WORLD PEACE

WORLD PEACE

 

“In praying, do not babble like the pagans…” – Matthew 6:7

 

One time, after visiting a friend from the hospital, my friends and I passed by St. Joseph Church in Cubao to pray for a while. My friend knew it was my first time there so she told me to make a wish. I closed my eyes and asked something for myself… and then I realized how selfish I must be for making that wish when there were so many people suffering out there, not to mention our friend who was still in the hospital. I took my wish back and asked for something for the good of all mankind. Like world peace. I carried that same attitude when I started having a regular prayer time. I would pray more for “world peace” than for the things that concerned me.

Yes, those things are noble and I do believe that God wants us to pray for them. But I believe that God also wants to hear from us — our concerns, our joys, the things we want, the things we worry about. Just like a parent listening to his child, I believe it brings God great joy when we bring our cares to Him. Tina Matanguihan (tina.matanguihan@gmail.com)

 

REFLECTION:

“It is a revelation of pure joyousness in which the child of God pours into the Father’s bosom the cares which give pain and anxiety that He may solve the difficulties.” (Oswald Chambers)

 

Lord, help me to remember that You care for me as much as You care for the world.

 TURNING THE HEARTS OF FATHERS TO THEIR SONS

 

David Blankenhorn wrote 15 years ago that America (and the rest of the world) runs the risk of being a fatherless generation. At the rate marriages end in divorce all over, at the pace at which relationships are established and just as quickly broken, we are indeed witnessing much more than just a crisis of paternity or a crisis of authority. We see this in the Philippine society’s loss of trust for leaders, both on the local and national levels. With so many fathers and mothers distant or away, mainly for reasons of survival, as they have to eke out a living abroad, parental authority is minimally felt if not totally non-existent. In its place is the feeble mode of leadership filled in for by aged grandparents or well-meaning relatives who have their own life hurdles to worry about.

Today’s readings both speak of paternity — the kind that we all must work and aim for. Jesus teaches us the best model of prayer, addressed to God as Father. Sirach (first reading) speaks glowingly about the father figure of Elijah, whose greatness is unequaled by anyone else and who was destined “to turn the hearts of fathers toward their sons, and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob.” There is something worth our while to consider in these two readings that converge on the same basic idea: the need for a deep and warm relationship between leader and follower, father and child, ruler and subject. It is no rocket science for us to realize that communication runs smooth between two parties if, in the first place, there is a deep affective bond between the two parties. Prayer, an act of communing and communicating with God, can only take place in the context of a deep interpersonal relationship. One cannot go through the motions of praying for long, unless one has the  corresponding emotions that ought to give prayer form and color, if not content.

And what, you might ask, is that bond all about? It has to do with seeing God as Father, exactly as Jesus would have us call on Him.Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB

 

Reflection Question:

How is your relationship with your biological father? How is your relationship with our heavenly Father? Do you see a semblance there?

 

Heavenly Father, help me to trust in your fatherly love for me. Heal and restore my relationship with my biological father. Amen.

 

St. Emily de Vialar, pray for us.