Divine confirmation - 51

Gospel

LK 4:16-30

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
Rolling up the scroll,
he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
And all spoke highly of him
and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
They also asked, “Is this not the son of Joseph?”
He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb,
‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place
the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’”
And he said,
“Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you,
there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
Again, there were many lepers in Israel
during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.
But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

Divine confirmation - 50

Reading 2

ROM 12:1-2

I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. 
Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect.

Gospel

MT 16:21-27

Jesus began to show his disciples
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised. 
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,
“God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” 
He turned and said to Peter,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. 
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

Then Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”

Divine defense - 14

Reading 1

1 COR 1:26-31

Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise by human standards,
not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth.
Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,
who became for us wisdom from God,
as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
so that, as it is written,
Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.

Divine confirmation - 49

Gospel

MT 24:42-51

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this: 
if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant,
whom the master has put in charge of his household
to distribute to them their food at the proper time?
Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so.
Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.
But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’
and begins to beat his fellow servants,
and eat and drink with drunkards,
the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day
and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely
and assign him a place with the hypocrites,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

Divine confirmation - 48

Gospel

MT 16:13-20

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and
he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Then he strictly ordered his disciples
to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Divine confirmation - 47

Reading 2

ROM 11:13-15, 29-32

Brothers and sisters:
I am speaking to you Gentiles. 
Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles,
I glory in my ministry in order to make my race jealous
and thus save some of them. 
For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world,
what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. 
Just as you once disobeyed God
but have now received mercy because of their disobedience,
so they have now disobeyed in order that,
by virtue of the mercy shown to you,
they too may now receive mercy. 
For God delivered all to disobedience,
that he might have mercy upon all.

Divine confirmation - 46

Gospel

MT 14:22-33

After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat
and precede him to the other side,
while he dismissed the crowds. 
After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. 
When it was evening he was there alone. 
Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore,
was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. 
During the fourth watch of the night,
he came toward them walking on the sea. 
When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. 
“It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. 
At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” 
Peter said to him in reply,
“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 
He said, “Come.” 
Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. 
But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened;
and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 
Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter,
and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 
After they got into the boat, the wind died down. 
Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying,
“Truly, you are the Son of God.”

Church of the poor or church of the 'matapobres'?

The Church is the church of the poor; but the San Pedro Cathedral, the seat of the Archdiocese of Davao, is a colony of demons called matapobres. Google translates the Tagalog word matapobre as "blindness" because literally, mata means "eye" and pobre, "poor." Scholars say that the mata part is actually from the Spanish verb matar (meaning, "to kill"). Hence, matapobre means "the poor-killer!" Other translations are as follows: "one who looks down on the poor;" "snob;" elitist."

Who is always seen, often identified with the church building? They are the church workers: sacristans, maintenance, security personnel, office workers, nuns, et cetera. The priest-pastors are last in line. Other than the priests, they are the frontliners of the church. The Cathedral is a colony of these demons taking shelter in the lives of these people; and, through coordinators, they are spreading to religious organizations attached to the church: Divine Mercy In My Soul, Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement, Catholic Men's Fellowship, to name a few.

Who is responsible for the spread of this "plague" in the Archdiocese of Davao? It is the clergy because of their negligence, lack of discernment, and false mercy.

Most alarmingly, the den, already established and has become a network by itself, is protected by both the "upline" and the "downline" of the church so-called "frontliners." That is to say, the "upline" helping the "downline" and vice versa by trying to outdo the poor in complaining ("sumbong") to the priests when chaos arises out of the mess created by their elitist stance against the homeless. Clerical naivety has no way of knowing the den exists in the Cathedral; the "network" knows how to fool the priests without the priests knowing they are already being fooled.

After the complaints have been lodged, have not the priests wondered why the poor have not lodged any complaints at all? Have not the priests realized those who do anything in their power to cast complaints first are the guilty ones? The reason the guilty party does the complaining is to see to it their bread and butter are protected, thereby holding on to the "network" to stay in place.

Why are the frontline church workers so elitist when they are scarcely getting by in life?

Humans have the "innate" hatred towards self since the Fall of Adam and Eve, the First Parents. That is why we often hear local adage like "Ang magnanakaw ay galit sa kapwa niya magnanakaw" (the thief hates his fellow thief). In the same way, those who are poor in life are vehemently bullying those who exhibit a lifestyle more poorly than theirs! Why so? This is the endpoint when one is devoid of self-acceptance (self-forgiveness), merely trying to exhibit that he is well-off by bullying the less privileged. The poor church workers who have experienced ill-treatment by rich "matapobres" thus take revenge not to the perpetrator rich highbrows but to those who are more beggarly than them, imitating the same ill-treatment of the elitist done to them towards the homeless. That is why the ill-treated poor church workers who do not forgive, thus accept reality, become "matapobres" themselves.

How can the church employees fool the priests? The nursery rhyme, "While the cat's away, the mice will play," answers the question. Similarly, while the priest is around, the church workers are as meek and as tame as lambs; but while the priest is away, they are as wild wolves.

When the problem of the Cathedral was brought to the attention of the clergy by the workers' folly of lodging the complaints first, the solution the clergymen were capable of coming up with was "mercy" for the workers by retaining them to their jobs. This is false mercy! The clergy turn them spoiled brats this way.

Be warned of Luke 11: 24-26: “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” Or: are the priests hiding spiritual pride under the guise of false mercy?

Men in cassocks serve God first and foremost before they are to serve man, rather than man first before God. When the church is endangered spiritually because of man, the clergy ought to solve the problem at the expense of man -- not at the expense of the church. Special attachment to man is to be seen nothing in the service of God. That said, the clergy, being the church pastors, should teach the erring workers some lessons to live better lives as persons. How?

Business establishments are no better than church buildings in that the latter deals with higher matters -- spiritual -- while the former, on the financial and physical aspects of life. To avoid pitfalls of being fooled by church workers, the priest-employers can learn schemes from successful business establishments. Sadly, the scenario should be the other way around; but this is a reality nowadays brought about by clerical concerns on vanity and wealth which have made the clerics neglectful of spiritual duties and have clouded the Divine Gifts such as the gift of discernment given to them at the moment of ordination.

"Undercover Boss," an American reality TV series, can teach priests some insights. Yes, that is it, priests should go undercover to see who, among church workers, deserves a promotion, suspension, or termination. That way, priests will be back in charge of the San Pedro Cathedral and not the "network" of "matapobres" that the church so-called frontliners are, to return the Church to Her moniker as the "church of the poor."

"Our business is to attain heaven, everything else is a sheer waste of time." -St. Vincent de Paul

Divine confirmation - 45

Gospel

 MT 17:1-9

Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother, John,
and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them;
his face shone like the sun
and his clothes became white as light.
And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them,
conversing with him.
Then Peter said to Jesus in reply,
“Lord, it is good that we are here.
If you wish, I will make three tents here,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
While he was still speaking, behold,
a bright cloud cast a shadow over them,
then from the cloud came a voice that said,
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased;
listen to him.”
When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate
and were very much afraid.
But Jesus came and touched them, saying,
“Rise, and do not be afraid.”
And when the disciples raised their eyes,
they saw no one else but Jesus alone.

As they were coming down from the mountain,
Jesus charged them,
“Do not tell the vision to anyone
until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Dream: Government preempts developing coup!

I had a dream earlier dawn today.

The dream was set in the night and streets adjacent to a particular intersection were being cleared of people.

A machine used to flattening the soil surface in road construction was being utilized first to drive away the people.

Seeing that it failed, they used groups of three men interlocked to each other to shoo the people away from the streets; and finally, it worked.

As a result, people stood by in the sidewalks while I got in to a particular house.

Inside the house, I heard the sharp, thundering voice of a coming aircraft.

A jet fighter plane was seen from the window flying low yet in full speed and in an attacking mode.

The aircraft swerved to a particular street of the intersection and released a missile, targeting and hitting a wall structure that served as barricade to a certain "enemy" headquarter.

The wall structure was replete with pasted logos of something like a windmill wheel in pale red printed on a white backdrop.

Was it the logo of the "enemy" of the present administration?

If God permits, I will draw and show the logo here in this blog post.