Duda

Peace be with you. The word “shalom” synthesizes all the good that we all could desire of: good health, integral life, harmony with perso...

Peace be with you. The word “shalom” synthesizes all the good that we all could desire of: good health, integral life, harmony with persons, harmony with nature and with God. The Resurrected Christ promises us not triumph but peace, the possibility to live right from within us. Peace does not mean that we could comprehend everything but rather it’s a peace that gives us the power to contemplate all including sufferings in the way God sees it. A person who accepts the peace of Christ or who has the peace of Christ, those who welcome the gift of peace are peacemakers. Have you received well the peace of Christ? Are you a peace maker? Hindi yan ung bisaya ng pace maker ha. Kundi Peacemaker. O palaaway ka ba?

Why do doubts arise in your hearts? People in countries where there are four seasons believe in spring because they see new life in the buds of the trees. We believe in butterflies because we see it as it comes out of the cocoon with its multicolored wings. We believe in the day because we know that every morning the sun peeks out again. What are the signs to believe in the presence of the Risen Lord? Men and women who despite their limitations dedicates their lives to God and to humanity? Is it to people who are able to overcome depressions? Why is it easy for us to see the signs of death than life? Why are we capable of criticizing all that goes wrong but it pains us to appreciate that which helps the world live another day?

Look at my hands and my feet. The joy that the Risen Christ brings is not a superficial joy or peace. His hands and feet conserves the hollow, the signs of the nails that passed through it. Sometimes we believe that we will be happier people if we flee from suffering who gives us our pains. Jesus invites us to recognize him in the hollow of the nails. That invitation to look at his hollow hands and feet is an invitation to not understand the joy of Easter as an escape from pain but rather as a greater closeness to the crucified: people in our area who are suffering, those who are in agony.

Do you have something to eat? It is not only to prove that he is a real person who can eat. Ghosts do not eat. But real persons yes. The Lord is risen with body and not just as a soul. Pero kakaibang form and matter. The Risen Lord do not resolve our problems in life automatically. Hindi siya magic, hindi tulad ng alam natin na porke nagsimba ka na o nagdasal ka o nagpabless ka sa pari blessed kana. Magic. The risen Lord is not magic. The sacraments are not magic that makes you good as an instant. Grace builds on nature. Grace for us and for others depends on us too not only from the Lord. The Lord wants us to share that bit of bread and fish that we have painstakingly achieved to him. The graces that comes from the hands of Christ multiplies by the help of your own hands.

Why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet? Do you have something to eat? ... Our friends who have doubts in life, our neighbors who are suffering, the beggars who asks us for at least a few bread to eat… are you blind not to see all these. If you are, then you have never seen the risen Christ.

Let us pray that we may be able to recognize the risen Lord in our daily life, in our daily struggles, and in our society.