I never really equated Lent with Love. Lent with sadness and grief and passion, yes, but not really Love. But then again, I never really seriously reflected on Lent. Not since around 4 years ago, that is, and I have to thank the stars or whatever heavenly bodies out there that made the 1st Davao Archdiocesan Eucharistic Congress and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ come one after the other like a boxing left-right combination jab that hit me in the head and re-aligned my heart!
Going back to Lent and Love… Now as I reflect more about Lent, the more I understand Love. Of course we know that Jesus’ whole life is about love. Heck, every time He does or says something, it is always about loving us, loving our neighbors and if we really love God we would love each other, too… and that’s where we falter most of the time, yes, we do believe God loves us, and yes, we agree that we should also love God in return, but when it comes to Him asking us to love one another as we Love Him or ourselves, that is altogether another story….
A few years ago, my uncle Ting (yes, my relative doctor who wrote the book Surgeons Do Not Cry) talked to us, the whole staff of the non-profit agency i work in, and gave us a piece of his heart as a “Cooperative” champion!
He talked about Jesus’ last public miracle. ”Remember the five loaves of bread and two fishes…” this, he said, was his favorite miracle. And it was not at all because the five loaves and two fishes fully fed around five thousand adults plus some women and children almost “magically”, it was because he believed the miracle was more than that…
He pictured it as the 5,000 people, each with their own small “lunch pack" with them, probably too ashamed to eat first because they think they have very few food to share or probably even not liking to share at all.
Then a boy, innocent as he is... and very hungry maybe, slowly took out the lunch pack prepared by his mom ready to eat it... and then lo and behold an apostle saw him before he took a bite! They then asked him if he could share some to Jesus and the others cause they didn't have any. And the boy, probably because of fear or intimidation or as we like to believe because he was taught to be good and sharing, did just that. Now seeing the boy sharing his meal and probably already feeling uneasy and guilty from being too selfish, the adults around had a change of heart and so like the boy, they too, took out their food. Each of them having a little more than enough bread and fishes of their own and put it in the basket... which, as we now know, turned out to be more than enough for everyone after all!
It was, to Dr. Ting, a miracle not only of multiplication of food but more as change of and multiplication of hearts! And ever since he understood it that way, it became his favorite miracle.
I know every Lent we always hear about how great God’s love for us is, and we probably hear the same things being said over and over again and maybe too, sometimes we don't even want to listen anymore…, but, if only this time, we can try to do things differently. If only this Holy Thursday as we re-enact once again Jesus in the last supper, instead of just listening, we do as Jesus asked us to –
“Do this in memory of me”… !
Chances are, we can probably make the loving Christ known to more desolate people and they can see hope; we can also share His life with our stingy neighbor as we try to share with them what little food we have and they can probably realize they don’t have to keep it all to themselves; and maybe too, the Love we felt He gave us, we can multiply it by making others feel loved as well so they in turn can multiply it themselves and give to more than we can ever reach!
In the Eucharistic Congress, the movie Passion of the Christ, in every Lenten season and in the miracle of loaves & fishes there was always one underlying message...
Be Broken and Shared!
It took me awhile to understand that it simply means
Multiplying our Hearts!
No comments:
Post a Comment