Corpus Christi Sunday

Short Reflection for the Corpus Christi Sunday (C)

Readings: Genesis 14: 18-20; 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26; Luke 9: 11b-17

Selected Gospel Passages: “Give them some food yourselves. Five loaves and two fish are all we have. Now the men there numbered about five thousand. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and he blessed them and broke them and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied”.

Meditation: The Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ reminds us of the price of redemption.  He broke his body and shed his blood that we may have life.  Thus when we eat his body and drink his blood we share his life.

Today, we, too, journey through arid ways and arduous paths. At times, this journey is characterized by hopelessness and near despair, but in the midst of all these, we are invited to share and break bread with those with none.  When we share our blessings – our bread and cup with the poor, then we shall understand the meaning of Jesus breaking and sharing his life that all may have life. See: www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

The Mystery of Giving and Receiving Spirit

THE MYSTERY OF GIVING AND RECEIVING SPIRIT

For me, this happened at the death of my parents. My mother and father died three months apart, when I was twenty-three years old. They were young, too young to die in my view, but death took them anyway, against my will and against theirs. Initially, their death was experienced as very painful, as bitter. My siblings and I wanted their presence in the same way as we had always had it, physical, tangible, bodily, real.

Eventually the pain of their leaving left us and we sensed that our parents were still with us, with all that was best in them, our mum and dad still, except that now their presence was deeper and less fragile than it had been when they were physically with us. They were with us now, real and nurturing, in a way that nobody and nothing can ever take away.

Our presence to each other physically, in touch, sight, and speech is no doubt the deepest wonder of in all of life, sometimes the only thing we can appreciate as real. But wonderful as that is, it is always limited and fragile. It depends upon being physically connected in some way and it is fragile in that separation (physical or emotional) can easily take someone away from us. With everyone we love and who loves us (parents, spouse, children, friends, acquaintances, colleagues), we are always just one trip, misunderstanding, accident, or heart attack away from losing their physical presence.

This was the exact heartache and fear that the disciples felt as Jesus was saying goodbye to them and that is the heartache and fear we all feel in our relationships. We can easily lose each other.

But there is a presence that cannot be taken away, that does not suffer from this fragility, that is, the spirit that comes back to us whenever, because of the some inner dictates of love and life, our loved ones have to leave us or we have to leave our loved ones.

A spirit returns and it is deep and permanent and leaves a warm, joyous, and real presence that nobody can ever take from us.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/the-mystery-of-giving-and-receiving-spirit/#.XPVBMXt7k_8
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Trinity Sunday

Short Reflection for the Trinity Sunday (C)

Readings: Proverbs 8: 22-31; Romans 5: 1-5; John 16: 12-15

Selected Passage: “The Spirit of truth will guide you to all truth. He will not speak what he hears. And will declare to you the things that are coming.” (John 16: 13-14)

Meditation: We begin to understand the one Triune God through our listening to the Spirit and the testimony of Jesus himself.  The Spirit reveals to us all truth.

Where God is understood as absolute power, there is no need for there to be more than one person, for power can be exercised quite well by one person; but if God is understood as love and compassion, then it cannot be this way.  The life of the Trinity is a mystery of relation. This means that the divine persons do not “have” relations, but rather “are” relations.

‘In knowing the Father (The Lover), the Son (the Beloved) and the Spirit (love), we catch a glimpse that, in his innermost being, God is a dialogue, a life of love among the three Persons. This is the originality of the Christian conception of God, and it is here that man finds the true explanation of himself. Man feels an irrepressible yearning for community, solidarity and dialogue; he needs it to live and grow, he needs it more than the air. But it is only in the light of the Trinity that this finding acquires an unexpected depth: we are meant to meet, to dialogue and to love, because we are "image of God", and God is, in fact - as far as we are given to understand - a community of love.’ (Mons. Francesco Follo)

www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Defeat is NO Dishonor

Charles de Foucauld

“Defeat is no Dishonour”

For some unexplainable “itch”, I picked up a book on the Life of Charles de Foucauld from my Library and began re-reading the Man that has influenced me greatly in my study of Islam.

Charles the Foucauld was a graduate of the exclusive French Military School – St. Cyr. He was commissioned in the famous and “ferocious” French Legion in the then French, particularly the Muslim Africa under the France.

I got this “itch” simply to relive the great battles between the modern army of the Colonizing Powers and the “rebels who opposed the subjugation of their lands and peoples.

In the case of Charles de Foucauld, it was the many battles between the ferocious Touareg Mujahidin and the equally ferocious French Legions.

A Touareg poem captured the “spirit” of these battles and I thought of sharing it with my many FB friends who are equally involved in the many battles between the Moro Mujahidin and the Colonizing Modern Army…

The Day of the Infidels

“At Amassara, both sides were pushed to the limit,

What with spears and the rifles of the infidels

And the unsheathed taheleh swords.

I ran on the enemy, I struck and was struck

Till I was covered with blood all over as with a coverlet,

Pouring all over my shoulders and arms.

The girls who make music will not hear it said

Of me that I hide among the rocks.

It is not true that thrice I fell, and thrice I was picked up,

And that, unconscious, they tied me with cords

On the back of a camel?

And because of that,

Defeat was no dishonour.

The infidels of old were victorious over the Prophet himself.”

(Note: The poem was written by the Tuoareg who was being carried on his camel. Amassara was the name of the Valley, which was fought over, near Tit.)

Simply change Amassara to Bud Bagsak or Bud Dajo and you have similar battles that were fought between the Moro Mujahidin and the Colonizers’ Modern and Superior Army. And as in the Valley of Amassara, so also in Bud Bagsak and Bud Dajo, defeat was no dishonor!

Jun Mercado,OMI

#Badaliyya-Philippines

June 8, 2019