What's June 9? Well, it's a milestone whose blog entry is long overdue. A Mass... a dinner... family and friends... but rather than me describing it in detail, I'll still this acerbic tongue for a while, put on some reflective music, and transcribe the homily delivered by Fr Arnel Aquino SJ last June 9. One of the best gifts I could ever receive from anyone.
FRIENDSHIP
his evening, we celebrate in anticipation the great feast of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. But why is the gospel that of Luke's feeding of the five thousand, instead of the last supper according to John? Would it not have been so much more intimate if John were the one to speak to us about the Lord's body and blood, right on the last night with his friends? On a Thursday night, when he washed his disciples' feet? A night when he huddled close with those who meant his life to him, to break bread with them, in anticipation of his broken body the next day? A night in which he would finally symbolize, through a meal, his total, unrelenting self-outpouring to God and to his friends? But no! We're to deal with the feeding of the five thousand that takes place during the heat of the day, when there is aloft no ambient intimacy, when there are strangers everywhere sitting around and pressing against each other's social bubbles, when the bread doesn't even come from Jesus, and the wine, the wine that further warms company with friends, where is the wine?
But that this mass is a thanksgiving celebration for the friendship that we all enjoy makes Luke's gospel providential. The everyday-ness of our gospel for tonight, its apparent lack of flair and drama, has in fact vital things to teach us about friendship... real friendship.
First. Look at the crowd that hems Jesus in. Notice that as people set their eyes on the Lord and draw themselves nearer to him, they are in fact drawn ever nearer to each other. Now that is true of friendship as it is of marriage as it is of a religious or secular organization: that when we set our eyes first on the Lord, and approach the Lord together--the key word, together--we are very naturally drawn so much closer to each other.
Surely, we all pass through that stage when we tell each other under our breaths, "You and me against the world," and look at each other nose to bloody nose, googly and cross-eyed, hold hands, and walk through life sideways. And yet, where has that taken many of us? Friendships like that have mostly been weak and short-lived. But you look at our moms and dads, or titos and titas, or old partners who are still together after all these years... and you notice that they've long ceased looking at themselves. Rather, they've turned and look towards God, side by side. They've realized that there is a Much Greater than their own love for each other, and that is a God who loves them. When we set our eyes first on the Lord and approach him together--the key word, together--we are very naturally drawn so much closer to each other.
Secondly, when you look at the Lord's friendship with his disciples, you realize that their intimacy is deepened while they pour themselves out, body and blood, so to speak, in the service of the learger community. Yes, they spent their quiet times together. Yes, they got to gather 'round and tell each other of the deepest stirrings of their hearts. Yes, their intimacy grew out of unabashed self-disclosure. But the bonds of their love were seasoned and strengthened as they pour themselves out as friends to others who had need of them.
You know how it feels when you have choir practice, for example, and you notice that a pair of lovers among you is at a stand-off. And during an innocuous meeting, one of them speaks his mind, and the other argues, until they bicker about an innocuous matter. Then you realize, they're not arguing about the agenda! They're having a lover's quarrel! Nothing is more irking in a meeting than lovers who have private business to settle, yet have not gone beyond their relationship in order to spread the friendship to the larger community. To spread the luv.
Believe me, I speak from experience: our intimacy with the one we love is deepened while we put our friendship at the service of the larger community--when we look beyond ourselves and each other, and see that we can use our love to nourish others. Far along your relationships and friendships, you will realize that your ability to nourish each other eventually runs on empty when your community life--our life with other friends and family--fall ill. Because, my dear sisters and brothers, believe me, everything about us is eventually communitarian. "You and Me Against the World" is just a song. It doesn't promise a love that is long-lived for as long as that love keeps embracing only each other and keeps the community away. Because when family and friends are kept away from our strangle-hold embrace, someone finally comes and says, "Oh, get a room!" That's the signal that we've hugged each other too tightly.
Lastly, do you notice that Jesus never had a soulmate? I guess you could say that he was so single-minded about pouring himself out in the service of the many that he really didn't need one. Or, since he was never tainted with sin, I guess the total lack of selfishness that plagues sinners like us, might have given his very consciousness that fantastic latitude that you and I are yet to strive for in our lives.
But I tend to think that because he was human like ourselves, he must've carried around with him an emptiness, like we all do, an emptiness that he might sometimes have wished were filled. You know how empty you and I feel when we trust so completely and yet are cheated, when we forgive so painfully and yet are violated, when we love so deeply and yet are short-changed. You cannot say that our Lord's life wasn't anything like that--for he trusted yet was abandoned, forgave yet was convicted, loved yet was punished with the cruelest death of all. So in the heart of this Jesus must've been an emptiness hollowed out by God himself which nobody on earth can fill; no, not even a soulmate.
We carry in our hearts an emptiness hollowed out by God and can never be completely filled with anything or anyone earth-bound, not even by our soulmate if we have one. But hallowed be that emptiness because only God can make holy... hallowed... and only God can fill it.
We thank the Lord for you who have found their soul-mates, for that person is a gift from God. But for the rest of you who still wonder when you're gonna meet yours, let me tell you something to think about. Not all people have soul-mates. It is possible that one goes through his or her life not ever meeting a sfeyshal samwan whom one considers as half one's soul. And you know what, it is okay. It is okay. It is not abnormal, it is not irrecular, it is something you ought to consider yourself you should suffer over. It's been said, "We were all created as half souls... and we are to spend our life looking for the other half that completes us." Well, that's the fluff that Hollywood is made of. It sounds so true and heart-wrenching because it is a beautiful line... of a script. But it is not true.
That we were created half spirits might be true... but the other half has been given us from the very moment of our lives--our family is half our spirits, our friends make up half our souls, and all those that love us--they complete us.
So on this feast of the self-outpouring of Christ, we celebrate our being drawn closer to the Lord and therefore to each other. We celebrate the gift of many friends who have nourished our relationships by accepting us for what we are and for whom we love. Finally, we celebrate the emptiness that God hollowed out of our beings, which he in turn hallows, makes holy, with his Presence.
All this is what I think Luke teaches us about the feeding of the five-thousand on this feast of the body and blood of Christ: it is the feeding of five thousand friends by Jesus and his friends.
Thank you, Paulo and James, for bringing us together in this breaking of the bread.
