Gospel: Luke 19: 41 - 44
41And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it,
42saying, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.
43For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side,
44and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.
Refection:
In our Gospel today, Jesus Christ’s usage of the term ‘visitation’ has drawn my attention.
We could remember from our church’s history that Jesus described a coming holocaust for the people of Israel. This holocaust occurred in 70 A.D. His reason for the coming disaster: they refused to acknowledge the time of their “visitation.”
Visitation is episcope in Greek and could mean inspection, God’s coming to you, and in other passages of the New Testament it can be translated into bishop(1). In other words, the people whom Jesus is referring to refused someone who is from God… in our reading, they refused the kingship of Jesus(2).
With this… many of personal encounters with God came vividly into my imagination… leading me to wonder also about the so many God’s presence in my life which I failed to capture... wherein my stubbornness has lead me to my unbelief to the presence of God’s graces in my life. It’s true that my personal struggles before I came into our Congregation has made me to think why God was letting me and the rest to suffer… my self-pity has lead me to so much questions which just lead me to hate God... to think that he was not fair. This lead me to believe that God was absent in our lives…
Because of that dark moment of my life, I failed to realize that God was still present to those who remain loving me despite of my short comings during that time… all my life, I have been so incorrigible, so insistive, hardheaded, and not a good seminarian… but from the beginning, I now see that God still let me to undergo the Postulancy program even there were so many doubts in my heart… and he even further let me to continue to the Novitiate to purify my intention and to see God, Himself in my life. All throughout my journey… I almost failed to capture God’s presence. I almost failed to realized how God was so patient with me… he waited for me until I began to trust in Him again.
Every day, I acknowledge God’s visitation in my life… in the Eucharist… I see Him. I claim with all my heart that I receive the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ which I learned to love with all my heart; and learned to treasure it with my whole life above anything else. This experience which I fully embraced has led me to be a somewhat a little missionary to others… for I realize that I have nothing to give… that I have nothing to share… for all the graces that I have are mere gifts coming from God… and what I only can share is the Jesus that I received in the Holy Eucharist…
In our Missiology subject, we learn that from the encyclical Redemptoris Missio that there’s only mission when we preach about Jesus Christ. That in my simple way, I need to be a living witness in proclaiming and in living to the fullest God’s salvific action. But, with humility… I realized that it is Jesus, through the Holy Spirit who fulfills the desire of the Father for us to be saved… through it I realized, that like any other Christians, I am only an instrument of God’s grace… that it is not me who touches them… but the Jesus in me… Like our Founder, St. Peter Julian Eymard,apostle of the Eucharist...
...I also claim that everything is Jesus… everything is the Lord… everything is drawing us going back to Him… everything is leading us through the Eucharist… to Jesus who remain in loving me despite who I was… to Jesus Christ that I have known to be the Lord and the King of my heart.
In my adoration to the Blessed Sacrament, I pray to God:
I come to You O Lord
As a broken soul
I lift to you all my pains and my tears
Make me whole once more…
…Use my hands to serve You once more
Use my life and my all… Amen.
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(1)http://www.shol.com/featheredprop/New_Testament_3.htm (downloaded: November, 16, 2011)
(2)Ibid.
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