He said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. – Luke 5:27-28

       How easy it is for people to criticize, lambast and “swallow” their leaders. But a wise person said, “Crowds don’t lead; they follow.” They follow trends, politicians and celebrities.

       Given this tendency, the challenge is to be careful as to who we follow. That’s why we need good role models.

          Jesus is our Supreme Model. He is the Head of the Church. But His Body — made up of you and me — is wounded.

       Despite this woundedness and brokenness, we must be good models. To do that, we need to “unfollow” the trend and be Christ-models of goodness and godliness.

        Because Jesus’ light shines best through the cracks and broken pieces of our lives.

Pope Francis Says: “Let us never forget that authentic power is service, and that the Pope too, when exercising power, must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the Cross.”

O Lord, in every moment of solitude, we pray, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal Life.” (John 6:68)

St. Giles Mary of St. Joseph, pray for us.

Righteous and virtuous living is the greatest sacrifice we can offer to the Lord. This is an offering of love that is far better than the sacrifice of animals. The messy offerings on altars of sacrifice do not necessarily involve our obedience and wholehearted commitment to the Lord. Obedience is doing what the Lord really desires from us and for us.

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.

Psalm 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6

R: Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.

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. 3 You are my God. (R) 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 looks at the heart of every person and not just their deeds. Actions show us the state of one’s heart, but they do not always tell the whole story. Jesus sees more than a corrupt tax collector in Levi and calls him to be His disciple. Levi responds by leaving his job to give himself fully in the service of Jesus’ calling.

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.”

think: Righteous and virtuous living is the greatest sacrifice we can offer to the Lord.

Thank You Lord for: __________________

REPAIRER AND RESTORER OF RUINS

The passage from Isaiah for today makes me feel exactly like what it says. The images are so clear, so crisp, so picturesque and realistic that, though parched in many ways, I consider myself repaired and restored.

       Last year, while supervising a seminar some place in Tanay, I learned that Antipolo’s Hinulugang Taktak was on the way to being rehabilitated. It got me excited, if only because the place reminded me of pleasant childhood memories of a visit to Antipolo Church that necessarily included a short trek to the famous falls. Thankfully, well-meaning individuals and people in position have banded together to restore what has become in the past few decades a story of how neglect and indifference can ruin something as beautiful as Hinulugang Taktak.

       Nobody, of course, worked directly for its destruction. No one worked actively to destroy something so naturally wonderful. It simply fell victim to neglect. Slowly but surely, it got corrupted until the time came when it was nothing more than a heap of trash, a source of foul-smelling testament to man’s capacity to ruin what God has wrought in nature.

       Hinulugang Taktak, for me, is not just a romantic icon of a visit that I made once in childhood. For me, it is an image of a far worse ruin that needs a restorer and repairer along the lines of what Isaiah teaches us today. The secularized world that we live in now is in veritable ruins. Culture is frayed at the edges. The throwaway, depersonalized culture, described by Pope St. John Paul II as a culture of death in contraposition to the culture of life, is in bad need of a repairer and restorer.

       The Lord takes us to task. God did His part. As the God of creation, He created everything good. Ruin and destruction are not His doing, but ours. But He remains to be the same God of redemption. He wants the world redeemed. He wills us saved. But He continues to do that saving act in and through us. Could you be one of those repairers and restorers? Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

REFLECTION QUESTIONS: What are you doing to repair and restore nature? Or are you unconsciously contributing to its ruin?

Teach us, Lord, to care for Your creation. May we learn to embrace it and use it responsibly. Amen.