My family visited my sister, Michelle, and her home after the 10am Mass today for brunch.
I did a houseblessing and blessed a handful of cars, too.
At some point, I picked on my younger sister, Rachel. Hey, I gotta live up to being an older brother, right?! I'm a "kuya" as we say in Filipino. A while back, she accidentally burned some rice. I mean, who burns rice?? She says she's been okay with making rice since. I used this to talk about the Gospel.
I brought up a pastoral case with a Dominican brother who was at Adoration with me.
I turned to him and said, "After you're done here, can I ask your advice about something?" Normally, I would ask a priest or another deacon but it was opportune.
I told him the situation that saddened me and the people hurt by it.
He said two things in reply: First, that it was normal for me to have human feelings about difficult pastoral cases. Second, that perhaps I am the only one regularly praying for the situation.
I was consoled today. Perhaps Jesus wanted me to have a warm heart of flesh and not treat His flock like cold statistical numbers. This happens when I'm in the field.
"In sickness lies a particular grace. The sick person is helpless, dependent, broken open to God. He is ready to beg. And God can heal him. Grace can find a foothold in every humble plea."
As of Jan.. 2, 2016, I have baptized 33 babies. The 1st and 33rd were my daughters, Faith Marie and Therese Maria Hope, respectively.
The 31st and 32nd of these were babies of former students.
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Baptism reception & Mariana Mahal's 5th birthday @ Chuck-E-Cheese in Fairfield, CA
Daddy w/Little Princess Love
w/my goddaughter, Christie Marie & her mom, Rowie
w/my sister Michelle
Mariana w/my sister-in-law Ate Marissa
w/wife, Mariana & my Papa Hardie (on right)
w/my Dad (sporting one of the Navy ships on which he served)
Look who showed up!! It's Chucky!
kids w/their friend, Jacob
John Paul took his sister's place in the Ticket Master.
Mariana w/Myra (left)
taking a break next to those ball-rolly things where you get tickets
w/my Mom, Evelyn
w/my in-laws, Ernie & Helen, in the background
(father-in-law sporting his Army hat while my dad sports his Navy hat)
My mom and sister stopped by our place afterwards.
Princess Hope w/my sister, Rachel
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On Sat., I assisted at the 5pm Mass where I baptized Therese Maria Hope. I assisted at the 7am, 830am, 10am, and 12pm Masses the following Sunday, and I preached the homily at the 830am & 12pm Masses.
I spoke with a parishioner after the Sunday, 12pm Mass, and I ended up staying long enough to be around during the 2pm Extraordinary Form (EF) of the Mass. Here are some pictures I took. Perhaps one day I will learn how to serve at the Extraordinary Form, since most of my training and background is with the Ordinary Form (OF) of the Mass.
This is Fr. Brian Soliven. Sometimes the pastor, Fr. Resti, celebrates the 2pm Extraordinary Form of the Mass.
#49A
ON THE OCCASION OF THE BAPTISM OF MY NEWBORN DAUGHTER
St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Vacaville, CA
Vigil for the Feast of the Epiphany
Sat., Jan. 2, 2016
5pm Mass
I have here in my hand something to show you.Right now, you don’t know what it is because
it is wrapped in a blanket.It is a
mystery to you.
You may know some things about it.You may have some idea of what it
is.Using our reason, we know that
something definitely exists here.For
example, if I shake it close to the microphone or squish it like this, you can
kind of figure it out and rule out what it is not.For the lucky few, you might even come very close
to actually guessing what it is.It’s
like an unwrapped Christmas present.
But even with a million years to figure it out, you
won’t know the details unless I manifest it to you.I must reveal it and take off the
veil of this blanket.There must be
a moment of epiphany, a revelation.And I must speak some words to explain it.
Eventually, I lift the veil like this.You realize – aha! – that it’s a doll.And after some time, I reveal even more
details about the doll.I verbally tell
you – I speak my words – that this doll has a name: St. Therese of
Lisieux.I also tell you that the real
St. Therese of Lisieux celebrates her earthly birthday today.But wait! There’s more!I further make an intimate revelation that
this is my daughter’s doll.I also tell
you that my eldest daughter (whose 5th birthday we also celebrate
today by the way) took a blue pen and colored St. Therese’s left eye.She said she accidentally colored St.
Therese’s left eye.(Yeah right!)I speak my final word and go beyond reason to
tell you that St. Therese really means a lot in my family.All these details you would not know based on
just reason alone, but through a revelation.
This visual exercise explains today’s Scripture
readings for the Feast of the Epiphany, or the manifestation, or the revelation
of Jesus as the Messiah and Savior of the world.
You see, throughout history, there are some things
that we know about the mystery of God based on reason.We know that He exists.We know that God is one and all-powerful or
that God doesn’t like evil.However, to
enter into a deeper relationship with God just like what I did in slowly
unveiling the doll, God gradually reveals or unveils His inner life in stages
to the whole world.
The fullness of God’s revelation, the unveiling, the
manifestation, the epiphany of an obscure, unknown newborn baby is God the
loving Father sending His Son to us.And
then we find out more things: That God is one of us; that God became a little
baby with a name and place of birth; and that the newborn baby is our King.
In the Second Reading from the Letter of St. Paul to
the Ephesians, Paul writes “that the mystery was made known to [him] by [what?]
revelation.Revelation.It was not made known – not revealed to
people in other generations as it has now been revealed to the holy Apostles
and prophets.”The Second Vatican
Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, teaches, “Jesus is the mediator and fullness of all
revelation (DV no 2).In other words,
God speaks only one word.In Christ, God
“has said everything; there will be no other word than this one” (CCC 65).Nothing else – no new Scripture, no new
prophet, no new event – is necessary anymore.
But wait again!There’s more!It doesn’t just end
with Divine Revelation, the unveiling of the mystery, the moment of epiphany,
the showing or manifestation of God’s plan of a newborn baby.God’s manifestation or unveiling is the first
main point.
The second main point from the Word of God is that we have to respond—and that response to
God’s revelation – His revealing His love – is called faith.What use is it if God unveils His plan, if
He’s talking to us, if we don’t respond to His love?
In other words, so what?!That happened 2000 years ago.What does that mean for me now?Well, if we don’t respond to God’s unveiling
of his plan for us, it’s like having a message on your cell phone but never
calling that person back.It’s a one-way
street.Our relationship with God ain’t
going nowhere.So we need to reply with
faith, hope and love.
We see this response through the three magi or the
three kings from the East.They saw God
taking off the veil and revealing the newborn king through the star.The magi weren’t even the chosen religious
people, the Jews, but rather what we call good pagans or non-Jews or Gentiles.They replied with the best way that they knew
how: their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.The coming of the Magi means that even
non-religious pagans can discover Baby Jesus.
What about you, dear brothers and sisters?We just gave presents to each other just last
week.Did you give a gift to God this
Christmas yet?What is your response to
God’s love?
Later, during this Mass, the priest will pray the
Prayer over the Offering of bread and wine.“Look with favor, Lord, we pray, on these gifts of your Church, in which
are offered now not gold or frankincense, but he who by them is proclaimed,
sacrificed and received, Jesus Christ…”
Here, we move from visible to invisible
realities.Our gift to God, our
response, is not just material frankincense and myrrh, but receiving the Baby
Jesus in a heart that has been delicately prepared for Him, by removing
obstacles that prevent us from falling in love with God, falling in love with
His Church, his people.They are the
“King Herod’s” of our lives.The
obstacles want to remove the joy of loving God in the flesh, the Newborn Baby
Jesus.
This leads to the third and final main point.And this point is a little bit more personal
where I apply today’s Scripture readings in my own life and my own family’s
life.As you know, I’m a permanent
deacon with a family.
I mentioned that I had a daughter earlier.Actually, I have 3 daughters and 2 sons.My eldest, John Paul, was named after Pope
John Paul II.Then there’s Emmanuel
Jeremiah to remind us that God is with us, even from the womb.Three of my daughters are actually named
after the virtues of Faith, Hope and Love, and they all have Jesus’s mother in
their name, too.My wife jokes that we
are surrounded by Faith, Hope and Love. My
youngest daughter, Baby Hope, was born a week before Christmas.When I held her in my arms, I actually imagined
myself holding the Newborn Jesus the way Mary or Joseph or the Three Kings or
the spherds would have.Holding a
newborn is a feeling like no other.I
spoke earlier about giving a gift to God and responding to Him.At this Mass, my wife, Tove Ann, and I would
like to give our response—our gift of cooperating with God to bring new life
into the world, of being generous with children and of making them sharers in
God’s divine life.After this homily, I’ll
be baptizing Therese Maria Hope.Like
the Newborn King, her baptism will make her royalty.She will share in the three-fold office the
Newborn King who is a priest, prophet and king.
So this is a real celebration of the Epiphany for my
family.You see, this is the first
public appearance of my newborn daughter since she was born.It’s little bit like the Newborn Baby Jesus
who made his public appearance, his manifestation, with the Three Kings.We couldn’t gather with family as we normally
do on Dec. 24-25 because my wife was still recuperating and the family was
sick.My wife and I don’t have gold,
frankincense, and myrrh to give to the Newborn Baby Jesus.But we have the joy of cooperating with God,
the Author of Life, and bringing our newest child, Therese Maria Hope, to the
waters of baptism on the Epiphany.
So, in summary: First, God manifests His Newborn Baby
Son, Jesus.Second, our response to
Jesus not just with incense and myrrh, but with our love and faith and
hope.Third, the Epiphany of the Newborn
Jesus doesn’t happen just 2000 years ago, but it happens today in our lives of
baptism, as we see in my daughter’s baptism which is my family’s gift to God.
During the Offertory (or Presentation of the Gifts) at
this Mass today, I invite you to give God your gift to Him.Imagine giving it to your Guardian Angel who
will place your very selves before the altar of sacrifice and table of the
Lord, to be blessed, broken, and shared.After you receive Our Lord in Holy Communion, carry the Newborn Baby
Jesus inside your heart today.
May we take to heart the words of the Responsorial
Psalm, “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.”
