Libera – Sanctus Live at the Royal Albert Hall

Palm Sunday 2010: Whose Praise Do You Want?

Luke 19:29-40

“When Jesus had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

“Blessed is the king

who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven,

and glory in the highest heaven!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

I believe that as Christians one of the biggest struggles that we face is that we want to please everyone and along with that is the enjoyment of receiving the praises of others.

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of the Holiest of all weeks in the Christian Calendar. It begins with this triumphant entrance of Christ into Jerusalem. This is certainly an scene that is worth a movie and indeed has been the subject of many movies. Jesus of Nazareth the humble peasant of Galilee, the son of a carpenter and of a woman about whom some may have had some very unjustified questions, enters Jerusalem like a King. What a moment!

As we are bombarded by “reality shows”, there is not much reality to them, we see every year the crowning of the “American Idol.” I cannot have the slightest idea on how should it feel to go from some unknown figure and almost overnight been catapulted into the National scene as a celebrity. The praise of the media, the attention of other celebrities and the general public as well must be overwhelming.

This is exactly what happened to the Lord Jesus on this most holy day. He went from an itinerant teacher to the national and religious capital of Israel and praise as the successor of King David. Thanks be to God that Jesus did not suffered from an elevated ego an knew exactly that this was just another step to bring him closer to his ultimate destination, the cross.

Do we enjoy the recognition of this world, do we seek the praises of those around those, do we surrender to the attention of those in power? To Christ Jesus matter absolutely nothing. His only goal was to make the will of the Father.

The praises of this world do not last even a week, the same crowd that shouted “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” on Sunday the Friday of the same week screamed to the top of their lungs: “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

My dear one, the praises of this world won’t even last one week. My question to you is, Is that the praise that you want?

Bishop Huertas

“True progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice.”

St. Francis of Assisi

Fifth Sunday Of Lent: The Primacy of Christ,

Philippians 3:8-14

“I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

There are some very important lessons that we should learn from this passage, not only as Christians but also as followers of Br. Francis.

The first one is that if we are going to grow in our Christian journey we should detach ourselves from this world. For the brother and sisters living in monastic and conventual communities, this is their answer to stay away from the “ways of this world.” For the rest of us this means to do what St. James said, “to remain unspotted by this world.” Of course as most of you that is much easier to say than to do. We live in a society where we are constantly assaulted by messages of the importace of buying cars that we do not need, green products that only add “green” to the pockets of the big corporations and to the false notion that if we buy that fancy car or house someway and somehow we are going to become better people and more attractive to those around us. To this false believe St. Paul remind us that we must consider the things of this world nothing but trash and Br. Francis says that is in giving that we truly receive..

By giving up on this world then we have the distinctive privilege to gain Christ. To be Christ-like should be indeed the goal of every believer and I believe that the best way to accomplish this is by following Christ-like people, like Br. Francis, instead of some esoteric, distant and impersonal idea of the Savior. It is easy to claim we follow someone that is not readily available to give an account of what we are really about.

We should strive to know Christ, I mean to really know him. I am not talking about how much Bible we know but how much we know of Christ and the power of his transforming resurrection. The habit of regular prayer, the discipline of study and worship, all of these will bring us closer and closer to a relationship with the Living Risen Savior. This is not an easy task and through this process we will identified, although in a minuscule way, to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. Br. Francis stated: “Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.” Have you entered in an intentional path to overcome yourself and let God be God?

The last two lessons I learn from this passage are extremely powerful, one that I should be humble enough to say: “I am not there yet”, and the second, extremely related to the first one, “But I am going to keep on trying.”

I know that I am not there yet but I can assure you, that I am going to keep on trying because for me, “the journey is the destination.” And I will keep on this journey until the day of the the beatific vision. That is my real goal, is not escaping form hell or enjoy a  Heavenly Mansion. I will be glad to have a “Heavenly Shack” as long as I can enjoy Him!

As this stage of my life and ministry I can truly echo Br. Francis on this:

“Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.”

Your lesser brother,

Bishop Huertas

Parable of the prodigal son from the film Jesus of Nazareth

Fourth Sunday in Lent: The Story of the Loving Father

Luke 15:11-32

‘Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”‘ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe–the best one–and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

This is one of those remarkable stories of the Bible, worth a motion picture. Often referred to as the “Story of the Prodigal Son”, I really believe is the “Story of the Loving Father.”

This is the story of every human being since creation. We have been created at the image of a loving and caring Father nevertheless we choose to walk away from Him and live after our own fancy.

In this story the son does something so unkind and unloving, he demands his inheritance while his father was still alive. For all purposes his statement amount to wishing that his father was dead. He rejected his father, his household and his love ones in exchange for a few pieces of silver. Does this sounds familiar?

Then not only he wasted his money but he ended up caring for pigs. Can you imagine? A good Jewish young man who falls so low that ends up taking care of pigs and so hungry that he wished to eat of the pigs’ food. It is under these set of circumstances that he comes to his senses and realizes that he was better off as a servant in his father’s house than keep on living the way he was.

The young man even rehearsed an apology for his father. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and and against you. I am not worthy to be call your son.” And while rehearsing his apology he began his journey to the father’s house.

The Scriptures say that before he made it to the house the father saw him. The old man probably sat by a door or a window every day, looking at the horizon and hoping to see his son coming. And this was the day, the father ran to him, and while he was running he was shouting, “My son is coming, my son is coming, get some new clothes, get some nice jewelry for him, let’s invite our neihgbors and have a party, my son is coming home!”

There was no time for apologies only for forgiveness, the fact that the son was coming home was enough of an apology. The son was coming home willing to be just a servant but you see, once you are a son, you can never be a servant.

Child of God, if you wander off from the Father’s house, if you wasted all your gifts in all the wrong places, is time for you to come home. This Season of Lent should bring you to the realization that once you are a son in the Father’s house you can never go back and be a servant.

“Where there is injury let me sow pardon.” St. Francis of Assisi

Your servant,

Bishop Huertas

Will you come and follow Me, The Summons. a Christian song of following a calling from God

Second Sunday of Lent: Open Your Eyes

Philippians 3:17-4:1

“Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”

Often times I hear people saying that we are not to imitate anyone but Christ. But in this passage we see that Paul admonishes the Christians in the Church of the Philippians to be imitators of him as well as to imitate other faithful believers. There is certainly nothing wrong in imitating faithful Christians on the contrary we need to seek to imitate those that are faithful and good examples of Christian life.

On the other hand, there are those that we need to reject and let me tell you we live in an age that there are plenty of examples of “Christians” that we need to walk away from. People that use their “faith” to only meet their carnal needs. The Bible say that they live to meet their appetite, walk in shame and will end in destruction. Preachers that instead of living for the pulpit, live of the pulpit. Shepherds that slaughter their sheep instead of shepherding them. Prophets that prophesy only to scratch the ears of those that have an itch to hear, what they want to hear.

Instead we should look toward those that are true followers of Christ and realize that we should follow their example since we are part of a greater citizenship, we are citizens of heaven.

During this Lenten Season, let us humbly examine ourselves, look for godly guidance of good Christian leaders and like Brother Francis said:

“Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.”
Your servant,

Bishop Jesus-Manuel