[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 14: JANUARY 14, 2022]

Mark 2:1-12. Healing and forgiveness of the paralytic

With a Little Help from my Friends

The 365 Days with the Lord 2022 book focuses the reflection on the actions of the paralytic man’s four friends. The friends were the ones who found ways so that their paralyzed friend would be healed.

In this sense, the action of the friends helped enable the healing and forgiveness of the paralytic. Perhaps this act of love and solidarity between friends is what Jesus recognized.

Among the recent gospels on healing, I think today’s gospel demonstrated the greater good. What could be more heartwarming than friends both praying and ACTING for you and WITH you?

This is the challenge that organizations should embrace. Despite our physical distance, how can we pray and act for and with each other? From a reasonableness perspective, we cannot wait for a supernatural miracle where the coronavirus would magically be erased. We should trust our friends from the medical field, get vaccinated, get boosted. We can leverage on technology to maintain connections, friendships, despite the need for physical distance.

As managers and teachers, we have to rethink and redesign the way we approach our systems, our work, and our education, acknowledging that the virus is here to stay. We hope for synergy that is grounded on authenticity, just like the solidarity between the paralytic and his friends.

Then as we exhaust our reason and controllables, maybe, just maybe, faith enters, and Jesus heals…

We’ll get by with a little help from our friends!

[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 12: JANUARY 12, 2022]

Mark 1:29-39. Jesus continues to preach and drive demons out

Taya-Kilos, Commitment-Action

Something fascinating about how Jesus did His healing is that He tells those who He has healed not to tell others what happened. Why would this be the case?

This goes against conventional management, marketing, and political wisdom, which would encourage self-promotion or promotion of products and services. Didn’t the human Jesus want to be popular?

My interpretation is that Jesus perhaps did not want His person to be the focus; what matters is that He has healed, and good has come out of His encounter with the sick.

When Jesus asks us to have faith, perhaps the deeper message is to go beyond the flesh and seek out the Word and the Truth. Not to fall in love with mere appearances and passively wait for a human messiah, but to act out of love and strive to be more virtuous. Not to be merely amazed by miracles of a supernatural being, but to be inspired to be our own little miracles for our neighbors.

Jesus does not want yes-men, but whole persons who can dialogue and act with Him.

[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 6 to 10: JANUARY 6-10, 2022]

How should we pray?

What greater test of a new year’s resolution than to battle COVID at the onset, right? Haha! As I like to say to my friends and even students, God’s sense of humor is funny this way. At the same time, it is perhaps in this kind of humor where I can draw the insight – the meaning – behind a new year, a new baptism of sorts… despite the conditions we live in.

The coronavirus, with all its mutations and variants, is here to stay, for better or for worse. How should we pray? Do we call on God to magically eradicate the virus away? I find more peace praying the Serenity Prayer written by Reinhold Niebuhr:

“God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.”

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer)

God is a reasonable God; His miracles have manifested through our wise medical doctors, the creators of vaccines, our frontliners, the care from our loved ones, friends, and colleagues. To ask for more, to pray for more, may be selfish or greedy on our part already.

The virus is here to stay, but God has blessed us with serenity, courage, and wisdom. It is now our responsibility to adapt — how can we design businesses, organizations, and systems that better respond to the given of the times? This is the challenge that we must collectively think and feel about.

Some experts are optimistic: the omicron is the beginning of the end of the pandemic (Source: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1536724/omicron-beginning-of-the-end-of-pandemic-but-public-has-to-remain-careful). But now is not the time to abandon care nor reason nor faith; we have to lean into these gifts and see the light at the end of the tunnel.

—

References: Gospels after the Epiphany and entering the short ordinary time
Luke 4:14-22
Luke 5:12-16
John 3:22-30
Luke 3:15-16, 21-22 (Baptism of Jesus)
Mark 1:14-20 (First week of the short ordinary time)

[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 4: JANUARY 4, 2022]

On the Word and the miracles

Gospel – Mark 6:34-44. Jesus feeds five thousand men.

This is one of the most popular miracles. From a supernatural angle, this demonstrates the ability of Jesus to multiply food. From a more rational angle, this story demonstrates how the human Jesus can inspire followers to be generous with one another.

Perhaps a running theme of my reflections would be to ponder miracles: should I believe in miracles literally, as in empirically and actually happening? Another question could be: should I anchor my faith on literal miracles to be an authentic Christian or Catholic?

My current answer might be in contrast with the belief of other Christians: no. I may be having the courage to adopt this kind of stance precisely because of people of the Christian faith who are also proponents of reason.

In fact, at the risk of expressing a more controversial stance, I am having a growing opinion that it does not matter to me if the miracles and the resurrection would be debunked. What matters more would be to anchor my faith on the virtues and invitation of Christ to reflect, as He would articulate via the parables, His revised commandments on loving our neighbors, and the Beatitudes.

As Aquinas and Lonergan beautifully articulated, the beauty of life and the world’s ecosystems suggests that there must be a Grand Designer or a Primary Insight; the Word. Therefore, there must be a benevolent God. To me, the human Jesus provided lessons that other humans could potentially live out. And our quest for meaning and purpose suggests that we need spiritual nourishment, or flourishing something beyond our own egos. (Food for thought: should miracles have to be literally real to encounter the insight that there is a Grand Designer or a Primary Insight? I don’t think so. That’s why it matters less to me if miracles would ultimately be debunked.)

Is the human Jesus inviting us to commune with the Word? I strongly think so. The human Jesus does not strike me as prideful nor jealous (compared with some of the Old Testament depiction of God). He invites us to think and deeply reflect. And I find a growing appreciation for the Catholic Liturgy of the Word, because in this practice, we can better partake of the Word in Holy Communion.

Other humans, even those who claim to be holy, are fallible. We’ve heard of sexually abusive Catholic priests. Heck, I have even learned of teachers of faith who sexually abuse minors! Therefore, a person who claims to be a holy silver bullet seems more likely to be a fake messiah, for this person tempts the vulnerable to reject reason and blindly obey, “just because”.

Thus, my resolution seems to grow stronger: spirituality only anchored on blindly obeying a personality, as well as spirituality that fully rejects reason, is incomplete and unreliable. Spirituality anchored on both faith and tempering reason, to me, is stronger or preferable.

I come to this conclusion perhaps because of my experiences engaging in dialogue with my parents, mentors, friends, and loved ones, who can agree to disagree with me, yet I have strong faith that they are always looking out for me as I look out for them. It doesn’t matter who “wins” the argument. What matters more is the collaborative discernment towards the Word, the Truth, the Primary Insight.

[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 2: JANUARY 2, 2022]

The King of the Wise Men

Matthew 2:1-12. The Magi visit Jesus; Herod fears losing his throne

I want to reflect on two points: (1) Herod’s political ruthlessness versus the kind of leader Jesus would grow to be, and (2) the wise men being drawn to Jesus.

First, in mainstream strategic management, the goal of business is articulated as follows (with similar variations):

Competitive advantage.

Profit maximization.

Gaining market share.

Herod’s insecurity against any entity that could topple his rule is beginning to be displayed. The traditional view of kings and leaders is that they are strongmen, ruthless, dictator-like. This is in direct contrast to the kind of leadership Jesus espoused – servant leadership and humility. Jesus seemed to like going against the norm, eh? Haha!

This is parallel to the growing movement today in business and management, that more emphasis should be placed on social and ecological well-being rather than the traditional profit maximizing perspective. If Jesus were to be a manager today, how would he act? Would he rebel against myopic shareholder value maximizing activities? Would he willingly give up enormous executive compensation to help company frontliners get decent living wages? How would he define “value”?

For now, I don’t have the answers to my inquiries, but this is a great segue to the second point for reflection I want to engage in: the wise men being drawn to Jesus.

One thing I have come to deeply appreciate in the Catholic faith is the presence of philosophers – thinkers, proponents of reason. St. Thomas Aquinas easily comes to mind. In my research, I cite Fr. Bernard Lonergan (on insights and the general empirical method) and our action research guru Fr. David Coghlan. When I was young, “science vs. faith” was something that piqued my curiosities. But the existence of these wise men make me appreciate the Holy Spirit’s gift of knowledge and wisdom; intelligence and reasonableness. There is harmony in science and faith.

What separates a cult and a religion based on authentic spirituality? My answer is how they approach blind compliance versus encouraging critical thinking. A cult = blind compliance. An authentic religion = ethics, virtues, critical thinking.

After all, for a teacher and a researcher, what better spiritual experience than to know God more deeply through a series of aha and eureka moments? Thus, for me, the powerful prayers are those where the Holy Spirit provides me clues on how to answer the dilemmas I may be facing. Helpful hints, not answers in cheat sheets. Right now I feel God telling me that He has carried me multiple times and will continue to do so; but I’d rather see two footprints on the sand, to walk with Him, not just always let Him do the heavy lifting. This is what it means to integrally develop, right? A religion should feel more like a way of life towards integral development, rather than just a series of rules to blindly comply with.

I draw inspiration from how the three wise men sought Jesus. If I fashion myself as wanting to grow in wisdom and insights, maybe I should seek the Word too.