Save your servant who trusts in you. – Psalm 86:2

Bionic woman. That was what the nurses in Cardinal Santos Hospital called me. I was involved in a car accident during the summer of 1998. I was crossing a street in San Juan, when a car came by and in a split second I felt like I had somersaulted and fell to the ground. My first thought was, “Did I just get hit? Nakakahiya, ang daming tao” (How embarrassing, there are so many people). I didn’t even realize it was that serious until I heard people say, “Yung bata nasagasaan!” (The child was hit!) People came up to me, asking if I was OK, and insisted I should be brought to the hospital.

       When I got into the car, I saw the shattered windshield. Whoa! This is serious! I broke the car’s windshield! Am I gonna die? Trembling, I checked my body parts for blood or broken bones. After 24 hours, I was discharged from the hospital with only a big bruise on my hip and leg and a laceration on my arm. Praise be to God! I knew several angels had protected me from what could have been a tragic ending.

       Jesus saved me from a fatal accident and gave me a second life. And I believe God will not only save our bodies but our spirits as well. Let’s allow Jesus to save us by accepting Him as our personal Lord and Savior. Lala Dela Cruz (bella.delacruz@gmail.com)

Reflection: When He died on the cross, Jesus gave us a second life, a second chance. How are we living this new life?

Jesus, I accept You as my personal Lord and Savior. Save me. I entrust my life to You. Amen.

St. John of God, religious, pray for us.

Isaiah focuses on two aspects of our lives, namely our relationship with God and giving it priority, and how we care for the poor, those least able to fend for themselves in society. As we reflect on these two things, let us be honest with ourselves and examine how we can do better than what we already are doing for them.

9 Thus says the Lord: If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; 10 if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday; 11 then the Lord will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. 12 The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; “Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you, “Restorer of ruined homesteads.” 13 If you hold back your foot on the sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight, and the Lord’s holy day honorable; if you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice — 14 then you shall delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

1 Incline your ear, O Lord; answer me, for I am afflicted and poor. 2 Keep my life, for I am devoted to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God. (R) 3 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for to you I call all the day. 4 Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord,  I lift up my soul. (R) 5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon you. 6 Hearken, O Lord, to my prayer and attend to the sound of my pleading. (R)

Jesus is interested in conversion. He wants us to become better Christians. He does not want us to allow presumption to be the basis of our receiving the gift of salvation, as we may find that that is not enough guarantee to receive it. Yes, God freely offers us the gift of salvation, but it is up to us to put it to use and, thus, allow it to shine forth to the world through the way we live.

I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord, but rather in his conversion, that he may live.

27 Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. 29 Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them. 30 The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 Jesus said to them in reply, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. 32 I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

READ THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR Revelation 4-6

Do you remember that old cartoon strip where a cranky and obnoxious individual claimed, “I love humanity! It’s people that I hate”?

       If I ask for a raise of hands, I’m sure everyone reading this will profess love for humanity. But humanity is faceless, a theory, an abstraction, and so it is easy to love it. People are real, that’s why we hate them.

       Read today’s First Reading from the Prophet Isaiah and you will see that it is a call to love people, not humanity. We are called to bring comfort to the oppressed, bread for the hungry, healing for the afflicted. In today’s Gospel, Jesus brings the invitation a notch higher: We are to love even the unlovable.

       The lesson is clear. Love is not only an emotion; it is a decision. Love is not only a function of the heart; it is a function of the will. Love becomes love only when incarnated by acts seeking the good of another.

      This should not be a surprise coming from Jesus. He is God incarnate (from the Latin in carne:in the flesh). A poet once said that man cannot genuinely love that which he cannot put his arms around. That is why God became man, that we might be able to put our arms around Him.

       One grows in charity especially when our love is challenged — when we need to love the unlovable, the unkempt, those who have hurt us. In the minimum, loving the unlovable simply means — as Aquinas defines love — seeking the good of the other. When you think of the person who has hurt you and still earnestly wish and pray that he be enlightened and converted, that is seeking the good of the other. Even when you have to hail the other in court and possibly in jail as a demand of justice, but still wish that he ends up living his life in friendship with God, that is seeking the good of the other. Even in the absence of pleasant feelings and sentiments towards the other, you can still love the other, for love is not an emotion but a decision to wish the good of the other. It is difficult but not impossible. That’s why we need to pray for and inspire one another. Fr. Joel Jason

REFLECTION QUESTION: How is the love of God made incarnate in your love for people, especially the unlovable?

Grant me Your heart, Lord, that I may love as You love.