A Listening Presence

We acknowledge the myriad blessings from above, including the elections that have just passed and given us hopes of new and honest leadership; and in our environment, the showers of rain on our dry land that has revived dying crops and restored hope and confidence that God indeed listens to our crying needs. The coming of the Spirit this Pentecost Sunday also awakens us to the challenge of continuing Jesus’ legacy of ongoing evangelization and to the ever-living presence of a God in touch with His people, His redeemed children in Christ.

As our Philippine Church continues the ‘journey wake’ to the Year 2021 ‘Missio ad gentes’ the focus, especially on this year of the Family, is that families remain the seed-bed of evangelization, and parents and children listen to each other. The listening gesture will generate towards a healthy spirit of dialogue that will steadily expand into the outer, larger community being served. Many Filipino missionaries were born from mission-conscious families where parents have sown the seed of a ‘Christified’ spirituality that seeks to sacrifice the self for the sake of service.

This will also serve as preparation for the Year 2020 of Ecumenism and Inter-Religious Dialogue. The dialogue will call for a spirit of ready listening, first to the God of love in prayer and to different members of society in interactions towards building community and strengthening solidarity in the struggle for social change, unity in healing social ills, integrity and social justice in our land. A dialogue has also to put on the atmosphere of patience and put aside all biases and prejudices as Jesus made that a consistent rule: “Judge not and you will not be judged; because the judgments you give are the judgements you will get” (Mt. 7:1-2), but the greatest of them all is love (1 Cor. 13:13).