Omnia Vincit Amor

When God is our guest

2010-07-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

(first published Sunday 18 July 2010 in the Faith section of Cebu Daily News)

Three seeming angels dominate an icon, a reproduction of Andrei Rublev’s depiction of the Blessed Trinity, in the sanctuary of the Alliance of Two Hearts church in barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City.

Rublev, canonized a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1988, was said to have grown the original icon from an earlier piece titled “The Hospitality of Abraham.” The scene is retold in today’s first biblical reading (Genesis 18:1-10).

The centuries have seen several varied artistic interpretations of this particular text. Most represent Abraham’s visitors as three angels.

But the text does not at all speak of angels visiting Abraham.

“The Lord appeared to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre while he was sitting by the entrance of the tent during the hottest part of the day,” the text begins. “He looked up, and there he saw three men standing near him.”

In response to Abraham’s offer of rest and food, “They replied, ‘Do as you say.’”

Like Abraham, who heard three men speak with one voice, we can take the wings of the three characters on Rublev’s icon as signs not of their angelic nature but of their shared deity. Wings, in fact, are just the first of numerous indications that the persons represented in the icon refer to the one God who is mysteriously three persons.

Behind one of the three is a house. This reminds the viewer of Christ’s mention of the many mansions in his Father’s house or the homely house of the father in the parable of the prodigal son. These houses are images of heaven to which we are all invited. This first person in Rublev’s icon therefore represents God our heavenly Father.

Behind the central figure is the “Oak of Mamre.” Because this second figure points to the species of the Holy Eucharist, the divine food offered to us mortals, the tree becomes an allusion to the Holy Cross of Calvary. This second figure therefore represents Jesus Christ.

Behind the third figure is a mountain, the usual place of revelation to patriarchs and prophets (like Elijah, who atop Horeb heard God’s still, small voice; or Moses, who heard from God in the burning bush, also on Horeb). The third person in the icon therefore represents the Holy Spirit, whose presence and guidance we are encouraged to ever rediscover in the mountain of prayer.

When we look at Rublev’s icon in the context of today’s first and gospel readings (Luke 10:38-42 also speaks of God—in Jesus Christ—visiting Saints Martha and Mary), what emerges as the overall theme is prayer, the encounter with God, the welcoming of God into one’s life.

The readings present two ways of encountering God. Abraham and Martha went about the encounter via mere activity. Thinking that God was just dropping by amid a more important journey, Abraham offered to wash his guest’s feet and busied his wife Sarah and his servant with preparing food for God. Likewise, Martha, who welcomed Jesus, “was distracted with all the serving.”

Sarah and Mary did not do much. Sarah quietly baked bread. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to him. But today’s first reading ends with God telling Abraham, “I shall visit you again next year without fail, and your wife will then have a son.” And the gospel excerpt closes with Jesus telling Martha, “You worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.”

These readings teach us that encountering God is not about second-guessing or doing things to him.

Like Abraham, instead of striving to share God’s grand vision for our lives (the great news of parenthood in the case of barren Abraham and Sarah), we often tend to assume that God is someone we have to do some things to when he stops over, usually on a Sunday, before he resumes taking care of more urgent affairs.

Or like Martha, we tend to think that to be with God is to take on a long to-do list rather than let him unburden and speak hope to us.

Having God in our lives actually requires of us no more than to abandon all unnecessary tasks, sit at his feet and be ready to be surprised by his presence and word.

When God pays us a visit—perhaps especially in the hottest part of the day, the most trying of times as in Abraham’s old age, or at a time when we feel like Martha that everyone but us seems to be enjoying life—he comes not for himself but for us, to bring us home to the joy of his sheer presence.

For only in the joy of his presence can we catch and keep that glimpse of his vision for us. This vision is not unlike that of Abraham and Sarah’s parenthood of believers or Martha and Mary’s witness of Jesus’ raising of their brother Lazarus.

It is a vision not unlike that of Rublev’s creation of an icon that in its timeless, silent beauty continues to tell generations of God’s enduring care for humanity.

Laetare

2010-07-18T16:54:00.000-07:00

(first published Sunday, 14 March 2010 in the Faith section of Cebu Daily News)

Today is one of only two Sundays on the Catholic liturgical calendar in which priests wear pink or rose-colored vestments or stoles at Holy Mass. The first of the two is Advent's third, called Gaudete Sunday. The second is Lent's fourth, called Laetare Sunday. Providentially, the Latingaudete and laetare command the faithful to rejoice and be joyful in the middle of penitential seasons.

Roseate liturgical clothing reminds us that penitential seasons like Lent are not occasions to be gloomy. If Lent occasions a Christian's realization of his littleness and imperfection, indeed his sinfulness, that Christian is not expected to wallow in self-reproach but is encouraged to look with hope to God, who brings him mercy, reconciliation, and the grace to rise from failure.

Laetare Sunday readings remind us of the centrality of reconciliation, the restoration of the broken relationship between man and himself, man and his neighbor, and man and his Creator in the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ the first time he walked this earth.

The first reading, taken from the book of Joshua, features the image of the land yielding food for Israelites at the end of days when they had to be chastened by heaven to learn total dependence on God (symbolized by the miraculous manna). The image is a foreshadowing of the Christ's new covenant, which essentially includes man's discovery of his absolute dependence on God's mercy, that he may know how to till the land of his being for it to yield the feast of Christ-like mercy for his brethren.

The first and gospel readings use the image of eating, nay, feasting, as the sign of reconciliation. In the first reading, God removes the stigma of his people's rebellion (after being liberated from Egypt) from them, making the Gilgal tilled by human hands produce the food they need. In today's Lukan gospel, Jesus comes eating with sinners. When the self-righteous grumble about this, the Lord uses a parable that had a lot to with food and feasting to illustrate mercy – the heavenly quality of God's justice.

The prodigal son misused his dignity in a life of debauchery, indulging his appetite left and right. We can easily include gluttony in this younger son's lifestyle. In the worst episode of his irresponsibility, he sinks to the point of desiring to eat food meant for swine. I leave others to imagine whether such food was “Polard” tolerable to the sense of smell or stinking “lamaw.”

The point is that people can be classified into two categories of sinners, the first being those who, like the prodigal son, fail to appreciate the greatness of God's gifts for the nourishment of spirit, soul, and body – those who rebel against God's laws and try to feed themselves in their own human way, without our heavenly Father's guidance.

The second category of sinners include all those who, like the elder brother in today's gospel parable, presume that they are living so well that the Father is feeding them in reward. They think God operates like a bank: you put in much cash in exchange for a little interest rate. They are self-satisfied and proud of their hard work and achievement, but deep in their hearts they resent the Father, feeling that they deserve a bigger serving of whatever food is on the table.

The younger son is prodigal with his rewards. The elder son is prodigal with his efforts. To bring them home from their waywardness the father in the parable, like our heavenly Father, shows himself lovingly prodigal beyond all telling. The father who runs, embraces and organizes a feast for the young son, and who pleads with the resentful elder son is an image of the Father.

God the Father is prodigal in sending his only-begotten Son to do all the effort to bring us back to our heavenly home, so that we will understand that all the work that remains for us to do is not servile but is a gift, and all the reward that we are encouraged to partake of came at the costliest of prices: the Body and Blood of Jesus himself.

The bulk of the work that remains for us to do is this: to learn to be as merciful to the God who sent his Son to reconcile the world to himself and the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of our sins.

In a sense, we are called to have mercy on God. He has given us everything, what else can we demand from him? In another sense we are called to be merciful to ourselves. Everything is impossible without God, so why set ourselves or our lifestyles against him?

In yet another sense, we are called to have mercy on one another. In a certain way, the joy of our reconciliations with God, our grace-filled efforts to live life with newness, cannot be complete if there are those among us who put us in the box of our histories of failure.

We cannot truly have a feast if we are surrounded by fault-finders. Knowing the intensity of the struggle required to come home to God, let us rejoice too, like the angels do, when we see our brothers and sisters coming back home and being celebrated by the Father of mercies.

Shepherding

2010-07-18T16:36:00.001-07:00

(first published on Sunday, 25 April 2010 in the Faith section of Cebu Daily News)

Easter continues today, the season’s 22^nd day and fourth Sunday. This day is also called Good Shepherd Sunday or Vocation Sunday.

These names rightly describe the Fourth Sunday of Easter because the day’s reading from the gospel according to Saint John is about Jesus’ revelation of himself as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, as the shepherd whose voice, calling out to the sheep, is recognized by them so that they follow him.

The gospel readings of the first three Sundays of Easter were about the risen Christ’s appearances to his disciples.

On Easter Sunday, Jesus, once crucified to death, was seen outside the empty tomb. On Divine Mercy Sunday, he appeared twice within a week inside the Upper Room though its doors were locked. On the Third Sunday of Easter, he appeared at daybreak on the shore of Lake Tiberias to cause for his disciples—who had been fishing in vain the whole night through—a miraculous catch of fish.

In the gospel of the Third Sunday of Easter, we heard Jesus asking and telling Saint Peter: Do you love me? Feed my lambs, tend my sheep. Jesus did so thrice to re-establish Peter—who denied the Lord thrice during his Passion—not only as a “Fisher of Men” but also as a “Shepherd of Souls.”

On this, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Church, gifted by the Holy Spirit with wisdom, brings us to the Christ who taught not only Peter but all of us what it means to be a genuine shepherd of souls.

“Jesus said: ‘The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life; they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from me. The Father who gave them to me is greater than anyone, and no one can steal from the Father. The Father and I are one.’” (John 10:27-30)

Jesus is telling us that a shepherd owns his sheep. The shepherd is the one to whom the sheep feels that they belong. The shepherd is in a relationship of communion with his sheep. The shepherd speaks to the sheep with a tender truthfulness that encourages them to listen. He speaks with deep, caring knowledge about his sheep.

Since the shepherd provides the sheep a deep sense of belonging, speaks to them with the voice of truth and indicates to them that he knows all their lights and shadows and loves them anyway, the sheep are drawn to him and they follow him.

The sheep follow the shepherd because he gives them eternal life.

To give eternal life is to be in Christ, and—out of that being-in-Christ—to give our fellow men and women a sense of belonging, the sense that they are welcome in our lives. It is to speak to them words that bind up their wounded hearts. It is to be willing to know them deeply while giving them the assurance that we will handle our deep knowledge of them with extreme reverence and constant care.

To give eternal life as a shepherd in the footsteps of Christ is also to do our share in keeping the people entrusted to us from being lost or stolen, for they can be lost in the paths of worldliness, passing joys, meaningless feats, or self-centered existence.

To be a good shepherd like Jesus is to protect the people entrusted to us from robbers like temptation, sin, scandal, despair, doubt and hatred.

Finally, to be a good shepherd like Jesus is to run in search of the sheep when they are lost and to be patient in leading them back to God’s fold, knowing that our Father in heaven has made available for them (and for us) all the grace necessary to recognize and follow Christ, the original Good Shepherd of whom every Christian is an emissary.

Prayer power at 24

2010-02-20T17:23:00.000-08:00

(first published on Sunday, 21 February 2010 in the Faith section of Cebu Daily News)

We will begin celebrating the 24th anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution of February 22-25, 1986 tomorrow. As we celebrate, we must not forget that the EDSA event was more than just a political milestone, historical watershed, or fluke of romantic populism. EDSA was and is a spiritual reality.

EDSA had many principals. Vote tabulators abandoned their posts when it became evident that the snap poll results were tampered with to orchestrate a Marcos victory over Corazon “Cory” Aquino. Troops followed Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos in their rebellion against the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. The historically fragmented political opposition, united but newly under Cory, demonstrated an amazing oneness behind her.

Members of the shackled press used alternative media or reported from hidden locations to counter the government’s spin-doctoring and report the news truthfully. The Catholic hierarchy led by Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, then-president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines courageously convicted the government of moral illegitimacy for its rape of the elections. Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, through Radio Veritas, called on the people to protect the military men opposed to the dictator.

But EDSA would not have ended on a peaceful note without prayer.

Nuns in contemplative communities across the country knelt in their cloisters and chapels to ask God for the peace of those four days. At EDSA, priests and seminarians were among the first to place themselves between rebel and loyalist soldiers. The nuns of Carmel of the Holy Child protected Aquino in their monastery with prayer and emotional support. At EDSA, there were more rosaries and crucifixes and images of the Blessed Virgin Mary raised in peaceful protest, and prayers offered, than there were, if there were, placards or streamers of angry revolt.

When I was younger, I frequently came across newspaper articles and heard and watched broadcasts that referred to EDSA as not just the People Power but also the Prayer Power Revolution. Such an appreciation of the revolution should not be forgotten.

The revolution, a collective action, was embodied by Cory, a woman of faith and prayer, and her husband, Benigno “Ninoy” Jr. Come to think of it, our peaceful return to democracy is easily God’s reward to Aquino and her husband who together for the nation were conjugal intercessors (one in this world, the other in the next), in contrast to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos who were conjugal tyrants.

The prayerfulness of Ninoy, who led the opposition to Marcos’ misrule long before EDSA, and whose martyrdom in 1983 quickened the movement to EDSA, is not so well-publicized. But I remember an interview in which Cory shared how Ninoy prayed the Holy Rosary as much as 50 times daily in the cells where the dictator had him confined for more than seven years. Suffering converted the political star into a contemplative luminary.

Apart from acts and words of prayer, many of which Cory have written down, contemplation also bears fruit in poetry. Poetry was an expression of Ninoy’s poetry. He once wrote, in a plea for his mission of peace to be taken up by others, these lines:

“I am burning the candle of my life

in the dark with no one to benefit

from its light,

The candle slowly melts away

soon its wick will be burned out,

and the light is gone!

If someone will only gather

the melted wax, reshape it,

give it a new wick

for another fleeting moment

my candle can once again

light the dark

be of service

one more time

and then

Good-bye.”

Cory on the other hand had much time to write down her prayers. She remained prayerful long after EDSA. Can we say that of our leaders and of our people as a whole? That is something to think of in the days to come. In the meantime, let us ponder the words of one of Cory’s prayers:

“Almighty God, Our Father

Come, come to my aid

And put my enemies in dread of You.

Have pity on me, O Lord

And relieve the troubles of my heart.

My words no longer matter

For ears that can hear

No longer want to hear.

My deeds seem worthless

For eyes that can see

No longer want to see.

You alone are my hope, Most merciful God

To You alone I surrender my soul.

I know that You will hearken to the sound of my prayer

For great has been Your kindness to me

In times of suffering and distress.

Teach me to humbly wait

And to be constant in my prayers.

Let me praise Your Holy Name

From the rising to the setting of the sun

Proclaiming Your Goodness before

Your faithful ones.

Thanks be to God, forever and ever.

Amen.”

Lent, love, and our land

2010-02-13T20:33:00.000-08:00

(first published in Cebu Daily News Faith, Sunday, 14 February 2010)

Snow covers many countries west and north of where we are. These lands, wrapped in ice, now wait for Spring, a season known in archaic English parlance by the name Lent, when the first shoots of greenery emerge from the ground, and the earth for miles and miles about strains towards rebirth.

This rebirth, in the Catholic worldview, comes from none other than the Resurrection of Christ, and Lent is a journey of the spirit towards that Easter newness. The 40-day Lenten season will begin this Wednesday, with the ritual tracing on the faithful’s forehead of a cross of ashes – remnants of burnt palms symbolizing mortality, decay, and sin that everyone needs to shed.

In the 40 days of Lent or “Cuaresma,” we will begin in spirit a journey to the arid, quiet desert, a journey like that of our forefathers in the time of Moses as they pressed towards the Promised Land, like that of Jesus' soon after he was baptized, wherein he grappled with and vanquished temptations to earthly riches and power, counterfeit honors, and fleeting pleasures.

These days will be a time of solitude and recollection: We will confront and strive to further overcome our spiritual enemies, our selfishness, the destructive agenda of the world, keeping in mind the land of the saved that God pledged will be our heritage. We will bear in mind what Holy Father Benedict XVI preached when this year began, that we cannot aspire to a new world while wallowing in selfishness and the habits of sin.

As Filipino citizens, Catholics can use Lent as a time to better discern who should lead the land, not just in government. Good leadership is required in families, among peers, in business, in the Church, in the academe, in every sector of society too. Lent in fact is a privileged occasion for all to claim being leaders and servants as part of their individual identities, to find in the crucified and risen God the grace to not shy away or flee in fear from the cross of sacrificing self and forsaking self-centered agenda for the benefit of many.

Self-sacrifice – God's sacrifice of his only Son – lies at the core of the justice that is the theme of the Pope's Lenten message. “What then is the justice of Christ?” Benedict asks. “Above all, it is the justice that comes from grace, where it is not man who makes amends, heals himself and others. The fact that 'expiation' flows from the 'blood' of Christ signifies that it is not man’s sacrifices that free him from the weight of his faults, but the loving act of God who opens Himself in the extreme, even to the point of bearing in Himself the 'curse' due to man so as to give in return the 'blessing' due to God.” (cf. Galatians 3: 13-14)

This is love. At its most glorious, love is spent, indeed wasted, on the beloved. In the great and holy season of Lent we are called to a greater discipline of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, because outside prayer we cannot be convinced to love without calculation, without fasting we cannot embody the convictions formed in us by prayer, and without almsgiving we cannot bring to perfection what we have begun to embody in our fasting.

We pray for love in those who will eventually be elected as leaders of our land, even as we pray for love in us, that we may serve and lead well in our own spheres of influence, that we may be healing members of the Mystical Body of Christ.

May the decisions of leaders – ourselves and those above us – be the fruit of well-formed consciences. May these be effected without corrupt interests. May these truly empower and not foster dependency in constituents. May the blessings of Lent be received by those who will be elected (God already knows who they are) into public office, so that their rule may go down in our history as the dying days of a winter of despair and the beginning of a fresh Spring of patriotism.

God's dreams for man

2010-01-30T15:02:00.000-08:00

(first published on Sunday, 31 January 2010 in the Faith section of Cebu Daily News)

Barely 10, the boy Lance dreams of building a house with 150,000 rooms. “For all the beggars, so that they no longer have to live on the streets,” Lance explained to his mother, my friend and co-worker Nida, when she asked him who his envisioned mansion would house.

Lance’s dream springs not from wild fantasy, but from a hopefully not rare, compassionate, God-shaped young heart.

Once, in the family car, when his mother was almost dissuaded by his father (on grounds of discouraging harmful dependency on the part of the less fortunate) from feeding a hungry street kid, Lance protested, exclaiming “What if that child had been me?”

Compassion in young dreamers like Lance has been the seed of positive social transformations all throughout history. Case in point: Giovanni (John) Melchiorre Bosco, popularly known as Don Bosco, the saint whose memorial on the Catholic calendar falls on January 31 and who is especially celebrated today by the 20,000-strong Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB).

Founded by the saint himself, the SDB identify themselves as “an international organization of men dedicated full time to the service of young people, especially those who are poorer and disadvantaged.”

The Salesians work in 128 countries, focusing all their concern on youth resource development through education and evangelization in the belief that “total dedication to the young is [their] best gift to humanity.” Salesian service to the young is inspired by reason, religion, and loving-kindness.

Don Bosco, gazing at the fruitful ministry of the Salesians, must be smiling with a sense of vindication today. He himself had initial doubts about, and encountered ridicule when he spoke of a dream in which God directed him to spend his life shepherding young people.

In that dream, Terry Matz writes on Catholic Online, the young Bosco saw himself in a field with a crowd of children. “The children started cursing and misbehaving. John jumped into the crowd to try to stop them – by fighting and shouting. Suddenly a man with a face filled with light appeared dressed in a white flowing mantle.

“The man called John over and made him leader of the boys. John was stunned at being put in charge of this unruly gang. The man said, ‘You will have to win these friends of yours not with blows but with gentleness and kindness.’

“As adults, most of us would be reluctant to take on such a mission – and nine-year-old John was even less pleased. ‘I'm just a boy,’ he argued. ‘How can you order me to do something that looks impossible?’ The man answered, ‘What seems so impossible you must achieve by being obedient and acquiring knowledge.’

“Then the boys turned into the wild animals they had been acting like. The man told John that this is the field of John's life work. Once John changed and grew in humility, faithfulness, and strength, he would see a change in the children – a change that the man now demonstrated. The wild animals suddenly turned into gentle lambs.”

What if Don Bosco had given in to doubt instead of being faithful to God’s instructions? At the very least—and this is to illustrate how far-reaching Italian Don Bosco’s faithfulness to God is—there would not be a Don Bosco Youth Center in Pasil, Cebu City.

Among other services, the center makes available to nearly 500 families and 1,500 individuals nutrition, scholarship, medical and dental assistance, free clinic, and loan assistance programs. It provides for the community’s spiritual needs through a daily oratory. It offers out-of-school youth wood and furniture, automotive, mechanical, and dress making technology courses.

Don Bosco’s response to God’s dream for him and many others finds a scriptural parallel in the call of the young, Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, who recalls, in the First Reading of today’s Mass:

“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’ ‘Ah, Sovereign Lord,’ I said, ‘I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.’

“But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,’ declares the Lord.

“Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘Now, I have put my words in your mouth. ‘See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.’” (Jeremiah 1:4-9)

Jeremiah modeled for Israel in his time faithfulness to God. John Bosco's service to God’s poor and disadvantaged during the Industrial Revolution continues today.

I pray that like Jeremiah and John, Lance may be faithful to God’s dreams for him.

And I pray that you may have the courage and joy to live God’s dreams for you.

Starlit

2010-01-02T22:59:00.000-08:00

(first published on Sunday, January 3, 2010 in the Faith section of Cebu Daily News of Inquirer Publications Inc; posted on inquirer.net, the website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Monday, January 4, 2010).

We can call Saint John, the youngest of Christ’s twelve apostles, “the one who leaned on the light.” Midway through the fourth gospel of which he is the inspired author, John recounts having reclined at the Last Supper on the bosom of the one whom he quotes, paragraphs preceding in the same book, as saying, “I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12)

Peculiar to John’s rendition of the good news is its sparkling imagery. Its prologue proclaims the Word that was God, the Word that wrought life, life that for humankind was unquenchable light. Its ninth chapter records Jesus’ restoration of sight to a man born blind. Its epilogue records the resurrected Savior’s appearing, at the rising of the sun, on the shore of Lake Tiberias to the apostle and six others who had gone fishing overnight.

We can imagine the evangelist John’s prominent use of light in writing as suggesting in him a providential fascination for anything lustrous: perhaps the lamps lit within Jerusalem’s temple, the torches he used as a teenage fisherman to make his way to the waters in the dark, or the stars shimmering all around a hidden moon – celestial bodies that John cannot have missed on nights fair in weather and bounteous in catch.

Did John ever encounter the artistry of his fellow evangelist, the physician Luke, who dabbled in painting? He would have appreciated in the doctor’s works the dramatic use of light and shade, known centuries later in formal art schools as chiaroscuro. To Saint Luke is traditionally attributed the only known portrait of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the model for all other Mother of God icons. Light on that portrait, and the figure of twinkling stars that define Eastern Christianity’s Mary illustrations, Saint John (to whom Jesus bequeathed his mother) would have knowingly admired.

Stars—as they should not—feature not in the first and only artist-drawn portrait of me that I have. But I like to think that light, a simple hint of that light which no darkness overcomes, does. Artist and art professor Arlene Villaver sketched me in charcoal and marker on paper one fine afternoon last December, at the end of Binhi Art Group’s press conference on “Reflections,” the recently-concluded exhibit at the SM City Cebu Art Center.

Not counting the blazing sun, that afternoon began brilliantly enough. The exhibit’s media and entertainment collaborator, Lyndon Angan, welcomed with the warmth of disposition and treats of warm coffee the conference’s guest writers and photojournalists at one of the city’s cafés. There I met the summery Arlene, who, after introductions, shone with interest about the craft of those at hand who wielded pen and camera for a living, calling these, based on her similar experience as an artist, “a double a double blessing: an opportunity to do something that you love and something that yields monetary returns.”

I call the opportunity a triple blessing, as Arlene and her colleagues revealed during the press conference proper, which was held at the hilltop home of installations and furniture manufacturer Janice Minor. The artists explained that they organized “Reflections” as a step towards reclaiming the culture for Christ. This, art and communication's being instruments, in Binhi’s words, “to celebrate God’s love goodness, kindness, greatness, faithfulness, and sovereignty over us through our artistic expressions” is their third blessing on their stewards.

Binhi’s message reminds me of Venerable John Paul the Great’s address to members of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications during their plenary meeting almost eight years ago. Then, the pope said: “The Gospel lives always in conversation with culture, for the Eternal Word never ceases to be present to the Church and to humanity. If the Church holds back from culture, the Gospel itself falls silent. Therefore, we must be fearless in crossing the cultural threshold.”

The artists of Binhi, at the end of the recounted afternoon, gave guests a glimpse of how they spread the good news through their craft. Each painter made him or herself available to do sketches of the guests, one after another. Some of the artists watched their colleagues at work and spoke to the models of how well they have been represented.

“She made you look very good, and very expressive,” an artist told me, referring to Arlene’s sketch of me. “Live up to it.”

This is what the Epiphany means to us today. In being Christian-cultured and in our own national culture, be it through an offer of a cup of coffee to another, a genuine interest to see and proclaim the blessing in another’s life, or in our well-meaning perspective of another, we can choose to see and share goodness, to see and share God’s light. Thus, like the Star of Bethlehem, the star of the light of the world that Saint John beautifully proclaimed, the star that the three wise men followed like a signpost to the Word-made-flesh, the star that Mary epitomizes in leading all to her Son and our Savior, we too can give each other starlight.

Saint Lucia, pray for us

2009-12-13T06:18:00.000-08:00

(first published Sunday, December 13, 2009 on Cebu Daily News Faith and inquirer.net, the website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Upon learning some years ago that my mother's late Lolo Lucio Lopez was born on this day, I surmised that his parents—either by their religiosity or heeding a pious Christian's prompts—must have named him in honor of Lucia, the turn of the fourth century, Roman virgin saint. Her martyrdom is remembered by Catholics and Orthodox everywhere and by Lutherans in Scandinavia every December 13.

An image of Saint Lucia is enshrined on the second-floor narthex of Cebu City's Our Lady of Mount Carmel church on Magallanes Street. The statue is faithful to the rather shocking Lucia iconography that the likes of Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter Domenico di Pace Beccafumi (1486–1551) propagated: the saint as a woman clad in red and holding with one hand a plate containing a pair of eyes.

Tradition generally holds that during the persecution of Christians circa the year 304, either Emperor Diocletian himself or Roman soldiers gouged out Lucia's eyes with a fork. This was in retaliation for her refusal to worship as divine a statue of the emperor and deny the lordship of Jesus Christ.

In a version of Dante's “Purgatorio,” Lucia plucks out her own eyes to turn down a suitor (who hugely admired the saint's beautiful eyes) in light of her total gift of self to Jesus. God took pity on Lucia and gave her lovelier new eyes.

Generations of optometrists and blind and visually impaired persons, whom the Church placed under Saint Lucia's patronage, have found hope and solace in the “eye portion” of the long story of her passion and eventual death. The episode is one of many heavenly assurances that God continues down the centuries to restore sight, miraculously or through the agency of medical arts, to people whose prayer is “Lord I want to see.” (Luke 18:41)

On another plane, Saint Lucia, whose name shares a root word with lucis, Latin for light, is patroness of sight and light because the choices she made amid difficulties in favor of faith were poetry in motion founded on our Lord Jesus' words: “The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” (Matthew 6:22)

Single or pure eyes enlightened Lucia to radically choose no love for her soul apart from Jesus and no Lord for her life apart from him. As a consequence, her whole being, “like the stars for ever and ever,” (Daniel 12:3) is for people throughout the ages a bright signpost to God and example of faithfulness to him.

Like Lucia's, the eyes of everyone who believes in Jesus ought to function beyond skin-deep or superficial seeing. Our Master, basically explaining how we can make our eyes single or pure, and promising on those with purified eyes the greatest of rewards, said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

It follows that the single or pure eye, exclusive to the pure in heart, sees God in its very soul, in every man and woman, and behind every created thing. Singleness or purity of heart and vision therefore leads, among other results, to a person's modesty, lest in lust he defiles anyone who is God's home, and to his serenity, lest in belligerence he finds himself fighting not only against his fellowmen, but “fighting against God himself.” (Acts 5:39)

So we pray that Saint Lucia may intercede with God for purity of heart and singleness of sight, not only for those captive to lust, but for all who are involved in conflict, especially in Mindanao's discordant spots – Agusan del Sur, Basilan, and Maguindanao – from where political thuggery, hostage-taking, and banditry casts despair's pall over the Philippine archipelago.

Only purity of heart and singleness of sight can tame and cause contrition and repentance leading to acts of reparation in the hearts of the wicked: they who failed to see God's image and likeness in the people – someone's son or daughter, husband or wife, mother or father, brother or sister, relative or friend, God's beloved children, everyone – they harmed or killed.

Only purity of heart and singleness of sight can chase away the shadows of vengefulness in the victimized and bereaved (which by extension includes every Filipino), so that any crusade for justice may be unblemished by vigilantist or politically expedient injustices in the brilliance of its righteousness.

Only purity of heart and singleness of sight can sweeten the bitterness of those who mourn as they fumble to rise and walk again in this valley of tears, seeing in hope their dead alive again in the peaceful arms of their Creator, and envisioning in hope a happy reunion with them one day.

As we light our pink Advent candles today, pray for us, Saint Lucia, that we may have pure hearts and eyes, that seeing God in Christ who is light of the world everywhere and in everyone, we too may know how to shine and give the light of love to one another, especially the heartbroken and war-torn. Amen.

One Lord, one oikoumene

2009-11-15T05:48:00.000-08:00

(first published November 15, 2009 on Cebu Daily News and inquirer.net, the website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

After the Last Supper in the Cenacle or Upper Room in Jerusalem, Jesus conversed with our Heavenly Father. Within a sparkling spiritual mosaic of adoration, thanksgiving, and petition known as his High Priestly Prayer, our Lord prayed for the unity of all his followers.

“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me,” Jesus said. (John 17:20-21)

Since apostolic times, oneness marked Christianity. In the year 431 however, the absence of the Assyrian Church of the East from the gathering of the world’s bishops in Ephesus led to that church’s estrangement from the Catholic Church until the time of Pope John Paul II.

In 451, the Oriental Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church split apart. In the Great Schism of 1054, the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church also parted ways. In the 16th century, Christians led by Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and England’s King Henry VIII left the Catholic Church. Theological controversies and human pride were at the center of all these divisions.

By 2001, over 22,000 Christian denominations existed, said Zenaida Ligan, one of my social science professors at the University of the Philippines (UP). Free internet reference site Wikipedia reveals that today, the figure has ballooned to about 38,000.

The good news, thanks be to God, is that we live in the age of ecumenism, when Christians acknowledge that “division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every creature.” (Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism)

Ecumenism comes from the Greek oikoumene. It means “the inhabited world.” “Home” is Orthodox Church Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople’s preferred translation of oikoumene, so that Christians may understand ecumenism—against currents of division and in response to Jesus’ prayer for their unity—as rebuilding and restoring their broken home, the one Church of Christ.

Whenever I hear or read the word ecumenism, I remember clergymen, ministers, and pastors in assorted liturgical garb praying and working towards a common reading of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, as Eastern Orthodox and Catholic theologians did in Cyprus last October 16-23 and as Catholic and Anglican clergymen did more recently.

Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are straining towards consensus on “The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium.” This, when resolved, will go a long way towards healing the Great Schism.

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI has established, through the apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum coetibus" and for Anglicans converting to Catholicism, bishop-led groups of churches using Anglo-Catholic rites and liturgies. This is aimed at mending the brokenness begun by Henry VIII's protest.

Beyond these, the word ecumenism reminds me of friends I met in UP Cebu: Brian of Christ’s Commission Fellowship, Jimvic of the Living Christian Church, Jedaiah of the Bible Baptist Church, Geraldine of Victory Christian Fellowship, and Mischelle and Mary Ann of Maranatha Christian Fellowship.

From a sensational secular perspective that often claims to be dispassionate (hence true), since we go to denominationally disconnected churches, a modicum of civility concealing rancor, if not mere good will, is expected to hold sway over our association.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Many of us contributed to “Amazing!” – UP Cebu’s pioneering inspirational journal from 2002-2003. Some of us visited each other’s churches and ate at one another’s homes when we were in college. Some of us planted trees, selected pet fish, went Christmas caroling, or walked miles of beach together. Today, most of us meet once a month in any of Cebu’s restaurants, to catch up on the events of our lives, critique current affairs, mull over other joint activities like visiting museums, and of course, share generally joyful meals.

I say “generally” because we do not minimize our differences or pretend that these do not exist. Oftentimes as we eat, I have had to account for the Holy Writ behind Catholic traditions like the Chair of Peter or veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At such times, my joy turns into a deep hope for that day when our Lord, in the words of many a saint, shall be “all in all:” that day when, having partaken of the same Eucharistic sacrifice, Christians disagree at meals no more.

It is a fair hope. Come to think of it, the first celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the center of Christian communion, happened around a meal table, as our trysts do, and was surrounded by prayer – the act with which our meetings commence and by which our friendship is bound together, in the Name of the one and only Jesus Christ.

Treedemption

2009-11-12T04:18:00.000-08:00

(first published October 25, 2009 on Cebu Daily News Faith and inquirer.net, the website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Yesterday morning in the mountain village of Cantipla, Cebu City, I joined Smart Communications personnel and University of the Philippines students in planting trees. This was a full circle event to me: I first planted trees of the flame-of-the-forest variety in Cantipla over eight years ago. I have also planted mangroves on the shores of Lilo-an and Balamban as well as mahogany, jackfruit, and cinnamon trees in Talisay City's Jaclupan and Cebu City's Lusaran watersheds.

The wisdom in planting trees has become incontrovertible amid the onslaught of floods, drought, tsunamis, and landslides around the globe. Coastland trees can weaken the impact of tsunamis. Mountain trees lower the probability of landslides occurring. Trees in valleys and plains stave off severe floods. Everywhere inland, trees stabilize the supply of underground freshwater.

The archdiocese of Cebu is reportedly breathing new energy into Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal's call in the 80's for priests to require the faithful, before being baptized, confirmed, ordained, or wed, to plant trees or donate seedlings to be planted by parish workers. The archdiocese's plan is a bright illustration of Saint Benedict of Norcia's motto, "Ora et labora" meaning "Pray and work:" The archdiocese that is putting the faithful to the work of planting trees is the one that in the first place asks God to inspire us all to grow into responsible stewards of his creation in the oratio imperata or mandatory prayer for deliverance from calamities.

While we plant trees to defend ourselves from the havoc wreaked by pollution and global warming, we need to rediscover as Filipino citizens and men and women of faith the deep roots of our relationship to trees. It is quite tragic that we have sunk to a depth from which trees are seen as disaster-combatting paraphernalia. Such an appreciation of trees is a step below the appraisal of trees as no more than economic factors of production, which in turn is a step below the animistic but at least reverential treatment we once gave trees out of respect for their alleged, invisible spiritual inhabitants.

Our archetypal Filipino literature is far friendlier to trees. Malakas and Maganda, our mythical first man and woman were conceived in the trunk of a bamboo tree. The story of Malakas and Maganda appears to be our people's foreshadowing of the Judeo-Christian tradition we have come to believe in: that Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, were created carers of creation and placed in the garden of Eden by God to enjoy his friendship and partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life.

Adam and Eve's original rebellion--eating the fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil--kept the Tree of Life out of our reach, and I suppose every human act in history that harmed parts of the ecology, especially trees, has been an echo of that first rebellion against God and the Tree of Life. This must have been why God never failed to use a tree or two or more in the history of salvation. Noah's Ark, symbol of the saving church, was made of wood. So were the 'cushion' on which Abraham laid Isaac before the aborted sacrifice, the flowering staff of Aaron, and the pole where Moses on God's command hung a bronze serpent to which people looked for healing after being bitten by poisonous desert snakes.

In the fullness of time, Jesus was born, and laid on a wooden manger. He crossed lakes and seas on wooden boats as he went about proclaiming God's kingdom. Long before he was crucified on a tree in the definitive act of reopening Eden to man, Jesus said: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5)

In Jesus, the Tree of Life is once more within our reach. Jesus' act of redeeming man by giving up his life on the wood of the cross should echo not only in our hearts but to the whole of creation, including the trees. In Jesus, the Tree of Life is ours, never to be taken away. Let us make this truth the root of our relationship to trees, bearing fruit in a love for trees over and above superstition, economics, or disaster preparedness: a love for trees that echoes our love for God and each other.

Remembering as an act of love

2009-10-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

(first published October 15, 2009 on Cebu Daily News Life!)

Technology in our day and age aids us in the exercise of remembering our loved ones, be they alive, distant, or departed. The book-type photo album is becoming more and more a classic item as the world adopts digital photoframes and shares photographs through internet picture hosts. Further development awaits us in terms of imaging technology - the moving characters in the photo frames of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter may be clues to such development. As imaging technology evolves, our desire to remember the people in our lives because we love them will be abiding.

The question is: Does our memory serve our love? If we believe that first impressions last, and our our first impressions of others become our final judgments on them, our remembering as an act of love may be compromised: What we love about the other person may be no more than his or her shell, thus putting us in the position of loving a mere illusion. In the same place, what we find hard to love about the other person may be no more than a slight defect on that person's part in contrast to the gifts and talents of being that she or he was not given the chance to show.

We will make more of an effort to remember another person well if we once again assess the purpose of our minds and wills. The human mind is the storehouse of memory, while the will oversees the organization and and effort of remembering. What kinds of memories do we wish to keep about another person? Our minds will be clear and bright storehouses the greater the love we put into our memories of another. Our wills will be fit channels of the strength to love the more these are involved in choosing to remember the good things about another.

This does not mean that we window-dress our memories, selectively and forcibly forgetting the difficult situations we went through with another, or the times when they hurt us. One cannot forget by force. Bad memories are not willed away. But bad situations, experiences, and hurts can be healed if our will chooses the high road of forgiveness, which is essentially helped when we remember to separate faults from persons, or our remembering to see people who appeared to bring us into difficult situations or fail us in light of factors that may even remove their guilt in our eyes. To blame, for the will, is easy. For the will to excuse another is hard, but may be the only just and humane way to remember another.

For some people, memories of another or of a situation involving another person are no less than traumatic. Writers on the interior life recommend revisiting such memories only with the aid of light. For one person under trauma that can mean a contemplative meditation that sees the past or persons in the past through the eyes of a higher power. For another that can mean steeling oneself with the weapons of positive attitudes and energies, and with the will to forgive people or the past.

On the whole, remembering people well--something that we will need to exert much effort to do because everyone is imperfect and life is quite meaningless if we refuse to love anyone at all--will involve what in many spiritual traditions can be described as the human being's original beauty. Original beauty is that which came before, let's say original sin, so that original beauty is that which is most original about a human being. To remember another person well sets us on the road of remembering another person farther back than our memories of his or her flaws, and even farther back than his or her first negative experiences, which may well excuse that person's non-memorable aspects.

How deep is your love?

2009-10-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

(first published April 16, 2009 on Cebu Daily News Life!)

In one of the most sensible rambles ever to see print, Clive Staples Lewis, the beloved author of the Chronicles of Narnia and a host of classic Christian works re-educates his and subsequent generations about the different expressions of love, indeed, the depths of love that a human being can enter into and live out of.

Lewis’ “The Four Loves” explains with quick wit, charm and emphatic brilliance to readers the differences between as well as the advantages and disadvantages of patriotism, affection, and eros. He also points out how sublime is friendship and charity and how efficacious and salutary is the pursuit thereof.

If this book may be tough to sell for the Valentines’ season, therein lies its success, for it shakes the sentimentalist out of his fluffy, flowery, touchy-feely version of love and challenges him to grow in real love.

Lewis invites patriots to be true internationalists by holding that love of one’s country cannot be lived at the cost of a foreigner’s love for his own country, i.e. one cannot truly love his own country if he loves his country at the cost of the destruction of other nations.

Those who recognize how much they need love in their own lives are consoled by Lewis who writes that their need for love is – contrary to the beliefs of Stoics – not evil, but a gateway to being compassionate towards those whose needs for love they can relate with.

On the other hand, Lewis protests against people who do not snap out of the complex of creating artificial needs for love in their beloved in order to feed their own needs to be needed. He introduces to us two comical characters who have the “need to be needed” flaw, Mrs. Fidget and professor Quartz. They cause so much growth in the lives of their family and students the moment they are no longer there for them.

Friendship from Lewis’ perspective has a facet that is the exact opposite of those who crave to be indispensable messiahs: True friendship is always an open circle, ready to welcome newcomers, appreciative of the greater merriment a new friend brings on. “Of course the scarcity of kindred souls—not to mention practical considerations about the size of rooms and the audibility of voices—sets limits to the enlargement of the circle; but within those limits we possess each friend not less but more as the number of those with whom we share him increases.”

And what of Eros – that sexual love? Lewis writes that in and of itself it cannot continue to be. “He needs help, therefore he needs to be ruled.” This is why eros and all other loves ultimately require the support of charity (commonly a synonym for love, designated as the highest of loves in Lewis’ book).

This charity that brings all other loves to their apex and fulfillment is the love of God. “Here, not in our natural loves, nor even in ethics, lies the true centre of all human and angelic life. With this all things are possible.”

From the Genesee, NY with love

2009-10-05T05:40:00.000-07:00

(first published October 3, 2009 on Cebu Daily News Life!)

Far away in cold, upstate New York, there is a silent, splendid, sacred land: a land of monks, monks’ bread, and monks’ guests; a land of wild deer, black swans, and clear, unsullied lakes; a land of thick forests and fertile plains, where the solemn symphony of organs, church bells, and Gregorian chants hallow the passing of the hours. West of the great, winding river of the Genesee—a name which means Beautiful Valley—this land belongs to New York’s Trappist monks.

The 2,400 acres of land is the Abbey of the Genesee. An abbey is a church territory overseen by an abbot. The word abbot comes from the Hebrew “abba” which means father. The family of monks at the Genesee belongs to the Roman Catholic, religious Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO).

OCSO monks are called Cistercians in honor of Citeaux, the site of a monastery in France. They observe strictly the sixth-century monastic Rule of Saint Benedict of Norcia and the Constitutions of the Order of Cistercians. The monks go by the nickname “Trappists” because they were founded in the monastery of La Trappe, Normandy, France as a reform of the older Order of Cistercians, which is an 11th-century French reform of the Order of Saint Benedict.

Genesee’s Trappists, as they say on their website, “seek God and follow Christ under a rule and an abbot in a stable community that is a school of brotherly love.”

Through e-mail with Genesee’s prior, Fr. Jerome Machar, and after two months in Houston, Texas with a relative recovering from cancer, I made arrangements for a retreat at the abbey last March 14-19.

My journey to the Genesee began with a four-hour bus ride from Houston to Longview, Texas. This was followed by a 20-hour Amtrak train ride from Longview to Chicago, Illinois. After 10 hours of roaming around Chicago, I boarded another train for the 12-hour connecting trip to Rochester, New York.

At the Rochester train station, I spotted the monastery’s designated driver wearing a signal “Monks’ Bread” cap (Genesee’s Trappists bake upstate New York’s famous Monks’ Bread). After introductions, I followed him to his old, silver-colored Buick. As I buckled up and he got ready to drive, the elderly, Scottish-born, Protestant former farmer named Ian gave me an apple to eat. He then spoke in his fierce accent about Rochester, himself, the monastery, and the monks in the hour that he brought me to the Genesee:

Rochester’s traffic was light that sunny Lenten morn because townsfolk were gearing up for an advanced Saint Patrick’s Day (March 17) parade. Ian had been working with the monks since he sold his farm some years ago, being too old to supervise it. Ian was mourning the death of one of his best friends, a monk called Brother John the Baptist. Yet Ian became my first retreat master. He firmly believed that Brother John “went away to behold the face of the Lord.”

I noticed out loud how winter had blackened and plucked all leaves from the trees that lined our route to the abbey. Ian said the trees will be green again in a couple of months. He later bid me “leave something for the crows,” that is throw the bit left of my apple out the car window and onto Genesee’s fields.

Different crops grew on the fields, Ian told me. Spring was near. The ground sprouted wheat. On other seasons, the monks grew corn, soybeans, black beans, red beans, string beans, and sunflowers too.

We arrived at the Genesee’s Bethlehem Retreat House in time for lunch. Ian placed my luggage before my room’s door (my room was Room 1 on Bethlehem’s ground floor) and then in the dining hall introduced me to the weekend cook: a plump, rosy-cheeked nun wearing not a religious habit. She was Rosie, who delighted guests that day with a luncheon of boiled spinach, potatoes with salmon, and vegetable and macaroni salads.

After Rosie, I met Fr. Jerome, the monastery’s guest master and second-in-command after the abbot. The monk was as jovial as I imagined Santa Claus himself to be. He bantered with Rosie about her cooking. Introduced by the nun, the priest-monk embraced me like someone he had known for ages.

At our first private conference Fr. Jerome inquired about the purpose of my retreat: to prepare an Easter talk on Jesus’ incarnation. As an opening reflection on that theme, Fr. Jerome said “there are things that make us hard to live with but these do not make us unlovable.” This, he said, is why God approaches us.

Approach me God did in my six days in the Genesee: in Ian, in Fr. Jerome, in Brother Christian of the bookshop who asked me about the Philippines; in Brother James, a monk for 30 years who indulged my request to have a picture with him; in Rosie who, apart from preparing my first Genesee lunch, drove me from Bethlehem to the abbey church and back on many a wet or frosty, sunset or moonset hour to join the monks in prayer; in Cathe, the weekday cook who one morning also gave me a lift to church for Mass.

God was incarnate anew in the fellow guest who whispered at breakfast one morning that I should check out the day breaking into the world from the east behind Bethlehem.

In the Genesee the Lord sought, and captured my attention, through four yearlings that dashed across my path from church, and a group of grown-up deer that I watched vanish from their pastures into the forest. He kept me close to him through the rainbow glitter of sun-struck, frostbitten grass, and the praying pine trees and blooming stars in midnight's garden.

He drew me nearer to him through a flight of birds in V-formation saluting the image of Our Lady of Tender Compassion – a smiling Virgin Mary cradling in her arms the Christ-child.

Are you living in a homely house?

2009-10-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

(first published October 1, 2009 in Cebu Daily News Life!)

The phrase "homely house" is famously used by J.R.R. Tolkien in reference to Rivendell, a realm of Elves in the fictional "Middle Earth." Rivendell is said to be homely for the highly visible state of communion among the members of the house of Rivendell. In this last homely house of elves led by Elrond, there was fine and courteous speech, a culture of kindness, an effort at protecting joy among the Elves and whomsoever they welcomed as their guests.

Those familiar with Rivendell will realize that people in the real world need not teleport themselves to fantastic dwellings to experience the homeliness of a house. "A house is not a home," so an old song goes, and "there is no place like home," an old adage states. So what constitutes a home? Chiefly a love that has, to borrow words from yet another song, "no walls, no ceilings, no floors," manifested in the most significant places inside a house.

Consider your dining room at mealtime. The question here is not whether or not you are living with a family, but whether or not you eat together with the family of which you are a part. How frequently in a week do you eat together with your family? The less frequently you do, the less likely it is that you are living in a homely house. And beyond eating together with members of your family, you have to consider the question of the presence or absence of communication as you eat. Quiet, automatic meals are symptoms of an un-homely house.

Consider your living room. Is it always finely arranged? If so, could it be because barely any living happens in your living room? Seat covers and cushions remain unruffled perhaps because you and your spouse or other family members have not had the time to sit together and talk, or watch a home video together, or sing at a joint videoke session. If the living room starts to become a relatively unused part of the house, perhaps its time to bring people together to this place, a center of communion far more precious than a cafe table.

Consider the sights and sounds of your bedroom at wake-up time in the morning, and before you sleep at night, as well as the "noises" and silences at the threshold of your house. Do you see in the your bedroom in the morning someone giving you a happy morning greeting, and someone at night sending you to dreamland with a heartfelt goodnight? Do your doorsteps remain settings for goodbye or welcome kisses, and blessings too, as your household members come and go? Speak to each other in your rooms, show affection and impart blessings at the door. So shall you repel spirits of unhomeliness.

Consider the place where you pray with your family at home. Have your altars and statuaries been gathering dust, your Bible leaves yellowing and withering through disuse? Have your icons become just another set of pretty figurines, instead of points around which your family gathers to pray together? Perhaps more than ever you need heaven's help to love each other better and bring the graces of homeliness into your house. And beyond the question of prayer time at home, you have to consider the question of whether or not you are visiting your places of worship together as a family. "The family that prays together stays together."

Consider your car, or whichever vehicle transports you to places of rest and repast. These are extensions of your house, and potential extensions of your home. Do you more often than not go on long drives or pleasure trips alone or with people outside your family? Perhaps it is time to seek once more the home that is the halo of your house that has quietly dissapeared into the night. Love lives only when lovers seek one another, love thrives when lovers go places together.

Backbiting dissected

2009-10-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

(first published September 24, 2009 in Cebu Daily News Life!)

First, backbiting is a failure in communication. A person’s grievance against or critique of another is addressed to a third party, someone who holds probably little stake in the issue between the first two people. Second, backbiting is a perversion of communication. For a person to communicate is in the first place to engage others in an exchange of messages that promote understanding and harmony, whereas feasting on someone’s good name behind his back attacks unity, dividing the unsuspecting person and his backbiters into “him and us.”

How does backbiting begin? It can be the fruit of a false pacifism. Ron and Sam have an issue or conflict to resolve. Amid the heat of trying to remedy the situation, Sam, looking for a quick fix, decides to “peacefully” let Ron’s viewpoint prevail. In his heart, Sam simmers with rage. Soonest after parting with Ron, Sam removes his peace mask and grumbles about Ron before third person Dave. There is no assurance that Dave is the last person to hear Sam’s complaints about Ron. The cheap peace has sown abroad what was a contained conflict.

Backbiting can also be the result of false concern. Dave and Sam talk about Ron. Sam justifies this by saying that he is simply, without malice, fleshing out his conflict with Ron, to assess the conflict more broadly, and to seek to know how to help Ron deal with any of his own faults. In the process, Sam starts to bring up old, older and older issues with Ron, taking pleasure in presenting himself as the noble, righteous, slighted entity while reciting a litany of woes that present his subject in unflattering, if not highly demeaning light. The purported concern for the absent party has turned out to be a mere veneer for the backbiter’s self-centered concerns.

False pacifism and false concern entails repression, not resolution of one’s beef with another. Resentment’s pile up in one’s heart in a low-quality, imitation patience that projects a peaceable visage to hide a raging heart. Since one supposedly has no more issue to resolve with another, he either pretends to be at peace with that other person, or “peacefully” avoids his presence. But the shaky peace collapses as soon as the backbiter finds the next willing listener, the one on whom the backbiter pours his hidden grudges against the third person. The backbiter’s problem is one of courage and perseverance. He would rather be an agent of gossip than invest time and soul in the delicate task of reconciling with another.

“When you understand someone, truly understand someone, you can't help but love them,” says Mike Dooley. “Therefore, anyone in your life—anyone—who you feel less than love for, you have misunderstood.” Backbiters are generally people who do not understand the one of whom they speak negatively. They focus on the shadows of their “subject” never exploring that person enough to realize that his shadows, perhaps, emphasize better his lights, so that person is in reality like a work of art featuring splendid chiaroscuro.

Surviving friendship's winters

2009-10-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

(first published July 30, 2009 in Cebu Daily News Life!)

“Friends are like wine: the older, the better,” says an oft-quoted proverb, laying a firm foundation to build on for classical writers on the subject of friendship, like the Englishman Aelred of Rievaulx. He bade readers to be wary of too quickly welcoming a new acquaintance into their confidence, lest that person turn out to be no more than a mercenary seeking the pleasures and conveniences but not the essence of friendship, which is that of a man’s joyful and unconditional gift of self to his friend, and which often goes hand in hand with the joyful sacrifice of his own pleasures and conveniences.

One can hardly disagree. Friendship takes time spent on shared noble and meaningful, exhilarating, challenging, or tear-jerking experiences to grow. The deeper and more frequent the experiences friends have in time, the more their friendship grows, until Love should judge it worthy of perfection amid eternity, which is time and space freed by unadulterated Faith from the clutches of decay and the limits of distance, and mingled by Hope with forever that rejuvenates.

What does one make then, in this life, of the wintrier seasons of friendship? What to do when a bosom friend moves with his family to a new home, when a high school friend has to study at a different college or university, when a college friend finds work in a faraway country or within an extremely hectic industry? Does one let friendship wane with the dying years and be enclosed by separate spaces?

Easy answers might not be available. Lifestyle gurus can, without second thoughts, rattle off a list of ways to keep rekindling the fire of the love that binds friends, but more than these, friendship’s winters also call a person to wear warm coats of understanding for his friend, the better to shield him from the chill winds of resentment when the recommendations of the gurus have been exhausted and prove futile.

Do your handwritten letters and electronic messages to your friends elicit no response? Do your phone calls to them remain unreturned? Do your scheduled trips or meetings with them get cancelled or indefinitely postponed? Be grateful. The situation invites you to grow in patience and be imaginative in thinking of the many possible reasons for any of your friends’ apparent (and perhaps strictly apparent) failure to communicate. It invites you to the humility of learning that you alone cannot be the fulfilment of any person’s existence but that you have been privileged to be appointed by Love to be part of the circle of significant people around your friend.

Further, the situation invites you to examine if you have done anything to offend your friend. Was it something you thought, said, did, or did not do? Promptly apologize and make amends. If your conscience finds you innocent of any misdeed, rejoice, not because you perceive yourself the pious victim of an unjust punishment but because what suffering you may be experiencing on account of his silence purifies your love for your friend: your love has become persevering in the face of apparent—not necessarily wilful—apathy, and is in its perseverance paying the price for the times when you have been unconsciously unloving towards your friend.

It also helps if you think of it this way: The season of friendship’s silence is also the season of sharing your friend with more people. How selfish of me if I alone should experience my friend’s greatness all the time. I should instead let my life without her or him be a transmission of the goodness I have received from my friend, brightening the dark corners of the world I find myself in, and being the better person I have become because of my friend to many more who are in search of true friendship. I should believe in the power of my prayers and hopes to keep me connected at heart with the one who is nowhere near me yet.

All these cannot be without some struggle with oneself. But one can always choose to struggle, for the love of one’s friend, with an attitude of hope, extreme and realistic as in Ron Atchison’s poem:

“We will meet again my friend, / A hundred years from today / Far away from where we lived /And where we used to play. / We will know each others' eyes / And wonder where we met /Your laugh will sound familiar / Your heart, I won't forget. / We will meet, I'm sure of this, / But let's not wait till then… /Let's take a walk beneath the stars / And share this world again.”

Checklists before getting hitched

2009-10-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

(first published June 11, 2009 in Cebu Daily News Life!)

Literary laureates and songwriters have written hits and waxed poetic about June as the favored month for weddings, that real union and symbolic ceremony whereby man and woman give themselves one to another till death separate them.

The last month of the first half of the year therefore impels many a young adult to consider his or her readiness for the call to marital love and to the raising of a family, the basic unit of society, the nuclear community without which there is no such thing as a people, a country, a nation, or an independence day.

In recent decades, sociologists have observed a general upward shift in people’s marrying ages, from about 23-25 years old on the average about 40 years ago, to about 27-30 in the present years. The phenomenon, by their interpretation, is due to the increased variety of things a single person can enjoy nowadays, as well as to the costliness of entering the married state, which therefore implies more years of working and saving before marriage.

One of the more prominent pastors of the evangelical United States, Dr. Albert Mohler, wrote a checklist that men can go through to see if they are ready for marriage. This checklist has temporal and spiritual components and is heavy on the concept of maturity.

Mohler lists the following temporal criteria against which men intending to marry should measure themselves: (a) Personal maturity sufficient to be a responsible husband and father Economic maturity sufficient to hold an adult job and handle money (b) Physical maturity sufficient to work and protect a family (c) Worldview maturity sufficient to understand what is really important (d) Relational maturity sufficient to understand and respect others (e) Social maturity sufficient to make a contribution to society (f) Verbal maturity sufficient to communicate and articulate as a man (g) Economic maturity sufficient to hold an adult job and handle money.

These are the spiritual criteria: (a) Spiritual maturity sufficient to lead a wife and children. (b) Sexual maturity sufficient to marry and fulfill God's purposes. (c) Moral maturity sufficient to lead as example of righteousness. (d) Biblical maturity sufficient to lead at some level in the church. (e) Ethical maturity sufficient to make responsible decisions (f) Character maturity sufficient to demonstrate courage under fire.

Addressing himself to young adults of both sexes, another evangelical, Joshua Harris proposes “principled romance” as a pathway that begins in friendship and culminates in marriage.

“The seasons I propose are not a magic formula for a perfect relationship, nor are they the only way for romance to unfold,” Harris writes in his book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” adding: “But I think they can help us develop godly romantic relationships.”

Harris outlines a continuum from casual friendship to deeper friendship to courtship and then engagement. The continuum is quite traditional, but is rooted in a defining objective: woman and man should live it such that they may one day write a love story they will feel proud to tell.

For love of land and people

2009-10-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

(first published June 4, 2009 in Cebu Daily News Life!)

Some will question what the use is, when the world has gone global, of insisting on the preservation of such quaint values as patriotism or nationalism (in fact such words, for being politically charged, can at times automatically shut off listeners in a land where politics may be the last place a seeker instinctively looks to for hope). Politics aside, that question can be answered with another: Would your love for the beauties of far distant shores be true if it is but an extension of your cynicism about the beauty that may lie hidden within your own land and kindred?

As we approach the 111th and plod on towards the 112th anniversary of Philippine Independence it will be of help to many of us if we begin or put new vitality into deeds that counter dampers who no longer believe the Filipino is worth dying for (perhaps because they have not really discovered, that first of all, the Filipino is worth living for), that love of God is also love of country (perhaps because “idols” ignorant of bayanihan sit on their pedestals), that the youth is the hope of the fatherland (perhaps because midway through their lives they have sold away the ideals of their younger days).

Of course you cannot say that the Filipino is worth dying for, or worth living for, if you have not lived through (or died through), the process of getting registered as a voter (attention Cebu City residents of voting age: the Commission on Elections is no longer located in that inconspicuous location behind Gaisano Metro Colon, it has been holding office near the Basilica Minore del Santo Nino for aeons). You ought not to be the one to unceremoniously rant against “the system” when in between election years your leader turns out to be bad, especially if yours, along with that of many others, was the unexercised or unguarded right of suffrage that once led the said “leader” to victory at the polls (note: with less than a year to the next elections, C-CIMPEL is open to interested voter education and other program volunteers).

You cannot say that the Filipino is worth dying for, or worth living for, if you are reminded of your citizenship only when forms like passport or visa applications and similar paperwork prod you to such remembrance, and your reaching for your dreams with these documents ultimately benefit only you and a select few but is inimical to the good of so many more compatriots. Your achievements and the watersheds of your life cannot be weighed in isolation from the experience and reality of your countrymen. Fend for yourself and your immediate loved ones by all means, but do not stop there, for to do so (but for the taxes that perhaps you cannot help but pay by virtue of being withheld), is de facto secession from the rest of the nation, and contests the power of your love.

You cannot say that the Filipino is worth dying for, or worth living for, if in critiquing the phenomenon of corruption in the country you are so angry as to be momentarily worked up over it, only to admit too soon that, since that is the way it was, that is the way it is and always will be. Stop propagating the lie that to enter into politics and public service is to enter into and be part of the filth of the profession. The lie is so oft-repeated that many, unwittingly or otherwise, have taken it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, thereby making false prophets of so many of us. It is time for a new prophecy to clear our air of that poisonous assertion. Do not conveniently forget that Philippine governance has also been the arena of Ninoy and Cory, Salonga, Yorac, Monsod, Roco, and the Davids, to name a few good men and women.

When the world has gone global and it has become all easier to appreciate the verdure and glitter of distant pastures, patriotism and nationalism is all the more necessary, the viable antidote to the balkanization of an entire people. As Cory once said: “We cannot afford to turn another generation of Filipinos into cynical folk who would eschew responsible citizenship in favor of playing the game of corruption and patronage politics and resigning themselves to the impossibility of fundamental change in government and society.” Not even the richest of the nations can afford that.

SPECIAL BLOG ENTRY (3RD UPDATE): PLEASE HELP THE VICTIMS OF STORM KETSANA

2009-09-29T17:13:00.000-07:00

Posted below is the Oratio Imperata or Mandatory Prayer for Deliverance from Calamities released by Auxiliary Bishop Lucilo Quiambao of the Archdiocese of Legazpi in light of storms forecast by the Philippine weather bureau as well as calamities in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere in the world in this time of accelerated global warming:

Almighty Father, we raise our hearts to You in gratitude for the wonders of creation of which we are part, for Your providence in sustaining us in our needs, and for Your wisdom that guides the course ...of the universe. We acknowledge our sins against You and the rest of creation. We have not been good stewards of Nature. We have confused Your command to subdue the earth. The environment is made to suffer our wrongdoing, and now we reap the harvest of our abuse and indifference. Global warming is upon us. Typhoons, floods, volcanic eruption, and other natural calamities occur in increasing number and intensity. We turn to You, our loving Father, and beg forgiveness for our sins. We ask that we, our loved ones and our hard earned possessions be spared from the threat of calamities, natural and man-made. We beseech You to inspire us all to grow into responsible stewards of Your creation, and generous neighbours to those in need. Amen.

Made public with permission below are excerpts of an e-mail sent to me by Ms. Jaja Chiongbian-Rama of clubs Vudu and Formo regarding the "Typhoon Ondoy Live Aid" relief effort, an event which is part of my story on Cebu Daily News' "Life! Indi" section for tomorrow October 2, 2009:

"[T]he ones who should be credited for the Ondoy Live Aid efforts are Meg Eteve for championing the volunteer work today and Joseph Catillo and Jay Young for putting the whole Ondoy Live Aid Team Cebu efforts together. Plus the Cebuanos as a whole for truly banding together for this cause.

"The ONDOY LIVE AID container vans are care of Mr. Joseph Castillo who, along with Jay Young, are heading all the efforts in collecting the relief goods in Cebu. Joseph will be personally accompanying the vans to Manila via Lorenzo Shipping. Victory Liner and security c/o CIDG are on standby for distribution of goods to Cainta. Distribution will be coordinated with the Red Cross.

"Today, sorting and packing of medicines, toiletries, men's women's and kid's clothes, food, slippers, water resulted in one container van being filled and sealed ready to be shipped to Manila. The other container van is almost full as well.

"It doesn't really matter though which drop off center the goods are donated or to which organizations as long as we all help in our own little ways by sharing our time, effort or through donations.

"What is most heartwarming is getting messages from strangers wanting to help out and saying even if they can't give much since they don't have a job and don't have much to give they can offer their two hands and the time and energy to help sort and pack relief goods.

"Thank you Jason and hope to see you soon. Take care and stay warm. Let's all pray the other supertyphoon doesn't hit Luzon again :-("

Made public below is a letter written to the University of the Philippines in the Visayas Cebu College (UP Cebu) Union of Progressive Students by its chair, Euvic Ferrer regarding their efforts to help victims of typhoon Ondoy (the essence of this mail is retained even without the translation of parts in the Cebuano language):

"Salamat sa inyong gpanghatag nga clothes ug food.

"Pero, the survivors need more than just clothes. they also need medicine, etc.

"That's why the union of progressive students is devising a way to raise funds through a RUMMAGE SALE. this is instrumental in our aim to donate essential stuff like medicines to our brothers and sisters in luzon.

"This is also one way of transorming not-so-useful stuff like books and magazines into money so that we can donate more sa mga nanginahanglan.

"Ang halin kay it's either ipalit ug meds and other stuff nga necessary or idonate directly as money.

"And guys, thanks for the support.

"We gathered a total of php1,080.00 in one day lang sa atong rummage sale.

"Kini tanan idonate for the bagyong ondoy victims in luzon together with the clothes and food nga inyong gihatag.

"So, please continue to support WHATEVER advocacy of WHATEVER organization in collecting relief goods for the storm victims.

"Thanks.

"And yes, if anybody diha nga naay mabaligya nga BOOKS or MAGS or unsa ba kaha diha nga butang, pwede pud idonate ninyo para maapil sa rummage sale para mas daghan tag ma-halin.

"If wala muy clothes or food nga madonate, let's transform whatever "sellable" nga item to money for other needs like medicines para sa mga victims.

"Naa ra mi malax whole day, whole week (or we might extend til next week sa rummage!).

"Basta ang point is we are encouraging you all to donate essential, sellable and still useful nga stuff.

"We'll find good use for it!!

"Rest assured the organization will provide honest and transparent auditing of any monetary donation including ang halin sa rummage sale.

"Thanks."

Excerpt from "Epic Flood: A Call for Compassion" by Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), September 29, 2009:

"Typhoon Ondoy’s destructive path may be the worst flood in more than half a century. Through the ravages of nature in the past, the Filipino sense of compassion, which we also call “bayanihan,” has been called forth. The pictures we have seen in the past few days are pictures of Filipinos responding to the call for compassion, of people willing to “suffer with,” people with the spirit of “bayanihan.”

"We pray against typhoons, earthquakes, floods and other natural calamities. But when they do occur, the heroism of the Filipino comes out. We salute, for example, to that 18-year old teen-ager, Muelmar Magallanes, who lost his life after saving more than a dozen neighbors, the last of whom was a six-month old baby.

"This one heroic example is an inspiration of our appeal with the CBCP National Secretariat for Social Action. The CBCP NASSA has been mobilized to help with its limited resources the victims of the flood. Relief goods have started to be gathered and distributed to the flood-affected provinces around Metro Manila. Caritas Manila has started to respond to the flood victims in Metro Manila. Compassion is drawing many Filipinos to unite with their unfortunate brothers and sisters. Social Action Centers of other Dioceses may join the campaign by sending to CBCP NASSA whatever they may collect. Profound gratitude to the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council and the US Bishops’ Conference – Catholic Relief Services. They were among the first to respond.

"Other Institutions like the RED CROSS, have also started to respond to the call for compassion, as we have seen in GMA network and ABS-CBN network in the spirit respectively of “KAPUSO” and “KAPAMILYA.”

"We bend our knees in prayer for salvation against natural calamities, but when they do come, we are not so helpless as not to respond with heroism. We have said it before and we say it again “In the Church, no one is so poor as to have nothing to give, and no one is so rich as to have nothing to receive.” We are humbled by the crises that come to us. We pray to God and appeal for our neighbor."

The witness of monks

2009-09-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
Sunday, 27 September 2009
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH

Monks—and nuns—have been serving Christians since the second and third centuries. Back then, a growing number of men and women including the father of Eastern monasticism, Saint Anthony the Great, left the crumbling, morally bankrupt, pagan ancient cities for the contemplative wilderness of Egypt.

In Egypt’s searing Scetes desert, the monks, nuns, hermits and ascetics offered to God their manual works, prayers, fasts and other sacrifices. They also refreshed the spirits of world-weary pilgrims by hospitality and counselling.

A desert contemplative lived in a bare, solitary cell or cave. He or she joined others only for special occasions such as Sunday Mass, the visit of a bishop, or meetings on matters concerning the welfare of the monastic community. From time to time, younger monks or nuns asked any elder monastic of holy repute for a “word of life”. Such soul-nourishing “Sayings of the Desert Fathers” were compiled by some monks and are extant in modern translations.

When the Roman Empire finally collapsed, the task fell largely upon Europe’s monks—whose monastic enclosures were insulated from the upheavals of history—of preserving Antiquity’s most beautiful and erudite pieces of arts and letters. Monasteries – workshops in Christian living, powerhouses of prayer, and centers of peace that in time spread all over globe – also became medieval beacons of learning.

Monks and nuns stayed socially relevant even as the Middle Ages waned and the Renaissance flowered. People followed, year in and year out, the Rule that the father of Western monasticism, Saint Benedict of Norcia, wrote in the sixth century. They discovered in the document what Pope Benedict XVI calls “useful guidelines not only for monks but for all who seek guidance on their journey toward God.”

Europe’s monastic culture eventually gave birth to religious congregations active in evangelization, education, and poverty alleviation – Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians to name a few. Meanwhile, monks and nuns in the tradition of Saints Anthony the Great and Benedict of Norcia persevered in the original monastic ideal and witness: the search for God in silence and solitude, in work and prayer.

Today, several congregations of monks and nuns who follow the “Rule of Benedict” are present in the Philippines. I have been blessed to visit two: the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO) or Trappists in the Abbey of Our Lady of the Philippines, Jordan, Guimaras and the Order of Saint Benedict (OSB) in the Monastery of the Transfiguration, Malaybalay City, Bukidnon. Abbot Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé founded the OCSO in Normandy, France. The OSB traces its foundation to Saint Benedict himself in Monte Cassino, Italy.

I am forever grateful to the Trappists for two spiritually renewing retreats that I spent at their abbey in 2004. The first was in June that year for personal reasons, the second in December to complete for my college thesis a documentary on the joyful, prayerful, and sacred lives of Filipino Trappist monks. My Holy Week 2004 visit to the Benedictine monastery in Malaybalay was an eye-opener to the poor yet healing hallowed lands governed by the “Rule of Benedict.”

The Rule’s central tenet is that a monk should “Christo omnino nihil praeponere (prefer nothing to Christ).” The Holy Father explains: “By virtue of the absolute primacy reserved for Christ, monasteries are called to be places in which room is made for the celebration of God's glory, where the mysterious but real divine presence in the world is adored and praised, where one seeks to live the new commandment of love and mutual service, thus preparing for the final ‘revelation of the sons of God’ (Romans 8: 19).”

In addition, the Pope says that “those who enter the monastery seek there a spiritual oasis where they may learn to live as true disciples of Jesus in serene and persevering fraternal communion, welcoming possible guests as Christ himself (cf. Rule of Benedict, 53, 1). This is the witness that the Church asks of monasticism also in our time.”

There is no place in a genuine monastic community for scandal, corruption, deception, intrigue, or sacrilege. Each monastery is a city set on a hill, not to cast dark shadows upon the land but to point brilliantly towards God especially when days are dark or when it is night. “When monks live the Gospel radically, when they dedicate themselves to integral contemplative life in profound spousal union with Christ,” the Pope says, “monasticism can constitute for all the forms of religious life and consecrated life a remembrance of what is essential and has primacy in the life of every baptized person: to seek Christ and put nothing before his love.”

A spiritual milieu

2009-09-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, September 7, 2009

How may we who live in a busy world attune ourselves to divine promptings? How do we keep ourselves in God's presence, so that his perspective may illumine ours as we live? We do this by creating for ourselves a spiritual milieu, that is taking advantage of what our heritage of faith offers to help us nurture our spirits even as we work for our bodies.

The Catholic lay person is gifted with a wealth of prayers. For the morning offering, he can use the Liturgy of the Hours, which contains the prayers of Jesus Christ himself. To be kept close to Christ with the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he may, right after rising pray the Angelus, a prayer that brings one into the scene of archangel Saint Gabriel's announcement to Mary that God favored her to be mother of his Son. The closing prayer of the Angelus, which in part states "may [we] by [Christ's] passion and cross, be brought to the glory of his resurrection" helps one to be faithful to God the whole day, especially when problems and trials arise.

Meditative music is a beneficial accompaniment to one's morning rituals. It is good to listen to news at the beginning of the day to be aware of what is happening in the world, but perhaps it is more important to strengthen the soul's potential to effect the transformation of negative realities. Monastic chanting or Taize prayers, played while one bathes and grooms oneself aids in fortifying the soul to be courageous in the face of what may lie ahead in its path.

One should not skip prayers before and after breakfast, lunch, and supper. Praying around breakfast especially boosts the attitude of gratefulness that one should keep throughout the rest of the day, as nothing that comes our way is outside the scheme of grace.

The commuter may pray the Holy Rosary on the way to work. The meditations of the Rosary center on scenes from the life of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the apostles. Prayers for the good of fellow jeepney passengers and pedestrians, workers and students, in fact for everyone encountered in the daily grind may be included in the Rosary in transit.

At the workplace, tasks may be accomplished to the tune of soothing instrumentals, if the work allows for the playing of music. One's work area may be sanctified or made holy with the help of sacred images and pictures or biblical passages and inspirational readings that may be placed on one's desk or posted on the walls.

During noon break, one may go to a nearby church or chapel for Holy Mass, which at the most is only half an hour on weekdays. If one's noon break is shorter than an hour, a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in a nearby prayer room is a good way to be spiritually recharged and reawakened to the presence of the Lord in all moments of one's day.

At mid-afternoon, one may pause and remember with gratefulness the crucifixion and death of Jesus. This is an inspiration for anyone to press on and finish the task assigned to him for the day, just as Jesus pressed towards the goal of resurrection through the cross. Thanksgiving may be offered at the end of the day, using the Evening Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours in addition to the Angelus at sundown.

One should be discriminating in one's choice of entertainment. What thoughts do you wish to bring with you into the night; into your dreams? What you carry depends in part on what you watch, read, and listen to. These should be shows, books or music that bring a wholesome laughter to the heart, or an important, beautiful lesson for the mind.

Eight in the evening, close to the end of one's day, is traditionally allotted for the remembrance of those who have died. One may whisper a prayer for them whose mission in this world has been accomplished, that they may get the rest that they in their heart of hearts looked forward to. For night prayer, one asks for forgiveness for one's sins during the day, and offers a prayer for a good night's rest that will lead to new strength in the day to come.

Regime of truth

2009-09-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, August 30, 2009

Before colon cancer drastically limited the activity of the late former Philippine president Corazon “Cory” Aquino, she stood on the frontline of many a “Mass for Truth” Catholics offered to help resolve the NBN-ZTE corruption scandal that witnesses said or hinted involved no less than Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo among other senior public officers.

It appears that the nation is on the verge of reaping the fruits of the said prayers for truth. The Ombudsman has ordered the filing of graft charges against former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos and Social Security System president Romulo Neri for their roles in the fiasco. The Senate blue ribbon committee, reports the Philippine Daily Inquirer, is poised to make recommendations calling to justice officials involved in the scam who were cleared by the Ombudsman.

There is nothing quite like prayer in ensuring the victory of truth—said to be the first casualty of every war—in any aspect of human existence. The crusade for honesty, accountability, integrity, and transparency in governance may not require the force of arms, but that does not make it any less of a war. If this war is left to drag on according to the unwritten rules of political expediency, whether in the chambers of government or the parliament of the streets, it will not see any resolution, for the victors will ultimately find themselves beholden to themselves or their unholy patrons. Truth loses, the people lose.

Cory must have understood that this is where prayer comes in: Prayer ensures that the quest for what our Constitution’s preamble calls “a regime of truth” is not motivated by simmering vendettas, selfish motives, or cliquish interests; that revolutions will not be a mere changing of despotic guards. Even statesman Jovito Salonga with whom Cory occasionally clashed on matters of policy is convinced that truthful governance is impossible for those who do not hold themselves accountable to a higher power.

***

Yesterday we celebrated the memorial of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. He was a martyr for truth, and a martyr for Christ (theologically that makes him a martyr for one reality, since Christ calls himself the truth).

Saint John’s death by Herod’s orders is a classic illustration of the consequences of lies. The first lie in the story is Herod’s pretense that it was all right for him to be living with his brother’s wife. The second lie is Herod’s notion that it was all right to play a deaf ear to, or at least be merely pleased by John’s admonitions against his adulterous affair. The third lie is Herod’s judgment that it was better to have John executed (as Herod’s paramour Herodias wished through the king’s daughter) to save face than save John (holding full court, Herod had promised up to half his kingdom for his daughter after she pleased him with a dance). One lie leads to another, and often the innocent pay the price in the end.

There are presently many controversies, aside from the NBN-ZTE deal that can either turn out to be perpetuations of lies in Philippine society, or showcases of our people’s capacity for a regime of truth. Locally, the Balili land controversy rages on. In the Senate, questions have been asked about the propriety and legitimacy of television infomercials featuring cabinet secretaries. At the House of Representatives, Leyte’s first district Rep. Martin Romualdez has yet to open his mouth on Arroyo and company’s lavish dinners when they were last in the United States. In the Supreme Court, the justices will be setting precedents as to the oughts surrounding the selection of a National Artist.

It behooves the people involved in these and other controversies to be truthful in all things. Otherwise public scrutiny will reckon them outside the mold of the good and under the shadow of Herod. That would be mighty unfortunate in a predominantly Christian nation. If Christians or believers of good among us are to be martyred, if the people should be privileged with martyrdom, let it not be at the hands of fellow baptized - those who are supposed to be the people's guardians and servants.

***

Today is the ninth day before the celebration of the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For those who wish to complete a novena starting today until September 7, the prayers can be found on the internet. Just go to your favorite search engine and type “Nativity of Mary novena.”

Here’s an excerpt from the prayers: “O most lovely Infant, who by thy holy birth hast comforted the world, made glad the heavens, struck terror into hell, brought help to the fallen, consolation to the sad, salvation to the weak, joy to all men living; we entreat thee, with the most fervent love and gratitude, to be spiritually reborn in our souls by means of thy most holy love; renew our spirits to thy service, rekindle in our hearts the fire of charity, bid all the virtues blossom there, that so we may find more and more favour in thy gracious eyes. Mary! Be thou our Mary, and may we feel the saving power of thy sweetest name; may it ever be our comfort to call on that name in all our troubles; may it be our hope in dangers, our shield in temptation, and our last utterance in death. Sit nomen Mariae mel in ore, melos in aure, et jubilus in corde. Amen. Let the name of Mary be honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, joy in the heart. Amen.”

Christian Community

2009-09-11T19:10:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, August 9, 2009

God our Father’s mansion or community of the holy is open to every human being without exemption. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity." All are called to holiness: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2013).

The statement "all are called to holiness" implies that the experience of being saved by and drawn to Jesus Christ is not to be kept private. The fathers of the Second Vatican Council teach us, and let us read: "He has [sic] willed to make men and women holy and save them, not as individuals without any bond or link between them, but rather to make them into a people who might acknowledge him and serve him in holiness."(Lumen Gentium 9)

We are to journey together and help one another grow in holiness. The saints show us that holiness is not an individualistic, isolationist quest. These outstanding Christians grew in sanctity with the great help that they received from communities.

Visayan carpenter Pedro Calungsod received the help of St. Diego Luis de San Vitores and the Jesuits in the Philippines in pursuit of holiness that led to his martyrdom while on mission in Guam. Tagalog husband, father, and clerk Lorenzo Ruiz journeyed towards holiness with the help of a Filipino community called Confraternity of the Holy Rosary as well as the Dominican community in the run up to shedding his blood—together with four other saints—for the faith in Japan. Filipina Ignacia del Espiritu Santo gathered women together into a Christian community called Beaterio dela Compania de Jesus known today as Religious of the Virgin Mary. The cause for her beatification is now in progress.

All these are continuations of what Jesus started in his first public ministry when he called to holiness, that is, into friendship with him fishermen, rich people, Roman centurions, Pharisees, tax collectors, prostitutes, leprosy victims and so many others.

The Father’s mansion or community of the holy is open to every human being without exemption. But we join this holy family together and not alone, and only when we approach Jesus Christ out of deep faith in him, and true love for our fellowmen. In the words of C.S. Lewis, "No one goes to heaven alone, we go in packs."

"You have seen for yourselves how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself." God once said to his people. "Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation." (Exodus 19:4-6a)
God tells us all that the purpose of Christian community is sanctity; that the community’s fullness lies in a lifestyle of holiness – a way of life in communion with God and each other that can be described as Gospel in motion, or in the words of John Paul the Great, "a spirituality of communion."

"A spirituality of communion" says John Paul "indicates above all the heart's contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us, and whose light we must also be able to see shining on the face of the brothers and sisters around us."

True community as a journey in holiness makes us say to one another, to paraphrase singer Mariah Carey, "You will always be a part of me, I am part of you indefinitely, we belong together to God." Christian community leaves no room for individualism, kanya-kanya, barrio-barrio, or false attachments. It is favorable to genuine friendship, which according to Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, has eight manifestations: (1) it aids in the practice of virtue and the duties of one’s state of life (2) it does not interfere with prayer (3) it seeks the genuine good of the friend (4) it does not tend to improper physical manifestations (5) it does not seek recompense for the good done to the friend (6) it will prudently correct some defects in the friend and put up with others (7) it is unwavering – not shaken by defects (8) love of God grows with it – thoughts of the friend increase desire for God.

In genuine community we have to say an emphatic no to envy. I do not have to know how to do everything because we all have unique gifts. This is seen for example when a community organizes a recollection or retreat. Some produce the invitations, others pray for the success of the encounter. Some welcome those who arrive, others prepare the meals and the infrastructure. Some give the talks, others type out the reflection guides. Some play the guitar, while others sing. Some lead the animation, others facilitate the games. Some read at the Mass, others decorate the altar and chapel or set up the Mass paraphernalia.

Finally genuine community as John Paul teaches means "to know how to 'make room' for our brothers and sisters, bearing 'each other's burdens' (Galatians 6:2) and resisting the selfish temptations which constantly beset us and provoke competition, careerism, distrust and jealousy. Let us have no illusions: unless we follow this spiritual path, external structures of communion will serve very little purpose. They would become mechanisms without a soul, "masks" of communion rather than its means of expression and growth."

Transfiguration

2009-09-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos

Cebu Daily News Faith

Sunday, August 2, 2009

On August 6, we will celebrate the feast of our Lord's Transfiguration. In light of the coming celebration I reprint below the excerpt of a talk I once delivered for my Verbum Dei community that takes off from the Gospel's Transfiguration scene.

Happy Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. We are now in the vespers of the feast that will be celebrated tomorrow by the whole Catholic Church of which we are a part. In this feast we recall and celebrate the intimate revelation of Christ to his closest apostles--Peter, James, and John--on Tabor Hill in the Holy Land. This feast of the Fourth Mystery of Light of the Holy Rosary is reflected in what we are doing this weekend. Just like the three disciples, we are on a hill resting in the presence of our Lord who in his generosity and love reveals himself to us. Each talk, each preaching is a loving revelation of Jesus telling us that we are called to continue the Incarnation, and in fact to continue the tradition of Transfiguration, where we lovingly and intimately welcome people into our lives, accepting them as our way of living out the identity that we are to be Christs--persons who make the invisible God visible in today's world, people who share with our fellows the experience of being told by the Father: "You are my son. You are my daughter. On you my favor rests."

Just as the transfiguration was a turning point in the lives of the apostles because Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah about his impending passion and death, at this moment we have also arrived at a turning point. We have been receiving many beautiful messages today and we have been inspired, just as the apostles who journeyed with the Lord were inspired by his life and work before learning about the great sacrifice that bound all of Jesus' life with a love stronger than death. Now, it is the turn of each of us to go deeper so that we may learn that beneath the motivating and inspiring life of the Christ and his followers of every generation should be found a very strong commitment. A commitment to Christ who is not only the way and life, but to Christ who is also truth. Because Christ is also the truth, we too should present the current, present truth about ourselves to him.

We are all temples; dwelling places of the Lord our God, the Holy Trinity. And as dwelling places we should have our foundations on the truth about ourselves, the truth about our Lord and the truth about the status of our relationship with him, so that we will be true reproductions, faithful incarnations of the Word; True, 100% genuine Verbum Dei. Our discipleship should be built not on the sands of illusion. Our discipleship should be built on the rock of truth, so that when the river of trials floods over, our following will not be swept away.

There was once a man, a maker of tents, who was one of the most eminent scholars and theologians of his time. He once admitted in his writings that he was the greatest among the sinners, until Christ, the light of the world shone on him and threw him off the high horse of pride and illusion, giving him new eyes, giving him the truth about himself: that he had been persecuting Christ: “Saul, Saul. Why are you persecuting me?”

You all may be familiar with the story called “Dialogue.” To recount, there was once a man who in his prayer asked the Lord:

“God, the world is full of hatred, fear and division. It is ravaged by war, uglified by hunger, decimated by greed, destroyed by oppression, and saddled with broken hearts. God, if you are so good, why have you not done anything? Why are you not doing anything to mend our world’s brokenness?”

God replied:

“I did something. I made you, and gave you a heart to share my love, a heart capable to love not just in words, but in truth and deed (1 John 3:18). A heart capable of spontaneously overflowing with gratuitous love for fellow human beings.”

This brief story is something that turns the tables on me. It helps me see that in my relationship with the Holy Trinity, I actually am not the one who is in the position to ask too many questions, especially reckless, unreflected questions. For centuries in the history of humanity, whenever something went wrong-in a person’s life, family, society, between nations, in the Church-the knee-jerk reaction of the human being has been to ask: “Why Lord? Why?” In reality, it is the Lord who is in the position to ask us the questions, not as an inquisitive judge, but as a close Father, and Brother, and Friend to whom we can show the stuff within us with truth and sincerity. As King David says in the Psalms 51:6 “Lord, sincerity and truth are what you require.”

Praying for President Cory Aquino

2009-07-27T04:37:00.000-07:00

To the hills

2009-07-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, July 26, 2009

At the end of today’s gospel, Jesus, having miraculously multiplied five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish to feed at least five thousand men, fled to the solace of the hills. He was averse to the plan of those who witnessed the miracle to forcibly make him Israel’s king.

Indeed, as God, as someone who called himself the truth, Jesus could not have possibly disagreed with people’s perception of him as a source of power. In fact, our heavenly Father gave Jesus all power in heaven and on earth.

But what kind of power did Jesus wield? Definitely not the kind that his people wanted him to exercise, an earthly power limited to raising taxes, overthrowing rulers, mounting military campaigns, and any allied activity.

Jesus’ power was that of the very presence of God made available to every human being. The miraculous feeding of the five thousand satisfied empty stomachs, but beyond that, it was meant to help announce to the world that God himself is at hand to satisfy humanity’s deeper-than-physical hungers.

Jesus fled the crowd because they wanted to manage him. As time passed, Israel’s hope had become nothing more than political and geographical independence. Jesus seemed cut out to lead them to that sort of independence, someone who can be harnessed for a revolution. But Jesus knew that deep in their hearts, the people hungered for a different kind of freedom: the freedom from sin, the freedom from death, the freedom to love. Our Lord did not wish to cooperate with a people who sought lesser freedoms, who aimed low, who would be content with perfection in this world in place of the journey of perfection that would lead them to heaven.

It is easy to imagine Jesus after this gospel episode singing “Don’t love me for what you intend or hope that I would be, and if you’re only using me to feed your fantasy, you’re really not in love, so let me go, I must be free.” It is easy to love God when he lets our plans come to fruition. But what if his plans for us differ from what we hope to achieve?

God cannot be contained by any human agenda. He cannot be a mere means to our ends. He seeks in us not a love in league with him only for the fulfilment of our purposes, but a love that sticks with him in the understanding that becoming like him in service and love is our very purpose.

We need to keep this in mind in a special way as we approach the time when we choose in elections new leaders for our nation. Many will seek earthly power, attributing their quest to divine promptings. But look at Jesus: he served people, and shunned earthly power.

We need to keep this in mind everyday amid our tendency to seek to be the kings of our own lives. That was what the crowd in today’s story began to act like: not kings perhaps, but kingmakers. How can Jesus be my king if I dictate to him how he should act as my king? He might as well flee from me to the hills.

Or better yet, I might as well stop telling the Lord how to act in my life and follow him to the hills, where I can seek to understand in peace his will for my life and the people he wants me to serve, where he can point out to me, far from the noise of the world, the empty spaces of my life that he wants to fill. Then, I may yet help him—like the apostles—feed people in their hunger for attention, affection, forgiveness, encouragement, acceptance and mercy. Then they in turn will have the enthusiasm to feed others in their physical and spiritual hungers.

***

In relation to the topic of power, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta once said something to the effect that it is easier for people to conquer nations than for an individual human being to conquer himself. I am certain that President Corazon Aquino in leaving office when her time was up in 1992 was an exemplar of the freedom that empowers man to detach himself from political power and yet continue to serve. In this she has conquered herself, just as she conquers herself today by finding redemptive value, through prayer, in the suffering that she is going through.

More than just praying for God’s will to be done for her, we need to thank the Lord for giving saintly President Cory to us as an example of how to be empowered by him instead of indulging our lust for power, often with harmful consequences. Cory’s is a life that illustrates yet another adage from Mother Teresa: “The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace.”

Believing in mysteries

2009-07-04T06:14:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos

CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH

Sunday, July 5, 2009

"I believe in miracles
And love is the miracle."
-"I Believe in You and Me," Sandy Linzer, David Wolfert

Hobbits often startled figures like the lordly wizard Gandalf in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” Nicknamed “the little people” by men in the imaginary realm of Middle-earth, hobbits appeared so characteristically enamored of food, festivity, and leisurely living that none would be the wiser for reckoning them incapable of the feats becoming of the heroes of adventures.

This for certain is another instance of fiction reflecting the strangeness of fact, never mind the age-old controversy over which of the two, fact or fiction, is stranger. In the real earth, the human mystique is routinely summarized for the convenience of those perceived to be the wisest among, say, academics or entrepreneurs, and those who merely wax wise have gotten caught in the habit of speaking, with the ease of political scientists or economists, about socio-economic classes A, B, C, D, and E or about transnational groupings as meaningless as “Third World.”

So when the “Third World” produces a Mohandas Gandhi, Muhammad Yunus, or Jovito Salonga, people inside and outside that world stand rapt in the twin reactions of shock and awe. Conventions lie confounded. The hobbit straying beyond the borders of his background has emerged a hero. It is a human interest reporter’s dream story, possibly a biographer’s nightmare (for the task of condensing his subject, now mythic in persona into a book has suddenly become more daunting).

But that a man or woman’s humanity is shrouded in mystery is in itself providential. What would the human saga be without the pleasurable and inspirational amazement made available to us by such leaps of faith and falls of trustful surrender as those that led a distracted young Michelangelo to his glorious artistic accomplishments, or a calumniated Lorenzo Ruiz to the privilege of martyrdom? What would life be without its pleasant or bittersweet surprises?

Still, a man or woman’s mystery should not be so unceremoniously cloaked precisely because there is a hero within the hobbit within each human being. By unceremonious cloaking of the human mystique we mean the sizing up of a human being into the mere sum of his personal circumstances and history, the mere average of his sins and virtues, or the mere epitome of his job description.

Jesus himself was in his day subjected to similar reductionism. In today’s gospel excerpt we see that people preferred to appraise him in relation to Joseph and his carpentry, to Mary and her poverty, to his cousins and their obscurity, and no more. (Elsewhere in the Gospel he is caricatured as a drunkard and glutton, just as John the Baptist was branded a mad ascetic). Due his town mates’ lack of faith in him, the Lord, in a homecoming, could work no miracles save for a few on whom he laid his hands.

I suppose very few people in oppression-mired Nazareth nursed hopes of pleasant surprises at that time, least of all from someone of their generation who was clearly just like the guy next door, someone whom they had got all figured out. I suppose as well that in contrast, Peter, James, and John’s openness to pleasant surprises from God-with-us in Jesus was what set them apart to be the select witnesses to extraordinary gospel episodes like our Lord’s raising of Jairus’ daughter, transfiguration, and agony in the garden: The open-minded alone have the capacity to receive deep revelation.

What is true of the God who became the perfect human is true of all of us striving in one way or another after a godly fullness of humanity. When we reveal ourselves, our depths to another (invariably to someone who has known us for so long) we do so under the assumption that our listener is open-minded and open-hearted, like a house with an open hearth to which we eagerly come home. We un-conceal ourselves to him, hoping not just to be sifted like ashes from embers—we have our ashes and embers, and our unburned coal too—but to be fanned, by the grace of the other’s faith in us, into flames radiating with pleasant surprises, such as a happy song to a cherished memory, or a glimpse of the heavenly carpenter coming home to us, to build us yet again.

In the same vein, God’s miracles do not escape our vision, a friend’s greatness never bores us, our nation’s beauty never fades, for as long as we invest in each our faith, our belief; for as long as God is to us not an abstraction but a Father, Son and Holy Spirit to relate to; for as long as people in our eyes are brothers and not all too familiar nuisances; for as long as our country to us is home and no insignificant “Third World” corner. The human and the divine meet in far too many places, far too many people for us to risk sinking, vis-à-vis people and places, into the pit of the familiarity that spawns indifference.

I and Thou and Corpus Christi

2009-06-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, June 14, 2009

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body of Christ or the great feast of Corpus Christi. According to Francis Mershman in the Catholic Encyclopedia, this feast was instituted in the 13th century for the Catholic Church all over the world by Pope Urban IV. When the pope did so, the feast had come a long way from humbler beginnings as part of the fervent devotions to Christ in the Eucharist of Saint Juliana of Mont Cornillon, Belgium.

Originally, Corpus Christi mirrored Holy or Maundy Thursday, when Christians celebrated Jesus Christ’s institution of both the Holy Eucharist and the ministerial priesthood at the Last Supper. Thus, Corpus Christi was celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday: a feast of the resurrected Jesus’ real, everlasting presence in the world under the appearances of bread and wine consecrated by the priest at Holy Mass, whereas Holy Thursday celebrated the Holy Eucharist directly in the context of Christ’s Passion.

Like that of Ascension, the Thursday festival of Corpus Christi has been moved in many places to the nearest following Sunday, to allow the maximum participation of the faithful in it.

Corpus Christi—communion and feast—is very important in the context of the Catholic’s mission of effecting positive social transformation, the mission of converting the culture. The feast’s movement of bringing Jesus in the Holy Eucharist to the streets in procession signifies the Catholic conviction that faith is not to be hidden from the public square, that God is not to be isolated from the affairs of the world, that the values springing from faith are to shape and energize the Christian’s life: in the arts and sciences, in philosophy and medicine, in communication and law, alone or with others.

The conviction signified by the movement of the feast is rooted in the reality that ought to be internalized by each one in the movement of the communion. At the offertory in Holy Mass, some water is mixed with a bigger measure of red wine to help the faithful understand the beauty of his small life caught up into the majesty and purposes of God. At the consecration, mere symbolism ends, and bread and wine, the work of human hands, become presence of God by the power of the Holy Spirit: If the work of human hands can become presence of God, there is also no limit to how far God will go with the human person, itself the work of his divine hands. At communion, man welcomes into his very life God himself in the Holy Eucharist.

Sadly, Corpus Christi—communion and feast—will have a hard time reaching fulfilment if it remains to a human being—to use the expression of Jewish philosopher Martin Buber in the exceptional “I and Thou”—an experience and not a relation. If to someone, Corpus Christi remains a mere experience, then it will be nothing more than an annual solemnity, at best an hour-long affair every Sunday, with a half-hour extra on each weekday. After all, outside of formal worship hours, people have countless other private and public experiences to go through. Corpus Christi ends up as just another experience for every selfish “I.”

On the other hand, Corpus Christi becomes resplendent when the Christian takes his stand in the feast and in the communion as relation. Picture a public servant who lives Corpus Christi not as just another event in his organizer but as the sacred “Thou” (again, Buber’s term) who addresses him and holds him answerable in love for every thought he thinks and deed that he does, for how his and his fellows’ being unfolds. That public servant will certainly be a bane to graft, corruption and the lust for power.

“And just as prayer is not in time but time in prayer, sacrifice not in space but space in sacrifice, and to reverse the relation is to abolish reality, so with the man to whom I say Thou. I do not meet with him at some time and place or other,” the Jewish Buber wrote. In Christian terms, this simply means that we ultimately relate to each other in Christ. We are not just populations in the census of the National Statistics Office, employment or unemployment figures in the rolls of the Department of Labor and Employment, items in a Commission on Elections list of voters, tax sources for the Bureau of Internal Revenue. As the David Haas song puts it, “We are the Body of Christ.”

This Corpus Christi reality applies to the life of every Christian, man or woman, young or old. For in fact, Corpus Christi is the sacrament of relation. Saint Paul says in one of his epistles that Christ on the cross reconciled peoples and made them one. Corpus Christi, the sacrificed and resurrected Jesus enveloping and poured out into every Christian is where the reconciling work of God continues. In his Body and Blood given away to all, Christ addresses every person, and waits for answers from each in free works of justice, love and peace that set aright their relation to him and to one another.

Home Life: ending the day right

2009-05-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

(First printed in Cebu Daily News Life! Thursday, May 28, 2009)

Will all these work for those who necessarily overwork, the ones who work the graveyard shift, or the habitual (because only productive when so) night owls? Perhaps, depending on how elements of ending the day right can be integrated into their lives. At the very least, the subjective well-being of everyone else will be greatly enhanced by a lifestyle that complements the burning desire to relax and be at peace at the onset of eventide.

Fellowship at the meal table or the living room instead of rushing into individual rooms when one has gone home is a way not only of ridding oneself of the stresses of a bygone day. It also strengthens relational bonds between people. Talking with workmates or schoolmates on the way home should be the prelude to exchanging accounts of the adventures of the day with family at home.

With some imaginative multi-tasking (this is not just for the workplace), good household conversation can also take place before or after dinner, say, while together tending the garden, preparing supper, setting and cleaning the table, washing dishes or feeding the pets. If getting apprised of the day’s news cannot be helped, this need not be a communication barrier. A family can discuss what’s coming out of the television.

After the common hours, one can spend time in reading, exercise, or some other light, relaxing hobby. The good that comes from reading an inspirational or storybook is not just entertainment or the broadening of one’s mind. A story can reveal an insight or two into one’s life and relationships, especially where one’s true story finds a storybook parallel, or where one’s aspirations are mirrored in the character of a tale. Exercise not only keeps one fit but also helps keep up one’s mood, the better to relate with people at or outside the home. The products of a hobby – a poem, a song, a sculpture, embroidery – can be future tokens of love and friendship.

Examining the day is also an important practice for ending it well. One should not wonder at those who brim with a seemingly otherworldly lightness in spite of their heavy responsibilities day after day. A healthy self-consciousness through a nightly examination of the day has got a lot to do with it. It helps by looking at the past day, to appreciate where one has grown and where one may grow further as a human person, if given the gift of another morn.

The examination can be done in different ways. Celebrity host Oprah Winfrey once said at the end of the day she makes it a point to remember everyone whom she met with during that day. One can do so and whisper, or write down a word or two of thanksgiving for the people one meets in a day: when one so chooses, one can see the lesson that person has imparted during the time of meeting.

Traditional liturgies draw one into an “examination of conscience.” One can go through this with the perspective in mind of the science fiction and fantasy writer Madeleine L’Engle who said, “In the evening of life we shall be judged on love.” One can take the questions from Leo F. Buscaglia’s “Love Quiz” as examination guides:

Is anyone a little happier because I came along today? Did I leave any concrete evidence of my kindness, any sign of my love? Did I try to think of someone I know in a more positive light? Did I help someone to feel joy, to laugh, or at least, to smile? Have I attempted to remove at least a little of the rust that is corroding my relationships? Have I gone through the day without fretting over what I don’t have and celebrating the things I do have? Have I forgiven others for being less than perfect? Have I learned something new about life, living, or love?

After the exam comes the night prayer. As Max Ehrmann says in his "Desiderata," one ought to be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be.

The Ascension and web friends

2009-05-24T03:34:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, May 24, 2009

Traditionally, in memory the completion of Jesus’ stay with his disciples for 40 days since his Resurrection, the fortieth day of Easter, always a Thursday, is celebrated as the Solemnity of the Ascension, Jesus’ return to our heavenly Father. In many countries as in ours, this great feast has been transferred by the Church to the Sunday after the said Thursday so that everyone—including those who normally work on weekdays—can meaningfully join in its celebration.

On Ascension Thursday or Sunday, the gospel that is proclaimed speaks not only about Jesus’ rising to the skies and – to use the language of instant messaging hobbyists – going on invisible mode. The gospel too quotes or recounts Jesus’ command for his followers to go out into the whole wide world to proclaim the good news to every creature. The news is the same as the news of Christmas: God is with us (always news because the heart ever has density to lose in order to let that divine update sink in with greater depth).

Yet Jesus’ ascension into heaven imparts to us the grace of experiencing by faith the corollary of God’s being with us: In Christ, we are already with God. If Christmas is explicitly “God is with us” day, Ascension is explicitly “we are with God” day. Christ, victorious over sin, death, and the enemy, assuming in himself our humanity with all its experiences, its scars and its glories, keeps us in himself even as he sits at the right hand of the Father. Hence the beloved Catholic expression “God became man to make man participate in his divine life.”

Spreading the good news is a chief means of that participation, that celebration. If Saint John the Baptist leapt for joy in Saint Elizabeth’s womb as she heard the Blessed Virgin Mary’s greeting during the Visitation (a feast that we normally celebrate on May 31), signs too will accompany those who believe the good news and hasten, as Mary did to her cousin, to pass it on by word and service. In Jesus’ name they will overcome devils, stay safe amid perils, and heal the sick. The signs are up to God. The mission is up to us.

In 1967, the great missionary Pope Paul VI inaugurated the First World Day of Communications, since then always celebrated on the Solemnity of the Ascension, to help mankind ever rediscover how vital communication is for its good and as a continuation of the love story of God and man.

Today, Pope Benedict XVI offers light for the communication of the life of Christ in the digital era. The theme of the pope’s message for the 43rd World Day of Communications is: “New Technologies, New Relationships. Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue, and Friendship.”

The pontiff’s message resonates in a special way for us who are a part of the growing population of netizens in social networks (like Facebook, which various sources say is on-line home to between 600,000 to over a million Filipinos, or Friendster, which is said to host about 13 million of our compatriots).

The Pope says: “The concept of friendship has enjoyed a renewed prominence in the vocabulary of the new digital social networks that have emerged in the last few years. The concept is one of the noblest achievements of human culture. It is in and through our friendships that we grow and develop as humans. For this reason, true friendship has always been seen as one of the greatest goods any human person can experience. We should be careful, therefore, never to trivialize the concept or the experience of friendship.”

Thus the pontiff cautions: “If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development.”

Finally, Benedict re-echoes to young people Jesus’ great commission for his followers to spread the gospel: “It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent.’ Be sure to announce the Gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm. You know their fears and their hopes, their aspirations and their disappointments: the greatest gift you can give to them is to share with them the ‘Good News’ of a God who became man, who suffered, died and rose again to save all people. Human hearts are yearning for a world where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion. Our faith can respond to these expectations: may you become its heralds! The Pope accompanies you with his prayers and his blessing.”

Indeed, if on-line social networks are to flourish meaningfully, these should find their model in the Son who in himself makes us a communion of saints and in his homecoming to the Father and sending of the Holy Spirit made us a part of that timeless network of love we call the Holy Trinity.

Open Doors

2009-04-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, April 19, 2009

Today is the Octave of Easter, also known since the canonization of Saint Faustina of Kowalska by Servant of God John Paul the Great early in this millennium as Divine Mercy Sunday.

Saint John the Evangelist in today’s gospel speaks of the disciples hiding, out of fear, behind locked doors. Nights after Jesus’ crucifixion, uncertain of his resurrection, they hid themselves, afraid that persecution by Jewish authorities will overtake them, the followers of the crucified one.

Jesus comes to relieve their fear with his mercy, appearing in the midst of his scared friends, breaching the barred doors. The disciples felt joy. There’s no need to be afraid because the Master is alive, and the risen one came not to berate the disciples for abandoning him at the moment of the passion, but to give them the greeting of peace, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the commission to bring the good news to all, to take their turn, after Jesus, as the ones sent into the world to bring it back to God. On the day of Pentecost, the disciples would be the ones to open the doors of the upper room and preach to a universal audience salvation by being baptized in the name of the crucified and resurrected Savior.

All these happened because Jesus first opened the doors of his heart to the world. As we pray in the daily three o’ clock prayer: “You died Jesus, but the source of life flowed out for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world.” This opening is definitively the piercing of Christ’s heart, so that on the first Good Friday, blood and water (the Church of Word and Sacraments - and of the Holy Spirit as Saint John implies in the second reading), the fullness of mercy, gushed forth once and for all those who sought it.

By providential design, we see in the picture of Jesus the Divine Mercy a resurrected God-man emerging from an open door – a reminder of the opening up of heaven to man because of Jesus’ self-giving.

In the book of Genesis, we know that a revolving sword helped block any one's re-entry to Eden after Adam and Eve were exiled. But paradise is restored to us through Jesus, who took that sword, so to speak, so that death would no longer be the frustration of man’s departure from the valley of tears.

This reality of the re-establishment of God’s intimacy with man is re-echoed and re-presented in manifold gospel images: the veil of the Temple that was torn just as Jesus gave up his Spirit, the tombstone that Mary Magdalene, some of Jesus’ female disciples, and Saints Peter and John found rolled away on the first Easter morning, and finally in the scars of the wounds of the crucifixion that Jesus retained after he rose from the dead: scars open for Thomas to touch and pierce with his hands, open to welcome those seeking refuge from the world, the flesh and the evil one; scars - a response that came before the prayer was written which runs: “Hear me Jesus, hide me in thy wounds that I may never leave thy side.”

***

While looking up today’s readings on www.universalis.com – a website that makes available the daily Mass readings, the Liturgy of the Hours, and the Office of Readings, I came across a beautiful homily for Divine Mercy Sunday written by the Servant of God John Paul the Great.

The homily in part reads: “It is not easy to love with a deep love, which lies in the authentic gift of self. This love can only be learned by penetrating the mystery of God’s love. Looking at him, being one with his fatherly heart, we are able to look with new eyes at our brothers and sisters, with an attitude of unselfishness and solidarity, of generosity and forgiveness. All this is mercy!”

The previous pope adds: “It is this love which must inspire humanity today, if it is to face the crisis of the meaning of life, the challenges of the most diverse needs and, especially, the duty to defend the dignity of every human person. Thus the message of divine mercy is also implicitly a message about the value of every human being. Each person is precious in God’s eyes; Christ gave his life for each one; to everyone the Father gives his Spirit and offers intimacy.”

***

Four years ago today, the doors of the central loggia of Saint Peter’s Basilica opened out to a waiting world for the much awaited announcement “Habemus Papam!”

Time flies indeed. As we close the fourth and open the fifth year of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, let us continue to pray for all with faith, hope, and love in the one who opened the doors of his mercy so that the gates of Hades will never prevail against his beloved bride, the Church, and all people of good will.

Trapp(ist)ed by Easter

2009-04-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos

CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH

Sunday, 29 March 2009

ROCHESTER, New York—Today, the Fifth Sunday of Lent ushers in Passiontide, the last two weeks before Easter. Around this period on the Catholic liturgical calendar, statues and icons in many churches, chapels, and oratories are all covered in purple cloths to signify the faithful’s entry into nothing else of salvation history but its heart: the passion, death, and resurrection of the one image of the invisible God, Jesus Christ.

I received fresh insight into this central Paschal mystery during a retreat conference with Fr. Jerome Machar, author of “Cross of Christ, Tree of Life: A Sacred Reading of the Story of Redemption.” Fr. Jerome is the guest master and prior—second-in-command after the abbot or head monk—of the Abbey of the Genesee, a monastery of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO). Also called Trappists after Our Lady of La Trappe, the community of monks are situated in Piffard, an hour’s drive from this town.

My nearly six days in the monastery that once hosted two of my most-admired Christian writers – Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen – were spent both on a personal Lenten retreat and to prepare a Holy Saturday preaching for the youth of the Verbum Dei Missionary Family in Cebu. The preaching is on being free to love and helping others achieve the required freedom by living the evangelical counsels of simplicity of life, purity of heart, and faithfulness to God’s will. The counsels are respectively better known as poverty, chastity and obedience.

The 2,400-acre, river and lake irrigated, forested and wildlife populated Genesee (an Indian word which means “beautiful riverbanks”) provides a monastic context for the practice of these gospel counsels that Jesus and the Church offers as means to achieve perfectae caritatis, i.e., perfection in loving. In their enclosure, more than 30 monks in the tradition of Saint Benedict live a life of intimacy with God in brotherhood, hospitality (they host individuals and groups on retreat), sacred reading (they have a library of more than 30,000 titles), manual labor (they work on a huge farm, “Monk’s Bread” bakery and gift shop), the Liturgy of the Hours and the Holy Eucharist.

Immersed in this deeply spiritual atmosphere, I recalled as I prepared the preaching how I have come over the years to visualize poverty, chastity and obedience as three nails by which one’s old self is crucified so that the disciple of Christ can grow in claiming as Saint Paul did: “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. This life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself to me.” (Galatians 2:19-20)

I learned something new about "crucifixion by the counsels" so to speak while mustering the courage to illustrate points of the preaching with episodes from my own Christian journey. It takes a good reserve of fortitude to propose one’s own stories as light for the world. The fledgling preacher agonizes over whether or not his testimony is weighty enough, over the strangeness of going public with memories which, though cherished, he is used to sharing with a select few, and over the possibility of being dismissed as either a fool or a hypocrite.

Addressing my discomfiture after I presented a first draft of the preaching, the big, bald, bearded, gregarious Fr. Jerome, a Trappist monk for 23 years and counting, said something to this effect:

“Well Jesus himself was stripped. It was original sin that first caused man to cover himself up. Before that, he had no cause for shame. Adam and Eve were naked before God. Jesus took away our sin, our shame. If we are to be proclaimers of the word, we are to be stripped in love before our brothers and sisters like Jesus who, stripped and wounded, identified himself with us and was not ashamed of it. He even kept the [healed] wounds. After rising from the dead he kept the scars.”

The priest monk’s words more than assuaged my apprehensions. True enough, bringing to light God’s redeeming work in one’s life is a debt of love and gratitude that one ought to settle with a witness impervious to imagined phantoms of prospective ridicule and cowardly shame. He whose life has experienced being led by the hand out of perdition ought to be indifferent to the crowd within and without trying to silence his testimony. His life has been claimed by its rightful owner so that what he shares is no longer his private property but is under his stewardship for God’s glory and the good of God’s people. It has become a chapter showing his contemporaries that God’s saving work is in progress to even now: that God continues to fill the hungry with good things, lead the pure-hearted to see and serve him in everyone, and empower the humble to be part of his greater scheme for things.

So come Holy Saturday or Glorious Saturday, Sabado de Gloria in many a Philippine tongue, I will be weaving into the wider preaching theme of God becoming man so that man might share in his divine life, some scenes from my own continuing journey: from possessiveness to sharing of time, talent and treasure, from a hedonistic view to a gospel perspective of human relationships, from obedience to the demands of personal ambition to obedience to God’s will as revealed in prayerful discernment with his Church.

Preaching in a testimonial fashion is a way of being stripped, of laying down one’s life for whosoever may benefit from it, of getting buried. It is a way of participating in the suffering of Jesus. As Fr. Jerome said, “You are looking for a Christianity without pain. That is not faith. In the Easter Triduum we have seen the worst, the cross, the tomb. The cross means death to greed, death to sex, death to self. If the tomb is empty, if death is not the final word, then maybe I can give dying a try.”

The Christian witness, dying in making his God-touched life an open book, can take much solace in the reality that our Lord’s very Pass-over culminated in a tomb that held nothing more than his cast-off burial linen.

Lent: an inside story

2009-02-27T22:01:00.000-08:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, March 01, 2009

HOUSTON, Texas—Social commentators have dubbed our time as the “information age,” an era unfolding on the stage of a “globalized world” inhabited by peoples with a predominant “media culture.” Some homes in this city, the fourth largest in the United States of America, exemplify the milieu.

Within the said dwellings, whether or not Fox television is slated to broadcast the popular singing contest “American Idol” may significantly determine the plot of a working person’s weekday evening. That person’s mood, too, may be aggravated if she happened to be someone who did not vote for sitting US President Barack Obama at the country’s elections last November and the “Idol” telecast is pushed back by 24 hours to make way for the live airing of the chief executive’s address to the nation on economic revival. Obama’s stimulus plan is something that our working person frowns upon on account of possibly implying greater tax contributions from and lower take-home pays for her.

But our working person may take some consolation in fresh memories of the laughter she shared with friends over luncheon while their eyes and ears were engaged by the noontime local TV news of how a pet owner had to call in the cops to calm a chimpanzee gone berserk. She may also choose, on another night, to rid herself of negative energy by hyperventilating with indignation (not necessarily righteously delivered or intended) about how some Oscar awardees hijacked segments of the well-produced show to flaunt their advocacy of same-sex marriages.

Even so, vast, quietly spreading pockets of hope continue to thrive in many places in our showy, ultra-mundane, media-confused age. In the case of our supposed Houston everyman, “Boob tube-, Playstation- and Xbox 360-struck” are only partial descriptions. Saving grace is at hand for him, in that part of him which belongs to the States’ actively evangelical “Bible Belt,” a part that may or may not be a member of the parish of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton under the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, which is headed by Daniel Cardinal DiNardo.

Less than a fortnight ago, the church, which offers Holy Mass in Vietnamese, Spanish or English, heard, through the ministry of 10 diocesan and Basilian priests, the first individual confessions of about 300 of its children and teenagers. Their First Reconciliation Day received poetic affirmation from the weather: Winds tailing a cold front ushered in passing winter rain showers that not only signalled the imminence of spring to squirrels, birds and people but also evoked the divine mercy that touches both the good and the wicked.

It is this mercy that the Christian is called to live with greater depth in this Holy Season of Lent. The Lenten penitential practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, while ultimately communitarian in their ends, should be lived with that personal intensity which philosopher Soren Kierkegaard calls “inwardness.” Inwardness has nothing to do with being anxious to the point of paranoia or scrupulosity to hide one’s Lenten or non-Lenten asceticism, but has everything to do with spiritual interiority, being on the road of intimate friendship with the Lord.

The Christian’s response to God should be personal in the sense of aiming at pleasing God and not at pleasing crowds, though it may be public in obedience to our Lord who named each of his followers the light of the world. Nowadays, the Lenten Fast is publicly proclaimed, just as a fast of repentance was publicly enjoined in the time of the prophet Joel, not so that righteousness may be self-righteously showboated before human eyes, but so that as many individual hearts as possible may be broken and penetrated by him who loves truth in the heart, who in the quiet and secret of our hearts can teach us wisdom: Christ who is the Truth and is Wisdom himself.

The Lenten exercises have no meaning outside their being our collaboration in God’s work of opening our hearts to the Son of Man who seeks its depths—molded by our Heavenly Father—as the place to lay his head. This is why our fasting, praying, and giving fail when made a spectacle of just like every other publicity stunt, act of keeping up appearances, item of media curiosity or political gimmickry: To do so would be to treat one’s heart cheaply, selling it for the price of fickle audience adulation when the real, promised prize of the heart’s training is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit commended to our heavenly Father's hands by Jesus Christ as he breathed his last on Golgotha.

If we go for the promised prize, we will gain the joy of realizing that, in the words of Saint Paul, now is the acceptable time of salvation. We will have let our hearts be broken open through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, to the One who, in letting his heart be pierced by a soldier’s lance one Friday afternoon nearly 2,000 years ago, first unleashed in the flesh the floodgates of divine mercy upon our love-starved world.

God always honors our sincere, though imperfect efforts at renunciation of self for love of him and our neighbor. This honoring comes in our increasingly “felt” presence in our hearts of the Crucified and Risen One, our reception in the Spirit, indeed in the Eucharist, of Christ’s most meaningful and empowering dying and rising. Thus are we enabled in turn to become saving manna for one another on this exodus towards eternity in the deserts of our time.

Glory of Love

2009-02-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

GLIMMERS FROM PATMOS

Cebu Daily News Faith

Sunday, 15 February 2009

HOUSTON, Texas—Urgent clan matters unexpectedly got me here in the middle of the Lone Star State before January came to a close. The days of the Church's Ordinary Time now creep towards the northern hemisphere's spring, and while softer rains have come, chill winds to reckon with, tails of this subtropical territory's frequent midwinter frosts still greet one at the break of morn.

A cursory glance at newspapers here show hawk-eyed coverage of United States President Barack Obama's near-trillion dollar plan to reinvigorate the union's (and the world's) wintering economy. While pundits dissect and debate the nitty-gritty of his supposed rescue plan for the peoples of the world which hopefully will work out well after some time, the Holy Father Benedict XVI on the other side of the Atlantic has been constantly and with summer brilliance pointing all people of good will to the message behind the crisis in the here and now along the lines of his New Year's Day or World Day of Peace message. The theme of that message is "Fighting poverty to build peace." It partly reads (italics in the Pontiff's original document): "If the poor are to be given priority, then there has to be enough room for an ethical approach to economics on the part of those active in the international market, an ethical approach to politics on the part of those in public office, and an ethical approach to participation capable of harnessing the contributions of civil society at local and international levels."

Let us hope that leaders everywhere, especially in the Philippines (rocked by yet another corruption scandal, this time involving World Bank funds), may live the essence of that quote. When they do, they will not only blaze like the sun at high noon on a fine midsummer in the pages of history: their actions will also glorify God, as all of our life should. In the words of Saint Paul in today's second reading: "Whatever you eat, then, or drink, and whatever else you do, do it all for the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)

***

The glory of God and the peace of man is the whole point of Jesus' avoidance of the limelight in today's Gospel episode (Mark 1:40-45). After curing a man with a virulent skin disease out of deep love and compassion, our Lord sternly instructed that man to tell no one save for the priest in the Temple about his cleansing, that he may in accord with the Law of Moses and in silence give evidence in favor of his reintegration with society. In this Jesus showed his characteristic humble service, absent any triumphalism vis-à-vis his divinity.

But the healed man "started freely proclaiming and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but stayed outside in deserted places. Even so, people from all around kept coming to him."

Thus ended a scene wherein we understand in Jesus a number of important details about the face of true love. The first of these details is that love always responds out of deep compassion for the suffering in word and deed: Jesus spoke and actualized his willingness to cure, thus also deepening the credence of his words "You are clean already, by means of the word that I have spoke to you." (John 15:3) Second, love looks not only towards the beloved's apparent need but also to his deeper need (in the healed man's case, spiritual purification). Third, love is an open circle: Jesus' healing of the man with the skin disease destroyed his status, or lack thereof, as a social outcast. Fourth, love offers healing and guidance for the good of the beloved even if such guidance may be shunned: Jesus, prophet as well as king and priest gave the man detailed instructions for silence and rehabilitation after his healing although the Lord already knew that the man would not keep quiet. Fifth, love does not rest on its laurels: Jesus' stay in deserted places evokes his prayerful, ascetical battles that began in the desert to reject Satan's empty promises of mundane splendor and be faithful to our heavenly Father's will. Sixth, love wary of the cult of celebrity is generated by a personal, intimate encounter with the Savior, not by a madding crowd's hankering after a perceived demagogue: Jesus' stay in deserted places also evokes love's invitation for each of us to be sure to be connected to him in a personal way: "I am going to seduce her and lead her into the desert and speak to her heart." (Hosea 2:16)

***

The glory of God is the glory of love. Love of God is also love of country. It is providential for Filipinos that the Season of Lent this year begins on February 25, the 23rd anniversary of the peaceful and prayerful EDSA People Power Revolution. May the Holy Season which begins on Ash Wednesday 10 days from today lead us to extend prayer, fasting, and almsgiving for ever-widening circles of people, and not just the ones we are familiar with in our homeland.

Candlemas

2009-02-04T12:55:00.000-08:00

A meditation on the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord, Monday, February 2, 2009

While today is the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, the ways leading to Catholic churches are lined with vendors selling prettily painted candles for tomorrow's Feast of the Presentation, known here and in several Romance-language territories the world over as Candelaria. The English speaking Christians call this feast Candlemas. This celebration of the child Jesus' presentation in the Temple by Saint Joseph and Mama Mary also honors the virgin mother's purification. Showing deep humility before God and man, the impeccable Mother of the Redeemer fulfilled the precepts of the law laid down by Moses that required the ritual purification of Jewish mothers following childbirth.

***

Growing up as Catholics in the Philippines, we go through many instances for lighting candles. In the season of Advent, we use three purple and one pink candle, one each for the four Sundays before Christmas. Some people light a white candle for Christmas Day itself. In the 50 days of the Easter season, the Easter candle burns in churches, its fire blessed during the vigil that follows Black Saturday. From this very candle we light the baptismal ones. Procession routes, when used, become a moving, sparkling, candlelight stream. Outside major liturgies, in thanksgiving or petition, we light votive candles before statuaries, in church gardens, and on tombstones and grave markers as we pray for our dear departed, especially on All Saints' and All Souls' Days. All these candles call to mind Jesus Christ, whom we adore in the Creed as "God from from God, light from light."

But the candles of Candlemas symbolize Jesus Christ as the light of the world in its own unique way. It is from the lips of the just man Simeon, who meets the Holy Family in the Temple in Saint Luke's account of the presentation, that we first hear the word "light" used in direct reference to and in the presence of Jesus.

"Lord, now you let your servant go in peace. Your word has been fulfilled," Simeon prays. "My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: A light to reveal you to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel."

No wonder the peoples of the Old Testament would pray, "Lord, let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved." The light of God is neither corpuscles nor waves, as physicists once debated the nature of light to be. Rather, God's light is his very self, flesh and blood in Jesus Christ. Light, in the economy of salvation, is the Holy Trinity.

Simeon recognized God's saving light in Jesus Christ. The just man Simeon's words imply the Christ-child's divinity. This Jesus alone can reveal to the nations the God of whom Simeon was servant. The just man's words too, foreshadow Pentecost, during which the blazing fire of the Holy Spirit enabled the first apostles to proclaim Jesus Christ to the whole known world.

How wonderful it would be if we live our Christianity no longer as candle-bearers during special ceremonies, but also as persons who are shining lights in our very flesh and blood, just like the God whom we worship. In the words of Saint Irenaeus, "the glory of God is man fully alive." When we live up to the standards of Christianity, in Christ-like faith, hope and love, in prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, we do not only become light to one another, but also become God's glory, God's halo, "light of the world," in the words of Jesus.

***

In the poverty of the Holy Family and amid the crowded Temple, Simeon still managed to spot the baby who is Savior of the world. I like to think that the adoring song for the baby Jesus from the two doves (bought by Joseph and Mary and up for offering as part of the purification rites), and perhaps, mirroring Simeon's uprightness and devotion, must have given the holy man some clue to the child's identity. After all, Jesus would have wild animals as well as angels for good company after his days in the desert. What is certain however is that Simeon was guided in looking to the Messiah by a third dove, invisible to the eye in the presentation episode (Luke 2:22-38), but mentioned thrice by the evangelist: the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit rested on Simeon. The Holy Spirit revealed to him that he would not see death till he saw the Christ. The Holy Spirit prompted Simeon to enter the Temple just as Saint Joseph and Mama Mary were about to bring in Jesus in fulfillment of the Law's requirements. In Simeon we see that every person who welcomes Spirit as his guest, trust and leader gets not only to see the Savior but also to touch, to take that Savior into his arms and speak salvation to all. God fulfills his promise and gives more to the one who receives his Spirit. May our lives become worthy not only of seeing but also of cradling our Savior and proclaiming his presence to and for all.

Happy Candlemas!

Christmas spirituality for all time

2009-01-03T15:33:00.001-08:00

GLIMMERS FROM PATMOS
Cebu Daily News Faith
Sunday, 04 January 2009

We are still in the Christmas season. It is wonderful to behold how the years of our civil calendar are made seamless by the festival of the eternal One who, by becoming human, stepped into time. Christmas spills over from one year to another. The Christmastide that began on December 24, 2008 continues today, the second Sunday after the Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Solemnity of the Epiphany 2009. Christmas embracing the beginning and end of every year is a parable that points to the truth we Catholics profess annually in prayer before the lighting of the Easter candle: "Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega, all time belongs to him, and all ages; to him be glory and power, through every age and for ever. Amen."

***

Epiphany means manifestation. In his birth, the Lord of eternity is revealed with crystal clarity as Lord of all of man's time and history too. In the Epiphany, the Messiah of the people of Israel is introduced with undeniable lucidity as Savior of all peoples too. The Magi who came from the East to adore the infant Jesus represents an entire human race called forth by the Holy Spirit – today's shining star, no longer in the sky but a fire blazing in the heart of each of the baptized – to find their salvation at hand in the Holy Child of Bethlehem. He, the Father's Son, speaks to us today in Sacred Scripture, in the Sacraments and teaching of his Mystical Body the Church, in the signs of the times, in the needs of the poor.

***

When we go through the narratives of Jesus Christ's infancy in the Gospel, what I like to call the Christmas narratives, we meet many types of the persons each of us is called to grow more like day by day, year in and year out. Each of these people manifested in their being, in their responses to life's tragedies and comedies, something of the Christ-child they came to adore with joy and thanksgiving. We can draw inspiration for living from these real persons as we set out on our life journeys in the Year of Our Lord 2009.

Mary of Nazareth, Mother of God teaches us the relationship between joy, suffering, and hope. We Filipinos have always rated high on the happiness indices, at one point ranking as Asia's happiest people, even amid much suffering in our land. Mama Mary helps us keep this joy alive. Hers was true joy, an enthusiasm for meeting God in prayer: for the needs of her kin like the childless Saint Elizabeth, for the needs of her country the Roman-colonized Israel, for the needs of her world that long lay pining in sin and error. In her joyful encounter with him for whom nothing is impossible, Mary discovered that she was to be part of God's answer to her prayers. May our God-given enthusiasm for life lead us to prayer, so that each of us will discover ourselves-with-the-Lord as an answer to the concrete needs of our kin, compatriots and world. It will matter not if our joy goes through suffering. It will not be lost. It will simply be turned into unfailing hope, just as Mary's sufferings for Elizabeth, on account of Caesar Augustus' census, and in the search for a birthplace for her Babe all led to her delivery of Christ our hope.

***

Joseph, Husband of Mary and Foster-father of Jesus teaches us the beauty, honor and sacredness of the act of naming. Yesterday we celebrated the Holy Name of Jesus. It was Joseph who gave him his name, as per the message of the angel who spoke to him in a dream. We Cebuanos have a special relationship with this name. Cebu is the City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. Jesus means God saves. The name Joseph gave him is Jesus' reality and identity.

What identities do we confer on each other? What realities do we foist upon one another? It depends on what names we call one another. For those labelled warmongers, people are just collateral damage. For many so-called economists, people are just multitudes, a population, consumers; more, bothersome mouths to feed. For the ones termed bigoted, people are just blacks or whites, Papists or Born Againsts, gay or straight. For some known as politicians, fellow servant leaders are but queens of this or kings of that, and crowds of people are but voters or masa to be used for self-centered machinations. It is for Christians, daily guided by the Holy Spirit and following after Saint Joseph, to name one another in Jesus and therefore to see, treat, and faithfully serve each other as brothers and sisters in Jesus. After all, everyone has the potential to be an instrument for the designs of the God who saves us, the Jesus of whom every Christian is a bodily member.

***

The shepherds symbolize the guardians we are invited to be to each other. Perhaps we can grow weary watching over the people entrusted to us. Perhaps we can grow sick and tired guiding them even in the dark nights of their lives, but it is when we are faithful vanguards to our fellowmen and women, though skies are black, as in current times of economic, social, political, moral and spiritual turbulence, that the angelic call to adoration resounds with greatest urgency. Amid our poverty and brokenness we can, like the shepherds, hearken to the call of the angels and behold the Lamb of God clothed in nothing but swaddling clothes from Mary, sheltered nowhere but in the stable, tucked in the manger for which Joseph settled. We can all find in the simplicity of life that the times demand of us, the Lamb of the Father who, abandoned to the care of his Providence grew as the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. Indeed, when we have nothing more to give to each other but God-with-us, we can reveal in our lives, in our giving of self, as shepherds, as angels, the Christ shepherding us all today.

Advent Q & A with Cardinal Vidal

2008-12-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

GLIMMERS FROM PATMOS

Cebu Daily News Faith

Sunday, 7 December 2008

In many Christian churches, communities and homes across the globe, the second purple candle of the Advent wreath has been lit. This second candle with the hue of eager expectation for and penance for sins against the Messiah is dedicated by some traditions in honor of Bethlehem, the city of Christ’s birth (with the first candle being the prophets’, the third the shepherds’ and the fourth the angels’). Bethlehem means “house of bread.” Fortuitously, the child born in history’s most famous manger would introduce himself as the bread of life.

***

The first week of this season in the archdiocese of Cebu saw much cause for hope and celebration. Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal celebrated his 37th year as bishop with the launching of a second compilation of homilies at the Cebu Grand Convention Center. Leading invited clergy and laity at the launch of “Revelations of a Father’s Heart” on the first day of December was the Apostolic Nuncio or the Vatican’s ambassador to the Philippines, Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams.

I caught up with His Eminence at the parish convent of San Francisco Javier in my ancestral hometown of Alegria on the day of the very saint’s memorial, December 3, yet another providential last-month-of-the-year affair. The cardinal-archbishop had just finished leading the southwestern Cebu town’s fiesta Mass and spending time over lunch in fellowship with townsfolk led by their cure, Rev. Fr. Marion Mejia. The jovial, soft-spoken prelate kindly entertained the set of questions – about his book and this Yuletide among others – that I prepared for this column. Here, the full interview:

You have been our archbishop since the early 1980’s.

1981.

What do you consider has been your greatest legacy as shepherd of the archdiocese so far?

Oh. You know, I would not like to say anything about legacies. It must be the people themselves who would say “this is [his] legacy,” not myself. I just work. I just help. I just try to guide the people, but I do not like to say anything about legacies. It would be a presumption on my part (laughs).

We heard that God willing, you will spend the days of your retirement in Cebu. Is not there anything about your birthplace of Marinduque that you will be missing?

Well of course, even if I did not grow up [there] because I left Marinduque when I was only 14, and I entered the seminary earlier, and all my life was spent in Quezon, where I spent my priesthood, my early priesthood in the seminary for 16 years then I became bishop, then I was transferred to other places, but for me, since the good Cebuanos, the very generous Cebuanos have provided for me a retirement house in Cebu so what can I do (laughs)?

So will we be free to visit you anytime?

Oh yes, why not, why not? Yes (laughs).

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has declared 2008 as the Year of Saint Paul.

Yes.

What is the significance of this in the context of the many difficulties afflicting Filipinos?

Well of course, of course he talks about spiritual and moral things, you know. Saint Paul is very much way ahead of us in thinking about the future, specially preparing the people how to face the future regarding their faith, their morals, and especially their social life by trying to help one another. He even said you have to be subject to your superiors, placed by God in order to govern you. We have to follow them. So he gave many instructions in his letters, and it’s good for us to meditate on that.

In the middle of the financial crisis that is gripping the whole world, what is your message for Filipinos, especially in this Advent and Christmas, when many are feeling poorer?

We usually splurge during Christmas, out of our sense of happiness and joy in making others also happy, noh. But let us be considerate with regards to other people. We must also help them, especially those who are very poor. But as much as possible, we have to restrain our[selves] noh, in order that we will have something also for tomorrow and we will also be able to help others.

In your opinion, have our leaders this 2008 been adequately addressing the moral crises of corruption and absence of truth?

In some ways, noh, but when they go down, usually there is the difficulty in reaching out to those who are down, down, because of those who would be in charge of bringing the message from the top. Those who are there are thinking always about many things in order to help the poor, but when it comes to the realization [of these] down, down, usually the difficulty is with those who are to implement, if they should be prepared to do that.

What are you going to do on Christmas Day?

Well as usual, of course, I have to say the Mass for the people and offer the Mass for them. And then, on Christmas Day, after receiving the greetings of people, and after sharing with them what I have prepared for them, I go to the contemplative communities. I greet them. We have eight contemplative communities, nuns. Since they cannot go out, I go to them and greet them. Yes.

You launched a book recently. What are your hopes for the readers of the book?

(Laughs)It was just a sharing noh, if they find something there to help them and encourage them especially nowadays, when they are down and that would affect even their faith. I hope it will help them also to push them and then increase their faith, their loyalty, their charity towards each other.

Flashback: Let the carols resound far and wide

2008-12-03T21:41:00.000-08:00

(first published in Cebu Daily News Life! Thursday, 27 November 2008)

Sunset of this Saturday, the 29th of November signals the beginning of the Season of Advent 2008, a time of soul-searching in remembrance of the first and in preparation for the coming Christmas, a time to take stock of whether or not one’s life is being lived well, that one may make the necessary corrections.

One cultural feature that does not fail to appear towards the end of the year in our country is that of Christmas carolling. The earliest carollers usually make their appearance at the gates of residences, on the streets and in commuter vehicles at the onset of September, the first of the so-called “-ber” months that together with the Sinulog (January) and Love (February) months, most Filipino Christians equate with Christmas time.

By the last month of the year, almost everyone is inside the carolling bandwagon, either to make some money or simply to have some Christmas fun. It is amid these rationales that we may need to re-apprise ourselves of the meaning of carols, for they did not originate as fundraisers or mere group entertainment activity. Rather carols are hymns glorifying the central Christian belief that God became man in order that man may ascend to the divine by learning true love from the God-man who alone can teach it.

In light of this, perhaps some important changes can be made to our carolling traditions. Whereas oftentimes the affluent have been the “target” of carolling because of the prospect of a high donation from them, and the carollers have often come from the less fortunate members of society, why do not the haves visit the villages and homes of the have-nots to be the ones to carol them?

We need not stop there. There are many more people in circumstances that have barred them from being receivers of Christmas joy in song. Think for instance of prison inmates. In the Cebu provincial jail they are visited by a handful of ministries and relatives, or by those interested to see their dance performances. But are there people from the “good” society who visit our brothers and sisters in prison to sing them Christmas carols? Surely Christmastime has its way of freeing people on either side of the bars.

Or think of those who will be in the hospitals come Christmastime. The penultimate season of healing also has to reach the infirm, and giving them a beautiful celebration of Christmas cannot be left only to those who directly care for them as they already have their hands full. Perhaps a mechanism can be implemented whereby carollers can augment the scientific curative powers of hospitals and medical teams with the healing powers of Christmas hymns sincerely sung.

We can also train our thoughts on those who visit the cities at Christmas. For so many years it has been their tradition to bring the oldest hymns to us. Maybe for a change, city-dwellers, especially chorales can make it their Christmas project to scale the mountains and hills and bring to these places the blessings of their talent.

Beyond the groups of people mentioned so far, there are many more whose Christmas may yet be the best ever. It behooves everyone who understands that the season is about reaching out, about solidarity especially with the oppressed to find ways to share life to them.

Flashback: Brief words to show that you care

2008-11-24T06:54:00.000-08:00

(first published in Cebu Daily News Life! Thursday, 09 October 2008)

In a wordy world like ours, it is not surprising to hear people cynically say by way of complaint that “actions speak louder than words,” “talk is cheap,” or, poetically and tritely, “a picture paints a thousand words.” There is after all no dearth to the count of interrupted relationships, breached contracts, unimplemented political platforms, violated laws, all of which were originally sealed by promising words.

Yet there remain many men and women who in their heart of hearts (having learned the rudiments and experienced the beauty of truthfulness), at least strive for integration between the words they speak and the gestures they show. Oftentimes, successful words given as bonds are nothing spectacular, but are simple greetings, wishes or questions to loved ones that make one work wonders when sincerely spoken and fully meant.

Take for instance the question “How are you?” It’s a phrase that can still be saved from the clutches of virtual automation. The speedy dialogue goes “How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you,” or in Cebuano “Kumusta?” “Maayo” or “OK ra.” Then it’s off to work or a parting of ways for both conversationalists, with the two of them forgetting each other in a split second.

Such an exchange is generally polite and civil enough in many situations, but at its most profound, asking “How are you?” implies the questioner’s availability to listen and/or interact at length with the one of whom he or she asks the question. Listening in and of itself would be a great act of kindness. As Henri Nouwen wrote, “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.”

“How may I help you?” is another question that is either scripted politeness or an interlude towards genuine care. The question has to proceed from the heart before it is uttered by the lips, or whosoever inquires might retreat should the favor asked of him seem difficult or inconvenient to do, which is often the case if it involves possessions. To this J.R.R. Tolkien reminds us, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

Asking someone “How was your day?” signals to that person that you are interested in deeply sharing her or his life. A conversation that tries to look back on a day’s adventures or misadventures can help someone put the events he was part of in proper perspective. It can set him on the road of thanksgiving or help him pick a lesson or two from the bygone day. Along the way you can affirm a person for achievements and encourage him in spite of difficulties.

To tell someone to “Have a nice day” can be more than just a polite way to dismiss a person. It can be the beginning of a whole day of showing another person of his specialness to you in many ways, though you might not see each other for much of the day. In the context of married couples, here are ideas from the Luther Vandross song “Buy Me a Rose”: “If he could only read her mind, she’d say, ‘Buy me a rose, call me from work / Open a door for me, what would it hurt / Show me you love me by the look in your eyes / These are the little things I need the most in my life.’”

The physical touch: love language, Yuletide gift

2008-11-19T20:20:00.000-08:00

(first published in Cebu Daily News Life! Thursday, 20 November 2008)

With the Christmas season which begins on the evening of December 24, 2008 and ends on January 12, 2009 fast approaching, consumer spending aimed at gift-giving and greeting card mailing should be on the rise.

But as reason surmises, the current global economic downturn compels concerned individuals to instead re-engineer how they will go about acquiring and apportioning presents for their significant fellows.

Perhaps, beyond this, it is time hearken to the call of providence for us to pause and reflect on the gift that truly matters. This year's dawn of Yuletide may be the best setting yet for preparing that loving gift of self that no substitute, material or otherwise can ever rival.

Contrary to what the canons of cynicism hold, acts of love involve nothing even remotely close to romantic fluff.

Gary Chapman, an American pastor and author finds loving so concrete that he has inventoried five challenging yet fulfilling "love languages." These are: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch.

Ample evidence supports the belief that the last of the languages stands imperilled nowadays. Myriads of technological gizmos serve as "middlemen" in interpersonal communications, effectively rendering moot many time-honored physical interpersonal gestures.

Consider the panic attack that chilled netizens and swept through the blogosphere when social networking site Friendster crashed over the weekend. Was that not a telling mark of estrangement from the traditional way of associating with family, friends and acquaintances?

Lest the mano po, handshake, hug, pat on the back, chest bump, kiss, backrub, touch of the cheek, ruffling of hair be consigned to exclusively LCD perpetuity, let us preserve these classics of the love language of physical touch through constant practice. Why? Since life and love depend much on it.

Consider: "Numerous research projects in the area of child development have made the conclusion that babies who are held, hugged and kissed develop a healthier physical and emotional life than those who are left for long periods of time without physical contact. I think we all, instinctively, know that that is true," says New Zealand parson Murray Spackman.

In a piece titled "Learning the Languages," Chapman writes: "All marriages will experience crisis. In these cases, physical touch is very important. In a crisis situation, a hug can communicate an immense amount of love for that person. A person whose primary love language is physical touch would much rather have you hold them and be silent than offer any advice."

Relationships-centered holiday lyrics may not be schmaltzy for lucrative schmaltz's sake after all. "But everyday's a holiday / when I'm near to you," sang Karen Carpenter on "Merry Christmas Darling." "Ang pasko ay kay saya kung kayo'y kapiling na / Sana pagsapit ng pasko kayo'y naririto," sang an all start cast on "Sa Araw Ng Pasko." Songs like these echo every Christmas celebrator's longing for the giver more than the gift, and a giver cannot be nearer to his beloved this Christmas than when he speaks to her in the language of physical touch.

Flashback: Mother Nature's Love Imagery

2008-11-16T16:06:00.000-08:00

(first published in Cebu Daily News Life! Thursday, 23 October 2008)

As the morning sun breaks through the east day by day, and sheds the gentlest of its warm rays on the earth, snapping, stirring mountains and plains, rivers and oceans out of night's cold, stilling spell, so love's light, unwavering caress awakens dreamers to their visions, scribes to their poetry, builders to their cities, sufferers to their songs of hope.

As rain-trees, bamboos and the rest of the stalwart woodland hierarchy, buffeted by billowing wind and stamped upon by rain with its million feet in the unscheduled season of storms, not only resist being uprooted but also dig deeper and cleave tighter to solid ground, so one who holds on to love vanquishes tragedy and its hordes even in their shock attacks, and emerges a greater lover.

As thorns surround the stalks and stems of bright flowers and sweet fruits: roses and bougainvilleas, berries and lemons, protecting them from being indiscriminately trampled or consumed by unknowing beasts, or plucked by uncaring human hands, so a sense of modesty and responsibility shields love from an untimely harvest or violent pruning.

As every star that dots and rainbow that curtains the sky glows violet, red and every shade in between, styling in pure hues the shining of the one light, so love comes to man in myriads of ways: the care of his parents, the companionship of his friends, the wisdom of his teachers, the faithfulness of his spouse, the honor of his children, the shelter of his homeland, the grace of his God.

Love, in its persistence, is like sea waves surging onto shores to whiten and refine the hardiest of rocks into pearly or milky beaches that provide respite to many a weary spirit. Though hearts be hardened by pain, minds darkened by fear, souls tarnished by sin and strengths sapped by greed, love yet sees in every woman, man and child the homely house destined to welcome all, erasing every stranger's identity that his being family might be unconcealed.

Love, in its ferocity, is like a mother cat or dog in the first days of kittens and puppies, threatening to creatures many times their size, zealous in guarding their helpless charges. Though the beloved be frail on account of youth or age, poverty or disease, yet the lover unsleeping watches over her, to guide and serve, to enrich and heal with his very flesh, bone, blood, and breath.

Love, in its humility, is like the moon that sails across the lake of night with its brand of gold. It reigns in the heavens yet its supremacy leaves enough places on the canvas of the firmament for the planets, comets, and constellations to come out ablaze and play. Though the beauty and glory of the beloved should far exceed the lover's splendor, yet the latter becomes the encouraging vessel that draws forth the gifts from the loved one's singular well.

Love in its forgiveness, is like the mist of dawn that wraps leaves in the chill fingers of dew, which evaporate in a matter of minutes. Though he might remember the slights that have at times broken his heart, the lover is content to let go of ill memories in the eagerness to make better ones out of which the everlasting road he treads with his beloved is made.

C-CIMPEL:17 years of service

2008-11-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

(The version below which is posted in Blogger, Multipy, and Facebook is complete and unabridged; edited version first published in INQUIRER.net, the official website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Cebu Daily News, Friday, 14 November 2008; excerpts published in Cebu Daily News, Sunday 16 November 2008)

Today, for the first time in its history, members of Cebu Citizens’ Involvement and Maturation in People’s Empowerment and Liberation (C-CIMPEL) will meet and not work. Only thanksgiving and celebration are on its agenda as the church-weaned, non-partisan people’s organization born of the first EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986, which has been a vanguard of credible elections and participative democracy across Cebu celebrates its 17th anniversary.

After greetings from Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal that will be read by archdiocesan Comission on Service head Msgr. Roberto Alesna and an introduction by Judge Gabriel Ingles, a founding C-CIMPEL core group member, Pampanga Governor Eddie “Among Ed” Panlilio will deliver a talk dubbed “Empowering People for Active Citizenship and Good Governance” to about 500 C-CIMPEL volunteers at Sacred Heart Center. The volunteers—38 of them service awardees—will converge from almost all Cebu municipalities and cities.

Today will be a celebration for everyone who has been a part of the civic group, but being festal will not distract them from persevering in their thrust. They will pray, feast on good food, watch an elaborately made historical powerpoint presentation and listen to wondrous songs from the University of Cebu (UC) Chorus and the Order of Saint Augustine’s Fr. Vic Amplayo, but Panlilio’s presence and message is expected to further inspire the group’s advocacy of maximizing Cebuanos’ contribution to governance from the barangays upward. C-CIMPEL’s leaders selected as speaker the governor and priest-on-leave on account of his success in partnering for governance with ordinary citizens in his home province.

The Inquirer Filipino of the Year 2007 had reset Pampanga’s political landscape with a successful pitch for the governorship run on the sheer goodwill of the Kapampangan man-on-the-street, as against the well-oiled traditional political machinery of his rivals, both perceived to possess the backing of Malacanang. His stay in office owes to the vigilance of provincemates resisting maneuvers for his removal that have been counterweighing gains like a P120 million-peso surge in lahar revenues in his first half-year in office.

“We have to monitor our elected officials through membership in the barangay development councils and participation in barangay development planning,” C-CIMPEL executive director Marilu Chiongbian told Cebu Daily News in an interview, wherein she also reiterated that the movement she helps lead is not just a poll watchdog but in between election periods, a formator of people’s consciences for responsible citizenship.

But for now however, she said with a laugh when asked what is in store for them in the coming years, “Allow us to celebrate first.” C-CIMPEL members have never met together except to work for the last seventeen years. In, fact when the core group broached to a fellow volunteer the idea of a gathering to celebrate, she replied, “Salamat, nalamdagan na gyud mo sa Espirito Santo! (Thank you, you were finally enlightened by the Holy Spirit!)” Even when they met for fellowship meals these were but preludes to work related meetings and operations.

There have been about seven national and local elections requiring the dispatchment of up to 23,000 C-CIMPEL members in Cebu. On each of these polls it was given fresh accreditation by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) as a partner in safeguarding the integrity of the ballot. Vote tallies on the sixth copies of election returns from all voting precincts are tabulated by and placed under the long-term stewardship of the volunteer group. These have served as potent deterrents to the fixing of tallies by cheats and incontrovertible resources for the settlement of contested election results.

“Our non-partisan stance is unassailable,” C-CIMPEL core group member and media liaison officer Louella Alix told CDN, explaining the sustained success of the organization. “Elections in Cebu have been perceived as clean, honest and credible.” This, she added, is due to members’ stringent efforts not only to be actually non-partisan but also to be perceived as non-partisan. Members have never publicly revealed which candidates they voted for. Volunteers are identified thrice: first by the organization itself, and also by the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV). Both are COMELEC partners too. Volunteers who turn up at the main office are rarely admitted, instead being sent back to their home parishes to start volunteer work where she or he is known, discouraging infiltration by partisan workers.

In a country where elections are not automated and therefore prone to manipulation, C-CIMPEL staunchly contends with allegations that massive cheating occurred in Cebu. “If there was cheating, it was not massive,” Alix said. C-CIMPEL field volunteers help guard votes in ballot boxes from the precincts up to their transportation to Manila. There is a deeper reason for the community’s contention: They are involved in forming and educating voters over long periods according to Christian values, thus inculcating in the Cebu electorate a high esteem for which translates to hawk-eyed watch over their sacred votes.

Notes on Living from "On Death and Dying"

2008-11-13T10:11:00.000-08:00

(first published in Cebu Daily News Life! Thursday, 13 November 2008)

Groundbreaking when it debuted in 1969, the book “On Death and Dying” by the late medical doctor, psychiatrist and internationally renowned thanatologist (expert on the science regarding death among humans) Elisabeth Kubler-Ross is also, in the words of Life magazine, “A profound lesson for the living.”

The bulk of the philosophical book consists of interviews Kubler-Ross and her students conducted with terminally ill patients. It shows readers that there are five stages in a human being’s coming to terms with the reality that she or he is in the departure area vis-à-vis the present life. The stages are denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

On reflection, the reader may realize that these stages are not only attitudes found among those who face impending death. People with their whole lives ahead of them can also be roughly categorized into denial kings and queens or isolationists, crosspatches, negotiators, the depressed, and those who have accepted life in all its fullness.

Most of Kubler-Ross’ interviewees “reacted to the awareness of a terminal illness at first with the statement, ‘No, not me, it cannot be true.’”

There are times when much younger and healthier people feel similarly. With some candor, a little introspection may disclose to this or that person that though he appears 25 in years, physique and by way of accomplishments and multifarious responsibilities, his heart is still a tender 16. Early adulthood can be shocking to the point that the young adult completely identifies with the young man in Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son”: “Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away.” But Rabindranath Tagore, whom Kubler-Ross quotes, says “Man barricades against himself.” One has to press forward, seeking relational support systems among family, friends and workmates and in the heart so as to bear responsibilities serenely. One cannot be a isolationist, shirking life’s agonies and therefore the glories beyond its pains.

“When the first stage of denial cannot be maintained any longer, it is replaced by feelings of anger, rage, envy, and resentment. The logical next question becomes: ‘Why me?” writes Kubler-Ross.

This is true of those facing death as it is of those facing the surprising vicissitudes of life. Anger can be “displaced in all directions and projected onto the environment at times almost at random.” The “Why me?” is applicable to almost anything: the romantic rejection, the promotion that does not happen, the accidents and illnesses, the losses in competition. In Tagore’s words, “We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.” In this case it is best to be reminded of the true purpose of anger, which is far from inflicting random damage and poison. “The world needs anger,” says Bede Jarrett. “The world often continues to allow evil because it is not angry enough.”

Unsuccessful in escaping life by isolation or manipulating it by anger, the living, like the dying can try a new tactic: bargaining, and failing that, can fall into depression. The best attitude towards life is not even acceptance, which can be equivalent to resignation. The best attitude is hope. Kubler-Ross states: “The one thing that usually persists through all these stages [of coming to accept that one is dying] is hope.” She adds: “It is this glimpse of hope which maintains [us] through days, weeks, or months of suffering. It is this feeling that all this must have some meaning, will pay of eventually if [we] can endure it for a little while longer.”

USA, Muslims, Christians and hope

2008-11-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, November 9,2008

An overseas priest friend recently solicited via Facebook my opinion on the victory of Barack Obama in the recently concluded American presidential elections. I reprint herein in italics my stream-of-consciousness reply to him:

My personal opinion is that this is a defeat for the pro-life cause. Part of Obama's campaign promise is to promote various rights for homosexuals [‘marriage’ in particular] and to protect or promote abortion rights.

On the other hand, this may be a victory for the anti-war cause as part of his promise is to withdraw US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. For sure, as is most obvious, it's a victory for equality of races as Obama is the first Afro-American voted into the US presidency.

I really want to continue to pray for America because their triumphs in terms of racial equality and settling disputes by diplomacy instead of warfare will not be very meaningful if the massacre of the unborn continues, and if the family especially the institution of marriage is being attacked.

I suppose it is a challenge for the Catholic Church to proclaim the truth in a way that does not threaten politicians or people affected. For example aside from preaching against abortion and homosexuality, Catholics should speak and act with equal force in providing alternatives, e.g. help for those who unexpectedly face motherhood, or in the case of gay people, making them see the beauty of womanhood and manhood (I do feel that the Church has been excellent in showing that the opposites are sinful, but I am not so certain if it--especially the laity--has been equally excellent, forceful, and loving in handling the complex brokenness of those who suffer crises of pregnancy or crises of identity).

People have a hard time when all they hear is how they are wrong. They will welcome it much when they are gently held and led by the hand to see how they can be right. There are not too many people who go on a deep search for truth, with all the pressures hitting them on all sides. Not everyone has the time to read all things, but for sure, there can be people who with deep love show their brothers and sisters in error that there are restorative ways out of the lies that they are living.

***

While the global spotlight was on the United States presidential race, the Vatican and leading Muslims have been addressing a top rung concern to Americans and the rest of the world: terrorism. The subject, reports Asia News of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, was among the 15 points carried in the Catholic-Muslim declaration produced at the end of a meeting between 29 Muslims and 29 Catholics at the Vatican from November 4-6.

The theme of the meeting was “Love of God and neighbor.” It covered topics such as religious freedom, defense of the institution of the human family, and the global economic crisis. In light of conflicts that can be greatly helped by religious tolerance as in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States is heavily involved, as well as Palestine, Sudan, India and the Philippines, the 11th item of the joint declaration is a great development: “We profess that Catholics and Muslims are called to be instruments of love and harmony among believers, and for humanity as a whole, renouncing any oppression, aggressive violence and terrorism, especially that committed in the name of religion, and upholding the principle of justice for all.”

If the letter of the declaration will be kept alive in spirit (let our prayers implore so), great strides will be made in the pursuit of world peace. Of course, as analysts have been saying, this declaration is monumental, a milestone, a great departure from the conflicts in 2005 over cartoons in Denmark of the prophet Muhammad, and over Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 speech in Germany that featured quotes linking Islam and violence.

***

Days before the Catholic-Muslim meeting, Christianity’s leaders have been busy working to heal centuries-old divisions that many times tragically escalated into war. The XII General Synod or world meeting of bishops at the Vatican from October 5-28 included not only Roman Catholic clergy, religious and laity, but also the eloquent and venerable Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, leader of all Orthodox Christians and about a dozen fraternal delegates from the Orthodox and Reformed Churches. The theme of the synod was “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.” Pivotal to the synod was the point that Christianity is not a religion of the book, but a religion of the Word, who as Saint John says “became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)

The ecumenical patriarch’s address during the October 18 vespers or evening prayer in which he was co-presider with the pope bears repetition, reflection and enactment. Here’s an excerpt: “The challenge before us is the discernment of God’s Word in the face of evil, the transfiguration of every last detail and speck of this world in the light of Resurrection. The victory is already present in the depths of the Church, whenever we experience the grace of reconciliation and communion.”

Bartholomew added: “As we struggle – in ourselves and in our world – to recognize the power of the Cross, we begin to appreciate how every act of justice, every spark of beauty, every word of truth can gradually wear away the crust of evil. However, beyond our own frail efforts, we have the assurance of the Spirit, who ‘helps us in our weakness’ (Romans 8:26) and stands beside us as advocate and ‘comforter’ (John 14:6), penetrating all things and ‘transforming us’ – as St. Symeon the New Theologian says – ‘into everything that the Word of God says about the heavenly kingdom: pearl, grain of mustard seed, leaven, water, fire, bread, life and mystical wedding chamber.’”

Living hope for loved ones in eternity

2008-11-05T12:28:00.000-08:00

By Jason A. Baguia
(first published in Cebu Daily News, November 6, 2008)

By all accounts as it is already sixth of November, people’s expectations now veer towards the direction of Christmas, just a little over a month from today. Less than 60 years ago and backward however, a date as this fell within what was known as the Octave of All Saints, the first eight days of November when Catholics celebrated all departed holy people, known and unknown, possibly including a number of their kith and kin.

Today, an important vestige of the octave remains. As we are already assured of the prayers of people in heaven (all of them now celebrated from the evening of October 31 up to the end of November 1), the first till eighth of November is now, wisely, dedicated to our remembering and praying for those who have gone before us into the next life but are still in transit, so to speak, to heaven.

This is part of the light of love that Christianity witnesses to, in stark contrast to the fear-driven rituals that prevailed in many pagan communities of antiquity, such as those of the Lemuralia festival of the imperial Romans, a triduum of exorcisms of dreadful, harmful, restive spirits of the dead, apparently a precursor of the themes on which modern, secular Halloween celebrations are based.

Profound remembrance of our beloved departed is encouraged by the Church in these words: “An indulgence, applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory, is granted to the faithful, who devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, even if only mentally, for the departed. The indulgence is plenary each day from the 1st to the 8th of November; on other days of the year it is partial.” (Other Grants of Indulgences, no. 13, Enchiridion of Indulgences)

The paragraph from the Enchiridion presents to us two significant things with regard to the practice of expressing our love for those who no longer live with us. First, that keeping prayerful remembrance of them by visiting the places where their remains lie is encouraged any time of the year. Second, that in the visit to a cemetery or the coemeterii visitatio we are keeping those who have passed away a part of our lives in a manner like unto gift: its spiritual benefits are directly for them.

Pope Benedict XVI, in the encyclical “Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope)” wrote words to help us understand our continuing relationship with the departed who are on their way to heaven: “The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of gratitude or even a request for pardon?”

Added the pontiff: “[N]o man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification.”

Mission is a matter of love

2008-10-21T00:18:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos

Cebu Daily News Faith

Sunday, 19 October 2008

Today the Catholic world celebrates World Mission Sunday, the theme of which, formulated by Pope Benedict XVI is "Servants and apostles of Christ Jesus." This theme is drawn from Saint Paul's description of himself in his mission to the world outside Jerusalem during the seminal days of the Christian faith.

Benedict's letter to all men and women for today is divided into four sub-topics: (a) the world is in need of liberation (b) the mission is a matter of love (c) evangelize always (d) woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. This corresponds to the commandment revealed to the people of Israel and affirmed by Christ himself as the greatest of all: Love the Lord your God with all your mind, with all your heart, with all your strength and with all your soul.

With all your mind. The mission – of telling the world of the grace and mercy of Christ crucified, risen and coming again – will not proceed in the absence of the intellectual conviction that it is a necessity. One does not go about campaigning for the liberation of a people whom one believes is already free. Loving God with the whole mind entails embracing the truth of Christ and in light of that truth acknowledging the multi-layered falsity of worldly values such as materialism, consumerism, hedonism, nihilism or moral relativism.

With all your heart. Knowledge of the need for the conversion of reality alone is not enough to fulfil Christ's commission to go out into the world and baptize people in the Name of the Holy Trinity, and to teach them all that Christ commanded. The mission also needs to be affective. It is not simply a matter of counselling or healing, exorcising and uttering inspirational words. It is a matter of the heart. A mission run on mind, a mission without heart is destined to burn out. Christ assures all commissioned that He will be with them always until the end of the age precisely because the mission has to flow from a vibrant relationship with him. If it does not start with him, it will not end through, with, and in him.

With all your strength. Evangelization should be done always. Mother Angelica of EWTN repute says "The essence of evangelization is to tell a person: 'God loves you.'" Saint Francis of Assisi is said to have spoken: "Preach at all times, using words if necessary." Whether in words or in deeds, the Christian is to proclaim the love of the Lord. In the penitential rite of the Holy Mass, Catholics ask forgiveness for sins committed in thoughts, words and deeds, and even for deeds not done. This is because the Christian ought to think, speak, do, and not do on account of the Lord and his message. Mission is a way of life. It is the core of the Christian identity.

With all your soul. Saint Paul said "Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel," because to tell the world of God's love is itself being on the everlasting way. It is the fullness of life, such that any other path, every non-loving path is most certainly a depravation of the soul from the abundant life.

Solve greed, not so-called overpopulation

2008-09-30T06:25:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
CEBU DAILY NEWS FAITH
Sunday, September 28, 2008

"The limited resources of the country cannot be suffered to, be spread so thinly to service a burgeoning multitude that makes the allocations grossly inadequate and effectively meaningless," says section 3e of House Bill no. 5043 better known as the reproductive health bill.

Is it really our large population that makes the Philippine national budget "grossly inadequate and effectively meaningless?"

Consider: In the area of healthcare, "kickbacks from the purchase of drugs given to local officials range from 10 to 70 percent of the contract price" (Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 2005). In the area of taxation, "It is estimated that for every PHP 2000 of taxes due, only half is collected: 500 is lost to corruption" (Global Integrity: Philippines Country Report, 2006). In the arena of government projects, "The total amount lost to corruption between 1995 and 2000 was estimated at PHP 609 billion" (Business Anti Corruption Portal, 2008). "The World Bank has estimated that about P30 billion is lost to corruption every year in the Philippines" (Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 15).

The resources of the country are not spread thinly to service a burgeoning multitude. These are spread thickly over a tiny, rich (and often politically well-connected) minority, many of whom have the audacity to let their tummy burgeon while the rest of the nation grows hungrier.

It's not the multitudinous poor who drain the nation's resources. To these they have bare access. To put thing's into perspective: "Since 1985, the richest quintile (fifth) of the population has consistently commanded more than 50 percent of total family income in the country, with the poorest quintile having less than 5 percent (Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 15)." Poverty persists not because people continue to be born, but because a greedy few continue to hoard resources; not because babies become but because scrooges prevail.

The gospel (Luke 9:43-45) yesterday, the memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul who founded the Congregation of the Mission, which counts helping the poor as central to its charism, shows Jesus Christ unmoved by people's admiration for him. He asks his disciples to remember that he is to be handed over to the power of men; that he will pour out his life so that others may live.

Today as always, the world teaches us that it is better that a few people share the cake, the bigger their slice of it. But the true servant does not calculate in the interest of preserving his class or because it is trendy, admirable seeming bravura and nationalism to directly counter the Church, the Bride of Christ. The true servant gives of himself even if he should suffer to the point of being a pauper-politician. He embraces the poor as his own, sharing with them what he has, instead of decimating their numbers to easily tell the world that the nation is finally rich.

So, how about starting by publicly accounting for pork barrel allocations? Rest assured, divine and natural law, and the Church, the People of God are not against it.

Communion of saints, now and forever

2008-09-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos

CEBU DAILY NEWS - FAITH

printed Sunday 24 August 2008

It is to some extent reasonable to suppose that the character of a person can be gauged by the kind of the company that he or she keeps. Sacred Scripture says "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." (Proverbs 27:17) Cases in point are the subjects of recent news coming out of the Vatican's Congregation for the Cause of Saints or sourced from that church department's observers.

It has been announced that French couple Louis and Marie Zelie Guerin Martin, respectively a watchmaker and a lacemaker will be declared "blessed" in the last step before official recognition as saints this October 19. Around three weeks prior to their beatification, on September 28, Poland's Father Michal Sopocko will be beatified. Sometime next year, England's John Henry Cardinal Newman will also be declared "blessed."

The awaited beatifications mean that miracles have been wrought by God for people who asked for his favors through the intercession of these venerable faithful departed. But that is beside the point here. The light of these people's Christian testimonies shined strong and clear long before they died.

Part of the beauty common to the lives of Louis and Marie, Father Michal and Cardinal Newman, apart from their personal strivings to keep God remembered in this world by their active love for fellow men and women, is their relationship with people who shared their passion to be faithful to God.

Obviously Louis and Marie as husband and wife looked to each other for encouragement and inspiration in their walk with God. They also had nine children who grew up to be luminaries of faith.

Five Martin daughters entered religious communities. The most famous one we know as the patroness of missions and doctor of the church, the "Little Flower," Saint Therese of Lisieux, whose pilgrim relics have been brought to Cebu for veneration twice over this decade.

Father Michal was the spiritual director of Saint Faustina of Kowalska, the Blessed Sister Faustina of yore to whom our Lord Jesus himself spoke words that have become familiar to many Filipinos by being broadcast daily on television after the 3:00 p.m. devotion to the Divine Mercy.

It is understood in the spiritual life that one does not succeed without a mentor, and good mentors learn even from their protégées. We can be certain that Saint of Kowalska's devotion to our Lord had a profound effect on Father Michal, who became a leading promoter of the Divine Mercy devotion.

Cardinal Newman (not to be confused with Saint John Neumann whose statue is venerated at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help – Redemptorist Church in uptown Cebu City), converted to the Catholic Faith after being prodded by the Holy Spirit to be intellectually honest.

The cardinal used to be a Church of England minister at Oxford, earth's oldest and most prestigious university. Together with some of the leading scholars of his time he led the Oxford Movement, which sought to reconcile Anglicanism and Catholicism by clarifying the compatibilities of the differing confessions.

Eventually Newman realized in his studies of history that the full deposit of Christianity resides in Catholicism, and so he converted. He would not have reached that crucial step of entering the Church without the support of his Anglican friends, a network of people—many of whom, heartened by Newman's lead took just a bit more time before embracing Catholicism—who made him not alone in his quest for the truth.

Louis and Marie, Father Michal and Cardinal Newman's message for us today is that we can help one another to be faithful to God and devoted to his people in loving, active service. Part of Balanga Bishop Socrates Villegas' homily on the 25th death anniversary of hero Benigno Aquino Jr., an exhortation to service of God and neighbor, brings home the point: "The friend serves. The friend brings out the best in us. The friend tells us the bare and painful truth because he wants us to be better. Friends do not use friends. Friends do not bribe and pay off. There are no friends for an evil cause... Do we still bring out the best in one another because we give one another equal opportunities-- which is what democracy is all about?"

Let us pray that we may inspire each other in godliness just as the blessed ones mentioned in this space did. Sanctity is not impossible, nor reserved to the elite. Take it from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: "God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners." Iron sharpeneth iron, so God sharpeneth the countenance of men and women who enter into his friendship.

Flashback: Some principles of patience

2008-08-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

printed in Cebu Daily News Life
Thursday, July 3, 2007

There are many attributes of love on which Paul the tentmaker could have bestowed primacy in his first letter to the Corinthians, yet he chose to write in the famous thirteenth chapter of this letter that first of all, "Love is patient."

Paul could not have known better. While today he is recognized even by secular scholars with the traditional Christian acclamation of "The Apostle" and June 29, 2008 – June 29, 2009 has been declared by Pope Benedict XVI as the Year of Saint Paul, the Roman was much reviled and persecuted by the leading men of his day. He promoted and defended a countercultural faith of love together with its implications of joyful, self-giving sacrifice in people's daily lives and relationships. It took Paul half a lifetime of patience to call people – married couples, singles, pastors and their flock, parents and children, friends – against all odds to live in love.

Today, nearly 2,000 years since Paul first reminded people of the fact that "Love is patient," the statement has not lost a shred of relevance. Divorce as high as 70% in some countries of the first world has been known to originate from apparently so elementary an issue as how a spouse should handle the conjugal toothpaste. Football, supposedly a shining proof that nations have finally sublimated socio-political rivalry via competitive sports often falls short of its promise as fans perish in hooliganism's melees. The rude temperament of customers in the northern hemisphere add "sounding board" to the unwritten job descriptions of their outsourced service representatives across Asia.

Amid all these, a message from Paul: "Love is patient."

So how do people go about being patient?

Some say lengthening a short fuse is a simple matter of counting from one to ten while deeply breathing in and out. Other reactions to "outrageous" realities range from more instinctive ones like repressing anger or denying the occurrence of the "offence," to the glamorized "anger management" programs in which celebrities susceptible to violent outbursts – like model Naomi Campbell – are enrolled by force of law. Many would not contest the idea that patience is passé in speedy global society.

Patience as defined by Webster's New School Dictionary is "the quality of enduring with calmness; quiet perseverance." A patient person is "not easily made angry; calm; not hasty."

In interpersonal relationships, to be patient, one must first of all learn the art of examination. This means exercising reason to determine if there is cause to be angry. One has to go and learn the meaning of the words "there but for God's grace go I" if what is claimed to be injurious springs from a weakness in the other person that cannot be helped. One needs to see that what can constitute an occasion for anger can just as well be an excusable case of "different folks, different strokes" and may not be the fruit of another person's waking up with a carefully deliberated strategy to stoke his fellow's fury.

Patience with another person also depends largely on how patient one is with oneself. "Love your neighbor as yourself" as commanded by Christ, when illumined by Paul also means "Be patient with your neighbour as yourself." One's harshness on himself is bound to be passed onto another sooner or later. It's a very short distance from living by a rule of "three strikes and I'm out" to imposing "right minus wrong" or an inhumane perfectionism on others.

In J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," Samwise Gamgee would not have sought Frodo Baggins and given his master crucial help in Mordor had he dismissed Frodo as hopelessly possessed by the ring and himself as a failed friend. But as it was, he pressed on with the song of a patient, loving heart:

"Though here at journey's end I lie
In darkness buried deep.
Beyond all towers strong and high,
Beyond all mountains steep.
Above all shadows rides the Sun
And Stars forever dwell.
I will not say the Day is done,
Nor bid the Stars farewell."

Flashback: A legacy of kindness

2008-08-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

printed in Cebu Daily News Life
Thursday, July 10, 2008

After Paul of Tarsus wrote that "Love is patient," he wrote, "Love is kind." One can see order here. Without taking time to see beyond the imperfections of another person, one cannot even begin to show him kindness.

Kindness, says Merriam-Webster, refers to "a kind deed" or is "the quality or state of being kind." A kind person is someone "of a sympathetic or helpful nature," "of a forbearing nature." A kind deed arises from or is "characterized by sympathy or forbearance."

Many of us grew up understanding every good deed as a demonstration of kindness. More than this, many of us had the chance to grow because of the kindnesses demonstrated to us by the people with whom we live. But today, it takes very little to remind us that the kindness we grew up with is not easily nurtured in the world.

Take for instance kindness to family. There is a strange notion, partly due to the influence of western cultures and partly due to home-grown, ill-educated ambition, that self-fulfilment requires independence with an unkind streak from family. While there is validity to Cat Stevens' son-line in the song "There's a way and I know that I have to go away" in the song "Father and Son," it does not justify disrespect towards family. Much less does being human by independence imply abusing the forbearance of kin. Simply because "they know me, they understand me" is no license for being the opposite of kind to blood relations.

The same goes for kindness to friends. The posters will tell you that a friend is someone who knows who you really are and loves you anyway. This saying can be taken as an excuse for being unkind towards a friend. The demand goes thus: "If you are really my friend, then you will accept me even when I am bad." But that is not right. Your friend is bound to love you always but he is not bound to approve of your deeds always. When Paul heard that a young disciple of his had been engaged in incest, he actually prayed for that man to so suffer the consequence of his misdeed as to change his mind, cease and desist from a wrongful act. A friend is bold enough to risk earning the disfavor of his friend by not accepting his wrongs. That is a kindness.

Kindness to the needy is many times held back by the transactional rationalization that it is better to teach a man to fish, that he may eat for a lifetime, rather than give him fish, which only feeds him for a meal or for a day. This is really not a hard and fast rule. Among an impoverished people as ours, we often cannot afford to teach people to fish so to speak, simply because they are not in a state to learn fishing until we give them fish, until we address their hunger. It is a sign of a suicidal social spirit when people no longer remember feeding the hungry as necessary for the health of their collective soul.

Let's talk about kindness to enemies. Now here's one unmistakable hallmark of a fine person, someone whose kindness cannot possibly be of the feigned sort. Our minds need not travel as far as South Africa to remember Nelson Mandela as a shining example of kindness to enemies, letting flourish under his leadership truth commissions that successfully healed the bloody divide between his country's blacks and whites. We have many good Filipinos with high public profiles who have chosen to respond to their critics with a prayer. How come they are kind to their enemies? Perhaps they see the beyond-reason in Philo of Alexandria's heart in his words: "Be kind, for everyone you know is facing a great battle."

Flashback: Humility's Reasons

2008-08-09T07:20:00.000-07:00

printed in Cebu Daily News Life
Thursday, July 31, 2008

Love is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, says Paul of Tarsus in his explanation of love. Other translations have him saying "[Love] does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud," or "charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." Musician John Michael Talbot sums Paul's point in his lyrics, "Love is humble; it does not put on airs."

What is humility, and why is it essential in a life of love? The Catholic Encyclopedia says "The word humility signifies lowliness or submissiveness and it is derived from the Latin humilitas or, as St. Thomas says, from humus, i.e. the earth which is beneath us." But humility, far from turning one into a doormat, really entails appraising oneself according to what one is with his basic human dignity.

Max Ehrmann in the Desiderata says one should not compare oneself to others, because one will only become either vain or bitter, as there always are better or lesser persons around. The humble person erases the categories of "better" or "lesser" persons, looking instead at loving others out of a sense of shared creature-hood. There is room for humility when competition is erased: those whom the world divides into mighty and lowly from love's perspective all need love.

The author Harper Lee through character Maudie Atkinson equates humility with sanity. "People in their right mind never take pride in their talents," Maudie says. That explains a lot of insanity going on: where medicines are withheld from the dying because the talented discoverers retain a high price for the drugs, where learning is still reserved for talented elite while so many supposedly school-going children labor in the streets.

Imagine if mothers put a price tag on nurturing and fathers did the same for breadwinning. As it is, the home, churches, and strong relationships are the final frontier for humility, where the giving of one's time, treasure and talent happens without the requirement of prior praise and admiration. Elsewhere (without being ungrateful to the charity of the famous) it is hogging the limelight that counts first, and then one starts a foundation.

The foundation for humility simply is that each human being is quite powerless in and of himself. Deprived of God, family, friends, society, and all the graces and blessings that come his way he is dust. Since everything has been given to him and is not his in the strictest sense of the word, that is, not originating from him, and not meant for him alone, he has no reason for vainglory.

What can be said of man can also be said of his love for others. Without God beating in his heart and the people showing him love in his life, he is powerless to love. So by no means can he arrogate for himself decisions on whom to love or not, as if he were some deity calculating on a pedestal who among the lesser mortals should have a brighter fate. It is the height of pride to decide that there are people from whom one's love is rightfully withheld. Conversely, when one is compassionate to all, he is being humble towards himself, and that, according to French thinker Simone Weil is beautiful. She writes: "Humility is the only permitted form of self-love. Praise for God, compassion for creatures, humility for oneself. Without humility, all the virtues are finite. Only humility makes them infinite."

Flashback: Believing in Forever

2008-08-09T07:10:00.000-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily News Life
Thursday, August 7, 2008

Here today, gone tomorrow. So goes the abstraction summarizing the lives and/or times behind everything from people to places to, yes, hair. This age of the instant from coffee to noodles to messaging to flings is also the age of the disposable. Not only do individual consumers regularly dispense with commodities, whole economies too dump heaps of surplus products on neighboring ones. In the absence of due caution on human beings the principles of the instant and disposable may constitute the greatest threat to human values and relationships otherwise always envisioned to be eternal.

When one believes too much that there is nothing more permanent in this world than change, one's ability to give can begin to be held hostage by fear. Why would a person pour so much, so well into a relationship, a friendship, a courtship, or marriage, when there is no certainty of it being indispensable to the other or to him? Well, when to a person, relationships, values and the best of dreams have become nothing more than items to be returned or given in exchange for something else at the onset of the slightest of inconveniences, he is not in the best position to risk giving his all. Everything becomes, to use a common phrase, a vicious cycle of consumerism breeding insecurity spawning greed and so on.

A few words from the opening of Benedict XVI's encyclical letter on hope, "Spe Salvi" deserves repetition here: "the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey." Human beings are willing to sacrifice and go beyond push-button ease in endeavors of love and its associates if a worthy horizon remains and remains clear. A worthy horizon is available and remains clear only if one understands that a relationship is meant to be an everlasting journey, otherwise, one has entered into a journey culminating in boredom – it's only a matter of time.

A thought from Jerome, a scholar and saint of antiquity may help us break through the tautology. He once wrote that a friendship was never friendship in the first place if it comes to an end. This reveals two essential aspects about man's most cherished principles and dearest aspirations. They are both gift and responsibility at the same time. To say that love, friendship, hope, marriage, good works endure, that each is forever, binds the person to the "is." The person is a contributor to making incarnate the eternity of these realities. I am caught up in the "forever," accessing it through the "is." The moment I enter freely into a relationship of love, of friendship, I have stepped out of the calculable confines of my limited world into a new one of endless possibilities. Here there is no room for boredom, only space for exploring what is good and pleasing and perfect, even amid the vale of tears.

Slowly, then, I uncover the ears of my heart so that it listens to the voice of eternity: a voice that spurs and inspires me to fight to keep my relationships with my loved ones alive, using all my physical senses, using all my freedom, memory, understanding and will, using all my powers to communicate with the unseen ones in God's wide universe who, according to my forever-stricken heart, loves me very much. I have no right to blame this voice in the face of any apparent failure for it is relentless in guiding me towards what is right and noble and true, and if I truly believe in its endlessness then I cannot but hope that it holds surprises for me and the people in my world beyond the chronological boundaries of life.

What difference will you make?

2008-07-24T05:26:00.001-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily News Life
July 22, 2008

Page 20

SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES—World Youth Day literally ended with a bang, fireworks lighting up the sky over Randwick Racecourse with trees and the University of New South Wales in the backdrop minutes after the Pope announced Madrid, Spain as the next WYD in 2011.

Last Saturday morning we walked towards the racecourse from St. Joseph's church in Rosebery for about 30 minutes, praying the rosary and singing hymns while doing the pilgrim walk.

Our group did not go through the walk across Sydney's Harbor Bridge as thousands of other pilgrims did, but I was personally fortunate to have opened myself to being lost in Sydney on Friday night, which was how I got to walk the length of the humongous bridge, stopping in between Hail Marys to take photos of different sides of the Opera House.

Saturday night was an amazing experience, with an energetic concert presented by some of the most popular Christian contemporary artists in Australia, and a candlelight ceremony led by Pope Benedict XVI himself. He prayed that all of the youth of the world may experience anew the outpouring of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit. In the morning homily the most poignant moment was when he asked the youth: "What will you leave to the next generation? Are you building your lives on firm foundations, building something that will endure? Are you living your lives in a way that opens up space for the Spirit in the midst of a world that wants to forget God, or even rejects him in the name of a falsely-conceived freedom? How are you using the gifts you have been given, the "power" which the Holy Spirit is even now prepared to release within you? What legacy will you leave to young people yet to come? What difference will you make?"

The Pope's words were often punctuated by applause that rolled from the periphery of center stage outwards of the venue. It was totally touching to experience the universality of Catholicism, singing "Receive the Power," with all the citizens of the planet, and on Sunday noon praying the Angelus in Latin, the church's unifying language.

Cardinal Rylko of the Pontifical Council for the laity wrapped up everything very well when he said that the youth of the Benedict XVI pontificate were proud to be the pope's sons, notwithstanding that John Paul the Great was the one who "invented" WYD. The cardinal thanked the pope for making WYD a mainstay on the church's calendar.

So ladies and gentlemen, this is my last Pinoy Pilgrim in Sydney entry. I hope to share more in depth meditation in the Life and Faith sections of this paper. For now, thank you for accompanying me on this life-changing pilgrimage. Thanks also to Ms. Niza Marinas, Sir Jet Garigade and Ms. Mimi Lijauco for supporting this project. See you! God be with you.

Pilgrimage in fullest swing

2008-07-24T05:22:00.000-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily News Life
July 20, 2008

Page 22

SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES—The three days of morning catecheses by bishops are over. We're gonna be sleeping under the stars at Randwick Racecourse. A 9 km pilgrim walk and evening prayer with the Pope will precede the great outdoor sleep.

This week I've met plenty of new friends. The infectious WYD enthusiasm is impervious to language barriers. Everyone's having a grand time with accents as multicultural Australia is home to immigrants from just about every English-speaking country in the world.

The Aussies are telling us the weather has been good to us. They consider this season a fairly pleasant winter, as they used to reach 40 degrees below freezing point in their grandparents' days. No coincidence that even the Pope is talking about climate change here.

My homestay host, the O'Briens, have been very supportive. Caleb the son with the other children of the parish has been visiting us in church at lunchtime to help who have volunteered to assist the pilgrims visiting St. Joseph's at Rosebery.

Highlight of Friday were the Stations of the Cross, which featured a musical and reflective reenactment of the passion and death of Jesus.

The cast began at St. Mary's Cathedral and ending up in Barangaroo, sailing over the water after the performing the stations in front of the Sydney Opera House, which had been converted into Pontius Pilate's gubernatorial palace for this liturgy. Pope Benedict XVI read the first reflections.

Excerpt from the prayer that Benedict read: "Help us [Lord], to understand that communion with you also means communion with all those to whom you give yourself. Make us generous and insightful as we try to walk in your footsteps."

Saturday morning I plan to visit nearby Mascot's St. Therese Parish. Tonight I had spent time with the Blessed Sacrament and a relic of St. Peter Chanel available for veneration at St. Patrick's Church.

Ladies and gentlemen, Benny!

2008-07-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily News Life
July 19, 2008
Page 17

SYDNEY, NEWS SOUTH WALES—I got my first picture of Pope Benedict XVI during the welcome ceremony at Barangaroo! His Holiness' popemobile passed by about three feet away from where I stood! What a relief, after the short-lived surge of excitement as his boat glided by the spot where we waited for him on the harbor.

We're still on the go at this point, so I hope to post the picture in a future piece, perhaps together with even better pics, since this one had the pope turned quite away from the camera and blessing the crowd across our area.

Automated white confetti were strewn in the air as the pontiff passed, to youthful cheers and flashes of thousands of cameras. I suppose that makes him the most photographed person on earth every time he leads assemblies like the WYD. His message touched on every possible aspect of being young, but like his opening message when he landed here last weekend, especially touched on the theme of the environment.

I had to get the Vatican transcript of that message as the Bavarian Servant of the Servants of God's English was heavily accented (I am getting used to it though). In any case, it was beautiful to be in the same compound with the Pope, having the chance to pray the “Our Father” with him. Yes, I may have been only one among 150,000 citizens of the world that turned out to greet him, but to paraphrase Belleville, Illinois Bishop Edward Braxton said at St. Joseph's in Rosebery on his Friday morning catechesis, it's a mighty waste coming here without coming to know that “Christ needs our hearts to continue to love.”

Here's part of what Benedict said in his welcome message:

“My dear friends, God’s creation is one and it is good. The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection upon the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable.”

Welcome B16!

2008-07-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily News Life
July 18, 2008
Page 24

SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES—The morning after the inspiring opening Mass, opening concert (slamming palms and train dancing with lines of world youth), and fireworks display at Barangaroo on Monday night saw us at St. Joseph's parish in Rosebery for catechesis on the Holy Spirit from someone who had flown in from the largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam: Bishop Tod Brown of the diocese of Orange in California.

The prelate challenged his audience to remember their confirmation and what it's significance is for them, whether it was a time of continuing to a new stage of faith, or graduating and growing cold in it. Rosebery's parishioners prepared lunch of hotdog barbecue, bread and onion for the pilgrims. The Australian children offered us a variety of chocolates.

In the afternoon we went to see the concert by Bronx-based rapping priest Stan Fortuna of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. His one hour and a half performance was held in the Royal Hall of Industries near Sydney's Moore Park.

Here was a priest who really rocked, not to mention reggaed and rapped and sang with a bluesy voice, interspersing within his repertoire straight jabs of catechesis attacking the decadence in globalized culture, and echoing Cardinal Pell's appeal for "self control to protect the love in our hearts and our friends and families from our relapses into nastiness and laziness." He had the gift of touching eloquence too, speaking of the pilgrims in this way: of your feet are tired of walking, what can we do for hearts that have become tired of living?

The Filipino FMVD delegation parted ways at the Moore Park Road. After getting my WYD ID replaced (the top part had fallen of after the plastic case was torn after I joined the dancing), we regrouped at the Chinatown where we warmed ourselves with noodles and congee.

Off to the jampacked Sydney Opera House afterwards, on which compassed a concert went on, one of many happenings across the harbor city. Amid the high energy however, there was no chance of forgetting the faith: the columns supporting Harbor Bridge featured holograms of the Pope and the patrons of WYD, like Australia's Blessed Mary McKillop.

Looking forward now to the catechesis by Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and welcoming Pope Benedict XVI on the boat-a-cade.

Meeting our host family

2008-07-16T08:42:00.000-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily News Life
Juky 17, 2008
Page 20

SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES—After leaving Stanwell Tops we passed by Symbio, a wildlife park, where we got to see the famous Australian animals – kangaroo, meerkat, Tasmanian devil, and koala up close.

We're now housed—I and Kevin, a delegate from Manila—with John and Sandy O'Brien in Rosebery, a Sydney suburb. The lovely couple has two children, Ciaira and Caleb, 8 and 14 years old. John is Catholic with an Irish background, Sandy is non-Catholic but sends her children to parochial school. They have a dog named Harry after Rowlings' popular wizard.

Our hosts served us rice and masala on our first night at their house, vanilla ice cream and blueberries for dessert. It happened to be Sandy's birthday. We walked the dog around four blocks afterwards.

The first morning of world youth week we spent around Darling Harbor. Everywhere one could see groups from different countries carrying their flags and singing songs, chanting, or cheering.

For the second consecutive day there was a jet plane writing messages with exhaust white smoke in the clear blue sky. The first afternoon it had been a cross with "J-e-s-u-s" while he wrote "Welcome on the second afternoon." Crowds cheered as he spelt welcome just before a passing cloud partly covered a couple of letters.

At Barangaroo while waiting for the opening Mass we took pictures with people from Vanuatu and the United States, chatted with a priest from Vietnam, cheered and sang "Tell the World of His Love," when emcees introduced a montage review the World Youth Day in 1995 in Manila.

Rudd, the prime minister of Australia welcomed the hundreds of thousands of delegates, calling all "pilgrims of peace" and saying people who do not believe faith has no place in public life "are wrong." "Malugod ko kayong tinatanggap" he said, greeting the Filipinos.

Pell, cardinal archbishop of Sydney greeted people in the four traditional languages of Australia, including Italian and German. The Mass opened with an aboriginal dance. Quotable quote from Pell: "Joy is only found in commitments. Don't spend your lives sitting on the fence."

Till next time, Wollongong

2008-07-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily News Life
July 15, 2008

Page 20

WOLLONGONG CITY, NEW SOUTH WALES – The Pope arrived in Sydney on Sunday. The Sydney Morning Herald angled coverage of his arrival on the environmental preservation call in his message at the Richmond RAAF Base.

Now, about 3:00 a.m. July 14 makes this our last half-day here at windy Stanwell Tops in Wollongong, where I've sighted at least four species of rare birds in my solitary walks. We'll be bussed to Sydney at 9:00 a.m. We will be introduced to Australian families who will host us until July 21.

Cebuano Mauritta Baja shared about witnessing to Christ in the morning preaching of July 13. Group sharing had to be moved indoors as the skies were overcast and the wind made us all feel colder than we were getting used to. New additions to my group were two Filipinos, a Mexican, and another Australian. Everybody was convinced that to be a Christian witness begins only by speaking with God in prayer.

Iliana, the Mexican with whom I conversed until end of lunch—we were served rice, curry, and vegetables—was fascinated to find out that Our Lady of Guadalupe is patroness of Cebu as well as of her land.

Filipino missionary Malou Tibayan's talk on discernment as the art of choosing well was enlightening. Everyone was satisfied with the conclusion that God's plan is for each human being ultimately to grow fully in loving, be that person single or married, whatever may be that person's other circumstances.

We had a beautiful Holy Spirit festival of song, dance (including Gary V's "Shout for Joy") drama, poetry, and testimonies. At the end of the festival the Spaniards gave us ribbons from the site of the appearance of Our Lady of the Pillar, while the Aussies handed out wrist-bands and koala posters.

Spiritual surfing, hybrids, cybrids

2008-07-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily News Life
Page 17
July 14, 2008

WOLLONGONG CITY, NEW SOUTH WALES - James McTavish, a Scottish FMVD missionary deacon and doctor of medicine who once served in Cebu, now based in Rome, gave WYD delegates a provoking talk on bioethics and Catholicism.

My workshop discussion group exchanged passionate reactions. Celina from Mexico, where abortion is legal, found herself enlightened to hear that “if [an embryo] weren’t human, it would not become human.”

Sergio from the United States—which he admitted is “a difficult country” when it comes to pro-life issues—asserted that purity is an important part of preventing the killing of the unborn.

James’ aim was to encourage reverence for life from conception to natural death starting with an informed appreciation of the human embryo as a person with all the rights and privileges of an adult. One consequence of ignorance about the sanctity of the embryo is the controversial English bill seeking to legalize research combining human and animal reproductive cells, creating “cybrids.”

Missionary sister Daniella from Croatia in the late afternoon talk on the Holy Spirit likened the spiritual life to surfing, Australia’s national summer pastime. “The Holy Spirit teaches us to surf, at least in the interior life. In surfing you need to see and catch a good wave, and ride it.

“The Holy Spirit teaches us not to let the waves of negativity, pessimism, and lack of hope get on top of us but to just let these waves pass, because if we catch the wrong wave, we get into it as in a washing machine and are thrown into the sand, spiritually dunked.”

At Mass, Fr. Greg Morgan preached hope. It is, he explained, a gift of the Holy Spirit especially when human character is tested, “and the true test of character is not about being the life of the party but about being child of God.”

Highlights of the July 12 evening cultural display were national dances by delegations, and testimonies on the power of the Word of God – to turn around debilitating depression, to help one get by physical handicap, to give a person true friends in the journey of the full life – by a number of Aussies. Some of them led everyone in the joyous bush dance that capped the show.

I’m on my way to the workshop on discernment, “The Art of Choosing Well.”

Aboriginal welcome and power talk

2008-07-12T07:54:00.000-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily News Life
July 13, 2008

WOLLONGONG CITY, NEW SOUTH WALES – Stanwell Tops where we are, south of Sydney, offers a serene environment and magnificent view, both of pristine bushland and the Illawara's northern coasts.

The Filipino group led Verbum Dei's pre-WYD song and dance animation on the night of July 11, interpreting in confab chapel Waratah Meeting worship favorites like "Shine Jesus Shine" and "I Could Sing of Your Love."

We dined afterwards on bread and butter, spaghetti and lasagna. On this pilgrimage this was our first night without rice.

Our pre-WYD encounter officially commenced at the Waratah auditorium with an aboriginal welcome, testimonies by our hosts and a flag parade by sons and daughters – all in their country's traditional attire – representing over 20 nations gathered here.

Ana Rodriguez of Verbum Dei Philippines bore the Philippine colors. St. Joseph Parish, Rosebery, Sydney band Under Construction took charge of the music, rendering an interpretation of WYD anthem "Receive the Power" during the parade that followed the enthronement of the Holy Cross and Bible.

Fr. Greg Morgan, an Aussie missionary working in Rome led prayer a couple of hours before midnight. Each pilgrim received a piece of colored paper shaped into a flame to represent the grace of the Holy Spirit, whom Fr. Greg prayed to as guarantor of the future, transformer of the present, and reconciler of the past. The paper flames were laid by a candle at the sanctuary in a solemn act symbolizing self-offering to the Almighty.

I was blessed with the chance to lead with compatriot Regina Peña the singing of Verbum Dei original "For Your Love," and Jesuit Music Ministry's "Panalangin sa Pagbubukas Palad."

On the morning of June 11, Australian youth Dan Drum gave a talk on the theme "Receive the Power," telling us that real leaders are like Jesus, who does not keep power for himself but uses it to heal and empower people.

Dan's sentiments were echoed in my sharing group. We shared on a field of grass overlooking the ocean, after finding a sunny spot (whereas we'd look for shade in 'Pinas). Iliana Diaz, 29, who works at a Mexican airline said people need to awaken the sleeping spirituality in them. Emilio Roccazzela, 26, commented that it is in our weak moments that we are at the best position to listen to God. Stephen Drum, 27 added this is why we need to acknowledge humbly that we are weak rather than feign strength before our Creator.

Gotta run. Talk on bioethics by doctor and deacon James McTavish of Scotland starting.

G'day mate!

2008-07-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

Printed July 12, 2008
Page 17
Cebu Daily News Life

WOLLONGONG CITY, NEW SOUTH WALES –We descended on the Sydney International Airport at 6:24 a.m. local time, July 11, to applause from the German youth on our flight. The claps were called for: Gusts of about 50 kph somewhere in midair over Mount Isa rocked our plane for about 30 minutes long before touchdown.

The air turbulence was forgotten as soon as the first digital camera owners clicked away, cautiously, outside airport restricted places, since a fine of $1,000 awaited those who took pictures in the luggage inspection areas.

The airport lobby was festive and filled with signs of Catholic devotion. Plenty of youngsters, raising aloft a Byzantine icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and led by a priest sang hymns as newly-arrived pilgrims streamed in. Clergy and religious were very easy to spot amid an ebb tide of pilgrims.

To say Sydney is all set for WYD is to understate. Signs telling motorists to expect delays during the WYD proper next week can be seen along major roads. Flags and banners announcing that the WYD is at hand flutter in the chill (10ºC morning air).

July is the peak of Australia’s winter season. Yes, I’m presently wearing three to four layers of clothing, complete with bonnet cap and shawl. The driver who picked us up at the airport, and who surprisingly left us with a question to ponder (whether or not we are already in the Last Days considering widespread immorality), said that this year has been unusually cold. It snowed as it rarely did on the Blue Mountains far south of Sydney.

Our first stop outside the airport was Saint Joseph’s Parish in Rosebery, where sisters of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity (FMVD) rent spaces to run their apostolate of praying on, preaching, and testifying to the Word of God. FMVD Manila’s group of 16 had arrived ahead of us. So did the Mexicans who have been here for two months.

Washing dishes in the kitchen of St. Joseph’s after a light breakfast on Scottish marmalade sandwich, I chatted with Beatriz, one of the Mexicans. “God is so good to me,” she said, “I never expected to be in this place.” An idealist, she is taking up public administration and working at a fertilizer company. Beatriz looks forward to serving in a non-government organization in Mexico.

I also met Paul, a professional painter hired by St. Joseph’s to whitewash the saints’ statues surrounding the home parish of 70 Catholics.

We’re now at the Stanwell Tops Center in Wollongong City, an hour-long bus ride from Sydney. More on events here tomorrow.

'Thank you' - a universal language

2008-07-11T06:26:00.000-07:00

Printed July 11, 2008
Page 17
Cebu Daily News Life

HONG KONG – After lunch on the plane – rice, pork and vegetables, with watermelon, pineapple and papaya for dessert – miles over the South China Sea, my group of 20, not 14 WYD delegates as previously mentioned, touched down at the massive, commercial, and hi-tech Hong Kong International airport.

As I write, I am at the airport's gate 65, awaiting our 7:00 p.m. Cathay Pacific flight CX 111 to Sydney. That is going to be an eight-hour trip. Our expected time of arrival is 6:30 a.m. Sydney time. Meanwhile the emerald hill and mountain peaks surrounding this airport and piercing low-lying clouds provide a relaxing backdrop for travelers in transit.

The waiting area is presently a true melting pot.

Some of us have struck conversation with members of European youth groups. The rest are using the time to rehearse Philippine folk dance presentations and Mass songs for the Verbum Dei international encounter, a pre-WYD event that will be held in the Australian city of Wollongong on the day this entry sees print.

I find worth mentioning my conversation with fellow delegate Derby Babalcon-Goron. The 26-year-old wife and mother presently reviewing for the bar under the University of the Philippines had also, with husband and co-delegate George, attended the World Meeting of Families in Spain with Pope Benedict XVI a couple of years ago. She describes the pontiff as a powerful speaker who really inspires his audiences to apply the truth to contemporary situations.

Being in the presence of the successor of Peter is something we are all looking forward to. As we do so, the people we are meeting along the way – flight attendants, airport inspectors, passport checkers, speak to us those two words that simply yet totally describe what our hearts want to say: "Thank you" – to family, friends, churchmates, and the Almighty, all of whom have worked for good to make this trip possible.

Glenda Torregosa, another of my co-delegates who has been at WYD in Cologne last 2005 sees the coming WYD as another demonstration of human solidarity under God, so needed in a world that is feeling the strong onslaught of hopelessness.

Providentially, we will arrive in Australia on the memorial of St. Benedict, from whom the pope ultimately takes his name, which means "blessing." We hope our pilgrimage will bless everyone in our respective spheres of influence.

Pinoy pilgrim in Sydney: A Filipino exodus, to liberate

2008-07-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

Printed in Cebu Daily NewsLife

Page 22

Thursday, July 10, 2008

The Vatican on-line customized for Pinoys Pope Benedict XVI’s invite to the XXIII World Youth Day (WYD): “Dumating kayo [sic] upang maging isang tanda ng pag-asa, magbigay ng malugod na suporta sa Simbahan sa Australia, at ipahayag ang kagandahan at galak ng Ebanghelyo sa isang lipunang secular.”

So, all packed up and hearts ready, we’re headed for WYD venue Sydney, Australia – Great South Land of the Holy Spirit. This fortnight, “bye-bye” to these fair tropics; “hello” to the southern hemisphere island continent’s 5-16ºC winter.

I’m going with 14 young Cebuanos, proud to be citizens of the Queen Isle of the South, a cradle of Philippine Christianity whose youngsters, visiting John Paul the Great at the Archbishop’s Residence back in 1981 inspired him to conceive the WYD.

Merrily, there is more to “we.” I learned by phone from Msgr. Arturo Navales, Commission on Youth (COY) head that 16 Cebu archdiocesan youth are now with a global, pre-WYD “Days in the Diocese” crowd in Melbourne, savoring and imparting faith to the Catholic Church in the land down under.

Eight more will join them, flying from Cebu at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday via Cathay Pacific to Australia, with the delegation organized by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines in Manila.

Stating hopes for this year’s WYD, Msgr. Arthur said: “I hope that [the WYD] will be another show of faith, that the delegates, especially the COY volunteers will bring back good memories to revitalize the faith of Cebuanos, activating it not just for activities but for pasturing the young in the apostolate.”

Fr. Kit Sestoso, the monsignor’s deputy, about seven other priests, and COY volunteers leads Cebu archdiocese’s youth.

Some of the other Cebu-based religious families also joining the WYD are Opus Dei, the Community of Saint John, and my group, the Verbum Dei Missionary Family (FMVD) Pilipinas, headed by Br. Vincent Guinoo, Br. Victoriano Caritos and Sr. Rita Rodriguez.

Says 25-year-old teacher Fairy Rose Ramirez of FMVD, one of the last to receive an Australian visa: “I’m very grateful that God really paved the way for me to be there to experience his universal love through the people that I will meet. I’m thrilled looking forward to what God has prepared for us and to sharing my experience of him with the people in Australia.”

I share Fairy’s hopes, and will journal my own experiences in this space till the 26th. Let’s keep each other in our prayers.

Flashback: Guiding our feet

2008-07-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos

printed Sunday, 22 June 2008

CEBU DAILY NEWS

FAITH

As I write, it is the third day before June 24, the Solemnity of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist on the Christian liturgical calendar. It is a cold afternoon. The winds of the monsoon and after-gusts of Frank the typhoon bicker outside this Bulacao, Talisay City house. Through our upper-story window glass I can see sparrows flitting tentatively from rooftop to another, careful not to spar with the air’s sporadic turbulence. Trees, as the mahogany I can see to my left with its dancing fits, provide no safe shelter for them today. But the sparrows are luckier than my neighbor’s pet birds, cuckooing under the lack of sunlight as though it’s still the brink of day.

Tempestuous too were the episodes unfolding on Israel’s stage when Saint Gabriel the Archangel announced to Zechariah the priest the coming of John the Baptist. We understand this from the sublime Prologue of the Gospel according to Saint John (John 1:1-18), and Saint Luke’s account of Gabriel’s appearance to Zechariah (Luke 1:5-25).

John the Evangelist writes, “The Word was the real light that gives light to everyone; He was coming into the world.” Luke quoted the archangel as saying of John whom Zechariah would sire, “With the Spirit and power of Elijah, he will go before [the Lord] to reconcile fathers to their children and the disobedient to the good sense of the upright, preparing for the Lord a people fit for him.”

He who prays on these passages is bound to ask the question: “Why were you coming into the world, Lord?” The answer, to the one who steps into Zechariah’s sandals will not only describe Israel’s situation back then, at the very hour when the priest offered incense on the altar. It will also describe, to a certain extent, our country today: “Because the people have been walking in darkness, because many of the children of the land have turned away from the Lord their God, because the hearts of fathers have turned against their children, and the righteous are misunderstood and disobeyed, because the people are no longer fit for the Lord, no longer fit for the Word, because the light in the life of men is under siege, and not blazing forth as it was meant to. There is the practice of priestly service, and the people are dying. You, Zechariah, are being safe, sterile, impotent, self-preserved. The people by the thousands are getting lost in the dark. Look at this human status quo. You have stonewalled the light in the temple. Religion has become an empty ritual. The very people praying outside at the hour of the incense offering are the very people who have denied me, abandoned their children, and disobeyed the righteous.”

The answer, to the one who steps into the shoes of the people waiting outside the temple, will be an exhortation to hope: “You cannot be just another one in the assembly, content to wait for the priest and follow your own dim light, returning to the shadows of sinful isolation, after periodic, empty rituals. I am your life. I am life for the light of the world. I am not an empty ritual, and I am coming into the world to prove the point. The light shines in the darkness. The darkness is the wall you set up between religion and life. Religion, faith, is supposed to be life, relationship of love with me and your fellows. It is walking in the light, and not in the darkness.”

The Lord comes to let his people recover their vision. He comes in compassion for an exhausted and broken people. He comes, so that people who have been walking in darkness may see again the great light, so that life may once again animate worship, and worship animate life. So that the temple, symbolizing each human being, may be rebuilt from being a ruined wall of doubt and division, into its dignity as sign that the Father dwells among his people, and that the Lord as our sanctuary welcomes us into himself.

When we allow the Lord to do with each of us as he pleases, then even today, Zechariah’s Canticle, the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79), first prayed over John the Baptist can be true for each of us: “You my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Flashback: Spirited flesh

2008-07-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
printed Sunday, 11 May 2008
CEBU DAILY NEWS
FAITH

By his becoming man, his life, sufferings, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, and his sending of the Holy Spirit, Jesus, God with us, has made it possible for us not only to say with the archangel Gabriel "nothing is impossible with God," but also to show the same in our own lives. Because of Jesus who freed me to say yes to love and no to fake sources of life, my humanity is not an excuse or alibi for me to be mediocre and fallen, but the instrument and reason for me to stand up and eagerly, joyfully and successfully reach for the high standard of life and love expected of a child of God.

The Christian cannot sing "I'm only human, born to make mistakes." The Christian cannot plead, "sapagkat ako ay tao lamang." The Christian says, together with Saint Paul: "I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is not longer I, but Christ living in me. The life that I am now living, subject to the limitation of human nature, I am living in faith, faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." (cf. Galatians 2:20)

Do I have faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me?

If I believe that he chose to come from a poor family in order to teach me that life is not about being rich, then I would not become depressed and greedy, always comparing my finances and extent of possessions with others', but look at every occasion to give as a joyful moment. I would understand that no one is too poor to give from the heart. That even if I do not have anything, there is always myself to give. There is always my smile to give, my look of understanding to give, my comforting touch on someone else's shoulder to give, my laughter to share. I would be grateful for the things that I have, instead of complaining about what I do not have. I would understand that if I have extra of anything, it is, even if honestly acquired, stolen from my fellows if I have it but do not need it. I would joyfully pray with Saint Francis: "O Master grant that I may never seek, so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with all my soul." Because if I do not believe this, then money and possessions and riches, and not Christ is my god. I am expecting to be saved by money that I will never be able to take with me to the grave. Money that has value only when given away out of love.

If I believe that he chose to be chaste and pure, dedicating himself totally to God, so that he would be available to make God's face clearer to all as a teaching for me to do the same, then I would not be conditional in my loving, and I would not stop seeing God in every person. I would not love only those whom I like, only those who have something to give to me. I would not take advantage of people just for my personal pleasures. I would forgive the Peter who denies me, the Judas who betrays me, the Pilate who rejects me so he could stay popular with the crowd, the high priests in my life who condemn me, the weak ones who do not have the strength to stay with me in times of trouble – the Gethsemanes of my life, the Roman soldiers who mock me, I would empower the Magdalenes and Samaritan women in my life so that they would not become dependent on me but dependent on God, I would feed the five thousand though I have my own griefs and loving has become to heavy. Because if I do not believe and do accordingly, then loving when it is easy, and selfish pleasures and not Christ are my god. I am expecting to be saved by pleasures that pass away. Pleasures that can lead me away from heaven to the bitterness of hell.

If I believe that Jesus chose to be obedient to the Father at all costs, even that of laying down his life to death on a cross in order to show to me that greatness is in humble obedience to our heavenly Father, then I would not complain if I have to prioritize God above everything. I would not act according to the opinion of the people but according to God's commandments of love. I would not do wrong things just because everybody is doing it, just because I have to go with the flow, just because I have to be cool, just because if I do not bend I will break. I would rather choose to be broken striving to obey God than bend and in doing so break his divine laws. Because if I do not believe that he asks me to be obedient, then rebellion and my own will, and not Christ, are my God. I am expecting to be saved by following my own will which does not endure forever. My will that oftentimes is a coup d'etat against the Lord's loving plans for me.

If I believe in the Son of God who loved me and gave his life for me, I would live just like him in the situations where he has put me today. If Mary Magdalene and Augustine, a prostitute and a womanizer could become Christ-like models for chaste love, if Paul, a murderer, could become patient, kind, gentle, not keeping a record of wrongs, if Peter who denied the Lord could feed the flock with his very own life shed on the cross, If the incarnation of Christ has been more than enough to make these people into joyful stars guiding others to Jesus, then surely, Christ in his life, death, resurrection and ascension too should be more than enough for me, I who have not yet reached the point of bloodshed in living my Christian faith. I may not be called to die for my faith, but I am certainly called to live my faith, as a human being called to share to others the divine life, which is the only true, happy, and free life for all men and women.

Flashback: Twilight Spirituality

2008-07-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Glimmers from Patmos
printed Sunday, 05 April 2008
CEBU DAILY NEWS
FAITH

"It is nearly evening, and the day is almost over." - These are the words of two of our Lord's first disciples as they drew near to the village of Emmaus at sundown of the first Easter Sunday. These words were an invitation to the Risen Jesus – as yet unrecognizable to them as his transfigured appearance differed from their memory of him – to be their guest for the night.

We all know how the episode ended with the disciples' recognition of the Lord in his taking, blessing, breaking, and handing over of the bread – a revelation that culminated in their realization of his resurrection and his presence in their hearts through the Holy Spirit.

As Lent drew to a close and even as this 50-day Easter season progresses I have been privileged to participate in a number of funeral ceremonies. These were for family and friends of the Catholic community to which I belong. Of those who died, their cause and manner of death differed, but for certain, being in the presence of those who have gone beyond the eventide of their lives has been a blessing in that it helps me pray with more clarity and depth: "It is nearly evening, and the day is almost over."

Regardless of the span of each of our lives it is never out of fashion to pray that the Lord may gift us with his continuing presence and companionship, since this short life would definitely go to waste if we are not instructed by the One who creates and sustains it. We cannot, amid our questions and confusions spend our brief sojourn on this planet figuring out life, like disciples questioning the necessary crucifixion and death of the Lord. Life has to be lived in constant dialog with the One who takes the initiative and comes close to us, interested in what we carry in our souls, though it be nothing but bewilderment.

Only in an attitude of persistent openness to the voice of the One who broke death do we discover, like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, what is truly necessary: the friendship of the Lord, fellowship at the table, and fire to share the faith. For if we are not content in conversing with our Greatest Friend, then all our other relationships are doomed by the limitations of us partners; if our tables are exclusive, then we have abdicated our place in the single family of God, and if we cannot share faith that finds fulfillment in lived love, all that we share is finite and in the greater scheme of things, futile.

Nowadays crises afflict not only our needs for actualization as a nation, but even our basic needs. Our people's cry for a leadership that has integrity and oozes with inspiration is also coupled with a more acute and felt hunger, that of the stomach. For sure, if all only remembered with deep conviction that all of us in the eyes of heaven are just minutes away from our personal nights, from our deaths, we will do less to lust after power and hoard food. We would do more to build and not tear down each other, more to share and not withhold the requirements for a humane life from each other.

In these past couple of months I have been with truly penniless people. It's a sign and miracle that they who have nothing have found a detachment from things that have made them truly other-centered and generous. When one has faith, poverty invariably crosses over from being miserable to being evangelical. Our Lord has always been poor. In Emmaus what he shared was himself in the piece of bread. He does the same today at every Mass. Every Mass should remind us that it is now our turn to be bread for the world. And as at every Mass we are called to share in his supper, liturgy should inspire us to remember that the whole of our lives is the evening before we meet our Creator.

In connection with always placing ourselves at twilight, I found this "Prayer for a Happy Death" written by Corazon Aquino in 2004. It is nothing short of beautiful and ever timely:

Almighty God, most merciful Father
You alone know the time
You alone know the hour
You alone know the moment
When I shall breathe my last.

So remind me each day, most loving Father
To be the best that I can be
To be humble, to be kind,
To be patient, to be true,
To embrace what is good
To reject what is evil
To adore only You.

When that final moment does come
Let not my loved ones grieve for long
Let them comfort each other
And let them know how much happiness
They brought into my life.
Let them pray for me
As I will continue to pray for them,
Hoping that they will always pray for each other.
Let them know that they made possible
Whatever good I offered to our world
And let them realize that our separation
Is just for a short while
As we prepare for our reunion in eternity.

Our Father in heaven
You alone are my hope
You alone are my salvation
Thank You for Your unconditional love. Amen.

Happy Third Sunday of Easter!

2008-03-27T22:33:00.000-07:00

Jason A. Baguia
M. Philo – Philosophy of Education NT
University of San Carlos College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Philosophy Graduate School
Mr. Antonio Diluvio

Education grounded on existentialist philosophy has acquired greater relevance in the information age. With technology, especially the internet virtually opening up the borders of the global community, the homogeneity of people’s ideas and lifestyles has become an expected norm. This may be on the one hand a blessing in the quest for international understanding and peace yet it is very much a threat against the uniqueness of peoples, indeed individuals, and is well a subtle yet effective catalyst for imposition or conformism.
It is hard to contest that in many formal educational institutions there is a phenomenon of information overload. The contemporary human being, especially those dwelling in urban centers and its environs, actually wades daily through a sea of information, especially as the presence of the information superhighway has not rendered obsolete the traditional media of communication such as radio, television and newspaper, not to mention the medium used by advertisers everywhere like posters, streamers and billboards.
Indeed, man may be informed, up-to-date, abreast of his milieu, but the knowledge he gains does not necessarily confer upon him the sharpness and satisfaction of the wise. This is simply because he was not created for actualization as a walking brain. If all he has become is cerebral, then he has failed in his quest for the fullness of humanity. He has not learned what needs to be learned. It takes the meticulous mind and thorough realism of an existentialist to sift through the wealth of the world’s wisdom for the catch that is lived education. Then man will be living not only according to what he has mentally absorbed but more importantly as a breathing translation of what he has taken to heart.
The first aim of existentialism as an educational philosophy is the rescue of the individual from the clutches of the crowd. A human being is not some spare part in a factory called world to be stuffed with uniform ideas and ways of thinking and living in order to emerge as a quality clone of everyone else. Existentialist educators tend and nurture the individual so that he may contribute to making humanity not a drab collection of copies but a kaleidoscope of unique persons. This aim alone makes existential teaching challenging because the teacher has to maintain the fragile balance between proposing a subject for learning as necessary yet dispensable depending on the character and dreams of the student.
Secondly existentialism wishes to foster freedom in the educational aim. This would be a good way of checking the present aim of education in the country which is that of economic prosperity. When we persist in following this paradigm and gear education solely towards economic gains measured in monetary terms, we are as a nation, slaves of money simply put. Students will remain under pressure to seek the course that at the soonest possible time yields the most lucrative cash returns, often at the cost of personal dreams, visions for social upliftment, nationalist concerns, and spiritual and family values. Without making any judgment call on the motivations of those who have taken up nursing as tertiary education major, the stampede towards this course in many colleges and universities, the invention of nursing departments where none used to exist, the drawing up of short term mutants and variants of the nursing program all point to differing degrees of sacrificing hundreds of thousands of equally noble and beautiful dreams on the altar of promised luxury.
The philosophy we speak of also champions the importance of existential anxiety in education. Such a priority in effect exterminates the control freak that is a seed in every human being – a seed that unfortunately bore fruit across history in the drama of totalitarian regimes. The human being has to learn hope anew, and this art of hope can never be expressed if everything has been calculated with cold precision, even human beings who are not supposed to be subject to calculation but ought simply to be beheld as they unfold and flower as persons in their incomparable biographies. The Dutch priest-writer-psychologist-philosopher-theologian Henri Nouwen once said in a reflection titled “Living Faithfully in an Ambiguous World” that buttresses the existentialist claim on the importance of anxiety:

“Our hearts and minds desire clarity. We like to have a clear picture of a situation, a clear view of how things fit together, and clear insight into our own and the world's problems. But just as in nature colors and shapes mingle without clear-cut distinctions, human life doesn't offer the clarity we are looking for. The borders between love and hate, evil and good, beauty and ugliness, heroism and cowardice, care and neglect, guilt and blamelessness are mostly vague, ambiguous, and hard to discern.
“It is not easy to live faithfully in a world full of ambiguities. We have to learn to make wise choices without needing to be entirely sure.”

Due to existential anxiety, a man can have the peace of a mind that is not sedentary and lethargic but ever animated by engaging the challenges instead of being apathetic to or controlling life.
Authentic humanization too is an important feature of existentialist education. The distinction has to be made between the computer and the human being. If the aim of education is simply to fill a person with knowledge, then it is about time that all educational institutions be abolished, since the computer has made the student redundant. Fortunately the existentialist continues to prophetically speak of education as a means to becoming fully man. In the end for the existentialist memory is not the final criterion of learning but how far a human being has become who he is meant to be. The lived values of servant-leadership could make a good criterion for measuring how much a man has learned. These are listening, empathy, awareness, healing, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. Finally, existentialist education forms people to become not only unique beings at the height of their various powers but also to be people who are value-laden and ethical. This is a powerful antidote to this still success-at-all-costs-driven generation. Many plan to be rich and famous, powerful and renowned. Existentialist educators aid people by attracting them to the beauty of dreaming to be upright, to be ethical and value laden.

Aims, Methods, and Curriculum Content of Reconstructionist Education

2008-03-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

Jason A. Baguia
M. Philo
Philosophy of Education NT
University of San Carlos College of Arts & Sciences Graduate School
Department of Philosophy
Mr. Antonio Diluvio

The first aim of reconstructionist education – an educational philosophy founded on the belief in a review of prevailing educational systems as corollary to the unceasing need for social change -is for education to be the instrument by which social and cultural improvement is achieved. These changes, according to reconstructionists are necessary in the journey towards a good future and a better world – the final aims of the reconstructionist educational philosophy. The goal of reconstructionist learning for students is that they themselves may envision the good future and spend their learning as a preparation for their role in the future for which they reach.

The reconstructionist student is characterized as prepared to take on the future, inquisitive, open-minded. He has a high sense of duty towards fellow human beings or social responsibility. He possesses instrumental and expressive skills, humor, kindness, and compassion. He is a highly effective communicator.

In order to help instill the listed characteristics into the students, reconstructionist teachers strive for an affective approach towards cognitive experiences. That is, learning is facilitated not only in dialogue with the minds but especially with the hearts of students so that they are more deeply engaged in the learning experience. Participation is highly encouraged. Wallflowers are drawn out of their shell to give them the confidence to make a contribution to learning. The Protestant ethic pressure is sharply reduced: instead of penalizing non-learning and rewarding rigid faithfulness to curriculum content, such artificial crutches to aid learning are dispensed with in favor of captivating the student to learn out of his own free will. Teaching is geared towards the maximum self-realization of the student. As Harold and June Grant Shane write, this could mean among others “varied school entrance ages, perhaps different hours spent in learning, certainly a large number of personalized experiences, and new thinking as to the desirable limits of compulsory attendance at the secondary level.” Finally, society is accountable for the education of the young, that is, those who finish formal schooling under the reconstructionist method do not only go their own way to serve society but also take their turn in keeping an eye on the students following in their footsteps. The graduates who form society become vanguards of an education that should be kept on its toes as a reformer of society.

The aforementioned authors consider as “the genuinely important content of instruction” not mere data or information but learning skills, that is, abilities to absorb and synthesize knowledge into a meaningful whole that can be applied and/or adapted to situations as and when necessary. This is why they list as part of curriculum content the use of many media in addition to texts, the training of the child to take initiative and to plan together with a group, and multiple instead of single learnings.

Flashback: Corrections and sacrifices

2008-03-06T23:51:00.000-08:00

Glimmers from Patmos
printed Sunday, 24 February 2008

CEBU DAILY NEWS
FAITH

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that haven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-Rabindranath Tagore, “Gitanjali”

Lent.

And the nation is in a state of rage.

What do we do?

Calls have been made for “communal action” by Roman Catholic bishops. Spins have been put on the phrase by various sectors. For sure, communal action aimed at the common good in response to the seeming final straw in the heap of corruption scandals inflicted on us by our nation’s prayerfulness can only proceed from prayerfulness. From discernment.

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger differentiates between meditative thinking and calculative thinking, both of which are activities of humans as rational beings. Meditative thinking is open to enlightenment. Calculative thinking posits a desired result and gears action towards the achievement of results by all means, unfortunately not all good means.

Communal action in nation-building ought to be based on meditative instead of calculative thinking. The latter plays on our fears in the consumeristic-materialistic sphere of our existence. “It’s the economy! It’s the economy!” shout many of those who remain blinded by the illusion of a rosy Philippines. But to those who say we cannot eat national dignity, cannot be sated or quenched by sense of pride as one people, I ask: where are the supposed concrete benefits from your glowing economic statistics?

Meditiative thinking. We need a leadership that inspires us. We need a leadership that tells us that the point is not to have, but that the point is to share what we have. We do not need huge surpluses in the national treasury inasmuch as we need people who do not hoard that surplus for their own gains but instead redistribute it to the poor to whom it rightly belongs, for to paraphrase Gandhi, even what is rightfully acquired takes the nature of stolen items if it is possessed without being needed. How do we achieve such goodness in our leadership? I leave the calculation, prayerfully hoping that calculation for short term goals may be seen as the transitory moves that they are, in favor of more genuine reform. Not just a reform of systems or changing of guards, but a conversion of hearts.

To this end let us focus for a while on correction – that duty that we have of helping each other stay on the right path, that we may not be unseeing people leading each other into ravines but disciples who truly enter into dialogue with each other, as the Christians who we are.

Through the prophet Isaiah our Lord says: “Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me: to break unjust fetters…” First, to those who are called to give correction: It is an unjust fetter that we pass sentence on a human being without giving that person a chance to grow or to reveal himself as someone totally different from our first impression of him just because of our prejudice. Do we correct people in the right way, in the right place, with the right words and for the right reasons? Do we point out our brethren’s weakness with gentleness and a gesture to show that we care, or do we shout and holler with disrespect? The strength and power of our voices were designed by God to proclaim his merciful love. Many times however, it becomes hard for listeners to believe in the one shouting about love because they are hearing the very same voice that spewed forth hurtful insults.

Second: What if I am at the receiving end of correction? Am I humble enough to admit my mistakes and make the effort towards redress and improvement? Or do I ignore the service of the one loving me by correcting me? Am I guilty of trying another’s patience by letting him be my baby-sitter in not responding maturely to correction? As Saint Paul says, may I not be a reason for my brother to fall. The same apostle said that when he was a child he lived as one but let childish things pass when he matured. When we enter the spiritual life, no matter how old we are, we are called to grow: not to be childish but to be as a child of our heavenly Father: like the Son who was obedient even until sacrifice and death on a cross.

Supreme sacrifices, anyone?

Being Holistic About Educational Pragmatism

2008-03-06T22:51:00.000-08:00

Jason A. Baguia
M. Philo
Philosophy of Education NT
Mr. Antonio Diluvio
University of San Carlos College of Arts & Sciences
Department of Philosophy Graduate School

Pragmatism is that philosophy which equates truth with efficiency and effectiveness in satisfying objectives. An idea, principle, system or way of life is true and relevant for as long as it works and becomes useless the moment it outlives its workability.

Inception of pragmatic philosophy into the American educational system meant that our own educational system, influenced by the Americans, also contains palpable pragmatic features.

At the outset it appears that pragmatism as a philosophy of education has a very noble aim: to sharpen the precision with which learning acquired by students may be applied to the solution of problems in the so-called “real world.” It is in many ways the educational philosophy that gave birth to specialization, being a problem-centered approach seeking solutions that correspond to specific problems. It was responsible, so to speak, for the marriage of reality and the classroom. We have much for which to be thankful to pragmatism in the educational system, especially its realm of various sciences responsible for, among other things, the discovery of cures to maladies and the invention of technologies that raise standards of living.

Many of the advances in the sciences and innovations in technology have been the result of the inductive thinking espoused by philosopher Francis Bacon.

Among our contemporaries we see traces of this in what economists call obsolescence – new models of everyday gadgets are spurred on by the need of individual human beings for better and/or more personal features to be added to the gadget that they have purchased. Armies across the world moved from separate air and naval forces into something of a dual force using amphibious craft that can soar into the sky or fare on the sea.

I am convinced however that inductive thinking began departing from its golden age the moment it became a universalized instrument in education, economics, ethics, politics, and even psychology.

A curriculum cannot be strictly inductive – designed according to the uniqueness of each student and the problem they are confronting, because problems in themselves are dynamic and students are human beings who grow and change. At a specific time this may be the student’s needs and this may be the problem but as soon as those needs are satisfied and the problem has been solved a new student-reality status quo may have emerged. A curriculum review, presumably to be so regularly conducted in conjunction with constant inductive thinking cannot be paced by the haste of our ever-changing times. That would undermine the stability of our educational systems. If education is life, as the pragmatic educators view it, then students have to be exposed not only to what is real-time but to what may be momentarily purely moot and/or academic in preparation for the recurrence of what is moot or the arrival of what is hitherto purely academic in the form of a new problem at a time that not even the best of pragmatists may be able to predict.

In the teaching of ethics, economics, politics, and psychology, stringent pragmatism might not end in ethical and moral actions. If the overarching consideration vis-à-vis the problems besetting these fields are immediate solutions, the way for harmful responses may be paved. Psychological disorders by definition cannot be tackled by a single working remedy. We cannot just confine the psychologically disordered to wards for those who have lost their marbles when every other alternative has proved futile. There is always the compassionate response of caring for the suffering one, even if it entails that suffering should not be eliminated but instead endured even at the cost of the caregiver’s convenience. In such instances the problem may have been allowed to persist yet the response makes both sufferer and caregiver more humane. Taken in extreme, the teaching of pragmatism in ethics may lay the groundwork for justifying abortion and euthanasia, in economics for defending the dominance of more knowledgeable elite, in politics for silencing dissenters and critics in favor of the working order best supervised by a police state.

John Locke’s pragmatism applied in education again is good only insofar as the knowledge sought can be proven by experience. This is useful in the sciences but useless beyond it. Locke’s criterion of truth is not the proper basis for making conclusions for the existence or absence of mankind’s cherished values like freedom, justice, love and peace. Actions will only be verified as actions experienced actions and nothing more. Continuing beneficial acts will be but continuing beneficial acts when subjected to reflection as Locke defines reflection and never interpreted as flowing out of a kind disposition. Literature, the visual arts, to name a couple of fields will be full of untruths as a bulk of output from these fields of expertise do not necessarily pass the litmus test of experience. The myth and lessons of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings would be dismissed as but a litter of false ideas. It has to be remembered however that linear thinking alone does not make a person wise and amply equipped to seize life and live it to the full. Non-linear, creative thinking, cultivated by exposure to truths in the arts and subsisting in the false ideas of artists is also needed.

By far Jean Jacques Rousseau appears to be the most holistic of the pragmatists. Augustine Comte’s thought ambitiously wants students to use science to reform society. Charles Darwin puts humanity on the defensive by positing life as but a drawn-out survival process. But Rousseau advocates education amid nature and in seclusion from civilization not as an escape but as a preparation for responding to society, and we need more people to have the awareness that we are not just a society but a whole creation, with human beings as caretakers and not as mere consumers of nature and her gifts.

Pragmatism as an educational philosophy is geared towards serving society. That is fine as it goes, but this educational philosophy is not sufficient to make the whole person grow. The student cannot be a mere learner in function of serving: 30% of a man’s time is spent apart from his work, apart from society. There is family and interpersonal relationships that an educational thought apart from pragmatism also needs to address.

Realism as a Philosophy of Education

2008-02-15T08:17:00.000-08:00

Jason A. Baguia
M. Philosophy
Philosophy of Education NT
Mr. Antonio Diluvio
University of San Carlos, College of Arts and Sciences
Graduate Studies Department of Philosophy

What is admirable about realism as a philosophy of education – and I speak here of classical realism – is that it revolted against the idealist confinement of what is ultimately real to the world of ideas. This revolutionary viewpoint alone has important educative implications, the first being that of putting man in a position of primacy in relation with instead of supremacy in condescending rule over the rest of the universe. Since what is outside man as perceived through sensation is real, since what I see is what I get, then I have the responsibility of knowing these things in order that I may use them well. I resist the utopian belittling of the material as mere, poor copies of what they truly are in an other-world without illusions, but instead care for my world knowing that it is the only one I have and realizing that it is ultimately not mine, but that of many more who would be in it long after my time is past. Whether I am there to perceive the world or not, the world exists. I would be selfish and callous if I do not revere this world that is independent of me: that is not a product of my conception, but an independent reality, for, to paraphrase Max Ehrmann, with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. If I am educated in such a way as to not reject this world as a mere specter, then I would be equipped with the knowledge of being responsible for it. I need not look forward exclusively to looking forward to a better world, but I endeavor with all of myself as well to make this world a better place.

The Christianization of classical realism courtesy of St. Thomas Aquinas is in my assessment a most venerable culmination of this educational philosophy. While Aristotle's realism placed man in relation with his world, Aquinas' realism philosophically fortified man in relation with God. In doing so he tied up the final chain of the triad that forms the subjects or objects of man’s philosophical inquiries across the ages: God, the world, and himself. God being pure reason and man being made in the image and likeness of this pure reason becomes more and more identified with the deity the better and the more he exercises reason through thinking. In our secularized setting, Christian-classical realism is considered quaint, if not prehistoric. But in truth it is only when educators are aware of a Divine Teacher who will one day judge their own teachings that they will be inspired to perform their tasks with excellence. Hence they will impart not just knowledge per se but education geared towards the common good, education guided by a God who seeks the salvation of all in a re-creation that is not only spiritual but holistic, thus converting too the temporal realm and not just the unseen. The educational philosophy prevails today in Catholic academic circles under the language of "stewardship" whereby the end of knowledge is sustainable development – the use of creation and human time, treasure and talent in a way that enhances but neither depletes nor oppresses the gifts placed under our care.

The secular-minded among us tend to warn against the danger of knowledge being made subservient to religion in sectarian institutions. In my view, the continuing dialogue between culture and faith has ensured that the academe and magisterium intertwined in say, Catholic educational institutions remain at the service of truth, so that culture does not succumb to ideology and religion does not give way to bigotry. Concretely, the Vatican has a Pontifical Academy for Sciences, while many universities across the world have study centers for faith and ecumenism. Such marriage of classical and religious realist trains of thought is a guarantee of hope amid the many problems besetting society today, not least among them the problem of keeping education well-grounded and well-used.

Francis Bacon responded to this problem by proposing the tearing down of the idols that according to him limited the scope, depth, and veracity of human knowledge. I have no problems with the seed of modern realism that Bacon planted. Indeed, limited experience, linguistic disparity, philosophical dogmatism and religious bigotry, and go-with-the-flow, bend-or-break mentality are ingredients for educational darkness. Yet educational iconoclasm should not be wholesale but restrained, for otherwise it risks chaos and at worst, nihilism. Many philosophical currents decried as dogmatic never became dogmas as such without the test of time and validation via human experience. We cannot, to cite a few examples, do away with marriage as union between a man and a woman just because it has been labeled a dogma, undo the results of an election just because it springs from a tribal majority vote, ignore the hunger in a corner of the world just because food is abundant in Europe and therefore incidents of hunger are isolated Third World maladies, or view "truth is subjectivity" as a mere philosophical fad. It is well and good to restart from particulars before making generalizations vis-à-vis gaining knowledge, and indeed, where possible, to make qualifications to generalizations, exemptions to rules. Nonetheless there undeniably are things best left unsullied. The right to life for example, or the dignities of man as stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are not conclusions drawn from inductive studies but expressions of a clear vision of what constituted a dignified life based on a knowledge of it before it was ravaged by war. We do not need a long and winding inductive study to know that poverty is a scourge on mankind and that neither band-aid solutions or material redress suffice to compensate for it because we know deep within that the poor need not mere philanthropy but compassionate solidarity. Thus the realist iconoclasm of Francis Bacon should be tempered by human compassion lest it aid an educational system that ends up treating mankind, the world and God with a heartless, laboratory precision that is but another name for irreverence towards reality.

The sensation and reflection espoused by John Locke as an apparent development of Bacon’s ideas are useful in very particular fields of human endeavor. However, as it reduces philosophy into a hard science it cannot stand on its own as a philosophy for holistic human education. What he classifies as abstract idealisms – real but beyond verification by reflection and sensation may be what he calls them but they are indispensable for human life to be called at least decent. Imagine if such realities as love and heroism, saintliness and dedication, service and the invisible rewards of an embrace have to be subjected to the rigors of empiricism in order to be accepted as real. Such would lose their vitality. It would be as dissecting the rose and losing the entire flower, indeed missing the forest for the trees. I couldn’t care less if it was by refraction or reflection or whatsoever cosmic and celestial phenomenon the sun grandly paints the western horizon every twilight time. What matters is that I am able to drink in this rare everyday beauty, so much the better with people held dear sharing the scenery with me.

As for my views on logical positivism and linguistic analysis which are concrete manifestations of contemporary realism, I say that these bode well for the communion of peoples and the purification of philosophies and belief systems from superstition, yet educators should be careful not to promote its discoveries as summits of knowledge, for these ought to be but instruments for achieving the greater hopes of man, instruments that are not necessarily helpful in achieving his greatest hope that is love.

Shadows of Ideas: A Critique of Idealism as a Philosophy of Education

2008-02-01T19:00:00.000-08:00

Jason A. Baguia
M. Philosophy
Philosophy of Education NT
Mr. Antonio Diluvio

University of San Carlos, College of Arts and Sciences

Graduate Studies Department of Philosophy

I wish to begin this critique by re-enumerating the advantages of implementing an educational system based on philosophical idealism, as the downsides to the said philosophy can be inferred from its very strengths.

As a philosophy of education, idealism is acclaimed for (1) promoting a high cognitive level of education (2) being concerned with safeguarding and promoting cultural learning (3) being concerned about student morality and character development (4) viewing the teacher as central to the educational process (5) stressing the importance of self-realization (6) placing a premium on the human and personal side of life and (7) approaching education in a comprehensive, systematic, and holistic manner.

There is merit in promoting a high level of cognition in education, yet these last only insofar as high cognition does not redound to the detriment and inutility of affect and behavior. The Socratic principle that has made mere knowledge synonymous with enlightenment does not hold water when placed against the background of the failings of many of history’s greatest and richest minds. We only have to look at the intelligent dictators that have mired in misery nations across continents to see that high cognition per se does not guarantee progress – it may even be a means to deceive. Auras of bright intellect may be but potent masks for sinister schemers who eventually subjugate and oppress whole peoples in plots as thick as the worst chapters of the dark ages.

Cultural learning ought to be safeguarded and promoted, yet it cannot be fossilized. In fact, the greatest insurance for the perpetuation of a culture is not so much a protectionist approach that reduces cultural treasures to nothing more than museums amid modernity, but an approach of engagement, whereby learning within a culture confronts and interacts with the cultures of a global village, such that diversity is not isolated in its rootedness but rendered robust amid the kaleidoscope of human civilizations.

The weak link in the idealist concern for morality and character development is that it is founded on cerebral knowledge when in truth lived experience alone can fortify and consolidate a human being’s moral mettle. Morality and character are not grown in laboratories, libraries or classrooms. They culminate in moment by moment actions people take outside the portals of formal learning. I can memorize all of the Ten Commandments complete with Greek and Latin translations, yet this memory does me no good if for instance my affect is in such a state as to cower towards conformity amid a secular culture that derides allegiance to religion.

The idealist centrality of the teacher in the learning process needs to be sharpened. Teachers will always be at the hub of the learning process. Yet educational systems have evolved towards the common realization that teaching is more about facilitating learning than imposing learning, for what is imposed may be remembered well enough to be rewritten at times of learning evaluation like examinations, yet are forgotten as soon as the papers have been handed in. Supposing that the centrality of the teacher is in the style of Socrates as an intellectual midwife, there is no problem. The confusion begins wherever teachers yield to the attraction and assume the role of powerful magisterial figures whose knowledge is beyond question.

Self-realization as well as the human and personal sides of life is en vogue, as proven in the proliferation of articles towards the said ends in the lifestyle pages of our newspapers. This too needs to have its limits. It was once said that the pleasures of one human being ends where the rights of another begins. We cannot look for unbridled self-realization. Even Pope Benedict XVI says in his encyclical “Spe Salvi” that the search for salvation cannot be an individualistic quest. It has to take the community into account. Idealism is a good starting point for the realization of the human potential but we have to bear in mind that the realization of the human potential is never full if it does not happen in relation and together with fellow human beings. No man is an island. We are all part of a continent.

I register no objection to approaching education in a comprehensive, holistic and systematic manner yet note that educators need to be humble enough to recognize mysteries (not necessarily religious mysteries) and the importance of specialization. Communities cannot function with only intellectual giants who have not effectively sharpened their talent or function. What knowledge I have cannot be concretized in an absurd and awkward multiplicity of occupations. Further, to know everything is by definition impossible. The span of a human being’s lifetime alone imposes a limit on the scope of knowledge that he can accumulate.

Flashback: A thrill of hope

2008-01-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

Glimmers from Patmos

printed Sunday, 02 December 2007

CEBU DAILY NEWS

FAITH

It has been a good new year's week. For those who follow the Christian liturgical calendar, an old year has just been completed. A new one has just begun, and like any chronological new year the new Christian year inaugurated on the First Sunday of Advent – liturgically sundown last Saturday, 01 December 2007 – was preceded by an eve that was nothing less than an occasion. "Spe Salvi," the encyclical letter of the Holy Father Benedict XVI on Christian hope had just been signed in the Vatican and released to mankind.

The 75-page letter is touchingly exquisite, even poignant especially for many Filipinos who may have read it less than a day after the most recent Trillanes putsch, and less than a week after a triumvirate of typhoons hovered grimacing over the skies and fluvial peripheries of their archipelago. If in the face of such and variant problems the worldly are betting merely on meteorological technology, increased consumption and profit as an economic perk of secularized holidays, and/or political maneuvers as messianic roads for this segment of the human race, the encyclical bets with certainty against such mere solutions. Mere solutions cannot save. Sheer love can, but it takes God to transform mere solutions into responses of sheer love.

Filled as it is with bright and profound insights, it takes a while to ferret out the excerpt that best represents "Spe Salvi." I breezed through a number of reports and commentaries next to reading the letter (which can be found on many internet pages, just google or yahoo "Spe Salvi" for links) to find aids in choosing the defining quote. In the end I settled, based on what affected me most for two, paragraphs 27 and 30, and I quote:

"…it is true that anyone who does not know God, even though he may entertain all kinds of hopes, is ultimately without hope, without the great hope that sustains the whole of life (cf. Eph 2:12). Man's great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God—God who has loved us and who continues to love us 'to the end,' until all 'is accomplished' (cf. Jn 13:1 and 19:30). Whoever is moved by love begins to perceive what 'life' really is. He begins to perceive the meaning of the word of hope that we encountered in the Baptismal Rite: from faith I await "eternal life"—the true life which, whole and unthreatened, in all its fullness, is simply life. Jesus, who said that he had come so that we might have life and have it in its fullness, in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10), has also explained to us what 'life' means: 'this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent' (Jn 17:3). Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life. Then we 'live'.

"…we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is 'truly' life."

One of the biblical passages dearest to me is that of Isaiah, 11:1-10. The prophecy of the coming of Christ to the people of Israel, and indeed to all men and women of good will is typified as the blossoming of a bud, from a shoot, from a stump, from the root of Jesse. The figure speaks to individuals and communities of all times. Today, like in any other time in history, both solitude and relationships may be likened to a tree stump, reduced to lonely isolation or the fearful clinging of people to each other. Yet the promises of God endure forever. Even the stump has the potential to put forth shoot that spreads the ever-fresh and godly aroma of love. It is the seizing of this potential – in prayer, in suffering, in offering up our actions for the good of all – that is our seizing of hope and our welcoming of the unending season of God.