Once a year I come home to observe solemn activities during holy week and to be with family to spend quality time with my brothers and their children.
Attending mass in the same parish church where I grew up and served, I realized much is still the same. The familiar faces just look older. I am older. We meet the new generation of church-goers.
I realized that I've gone a long way from reading the liturgy, leading responsorial psalms and singing with the choir. Much like Msgr Venus mentioned in the sermon about casting nets out of your comfort zone and into the deep, so have I cast nets to become a fisher of men. I am a public servant.
I have been so caught up with hospital work, improving systems, creating opportunities for the youth and pushing forth all the advocacies I believe are important, I've forgotten how emotional I can get when celebrating the eucharist. I have been blessed with the gift of tongues and the gift of tears. I felt that the messages in the sermon and the songs sung by the choir were specially for me.
1. Jesus washed the feet of the twelve disciples, including Judas, who betrayed him. Jesus does not give up on anyone.
2. Jesus who was teacher and master, washed the feet of his disciples. To follow God's example, we must be humble enough to love without limits, serve without conditions and to care without expectations.
3. Jesus asked Peter to cast out his nets despite a whole night of fishing without catching anything. God wants us to have personal relationship with us, risking the dangers and fears of the deep, away from our comfort zone.
4. The darkest place in hell when people are neutral in times of moral crisis. We must take a stand and decide to fight for what we believe in.
5. Like the Good Shepherd, we should rejoice all the more for one sinner who has returned and repented, than 99 who were not in need of conversion.
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