There are two special reasons for our gathering this evening as a Christian community here in Mary the Queen – first to express solidarity and second to recognize the call to humility.

Yesterday, I received a poster from Father Jason Dy, one of our young priests stationed in Sacred Heart Church, which houses our Jesuit Chinese-Filipino parish in Cebu. It was a simple poster, with a picture of the bus in Luneta, a simple phrase telling us that this is in loving memory of those who were killed, a small cross, and the usual requiescat in pace, rest in peace. But what hit me most were the names boldly printed at the bottom: of Ken Leung and his two daughters, Doris, 21, and Jessie, 14. Wong Tze Lam, his wife Yeung Yee Wa, and her sister Yeung Yee Kam. Fu Cheuk Yan, 39, whose wife is now widowed and whose two children are now orphaned, and 31-year old Masa Tse, the tour guide.

I do not know any of them, but I do know that what we have here is not just a group of people who, in the past few days have mostly been identified with the generic tag “victim.” With each name come a face and a history, family, friends, colleagues, neighbors. Behind each name is a life touched by love, with its own hopes, but with hurts as well, with its own desires, but surely not without frustrations. With each name comes a human being, loved by God, and therefore, as Christians, their pain is our pain. 

It is sad that in today’s modern world, we have come to value our privacy so much, and we have learned to build our homes with high walls and sturdy fences, to tell us what is ours, and block out those we can choose not to have. There is nothing wrong with that. But sometimes, the walls can lock us in, and our neighbors are no longer neighbors, but strangers, and it has become so difficult to cross over to be one with them. And the eight become only victims among many unfortunate others, and Rolando Mendoza is only a culprit and a criminal, nothing more, pushed by desperation to carry out this heinous act. But there is more to the eight victims and more to Mendoza, much more, and in today’s Mass, for just a few moments, we break those walls and fences and ask the Lord to grant eternal rest and peace to all who have died in this episode, with no exception, and to accompany, console and strengthen those they left behind.

There is a part of us that wishes that this would just all go away, that we can simply get back to our ordinary lives and our routines, that we can all just have the good things, the pleasant and the agreeable, like the party host in today’s Gospel who was just doing what he would usually do by inviting friends and relatives and wealthy neighbors. Instead, Jesus challenges us to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, telling us to open our lives to those who, in one way or another, have been hurt by society, by injustice and prejudice, by crime, by poverty and inequality, by infidelity, by anger and vindictiveness, by hate, whether they be the homeless in the floods of Pakistan, or the thousands with HIV in Africa, or those brutally murdered in the drug wars of Latin America. Their pain is our pain. The first reason we are here this evening is to re-learn the lesson of solidarity.

As we read the newspapers each day, our hearts are heavy. We see the grief of those who lost their loved ones. We are so annoyed by and ashamed of the mishandling that has come to surface. We are terrified by, yet understanding of the anger of the people of Hong Kong. People are dead. Politicians are finger pointing, and some are posturing. Investigators are trying to get to the hard facts. Analysts are reconstructing events, and suggesting what might have happened, and what could and should have been done. Emotions are running high. There is so much rancor and bitterness and distrust and prejudice. There are more questions and assumptions and conjectures than clear statements. Evil has begotten evil, and the situation is grim, and there doesn’t seem to be much that we, ordinary folk like you and me, can do, and there seems to be little that any of us can control.

It is in such a situation that we can truly truly be humble. We are humbled by our helplessness. We feel more intensely the words of Sirach in the first reading: “My child, conduct your affairs with humility … What is too sublime for you, seek not, into things beyond your strength search not.” The events of last Monday, and all that has come to follow are truly beyond us, and all we can do is weep and pray.

We find ourselves once more at the foot of the cross in Calvary, looking up to the man who sees all the evil in the world, and being unable to immediately convince all men and women to mend their ways, turned instead to what he himself could do – to humbly offer his own life as a ransom for many.

In great humility, therefore, we come to the man on the cross and we pray. We pray for the truth to reign. We pray for level-headedness to prevail. We pray that lessons be learned. We pray that closures happen, and that forgiveness be planted in all hearts. We pray that wounds be healed in time. We pray for our leaders in Manila and Hong Kong, that those who are given responsibility and power will learn to use it better, with wisdom and discernment. We pray that after all is said and done that could be said and done, we might come to a greater appreciation of what it means to be neighbor to one another, wishing each other profound peace.

This humble prayer brings us back to faith. Faith, the good book says, is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. Our prayer brings us to faith because we come to the Lord with confidence in our hearts, because we believe that through all this, even if we cannot understand everything, even if things lie beyond our control, he, the Lord, will never abandon us. Paul tells us that if we have died with him, we shall also live with him; that if we endure, we shall also reign with him. But if we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, because he cannot help himself.

It is this faithful God that we pray to in this time of confusion.