Passion Sunday (B)

Dhikr for the Holy Week (B): The Passion of the Lord

Selected Passage: “And at three o'clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which is translated, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)

Reflection: The song “Foot Prints in the Sand” beautifully articulates the meaning of the experiences of “being forsaken” by God.  In those difficult times that we see only a pair of footprints… they are NOT ours but God’s who carried us in his loving arms…

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1.    Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…

2.   Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 

3.   Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

GESTATING COMPASSION

GESTATING COMPASSION

What is sad, among many other things, in all of this is that almost all of us, on all sides of virtually every issue, are using truth and the gospel to make hard, non-compassionate judgements. In both civic and church circles there is little to be seen in the way of gentleness, softness, and forgiveness. The zeal for orthodoxy and the passion for justice, especially among the more enlightened and supposedly sensitive, are producing a lot more anger than compassion.  

This is a cruel thing to say, but all this angry zeal and passion, no matter how high the cause which fuels it, is not a sign that truth and the gospel are breaking through. When truth and the gospel break through, the first mark is compassion, not anger.

The word of God first meets the world in compassion, not judgement. Irrespective of whether we attempt to speak our truth and prophecy from a liberal or a conservative pulpit, we want to remember that. We mediate the word of God correctly, speak for truth and justice, when, and only when, we are recognized for our gentleness, compassion, and forgiveness - towards everyone, and not just towards those in the same ideological camp as ourselves.

(Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI)

Short Reflection of the 5th Sunday of Lent (B)

Dhikr for the 5^th Sunday of Lent (B)

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn. 12: 24)

In the coming days, mystery of “falling and dying” and “producing much fruit” will unfold in that event of Jesus’s dying for us and rising from the dead…

The martyrdom of OMI Missionaries in the Sulu Archipelago – Fr. Nelson Javellana, OMI, Jolo Bishop Benjami de Jesus, OMI, Fr. Benjamin Inocencio, OMI and Fr. Jesus Reynaldo Roda, OMI – reminds us of the real ‘falling and dying’….

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1.    Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…

2.   Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 

3.   Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

WHAT DOES GOD LOOK LIKE?

WHAT DOES GOD LOOK LIKE?

It is a perennial question. It's the one that Philip asked Jesus. The answer, therefore, that I will give you is the same one that Jesus gave him: ‘You can look at all you have seen and heard and still ask that question?’ To see certain things is to have seen the Father!' To ask a question like this is tantamount to looking at the most beautiful day in June, seeing all the trees and flowers in full blossom and asking a friend, ‘Where is summer?' To see certain things is to see summer. To see certain things is to see God.’

With those thoughts in mind, I would like here to offer a set of questions that Karl Rahner used to ask people when they asked him about the veil of faith:

-Have you ever kept silent, despite the urge to defend yourself, when you were unfairly treated?

-Have you ever forgiven another although you gained nothing by it and your forgiveness was accepted as quite natural?

-Have you ever made a sacrifice without receiving any thanks or acknowledgement, without even feeling any inward satisfaction?

-Have you ever decided to do a thing simply for the sake of conscience, knowing that you must bear sole responsibility for your decision without being able to explain it to anyone?

-Have you ever tried to act purely for love of God when no warmth sustained you, when your act seemed a leap in the dark, simply nonsensical?

-Have you ever been good to someone without expecting a trace of gratitude and without the comfortable feeling of having been "unselfish"?

If you have had such experiences, Rahner asserts, then you have had experienced God, perhaps without realizing it.

(Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI)

Jesus takes away the sins of the world!

HOW JESUS TAKES AWAY THE SINS OF THE WORLD


Jesus, as the lamb of God, does not take away the sin of the world by somehow carrying it off so that it is no longer present inside of the community. He takes it away by transforming it, by changing it, by taking it inside of himself and transmuting it. We see examples of this throughout his entire life, although it is most manifest in the love and forgiveness he shows at the time of his death. In simple language, Jesus took away the sin of the community by taking in hatred and giving back love; by taking in anger and giving out graciousness; by taking in envy and giving back blessing; by taking in bitterness and giving out warmth; by taking in pettiness and giving back compassion; he taking in chaos and giving back peace; and by taking in sin and giving back forgiveness.

This is not an easy thing to do. What comes naturally is to give back in kind: hatred for hatred, anger for anger, coldness for coldness, revenge for hurt. Someone hits us so we hit back. Jesus did otherwise. He did not simply pass on what was done to him. Rather he took it in, held it, carried it, transformed it, and eventually gave it back as something else. This is what constitutes the sacrificial part of his love, namely, the excruciatingly pain (ex cruce, from the cross) that he had to undergo in order to take in hatred and give back love.

This dynamic is not just something we are asked to admire in Jesus. The incarnation is meant to be ongoing. We are asked to continue to give flesh to God, to continue to do what Jesus did. Thus our task too is to help take away the sin of the world. We do this whenever we take in hatred, anger, envy, pettiness, and bitterness, hold them, transmute them, and eventually give them back as love, graciousness, blessing, compassion, warmth, and forgiveness.

(Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI)

Short Reflection on the 4th Sunday of Lent (B)

Dhikr for the 4^th Sunday of Lent (B)

Selected Passage: “And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.” (Jn. 3: 19-20)

Short Reflection: Lent is a special season to LOOK at the VERDICT on our own life – our deed and our witness do they give life or death…? Life is from God while death is from the evil one!

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1.    Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…

2.   Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 

3.   Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

Letting Go...

LETTING GO

Soul knowledge sends you in the opposite direction from consumerism.
It’s not addition that makes one holy, but subtraction: stripping the
illusions, letting go of the pretense, exposing the false self,
breaking open the heart and the understanding, not taking one’s
private self too seriously. Conversion is more about unlearning than
learning.

In a certain sense we are on the utterly wrong track. We are climbing
while Jesus is descending, and in that we reflect the pride and the
arrogance of Western civilization, always trying to accomplish,
perform, and achieve. We transferred much of that to our version of
Christianity and made the Gospel into spiritual consumerism. The ego
is still in charge. There is not much room left for God when the false
self takes itself and its private self-development that seriously.

All we can really do is get ourselves out of the way, and honestly
wecan’t even do that. It is done to us through this terrible thing
called suffering.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, OMI Radical Grace: Daily Meditations , p.
46, day 49

3rd Sunday in Lent (B)

Dhikr for the 3^rd Sunday of Lent (B)

Selected Passage: “Jesus said, "Take these out of here, and stop making my Father's house a marketplace." (Jn.2: 16)

Meditation: Lent is a special season to cleanse our life of the many “merchandise” that has made God’s abode in us a MARKETPLACE...

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1.    Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…

2.   Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 

3.   Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

Short Reflection on the 2nd Sunday of Lent (B)

Dhikr for the 2nd Sunday of Lent (B)

 Selected Passage: “And Jesus was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them." (Mk. 9: 2-3)

Reflection: Lent is a special season to have an “experience” our own TRANSFIGURATION”…  The experience of being transformed by the LOVE and FORGIVENESS of the Lord!

 DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1. Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…
2. Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 
3. Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…