Friday, April 22, 2016 4th Week of Easter 1st Reading: Acts 13:26-33 Gospel: John 14:1-6
Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not be troubled; trust in God and trust in me. In my Father’s house there are many rooms. Otherwise I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to me, so that where I am, you also may be. Yet you know the way where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
“How do you get to the sun without getting charred?” a boy asked his playmate. When the playmate couldn’t answer the boy smiled and said: “Just travel to the sun by night”. The boy was wrong. No one can get near the sun under cover of darkness without getting charred.
The same can be said of human beings wanting to get near God after the Fall. Nobody then could see God and live. Fortunately, God made the first move. Now we can go to the Father, with the only condition that we go to him through the Son.
Even so, getting to the Father is not a walk in the park. “You must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me”, Jesus said. Self-denial is a timely message during this election campaign period. Self -denial means voting for the right candidate even if the surveys say he is not winnable, aware that the more he lags in the surveys the more he needs our votes. Denying ourselves means not selling our votes, not even when we think the price is right.
How inconsistent of voters to indulge in the fleeting pleasures of vote selling and be the first to pour into the streets to protest corruption. If they are genuine protesters, we are happy they have come to their lucid political moments. On the other hand, if they are paid protesters, then they are real mercenaries. They corrupt the already corrupt politicians by milking them dry during elections. Then after the elections they still derive money from them by selling their presence to organizers of political rallies.
Instead of feasting on the money that politicians think our vote is worth, let us fast on honesty, integrity and love of country. This is the most basic form of self- denial to start with. After all, love of God is, in the heart of Jesus, the flip side of love of neighbor, and love of neighbor becomes most concrete if we love this country. Failing in this basic requirement of self- denial one never succeeds in getting close to God “without getting charred”. —Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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