Dec

22

Hapag ng Pag-asa

Posted By reynor | Filed Under Raison d’être 

Reynor

Below is a picture of a painting, entitled “Hapag ng Pag-asa” (Table of Hope), by Joey Velasco on the latest post of our good friend Kay Vardeleon  who maintains the very insightful blog Break Me.  It is a painting of a Last Supper but in the place of the 12 Apostles are 12 impoverished children in the Philippines….not from imagination but real people that he paid to pose for him.  (The video at the bottom of this article tells us of his wonderful journey of faith, how he found himself through these children.)

Hapag ng Pag-asa

 However, due to the relativity of perceptions and sensitivity that discussing every virtue it invokes would take more than a blog to cover just the basics, if not a book that will always remain unfinished with a chapter being added every time for as long as mind can retain the intangible representation of this image, I will concentrate on what seems to posses the strongest of all that creates the deepest imprint on my visual memory but in the most mysterious way also the least obvious: on how God calls us in so many different ways, how each call is always personal and exclusive to the person being called, but basically in general, how both in suffering and in triumph he is calling us.

Through suffering.
It is in the hunger, thirst, and difficulties these children endure that they become partakers of the supper the Lord has prepared for them.  Are we not drowning His call for communion whenever we savor the joys of abundance apart from our Host?   

At this time and world society of ours that seem to give more importance on instant gratification and “doing away” with suffering by removal of awareness and desensitization, are we not also refusing to hear His call? 

For it is in our hunger, thirst, and suffering that we realize our dependency to Him that it is with great importance that neither we must turn our backs nor close our eyes from the reality of human suffering.  We must embrace it, we must continue not just to see but to look, not just to hear but to listen.  

It is not the glory of a pleasurable life disconnected from Christ that is to become the dictator of our lives.  It is only when we are ready to feel hungry that we become able to see that the food we need is only served on the “Table of Plenty”.  We know, from the interview below that the children are real but in my mind on their faces I can see mine, I can see us all, that unless we “become like [these] little children…” (Mt 18:3) we will never be able to sit with him and feed on what he had given up so that we may become partakers of the Divine nature of God that we can only be when we asked to receive his flesh and blood as the bread that we eat and the wine that we drink.

He is calling us, he is telling us that in our everyday suffering, be it from work, financial difficulty, personal relationships, etc…, it is not that he had abandoned us or that we are suffering from his punishment but he is there sitting on the table offering us nourishment.  He is telling us, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” (Matt. 11:28, 29)

Through triumph
Through the things that we do which makes us truly happy we can hear his calling. This is what Joey Velasco have just experienced. Discovery of himself came from doing what he loves to do, by using his God-given talent he is able to find himself.  So we should never be afraid to take heed and hear his call, to reflect on all the good things that were given to us and try to discern for His will amid the abundance, to resist the temptation of regarding every good thing as a reward for doing a good deed as if it was a price that He owes us for doing good, because in triumph is his call for communion as well.   All that we love when connected with Christ becomes a  joy in our lives and such is his way of telling us to “Take my yoke upon you…” and that yoke, the yoke of Christ is not always a blessing in disguise of suffering…sometimes, they truly appear like the true blessing that they really are.

Praise be to God.

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