For the Blasphemies Uttered Against the Most Holy Triune God, And Calumnies & Irreverences Against the Catholic Church
PRESENTING: A HOLY HOUR WITH THE LORD
IN THE MOST BLESSED SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR
ON THE OCCASION OF THE 90TH BIRTHDAY OF
BISHOP-EMERITUS, JOSE C. SORRA, D.D., OF LEGAZPI, MARCH 9, 2019
Exposition of the Bl. Sacrament
Hymn: O Salutaris Hostia…
Prayerful Reflection-Colloquium with the EUCHARISITC LORD
PRAYER OF REPARATION
(Please kneel)
THE BISHOP LEADS THE REFLECTION-COLLOQUIUM HOLY HOUR:
Lord Jesus, we believe in Your Holy Eucharistic Presence in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, and we humbly kneel before You to offer our communal Prayer of Adoration, Penance, and Reparation for the insults and blasphemies uttered against our Most Holy Triune God, and for the calumnies & slanders against Your Holy Catholic Church and the Lord’s anointed ones, consecrated and professed servant-leaders.
We would like to make amends for all the blasphemies uttered against You, Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and for all irreverences shown toward Your Immaculate Virgin Mother and all the Saints,
Lord Jesus, You said: “If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you,” we then pray and beseech You for all those who, out of ignorance of our Catholic faith, have the audacity to utter insults and blasphemies against the most adorable Holy Triune God.
Shield them from the temptation to fall away from the true faith deliberately or out of ignorance; save those who are even now standing on the brink of the abyss.
To all of them give light and knowledge of the truth, courage and strength for the conflict with evil, perseverance in faith and active charity!
(Be seated)
Prayerful Reflection & Colloquium with the Lord
Bishop:
Lord Jesus, we, Your Anointed Ones, Men & Women Religious, and the Lay Faithful of Your Flock have come before Your Divine Presence to bring to You our anxious common concern about how to respond to the blasphemies uttered against our MOST BLESSED TIUNE GOD, the verbal attacks against Your ONE, HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH and Her SACRED TEACHINGS, and the grave threats to do violent bodily harm to Your Anointed Ones, and the Lay-Servant-Leaders & Members of Your Church.
Lord Jesus, we humbly implore Your compassionate assistance to enlighten and reassure us of Your Divine protective promise to your Disciples: Be not afraid, it is I. (Mt 14-27).
First Point of our reflection:
Lord Jesus, we wish to present and refer to Your Blessed Eucharistic Presence our Current Moral & Social Problems and Issues:
You once said through St. Paul, that our enemies in this world are “not fellow human beings,” not “flesh and blood” (Eph 6:12).
And that we do not fight our battles with guns and bullets…, because the battles that we fight are spiritual. In these times of darkness, when there is so much hatred and violence, when murder has become an almost daily occurrence, when people have gotten so used to exchanging insults and hurting words in social media, You admonish us to remain calm, steadfast in our common vocation and mission to actively work for peace.
On the other hand, You also forewarned us that, Not as the world gives peace do I give you peace (Jn 4:16-30). For as You said, Your peace is never the peace of compromise or capitulation to evil; it is also not about the absence of conflict and turmoil.
For were You not rejected by your own townsfolk in Nazareth? (Lk 4:16-30). Were You not called crazy by Your own relatives? (Mk 3:20-22). Were You not called a “prince of demons”? (Mk 3:22-30). And were you not called a drunkard and a lover of tax-collectors and sinners? (Mt 11:19).
Lord, You showed us how to deal with adversities when You slept in the boat, or when You walked on the water even in the midst of a storm (Mk 4:35; Mk 6:45-52). But like Your apostles, we are often so easily overcome by fear and panic. Even when we we’re already making baby steps on troubled waters, like Peter, we find ourselves sinking, because of our “little faith” (Mt 14:31).
Lord, there is nothing indeed that can calm us down in these turbulent times, except the quiet recognition of Your saving presence even as You did rebuke Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
Lord, like Peter and your other disciples, help us grow in our lack of faith….
(Pause for a brief reflection)
(All stand for a hymn to the Blessed Sacrament)
O Sacred Heart, O Love Divine…
2nd Point of our Reflection: The Cost of Witnessing to Christ
Dear Lord, as we look up to You in the most Blessed Sacrament on the altar–in disconcertedly bewildered silence, we could sense Your questioning us:
What is new about priests being murdered for witnessing to Christ? What is new about modern prophets being silenced by the treacherous bullets of assassins? What is new about servant leaders who are maligned because they have carried out their duties, as shepherds of my flock or as My lay-disciples reaching out to others sharing My Word? Have you forgotten the wise saying, that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians”? It’s this that has kept the Church alive after 2,000 years.
Yes, be not afraid! As I told My first disciples, Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul into Gehenna (Mt 10:28).
Have you not listened to what my apostle Paul said?: When we are insulted, we respond with a blessing; when we are persecuted, we bear it patiently; when slandered, we respond gently. We have become the world’s refuse, the scum of all; that is the present state of affairs (1 Cor 11:12-13).
To those who boast of their own wisdom, those who arrogantly regard themselves as wise and the Christian faith as nonsense, and to those who blaspheme our God as stupid – Paul has also this for his response: For the stupidity of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength (1 Cor 1:25). And to those who ridicule your faith, My Apostle Paul has this also to say: “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God (1 Cor 1:27-29).
Division among Catholic Christians
But, Lord, how do we deal with the current divisions among ourselves who all belong to your One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church? How are we to deal with fellow “Christians” who see nothing wrong about EJK-killings, who just laugh when our God is blasphemed, and who take part, as trolls, in fake news? Lord, what do we do?
The Lord: Did I not warn my first disciples that part of the exigencies of working for peace is having to go through the crucible of conflicts? (Luke 12:51-53).
There will always be those among you who profess the faith in me, but are so easily seduced by empty promises of Satan. Do you remember him who once sold me for 30 pieces of silver, because he had allowed himself to be mastered by Satan? My Apostle Paul is right in saying, “… There have to be divisions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may become known” (Cor 11:19).
The Sufferings of the Poor
Lord, our sufferings as Church Leaders are nothing compared to the sufferings of the poor in our Country. Yet, we seem not to hear the cry of the poor slum dwellers being jailed for mere “loitering.”
We seem to have forgotten that the homeless urban poor live in very narrow alleys between their flimsy homes that also serve as kitchens, bathrooms, recreation spaces, and playgrounds for their children. And that they live in very tiny dwellings that are razed quickly to the ground when fire strikes, because their very narrow roads fire trucks can possibly get through.
We and our people do not seem to feel the sufferings of drug addicts who are labelled as “non-humans,” and are stigmatized as criminals when their names end up in the dreaded “drug watch lists”; yes, we are aware of the sufferings of those who have been victimized by substance abusers, but we seem not to see them as sick people who are struggling with a disease. Should we not rather look at them as victims who are crying out for help?
Lord, we also seem not to realize that for every drug suspect killed, there is a widowed wife and there are orphaned children left behind – who could hardly even afford a decent burial for their loved ones.
We seem not to care about the misery of people charged of drug-related offenses and are packed like sardines in extremely congested unventilated jails. And how do we feel about communities that are forced to leave their homes for fear of being caught in the crossfire of conflicts between government troops and insurgents?
Not Against Fighting Illegal Drugs
Lord, there are people who are concerned and have warned us about being critical of the government’s fight against illegal drugs. Nothing can be farthest from the truth. We are not against the government’s effort to fight illegal drugs. We have long acknowledged that illegal drugs are a menace to society and their easier victims are the poor.
Like most Filipinos we had high hopes that the government would truly flex some political will to be able to use the full force of the law in working against this terrible menace.
It was only, however, when we started hearing of mostly poor people being brutally murdered on mere suspicion of being small-time drug users and peddlers, while the big-time smugglers and drug lords went scot-free, that we started wondering about the direction this “drug war” was taking.
Lord, as your shepherds, we have no intention of interfering in the conduct of state affairs. But neither do we intend to abdicate our sacred mandate, to whom you have entrusted your flock. We are aware of our solemn responsibility to defend Your flock, especially when they are attacked by wolves — we do not fight, though, with arms. We fight only with the truth.
Accordingly, as Your Anointed Shepherds, no amount of intimidation even threat to our lives will make us give up our prophetic role, especially that of giving voice to the voiceless. As Paul once said, “Woe to me if I don’t preach the gospel” (1 Cor 9:16).
(Pause for reflection & hymn)
Heart of Jesus meek and mild…
3rd point of our reflection: God’s image and likeness in man
Our faith informs us that no human in this world deserves to be treated as a “non-human,” not even the mentally ill, or those born with disabilities. This is consistent with our defence of the right to life even the unborn, because we believe that all human beings are creatures of god’s image and likeness, imbued with an innate dignity.
We also must consider the right to life of people who are brutally murdered just because they are suspected of being opponents of government. Everyone in the civilized community of nations would agree that even those who may have committed criminal offenses should be treated in a humane way, even as justice demands that they be held accountable for their actions.
Save the children
There is no way we can call ourselves a civilized society if we hold children in conflict with the law criminally liable. Children who get involved in crimes, such as those who are used as runners by adult drug pushers, do not deserve to be treated as criminals; they are rather victims that need to be rescued. It is obvious that most children in conflict with the law comes from poor families and were born and raised in an environment of abuse. We beg our country’s legislators to give the bill they are drafting some serious rethinking and consider the greater harm that such a move can cause on the young people of our country.
The perspective of mercy
Being civilized is not just about more advanced technology and infrastructure but about being more humane to the poor, the weak, the disadvantaged, the elderly, the children, those with special needs and all those who tend to be left out in society. We are not creatures endowed with intelligence and guided by the evolutionary instincts of “survival of the fittest.”
What makes us more superior as creatures is not our impulse to dominate each other but our innate sensitivity and capacity to love, to respect, to care for one another, to be both just and merciful, to be compassionate, to build community and to be genuinely concerned about the common good. The law of retaliation that demands “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (exodus 21:24) has long been repudiated in Christian tradition. As Christians, we have to larn the way of Jesus who says, “be merciful, just as your father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).
(Pause for reflection)
Hymn: No mas amor que el tuyo…
(4th point of our reflection): Church of Sinner, Called to Holiness
Lord, we bishops and priests, as well as the men and women religious, have our own share of failures and shortcomings as well. We bow in shame when we hear of abuses committed by some of us — especially those ordained priests to “act in the person of Christ” and even also those who vowed themselves to Christ in consecrated life. We hold ourselves accountable for their actions, and accept our responsibility and duty to correct them.
We admit humbly that we are a church of sinners and called to conversion and holiness at the same time.
We humbly admit that we have many weaknesses and shortcomings, human as we are. We may have failed in exercising our prophetic role in teaching, catechizing, and feeding the Lord’s faithful entrusted to our pastoral care; thus resulting in their gross ignorance of the faith, their non-compliance of their basic obligations as bona fide Catholic Christians, and even losing them when lured to join other religious sects.
When people do not understand our essential doctrines, as Roman Catholic Christians, we have also only ourselves to blame. It could also mean we have failed, not only in our preaching, catechizing, but even more so in witnessing to the faith that we impart.
Call to Prayer, Penance and Amendment
Lord, let this our communal adoration, meditation, and prayer before your Eucharistic presence here today signal our humble and firm resolve to make reparations and amends for all our sins of commission and omission in living up to our religious vows and pastoral commitment.
We repeat, Lord, our asking for forgiveness for all the blasphemies uttered against the Most Holy Triune God, for all the calumnies and slanders spoken against your One, Holy Catholic Church, and for all the irreverence shown toward your Immaculate Virgin Mother and all the Saints.
As St. Paul tells us, “the battles that we fight are spiritual” (Ephesians 6:10-17). St. Peter, too, admonishes us to “be sober and alert” especially when the enemy attacks “like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 peter 5:8). As members of god’s flock, we must learn to be brave, to stick together, and look for one another.
Lord, let this moment be a time to pray, to be strong, wise, and committed. Let this also be a teaching moment for us all – a moment for relearning the core beliefs, principles and values of our faith, and what it means to be a Catholic Christian in this time of religious crises. Amen.
Tantum ergo Sacramentum…
Solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
Divine Praises: Blessed Be God…
O sacrament most Holy, o Sacrament Divine
Nota Bene:
The above Reflection-Colloquium is an adaptation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference 2018-2019 Pastoral Letters and Exhortations
Bethlehem Pastoral & Retreat Center, Inc.
Diocese of Legazpi
Sogod, Bacacay, Albay
