Group Mass Sharing

First and foremost, pardon me for failing to give you a good exegesis on the
gospel for today, but do not worry, for it is the primary task of Vale. However, allow
me to share to you kung ano ang pabaon nitong ebanghelyo natin ngayon sa akin.
To start with, I was deeply touched and move when Jesus asked his disciples,
“But you, who do you say I am?” This question is very personal for me. It calls out a
reassessment: “Who is Jesus in my personal life?”
Part of being a seminarian is to have a good grasp about who God is. Kaya
excited ako noon na makinig sa class discussions ng Medieval Philosophy, although this
was my least favorite among philosophy courses. Throughout my early college
seminary years, I was inundated with truths about God – that God is One, True, Good,
and Beautiful, which I think I can no longer discuss elaborately now. God is just. God is
merciful. God is this and that.
Learning all these stuff, the nature of God, is indeed essential. However, I later
on realized that what I have been learning was God-as-he-is, who God is as described in
philosophical books and as what our Medieval Philosophy teacher tells me. I have been
trying to learn who God is from the outside. And, to be honest, whenever I try to stick
with these definitions of who God is, it leaves me frustrated. I tend to categorize that
“this is God, and this is not God”. I tend to objectify God’s mystery. I tend to render
God’s infinite intelligibility into my cute, finite mind. Little did I know, and I am
unaware of, that I am becoming, more and more, an atheist – that I no longer believe in
God, as he is.
What I failed to see is that to know God can also mean learning God in relation to
the “I”.
In the later years of my philosophical studies, I thank God that I encountered this
man named Slavoj Zizek, a Slovenian Philosopher and a Christian atheist, in our
Philosophy of God. In line with religion, he was famously known about his “death of
God theology”, or also known as “down to earth theology”. He argues that the non-
existence of the big Other opens up the space for thinking. He furthermore claims that
during the death of Christ, “when the believers gather, mourning Christ’s death, their
shared spirit is the resurrected Christ.”
Zizek’s down-to-earth theology may sound heretical, but it greatly shaped on
how I get to know God. It made me realize that God is not just a bearded-old man up
above, sitting in his mighty throne, looking down on us, as if we are apart from him,
and he is beyond our fence. Instead, God is here on earth, always present even in the
most ordinary events in my life.
 Who, then, is Jesus? Apart from what I have learned from philosophy and a
semester of theology, Jesus is my friend. And I want to emphasize the possessive
adjective “my”. Knowing God is relational, a personal journey. He is a friend who is
always ready to listen to my sentiments, my ups and downs. He is present as a friend in
my BEC whenever I share to them my weaknesses and struggles, yet not receiving a
single, humiliating judgment.
Jesus is a lover, who unconditionally loves me not much of who I am, but
despite of who I am, who continues to love me in spite of my dark past. He is present in
the people who believed in me, in my vocation, in the goodness within me – through
my family, my chaste classmates, my priest friends in our diocese who said that I am a
gift, the ordinary lectors in our parish who assured me of their prayers.
Jesus is my physician, who cures my wounds whenever I open them up to him.
He is in my counselor who helped, and continues to help, me overcome my issues and
addictions.
Who is Jesus? Yes, it is undeniably true that Jesus is identical to God as just,
merciful, One, True, Good, and Beautiful. But ultimately, what I have learned from
today’s gospel is that God dwells in one’s heart. Hence, it poses a more important
question for me: Who is Jesus as he appears, as he is present in my ordinary
experiences? And this question, perhaps, would be a great springboard in seeing all
things new in Christ.