Medley Minute with Fr Sam

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Nine Days of Dawn Masses in Philippine Villages Crowded with Young People

This selfie was taken during a homily, after I had asked the people to pray a Hail Mary
for a young mother who is having complications in her pregnancy after hearing the Gospel
in which St Elizabeth accepted the gift of life and mysterious pregnancy of St John the Baptist.
We sent the picture to her to encourage her and assure her of our prayers and our commitment
as a Church to be open to life.

It's 2:45am. Time to get up and go. First thing to do is to make sure the consecrated brothers, our choir leaders, are up and ready to go in a few minutes to the village.

We meet the sisters at the van. They are usually laughing with big smiles at 3am and making comments on what a beautiful morning it is. We start off in the van for a tiny remote village about 20 minutes from our base camp in Putiao, Pilar, Sorsogon.

On the way there we pray and get orientation for the day's Mass. I share with the ecclesial team my homily so we can have a consistency in the message that we present to the people, The brothers catechize the children, singing the Mass hymns and parts they will sing during the Mass. The sisters catechize the people. They are an energetic young Filipina, who is the vocation directress for SOLT here in Asia, a not-so young, yet just as energetic and full of poetic expressions sister, and a sister from Papua New Guinea. Meanwhile I hear confessions in the corner a half hour before Mass starts.

We arrive to packed little chapel in middle of vast expanse of coconut trees and rice fields. Most of the crowd are children and teenagers, who typically crowd the front and sides, immediately outside the chapel, which usually has bars instead of windows.

They are usually quite surprised and begin to laugh when they see an American priest speaking their local dialect, which only 10 million people of the Bicol region speak. I give the opening orientation of what will happen before the Mass, then we begin our ecclesial team evangelization.

An ecclesial team is a term from my religious community, SOLT, which means, priests, consecrated persons, and laity working together to bring people into communion with God. We all work at the same goal, sharing the gift of our specific vocation, gender, culture, and personality to make a complementary, unified yet harmonized voice to proclaim the Gospel.

In the Philippines, the Dawn Mass, Aguinaldo Mass, or Simbang Gabi, is a novena of masses of Our Lady to prepare for Christmas. It is traditionally held for 9 days before Christmas. Pope Urban IV gave a special indulgence to those who celebrate this novena, which has its origins in 6th century Spanish piety, and was exported to the Spanish colonies. In Mexico, the form you see is the Posadas, or in Venezuela the same.

What an amazing thing to see droves of teenagers at 3:30 in the early morning on the way to Mass! There is quite a bit of enthusiasm among the young people, which is why it is very easy to tap into their youth and joy and help them encounter God in a real and tangible way, that they become the authentic representatives to their generation of the new and very alive face of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. We usually have a few vocation inquiries after each Mass.

Afterward we either hurry off to another Mass at 5am or stop and have some coffee with noodles or bread for breakfast.

As I am not just a priest, but a formator of the seminarians, or future priests, that make up our ecclesial team, I usually ask them questions about things that happen during our catechesis and Mass, seeing if they can understand whatever God has desired to show us in these events and graces, doing whatever teaching I can so that one day they may be good priests and team leaders in the New Evangelization. I beg you to please pray heartily for them and for me.

Our ecclesial team is marked with a very intense joy, and it seems that 95% of the conversation is that holy humor, that builds up, and graces those with whom it comes in contact.

May Our Lady's joy prepare us all for the coming of Jesus Christ, to be born into our hearts in a new and powerful way this Christmas.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Advent Conversion: Assume you are a Pharisee - its the Only Sure Way to Prepare for the Word to Heal You

This is one of the most difficult but most healing sermons. Stop and pray for openness to the Holy Spirit before proceeding.

In today's Gospel, we read:

“By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?”
Jesus said to them in reply,“I shall ask you one question, and if you answer it for me,
then I shall tell you by what authority I do these things. ...
So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know.”
He himself said to them, “Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Today, and really time Jesus in the Gospel for the day has interactions with the Pharisees try this: assume you are a hypocrite, the one who is contradicting Jesus' authority, the one trying to stop him from acting, from being God, the one opposing God.

Because guess what?

YOU ARE.

You are not perfect. Yet. God has a lot of work to do on you. It is therefore very safe to say that there is probably a high degree of self-delusion and opposition to God going on in your life. Right now.

Wait a minute!

I pray a lot. I pay my taxes. "Thank God I am not like other men, adulterers, extortioners, unjust" (Luke 18:10ff):....wait a minute, you recognize that self-justifying voice come up when I said you are a hypocrite? That is the Pharisee who was praying next to the Publican. Guess which one went away justified. By the way it wasn't I who said it. Listen to the Word of God: "You hypocrite!" (Matthew 15:20; 22:18 etc etc etc).

Usually if a person accepts the authority of God it is because they have accepted his love. Only the Love of God can give you the real courage of love, which we call humility, to accept that there is anything that is not of God, hypocritical, deluded, blind, and in-need-of-conversion in us.

So, according to the Gospel for today this is what I do. I test God. I go to him and ask him why I have to convert. His Holy Spirit has been calling me for a while and is turned up the heat this Advent, but I still am attached to the safe hypocrisy that I know and am afraid to give up things that I am attached to that somewhere deep down I know my life would be much better if I would only make the step.

So I (we/you) test God. I challenge his authority to preach the Gospel to me, which demands a radical abandonment of my pride and everything I know to follow him to places I never have gone before.

His response?

I will answer your question if you answer this question, i.e. I will grant you the grace to convert and be happier, healthier, and holier, if you just accept that what I am demanding of you is in divine authority. Let me be God and I will lead you.

But wait. It's too much. I cannot surrender that much. I am afraid I won't be protected if I assume that I am blind and hypocritical.

Are we at an impasse?

Maybe.

That is when it is time to go to Our Lady. She is the spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine go down. She obtains for us the extra graces, the special graces, the grace we don't deserve because we still cling to our blind hypocrisy, our foolish pride, or games and armor, and brings us to Jesus Christ in a totally new way.

When I go to Our Lady, seeking to find a cure for my blindness, knowing that I need conversion but might not yet want it, I know that she can obtain for the me the grace to want it, or at least the desire to desire to want it.

The sinless Virgin Mary never opposed God. Ever. She submitted wholly and fully to his Holy Will so much, obeyed him so perfectly that he obeys her perfectly. Anything she asks him God grants. This is the same with us. The more we stop opposing God's Will in our lives, when we ask him for graces and blessings, he will be more freely permitted to grant it to us because it will come from a person who is not opposed to him and therefore not asking him something that is displeasing or opposed to what is best for us.

Until I am deeply submitted to his perfect Will...I habitually place myself in the chair of the Pharisee, or rather move down to the floor and see myself as the broken woman who was washing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. Unitl I know that is who I am before God, guess what? Yep that is right. I am the one opposing him.

May Our Lady obtain for us Light, Jesus Christ, our God and Lord to free us from our presumptive delusions, and may we see Jesus Christ be born in our lives in a new and profound way this Christmas.

O come O come Emmanuel...

Audio Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Advent: Mary's Immaculate Joy Prepares us for Jesus' Coming

Mass Readings for today
Here is my homily for Gaudete Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Advent:

If you have trouble listening, click here.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

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Saturday, December 20, 2014

Sunday, December 14, 2014