1. Document: Holy Scripture Readings

1.1.  First Reading: Book of Deuteronomy 30:15-20

1.2.  Gospel Reading: The Gospel of Luke 9:22-25

1.3.  Simple Comment: Moses gathers the people he had led through the desert for the past forty years. They are now at the threshold of the Promised Land. He knows he will not have the joy of entering this Land and so he bids them farewell. He reminds them of the covenant Yahweh forged with them. He asks them to choose life by following God’s commands. Jesus in Luke’s Gospel tells his disciples, that for Him, to choose life means to lose it – offering his life for the ransom of the many. However, losing it as His Father wills it means following His Father’s command. Indeed, losing his life for the sake of the Gospel means eventually saving it, as confirmed by his resurrection.

2. Monument: The Temple in Jerusalem

2.1.  The Temple in Jerusalem was built by King David’s son, Solomon. It took nearly 40 years to complete it in 922 B.C. It lasted for some 374 years until the Babylonians destroyed it in 587 B.C. Thanks to King Cyrus, the Jews were allowed to rebuild it after 70 years of non-existence. It was this so-called Second Temple that Jesus saw in his time. It was embellished and enlarged by Herod the Great. It took him 46 years to do it.

2.2.  This Second Temple was completely destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 A.D. To this day, after 2000 years have passed, there is no existing Temple in Jerusalem. Instead on its esplanade stands the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest mosque of Islam; only the western wall keeping the Temple mount remains of the old Herodian construction. Today the Jews pray before this wall, awaiting the coming of the Messiah who they believe will rebuild the Third Temple. They call this the Wailing Wall.

2.3.  In this Temple began the whole story of human salvation. Inside the Holy of Holies an angel appeared to the priest Zechariah, announcing the birth of his son John. In this annunciation the mystery of God’s incarnation commenced, because John was to precede the coming of the Messiah, Jesus who is God-amongst-us.

3. Lenten Reflection

3.1.  Zechariah and Elizabeth did not have a child for a long time; they were barren. To have John as their son goes to prove that life is a completely gratuitous gift from God. For them, and above all for John, God in his magnanimity chose to give life.

3.2.  This basic gift of life finds its ultimate expression in the person of Jesus whom the Father sent so that we may not just have life but “have it in its fullness.”  Without Jesus, our life may have its pleasures and enjoyments but, ultimately, our insatiable desire to live for-ever will be frustrated. We would have life but without fulfillment! In Jesus God shows that He chooses not only to give us life but to share His everlasting joyful life.

3.3.  Yet we can jeopardize this gift of life and of eternity. In fact, we do jeopardize it with sin – selfishly living our lives without reference to the God’s commandments. Running only after what is pleasurable without responsibility, amassing wealth without honest gain, and seeking fame and glory without respect for justice and others’ dignity – this worldly way of living makes us lose everything we are trying to save for ourselves. Thus, both Moses and Jesus tell us: choose life – choose God’s way of life!

4. Contemporary Filipino Question: (Blessed) Mother Teresa once remarked: “I cannot imagine that the Philippines is really a Christian nation when it allows its children to eat from the garbage!” With over 100,000 street children in our cities, with 70 percent of our population below poverty, with the way our political strifes continue to scourge the helpless and the hapless, do we, Filipino Christians, really choose life? The truth may hurt but Lent asks us to face it, and hopefully resolve the incongruence.

Given by Fr Michael Winstanley, SDB, former Provincial of the Great Britain Province of the Salesians of Don Bosco based on John 13:1-17.

The Washing of the Disciples’ Feet.^* 1Before the feast of Passover,^* Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.^a 2The devil had already induced^* Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over. So, during supper,^b 3fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God,^c 4he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. 5^* Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet^d and dry them with the towel around his waist. 6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?” 7Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.” 8Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”^e 9Simon Peter said to him, “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.” 10Jesus said to him, “Whoever has bathed^* has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all.”^f 11For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”^g

12So when he had washed their feet [and] put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? 13You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.^h 14If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. 15I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.ⁱ 16Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger^* greater than the one who sent him.^j 17If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.

CHAPTER 12

The Anointing at Bethany.^a 1^* Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.^b 2They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him.^c 3Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus^*and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.^d 4Then Judas the Iscariot, one [of] his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, 5“Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages^* and given to the poor?” 6He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions.^e 7So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial.^* 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”^f

GOD’S CALL

1. 1.     Document: Holy Scriptures

1.1.  First Reading: Book of Joel 2:12-18

1.2.  Second Reading: St Paul’s second Letter to the Corinthians 5:20 – 6:2

1.3.  Gospel Reading: Gospel of St Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

1.4.  Simple Comment: The scripture passages all point to God’s call to repentance. The prophet Joel speaks of true fasting: rend your hearts not your garments. It is a call to interior renewal, not just the external observance of rules of fasting and penances. Similarly, Saint Paul exhorts the Christian community of Corinth to reconcile with God. The time is ripe and we cannot delay this call of change from God: now is the acceptable time! In the Gospel of Matthew, the warning of external observances harps back to the first reading. The gospel outlines the Godly way of fasting, prayer and almsgiving: from the heart which only God can see and only He can truly scrutinize.

1. 2.     Monument: The Judean Desert

2.1.  The Desert: a harsh environment formed over millions of years of cataclysmic changes but also the favorite place where Yahweh, the God of Israel, showed his might and magnanimity over his chosen people. After the apostolic times, the Judean desert flourished with hermitages of men and women who sought to live deprived of everything in order to delight in meeting God who is everything. At one point, in the 2^nd century A.D. there were over 10,000 hermits in this desert.

2.2.  John the Baptist: our first day of Lent takes us back to that lonely voice in the wilderness, the voice of the Precursor of the Messiah in the desert of Judea, who indicated the path of salvation. His theme is one of repentance and the seeking of forgiveness from God.

2.3.  Moses: the Jews can never forget their 40-year stay in the desert, their return to the Promised Land which they left in the time of Joseph because they needed to transfer to Egypt to escape the famine of the time. In that momentous period of their history God freed them from the clutches of slavery, led them in the midst of the sea, fed them with manna in the desert, struck the rock to quench their thirst and gave them the covenant at Mt Sinai. Despite all this beneficence Israel turned her back on God. Yet every time God stayed faithful with his beloved People.

3. Lenten Reflection

3.1.  The imposition of the ashes on our foreheads today is a biblical reminder of who we really are. We remember that we are dust, we are nothing, we are creature, we are even sinner. This is the stark truth of ourselves, a truth we need to remind ourselves over and over again, because we tend to boast and pride ourselves.

3.2.  The priest would have also said these words, while imposing the ashes: Repent and believe in the Gospel. They were the very words of Jesus after he came from his 40-day retreat in the Judean desert. His mission is to call us back to encounter his Father, because despite our pride and sinfulness Yahweh does not obliterate us; rather He seeks us, for He desires our salvation not our destruction.

3.3.  The challenge then of these forty days of Lent is to heed the call of God to repentance, believe in his Son’s saving love and accept to be renewed in heart by the power of the Spirit. This should show in greater gratitude to Him in prayer and greater generosity to our fellows in almsgiving. This is only possible if we meet him in the desert of our hearts by fasting from our selfishness and by relying in his forgiving love.

4. As a nation we have been experiencing 40 years in the desert: 14 years of martial rule and 26 years of political bickering, corruption and mindlessness of the plight of the poor. What is God’s call to repentance in this harsh condition of life?

Tuesday before Ash Wednesday is raucous day in many parts of the western society. They call it Mardi Gras … a French phrase which can be easily understood by us Pinoys when we put it in its Spanish translation: Martes de Grazo (Fat Tuesday literally translated in English although, having an British Salesian priest-confrere with us, he says they call it Pancake Tuesday). But it describes the last day when meat is allowed; next day Ash Wednesday marks the forty day Lenten season which in olden times required every good Christian to refrain from meat the whole length of the penitential season.

We’re normally struck by the sacrifice dimension of the Lenten season we fondly call Kuwaresma. It seems that our martyr complex plays a large role for this emphasis. But what seems to be deeper in our cultural psyche is the pakikiramay sa kapwang naghihirap. Here the kapwa is Jesus the Son of God, our Saviour and our Lord. Accepting to suffer like Him (some take it literally by becoming flagellantes) makes us one with Him.

However, the Ash Wednesday Gospel passage speaks not only of fasting, but also prayer and almsgiving. In fact, the three Lenten practices come together. Let me explain a little.

Fasting, if done as it should be done, that is, only one full meal in a day, will bring one to experience weariness and weakness. But the truth is we all are weak, limited, finite, even sinful and wicked! This experiential weakness through fasting will bring us down to our knees and we will re-discover and appreciate the truth of ourselves: mere creatures! Creatureliness hopefully leads us to acknowledge God’s greatness and recognize how benevolent and magnanimous He has been and is with us. Thus, this awareness of His presence in our lives leads to prayer (second lenten practice), a prayerful attitude before our Creator, a pious stance before God Almighty yet so caring and loving of us all. If prayer becomes true prayer, it should lead us to see in Christ our God not only his benevolence to us, but to other weak people as well. This awareness enlarges our worldview and makes us see the plight of the poor, the lonely and downtrodden, the widow and orphan, the helpless and the hopeless. If this happens, it is understandable how one is led to charity (almsgiving is the word the Gospel of Matthew uses).

In the end, the Lenten practices simply signify the path to eternal life which a scribe once asked Jesus with this question: “What must I do to attain eternal life?” Jesus replied: “Love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength (prayer); and love your neighbor (almsgiving) as yourself (fasting).”

Why forty days? It is actually 47 days if you count from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. However, the real count is from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday. The next seven days is called Holy Week or better still, the week of the Paschal Triduum: Holy Thursday (Passion), Good Friday (Death) and Saturday Vigil (Resurrection). It is not the same for the Ambrosian Rite used in the Archdiocese of Milan. They do not have an Ash Wednesday commemoration, instead they start Lent on a Sunday. Thus, they count 40 days from the first Sunday of Lent to Holy Wednesday.

The Israelites journeyed in the desert for 40 years; before starting his public ministry Jesus spent for 40 days in the desert. We’re invited to do 40 days because loving God and our neighbor for forty consecutive days might help us acquire the habit of genuine loving.

At the opening Mass of the John Paul II Conference on Nuptial Theology in Bacolod, Papal Nuncio Giuseppe Pinto, DD stressed the importance of family. He reiterated that the family is under attack, and that secularism blurs the sense of right and wrong.

He said that is is commendable that the Philippines supports human life – from conception to natural death – which is seen to build the integrity of marriage and family.

He urged the attendees and the Bacolod faithful to persevere as it is very necessary. The Philippine Church is also committed to push the truth of family and love. He stressed that New Evangelization depends largely on the family, and that we should not give in to discouragement.

He ended his homily by proclaiming to the people to focus on their encounter with Jesus.

Bishop Gabriel Reyes, DD, in his address at the John Paul II Conference on Nuptial Theology in Bacolod spoke on family and life – especially the threats in the Philippines. He said that the conference was very timely and that it is what is needed in the country today. We are being targeted by false ideas from the West which are attacking family and life, very evident on the halls of Congress.

He assured everyone that Bishops are moving heaven and earth to make sure the anti-life Bills do not pass. And then encouraged everyone that the best way to fight is to present the TRUTH. And that the TRUTH is always a BETTER IDEA.

He said that the TRUTH is real and is seen in the Holy Mother the Church.

During the John Paul II Nuptial Theology Conference in Bacolod this week, the Diocesan Family and Life Directors had a meeting to discussed the initial steps for CBCP ECFL. It was led by His Excellency Gabriel Reyes, DD, Bishop of Antipolo and Chairman of the Commission together with his executive secretary, Fr. Melvin Castro and Maribel Descallar of our community. Some of those initial steps are as follows:

1. We will be sending you an updated ECFL Directory of Diocesan Directors and Workers.
2. We should continue our formation with regards to Family and Life.
3. We can seriously consider establishing NFP centers all over the Philippines.
4. ECFL’s new website and other communication avenues.
5. With the forthcoming “World Meeting of Families in Milan”, we can consider and possibly encourage sending one representative per Diocese.

For the World Meeting of Families, the costs are:

Basic Tour (10 days Milan departing May 27, 2012):

- Per person (includes airfare): $ 2,550
- Airline taxes: $325

- Tip fund: $90

- Supplement: $450

- Registration fee: Euro70

Deadline is on March 15. Itinerary available upon request. You may call the Home Office or the ECFL office (02-5279385) for more details.

There are also optional extension tours available: SHRINES OF ITALY or SPAIN and FRANCE

Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com is back in the Philippines! He, and Charles Hornbacher, flew in last Monday and went straight to Cebu to speak to the youth, seminarians and lay people. He also had an audience with Archbishop Palma of Cebu. They also went to Bacolod for more speaking engagements. And, as the photo above shows, an interview with Bishop Navarra of Bacolod.

Today, Michael speaks at Adamson University and at St. Francis church. Tomorrow night, he speaks to our community. Hope to see everyone there at 7PM at Christ the King in Greenmeadows. Listen to him speak about the Church and media.

Before he flies out, he makes a stop in Davao for more speaking engagements.