LOGARTA
In the Sacred Heart Parish Lenten Recollections, Rev. Fr. Robert Rivera, SJ, wanted to share so much with us.
He was eager to let us try some Jesuit processes. He discussed the main themes: mandatum, consumatum, ultimatum, but above all, he gave so much of himself.
He invited us to “enter the mystery of God’s love, to make an offering of ourselves to the Lord.”
So he reminded us of the acts of Lent — prayer and reconciliation. He discussed that the faces of sin: “spoiled child,” “false lover,” and “shrewd general” — made sinning attractive.
Besides this, he recalled the story of Daniel who was provided all kinds of enticements, but he “he never ceased praying” and emerged stronger from all those.
Jesus too experienced all the effects of sin: “loneliness, alienation, vulnerability.”
What was his command, mandatum, when he instituted the Holy Eucharist? To Serve!
He urged us to respond to the many concerns of our country: “do our best for Mindanao,” to act in behalf of the displaced “indigenous people, the degradation of the the environment.”
He provided examples of this living Christian service in the stories of alternative lawyers Atty. Boby Gana and Atty. Caloy Ollado who worked with the farmers and workers.
He narrated the story of Brother Richie Fernando, SJ, who through a “split-second decision” died saving his group from a grenade blast.
We cannot make such timely responses if we have not formed the habit of loving.
They condemned Him to death because He was a scandal!
He proclaimed the Kingdom of God but he communed with sinners.
He challenged the establishment. He disappointed them; they were expecting the Messiah and He did not fulfill their expectations. As a condemned criminal, he had to carry his cross. So must we.
Jesus struggled with death; he experienced suffering and an unjust crucifixion and felt intensely the extreme loneliness of abandonment: “He accomplished the will of the Father — Consumatum.”
We learn that suffering and sin are realities, but Jesus has conquered these.
All the while he could not stop forgiving as hanging on the cross he forgave.
We need to pray for grace to enter our lives so that we may bear them and look at Mary and her many sorrows and find strength for she journeyed with Jesus all the way.
Fr. Robert also asked for us to pray for the many who suffer with joy as they go through their lives.
He narrated the story of a friend who bravely and joyfully struggled with cancer and was moved to tears in the remembering.
In Ultimatum, he emphasized that death is not the final word. Since we have the “gift of Christ” we are provided with hope and purpose.
He told us about his most recent assignment in Timor Leste and how a woman had confided her difficulty with forgiveness because the hate for the collaborators of the people’s oppressors was still in her heart.
But most memorable for the final session was the sharing of Teresa of Avila’s poem wherein she sings: that since is Jesus with the Father: “there is no body but yours; no eyes to gaze with compassion but yours; no feet to journey with the poor but yours; to serve with joy and compassion, but yours.”
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