Saturday, April 28, 2007

Our Second and Ongoing Creation

YES, there is a first creation and a second creation. In fact, our creation is God’s work in progress concerning us. It’s not yet completely finished. Our Catechism describes God’s creation in this way:

“Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created ‘in a state of journeying’ toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained.” (302)

I think this fundamental truth about ourselves is crucial for us to know how to live our life here on earth. Error, ignorance or confusion in this area will surely distort our understanding of our life. They unavoidably will produce wrong consequences.

We have to understand that the whole reality of creation has for its purpose our worship and adoration of God. The Catechism tells us that worship is inscribed in the order of creation. (cfr 347)

We are meant to be with God in all eternity. Our life here is part of God’s creative moment when he fashions us as children of his who not only receive things from God but also know how to correspond with his goodness.

Our first creation was in Adam and Eve. On this occasion, God gave our first parents and all of us the best things in the visible universe—not only a body with wonderful systems, but also spiritual faculties, like intelligence and free will, which qualitatively distinguish us from the other creatures.

Because of these endowments, we are persons and not just things among God’s creatures. We already have a dignity far superior to that of any creature in the world. We cannot be treated like any other creature.

Not contented with these, God elevated our first parents, a gesture meant for all of us, to his supernatural level by giving us grace. This condition is called the state of original justice. We are meant to live not just a natural life, but a supernatural life with God.

This state of original justice, which we lost with our first parents’ sin, included what are known as preternatural gifts, wonderful extras that made our life very beautiful—immortality, integrity, impassibility or capacity not to suffer.

Our first creation, though very good, lacked one very important thing—our
capacity to recover our dignity once we lose it when we misuse our freedom. Thus, this first creation tends to and is corrected by our second creation.

Again our Catechism teaches: “The work of creation culminates in the greater work of redemption. The first creation finds its meaning and summit in the new creation in Christ, the splendor of which surpasses that of the first creation.” (349)

So, the new creation in Christ perfects and enriches our first creation. But again, we have to understand that this second creation while consummated by Christ has to be corresponded to vitally by us. It’s an ongoing affair.

Creation to God may involve only an “instant” in his eternity, but to us it will involve the whole of time.

This is because our creation as men and women, and then as God’s children, while completely a work of God, has to contend with our cooperation. As
persons, we cannot help but mirror God’s action on us.

That’s why God’s providence or governance to lead us to him expects and even requires our cooperation. God wants it that way. It is in our nature and vocation given to us by God to participate actively in his providence.

Thus, our second creation in Christ is extended in the whole of time to capture our proper fashioning as children of God through the interplay of God’s action and our correspondence to it in our earthly life.

These basic truths about our creation, meant for all and not just an elite, can help us to distinguish the essential from the simply contingent in our life, the absolute from the merely relative.

These truths prevent us from getting distracted. They give us wisdom, freedom, joy and confidence in our actions. We will develop a good sense of direction in our life.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

A new springtime in the Church?

Have you noticed a surge of groups in your parish or in your neighborhood doing some prayer meetings and other religious activities? That’s because there happily is a rise of ecclesial movements these days.

To mention a few, you have the El Shaddai, Couples for Christ, Bukas Loob sa Dios, Christian Family Movement, and a number of charismatic groups and what are now known as covenanted communities.

You cannot deny that they attract multitudes of followers who openly admit
that these groups have helped them tremendously in their spiritual life.

Pope John Paul II called this phenomenon “a new springtime,” a manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s continuing action in the Church. It’s like having a spiritual bonanza in the Church, in spite of its troubles.

Pope Benedict, euphoric during his inauguration in 2005 upon seeing this spiritual resurgence right before him, could not help but exclaim, “the Church is alive.” Yes, the Church is alive and kicking, in spite of its age.

This, of course, is a great cause for joy, a boost to our spirit. But it also reminds us of grave duties and responsibilities.

The Church is not only visible and hierarchical. It also is invisible and charismatic. It is in how to blend these two dimensions where the skills and genuine spirituality of Church leaders are tested.

Our Church leaders should be wary of falling into red tape and bureaucracy.
They have to be always alert to new developments, because the Church by nature always exceeds expectations.

While we continue to live within certain structures and known laws, we should not rule out new things that the Holy Spirit can surprise us with from time to time. Away with rigid ways and uniform mentality! Leadership is not a matter of domination and possession.

These new things can have a certain radicalness to them. We have to be open and prepared for them. We have to learn how to handle both old and new things as well as a multiplicity of elements.

It is this working of the Holy Spirit, manifested in many ways, which the visible and hierarchical Church should carefully and, as much as possible, punctually discern, defend, promote and properly integrate within the Church.

Discerning the authenticity of charisms, for example, is already a formidable task. Bogus charisms are plenty. But that’s not all. Purging charisms from impurities that can take place at their reception or in their expressions is even a tougher job.

It cannot be denied that abuses and errors have accompanied what otherwise can be considered as a genuine charism. Pointing them out and correcting them require real fortitude and prudence.

To top it all, Church leaders and officials should also know how to promote it, how to develop its potentials to the full and to integrate it for the benefit of the whole Church. Nothing less than heroic sanctity is expected of them to carry out this function.

These responsibilities certainly depend on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. On our part, we should be quick to discern this divine guidance and translate it into some human workable system. The Spirit wants to rely on human means too.

I am sure that a lot of guidelines have already been made about how concerned Church officials and everybody else should behave when apparent spiritual manifestations take place.

Let’s make them more known, so that everyone can be properly guided. Both the authorities and the persons or groups claiming some charism can easily seek out each other. Hopefully, openness, mutual understanding and coordination can ensue.

In this regard, it is worthwhile to recall some relevant indications meant to test the authenticity of a charism. They are:

a) Is the charism clearly rooted in the faith of the Church?
b) Do those claiming it stand by the successors of the Apostles and of
Peter? Do they obey the hierarchy?
c) Are they free for social service and the proclamation of the Gospel?
d) Is there a personal encounter of the members with Christ?

With these, we hope the springtime in the Church becomes perpetual.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

The carcass of religion

THERE’S always hope, of course. No doubt, God can raise the dead back to life again. He is infinitely merciful, and can make use of anything, including our mistakes, to make something great out of our life. But we cannot deny that nowadays there seem to be a lot of carcasses of religion
around.

Religion, which is supposed to be our abiding relationship with God, lived, in many instances, without God. It has simply become a human invention, a matter of convention, or a game we play. Thus, it is full of pretensions, hypocrisy, inconsistencies.

Our life, of course, is a life of relationships. And of the many relationships we have, the most important and indispensable one is our relationship with God, our religion, since it is the origin and pattern of all our other relationships.

We have to nurture and develop it. To it, we should give our best efforts. God is the source and keeper of our life. Unless we deny that, or unless we think we just came to exist on our own, as in, spontaneously, how can we ignore him?

In the Book of Revelation, we hear the following warning: “I know your works, you have the name of being alive, and you are dead.” (3,1) And in the gospel of St. Luke, we also read the following relevant point:

“Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.” (17,37) This can refer to vultures to their prey, evil elements that get attracted to the smelly carcass of our religion.

Religion is dead when it is reduced to a mere collection of pious acts without the animating element of authentic love of God and love of neighbor. In other words, it is just an appearance without the real substance.

It is important that in this crucial matter of religion, we sharply distinguish between its essence, which is grace and love of the kind lived and taught, and its signs and manifestations, which can be cleverly made up or invented. We have to be wary about subtle reductionisms and confusion in religion.

Religion, of course, requires pious practices and unavoidably has signs, but it transcends these practices and signs. It involves doctrines and a whole gamut of things, but it is not just doctrines and things.

Thus, in the Bible we often see our Lord taking exception to the ways of many leading religious men of the time. “They have ears, but don’t hear. They have eyes, but don’t see.”

And again, we hear our Lord say to these religious men: “You have made void the commandment of God for your tradition. Hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying: this people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” (Mt 15,6-8).

Authentic religion is when we keep a vital and abiding connection with God, making ourselves always open to God’s grace and action, and allowing God to transform us thoroughly, in every aspect and dimension of our being.

A bastardized religion is when we keep some signs of our relationship with
God, but unwilling to go all the way, and maintaining some limits as to what God can do with our lives. We can have the form of it, but not the substance.

For true religion to prosper, we need to undergo continuing conversion, because this is the only way we can keep that abiding relationship with God. Human as we are, we tend to say enough to God’s work in us. When we have another conversion, we allow God to continue.

Thus, we should be ready to pray at the bottom of our heart, where we can
really be with God even when all else in our human condition seems to fail, “Lord, create in me a new heart, give me a new spirit.”

I think this is the ultimate thing we can ask from God. With this openness,
we allow God’s grace to reanimate us. What is dead comes to life again. What is wounded is somehow healed. What is soiled is purified.

Religion’s carcass resurrects!

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Mercy, mercy, mercy

IN a priest’s daily prayers, the Breviary, there’s a psalm that never fails to warm my heart. It is a beautiful hymn on divine mercy, meant for us to learn also, since our Lord said: “Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.” It goes:

“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good / for his mercy endures forever. /
Let the sons of Israel say: / ‘His mercy endures forever.’ / Let the sons of Aaron say: / ‘His mercy endures for ever.’ / Let those who fear the Lord say: / ‘His mercy endures for ever…” (Ps 118)

Of course, there’s in the psalms a certain element that makes us flow in a
prayerful stream of thoughts. Its lilt makes us recollected in peace, making us feel at home with the one who is precisely our original father—God. I hope many of us can rediscover the beauty of the psalms.

Divine mercy is the culmination of God’s love for us. It shows us who we truly are to God. We are not just any creature. We are no just even the best creature in the material world, able to know and choose.

We are God’s children, created in his image and likeness, endowed not only
with the best the natural world can give. We have been gratuitously raised to share in the very nature and life of God! This happens through grace.

It is this innate, original dignity we all have that, in a way, does not allow God to ever forget us, no matter how bad we have been. We can even say that the more mean we are, the more God shows his love for us.

Remember what our Lord said to Simon who thought ill of the woman who
washed our Lord’s feet with ointment: “Many sins are forgiven her, because
she has loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loves less.” (Lk 7,46)

Many practical considerations can spring from this fundamental realization
of who we are. One is that we have to learn to be truly patient, eagerly forgiving and open to all. We deserve nothing less than this as we deal with one another.

No matter how different one may be from us, especially in terms of culture,
mentality, attitudes, and even of morality and spirituality, we need to be patient, quick to give excuses and to forgive, hardly taking any offense.

That’s why we have to be very open and strong, staying away from being
overly sensitive and rigid in our own ways and styles. Flexibility is always a mark of a strong man. Far from weakening our personality, this attitude enhances it as it makes us more like Christ.

Thus, we have to learn the soft and gentle skills of being affable and likeable to all. Good manners, refined ways, warm dispositions, details of urbanity are always worth cultivating. Same with highlighting the positive and the unifying.

This, of course, does not do away with the requirements of justice and truth. Mercy demands justice and truth, but somehow it goes beyond them, purifying them and setting them in their proper place and context.

Mercy does not allow justice to lapse to revenge, anger, irritation. It does not allow truth to be cold, unfeeling, heartless. It provides the proper solution for justice and truth to serve the ultimate good of man.

Where justice tends to give a defined, focused picture of a situation, mercy gives the large picture and perspective. Where truth tends to be precise and exacting, mercy protects it from being discriminatory and self-righteous.

Mercy reminds us all that we are always brothers and sisters to one another, whatever may be our condition, differences and conflicts. It reminds us to love one another the way our Lord loves us. Even the enemy is object of such love.

Mercy, in the end, elevates justice and truth to the level of God, taking it away from being mere play things and instruments of clever men. We have to learn the ways of mercy! That’s the need today.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Contemplatives or peeping toms?

“SACRAMENTUM caritatis,” Latin for the sacrament of charity, referring to the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, is the title of the latest document issued by Pope Benedict, released last February 22.

It’s a beautiful summary and in-depth comment of the Pope on the observations, suggestions and resolutions made by the bishops and cardinals in their synod on the sacrament in October 2005 in Rome.

Reading it, I was immediately impressed by the amount of wisdom contained in that document that skillfully described the sacrament as a mystery to be believed, to be celebrated and to be lived.

I consider that plan of developing the topic very timely and clever, since it gives a comprehensive coverage, unified and organic, of how the sacrament, and the mystery it involves, should be treated.

The sacrament should not only be believed, it has to be celebrated, and properly. And it should not just be celebrated, it has to be lived to its last consequences.

The Holy Mass, after all, has been described as the source and summit of Church life and mission, the vital link between heaven and earth now. It has to infuse its substance in our entire being—from our minutest pore to our grandest dimension.

Often, we get stuck in one stage or another. We need to go all the way. This is a requirement of our human condition, to be consciously pursued and fulfilled since our tendency is to reduce what is proper for us.

There is a beautiful and incisive description, for example, of what active participation in the Mass ought to be. It’s not just muttering prayers and joining in the singing. One has to go through a continuing conversion as he immerses himself in the mystery celebrated.

Also there is a wonderful discussion about the social and other practical implications of the sacrament. This should greatly help in correcting the tendency to consider the Mass as purely Church or spiritual affair with hardly any effect on the other aspects of our lives.

With all these, I was just a little dismayed when it came out. The media only gave scant consideration to it, giving a line or two to highlight a minor but, to them, curious detail, like the Mass can be celebrated in Latin in international gatherings.

In the meantime, the press was busy following every lurid detail about the latest perversion of Paris Hilton, the latest aberration of Britney Spears, and the latest love life hitch of our Kris Aquino.

For these items, a river of ink was spent, rolls and rolls of footages were used. It seems there’s a big industry out there involved in spreading every twist and turn in the lives of these unfortunately irresistible celebrities.

It’s not for me to say what should appear in the papers. But I just find it funny that an important event in religion and Church life does not stand a chance, not a rat’s chance, to compete with celebrity gossips in terms of media space.

I get the impression the media wants us only to be peeping toms and backbiters, rather than contemplatives and thinking and sensible people. It simply wants to titillate our curiosity, imagination and adrenalin.

It’s contented with playing to the gallery. Hardly leading the crowd, it rather follows the mob. I wonder what its understanding of its nature and role in society is. Does religion have a prominent place in it?

It starves our finer senses and higher faculties. The rationalization is that to be fair and objective, it has to be morally undefined and genderless. The law of the market is its main guide.

Often quick to question everybody, it is slow to evaluate itself and its performance. Its judgments and opinions are often given a tinge of infallibility.

Well, no one is perfect in this life. That’s why we should just help one another, by making timely reminders, constructive suggestions and corrections.

I wish the media invest more seriously in the area of faith and religion, developing talents through time. I believe the future we all want is there.

Contemplatives or peeping toms?

“SACRAMENTUM caritatis,” Latin for the sacrament of charity, referring to the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, is the title of the latest document issued by Pope Benedict, released last February 22.

It’s a beautiful summary and in-depth comment of the Pope on the observations, suggestions and resolutions made by the bishops and cardinals in their synod on the sacrament in October 2005 in Rome.

Reading it, I was immediately impressed by the amount of wisdom contained in that document that skillfully described the sacrament as a mystery to be believed, to be celebrated and to be lived.

I consider that plan of developing the topic very timely and clever, since it gives a comprehensive coverage, unified and organic, of how the sacrament, and the mystery it involves, should be treated.

The sacrament should not only be believed, it has to be celebrated, and properly. And it should not just be celebrated, it has to be lived to its last consequences.

The Holy Mass, after all, has been described as the source and summit of Church life and mission, the vital link between heaven and earth now. It has to infuse its substance in our entire being—from our minutest pore to our grandest dimension.

Often, we get stuck in one stage or another. We need to go all the way. This is a requirement of our human condition, to be consciously pursued and fulfilled since our tendency is to reduce what is proper for us.

There is a beautiful and incisive description, for example, of what active participation in the Mass ought to be. It’s not just muttering prayers and joining in the singing. One has to go through a continuing conversion as he immerses himself in the mystery celebrated.

Also there is a wonderful discussion about the social and other practical implications of the sacrament. This should greatly help in correcting the tendency to consider the Mass as purely Church or spiritual affair with hardly any effect on the other aspects of our lives.

With all these, I was just a little dismayed when it came out. The media only gave scant consideration to it, giving a line or two to highlight a minor but, to them, curious detail, like the Mass can be celebrated in Latin in international gatherings.

In the meantime, the press was busy following every lurid detail about the latest perversion of Paris Hilton, the latest aberration of Britney Spears, and the latest love life hitch of our Kris Aquino.

For these items, a river of ink was spent, rolls and rolls of footages were used. It seems there’s a big industry out there involved in spreading every twist and turn in the lives of these unfortunately irresistible celebrities.

It’s not for me to say what should appear in the papers. But I just find it funny that an important event in religion and Church life does not stand a chance, not a rat’s chance, to compete with celebrity gossips in terms of media space.

I get the impression the media wants us only to be peeping toms and backbiters, rather than contemplatives and thinking and sensible people. It simply wants to titillate our curiosity, imagination and adrenalin.

It’s contented with playing to the gallery. Hardly leading the crowd, it rather follows the mob. I wonder what its understanding of its nature and role in society is. Does religion have a prominent place in it?

It starves our finer senses and higher faculties. The rationalization is that to be fair and objective, it has to be morally undefined and genderless. The law of the market is its main guide.

Often quick to question everybody, it is slow to evaluate itself and its performance. Its judgments and opinions are often given a tinge of infallibility.

Well, no one is perfect in this life. That’s why we should just help one another, by making timely reminders, constructive suggestions and corrections.

I wish the media invest more seriously in the area of faith and religion, developing talents through time. I believe the future we all want is there.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Easter is Clearly Pro-life

HAPPY Easter to all! Christ is truly risen, never to die again. We are now a new creation. Alleluia, hosanna, praise the Lord! Sin and death have been conquered by Christ’s cross.

We have reason to be happy and hopeful, no matter how dark our earthly situations may be. We have to remember, though, that our own resurrection in Christ always has to pass through the cross, through suffering.

Our death is not forever. Our pain and sorrow here are emptied of their sting. With Christ’s resurrection, we have hope of the kind that does not defraud, to live on and conquer evil. Sadness should not stay with us for long.

All this translates to the truth that Easter is the celebration of our new, redeemed life in Christ in the Spirit. It’s not just human life—biological, physical, professional, social, etc. It is supernatural life, the life really meant for us. Let’s be more conscious of this wonderful albeit demanding truth.

This is the life that can contend with any situation in our earthly affairs. It has the capacity to go beyond death, beyond sin. It has tremendously healing, strengthening and purifying powers.

For this to happen, we have to follow Christ. Of course, not only in the physical or emotional sense. We follow him through faith, hope and charity, supernatural virtues that connect us vitally with him.

We follow him when we cling to his teaching, now the doctrine also of his Church. When we assimilate his teaching and make it our own, we unite ourselves with his will. We will be in the same wavelength with him.

We follow him when we avail ourselves of the sacraments, his continuing presence and action. Christ continues to live on. Precisely he resurrected. Death has no dominion over him. And though he already sits in the right hand of his father, he makes himself easily available to us. He in fact wants to enter our life.

We follow him when we make ourselves active and living members of his Church, allowing ourselves to be governed pastorally by his ministers, the clergy and the hierarchy, from the Pope down to the last priest and deacon. Christ leads us through them.


We need to have the necessary dispositions to achieve all these requirements for following Christ. We need to be humble, docile and obedient, completely free and responsible which should go together always.

And given the complicated conditions of our life today, we have to be shrewdly prudent. We need to have the prudence of the spirit, never of the flesh, no matter how attractive the latter tries to make itself up.

Right now, with the elections coming, we need to be very discerning in choosing our leaders. If we truly live the spirit of Easter, then we have to choose leaders who are clearly pro-life, not pro-death nor anti-life.

We may have varying opinions—valid and with their advantages and disadvantages—with respect to purely political, economic and social issues. In these issues, we have to learn to dialogue civilly, respecting one another’s opinions.

But when it comes to matters of faith and morals, like what the life issues are all about, then we should try to choose what promotes life over death, what favors true good over attractive evil, doing this always with charity.

Anti-life politicians, simply put, are those who are for contraception, divorce, abortion, same-sex unions, immoral family planning methods, etc. We have to expose them.

Since many of these anti-life politicians usually crow that they are actually for life, then we have to examine whether they follow truly Christ. Thus we have to see how closely they follow Christ’s doctrine, his sacraments, and his Church.

We have to be wary of politicians’ and ideologues’ charming ways. We have to assess their views and positions according to the sure touchstones of prudence.

This is, of course, a very delicate task. It should be done with utmost respect for freedom and in utmost charity. This is because the truth can only be properly affirmed and defended in charity.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Taking sanctity to the next level

THE Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences is a Vatican office tasked to monitor and make in-depth study of world social developments. As such, it carries out an important function of the Church.

This is because the Church, while mainly religious, spiritual and supernatural in character and mission, cannot avoid having to grapple with mundane events. In the first place, it is immersed in the world.

To effectively shepherd souls to their ultimate destination, the Church has to know how to Christianize the world. While its mission transcends worldly dimension, the Church cannot escape from worldly affairs.

Thus, it is important to distinguish between the material and the spiritual, what would comprise our earthly progress and what our spiritual and supernatural growth would entail. We should avoid confusing them.

At the same time, we have to know the relation and unity between our material and spiritual dimensions, our temporal occupations and eternal vocation. Any moral gap in these two dimensions should be bridged.

This is our inescapable condition which we have to learn to properly live with. It is not easy at all, but again it is not impossible. What is more, we just have to find an effective way to do this integrating act, because it is necessary.

We have to understand that our salvation is not only a purely spiritual and personal affair. That means nothing unless it gives due attention to our complete character that includes our material and social aspects.

This is taking our sanctity to the next level. This is precisely the self-understanding of the Church today, as embodied in many documents like the pastoral constitution “Gaudium et spes,” Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, etc.

The good thing about this Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences is that
there’s a serious, inter-disciplinary effort to know the root causes of world developments, so as to infuse the proper Christian spirit into them.

It is manned by very able men and women, all professionals and experts in their fields. There’s a regular program of activities, study sessions, meetings and exchanges as well as special initiatives when good reason warrants them.

In short, it is a living and working entity, governed both by love for the Church and competence that includes the indispensable and tricky prudence from all its members.

In its current plenary session, it tackles the question of charity and justice in the relations among nations and peoples. It is listing some worrying signs of the times that need to be addressed. It promises to be an exciting session.

I just hope something like this can be replicated in the local levels of our Church. We have to give more attention to how our Christianity can be consistently lived in our social life—in our business, politics, entertainment, etc.

If there already are such offices in the local levels, then we may need to put more life into them, since there’s hardly anything substantial heard from them.

Instead, we get the impression many Church leaders are awkward in this regard. We have to go beyond knee-jerk responses to issues, recycled motherhood statements, idle attacks and condemnations, all bluster-and-bombast stuff.

It is for these reasons that complaints about clericalism or undue interference of priests and bishops in civil life are heard.

Toward this end, I believe we have enough professionals with true love for
the Church and competence who can help. Let’s work toward a more constructive pastoral ministry of our earthly affairs.

Also, there is a need for Church leaders to be more familiar with social issues and to learn how to effectively shepherd souls in this area. Thus, the Church’s social doctrine has to be mastered. This will help us overcome our blind and soft spots.

This obviously will require a lot of prayer, study, patience, humility, mercy, fortitude. The capacity to be flexible, to dialogue and consult all parties, to adapt with changing situations, and to act, should be cultivated.

Of course, all these virtues should spring from an authentic personal sanctity. This is the barest requirement.