GIFTED TO GIVE - C: 21st Sun in OrdTim

First Reading: Isa 66:18-21 (Aug 21, 2022)

“I will set a sign among them; from them I will send fugitives to the nations: to Tarshish, Put and Lud, Mosoch, Tubal and Javan, to the distant coastlands that have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory; and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations” (Isa 66:19).

Isaiah in the first reading informs the Israelites of one of the reasons why God allowed his people to be exiled in distant lands: he was making them missionaries in places where his name has not been heard. There, they were envisioned to proclaim of God’s glory (cf. vv. 18-19) with the hope that all nations would bring “an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries, to Jerusalem” (v. 20). What God does here is to open salvation to everyone as he declares, “I come to gather nations of every language” (v. 18). This expression echoes what the visionary in the book of Revelation saw, “I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue” (Rev 7:9).

Clearly, the concept of universal salvation is the one depicted in Isaiah 66. Despite being the so-called God of Israel, Yhwh remained to be a God of All Nations. He looks forward to the salvation of everybody and, for that reason, he commissioned the Israelites to be his envoys to the Gentiles. It becomes understandable in this sense why he let his people be fugitives in alien soils, an action that the prophet labeled a “sign.” The original Hebrew word used here is ’ot, which ordinarily means “a distinguishing mark” but may, at times, refer to “a reminder of duty” (cf. HALOT). A concrete example is in Exo 31:13 where God ordered Moses to inform the Israelites, “You shall keep my sabbaths, for this is a sign (’ot) between me and you throughout your generations, given in order that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.”

This duty for the evangelized to be evangelizers is reflected in the theme of the quincentennial commemoration of Christianity in the Philippines last year, i.e., “gifted to give” (cf. Mt 10:8). It basically recalls the fact that the Filipinos were once ignorant of God until the Spanish missionaries arrived and introduced them Christianity. In the official logo of its celebration, featured was the image of “a ship with a cross as its mast with the central figure derived from [the] First Baptism in the Philippines painting of Fernando Amorsolo” (Vatican News, Sept 23, 2019). This points to the missionaries who came to the Philippines 500 years ago, evangelizing her people by planting the cross as well as the faith that has been passed over many generations. This legacy does not only mark the historical birth of Christianity in the country but defines the very identity of every Filipino, i.e., God-fearing.

This is the gift the Filipino people received from foreign missionaries, which has become a part of its self-determination as a nation.

Incidentally, for the past 40 years, there has been an increasing number of migration of Filipinos to many countries all over the world. An estimated one in ten Filipinos is working or inhabiting abroad, having the chief goal of sending money to their families in the Philippines. The massive rise of their number led to the recent creation of the Commission on Filipino Overseas to respond to their concerns. Even if their main aim is economic in nature, when related to our first reading today, they may have been sent there by God, too, to witness to the Christian values and tradition.

Hopefully, they can become living signs of God’s goodness. Being gifted with Christianity, they are now called to be gifts as evangelizers to others abroad.

- Rex Fortes, CM