Elon Musk: an Argument for Disruptive Higher Education?

Official SpaceX Photo

[Arrupe Convention Center, Ateneo de Naga University. May 3, 2024, 3:00 – 5:30 pm.]

During my stay in the Jesuit Health and Wellness Center (JHWC), between waiting for regular readings of my vital signs and my meals, I had the opportunity to read – or re-read many books.  Among these were  an autographed copy of Silver is my Gold, by retired Supreme Court Justice Adolfo Azcuna (Pasig City: Miraflores Publishing, 2023), Mga Ibong Mandaragit (The Preying Birds) by Amado Hernandez, trans., Danton Remoto (Singapore:  Penguin Random House, 2022), the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevski as trans., Constance Garnett (USA:  Penguin Random House, 1958), the painful Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista (USA: Random House, 2023) and the disturbing biography account of our contemporary human being, Elon Musk, by Walter Isaacson (New York: Simon & Shuster, 2023). 

I thought that in an exchange on higher educational perspectives in the Philippines such as ours this afternoon, these and similar books might be worth mentioning. In different ways each challenges us to reflect on areas with which we deal in higher education:  the meaning of our personal lives, vocation as perceived, vocation as lived; the meaning of patriotism vs. national betrayal, the culture of the oppressor, the passion of the liberator;  the meaning of faith in God vs. base humanism; the meaning of truth, faked truth, and the true outcomes of lies, lies, lies in the lives or lost lives of people, and the meaning of all that we teach in our higher educational institutions about working hard to fulfill our dreams (or our parents’ dreams) of making it in the world – even as we profess:  Primum Regnum Dei.^[1] Because of the limited time I had to prepare this talk, I wish simply to focus on the book I really didn’t want to read, because of my dislike of the man, Elon Musk, reputed to be the second-richest person in the world ($195B).  But my sister, Cristina, who gave me the book, told me: whether you like him or not, it is a book worth reading.  It is a recommendation I share with you this afternoon as contributors of higher education in the Philippines today. 

I do this against the backdrop of the Vision and Mission (MV)of the Ateneo de Naga University (ADNU):

As a university, the Ateneo de Naga seeks the integral formation of men and women who will contribute to the total development of the family and human society.

As a Filipino university, the Ateneo de Naga fosters love of country and a deep commitment to the culture of human life and care for creation. It commits itself to contribute to and benefit from global society for the transformation of the Filipino nation. Its special task is the development of Bicol and the preservation and enhancement of its culture.

As a Catholic university, the Ateneo de Naga is committed to the service of the faith that promotes justice. It seeks to form men and women committed to the person and teaching of Jesus Christ in loyal and dedicated service to the Church and community, particularly the poor.

As a Jesuit university, the Ateneo de Naga draws its inspiration and educational principles from St. Ignatius of Loyola. It thereby seeks to imbue its members with the desire to strive for excellence in every sphere and activity of life. Through teaching, research, community service and deep personal interaction it aims to form “men and women for others” who will find God in all things, always seek his greater glory and respond generously and courageously to Christ’s call to serve first God’s Kingdom – Primum Regnum Dei.

How have our graduates lived up to the VM? Does the VM prepare them for the challenges of the universe in which we live today, for the darkness of the world, the costs of excellence and success, and the awful ambivalence of whatever that success may be?

Elon Musk (1971-   )

So let us consider the life of Elon Musk.

I. Youth.  “Adversity Shaped Me.”

“As a kid growing up in South Africa, Elon Musk knew pain and learned how to survive it.” (3)^[2]

At twelve years of age, he was sent by his father to “wilderness survival camp” dubbed “veldskool”.  The participants were given little food.  They were expected to fight over the food.    Bullying a virtue.  Kids would be punched in the face.  At veldskool, Elon was beaten up twice.  The only caution the counselors offered:  “Don’t be stupid like that dumb fuck that died last year.  Don’t be the weak dumb fuck.”  (2)

The second time Elon was sent to veldskool, he was about to turn 16.  He had gotten much bigger, bursting up to six feet with a bearlike frame, and had meanwhile learned some judo.  So veldskool wasn’t so bad.  He said, “I realized by then that if someone bullied me, I could punch them very hard in the nose, and then they wouldn’t bully me again.  They might beat the shit out of me, but if I had punched them hard in the nose, they wouldn’t come after me again” (2).

South Afrika in 1980s was violent.  Machine gun attacks and knife killings were  common. 

In school, Elon was bullied.  Once he was beaten up till he was unrecognizable.  He was hospitalized.  The physical scars that came for this experience lasted a lifetime. 

But worse than the physical scars were the emotional scars inflicted by his father, Errol Musk.  When Elon returned from the hospital, he was berated by his father for having been beaten.  He called Elon “idiot,” “worthless” (3).  He had zero compassion.  He was a fabulist – bolero.  He spun tales that were larded with fantasies.  His nature was that of Jekyll and Hyde.

Yet he encouraged in Elon a physical and emotional hardness …. His father’s impact on him indelible.  “Elon’s moods would cycle through light and dark, intense and goofy, detached and emotional, with occasional plunges into what those around him dreaded as demon mode.  But unlike his father, he was kind to his children” (5).

Musk: “Adversity shaped me.  My pain threshold became very high” (5).

Out of this cauldron, Musk developed an aura that made him seem at times like an alien (6).

Born on June 28 1971 to Errol and Maye Musk.  When Elon was eight years of age, they divorced (28).

First he lived with his mother. 

Then, at 10, with his father.  Elon chose to live with his father: “My dad was lonely, so lonely, and I felt I should keep him company,”  he said (23).  Later, Kimbal, Elon’s brother said, “My Dad guilted my brother into living with him.  And then he guilted me” (ibid).

In public elementary school, Musk was a good student, but not a superstar. At 9 and 10, in public school, he got A’s in English and Math.  But his average grade in elementary school: 83/100.  In this public school, he was bullied and beaten.

In Pretoria Boys High School – a private school –  he got excellent grades in all but two subjects:  Afrikaans and religious instruction.  “I wasn’t really going to put a lot of effort into things I thought were meaningless” (26).

He liked to make small rockets and experiment with different mixtures to see what would make the biggest bang.

With his cousins he pursued entrepreneurial ideas. Once they produced chocolate eggs for sale.  When their adult customers commented that their prices were very high, he announced,  “You are supporting future capitalists” (27)

Reading remained Musk’s psychological retreat.  He read both sets of his father’s encyclopedias – one of which was the Encyclopedia Britannica.  He also read a book on  “Great Inventions”. Among its entries was a rocket propelled by an ion thruster (27). He remembered this when he worked on Space X.

II. Existential crisis. 

His mother would take him to Sunday school, where she was a teacher.  But he would question the biblical stories.  “What do you mean the waters parted?  That’s not possible.”  Concerning the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, he said:  “Things cannot materialize out of nothing.”  Concerning  Communion, he said:  “I took the body and blood of Christ. It’s a weird metaphor for cannibalism.”  Unable to change this attitude, Maye Musk let him stay home on Sundays to read.

His father told him that are things that cannot be known through our limited senses and minds.  But Elon came to believe early on that science was sufficient to explain things. 

Later he came on his own to the realization that religious and scientific explanations do not really address “the really big questions” like:  Where did the universe come from and why does it exist? What was the meaning of the universe?  The meaning of life? (26).

For a while he dove deep into the thought of the  existentialist philosophers like Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Schopenhauer. “This had the effect of turning confusion into despair” (30) 

He was “saved by science fiction”.

Like Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.  Here a lunar penal colony is managed by  a super computer, nicknamed Mike, that is able to acquire self-awareness and a sense of humor.  The computer sacrifices its life during a rebellion at the penal colony.  “The book explores an issue that would become central to Musk’s life:  Will artificial intelligence develop in ways that benefit and protect humanity, or will machines develop intentions of their own and become a threat to humans”(31). 

Then, the robot stories in Arthur Asimov’s Foundationseries.  The tales formulate laws of robotics that are designed to make sure robots do not get out of control.  Zeroth’s Law is formulated:  “A robot may not harm humanity, or though inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”  A plan is developed to send settlers to distant regions of the galaxy to preserve human consciousness (31).

These ideas contributed to Musk’s life mission: to make humans a space-faring species and to harness artificial  intelligence to be at the service of humans. Thirty years later, Musk tweeted that Asimov’s “Foundation series and Zeroth Law were fundamental to the creation of Space X”  (31)

Finally, Musk said that Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy  “Helped me out of my existential depression.”

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide, Arthur Dent is rescued by a passing spaceship seconds before the Earth is destroyed by an alien civilization that is building a hyperspace highway.  With his rescuer, Dent explores the nooks and crannies of the galaxy run by a two-headed president… Meanwhile, the denizens of the galaxy are trying to figure out the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.”  They build a supercomputer that after seven million years spouts out the answer “42.”  To the howls of derision and rejection that ensue, the super computer replies:  “That quite definitely is the answer.  I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.“  That lesson stuck with Musk.  “I took from the book that we need to extend the scope of consciousness so that we are better able to ask the questions about the answer, which is the universe,” he said (31). 

It encourages readers to question and seek their own meanings in life.

At eleven years of age, he hounded his father for his first computer.  “No!” his father replied;  he despised computers.  So Musk saved his own money to buy a Commodore VIC-20, one of the first computers.  It came with a course on how to program in BASIC in 60 lessons.  He learned it in three days, barely sleeping (33).

After he aced a programming skills test at his school, he got an IBM PC/XT and taught himself to program using Pascal and Turbo C++.  AT 13, he was able to create a video game, Blastar, using 123 lines of BASIC.  He sold it for $500. It began a lifelong addiction to video games (33-34).

III. Formal College Training

Elon Musk received formal college training in the following HEIs:

1. University of Pretoria (brief period in 1988):
   • Before moving to Canada, Musk attended the University of Pretoria in South Africa for a brief period while waiting to receive his Canadian citizenship.
     
2. Queen’s University (1990-1992):
   • Musk attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, for two years.  At this period in this life was desperately interested in a social life, “I didn’t want to spend my graduate life with a bunch of dudes” (45).
     
3. University of Pennsylvania (1992-1997):
   • Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed two bachelor’s degrees:
     • Bachelor of Science in Physics: Musk graduated with a degree in physics from Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences.
     • Bachelor of Science in Economics: He also earned a degree in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

At UPenn he had received a $14,000 scholarship and a student loan package. 

“He decided to major in physics because, like his father he was drawn to engineering.  The essence of being an engineer, he felt, was to address any problem by drilling down to the most fundamental tenets of physics.”  He also decided to pursue a joint degree in business.  “I was concerned that if I didn’t study business, I would be forced to work for someone who did.  … My goal was to engineer products by having a feel for physics and never to work for a boss with a business degree” (50).

IV. Plunge from Higher Academic Studies into Life

After completing his undergraduate degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, Elon Musk briefly pursued graduate studies in applied physics and materials science at Stanford University. However, he left the program just after two days to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities in the emerging internet industry.

In 1995 at the age of 24, Musk declared, “Most PhDs are irrelevant.  The number that actually move the needle is almost none” (54).

He had conceived by that time a life vision that he would repeat like a mantra. “I thought about things that will truly affect humanity,” he says.  “I came up with three, the internet, sustainable energy, and space travel.” 

In the summer of 1995, it became clear to him thatthe first of these was not going to wait for him to finish graduate school.  The web has just been opened up for commercial use.  The web had just been opened up for commercial use, and that August the browser startup Netscape went public, soaring within a day to a market value of $2.9B (58.)

When Musk asked his friend, Peter Nicholson of Scotiabank, for advise on whether to stay in the PhD program or strike out on his own, he said:  “The internet revolution comes once in a lifetime, so strike while the iron is hot” (58).

V. Main achievements of Elon Musk (briefly!):

Here’s a list of some of Elon Musk’s major accomplishments in science and technology in chronological order:

1. Zip2 Corporation (1996-1999):
   • Co-founded Zip2, a web software company providing business directories and maps for newspapers. The company was sold to Compaq for nearly $307 million in 1999.  Of this, at 27 years of age, Elon got 22M based on his shares. He splurged on a $1M Maclaren Sports car.
     
2. X.com and PayPal (1999-2002):
   • With Peter Thiel, Musk co-founded X.com, an online payment company, through which he intended to disrupt the banking industry.  X.com became PayPal.
   • In 2000, the PayPal Board removed Musk as CEO.  Though he’d fought the removal, when the decision was made with finality, Musk accepted it calmly, then went on sabbatical to found a new company.  PayPal was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.  On sabbatical, Musk bought a single engine turbo-prop plane, and learned how to fly in two weeks…. Flying appealed to his daredevil gene…(91).

3. SpaceX (2002-present):
   • In 2002, Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) with the goals of first, reducing space transportation costs; second, enabling the colonization of Mars. “NASA incredibly had no plans for Mars…”…forcing Trump to conclude:  Technological progress was not inevitable! (93).  But for Musk going to Mars was to help insure the survival of human civilization and consciousness in case something happened to our fragile planet. Humanity is a multiplanetary species. The third and final reason was simply to encourage American adventure!
   • Space X’s achievements include its being the first privately funded company to send a spacecraft to orbit and return it (2008).  It did this on its fourth attempt from the island of Kwaj, Marianas Islands.  This was Falcon 1.  Later it developed the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, and the Dragon spacecraft. The government-led National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had become flabby and inefficient.  Space X’s competition and work ethic forced a rejuvenation of NASA.
   • Space X successfully launched the first privately funded mission to the International Space Station (ISS) with the Dragon spacecraft in 2012.
   • In 2020, SpaceX launched its first crewed mission to the ISS in partnership with NASA.
     
4. Tesla, Inc. (2004-present):
   • With the intention to combat climate change by reducing carbon emissions, Musk invested in Tesla Motors in 2004; he became its chairman and later its CEO.
   • Tesla’s achievements include the release of the Tesla Roadster (2008), Tesla Model S (2012), Model 3 (2017), and other electric vehicles that have revolutionized the electric car market.  Musk’s cars could also reach extraordinarily high velocities, eg 60 MPH (96.56 km) in two seconds. 
   • Trough Tesla, Musk oversaw the development of battery technology, autopilot features, and renewable energy products such as solar panels and Powerwall.
   • His long-term dream of developing a car that could travel on full autopilot using cameras only (so without complementary radar technology) is still a challenge…
     
5. SolarCity (2006-2016):
   • In 2006 Trump co-founded SolarCity, a solar energy services company, which became one of the largest solar energy providers in the United States.
   • SolarCity was acquired by Tesla in 2016 and integrated into Tesla’s energy division.
     
6. The Boring Company (2016-present):
   • Musk founded The Boring Company in 2016 to improve tunneling technology and alleviate urban traffic.
   • Projects include the Loop transportation system in Las Vegas and other proposed tunnel projects in various cities.
     
7. Neuralink (2016-present):
   • In the same year, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company working on developing implantable brain–machine interfaces.
   • It aims to enhance human-computer interaction and potentially treat such as paralysis, blindness and other neurological conditions.  It is developing robot-assisted surgery for implanting the device with precision and safety, including processes of miniaturization.  Though achieving these goals are a work-in-progress, Neuralink has the approval of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to proceed with the research.
     
8. Starlink (2015-present):
   • SpaceX’s Starlink project aims to provide global high-speed internet coverage through a network of low-Earth orbit satellites.
   • The service has become operational in multiple regions, providing connectivity to underserved and remote areas.
     
9. X formerly TWITTER  2022, was acquired to make more money, to be part of the “mission of preserving civilization, buying our society more time to be multiplanetary” (457)  more “group think” (458)  It was fun.  Purchased in October, 2022 for $44B (after nine months of negotiation)

Elon Musk’s work has made significant impacts in the fields of space exploration, electric vehicles, renewable energy, transportation infrastructure, neurotechnology, and satellite internet.

VI. Musk’s Rules for Rocket Building and his Algorithm  

How was he able to achieve all of this?

Musk’s Rules for Rocket Building, formulated in 2002-2003 (112-17).

Question every cost.

Cost effectiveness was critical for his ultimate goal, which was to colonize Mars. 

He challenged the prices that aerospace suppliers charged, which was usually ten times higher than in the auto industry.  He used his “Idiot index” which calculated “how much more costly a finished product was than the cost of its basic materials.”  If significant, Musk’s mandate was to reduce! (99). He attacked government’s standard cost-plus contracts (123), which guaranteed a private producer like Boeing all the costs of producing products to government’s specifications (cost), and guaranteed a profit on top of costs (“plus”).  These bloated costs, rewarded inefficiency, and guaranteed profits!  Against such contracts Space X pioneered in an alternative:  The private company like Space X risked its own capital, and it would be paid only when it delivered on certain milestones…

Because he questioned all costs,  he wanted to manufacture everything himself.  For example, an actuator, which swivels the nozzle of an upper-stage engine costs $120,000 in the market.  He produced it for $5,000. 

He questioned all specifications and requirements mandated by the military and NASA. (Cf. Algorithm below)

Have a maniacle sense of urgency.

Musk wanted a more aggressive schedule for manufacturing Merlin engines, the engines that lifted the rockets.  He complained, “How the fuck can it take so long? … This is stupid!”  He demanded, “Cut it in half!”  Tom Mueller, the expert engineer in charge of SpaceX engines, balked:  “You just can’t take a schedule that we have already cut in half and then cut it in half again.”   This was a response to a demand Musk detested: He told Mueller, “If you want to remain head of engines, then when I ask for something you fucking give it to me.”

Musk insisted on setting unrealistic deadlines even when they weren’t necessary.  He said:  “A maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle.”  The effect:  extra effort or demoralization.

Mueller:  even though we failed to meet most schedules or cost targets, we still beat all of our peers.”  In this manner, “We build the lowest cost, most awesome rockets in history.”

Learn by failing.

Musk took an iterative approach to design.  Rockets and engines would be quickly prototyped, tested, blown up revised and tried again, until finally something worked.  Move fast, blow things up. Repeat.  Mueller:  “It’s not how well you avoid problems.  It’s how fast you figure out what the problem is and fix it.”  Space X’s Falcon 1 successful from Kwaj island only on its fourth attempt on Sept 28, 2008, when Musk was close to bankrupt ( and burdened also with TESLA problems.

Improvise

With his tolerance for risk, Musk pushed them [his engineers] to find makeshift solutions.

“One night lightning struck a test stand, knocking out the pressurization system for a fuel tank.  That led to a bulge and rip in one of the tank’s membranes. In a normal aerospace company, that would have meant replacing the tanks, which could take months. “Nah just fix it,” Musk said.  “Go up there with some hammers and just pound it back out and weld it, and we’ll keep going.”  When Musk showed up, we began testing the tank with gas in it, and it held”.  “Elon thinks every situation is salvageable.” (Buzza) … Even if that’s not the case.  116

Musk’s “Algorythm”. 2018 (47). pgs 284-85

1. Question every requirement.
2. Delete any part of the process you can
3. Simplify and optimize.
4. Accelerate cycle time.
5. Automate.

CORROLARIES:

All technical managers must have hands on experience.

Comradery is dangerous.  It makes it hard for people to challenge each others’s work.  There is a tendency to not want to throw a colleague under the bus. That needs to be avoided. 

It’s okay to be wrong.  Just don’t be wrong and confident.

Whenever there are problems to solve, don’t just meet with your managers. 

Whenever hiring, look for people with the right attitude.  Skills can be taught.  Attitude changes require a brain transplant. 

A maniacal sense of urgency

The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics.  Everything else is a recommendation. 

VII. What does all this have to do with us at the ADNU?

Whether you admire or resent, love or hate Elon Musk, his life, his dreams, his achievements, his work program (his work ethics?), provide us food for thought – perhaps even an argument for a disruptive type of higher education at ADNU.

How does the particular world we grow up in  (our families, customs, institutions) shape our lives?  Does it harden us, or soften us?  Does it empower us, or overpower us?  If we do not have anything like  veldskool, what do we have?  Kindergarten, boyscouts, ROTC?

How do we deal with gifted children?  With “different” children?  Form their practical or even entrepreneurial skills?  Encourage their reading books (not just Google postings)?

How do our students answer the existential question:  why do I exist and not not exist?  What are their sources of meaning – talaga?  Their parents, the Bible, the Gospel, priests/pastors, religion classes, philosophy classes, counselors, FB, Tiktok, peers… “life”, the “school of hard knocks”?

How do our students/graduates shape and pursue their dreams?  Are their dreams truly theirs?  Do they have adequate opportunity to pursue them? To develop resilience?  Grit?  How do they acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to actualize their dreams?

How do our graduates lead as executives or technical managers: in the executive office or in the sweaty production line?  how do they achieve their goals in a competitive world filled with regulatory obstacles?  with people expecting the “s.o.p.”, bribes.

How do they seize control to get ahead when higher powers seek to control them and keep them tame and malleable?  Do they have the stomach to disrupt when the establishment says preserve! conserve!  children should be seen but not heard! employees are paid to obey not question!

How do they treat labor?  Performing labor?  Non-performing labor?  What is the role of comradery and friendship in the work force – how do they see or feel it?  In the context of labor laws in the PH? Are they willing to call out a colleague for inefficiency, incompetence, corruption?

Do we have a genuine appreciation for the private sector vs the public sector?  The contribution of each to the common good? Do we not tend to expect government with its history of inefficiency and corruption still to solve all problems.  Do we not underestimate the creativity and the power of the private sector to forge the way forward in meeting the challenges of our universe?

Can we form entrepreneurs who disrupt and innovate as Elon Musk did?

I am elated to hear of the work of my friend and now your ADNU board trustee, Magno Edilberto “Eddie Boy” Conag, through his Neuca Technologies, Inc.  He supplies some 20,000 sari-sari stores in Bikol their commercial needs through his e-commerce platform, Tindahang Tapat.^[3]

But in the context of Elon Musk, you will be inspired as well by the example of Mr. Ryan Labrador.  He was a Gabay scholar in my time, a member of the dormitory which was reserved then exclusively for honor students.  He tells you how his struggles to gain an education meant he had to walk or hitchhike daily to school from Minalabac, some 13 kilometers away.  He graduated from ADNU in 2004 with a degree in electronics communications engineering, after which he completed an M.S. in Computer Science at ADMU.  Today he is one of two distributors of Starlink in the Philippines through his company Revlv (“Revolve”) Solutions, Inc.  He edged SM’s Data Lake, Inc. out of being the exclusive distributor of Starlink in the Philippines by attempting to contact Elon Musk by guessing his email address.  On his first try, he reached Gwynn Shotwell, the president of Space X.  She connected him to Andrew Matlock, director of commercial sales, Asia Pacific.    Ryan Labrador impressed the Space X leadership, and continues to impress it by his local marketing and distribution system, which is now being considered for international application.   

Ryan is assisted by Nicanor Beltran, Jr, class valedictorian of 2005. 

Ryan is now into multiple activities, including construction, property development, tourism, and philanthropy. 

Musk would probably scowl at Primum Regnum Dei as a source of existential meaning in the entrepreneurial travails of Eddie Boy and of Ryan, in whose lives you have played an indelible part.  As you reflect on the life of Musk in today’s dog-eat-dog world, it would be instructive, if not inspiring, to ask how Primum Regnum Dei provides meaning for their lives and helps shape our universe. 

Photo source: Fr. Jun Embile, SJ

N O T E S

---

[1] Primum Regnum Dei – First the Kingdom of God! – is the motto of the Ateneo de Naga University.

[2] This presentation was originally devolped as an oral presentation towards a discussion. Numbers set in parenthesis refer to page numbers in Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk.  Unless otherwise indicated they are quotations or loose paraphrases of the biographer. 

[3] Visit: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1022540871648722

Faith and the Promise of a Better Place

[Homily for the Jesuit Health and Wellness Center Community.  April 26, ’24.  RE: JOHN 14: 1-6]

From our Gospel today, we hear:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1).

As there is so much trouble in the world: the West Philippine Sea, international allies maneuvering vs Chinese aggression, Ukraine vs Russian aggression, the possible re-armament of Russia by China, the challenge to humanitarian and democratic values in the world, Myanmar, political unrest in the Philippines – and the sweltering heat.

As “I used to be stronger, now I am less strong.”  “I used to be strong, now I am diminished.”

As there is illness, weakness, pain … inevitable prospect of “the hour of my death.” 

“You have faith in God;  have faith also in me” (Jn 14:2).

In God:  The God who created us.  …you.  Who called you by name.

In me, sent by God to redeem you.  “I have come to bring you life, life to the life to the full”  (Jn 10:10).  “I have laid down my life for you” (Jn 10:17-18).

Part of the message is today’s Gospel:  “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  …. I go to prepare a place for you.  It is good to imagine what this would be like…How it would be to be in the presence of God, in the presence of the Creator… of his Son, our Redeemer, judge of heaven and earth, of the Holy Spirit in whom we are loved, in whom we are baptized, in whom we love.    We often refer to this as a “better place”, a place of pain relieved, of greater happiness, of profound ecstasy.

“I will come back and take you to myself so that where I am you also might be.  …” (Jn:14:2.3.)

In San Jose Seminary, in the 5^th floor chapel of St. Joseph, there is an image of Jesus, Mary and Joseph:    not Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the nativity scene, nor fleeing to Egypt, not in Nazareth during the hidden life, where Joseph in Mary’s presence teaches Jesus the skills of carpentry.  but an image of:

Jesus, Mary, and the dying Joseph.  Rare.  Old.  An antique carving in wood whose faded colors are peeling off.  Still packing meaning:

Mary sitting on Joseph’s bed  “at the hour of his death”, looking into his eyes gratefully.

Joseph, lying down in the last moments of his earthly life, looking up into the eyes of Jesus.  

Jesus, grown, standing over Joseph, looking into his eyes.  What he says must have been something like what we heard in our Gospel

“I have come to take you to myself…so that where I am you also might be.”

This is the type of “Hour of Death” we pray for with every Hail Mary.

“I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  … (Jn 3:6)

A New Liturgical Year

[Homily. First Sunday of Advent.  JRH-M.  Dec 3, 2023.]

We begin a new liturgical year.  The cycle begins again.  A new set of readings from an unchanging set of sacred scriptures.  A new cycle of celebrations in the church of the Eternal High Priest.  We begin the new year with waiting for the Second Coming of the Lord…. We begin with hope.  That this history of ours will not end in disaster, death and darkness, but with the triumph of the Father in the ultimate fulfillment of his Kingdom through the victory of his Son, Jesus, the Christ.

In this hope, we participate in the new liturgical year through the Holy Spirit in recalling, worshipping, and living in fidelity to Christ the King.  For liturgy is not just worship in church.  It is Christian life, life which ultimately comes as a blessing from the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.  Our blessed lives which we humbly offer in return to the Father through the liturgy led by Jesus. 

In the liturgical year, we recall God’s creation of this world.  We recall how in order to save the world from our disastrous misuse of human freedom in sin, the Father sends the Son to take on our human flesh, and makes his dwelling among us.   We recall his birth in a stable in Bethlehem.  We recall his growth as a child in Nazareth.  We recall his public life, his baptism by John the Baptist, the temptations he suffered throughout his life.  We recall his calling apostles and disciples, men and women, to follow him, and his interaction with them, his teaching them, his forming them, his admonishing them, his encouraging them.  We recall his healing the sick, feeding the hungry, preaching the Good News about the compassion and love of his Father.   We recall his teaching us to pray, to love one another, to consider blessed the poor, meek, those who mourn, those who are persecuted.  We recall his insisting the Sabbath Day was made for the human being, and not the human being for the Sabbath, that it was therefore alright to do good to people, to liberate them from sickness and sin on the Sabbath Day.  We recall the fierce opposition he encountered from the Pharisees, the Scribes, the Chief priests, their intent to murder him, his betrayal by one of his own apostles, but also his establishment of a New Covenant in the Sacrifice of his own body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, his passion,  death, resurrection and ascension, then the establishment through the Holy Spirit of his Church, his Kingdom, his community of disciples entrusted to spread the good news of the Love and Compassion of the Father in Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth.  They are to be faithful to him – despite suffering and persecution, until he comes again to bring his Kingdom to fulfillment.  As the liturgical year begins with the hope of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, so it ends with the hope the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. 

In that hope, the hope of the Age of the Church, we are told:  “Be watchful.  Be alert.  You do not know when the time will come.”  But knowing how stressful and taxing being faithful to the Lord in this world is, knowing how fragile and breakable we are, our sentiment with Isaiah is, “O that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you…!  Would that you might meet us doing right!  For we know we are sinful.  We know we are guilty. “Our sin is ever before us.”

Yet you, O Lord, are our Father;  we are the clay, you are the potter.  We are in your hands.  Let us not harden ourselves against your pressing fingers.  Mold us – throughout the entire new liturgical year – into the servants you wish us to be.   

Remembering Our Lady of Guadalupe in Cabanglasan

[Homily.  First Day of the Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Parish Church, Cabanglasan.  Dec 3, 2023] 

Not long after the conquistador, Hernan Cortez, had conquered the Mexican native Aztecs,  he welcomed 12 Franciscan Friars to help in the evangelization of the indigenous peoples of Mexico.  In this context of foreign conquest and the start of serious evangelization in Mexico, Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego, a native, four times in 1531.  On Dec 9, a Saturday, she appeared to him speaking his native Nahuati (the Aztec language); she asked that a church be built where she appeared.  After the apparition, Juan Diego went immediately to the archbishop of Mexico, Juan de Zumaraga, and relayed to him the message of Our Lady.  As could be expected, he did not believe him.  Why would our Lady, Queen of Heaven and Earth, be appearing to such a simple man as Juan Diego?   

So that very same afternoon, Juan Diego goes back to the spot where Our Lady appeared to him.  In her second apparition, he tells her the reaction of the archbishop.  But our Lady does not change her wish.  She instructs Juan to go back to the archbishop and tell him that the instruction for the building of a church is coming for Our Lady Herself, the mother of Jesus.   It is Saturday afternoon; she tells Juan Diego she will meet him again on Monday.  So, the next day, Sunday, Juan Diego returns to the bishop with the Lady’s message.  This time, the archbishop tells him:   ask her to give you a sign to prove that she is really who she says she is. 

On Monday, however, Juan Diego is distracted by the sudden illness of his uncle, Juan Bernardino.  He has to care for him.  Because of this, he does not show up for his meeting with Our Lady.  He misses his appointment with her!  Instead, he takes care of his uncle.    

The next day, Tuesday, Juan Diego, still concerned for his uncle’s health, actually tries to avoid meeting our Lady.  He takes another route, avoiding the place where he’d met her.  But Our Lady follows him, and appears to him on his alternative route.  Huli!  “Where are you going?” she asks.  Embarrassed, he explains to her his predicament, how his uncle was taken ill, and how he had to take care of him.  She understands, of course, but in the message of her fourth apparition, she chides him for not having taken recourse to her in his need, “Am I not here?” she asks, “I who am your mother?”  Then she assures him that his uncle has already been restored to health; she has in fact already appeared to him.  

So Juan Diego is now able to tell her what the Archbishop has said.  He wants a sign.  So Mary instructs Juan to go to an isolated hill.  Go there and gather the flowers that are there, she says.  “Flowers?” he wonders.  “In winter?”  But he obeys.  When he arrives on the hill, he is totally dumbfounded.   Where normally only thorns and thistles grow, especially now, in winter, there are beautiful roses growing – and not just ordinary roses, Castilian roses, which were not native to Mexico.  He gathers them and bring them to her.  

When he does, she herself arranges them in his tilma or tunic.  On her instruction, he now brings them to the archbishop.  When he unravels his tilma, the flowers fall; and there, permanently impressed on the tilma, is the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  The image of the Lady is described in Revelations 12:1:  she is “clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”  But her facial features are not European but native Mexican, her garments that of the native people, her language not that of the conquering Spaniards but that of the conquered Aztecs.  To the native Mexicans looking at this image, the rays behind her are the rays of the Aztec sun god, which Our Lady now eclipses.  At her feet is the image of the Aztec moon god of life and fertility, which Our Lady now overpowers.  It is the 12^th of December, the day we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

Our Lady of Guadalupe is an image of Our Lady identifying herself with the new Christian community in Mexico whose people Pope Pius III insisted were “not savages but had souls and were intelligent enough to understand and accept the faith” (Pope Paul III, Sublimis Deus, 1537).  Because of this, they were not to be enslaved, not to be oppressed, but respected.  Appearing to them as one of them, dressed like them, speaking their own language, and looking like them, was Our Lady’s way of encouraging the young church in Mexico in their Christian beliefs, even as they had to struggle, on the one hand, against the European conquest and  exploitation that had beset them in their land, but also, on the other hand, against old Aztec beliefs of ancestral worship and ongoing worship of traditional gods.  

For Mary, the true Savior was her Son giving himself to the Mexican people to lead them to his Father,  and she was Our Lady of Guadalupe to help bring the Mexican people to her Son.  

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of your community in Cabanglasan, as she is also the “Heavenly Patroness of the Philippine Islands”  as decreed by Pope Pious XI in 1935.

As we begin a new liturgical year in the hope of the Second Coming of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ as King and Judge of Heaven and Earth, let us pray that our Our Lady of Guadalupe, specially present in our community, bless the church – this church of Cabanglasan – that she appreciates has been built in her name, this community of Cabanglasan that worships God through her intercession – so the Church may come closer to its people, speaking their own native tongue, living the faith in their own native traditions – just as what happened under her guidance in Mexico.  Let us take special consolation in Our Lady telling us when we have urgent concerns, when we have loved ones who are sick or no longer know how to make ends meet, “Am I not here?  Am I not your mother?”  Perhaps with this we can remember what we often pray in the Memorare, “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession was left unaided.” 

Through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, when the Son of Man comes again as the King and Judge of Heaven and Earth, may we be prepared because we have allowed ourselves in this life to be helped and guided by her.  May we hear the Lord say, “Come you blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom that has been prepared for you since the foundation of the world.”

The Son of Man

[Homily. 1 December 2023.  Based on Dan 7:15-27 and Lk 21: 34-36]

Before and after our celebration of the Feast of Christ the King, we have been hearing readings that might be called “apocalyptic.”  Last week, we read from the two books of Maccabees; this week from the book of Daniel.  Apocalyptic literature was very much appreciated, especially from the second century BC and onwards, when there was heavy persecution of the Jews, then later, of Christians.  They conveyed that the Lord had not abandoned his people in their persecution.  All powerful, the Lord intervenes in history.  He is faithful to his own who are faithful to him. 

Thus, even if we have celebrated the Feast of Christ the King, and have renewed ourselves in the hope of his Second Coming as King and just Judge of heaven and earth, that judgement and that fulfillment is yet to come.  Meanwhile, in this world we are called to remain vigilant, and to remain faithful to all the Lord has taught us, not only in words, but in deeds – no matter the cost. 

Today’s reading from Daniel speaks about the persecutions of the Jews in the two centuries before the coming of Christ.  They are represented in a vision by four beasts:

The  Winged lion represents Babylon – which destroyed Jerualem and sent its peole iinto exile.  It represents the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and later his son, Belshazzar.

The Voracious Bear represents the Median Empire, the old Persians of Iran, which grew swiftly by consuming its neighboring countries.

The Swift Leopard represents the Persians who under the strong and enlightened leadership of Cyrus swiftly gained dominion over the known world under the leadership of Cyrus.

The Different Terrible Beast represents Greek or Seleucid rulers originating with Alexander the Great.  The ”little horn” represemts the worst of these rulers, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who usurped the throne and was responsible for terrible persecution of the Jews. 

Against this background of persecution, Daniel has a vision of the heavenly court of God… presided over by God, the Ancient One, sitting on his throne.

A heavenly “court” is convened.   Books were opened.  The beasts clash with each other in court.   The terrible beast is overwhelmed and killed.  The other beasts are allowed to live.

Then Daniel sees a mysterious figure:  ONE LIKE THE SON OF MAN
COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN…
When he reached the Ancient One and was presented before him,
He received dominion, glory and kingship,
nations and peoples of every language serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away,
His kingship shall not be destroyed. 

As Jews and early Christians endured their persecution, they were comforted by this mysterious apocalyptic prophecy in Daniel.  In the end, despite their travails and suffering, God wins, the Ancient One wins, in handing over everlasting dominion to the Son of Man….

Jesus’ preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God was controversial.  He wanted to lead his listeners to fidelity to God but there were so many influences impacting on their lives.  First, with the demands of sheer survival in Jewish society at that time, not everyone was interested in God;  people had to work, to earn money.  Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of God was at hand.  But when he healed on the Sabbath it was controversial.  When he forgave sins, it was controversial. When he insinuated that the Kingdom of God was not just for the Jews but for others as well, it was controversial.  And when he regularly referred to himself as the Son of Man, it was controversial.  It was controversial because he was basically claiming that the prophecy of Daniel was fulfilled in him.

He identified himself with the mysterious Son of Man in Daniel’s vision… as he who receives everlasting Dominion from God himself.

That’s what is manifest in Matthew’s vision of Christ the King and Just Judge of heaven and earth.  Matthew says, …they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.  And he will send out his angels with trumpet blast, and they will gather the elect from the four winds, from the end of the heavens to the other.  Mt. 24:30-31

On the day of judgment, Matthew says it is “the Son of Man” who comes in his glory, and all the angels with him. He sits upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him.  It is the heavenly court.  And then the Son of Man judges, separating sheep from goats.  He judges, having received from the Heavenly Father dominion in an everlasting dominion. 

Jesus’ teaching with authority, healing with power, judging with justice flow from his dominion as Son of Man.  In our Gospel for today Jesus says, “When you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God is near” (Lk 21:31).  Meanwhile, in our time, as we meet the challenges of our lives and endure our trials, we take comfort in Jesus’ being the Son of Man.  But because he is the Son of Man to whom all power is given, we remain faithful. 

On the Feast of Christ the King

[Homily. JRH-M, 2023]

Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King.  This is the Feast which wraps up not only Ordinary time in our liturgical year, but actually the entire liturgical year beginning with Advent, through Christmas, Lent and the solemn celebration of the Suffering, Death and Resurrection of the Lord. 

Today celebrates the hope that we all have as believers in Christ in the Second Coming of the Lord. It is the hope that we have expressed in the readings for this feast:

First, that in the Second Coming the Lord will come as the Good Shepherd who in the context of the prophecy of Ezekiel has himself taken over the leadership of his flock from the bad shepherds, the evil leaders of the people.  The Lord said, “I myself will pasture my sheep, I myself will give them rest. … The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly” (Ez. 34:1-15).  Especially today we can hear what the Lord God says to his sheep:  “I will judge between one sheep and another, between the rams and the goats. ” (Ez. 34:1-16).    You are not all the same.  I will judge you according to what or whom you manifest yourselves to be.

Second, that in the Second Coming, as first fruit of the Paschal Mystery, Jesus, resurrected, shall come again.  He shall appear in the triumph and glory alive, death having been dealt its death blow through his obedience to the Father unto death.  Then before Christ the King shall come those who belong to him, the sheep whom he has cared for and led, who follow him and recognize his voice, the sheep for whom as Good Shepherd he has laid down his life.   Then, in the Second Coming, “comes the end, when he [Christ the King] hands over the Kingdom to his God and Father” (1Cor.15:20-26).  This involves two things:  first, he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and every power incompatible with his sovereignty, authority and power as King.  All is subjected to him as King.  Second, as King, he hands over everything subject to him “to the one who subjected all to him,” namely, to his God and Father, “so that God may be all in all” (1Cor.15:20-28).  It is beautiful to meditate on this:  The Son of God subjects all things his God has subjected to him so that God, his creativity, his compassion, his love, may be all in all, everything in everything, creation and humanity redeemed in divinity, divinity glorified and praised in redeemed humanity and creation. 

Third, is the text from Matthew (25:31-46) we are more familiar with:  The Judgement of the Nations.  In the Second Coming, Jesus Christ, “the Son of Man comes in his glory, with all the angels with him; he sits on his glorious throne, and all the nations are assembled before him.”  He separates one from the other as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  The criterion he uses to separate the sheep from the goats is one:  not how much money have you accumulated for me, not how many buildings have you constructed for me, not how many books have you written for me, but rather, how have you cared for the hungry, thirsty, homeless, stranger, naked and imprisoned?  For, he proclaims on Judgement Day, “Whatever you have done or not done for one of these the least of my sisters and brothers, that you have done for me.”

The liturgical celebration of Christ the King celebrates the hope we have in a future event.  The Kingdom of God has been established through the Paschal Mystery; it exists already irreversibly. But it is not yet fulfilled.  We celebrate Kristong Hari in the hope that the Kingdom of God will be fulfilled, when the glorious Son of God, Christ the King, turns over all that has been subjected to him by God, returns all back to his God and Father redeemed, so that God may be all in all. 

Meanwhile, it may be appropriate again to appreciate that Christ the King is best represented not as a King wearing a medieval bejeweled crown and royal velvet garments, holding an orb in one hand and a scepter of power in the other.  The most appropriate image of Christ the King is from scripture, that of Christ hanging on the Cross with the sign over him reading, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” (Jn 19:19).   Before his crucifixion Pilate had asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus’ answer, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.  …  You say I am a King.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” (Jn 18:36).  Thereafter he was mocked by the soldiers with a crown of thorns, “’Hail, King of the Jews!’  They spat on him and kept striking him on the head” (Mt. 27:29-30).  Later, Pilate presented him derided and humiliated to the Jews, “Behold, your king!”  The people replied, “We have no king but Caesar!” Then Pilate handed him over to be crucified.  He was nailed to the Cross and lifted up. 

Before this image of Christ the King, Christ on the Cross, you look at him today, between the Paschal Mystery, the death and resurrection of the Lord more than 2000 years ago, and the Second Coming of the Lord on a day we do not know.  In the fullness of time, chronology is overcome, these two images conflate.  The Kingdom is established, but it is not yet fulfilled.  It is already, but it is not yet.  Looking at how Christ died for you in love to establish the Kingdom for you and in you, you might ask how you have responded to this love: what have you done for the fulfillment of the Kingdom, what are you now doing for it, what ought you yet do for it?  What ought you to do where so many of the Lord’s sheep are being misled by false shepherds?  What ought you do where so many in the world today trade the sovereignty, authority and power of the Christ the King for the mendacious and manipulative words of advertisements and corrupt politicians?  What ought you do when today so many are still hungry, thirsty, homeless, strangers, naked and imprisoned? What ought you do today when the Second Coming of Jesus as King and Judge of Heaven and Earth is seldom even in the consciousness of good people?

Hopefully you might begin today by quietly contemplating Jesus, the King, hanging from the Cross looking at you despite excruciating pain with a discernible twinkle in his eyes. Look at him with a genuine appreciation of the hope we have in his Second Coming as King and Judge of heaven and earth.  Looking at this image of Christ the King enables a response today that loves even in the way this King loves. 

Challenge in Our Readings

[Homily.  For XU–HS Students. JRH-M, 23 Nov. ‘23]

There is a lot of challenge in our readings for our Mass this evening.  On the Thursday before the Feast of Christ the King, it would be beneficial for us, for you and for me, to have a deep appreciation of the challenge. 

First, the reading from 1 Maccabees.  This week, most of our first readings at Mass have come from Maccabees.  Yesterday, from 2 Maccabees, we heard the story about how a Jewish mother and her seven sons would sacrifice their lives through a tortuous death rather than give up their fidelity to the Covenant and to the Mosaic Law.  One by one, each showing exemplary courage and faith, they were all martyred within the same day. 

Today, we hear about the earlier attempts of the Greek King through his emissaries to get Mattathias and his sons, to abandon their faith and offer sacrifice to the Greek gods “just like others have been doing,” and, as a reward for this, to be numbered among the “king’s friends” and be rewarded with much silver and gold.  Mattathias, however, was a Jewish priest.  He would have nothing to do with this unholy attempt to convince him and his sons to abandon their religious beliefs for influence, fame and wealth.  Indeed, when he sees that another Jew has succumbed to the temptation of making a sacrificial offering to the unholy abomination above the altar, Mattathias is so enraged by this sacrilege that he kills him.  That, of course, drew the line between him and the Greek leadership.  So he calls like-minded Jews, Jews who were willing to fight for their religious freedom, to follow him into the hills.  In 1 Maccabees this is the beginning of the staunch revolt of the Maccabees – Mattathias, the priest, and his five sons, but especially by his eldest son, Judas – against the Greek attempt to eradicate the lived Jewish religion.

What might this mean for us in XU-HS?  If a mother and her seven sons are willing to give up their lives rather than violate the Law, and if a priest with his five sons are willing to revolt against their king in order to protect their people’s prerogative to worship their God, the question for us may be:  what would we be willing to give up for the right to go freely to Mass on Sunday and to worship God as we will?  What would we be willing to endure to preserve our faith and what would our guiding values be if government would pressure us to sin to be “one of the close friends of the President” or to have much silver and gold.  For the privilege to go to Mass on Sunday, how many of us would be willing to give up … just the comfort of our beds, or postpone the joy of meeting up with our katropa?  Related to this is, but very fundamental:  how real is my faith?  Do I really have a personal relationship with Jesus?  Or do I have a closer, more intimate, more emotional relationship with my cell phone?

Our reading for today is from the Gospel of St. Luke (19:41-44).  The entire Gospel of Luke, all its stories, its lessons, its miracles, is structured as the journey Jesus made from the lowlands of Galilee to the highlands of Judah where Jerusalem lay.   Galilee is where Jesus was raised, was obedient to Mary and Joseph, learned the carpenter’s trade of his foster father, but also learned, probably through the special care of his mother, of his special relationship to his Father, and that in life he had to be about “his Father’s business.”  In Luke that is his being anointed “to bring glad tidings to the poor … liberty to captives … recovery of sight to the blind … and freedom to the oppressed” (Lk 4:18-19).  To do his Father’s business he would need to journey to Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish religion , where he would retake the Temple and, at the will of his Father, offer himself, body and blood, to retake, redeem, you and me from our sins.

Our Gospel for today is poignant.  Jesus had finally reached Jerusalem.  He had been welcomed royally: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  But then he looks over Jerusalem, this center of the Jewish faith, and he weeps.  He foresees the horrors and pain of its destruction by the Romans in 70 AD, but he also sees that its destruction is ultimately rooted in its having rejected him, its Messiah.  From your former glory, Jerusalem, not one stone will be left atop another stone “because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”  You did not recognize your Messiah when he came.  “He came to what was his own, but his people did not accept him” (Jn 1:11).  I came to you, and you did not accept me.

As Jesus’ tears flowed, he remembered:  I taught in your synagogues, I let your blind see, let your deaf hear, your crippled walk, raised your dead to life, I taught you to pray, I introduced you to my compassionate Father, I forgave your sins.  But your response, I feel it already – and it hurts! – “Crucify him, crucify him!”

For us, could Jesus, who suffered and died for us to free us from sin, not be weeping because of what he now sees in Christian Russia, in Christian Ukraine, in Christian consumerism, in Jewish Israel, in Muslim Hamas and Gaza, in his coming to “his own” in many of us, but in our rejecting him. 

As he weeps, what he could be foreseeing is what we celebrate liturgically on Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King.  On that day, the King and just Judge of heaven and earth, will no longer be weeping. He will be clothed in the Father’s power to make all things right.  To bring his Kingdom to fulfillment.  On that day, we will be looked upon either as sheep or goats.  To the sheep on his right he will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  Then he will say to the goats on his left, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels” (cf Mt. 25:31-45).

We celebrate the coming Feast of Christ the King in the hope that when he comes again as King and Judge of heaven and earth, we may be on Christ’s right side.  Our readings for today encourage us to prepare for that day through fidelity to our religion and our religious values, and to recognize Jesus when he visits us.  He visits us: “for whatever you have done to one of these the least of my brothers and sister, that you have done to me” (Mt. 25:40).

That is the challenge in our readings today.

Lord, That I might See!

[Homily for Retreatants. Chapel of Our Lady, JRH-M, 20 Nov., 2023]

Our Gospel is the story of the blind man from Jericho. He used to beg by the wayside.  Like so many blind people we have encountered in our lives! 

It is a story rich for contemplation.

One day, the blind man hears a commotion.  He asks what it is about.   He is told, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”  Hearing this, he is seized by excitement.  He had heard Jesus had the power to heal.

So, he makes his own commotion.  He starts calling out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”

Interestingly, the people walking with Jesus, rebuke him.  They are self-appointed bodyguards of Jesus.  He is a holy man, a man of divine power; he is not to be bothered, not to be disturbed, especially by such a one as this. 

But the more they rebuke him, the louder he shouts out, “Son of David, have pity on me!”  “Jesus”, you are the Savior.  You are a Son of David of the Royal House of Kings.  Have pity on me!  Have compassion on me!  Allow yourself to feel my suffering in this darkness and feel with me, suffer with me (cf. Luke 4:18).

Jesus stops.  He asks that the blind man be brought to him.  After all, bringing sight to the blind has been part of his program of preaching the Kingdom of God.  When he spoke of this program at the outset of his public ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth, he proclaimed he had been anointed (Messiah) – among many other purposes  – to bring recovery of sight to the blind.  When the disciples of John the Baptist approached him to ask him whether he was the long-awaited Messiah, his reply, among many other things, was that “the blind see” (Lk 7:22).

So when the Lord asks the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?”, and he answers:  ”Lord, please, let me see…”.  Jesus replied with power and compassion, “Have sight, your faith has saved you.”

In contemplating – looking at – this incident in the public life of Jesus, this and many other mysteries in Jesus’ life as he labors to bring life, life to the full to his listeners, our prayer may also be, “Lord, that I may see…”

Some of you may be able to recall here one of the moving songs in the off-Broadway Musical “Godspell” – the artistic rendition of parables mostly from the Gospel of St. Matthew about Jesus bringing love, peace and joy to a world wracked by war, then the Vietnam war.  It is still a necessary Gospel today with our wars in Ukraine, in Israel, in the Gaza Strip, in Myanmar.  That song may echo the petition of the blind man in its original depth … “Lord, that I might see!”

Day by day
O dear Lord, three things I pray.
To see thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more nearly,
Day by day.

It may be interesting to note that those lyrics were not original to the composers of Godspel.  They are a quotation from a prayer composed by a 13^th century Catholic Saint Richard of Chichester, in England, a bishop and friend of the poor and the oppressed who sold his gold and silver and gave its proceeds to the needy. 

In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, when exercitants, many of whom are themselves sick, wounded, directionless and blind, seek through contemplation to approach the Lord, to look at the Lord, to be touched by the Lord, while often many blind forces in our lives seek to prevent this, the grace of the Second Week that Ignatius invites us to pray for is:

An intimate knowledge of our Lord, who has become man for me, that I may love  him more,  and follow him more closely.

Not quite the same words as the Godspel song, but close enough!  For contemplating the Lord, taking time just to look at him, to be with him, to waste time with him, to be silent with him, who has become man for me, in order himself personally to approach me, so that he may himself hear me calling, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me…” and then himself ask me, “what is it that you want me to do for you?” and your answering .. “that I might see…”

What you see, or whom you see, is not just something envisioned, or beheld abstractly; it is Jesus known more intimately, more interiorly.

It is not knowledge that wraps itself in itself, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but knowledge of a person which ends in a more-intense love.  It is not love that remains empty in words, words, words, but love that translates into deeds of love, imitating the deeds of the beloved, his deeds of love.

So seeing Jesus proclaiming the Good News, healing he sick, bringing liberty to captives, taking on the Pharisees and Scribes, overtunring the tables of the money changers in the temple, and especially freely suffering and dying on the Cross …. brings you to knowing him more clearly,

And knowing him in his compassion, his power, his lack of power, his humility, his self-sacrifice, his love for you  …brings you to loving him more dearly…

And loving him more dearly, in the poor, the meek, in those who mourn, in those who are oppressed and marginalized, in those persecuted for the Good News … brings you to following him more nearly.

Day by day. 

Set Aside for the Good News of Jesus Christ

---

[Homily for the Jesuit Community, Malaybalay, 16 October, 2023]

I thought we might reflect on our first reading for today, the opening lines of Paul’s letter to the Romans (1:1-7). And just allow it to speak to us. 

Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, the one who used to persecute Jesus’ followers, because of  Paul’s notoriety as a learned Pharisee who’d studied under the great Gamaliel;  Paul, a young and ambitious member of the Sanhedrin eager to defend the Law against the upstart followers of the New Way, this fearsome Pharisee who’d watched and approved the stoning to death of the Christian deacon, Steven, now calling himself a slave of Jesus Christ.

Paul,– knocked off his horse on his way to Damascus by the Lord himself reproaching Paul for persecuting him– and through a subsequent process of reflection and conversion, understood that he was set aside for the Gospel of God, which he understood to be the Gospel of his Son, son of David according to the flesh, so naturally within the Davidic lineage of kings, but “established as Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness through resurrection from the dead.”  God’s resurrection of his Suffering Servant faithful to his will unto death on the Cross, established him as Jesus, “the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness,” the anointed Messiah, our Lord.

Paul understood that through Jesus, he received personally “the grace of apostleship.”  Though not among the twelve who were called by Jesus to walk with him, to learn of the Kingdom of God from him personally and as apostles ultimately to be sent out to proclaim the Good News of salvation in Him, Paul understood himself called through personal encounter with Jesus himself on the Road to Damascus.  That encounter he could never forget; it would change his life forever: “’Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?’ Paul said, ‘Who are you?’  The reply came, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting’” (Acts 9:4-5).

In this manner, he understood himself to have received “the grace of apostleship,” the call, the vocation to mission “to bring about the obedience of faith, for the sake of his name, among the Gentiles,” among whom we are also numbered.  We are among the gentiles, within the ambit of those to whom Paul was specially sent  – as well as all those to whom we are sent,  here in this retreat house, in our parishes of diverse social classes and peoples, in our schools, and even in our preferential care for the indigenous peoples with whom we work.  .

If our reading allows us to identify somehow with Paul as a Catholic icon of one called to mission today as a servant of the Gospel, there may be four points we can reflect on:

First, if Paul considered himself a slave of Christ, how do we describe our relationship to him and why?  We are used to “priest” or “missionary” or “parish priest” or “teacher” or “researcher.”  But normally not slave.  I’m not sure whether the Visayan suluguon has the same connotation as “slave.”  Naturally we prefer to use such terms as director, superior, president, or provincial rather than doulos, slave.

Second, we are “set aside” for the Gospel of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and through lives appropriate to our relationship with him.  If this is what we have been called to, reserved for, missioned to, how does this sacred mission fill our lives, bring us joy, give us courage even when we are rejected, laughed at, and opposed, whether we are bringing the good news to the Dumagat or to the Bukidnon, to urbanized settlers or to indigenous peoples. 

Third, for Paul, it made all the difference that he could say that he was called personally.  He was on his high horse, and was knocked off it – by God.  The voice was one of personal reproach, allowing Paul to experience him personally and indelibly:  “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?   …. I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:4-5).  This might be an opportunity for us to recall the personal manner in which we were called, set aside, by God to do his work, and find consolation in it.  We find consolation in it.  But also the inevitable imperative in it.

Finally, as Paul was set aside to call people to obedience to faith in Jesus Christ and in the compassion of His Father, how really do we do that when the people we serve work hard but do not earn enough, farm the land but cannot sell enough, cherish – or have come no longer to cherish – indigenous cultures that are undermined by modernity, business interests from without, non-participation in “progress” determined by others from without, and the absence or loss of anything personal in Jesus Christ.  To this, factor in the war between Russia and Ukraine, between Hamas and Israel, between the people of Myanmar and their own military, even the tension between the expansionism of China and the desire of simple fishermen to fish in their own country’s waters.  Add to that the dismaying debate between anarchy and democracy, truth and lie, and the reduction of Christianity to ideologies of anti-LGTB++, anti-abortion, and anti-social justice postures.  

Does the preaching of the Good News of Jesus Christ have any relevance?  Or any importance?  Or any promise of advancing me and how people regard me in this world?  Or, on the contrary, does proclaiming it in this world bring it to its deepest relevance?  Where it is not I who preach, but the Word within me, the Spirit groaning within me?  Even if this can only be done in the sign of the Cross, where “I desire and choose poverty with Christ’s poor rather than riches, insults with Christ loaded with them rather than honors, and to be accounted as worthless and a fool for Christ rather than to be esteemed as wise and prudent.  For so was Christ treated before me” (SpEx, 167).  And life faithful to the Good News is discerned not in exterior success, honors, and pride but in enduring, interior consolation.

We pray that this consolation may flow for us here in Bukidnon from our lived love in the Lord.  In another letter, Paul described this love: “Love is patient, love is kind.  It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude.  It does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13: 4-7) 

For Adults Only?

(Homily. October 2, 2023.  Feast of the Guardian Angels.)

[To seminarians in the fourth week of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius]

Today is the Feast of the Guardian Angels.  I don’t know if you believe in guardian angels.

When I was eight years old, my father was still in the Philippine foreign service. At that time, he was assigned to Honolulu, Hawaii.  When I visited him one summer, I almost drowned in Waikiki beach.  I was taken out to sea by an undertow; then, I really didn’t know how to swim.  After taking in too much salt water instead of air, I remember saying an Act of Contrition.  Then I passed out.  I lost consciousness.  When I came to, I was on the beach in the midst, I recall, of many legs!  They told me later a native of Hawaii had rescued me, carried me to shore, and began applying artificial respiration.  While he was trying to revive me, a doctor came around and pronounced me dead.  But the native continued to apply artificial respiration till I recovered consciousness and could be brought alive to the hospital.  Later, my father searched the beach in order to find this native lifesaver.  He could not be found.  The next day, the local papers reported, “Boy pronounced dead, revived!”  Many have told me since that the native Hawaiian who saved my life was my guardian angel.

Today is the Feast of the Guardian Angels.

In our first reading, the Lord says, “See I am sending an angel before you, to guard you on the way, and bring you to the place I have prepared.  Be attentive to him and hear his voice.  Do not rebel against him, for he will not forgive your sin.  My authority resides in him.  If you heed his voice and carry out all I tell you, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes” (Ex 23:20-22).  The passage is from the book of Exodus.  The angel that is sent is less the angel of an individual person, but the angel sent to guard and guide God’s Chosen People on their way to the Promised land.  The angel is the messenger of the Lord, but also his warrior, sent to fight the enemies of his people, the spoilers of his plan for them, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites.  The angel of the Lord destroys them, and with them all of their false gods.  The main message of the angel of the Lord then is:  There is only one God, one Lord, his is the Power and the Glory;  this Lord chooses you, this Lord loves you, this Lord brings you to where he wishes to bring you; when you go astray, he seeks you out to find you; he guides you along the right path to his Promised Land, to reconciliation with yourself and with your God, to the end of a Long Retreat, to ordination, to competent and loving service in the Church.  Today, do not ignore the guardian angel of the Lord that the Lord sends you.  Do not fail to notice how, against many of your enemies it is the Lord who fights for you. 

Our gospel also has an urgent message.  Placing a child in front of him and all his listeners, Jesus says, “Amen I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.  And whoever receives one child as this in my name receives me” (Mt 18: 3-5).  There is in this statement an admonition addressed to us;  it is based on the image of a child that is not to be despised, for, in Jesus’ words, “their angels in heaven always look on the face of my heavenly Father,” their guardian angels attending to the will of the heavenly Father are ready to intervene for them, to protect them, to do battle for them.”  In your lives, especially in your service of your Lord and King, God is ready to intervene, to inspire you, protect you,  and fight for you, if you turn – be converted – and become like children – entering the Kingdom of God. 

Meaning that often, we are not like children, but quite the mature adult.  We are now senior seminarians already exposed to the liberal arts and all manner of formational programs;  we are readers of literature, writers, philosophers, theologians, deacons, at the threshold of priestly ordination.  We have become aware of ourselves, are comfortable with ourselves, and are anything but children.  If that is so, if the point has come where it is not you who serve the Lord because of his excellence, but you now believe the Lord must serve you in all your excellence, you are now no longer like the innocent child whom the Lord put in the midst his listeners. Your prayer is not the child’s, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done!”  It is rather the adult’s “My kingdom come, my will be done!”

As your long retreat ends, have you become as an adult or have you become as a child?  Have you come to a point where despite the cold nights and dreary days you can smell the flowers, differentiate the trees, rejoice in the chirping of the birds and appreciate the incessant sound of living waters washing you clean?  Have you come to a point where considering all of creation and redemption worked out for you in Love by the Father in Jesus Christ, this objectively awesome but profoundly personal enterprise is from God for you, its recipient, its beneficiary, its servant, its exponent, its evangelist?  Have you come to a point where you can gaze at the God-man gazing at you from the Cross, even now – or especially now – that you know he has been resurrected, and feel the warmth and power of his love, inviting your necessary response: “If you have done this for me in love, Lord, what have I done for you?  What am I doing for you? What ought I do for you?” (cf SpEx, 53). “Ought”:  does this ought determine my response to his invitation to walk with him today still carrying his Cross to establish His Father’s Kingdom among the many circles of people entrusted to me in my life? Does it determine the “standard” I choose – riches, honor and pride or poverty, insults or contempt and humility?  (cf. SpEx 143-147).  Does it unite me with the Lord in his proclamation of the Kingdom, his dying for it, and being raised from the dead in his fidelity to it?  Do I appreciate that in his redemptive action he has reconciled not only humanity but all of creation with it to himself, so that in a contemplation of the Creator’s redeeming love, it is genuinely possible to find God in all things (SpEx 230-237)?

To all these questions, do I say yes or no as an adult – or as a child?

From heaven before the Lord, your guardian angel prays you do so as a child.  In God’s power, he even intervenes in your life as a child when you are drowning.  And carries you safely to shore.