagued with flaws, but the Lord loves me so much. And I love Him. And knowing Him is the best thing that has ever happened to me. And He loves you too. And He's died for you. And He wants to hang out with you. Call Him!"

If God can love me, an ordinary pharisee, be sure that He loves you.

Day 24--This is it.

28 One of the scribes who had listened to them debating appreciated that Jesus had given a good answer and put a further question to him, 'Which is the first of all the commandments?'

29 Jesus replied, 'This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one, only Lord,

30 and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.

31 The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.'

MARK 12: 28-31

Well, if you wanted a condensed version of what God wants from you, this is it. It doesn't get any simpler than that. All the other commandments stem from this. And we've talked about it--when you love God, you want to please Him and do what is good.

But I think we might have a bigger problem with the second half of this commandment. And not because loving 'thy neighbour' is hard (it really is), but because too many of us struggle with loving ourselves.

Just as we are. Just as we look.

Yeah, you might think this is usually a girl issue, but I've met countless men who struggle with loving themselves as well. And the thing is, if you don't love yourself, it is impossible for you to truly love others. Because when we don't love ourselves, we start looking to other people for reassurance, for giving us a self-esteem boost, for making us feel important. And that's not real love... that's more like selfishness. Love is about giving without expecting in return! Love is Christ in the cross!!!

So if you struggle to accept yourself as you are: short, too tall, chubby, skinny, too dark, too pale, etc etc etc... lift up your heart to Jesus today. Ask Him to let you see yourself as He sees you! 

Oh, and if you're narcissistic and think you are the hottest thing in this planet--well, bad news bears... you're doing it wrong. We are not beautiful because the world, the over-sexualizing media, tells us. We are beautiful simply because we were created by Him who only makes beautiful, good, whole things!!! And we were made in love--no matter if your parents say you were 'an accident'. God had you planned since before you were born. You are no accident. You are precious. You are worthy. You are enough!

I struggle with my body-image too. But I ask Jesus to fill up the holes made by my insecurities with His love and joy! Come Holy Spirit, come heal our hearts and minds from the unrealistic expectations of this world. Come move within us!

May the Lord teach you how to truly love yourself, that you may love others and change the world!

Day 22--Law and Order

 'Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them.'

MATTHEW 5:17

Aaahhh, yes, this is a good one *inhales, pops neck, pops fingers*.

Remember a few years ago that Youtube video that went viral: "Why I hate religion, but love Jesus"???  I guess I should remind you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY

Yikes, man.... yikes! That awkward moment when you say "Jesus hated religion" and Jesus says "actually.... no." Then you read in this passage that Jesus didn't come to abolish the law, the rules, or the teachings of the prophets, but to fulfill them!!!! The Lord didn't hate religion--He was a practicing Jew. What He disliked was hypocrisy, or the practicing of religion for its own sake. See, we humans tend to take things for granted. As we grow into a routine, into ritual practices, we forget why we do what we do. And Jesus doesn't want us to meaninglessly mimic a set of rules. Our relationship with God shouldn't be a daily checklist: I read the bible, I went to church, I prayed--DONE for today and now I get to do what I want. Our relationship with God needs to be a love affair!!!!!

But that doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want or that Jesus hated religion. In love, Jesus fulfilled the will of the Father, and He asks us to "be perfect, just like your heavenly Father is perfect!" (Matthew 5:48). He wants us to strive for perfection, and He knows that we need these rules, the law, to guide us. Our law is his teaching. Throughout the gospels (and the whole Bible), God specifically asks us to do certain things (although the first thing we need to do is to love Him with all of our hearts, minds, and souls. It's a lot easier to try to follow all the other rules if we first follow this commandment!). And Jesus was also very clear about the CHURCH: "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). Jesus' Church is his mystical body, set out to do Jesus' mission on earth, to establish the Kingdom of Heaven! Does that sound like Jesus hated religion?

Besides.... loving Jesus makes you his follower. And a follower of Christ is...errr.... a Christian. So...yup. And we wouldn't know about Jesus, his life, his death and resurrection without religion... so... yup.

In other words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_tC4fv6FE

Wow, this was very long... COOL!

What I'm trying to get at is this: yes, the Church is plagued with sinners. But the Doctor doesn't come to those who are healthy, but those who are ill! And yes, hypocrisy is abundant... but the Holy Spirit still works through the brokenness. Doesn't calling others hypocrites makes us hypocritical? What if instead of staying away from a hypocrite-plagued church, you came and, by loving and serving God with all your hearts, you helped changed all those hypocritical hearts? Have you ever thought of that?  

The Church is the Bride of Christ. And She has her arms open for you! It is through the Church that Christ reached out to me, healed me, and gave me the peace and joy I had never experience before! Come home!

Day 17--Are you like Joseph or his brothers?

'But his brothers, seeing how much more his father loved him than all his other sons, came to hate him so much that they could not say a civil word to him.'

GENESIS 37: 4

Oh boy... haven't we heard this before! We all know that super annoying person who we don't ever want to talk to, right? Well, when you read  the story of Joseph, you see that Joseph was actually a really nice guy!! His brothers, though... YIKES!!!

And sometimes we act like Joseph's brothers. Out of jealousy, envy, or simply misunderstandings we decide that we don't like so-and-so and we are mean and even cruel. We cut them off. We gossip about them. We are rude. And sometimes... well we even try to deliberately hurt them.

When you read Joseph's story, don't you just want to say "UGH, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS!! YOU ARE JUST HORRIBLE PEOPLE!!!!"

Think about that next time you are about to be mean to a person. I know it's hard. But... 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. Remember words kill. When we do these things we are letting pride take over us--we believe ourselves to be better than others.

May the Lord help us be more like Joseph and less like his brothers. May He who is humble help us be humble, like Joseph, so that we may accept people as they are.

Day 12-- No one but Jesus!!!!

'But Jesus came up and touched them, saying, 'Stand up, do not be afraid.'

 And when they raised their eyes they saw no one but Jesus.'

MATTHEW 17:7-8

I love this passage of the Bible: Jesus has transfigured and the disciples have seen in in all of His glory, chilling with Moses and Elijah, and then suddenly there's a voice (the voice of God the Father) who says 'This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour. Listen to him.'

Imagine hearing a voice coming out of a cloud---worth of a horror movie, huh? John, James, and Peter FREAKED OUT! They were terrified!! It was already crazy enough to see Moses and Elijah and Jesus all shiny, and now this?

But what happens then? Jesus comes and touches them and says 'don't be afraid'. Sometimes in life, problems overwhelm us... and we just want to hide, terrified. But Jesus comes and tells us 'hey hey, look at me, here I am, do not be afraid!!'

And scripture says that Peter, James, and John raised their eyes and saw no one but Jesus! What a beautiful sight, don't you think? Imagine what that would be for us--to find, in the midst of our problems and worries, the face of Christ, the beloved. 

I can tell you that the face of Jesus is the most beautiful sight I've ever beheld. And yes, this happened at a time of my life when I was crippled by fear, anxiety, and trouble. I was bent with worry, I was burdened with sadness. And Jesus touched me and said 'do not be afraid. I am here, with you. I am your beloved' and I saw nothing but Jesus, and my life changed.

I pray that you may behold the Lord face to face.

Day 11--That awkward moment when God asks you to love your enemies...

43 'You have heard how it was said, You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy.

44 But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you;

45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike.'

MATTHEW 5: 43-45

Yup, this is the day: the day when God has to come and make us all feel bad and uncomfortable because He's asking us to love our enemies. 

Oh, God, why? Don't you see that's basically impossible. I mean... they are our enemies for a reason... or are they? Think about the people you consider enemies, or the people you really don't like... or even hate...

Why don't you like them? Why do you hate them? Did they hurt you? What did they do to you?

Sometimes, when you think about it, you don't have a good reason. BUT, if you do, think about this: if you hate them because they have been bad to you, how does hating them make you any better than them? AND, like we said yesterday: that hatred... who is it hurting? Them or you?

I know, I know... you're probably asking: "well, Cris, do you love your enemies!??!?!?!" And I will tell you: no, I do not. I fail daily at it. I have to remember myself constantly that God loves these people as much as He loves me. I have to ask God to help me see His face in these people so that I can at least feel like loving them. But you know, when you pray like that, suddenly you start noticing you have a lot less enemies than you used to... somehow I find myself being less conflicting than before, when I used to go around hating on people (yeah, being a big hater is right up my alley, but I trust God is gradually making improvements). 

But you and I , we're friends right? So I pray for you to love your enemies, and you pray for me to love my enemies, ok? We got each other, ok? Okay.

The whole loving your enemies thing distinguishes us from the world--so we need to do it proudly! Because, when Jesus was being nailed--NAILED--on a cross for our sins, he didn't have a single resentful, bitter, unforgiving thought for those men. He forgave them. Now, unless you've actually been crucified, I don't see how the offenses people have done to us are greater and harder to forgive than being nailed to a cross, naked, bruised, and bleeding.

Hey, listen, I love you! God loves you. God IS love. So let Love do His work. If you abide in His love, you will be able to love a lot easier!