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8 Parish Bulletin
LENTEN RECOLLECTION - 1
Fr. Tito Caluag
The First Lenten Recollection was
given last Saturday March 2 by
Fr. Tito Caluag. Fr. Tito centered his
talk on the theme of Year of Faith,
focusing on the context of Eucharistic
Consciousness.
The forty days of Lent are a time
of intense preparation for Holy Week
which culminates in the Easter Tridiurn:
Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and
Easter - and this Paschal Mystery of
the Last Supper-Cross-Resurrection is
the central mystery of our faith.
"Since we have the same spirit
of faith ..., we also believe, and so
we also speak, knowing that He who
raised the Lord Jesus will raise us
also with Jesus and bring us with you
into His presence." (2 Corinthians
4:13-14)
For this Year of Faith, Pope
Benedit XVI asked the faithful to pay
emphasis to New Evangelization and
the celebration of the faith in the liturgy,
especially in the Eucharist.
Fr. Tito talked about how To have
faith/To believe is not a mere mental
process; Faith is an activity of
the whole person. This consciousness
of faith brings us to an awareness of
God's love, and God loves us even in
our failures and shortcomings. Knowing
and feeling His love, no other response
is possible except to love Him
back. "Amor con amor se paga. "
Faith inspires us to live it. We
profess the faith in fullness and with
renewed conviction, with confidence
and hope - to witness and thus to
evangelize.
The Ignatian 3-fold process of
1. To know
2. To love
3. To follow
is reflected in the movement of the
Mass with the Liturgy of the Word and
the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
At each Mass, we commemorate
the Last Supper at which Our Lord
Took
Blessed
Broke
Gave
Each Mass is a means for us to
Take stock of our lives, Be aware of
God's love for us and to give thanks,
and to Break of ourselves and Give to
others. We are to live this Eucharistic
consciousness throughout the day, every
day.
Christ's divinity is defined by the
Cross and the Resurrection, and every
Mass brings this Paschal Mystery
to us again and again. Evangelization
means to make people realize that we
have been crucified with Christ and we
prepare for His promise of the resurrection.
The Eucharist is both the tool and
the end goal. It enables us to discover
meaning in our life because in that one
perfect sacrifice, Christ defeated sin
and death yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
At each Mass, Christ becomes
truly present at the altar at Consecration
and then in us at Communion.
Thus, at each Mass, the community
comes together to
Remember
Celebrate
Believe
Fr. Tito talked about a BBC interview
with Carl Jung, who founded
analytical psychology, when Jung was
84 years old. The interviewer John
Freeman asked him about his childhood
and being brought to church every
Sunday as was the norm then.
Freeman:
God?
Jung: "Oh yes."
Freeman:
God?"
"And did you believe in
"Do you now believe in
Jung: "NOW? ..(moment of silence
while Jung ponders his reply) ...
difficult to answer ... I KNOW. I
needn't ...,I don't need to believe - I
know."
Fr. Tito brought out the significance
of our Pilipino term for faith -
pananampalataya, and the beauty of
its root word - "taya" - which evokes
that element of risking all when we offer
ourselves to God, i.e. itataya mo
ang sarili mo sa Diyos.
To partake of the Eucharist is to
bring its spirituality and consciousness
into our every moment of life so that
we may truly say as in Galatians 2:20
"I have been crucified with Christ and
I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I live in the body, I live by
faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave himself for me."
by Elizabeth
Virata