HOPE, PRAYER AND LOVE: A 50 YEARS PILGRIMAGE

(Fr. Fausto’s Homily on His 50th Year as a Priest: June 14, 2012)

Two themes permeate the Liturgy of the Word: Hope and Eucharist. The first reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Rom 8:18-25) speaks of hope, the virtue of the pilgrim. The second reading from St. Luke’s gospel narrates the Institution of the Eucharist by our Lord Jesus Christ (Lk 22:14-20). As a pilgrim on the way to a thousand hopes – to heaven-, I need the Eucharist! I need food and drink for the journey; I need the Eucharistic Bread and the Eucharistic Wine. I treasure the last phrase of Jesus when instituting the Eucharist – and the Priesthood: “Do this in memory of me.” Through 50 years I have tried to celebrate the Eucharist daily in memory of him.

50 years! With other eleven Dominicans (nine of them American and two Spanish) I was ordained a Dominican Priest by the Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, John Russell on the morning of June 14, 1962 at St. Dominic’s Church in Washington, DC.  This evening of June 14, 2012 we are celebrating the 50^th Anniversary of this Ordination at St. Dominic’s Priory in Macau. I spent the first year of my priesthood finishing my theological studies at the Washington DC Dominican House of Studies. The next 46 years of my Dominican priesthood, I lived passionately by teaching and preaching in Manila, except for two years (1977 to 1979) that I was in Madrid for postgraduate studies and lived here two wonderful years of my priesthood (I was assigned then to our Convent of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, and stayed very often with my parents and my sister Laure, who had come to the Spanish capital from our lovely town El Oso, Avila).The last two and a half years of my 50 years as a priest. I am living them here in Macau peacefully and serenely with a great fraternity of eighteen simply professed students and six Dominican priests.

As I look back to the 50 years of my priesthood, one thing keeps coming to my mind: God loves me very much – as He loves each one of you very much! God is love. He is our Mother/Father who loves us and asks each one of us to love him in return – with the love He gave us in the first place.

God has shown his gracious love to me throughout life. He created me to his image and likeness. He redeemed me through Jesus, his Son and our brother. In the Church, He made me his child – Bernardo Fausto – through Baptism. He continues feeding me with his Body and Blood. And without any merit from my part, he called me to be his priest in the Order of Preachers. As the song says: “Qué detalle Señor has tenido conmigo: Yo dejé casa y pueblo/ por seguir tu aventura./ Codo a codo contigo/ comencé a caminar./ Han pasado los años/ y, aunque aprieta el cansancio,/ paso a paso te sigo/ sin mirar hacia atrás. “What a gesture, O Lord, you had with me!/ I left home and town/ in pursuit of your adventure./ Side by side with You/ I started walking./ The years have passed/, and although fatigue accompanies me,/ I follow You step by step without looking back./ What a gesture, Lord You had with me”. The greatest sign of God’s love for me is my priesthood. On the morning of June 14, 1962, at the Church of St. Dominic in Washington DC, Jesus told me: “You are a priest forever.” Sacerdos in aeternum!

This evening of June 14, 2012 at St. Dominic’s Priory Chapel, I tell our Lord: “Thank you very, very much! Thank you for helping me to love you in return. I love you Lord!” And, because love means having to say “you are sorry,” yes I am sorry Lord for my sins, too many to count through these 50 years. For your continuing forgiveness and mercy I thank you Lord. Above all, I give thanks to you for calling me, for blessing me always, for making me hopeful. I thank you in particular, for giving me a wonderful family back home, brothers in the different Dominican communities I lived – in Avila, in Madrid, in Washington, in Manila and now in Macau, perhaps the last stage of my life, (Well,  who knows? May be East Timor is calling!). Thank you Lord for giving me wonderful parents and brothers and sisters, many friends and many Dominican brothers!

I thank the Lord in particular for keeping me a Dominican priest for 50 years. If I did not leave my priestly vocation, it was because of God’s undeserved grace – and my mother Florencia persistent prayer. My little contribution was (according to a close friend of mine) prayer. Well, I do not know: maybe, if at all, a very imperfect prayer-life! Certainly as a student, I learned from St. Teresa of Avila: “Never leave prayer. There is always remedy for those who pray”. Even when I was limping or in darkness, I did try to pray to the Lord, and especially to his Mother and our Mother Mary and our Dominican saints plus St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross, and God came to my rescue. Indeed, solo Dios basta: Only God suffices!

I continue trusting in the help of Mother Mary. I am deeply grateful to St. Dominic, my other father, the joyful friar. To him, I ask with my brothers daily: “Imple Pater quod dixisti, nos tuis juvans praecibus”; that is, “fulfill your promise, that you would help us with your prayers.”

Prayer is the language of hope.  Prayer is always a prayer of hope, of Christian hope of which Saint Paul speaks in our first Reading. No one can live without hopes, and the best hope is hope in you, Lord: in your love, in your grace, in eternal life with you and our loved ones.  Indeed, as St. Augustine says, “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until we rest in You.”

On the last stage of his life, St. Albert the Great asked himself often: Nunquid durabo? Will I be faithful to the end? I pray and hope that I will be faithful up to the end. When one is young one believes that he can conquer the world. When aging catches up, one realizes more and more that really we can do little by ourselves and, therefore, we try to rely mainly on God’s mercy. Our brother St. Thomas Aquinas meditated often the Psalm which asked the Lord: “In my old age, do not abandon me Lord” (Ps 70).

Like any other virtue, hope cannot walk towards God without the feet of love: Christian hope is a loving hope, a hopeful love. Hope prays, and love prays too! Love is what matters most in life! “In the evening of life, we will be examined on love” (St. John of the Cross). On my 50^th anniversary as a priest of Christ, I hope, above all, in Christ’s love. Jesus continues asking his priests – asking me again today – the question He asked Peter thrice: “Do you love me…?” (cf. Jn21:15-17). Lord, help me to say “Yes, I do” – with my lips, my heart, my life!

The Gospel Reading focuses on the Eucharist as Memorial of the Last Supper and pledge of heaven.  The Eucharist is the center of our Christian life and the priority – with preaching the Word – of my priesthood. The Eucharist is the Breaking of the Bread. I ask the good Lord to help me – and you – be broken like the Eucharistic Bread, and be shared with and in the service of others.

To all of you, my Dominican brothers and sisters, my brothers and sisters in consecrated life, my co-professors and friends at the University of Saint Joseph (I also remember here my many friends at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila: many of them have sent messages telling me that they are praying for me on this day); to all of you I express my deep gratitude.

Someone has said that to say “thank You” is like giving a flower. Emerson tells us that “the beauty of the flower comes from its roots.” From my roots, that is, from the bottom of my heart, to each one of you here present I say, thank you very, very much,¡ muchísimas gracias!

May God, who always pays well, bless you abundantly!

Fausto Gomez Berlana, OP

St. Dominic’s Priory

Macao, June 14, 2012

THE MONTH OF MAY AND OUR DEVOTION TO MARY

  For Catholics, there are two months in the yearly calendar dedicated to Mary our Mother: May and October. While the month of May is focused on our devotion to Mary, the month of October is centered on the Rosary of Mary. We are in the month of May, 2012. Hereafter, I wish to share with our readers my simple reflection on our devotion to Mary.

  We Christians believe that Mary is the Virgin Mary and the Mother of God, that is, of Jesus the Son of God. She is the Mother of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who is our Savior and Redeemer. Mary is also our Mother. From the cross, the Crucified Lord Jesus looked at Mary and John the disciple, and uttered the Third Word. Jesus says to Mary: “Woman, behold your son,” and to John the evangelist: “Behold your Mother” (Jn 19:25-27). John then took Mary to his home. From his Cross, Jesus gave to John and to each one of us, his Mother Mary. Because Mary is the Mother of Jesus and our Mother, we are asked to have a special devotion to her, that is, filial love to Mary.There is a distinction between devotion in the singular and devotion in the plural. Saint Teresa of Avila asked her nuns: “Have few devotions and much devotion.

  Devotion in the singular refers to devotion to God, which means giving honor and glory to God, worshipping him. This devotion is necessary for salvation. It implies adoring God through Jesus in the Spirit. It is called latria. Devotion in the plural refers to devotion to the saints. This devotion is not necessary for salvation. Thus, we are free – to a certain point – to be devoted to one saint or another. It is called dulia!  (You may see St. Thomas Aquinas, STh, II-II, 82.)

  The devotion to Mary is above the devotion in the plural to all the saints. It is called hyperdulia. The place of Mary in the Church is “the highest after Christ and yet very close to us” (Vatican II, LG, 54).  The Fathers of the Church said that only the Blessed Trinity is above Mary. As followers of Jesus, we all have to be devoted to Mary, the Mother of the Son of God, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, the favored daughter of God the Father: “All should devoutly venerate her and commend their life and apostolate to her motherly concern” (Vatican II, AA, 4).

  We are asked by our Christian faith and tradition to have a special devotion to Mary. What are the implications of our devotion to Mary?  Mary is our Mother and, therefore, our best intercessor before Christ, and our model in following him, who is our only Way. At Cana, Mary shows her role for us: first, her role as intercessor (“They have no wine”); second, her role as disciple of disciples (“Do whatever He tells you”). (See Jn 2:1-12)

  To be devoted to Mary entails also to imitate her life and virtues. She is the Mother of God and the perfect disciple of Jesus, the first disciple, the disciple of disciples. She is the true disciple: she lived with Jesus; she shared her life at home with him and for him; she shared his sufferings, witnessed his resurrection, and animated with her maternal love and devotion to Jesus the apostles and the first Christian communities.

  With her unique life, Mary encourages us to practice the virtues of faith (“Blessed are you because you have believed,” Lk 1:19), of prayer (she treasured everything that happened around Jesus in her heart and ponder upon it), Lk 2:51), of obedience (“Let it be, Fiat”), of mission (she proclaimed Jesus to Elizabeth, Lk 1:39-45). Moreover, Mary is our example of compassion before the needs of others (she asked Jesus for wine at Cana’s wedding, Jn 2:1-12), of solidarity with the poor neighbor (“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant; he has lifted up the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things,” Lk 1:46-55). In the Immaculate Conception Shrine in Washington D.C., there is a lovely statue of Mother and Child, with the inscription: “More Mother than Queen.” I love it! Queen also, of course; but above all, Mother of Jesus, our Mother and the disciple of disciples.

  How is our devotion to Mary? For Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort, true Marian devotion has the following characteristics: it is interior, trustful, holy, constant and selfless. False devotees according to him are the following: the critical, scrupulous, superficial, presumptuous, inconstant, hypocritical and self-interested devotees (cf. his True Devotion to Mary).

Devotion to Mary is really genuine if it takes us to her Son Jesus. As Our Mother, Mary wants us, above all, to follow Jesus. As the first disciple of Jesus, Mary our Mother and model, invites us to follow her Son. It is said that the women of Nazareth commented, when Mary went to the fountain to get water: “Never was there a mother who was so similar to the son.” Mary is, indeed, the best letter of Jesus, the closest witness of his life, the disciple of disciples. (Cf. Francisco María Lopez Melus, Desierto 1996)

Our filial devotion to Mary is ordered to our devotion to Christ. Christ, devotion to him, that is devotion in the singular, is the end of all devotions in the plural, including our devotion to Mary. Saint Bernard, a great devotee of Mary said: “The reason for our love of Mary is the Lord Jesus; the measure of our love for her is to love her without measure.” Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort, another great devotee of Our Lady wrote: “If devotion to Our Lady distracted us from our Lord, we would have to reject it as an illusion of the devil.” Authentic devotion to Mary reflects devotion to Jesus. St. Louis–Mary added: “If we call “Mary,” the echo repeats “Jesus’.”

  Mary’s mission is the mission of Christ. Indeed, Jesus is the only Mediator, and she is – subordinated to Christ – the Mediatrix of all graces. As a daughter of the Father, under Christ, in the Holy Spirit, Mary is channel of graces to us: “In her we have a great and faithful Mediatrix before Christ” (Luis de Granada). Thus, Mary guides us to the sacraments, channels of grace, and, in particular, to the Eucharist, in which Christ’s Body of the Virgin Mary becomes really present. (Cf. John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 44). In Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003), Blessed John Paul II tells us that Mary is the Woman of the Eucharist, the first and the best tabernacle of Christ (EE, nos. 54 & 55).

  In his lovely Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (October 2002), Pope John Paul II invites us to meet Mary in the Rosary. We are asked to go to the school of Mary to “learn” Jesus, to discover his secrets and to understand his message (RVM, no. 14). We are asked to be truly devoted to the Rosary of Mary, that is, to make by the praying of the Rosary a contemplative prayer, a form of Christo-centric contemplation (Ibid. no. 12).

  We all Christians – priests, consecrated men and women, and lay faithful – need to have a strong devotion to Mary, that is, a special love to her. Life is not easy, and our cross appears heavy. However, our cross, our life attempts at being always permeated by hope and love. I am convinced that if we are truly devoted to Mary we will be happy, or at least less unhappy!

Allow me to ask you to pray with me:

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. “Our Lady, Our Mediatrix, Our Advocate, reconcile us with your Son, commend us to your Son, present us to your Son” (St. Bernard) Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

 

                                    F. G. BERLANA, OP

St. Dominic’s Priory, May 2012

Daw Suu and Vocation of seed

Aung San Suu Kyi is a global figure who needs no introduction but deserves accolades beyond all that have been written or given out. I have the honor of being familiar with Daw Suu for quite a while thanks to my Burmese Brothers and the flow of information in the free world. Yet my respect and admiration for her has even increased when I had the opportunity to watch “The Lady” and got to know why that film was made in honor of the great love alongside the personal sacrifice she has. It is her consistently living in such a way of life over the past twenty years plus that recalls to my mind the words of Jesus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). Indeed, Daw Suu has been called to live the life of the seed that Jesus said more than two thousand years ago.

 The “seed” of Daw Suu in her first forty three years can be said as beautiful as a dream that a great many women on earth can only dream: highly educated, happy family, and an easy life in an affluent country. This lasted until August 1988 when she felt a duty to get involved in the suffering of her fellow people. Everything began to turn upside down to herself and her loved ones. The “seed” has fallen down to earth and died out its own property on the outside since. The paradox that Jesus pronounced is reconfirmed. Just as that Jesus had poured out his blood has awakened human conscience (Cf. Heb 9:14) and born fruit of “greater love” to “the end of the earth,” that Daw Suu has been nonviolently challenging the military authorities to respond to the democratic aspirations of the Burmese people has drawn the atrocious junta’s careful attention and spread the alternative power of compassion and insight.

 The real quality of a seed is its ability to live for a cause greater than itself – to develop its potential and grow up into a new life that multiplies its own quality. In order to realize itself the seed, however, has to fall into the ground, to be able to sympathize with the earth and to take root in it. Seeing it this way, the seed of each human being includes their potential to dedicate to a cause higher than themselves, to believe in such ideal, to hope for it, and to love it courageously. This could hopefully come true when they leave their ivory tower of security and comfort, stop being indifferent to what is happening around them, and show compassion for the grass roots. Just as how a tree and its fruits are greater than a seed, the greater human stature is seen by their personality rather than by their physical height. Whether or not a person explicitly professes that he or she is called to live out his or her uniquely human quality, indeed all is called. The challenge is whether they dare go out of themselves.

 Saint Dominic once replying to Jordan of Saxony said: “Seed when scattered fructifies, when hoarded rots.” Whether or not we publicly claim that we are seeds that come from God, it is the same. We have to be real. We have to be scattered so as to bear fruits. Vocation of a seed is not something we can put on and take off. We are all given the ability to discern our true cause in life, to hope for it, to love it, and to grow it to its full stature. Underlying it all is a sense of our personal relationship with God, the One who created the seed, and the challenge to live out that relationship so as to bear the same fruits that we come from.

 Lord, give me faith to latch on you and grant me your courage to fall down into the earth so that I will grow up and be harvested for you. Amen.

 Peter Thoại O.P.

About the resurrection of Jesus and the paschal experience

Year after year we celebrate the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And, very often, we tend to pay more attention to liturgical settings, rather than putting ourselves truly before the Lord’s paschal event and again encountering his rising from the dead. We have taken it for granted. This very fact has, somehow, failed us to appreciate the significance of Christ’s resurrection, affected the core meaning of Easter celebration, and caused our Christian faith less vibrant.

Remember, though Jesus had been followed and glorified by many people, e.g. “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Mk 11:1–10; Mt 21:1–9; Lk 19:29–38; Jn 12:12–15), standing by his cross at the end were only his mother, his mother’s sister and Mary of Magdala (Cf. Mt 27:55; Mk 15:40–41; Lk 8:2; 23:49). The disciples who used to join with Peter saying, “Even though I should have to die with you, I will not deny you” (Mt 26:33-35), were all scattered except John (Jn 19:25-26). More vehement was Peter, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). He even struck the high priest’s slave and cut off his right ear as Jesus was arrested (Cf. Jn 18:10). Yet while Jesus was questioned in the high priest’s palace, outside Peter three times denied him (Cf. Mt 26:69–75; Mk 14:66–72; Lk 22:56–62; Jn 18:17–18, 25–27). The picture of Christianity at the cross of Jesus was as downcast and gloomy as the face of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Some hope!

In spite of such hopeless outlook, the history of Christianity is well over two thousand years old now. There are more than two billion followers of Christ from all different nations around the world today. How can we explain this fact unless it was God’s divine intervention to exalt the one who had “humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8)? As a good Catholic we may also argue that it was the Holy Spirit, “the Lord, the giver of life,” who raised Jesus up from the dead and revivified the faith of his followers – the Church. Yet we shouldn’t forget that the Holy Spirit, “who proceeds from the Father and the Son,” could only descend upon the Apostles fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ! Thus, the resurrection of Jesus must be due to God, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and all the living creatures in it. The resurrection of Jesus again tells us that God is the God of Life. God of Life does not want Death. He had Jesus by his resurrection Christ defeat Death, the last enemy of humanity.

Jesus’ resurrection indeed reconfirms his identity as Son of God and he is God himself in human form. The disciples who had not yet understood the scripture that he had to rise from the dead now “saw and believed” (Jn 20:8; Cf. Lk 24:31).  Jesus’ resurrection does not only demonstrate the divinity of the historical Jesus, whose Father is God, but also it glorifies the name of Jesus as God the Savior; for from that time on it is the name of Jesus that fully manifests the supreme power of the “name that is above every name” (Phil. 2:9). “The evil spirits fear his name; in his name his disciples perform miracles, for the Father grants all they ask in this name” (CCC. 434).

Last but not least, unlike the resurrection of Lazarus (Cf. Jn 11:43-44) and other examples of resurrection recorded in the Bible, or the reincarnation and rebirth according to Egyptian and other Eastern religions, whose life was resurrected but then ended up dying again. With Christ, however, this isn’t the case; Christ resurrected, and He completely defeated death. Death no longer had any hold over Him (Acts 2:24).

Christ’s resurrection is a resurrection out of the old creation and into God. Christ, as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20), has put in advance the vision of “new heaven and new earth” and thus helped us never fail to hope in him as the Way, the Truth and the Life. May our yearly celebration of the Paschal and Resurrection of Jesus truly be an encounter that we draw from it the Faith, Hope and Love necessary for our daily Christian life. Amen!

Peter Thoại O.P.