HOMILY on the Thirteenth Sunday of the Ordinary Time (July 1, 2018)

Readings: Wisdom 1: 13-15; 2:23-24/ 2Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15/ Mc21-43.

Introduction: Yesterday, I was made to seriously reflect about that incident that happened
towards the end of the Fiesta Mass at the Sto. Nino Church. I am referring to that old lady (who,
by the way, comes from my hometown Carigara) who took herself surreptitiously to the stage,
spoke and kind of interrupted the already long-winded thanks-giving speeches by the parish
council. Obviously, some people took it to their chagrin, others, I suppose, were even annoyed
by their murmuring “Hesus, Ka-Buang!”.

Far be it from me to be defending the honor and dignity of my paisana, here is what I really
thought: The whole point of Msgr. Bactol’s homily was how astonishing the way the Sto. Nino
discovered and evangelized the Philippine Archipelago. Emphatically, the good bishop, avowed
that it was even God’s divine will that there would be the happenstance of some burly storm or
typhoon, so that the spanish conquistadores would end up in Cebu or the Visayas bringing to us
the image of the Santo Nino and not in their supposed destination, the Spice Islands.

This is my point: What is our devotion to the Santo Nino? Who is Santo Nino for us? Is it not
precisely this: “Hesus, Ka-buang!” You see, the Santo Nino, the Baby GOD, the “God-Made-
Flesh”, the Emanuel, “God-With-Us” has always been and will always be the greatest scandal of
all! Jesus' Incarnation, God-becoming-flesh, in fact, has caused the greatest scandal to so
many of His contemporaries. (The Jesus Story is folly to the Greeks, scandal to the Jews!).

My Dear Friends, make no mistake: Jesus Christ, the God we worship, is never a pure ideal, or
a pure spirit that is beyond-this-world. (Council of Calcedon) Christ has formed a body for
himself. Christ gives Himself only in His body. Jesus had to say this candid and clear: "Blessed
is he who is not scandalized in me”. The “Sto. Nino” can appear foolish to our human judgment
and rational estimate, but our faith and revelation tells us it is truly the wisdom of God!

Going home to the seminary, in my musings, I thought: FB Skinner (a prominent Philosopher of

Education) is indeed accurate when he said: “Most of the times, people normally only get the
information, but they actually miss the teaching!” (Maayo pud naay mga buang sa simbahan,
kay ang tinuod nga simabahan nga gi-tindog ni Kristo makabuang sa iyang pagkabulahan!)

Gospel Points: Let us now pay attention and learn more about this from our Readings and our
Gospel today: Our First Reading from the Book of Wisdom tell us that: “God did not make
death, He takes no pleasure in destroying the Living! To exist, for this He created all
thing, the creatures of the world have health in them, in them is no fatal poison, and
Hades has no power over the world. God created human beings to be immortal; Death
came into the world only through the Devil’s envy.”

Our Second Reading, Paul was telling the Christians in Corinth: For you know the gracious act
of our Lord Jesus Christ…though he was rich, he became poor for your sake, so that by his
poverty (powerlessness) you might become rich. Not that others should have relief, while
you are burdened, but that as a matter of of equality, you abundance at the present
should supply this needs, so that their abundance may also supply their needs. That
there may be equality “Whoever had much, did not have more, and whoever had little did not
have less.

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Our Gospel Today, we find Mark reporting Jesus having performed two miracles, namely, he
cured a woman afflicted by hemorrhages, and he brought back to life the daughter of Jairus
(head of a synagogue). Also, yesterday’s Gospel, by Matthew (8:5-7) we also find Jesus giving
cure both to the afflicted servant of the believing centurion and to the feverish mother-in-law of
Peter.

What do you think is the common doctrine among these three separate narratives? To me, I
personally find related in a manner so striking and instructive the doctrines we find in Genesis
and in Jesus: “Dio fece…y Dio vide che era cosa buona” and “Omnia Bene Fecit”.

1.) For us Christians, God’s creation, in its material and spiritual totality, is “very good!” Our
world, which includes human life and human death, which sometimes appears to be anomalous
(yabag), has never come to existence as the result of a tragic accident, a disaster, a fall. Being
and Good are equivocal terms, we know that in Metaphysics! Anything that exists, in so far as it
exists is good. And anything that is good, must fundamentally exist to be good. Here, we find
bearings in the theological doctrine posited by Saint Augustine: “Malum est Privatio Boni”.
Evil does not substantially exist the way bonum exists. Evil is rather the absence of a good
which is supposed to exist. Said otherwise: It is the light, the fullness of colors, that creates the
shadow. There can be no shadow without the light!) We cannot devalue the sensible world, the
flesh. Nature matters! God’s salvation is not supernatural in the sense that it is something
superficially added to our nature from the outside. When we talk of God’s sanctification, we are
talking of elevation, divine indwelling, configuration, restoration, even inspiration.

2. Death came into the world only through the Devil’s envy.” Envy is pure malevolence. It
means hatred that comes from one’s incapacity for doing and having the good it hates. Most of
our life’s afflictions are inflicted by the evil one and by our own evil doing or undoing. St. Paul
was right on point: The Christian do not glorify un-necessary suffering! Not that others should
have relief, while you suffer and are burdened.

3. Now, Jesus did not only teach how people should live, but more importantly his ministry gave
life to people! He cured them from anything that makes people suffer. He restored people to
life, so that, we Christians, ought to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked,
visit the sick, shelter the homeless, visit the prisoners, pay respect even to the dead!

4. Pope Francis has warned us, in his latest Encyclical , about the enormous temptation and
permanent seduction of “so-called gnosis”. What is the heresy of Gnosticism? The fundamental
dogma of Gnosticism is the belief that the lower material sphere, the flesh, the world of the
psychic (physic) was something to be vanquished, while the higher spiritual world was all that
was excellent, the only thing worth cultivating. Their rule is body-hating asceticism. What
mattered most was the ‘knowledge’ that ensured spiritual power, the timetable for all the soul’s
journey in the hereafter. Gnosticism destroys the psychosomatic unity of man. It splits (in
antagonism and opposition) our one human nature in two: bios and ethos; nature and divine,
body and spirit. The former as evil, the latter as good!

5. Irenaeus, the Theology Founding Father and a paradigmatic figure in its history has most ably
refuted by unmasking the errors of Gnosticism. At the center of his theology is : “Caro Cardo
Salutis!” The flesh is the hinge, the decisive criterion of salvation!

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6. Hans Urs Von Balthasar expounding this doctrine of Iranaeus said: Christianity is never a
myth! Christianity and myth, in fact, are opposed on every point. Myth seeks the ascent of man
to spirit; the Word of God seeks descent into flesh and blood. Myth wants power; Revelation
reveals the true power of God in the most extreme powerlessness. Myth wants esoteric
knowledge; the word of God asks for constant faith, and only within that faith, a growing
reverent understanding. (She is not dead, She is just asleep!) (Do not Fear, Just Believe.)
The Revelation of God’s word unites God and world by sealing the distance between them in
the very intimacy of their communion. For God incarnate, by his suffering in the flesh, has set us
free from our seeming tragic existence.

Reducing salvation into a myth is actually the outcome of man’s desperate arrogance, his
refusal to submit to God, his determination to make his own way to Heaven.

7. Indeed today, most people would still like to regard Christianity as an other-worldly religion,
whereas pagan atheism claims to be an affirmation of life in this world. This is anti-Christian, as
old as the Gnosticism of the second century which conceived Christianity to be fuga mundi et
corporis, Christianity as pale and arid spiritualism.

8.
Pope Benedict has already addressed this issue in his discourse on Ecclesiology, he said:

THE CHURCH IS A BODY, NOT AN IDEA. Christ has formed a body for himself. Christ gives
Himself only in His body, and never as a pure ideal. This means that He gives Himself in the
uninterrupted communion that endures through time and is His Body. If I want to find Him and
make Him mine, I am directly called to become a humble and complete and full member of His
Body in this world. The idea of liberal theology that Jesus on his own would be
interesting, the Church would be a wretched reality, contradicts this understanding
completely. The scandal of becoming flesh that Jesus' incarnation caused so many of His
contemporaries, is repeated in the "scandalous character" of the Church. Jesus' statement is
valid in this instance: "Blessed is he who is not scandalized in me”.

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