I have stared death in the face a couple of times. The first was when I got dengue while I was pregnant. My platelet count plunged so dangerously low despite blood transfusions that I thought my baby and I would meet our end. The other time was when I got the diagnosis of breast cancer. 

Both times I looked at death, I was full of regret. I felt I had so much more to do and live for. I wasn’t ready to go. But Saint Paul was the opposite. Knowing that death was likely waiting for him as he left Miletus, he expressed confidence that he had completed his mission there. “I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God,” he said (Acts 20:27).

I’m still not ready to look at death in the face without batting an eyelash. But I can say that I’m more ready now than I was those last two times. And while I work toward living long and aging well, I also want to be prepared anytime the Lord calls me home. 

Rissa Singson Kawpeng (rissakawpeng@gmail.com)

reflect

“The business of the Christian is nothing else but to be ever preparing for death.” (Irenaeus of Lyons)

“Suffer me not to be separated from Thee. From the malignant enemy, defend me. In the hour of my death, call me. And bid me to come to Thee. That with Thy saints, I may praise Thee. Forever and ever.” (Anima Christi prayer)

St. Charles Lwanga and companions, martyrs, pray for us.

Paul is truly unafraid. He does not care about the persecution, imprisonment, or anything else that awaits him. Maybe because Paul has seen and experienced it all before. He has cheated death many times, so he has a profound knowledge of his own immortality. He has been busy with doing the will of God and has done the best he could. Maybe there are some things he could have done differently, but there is something of that in us all. Paul is content to know that his life is in God’s hands. Let men do what they will, but they can never change God’s will.

¹⁷ From Miletus Paul had the presbyters of the Church at Ephesus summoned. ¹⁸ When they came to him, he addressed them, “You know how I lived among you the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia. ¹⁹ I served the Lord with all humility and with the tears and trials that came to me because of the plots of the Jews, ²⁰ and I did not at all shrink from telling you what was for your benefit, or from teaching you in public or in your homes. ²¹ I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus. 22 But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. What will happen to me there I do not know, ²³ except that in one city after another the Holy Spirit has been warning me that imprisonment and hardships await me^{. 24} Yet I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s grace. ²⁵ “But now I know that none of you to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels will ever see my face again. ²⁶ And so I solemnly declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, 27 for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God.”  

Responsorial Psalm | Psalm 68:10-11, 20-21

R: Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.

¹⁰ A bountiful rain you showered down, O God, upon your inheritance; you restored the land when it languished; ¹¹ Your flock settled in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided it for the needy. (R) 20 Blessed day by day be the Lord, who bears our burdens; God, who is our salvation. 21 God is a saving God for us; the Lord, my Lord, controls the passageways of death^{. (R)}

Gospel | John 17:1-11

Jesus knows that everything is in the hands of the Father. He knows that the Father will vindicate His life and raise Him from the dead. He knows that the resurrection will be His crowning glory. How well do we know our own missions? If we are unsure, it is time to discover them before our life ends. 

Gospel Acclamation

I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always.

¹ Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, ² just as you gave him authority over all people, so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. 4 I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began. ⁶ I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, 8 because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹ I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, ¹⁰ and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹ And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”

Read the Bible in one year! Read 2 SAMUEL 21 - 24 today.

Many of us know somebody who just recently finished their academic courses and graduated from school. And as always happens when we end a stage and begin a new one, we take stock of what we have accomplished. We make a quick scan of what we have completed or left undone, the twists and turns we have made along the way.

The First Reading today is precisely this—and more. Paul’s words remind me of a valedictory address. As we all know,  the task of the valedictorian, as the word implies, is to say “goodbye,” as distinct from the salutatory address, which means to greet and welcome everyone. 

Paul “boasts humbly” of what he has accomplished. First off, he claims to have truly “lived among the people” he ministered to. Secondly, he attests to the fact that he had “served the Lord with all humility.” Third, despite all the “tears and trials,” he did not “shrink from telling [them] what was for [their] benefit.” Fourth, he “earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks to repentance before God and to faith in [the] Lord Jesus.” 

In short, Paul has done his duties thoroughly and well. And by boasting humbly, he does no more than state the truth that not only is incontrovertible, but truth that edifies. 

As an educator, I have heard so many valedictory speeches. As a priest, I have taken leave of so many tasks, duties, and responsibilities, and left so many people and places. As a man, I have been tempted at times, too, to boast but, admittedly, “humbly” can hardly be used as an apt qualifier.

Humility, they say, is truth. Paul’s boasting adheres to truth—something that the people he ministered to knew only too well. He told the truth not to glorify himself.

It was plainly truth designed to edify. 

Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

reflection question

What tth can you share that would help edify someone? 

Dearest Lord, open my mind to see and enable my mouth to speak the truth that can be shared to help someone in need. Amen.

Today, I pray for: ____________________________