Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King, 2010by Fr. Jet Villarin, SJ If you're of this century, I suspect that relating to Jesus Christ “our sovereign king” might not come easy. Admittedly, the image of Christ the King can be quaint and ancient for many. Kings and lords are the stuff of Shrek stories … Continue reading King
Think
In a way, I am grateful for some of the esoteric and elegant math I’ve learned in physics. It gives me a nosebleed idea of the way God thinks. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”
Gratitude
The first few weeks of class are always stressful for me. My brain is still on vacation mode and my body is used to lying down all day. Summer for teachers means waking up late and not caring about lesson plans or test papers. It means not having to strain our voices to be heard above 40 restless chatterboxes. It is a good time. And one of the best things about teaching. (I seriously believe that if people took out summer vacation from teachers and students, we’d have a lot of cases of violence in school.)
Arms
The Amorites are losing. If you cannot tell someone that he or she has body odor and thus in need of urgent deodorizing, you can say, “the Amorites are losing.” This can be convenient code, a diplomatic way to tell someone smelly. Let me explain. In the first reading today, Moses tells Joshua to engage Amalek and the Amorites in battle. Moses assures Joshua that he will be “standing on top of the hill” with Aaron and Hur, and he will have his arms raised. In the heat of battle, the Israelites discover that “as long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.”
A Country in Desperate Search for the Heroic
The Filipino word for hero: "bayani" comes from the word bayan (country). Bayani gives us the sense that in this country, heroism is not a thing only one person does. Heroism is the unified act of a community. The Katipunan is testament of that. While personalities like Bonifacio and Aguinaldo were there, the Katipunan is really the revolt of the "anak ng bayan" (the Children of the Motherland); and everyone who was part of it was rightly considered BAYANI: the fighting men who manned the trenches of General Trias, the women who brought medicine and food to the hidden camps, the children who secretly smuggled messages from one town to another. It is history--written with some Western slant that always focuses on the individual hero--that has not been too kind to the bayani and focused on personalities.
Of Jeepneys and the City of Golden Friendship
Today is the Feast Day of St. Augustine, the patron saint of my city (Cagayan de Oro). Allow me to be a little nostalgic then. This was something I wrote for a class with Doreen Fernandez (God bless her soul).
Balloon
Imagine you are a flatlander, that is, someone who lives on a flat, two-dimensional surface, as ants do. A triangle on this surface will not be seen by you as a triangle. If you walk along its sides, you will only see three segments connecting each other at three sharp corners. Similarly, a sphere that crosses your universe will only be recognized by you as a circle, well, not even a circle since all you'll ever see will be a smooth curving line with no corners.
The Legacy of the Two Aquinos
Today, Corazon Aquino, eleventh President of the Republic of the Philippines, first female President of the Philippines and of Asia, the Woman who took over the Presidency after a 20-year dictatorship, the wife of national hero Ninoy Aquino, mother of five, Mother of the nation, will be sent to her final resting place.
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