When good is bad and vice-versa

OR when something true can turn out to be a lie. We need to be aware of these tricks that happen quite often, as in everyday and always.

This is because many of these claims for goodness and truth are not based on God, but rather on someone’s idea of what is good and true. This is never dependable.

With our own ideas alone, we can start playing games to serve our self-interest instead of the common good. And worse things can follow later, as in malice, greed, outright deception. The wiles of the flesh, the world and the devil himself can easily spoil what initially was good.

Or we can start with God, but get lost along the way. There are endless ways we can easily slip from God to our own devices. We have to be wary of our capacity to rationalize and self-justify. Thatś when evil can camouflage as good, falsehood as truth.

God, not us, is the source and the maker of truth and goodness. We can only receive, reflect and make use of God’s truth and goodness. This has to be said directly because there are many people now who think truth and goodness are just what we make of them.

What we need to do to stick to the truth and goodness up to the end is to continue dealing with God in prayer all throughout the day, knowing how to convert everything into prayer. This can be done. In fact, this should be done. And ways to do it are never lacking.

God is everywhere. Even in our darkest moments, he is there. There’s no point to think God is not accessible. More than the creator, he is a father to us who loves us no end. He will make himself available to us all the time, ever solicitous to our needs.

Remember the Psalms: “Where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I descend into hell, you are present. If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall your hand lead me.” (139,7-10)

We just have to find an adequate and constant way of getting in touch with him. For this, we have to ready to go all the way to the cross. Thatś the final test to see if weŕe still with God or already without him. Woe to us when we dare to separate ourselves from him, and just rely on our own resources.

We can try to live and think always in the presence of God, perhaps making use of human devices to remind us of him all the time. We have to learn the skill of rectifying our intentions many times during the day, since we know how fickle we can be. Our intentions are what direct us to God.

We have to know how to rev up our love for him, never allowing it to fade and die, because as St. Paul told us: ‘To them that love God, all things work together unto good…” (Rom 8,28)

And thus, we also have to know the correlative of this possibility of how something true and good can turn out to be false and bad. That is, it can also happen that something false and bad can turn out to be true and good.

How can this be? In the Catechism, we are told of why God allows evil to come to us. “He permits it, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it.” (CCC 311)

We have to remember that in the play of life, God always intervenes even if it seems he is absent. There’s such thing as providence which is God’s way of bringing all things back to himself. No evil, no matter how big, can stand in the way.

Thus, we read in the Catechism: “From the greatest moral evil ever committed—the rejection and murder of Godś only Son, caused by the sins of all men—God, by his grace that ábounded all the more,' brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.” (312)

We have to be wary of the different wills at play in our life—Godś, ours and the devilś. We have to know how to play our part.

Narrow roads, big churches

BECAUSE of the death of a friend, I found myself recently—all in one day—flying from Cebu to Manila, then driving for 3 hours from Manila to Lukban, a quaint small town perched at the foot of Mt. Banahaw, then saying the funeral Mass, going to the burial itself, mixing with the family of the deceased, then to Calamba for the night.

Deaths come unscheduled, and in this one, for some reason the burial also had to be done the day after. So my trip was a lightning-quick, drop-all affair. I was amazed to discover I managed and survived it all. That’s God’s grace for you.

Along the way, my companions and I passed by a number of lovely towns in Laguna—Alaminos, San Pablo (a city), then Nagcarlan, Liliw, Majayjay, and Luisiana. Especially in the last four, the views were just fantastic—all green, and abundant water flowing fast in rivers and canals.

Though the sky was gray, we still could see a wide and deep expanse of field all the way to the horizon. The road was winding, narrow, and going up and down as we cruised through hills, valleys and streams.

One thing I noticed was that even if the towns were relatively small, they were alive. They are not caught in a time warp. Markets were full of people, the usual fiesta streamers and commercial pictures, like the ones of wholesome Sarah Geronimo, dotted the places.

And—this was what moved me most—all these towns had big, old and clean churches. My friends immediately commented: “How nice, Father, that they still have big churches.”

It was a refreshing, spiritually-cleansing observation. When you are exposed to more a secularized environment, to see these towns and to talk to their people can be a quite a lift to the soul and heart.

When I reached Lukban, I had to wait for an hour at least, since the body and the papers still had to be prepared. I had the chance to look around, and even take lunch in one of their restaurants. You have to try their “pancit habhab” and the spicy “longanisa de Lukban.”

I saw the people—the young and the old, the students, the farmers, housewives—all of them looking simple and nice. I had no problem approaching them and talking a little with them. And they seemed to enjoy talking with a priest. The experience was like a whiff of fresh air.

When I entered the church, I found it cavernous, antiquated but well maintained. It was very orderly. For once I did not see a stray dog inside it. The staff people who took care of it were all very nice and courteous. Though it was my first time to be there, I immediately felt at home.

My mind was spinning with many considerations. The church must be to them their heart and soul. It was their permanent sanctuary that managed to defy the vagaries of time and the erratic behavior of the people.

It must be the core of their identity and stability. While old, it seems to know how to keep young and alive. It seems to know how to adapt with the times, getting what’s helpful while infusing its essential and unchanging religious influence on the people.

I saw in the houses I passed by images of saints that looked well-kept. They did not look like ancient ornaments left to gather dust with the passage of years. The piety of the people must be vibrant still, I said to myself.

My ardent prayer then was for this kind of culture to continue growing and deepening and flourishing. It’s a concern of everyone, both clerics and laity. May everyone know how to resist the temptations of secularization and paganization.

Catechesis has to go on without let-up. The people have to be taught how to tackle and handle their earthly affairs as more complicating problems, questions and issues emerge in the horizon. The idea of how to relate their faith and religion to their daily concerns should be studied thoroughly and prepared for.

In other places, especially in big cities, it’s saddening to note that the church is often given marginal importance and relevance. In rich cities, they might still manage to keep big churches, but they are often empty and lifeless.

And the people, in spite of what they enjoy materially, have become spiritually complacent if not dead. We have to avoid this at all costs.

Prophet in politics

WE have to clarify the concept of prophet these days. Sadly, even as a word, it’s now hardly heard. No one talks nowadays about being a prophet. That’s unfortunate because to be a prophet is an integral part of our Christian identity.

We all share in different ways in the prophetic mission of Christ and the Church, because we are made in God’s image and likeness, raised to the level of grace to be God’s children, and somehow commissioned also by Christ to go “preach to all nations….”

The ideal is that we all think and speak as God thinks and speaks. That’s God’s will. That’s how we are also made. Obviously, given our human condition this ideal has to be pursued in stages, in varying levels and degrees, and to contend with all sorts of factors, conditions and challenges.

It’s also because of this that certain persons are given special gifts of prophecy to help others to become prophets themselves eventually. St. Paul says:

“He that speaks in a tongue, edifies himself, but he that prophesies, edifies the church.” (1 Cor 14,4)

But we should never understand this to mean only a few are meant to be prophets. All of us are meant to be prophets!

What makes this whole business more exciting these days is that it seems to be prophetic is concerned almost exclusively about politics. We get the impression that prophesying is reduced to things political.

Some priests and religious talk about being prophets only when they want to say something about political issues. Now that elections are coming, we hear this word more often in that context.

Some portray themselves as mystic-prophets, often to denounce and condemn both persons and problems, many times straying already into partisan politics. Others are organizing seminars to know how to be a prophet in politics.

Not that they can’t. In fact, they should in some opportune moments. To be sure, to be a real prophet in politics can be considered as one of the highest, if most difficult, way of exercising the prophetic mission. It’s just that being a prophet involves a lot more than what they so far are showing in public.

It requires not only the sacraments, but also the doctrine well assimilated and lived. It requires a living union with God, a real sanctity and genuine integrity, and not just put-on patina of righteousness.

It requires a lot of patience, broadness of mind, prudence, flexibility, capacity to integrate varying and often competing factors. It requires discretion, fortitude, rectitude of intention, good manners and even cheerfulness, and, of course, charity.

It also involves a constant effort to evangelize, not only in the big things like business, politics and other social concerns, but also and mainly in the little and ordinary things that are with us always.

To be a prophet in politics is actually a must. We just need also how to respect the nature and character of politics, just like any other temporal and earthly affairs we have.

There is a certain autonomy in politics that needs to be understood and handled well. It’s this autonomy that precludes easy dogmatization of views and positions that in itself are open to opinion. It attracts pluralism of views that should be respected.

We have to be understand well that the subject of rights that should be respected always are the persons who have to be considered in their concrete circumstances, with all their positive and negative traits.

It’s not the “truth” understood as the many views and opinions we have regarding certain issues that have the rights. Thus, even if we are sure that our views are the correct ones, we need to learn to discuss, dialogue, negotiate, practice tolerance, etc., in the political space that should be given to all of us.

Preaching Christ in politics is in this kind of attitude and practice. It’s not in ramming our views on others just because we think they are the right ones. That would be a kind of tyranny and dictatorship, of unhealthy clericalism. Christ preferred to die on the cross than fall to these practices.

Besides, if present examples are to be considered, many of these views are outright partisan and often based on biases, hearsays, anger, etc.

We need to learn how to be real prophets in politics! We need to purify and upgrade our understanding and culture regarding our prophetic mission in politics.

Alarmism is Godless apocalypse

WAVES and waves of alarming news are now bombarded on us. Global warming is leading our planet to a meltdown. Increasing population is primary cause of global warming and world poverty. We are running out of energy, running out of water, running out of land, of this and of that, etc.

This seems to be today’s version of the apocalypse. It attempts to disclose a massive future disaster if nothing is done in the mold of a worldly, that is, Godless vision. It’s not a divine revelation, but a so-called scientific revelation. It’s now engaged in Goebbels-like propaganda of “inconvenient truths.”

The funny thing is many people are actually buying these pieces. And they come from all places—the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the sophisticated and the simple, the whites, the blacks and the in-betweens, etc.

Still, we can find a few who have held on—not so much to mere facts and data as to beliefs backed up also by scientific evidence—parrying the persistent blows and shellings from powerful men and groups. They can be called “remnant”, the few who remain faithful to God’s word even if immersed in worldly knowledge.

They have called this phenomenon as alarmism. It is exaggerating and puffing things up with the intention of scaring people and herding them to a corral of pre-meditated options that usually take away the crucial faith and moral element.

Of course, the phenomenon thrives because of a synergy of favorable factors, a perfect storm of sorts. With our technological and scientific progress, we can now know a lot about the material and temporal aspects of our world.

It’s now easy to come up with a plethora of data to support any idea at all. Thus, ideological groups of all colors can go a long way in pursuing their agenda. They have perfected the art of propaganda, and so you see and hear them almost everywhere.

The spiritual and supernatural tone of people’s thoughts, let alone, society is systematically eliminated. Things are kept in the strictly material or earthly level. One is regarded weird if he strays from this loop.

Then, we also have many people who are in varying degrees of ignorance, confusion, error and in varying situations of pressure and harassment. Not well-grounded on their faith, let alone in their spiritual life, they are vulnerable to the machinery-driven scare campaign.

Even the UN is hell-bent to convince everyone about global warming, in spite of serious misgivings also from serious scientists who disagree with this fuss about global warming and overpopulation.

I was amused to learn that UN officials are now planning to launch a “shock treatment” approach to the skeptics of global warming. I thought it is supposed to hear all sides of an issue. It just cannot go on with a certain position if the reservations of the other side are not adequately resolved.

The funnier recent development is the attempt to link population with global warming and poverty. Again? This is a rehashed Malthusian scare, long ago debunked but now resurrected, riding on the current intrigue provoked by the global warming issue.

I notice that this overpopulation scare and myth gets a life whenever some issue that manages to catch world attention erupts. Poor parasite! It can not stand on its own merits. It has to use other issues as its crutch.

The problem with the overpopulation people is that they reduce the issue into a matter of numbers alone, and their remedies are formed strictly along the lines of what is practical, but not moral.

All these cases of alarmism only reflect the state of non-faith in the world. There’s exaggerated reliance on the human sciences and technologies, on ideologies and other strictly human and material means.

The inputs of faith like prayer, sacrifice, virtues, sacraments, etc., are ignored, as if these have no place in any decent discussion of problems and issues among us.

We may already be knocking at the doors of the ultra-modern world insofar as the human sciences and technologies are concerned. But with regard to faith, I think we are still in the stone age, an anomaly that cries to heaven for correction.

Definitely, an evangelization attuned to this predicament is a must. We have to find ways to show the linkages and connections between faith and our most modern developments. There are such ways. We just have to use them!

Challenges popular piety poses

A CHURCH document defines popular piety as follows: “those diverse cultic expressions of a private or community nature which, in the context of the Christian faith, are inspired predominantly not by Sacred Liturgy but by forms deriving from a particular nation or people or from their culture."

Note that it is supposed to spring from Christian faith and that it expresses itself not so much in terms of strictly liturgical norms as of a people’s cultural character. It’s more of a people’s response to the faith they receive, understand and live.

It’s truly a great blessing when we have popular piety breaking out, as it has, in many places of our country. It can only mean that in spite of our warts and all, we have an inculturated, if rudimentary, faith that can’t help but show itself in public in some specific form.

It means our faith has already entered deep into our people’s psyche and ethos, such that it more or less spontaneously, and surely under God’s grace, bursts forth in public display. It means the Holy Spirit is at work and we are responding to his promptings.

The devotions and other pious practices surrounding our faith and love for the Black Nazarene, Santo Nino, our Lady and saints attest to this wonderful phenomenon, now hardly seen in many other countries, especially the more developed but already secularized ones.

We have to do all to keep, nourish and protect such popular piety from forces that seek to undermine, weaken or empty it of its proper substance and spirit.

More than this, we need to realize that such popular piety should be purified and enriched, made to mature and bear concrete fruits not only of personal holiness and apostolate, but of vast social transformation.

It would be wrong to leave popular piety alone, thinking that by itself it can grow and develop into maturity. It has to be trained and egged to aspire to reach higher levels and degrees of perfection. Obviously some supernatural forces are at work, but these do not exempt us from doing our part in nurturing.

We cannot deny that many difficulties, barriers and corrupting elements need to be surmounted. A good part of it can be generated merely by a passing curiosity, not much different to the one associated with the UP oblation run.

Or it can be due also to a fit of sentimentalism, very common among people not yet exposed to modern developments. Or it can just be a public desire at certain special occasions to be socially showy of our official creed.

It needs to be purified, deepened and strengthened. Especially at its early stages, it can be vulnerable to superstition and outright errors in the understanding of one’s faith. Confusion and a mix-up of priorities and hierarchy of values can also spoil it.

Thus, the fervor it generates often has only short shelf life. It’s also one that can hardly translate into action, or grapple with the daily routine of work and the issues of the day, be it political, social, economic, etc.

The ardor loses consistency when applied to the other aspects of our life. Thus, we continue to see a lot of discrepancies and anomalies in our socio-political life. People can be hot in public, but cold in their personal prayers, feeling holy in extraordinary times, but spiritually dry in ordinary times.

One time while visiting a popular shrine of Our Lady, I felt uneasy to see people showing great piety to the image of the Virgin while giving practically no attention to the Blessed Sacrament just beside it.

Repeatedly people tell me they just light votive candles to their favorite patron saint instead of fulfilling the Sunday obligation. Their doctrinal grounding is shallow. They often fail to harmonize their popular piety with the standards of faith and liturgy.

With this situation, it’s no wonder that abuses can emerge and fester. Acts of exploitation erupt as in the commercialization of religious items and even outright simony. Many tricks and gimmicks can be played on the gullible.

In its worst cases, it can foster or perpetuate emotional infantilism, psychological imbalances and religious fanaticism.

There’s no doubt that continuing formation and catechesis is needed by all, but especially among the Church leaders or any religious group directly involved in the popular piety.

Highly disciplined and motivated, they should know how to cope with the fast-changing challenges of popular piety, knowing how to maneuver between the dangers and the good potentials it can have. Official vigilance is a must!

Basic justice

LIKE love and freedom, justice is a big word that means many things to many people.
It has suffered so much stretching that it often appears distorted, warped and made use of. Its basic element is forgotten under so much clever overlays, questionable leavenings or sheer malice. Sometimes we are not even aware of it.

These distortions and selfish use of justice, of course, generate their own drama that leads us to extended conflicts, usually framed within the arena of the inconsequential aspects of the issue, but not the root of the issues itself.

There’s often much ado about nothing. Only self-interests are disturbed, feelings strained, biting discord generated. The higher common good is ignored, the bigger picture neglected, blinding passions revved up.

They remind us of what St. James says in his Letter: “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice. But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity.” (3,16-17)

What is this basic element, or the nucleus of justice? It is none other than an abiding sense of what we owe to others—first to God, then to others. Our main problem is that when we see others, we tend to think only of what they mean or have to do with us.

Instead of others-oriented, we are self-oriented. This is a predicament we have to be more aware of, so we can be properly guided and reminded of our duties. We need to continually indulge in certain exercises to put us in the right track. Hopefully the proper attitude becomes second nature in the future.

Let us examine ourselves: What do I think every time I see a person, or consider a person in my mind? If it’s duties we owe to them, then we are starting to live justice. If we get stuck in the externals and, worse. pursue thoughts about how they can mean to us, we are taking the wrong turn of the crossroad.

We also need to realize ever deeply that justice is an always concern. We don’t think of it only when big problems—usually causing us some discomfort—erupt. It has to be a permanent attitude which we put in active mode both in ordinary and extraordinary situations. It should never be allowed to sleep.

Obviously, all this will depend on an objective law of right and wrong, good and evil. This law just cannot be generated from within oneself. It has to come from outside us—more correctly, from above us, God himself.

Thus, we need to understand that justice can only be properly lived if there is an abiding relationship between a person and God, between a society and God, between our legal system and God, etc.

For sure, this is going to be a dynamic relationship which can admit some errors and confusion. So we need to give allowance to these possibilities. But if it is earnestly pursued, I’m sure we can see the true face of justice.

Short of that, let’s not deceive ourselves and say we have justice. We will never have justice. At best, we can have an appearance of justice, which can be worse, since it will be a very treacherous kind of justice.

Sad to say, this is what we have aplenty. Without a strong mooring on God, we go about trying to have justice in our own conflicting terms. Things can get worse when the media come in, since another agenda alien to the original intent of justice can be pursued.

The recent Simala controversy is an illustrative example. I suppose all parties involved have a point to make, as in all other controversies. When the media joins in, usually already with a defined, if hidden, bias, the picture which in the first place is not supposed to be seen by all, gets more muddled.

I wonder what kind of justice will be achieved here. Just the same, some good can always come out. In this particular case, I’m happy that allegations about gay presentations within the shrine are emerging, so that these anomalies can be corrected, if painfully.

In one Christmas clergy party (not in Cebu), I was devastated to see a priest, who acted as the emcee, dressed as a girl with wigs, screaming make-up and revealing off-shoulder gown. Some bishops were there, and a good number of the laity also.

This kind of jest is simply foul!

Faith and getting real

I THINK it’s high time that we start, if slowly, demolishing the myth, quite widespread, that pits faith with reason, and then later on, faith with reality. Like cancer, this myth has metastasized into countless varieties already. But unlike cancer, there’s always hope it can still be licked.

The other day, while talking with someone, I was again given the “get-real” treatment when I offered to pray over certain issues instead of recommending going to the streets making noise with placards and all that.

It seems to me that when you decide to pray first before you act, study the issues well, hear the other parties before going into rallies shouting dead slogans, etc., you are not getting real.

Or when you recommend prudence, patience, discretion, understanding, mercy, instead of rash action, you are not getting real. You are living in a different world. It would seem the consequences of faith are considered the antimatter of what is to get real.

I thought this kind of behavior has long been buried together with the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthal man, but it looks like we have lots of it around yet. What is happening?

I think the problem is that faith in general is, bluntly said, booted out, given the sack, dismissed as a completely useless nuisance. What’s retained is pure reason, but reason simply dominated by the emotions and passions, a reason stuck with the externals.

It’s a reason held hostage by purely sociological or political or economic laws. The inputs of the transcendent nature of faith, precisely because of its spiritual and supernatural character, seem to be blocked.

There could be many reasons for this phenomenon. There’s vast doctrinal ignorance and confusion. Together with them, there’s laziness, complacency, if not lifestyles openly opposed to the development of spiritual life.

Many people don’t study their doctrine. If they do, they prefer to remain in the shores, never daring to go to the deep. They don’t know how to relate what they are doing with God, and vice-versa. There’s awkwardness and sheer incompetence in this area, and hardly anything is done to correct it.

Which is funny, because faith actually is what gives us the deepest knowledge of reality. It’s what God knows about himself and about ourselves which he likes to share with us. It’s his gift to us that serves as a foundation to our spiritual life.

It contains not only natural truths, those truths necessary for our salvation, but also supernatural truths that bring us deep into the very life and nature of God.

It’s a very dynamic source of knowledge, to which our mind and all our human faculties should try to pace with. This is what Pope Benedict when he was still Cardinal once said about faith:

“The adventure of Christian faith is ever new, and it is when we admit that God is capable of this that its immeasurable openness is unlocked for us.”

For this to happen, we have to understand that what is required is an appropriate response from us to this great gift. This is nothing less than to commit our whole selves in corresponding to faith.

Our intelligence, our will, our senses, our emotions, our memory and imagination, etc., have to be employed firstly to the requirements of our faith. Otherwise, these human faculties and powers can go astray as they would be improperly focused and engaged if God is not their first and ultimate object.

That is why we need to study our faith as contained in the Gospel, the tradition and teachings of the Church. We should try to assimilate them, knowing as well as we could the very life, words and deeds of Christ. The goal is to be able to think like God, with him and in him.

Then we need to train our will to continue longing for God and for others, always thinking of what one can do for them. This will set our attitudes and frame of mind in good order, and will launch us to an endless process of developing virtues.

We have to be wary of the many problems, difficulties and challenges involved in cultivating our life of faith. May it be that we can have a kind of thriving, growth industry dedicated to this business of our faith, with appropriate structures and practices so we can help one another in growing in faith.

We have to be firm in the belief that only in faith can we truly get real!

Faith and getting real

I THINK it’s high time that we start, if slowly, demolishing the myth, quite widespread, that pits faith with reason, and then later on, faith with reality. Like cancer, this myth has metastasized into countless varieties already. But unlike cancer, there’s always hope it can still be licked.

The other day, while talking with someone, I was again given the “get-real” treatment when I offered to pray over certain issues instead of recommending going to the streets making noise with placards and all that.

It seems to me that when you decide to pray first before you act, study the issues well, hear the other parties before going into rallies shouting dead slogans, etc., you are not getting real.

Or when you recommend prudence, patience, discretion, understanding, mercy, instead of rash action, you are not getting real. You are living in a different world. It would seem the consequences of faith are considered the antimatter of what is to get real.

I thought this kind of behavior has long been buried together with the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthal man, but it looks like we have lots of it around yet. What is happening?

I think the problem is that faith in general is, bluntly said, booted out, given the sack, dismissed as a completely useless nuisance. What’s retained is pure reason, but reason simply dominated by the emotions and passions, a reason stuck with the externals.

It’s a reason held hostage by purely sociological or political or economic laws. The inputs of the transcendent nature of faith, precisely because of its spiritual and supernatural character, seem to be blocked.

There could be many reasons for this phenomenon. There’s vast doctrinal ignorance and confusion. Together with them, there’s laziness, complacency, if not lifestyles openly opposed to the development of spiritual life.

Many people don’t study their doctrine. If they do, they prefer to remain in the shores, never daring to go to the deep. They don’t know how to relate what they are doing with God, and vice-versa. There’s awkwardness and sheer incompetence in this area, and hardly anything is done to correct it.

Which is funny, because faith actually is what gives us the deepest knowledge of reality. It’s what God knows about himself and about ourselves which he likes to share with us. It’s his gift to us that serves as a foundation to our spiritual life.

It contains not only natural truths, those truths necessary for our salvation, but also supernatural truths that bring us deep into the very life and nature of God.

It’s a very dynamic source of knowledge, to which our mind and all our human faculties should try to pace with. This is what Pope Benedict when he was still Cardinal once said about faith:

“The adventure of Christian faith is ever new, and it is when we admit that God is capable of this that its immeasurable openness is unlocked for us.”

For this to happen, we have to understand that what is required is an appropriate response from us to this great gift. This is nothing less than to commit our whole selves in corresponding to faith.

Our intelligence, our will, our senses, our emotions, our memory and imagination, etc., have to be employed firstly to the requirements of our faith. Otherwise, these human faculties and powers can go astray as they would be improperly focused and engaged if God is not their first and ultimate object.

That is why we need to study our faith as contained in the Gospel, the tradition and teachings of the Church. We should try to assimilate them, knowing as well as we could the very life, words and deeds of Christ. The goal is to be able to think like God, with him and in him.

Then we need to train our will to continue longing for God and for others, always thinking of what one can do for them. This will set our attitudes and frame of mind in good order, and will launch us to an endless process of developing virtues.

We have to be wary of the many problems, difficulties and challenges involved in cultivating our life of faith. May it be that we can have a kind of thriving, growth industry dedicated to this business of our faith, with appropriate structures and practices so we can help one another in growing in faith.

We have to be firm in the belief that only in faith can we truly get real!

Our sorrows and redemption

THERE’S a beautiful prayer worth considering by all of us in the memorial Mass for Our Lady of Sorrows, September 15. It’s called a Sequence, and is prayed between the Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel.

Part of it reads: “Can the human heart refrain from partaking in her pain, in that Mother’s pain untold?... / O Sweet Mother…make me feel as you have felt…/ Let me share with you his pain…/ Let me mingle tears with you… / let me share your grief divine…”

When I read it in my dialect (Cebuano), I was even more moved. The mother tongue expresses finer nuances of meaning and feelings often lost when translated into English or any other language, no matter how far richer they are to the vernacular.

It seems to me, imho (in my humble opinion), that English is more a language for practical purposes, for doing business and efficiency in work. The dialect tastes more of the heart, and lends itself easily to prayer. In a certain sense, it has more sublimity.

Thus, it’s always worthwhile to retain and enrich our knowledge of our native tongue even as we improve our English…

In any event, the whole celebration of Our Lady of Sorrows again brings to our mind the phenomenon of our suffering, pains and sorrows in life. What’s distinctive of this celebration is that it reminds us that all these worldly sorrows have a religious foundation, have a relation to God.

Our predicament today is that our attitude towards this unavoidable element in our life is taken out of its fundamental context of faith and religion. We just look at it in a purely human and natural way. We just look for the human and natural causes as well as for their human and natural solutions or remedies.

I think this is wrong, or at least, is quite handicapped. We would not be fathoming enough the enormity and richness of the nature and purpose of our sorrows in life if we fail to bring in the basic inputs of our Christian faith.

Thus, we often exaggerate or worsen our sufferings, as we fail to know their ultimate whys and wherefores. Thus, we often would not know how to suffer them, since we merely rely on our physical, emotional or psychological stamina, or some external material resources like drugs. The spiritual and supernatural way is not resorted to.

Worse, we often don’t realize that our pains and sorrows in life, irrespective of their causes and effects, are a rich material for our final redemption. In fact, many people’s idea of redemption is strictly earth and time-bound. Nothing spiritual or supernatural about it! Hardly any reference to our sin is done.

It would be good if we adapt the attitude of our Lady of Sorrows towards our problems in life. Certainly, meditating on the passion and death of Christ in a regular way would help a lot in developing that attitude.

That attitude brings our understanding and experience of sorrow to another level—deeper, more comprehensive, more integrated. For example, it helps us mediate the complicated interplay of the requirements of truth and freedom, and of charity, patience, mercy on the one hand, and as strict a justice on the other, etc.

The other day, I was both amused and a bit bothered when I got into a conversation with some priests. The talk turned political, what with election time coming. I can’t help but notice some leaky arguments made, and rash judgments propped up only by simplistic suspicions spewed.
No matter how much I tried to understand them, I couldn’t help but suspend my judgments about certain issues taken up, simply because I could not find enough basis for a concrete decision. I kept quiet most of the time.

When I said, “I’ll pray over the matter,” they veritably laughed and told me to get real, and that the time for praying is over. “Now is the time to act!” they said.

Wow! No wonder we often end up fighting like cats and dogs, making a lot of noise and accomplishing nothing. I’ve seen this animal many times before, and, frankly, I have no intention of having a repeat.

I think the core problem is some people’s allergy to appreciate the nature, meaning and purpose of our human suffering here on earth, and of how to bear it and take advantage of it to gain a higher good. There’s just braggadocio galore!

Lukewarmness

IT’S the spiritual illness that’s the most common, but the most hidden and the most vicious. It continually self-mutates to adapt to changing conditions of the persons. Its most perverted effect is to make one think he’s ok spiritually, when in reality he’s far from it.

The name must have come from a passage in the Book of Revelations which says: “Because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth.” (3,16)

A spiritual writer describes it as “a sort of spiritual languor which saps the energies of the will, inspires one with a horror for effort and thus leads to the decline of the Christian life.”

Its other names are mediocrity in work, sluggishness, passivity, complacency. It is very much allied to selfish calculations and maneuverings in one’s relations. Its manifestations are endless. To cite a few—

- Having a bourgeois lifestyle; tendency to pass tasks and assignments to others; lack of interest in prayer; avoiding self-examination to evade ‘complications’ that can come from greater self-knowledge.

- Getting stuck with the externals, the formal and the social, without the necessary basis in the internal and the personal; proneness to activism instead of work that is sanctified and that sanctifies.

- Propensity to put conditions to any request made of him; seeking compensations always; habitual irritability; penchant for negative judgments on others often expressed in jokes or light conversational comments. As they say, “Many a true word is spoken in jest.”

- Mistaking efficiency for effectivity, quantity for quality; frequent forgetfulness that stems from lack of seriousness in one’s duties; incapacity to do things with generosity and gratuitousness; flippancy and loquacity…

Lukewarmness is actually self-love. It’s just self-seeking. It’s not real love. It’s not the love God has meant for us, the one he shares with us, the one Christ referred to when he commanded us to “Love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 13,34)

Thus, lukewarmness distorts love. It’s loving not in God’s terms but in one’s own exclusive terms. It’s a loving that springs from one’s self-justifying reasons.

It always likes to mask itself as loving, and is skillful at it. That’s why, not only can it hold a person hostage, it can effectively captivate peoples and societies and cultures.

We need a strong and jolting reality check to wake us up from this predicament. First we need to be rescued from the mainstream idea that true love is what comes simply from one’s heart, but not necessarily from God. It’s more a matter of feelings, of what pleases and satisfies one’s longing.

This, to me, is the very virus responsible for lukewarmness. Human love in all its forms can only be true love if it flows from the love of God. Our problem is that we seem to be helplessly infatuated with our own kind of love.

It’s a love that is averse to making sacrifices, the touchstone of genuine love. Our challenge is how to convince everyone of the intrinsic fallacy of this kind of love.

Our love, by definition, stems from the exercise of our freedom. In fact, love is our full expression of freedom. But this freedom is a gift from God, our Father and Creator. It can only be exercised with him, in him and through him. He is the beginning, pattern and end of love.

This freedom, this love was already given to us in Adam and Eve. But after their fall, after their sin which we now inherit, that freedom and love needed to be cured and brought back to its proper orbit.

Christ did that through the Cross, which summarized and culminated all that he did to redeem us. In fact, we ought to understand that Christ, and especially Christ on the Cross, is the standard to follow in learning to love truly. He shows us how to give oneself all the way.

We have to find powerful arguments and examples to transmit the truth that only in the cross of Christ can true love and freedom be found. Without that cross, we have every reason to suspect the authenticity of what we claim as love and freedom.

We obviously need all the supernatural and human means to do this. We have to pray, make sacrifices, study the doctrine, develop the virtues, avail of the sacraments, give good example, do apostolate, etc. to do this.

That’s why we ought not to be lukewarm.

Suffer for the truth

WE are wired for the truth. Our mind, our heart, our senses—in fact, all of our being—are keyed to what is true, to what is real.

Truth is actually when the mind corresponds to the objective reality. Our mind only mirrors and then processes the objective reality that is always outside of itself. This lets us discover deeper levels of the reality that cannot be apprehended simply by the senses or our common sense.

Our mind is not supposed to make its own reality, its own world. Woe to us when we just run circles in our mind, and make our own version of truth detached from an outside reality. That’s when we can get caught in a no-escape spiral of subjectivism, a world of falsehoods and make-believe.

Insanity is like this. It’s not that the mind is not working when one is insane. It can be overworking, in fact, except that it has stopped getting attuned to an objective reality. It’s lost in its own world.

This brings us to a more interesting point. The objective reality for us is much more than just what our senses can discern. The objective reality is not simply a matter of shapes, sizes or color. It’s not simply about facts or statistics.

Itś all of these and a lot more. Consider the truth about our inter-personal, inter-subjective relationships, our social, political life, our philosophies and ideologies!

The objective reality for us is an ever deepening reality that leads us ultimately to God. It’s a very dynamic, living reality, with a strong spiritual and supernatural content, that cannot be reduced to some frozen piece of data, held captive by our senses or mind, or some sentiments and passions.

To reach there, we don’t simply rely on our senses. Not even on our mind alone, no matter how powerful our intelligence may be. We have to use them, no doubt, but we cannot and should not get stuck there.

Nothing less than God’s grace is needed for us to have charity which is the only way to capture the truth proper to us. Charity is the original and permanent reality. We need to uphold and defend charity in our effort to know the truth.

Charity alone allows us to consider and integrate the many elements and levels that go into our effort to know the truth. It infuses understanding, justice, patience, mercy, peace, etc. into our efforts to know the truth. It requires humility and self-denial.

In the purely human and natural level, we can say we already know a lot of things. The progress we have achieved in the sciences and technologies precisely indicate how far we have gone in our human knowledge.

But this is not the whole truth, since the objective reality goes further than that. The objective, original reality is the love of God, which he shares with us so we can love Him and others, as he revealed and commanded us to do. For us to be in the truth, our mind, our life has to correspond to this reality.

We need to use all our human knowledge to reinforce, not to weaken, our charity, our love for God and love for others. Our problem is that we have diluted, if not corrupted, this objective reality. We have leavened it something else.

It must be in reference to this development that St. Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians:

“Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened…Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (5,7-8)

To be this unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, we need to follow the example of Christ, who went about telling us the truth by way of humility, meekness, etc., all the way to the Cross.
We need to understand that for us to be in the truth, we need to suffer. There’s no other way. The Cross, being the culmination of God’s love for us, is also the culmination of any human effort to know and live in the truth.

We have to be wary when our efforts to know, spread and defend the truth go unaccompanied by the Cross. This happens when in pursuit of the truth, we generate bitterness, hatred, discord. It’s when we get enslaved by passion, rather than enjoying true freedom, which is nothing other than love for God and others!

Doctrine and life

DISTINCTION, yes, but not division or separation. That’s how we have to understand the relationship between doctrine and our life.

Another way of putting it could be the link between theory and practice. Ideally, these two should be together in an existential and mutually-affecting relationship.

They are not meant to be in conflict, even if their connection can involve some tension, normal given our human condition. We should not be surprised by this. We should not get nervous and react badly. Rather, we should see it as a challenge to find a way to repair and strengthen that relationship.

Doctrine is the human but inspired, or at least divinely assisted articulation of our faith or belief. That’s where the spiritual and supernatural enter our human way of understanding things.

Its origin is God who reveals himself in diverse ways, the fullness of which being Jesus Christ, God who became man, and continues to be so both here and in heaven. Through it, God’s revelation continues in time.

There’s obviously a human and natural aspect to it, much like the Son of God who assumed human nature and subjected himself to the human condition, warts and all. Doctrine is precisely an aspect of God’s incarnation. It’s God’s way of conveying to us the truth about him and about us.

The imperfection of its human condition should urge us to work for its perfectibility, rather than suppress our interest in it. The rigors of perfectibility should be a stimulus for us to move on, rather than a wet blanket asking us to stop.

This is where the tension arises. Both its divine and human dimensions are in constant efforts to attune themselves to each other—the spiritual to the material, the eternal to the temporal, the sacred to the mundane, etc., and vice-versa.

The divinity of the doctrine has to contend with the requirements of our human development which, as we all know, goes through stages and through historical, cultural, social conditionings, etc.

The absoluteness of the divine character of the doctrine does not take away the dynamic and evolving quality of its human aspect. We just have to find a way to maneuver properly in this kind of set-up, without getting lost and overly nervous but consistently focused and moving, learning and improving along the way.

Adding excitement to this interplay are the consequences of sin that distort the picture, both in a small and a big way. Again, we should not be surprised by these complexities. We have to be both game to it and determined to avoid being trapped by the wiles of sin.

Precisely because of this, we need to be both precise in our understanding of it and patient to its evolving character.

All these considerations should make us realize that we have to take the doctrine very seriously, immediately recognizing its divine character and its great importance and relevance to our life.

In spite of its human dimension, there is something sacred to it, worthy of our piety. Out attitude to it just cannot remain in the intellectual level. Much less should we regard it as an object of curiosity or opinion. We should not consider it as one more opinion among the many spewed out everyday by us.

We need to find ways of assimilating this doctrine more deeply. It should not just be skin-deep. It has to be the flesh of our flesh, converting it to life itself. We have to understand it not only as some kind of theory or ideology. It’s a living word meant to transform us.

Thus it requires study and a lot more. We should realize that when we study it, we are actually praying, we are actually listening to God in terms that are both human and divine.

There should be a certain devotion to it, or a quickness of heart to put what we realize into action. And this in a continuing fashion, so as not to break our contact with God. Thus, we have to sharpen our docility to it, learning how to make sacrifices since it surely will demand sacrifice and involve pain.

More than this, we also have to understand that it’s something that we need to spread around. It acquires more traction on our life the more we share it with others.

The goal to aim at is to make doctrine and life one.

Religion in school

THE role of religion in school is fast becoming a controversial topic these days. To me, this is one more sign of the bleeding secularist mentality that’s emanating from many so-called developed, but actually troubled, countries like the US and those in Europe.

What’s a secularist mentality? That’s a mindset that has driven away God and anything related to him, the spiritual and supernatural truths, from their man-made world. Not only, driven away. Some have gone berserk in their hostility toward God.

Obviously, this is a sociological assertion at best, a generalized view that admits of a lot of exceptions, some small, but others can be qualified as significant.

So we should approach this topic with a grain of salt. We should never be too negative and pessimistic about the problem. There’s always hope. We just have to continue supplying reasons for our beliefs, and to keep the channels of healthy dialogue with different parties open and active.

Truth is there are expanding sectors that, for example, would not like to have any kind of prayer done in public or religious figures displayed. Obama, for example, had the crucifix covered when he gave a speech in Notre Dame U.

That, to them in their so-called enlightened logic, would already constitute a breach of freedom and human rights. It certainly is an issue worth pursuing in a cordial dialogue.

This disturbing development has led the Vatican, particularly its Congregation for Catholic Education, to recently send a circular letter to Bishops and those involved in education all over the world.

In it, basic principles about the nature, character, function and purpose of Catholic education or, in short, the role of religion in school, are reiterated.

It might be good to go over them, also because in our midst, though we still can brand ourselves as a religious and pious country, there are indications of neglect, confusion, even outright error, in this delicate area of concern.

There are four main parts of the letter, each of them quite self-explanatory but worthwhile re-articulating, since with all the information overdrive we have, we tend to have only partial, incomplete and unsystematic grasp of the issue.

These parts are: (1) the role of schools in the Catholic formation of new generations; (2) nature and identity of the Catholic school—the right to a Catholic education for families and pupils; subsidiarity and educational collaboration; (3) religious education in schools; and (4) educational freedom, religious freedom and Catholic education.

Perhaps to put these four parts in a more organic whole, we can say that while schools are needed for the Catholic education of children, Catholic schools, mainly established by parents who are the primary educators, have a right to exist.

These Catholic schools should not be subjected to undue pressures. Quite the contrary, they should be not only welcomed but encouraged by the civil authorities who also have a right to check on them for some basic civil requirements.

This parental right is not meant to contravene other initiatives originating from the state or special groupings that may wish to put up schools. It’s just a basic right that needs to be recognized, respected and where possible fostered and assisted by higher entities.

These schools highlight the crucial role of religion in the education of children. While they respect those with different views, those behind these schools believe religion is indispensable in forming children to be mature, responsible citizens and believers.

Thus, these schools should not treat religion as a marginal subject, but should rather treat it as the queen of all the sciences taught there. That might sound too big to say, but it has real basis. It just needs to be reiterated, renewed and constantly revalidated, especially by the life-witness of those involved.

This has to be said because there are now so-called Catholic schools that are increasingly diminishing the importance of religion in their educational efforts. Their Catholic identity is wavering, as if gripped in fear or shame.

It also has to be said that these schools are a result of educational and religious freedom. But it’s a freedom that is not of the anything-goes type, but recognizes the authority of the Church that has the duty to set standards.

There are questionable ideas of academic freedom that need to be corrected. Sadly, they can sometimes dominate in some big Catholic centers of learning.

In short, there are many things to be taken care of to see that the nature, rights and duties of Catholic schools in teaching religion in schools are respected.

Covenant and commitment

IT’S good that we revisit, as often as necessary, some basic realities about our lives, so we would know how to live and behave with a sense of purpose and direction.

We just can’t drift aimlessly in life. Or worse, get entangled with very absorbing earthly affairs without touching base with our life’s fundamentals that specify its real and ultimate objective.

Among these realities are those of the covenant God, our creator and father, has with us, and the commitment we are supposed to make as a response to that covenant.

At the moment, these basic truths and their corresponding duties appear slipping from our hands, much like a loose ball in a basketball game that we need to recover as quickly as we can.

More, we need to have a good, deep and thorough understanding of these truths so we can have, in a manner of speaking, a firm grip of them, with the view of fully living out their consequences and implications.

As much as possible, we should avoid having a shallow idea of what our life is all about or what it is for. Sad to say, there are several factors that lead us and keep us in that predicament.

There’s, of course, our human weaknesses. They often hold us hostage in the state of mediocrity and complacency. Though we are meant and equipped to go deeper, we many times get contented with the externals, the appearances, the shallow, lazy and easy things in life.

Then there are the workings and effects of sin that can result in sophisticated ideologies, philosophies, and worse, cultures and lifestyles that can keep us away from going to the ultimate dimensions or frontiers of our earthly life.

We always have to keep an eye in this area of concern. Life is, of course, a work in progress. It’s a warfare with changing frontlines, with its wins and losses. It’s at least a very malleable dynamic affair whose shape and direction depends on how we as protagonists play it.

We just have to be clear about when things are getting serious or are heading toward a fatal compromise. We have to avoid these to happen.

We have to understand that there is a divine covenant with us. God wants to share nothing less than his life with us. Such is his original and strong will that despite our lack of correspondence, or even rebellion, he does everything, including sending his Son to us and the Son dying for us, to fulfill that will.

The history of this divine covenant has been long and tortuous, with endless rich lessons for us to learn. Its present mode, the New Covenant with Christ himself actually acting on us through the Church, the sacraments, his Word and workings of the Holy Spirit, is very much in operation in our midst.

But are we aware of this? Are we properly reacting and cooperating with it as we should?
The answer is both ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ The ‘No’ is obvious. But the ‘Yes’ is actually also there, perhaps hidden, since the Church, in spite of her human shortcomings, cannot remain indifferent to this divine will for us. God himself will not allow the Church to fail in its divine mission, no matter what.

Still, we need to learn how to correspond properly to this divine covenant. And that’s why we have to sharpen our understanding and appreciation of the idea of commitment.

A commitment is the flowering of all our human powers that should be made to play in our relationship with God. It’s based and engined by the theological and supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity. It, of course, requires all human virtues.

It is the full and maximum play of all our powers and faculties, as they get engaged with our ultimate end and not just any human goals. It’s what gives direction and consistency to the many parts of our earthly life, and brings us beyond it.

We are equipped for it but we need divine grace for it to take effect. Otherwise, we will just be in the state of potency, and not in act, with respect to our final goal.

We need to make this truth more known to all, its skills and other require
ments taught and spread. We can take advantage of the many occasions aspects of this commitment are lived by us as we enter into contracts, into marriage and family, professional dealings, religious vows and promises, etc.

Intricacies of spiritual warfare

HOW I wish we can have a massive ongoing formation about the intricacies of spiritual warfare, since in the end all our struggles on earth redound to that level! This is a basic universal interest. We cannot, should not keep this concern too private, isolated and pursued mostly in secret.

While there are intimate and highly specialized items involved, where privacy and confidentiality should be respected, we cannot deny that there are doctrines, concepts, strategies and techniques that also can and should be known by all.

And to think that these pertinent doctrines, concepts and strategies are dynamic since they need to be applied, then assessed, then purified, polished or reformulated perhaps, etc., in a vitally evolving process, we really have to find a way to make them reach the public in the most economical way.

We have to be quite open about them, even systematically bringing them to some appropriate public fora, if only to have regular reminders and updates and increase public literacy and, hopefully later on, expertise about this indispensable spiritual aspect of our life.

It’s kind of funny to note that in the long history of the Church and of Christian spirituality, hardly anything is done, in spite of our age of spreading communication, to popularize the intricate requirements of spiritual life.

We continue to remain in the level of the primitive dark times of the persecuted Church or of the feudal Middle Ages where spiritual concerns were confined mostly in convents, monasteries and some specialized groupings.

Any attempt to talk spiritual in public at present is limited to generic, motherhood statements, filled with bumf materials and other religious clichés that tend to deaden rather than stimulate, not to mention maintain, religious fervor.

The appeals seem trapped to effect only external, formalistic types of piety. There are hardly any life-changing stirring messages the spring from the live experiences of the messengers. That’s part of our ongoing crisis these days.

What used to be effective in ages past, the different schools of rich spiritualities and the officially acknowledged charisms granted to some persons and groups, have not been faithfully lived, and their need for updating neglected.

Truth is many people—in fact, I would say all of us one way or another—are looking for effective ways to develop our spiritual life and to be skillful in the unavoidable spiritual warfare in this life. But this longing has largely been unmet.

People, including the young ones whose stirring for the spiritual can be sharp and intense if hidden, want to know, for example, how to pray, or how to keep it going amid the many concerns in life. Getting engaged with God all throughout the day eludes them.

They actually want to know how to grow in the virtues but do not have ample support to pursue the goals. For example, to remain chaste, if the interest still flickers, remains an impossible dream.

They see glimpses of the need for the cross, for sacrifices in this life, but they get stalled if not hostaged by worldly distractions. Many want to get out of their self-absorption, but no one helps them, giving them ideas or simply encouraging them.

Their knowledge of the doctrine is spotty, if not marked by confusion and error. Worse, in spite of their fervent intentions, they get stuck in the theoretical level, not knowing how to translate doctrine into actual life.

The understanding of many regarding the sacraments remains poor if not wrong, as in superstitious. And the predicament is left uncorrected.

There are endless things to take care of. Our problem is that the proper formation gets stuck somewhere, and does not reach everyone. And for those with some formation, it is usually inadequate.

Personal spiritual direction is very limited, both in quantity and in quality. Few people receive it. Fewer still give it. There’s no stable structure to make spiritual direction a going and spreading affair. Many people do not even know, much less have a working plan of life that sustains them spiritually everyday.

Families, schools and other groupings like offices, farms, etc., hardly vibrate with spiritual character, because they are not trained. There’s a big gap between people’s secular affairs and their spiritual lives. Our current culture does not know how to close that gap.

These are some problems whose remedies and solutions everyone of us should be eager to find.

Correctness

THIS should be a hot selling item given today’s complicated environment. We all need to know how to act and speak with correctness amid a dizzying variety of lifestyles and mentalities prevailing in a society in extreme flux at present.

I must say this is a virtue that now melds together what we know before as discretion, naturalness, modesty, courtesy, social graces, sense of timing and a feel for the right words and expression, etc., often understood in static mode.

This is not supposed to dampen our spontaneity and creativity. Not only is it compatible with them. It can enhance them since these values also need to be directed, guided and even packaged.

Correctness is a very dynamic virtue that orchestrates a myriad elements, all breathing and moving. Thus it should come as no surprise that we have to help one another in developing it. We have to be open to suggestions and even corrections from others.

The other day, a friend came complaining that in a town fiesta, the visiting high ecclesiastic who said the Mass scandalized a good number of people when he said in the homily that if GMA would die now, she would not get as many sympathizers as those who flocked and followed Cory’s wake and funeral.

According to my friend, he almost exploded inside the church. He said there were many others who felt the way he did. That was pure partisan political talk of the gutter level that has no place in a homily, he said. And to think that that ecclesiastic became emeritus before his retirement age due to a sexual harassment case, he said.

That clearly was a lack of correctness on the part of that emeritus churchman. As we can see, what we sow is also what we reap. If we sow intrigue, we are bound to reap intrigue as well. There are things that are notorious for causing a boomerang effect.

We have to learn this virtue of correctness fast and thoroughly. Especially for us, the clergy, who carry out a crucial ministry of the word or the delicate prophetic mission, this virtue is indispensable.

While it’s true that we have to evangelize all human realities, including our politics, we should make sure that we know the rules and stick to them strictly. We have to look at the example of Christ, then the saints.

We have to study and often review the many Church indications regarding this point. We already have a glut of them, and I still wonder why so many clerics still stray in this area.

One basic truth that should never be forgotten is the reality of the autonomy that our human affairs, like our politics, possess. As defined by Gaudium et Spes, autonomy is when “created things and societies enjoy their own laws and values which must be gradually deciphered, put to use, and regulated by men.” (36)

It’s this business of ‘gradually deciphering’ the laws and values governing things like our politics, a very dynamic and inexact science, that should make us most careful with our words and actions related to them.

Correctness is, of course, a developing and evolving virtue. It grows with the historical and cultural trends. But we have to make deliberate efforts to define and describe it along the way, to enlighten all of us as to how to behave and speak especially in public, and most especially when we speak using a certain office.

Obviously many would be the instances when we have to change or at least purify our attitudes and actuations regarding our temporal affairs. We should be very sensitive to these needs and very quick to react as they arise. The transitions can be very tricky. We have to make many adjustments and adaptations.

As much as possible, we have to avoid the demons of sensationalism, alarmism, partisan politicking especially among the clergy. We should try to create an atmosphere of positive proclamation instead of constant denunciation. We have to do more of explaining things rather than just complaining and falling into sarcasm.

Correctness also leads us to give due attention to put proper balance and perspective to our views and teachings. We just cannot be a one-track kind of guy, flippant and often loose-tongued and simply shooting from the hip.

We have to foster dialogue, not discourage it, because in our temporal affairs, especially in politics, we are like in a journey, and a journey together with everybody else, which make it both exciting and demanding.

Dispositions for prayer

BEING the language of the heart and the first and last among the ways for us to get in touch with God, prayer obviously has to be done well.

We have to do everything to make sure our prayer is true prayer, that is, a genuine conversation, or at least, a real contact with our Father God. In fact, we need to pray all the time. We have to learn to convert everything to prayer.

Sad to say, many of us are faking it. We can give an appearance of it, but minus its substance. But, for sure, this anomaly can only go so far. Sooner or later, the truth will come out.

But for all that, there is always hope. Even our tricks and foolishness we play in prayer can later become vivid lessons that teach us the finer requirements of prayer. So, let’s be optimistic always!

Prayer can take many forms—from the vocal to the mental, from the liturgical to the meditative and contemplative. Whatever form we may find ourselves in when we pray, we need to have the proper dispositions. These enable us to begin it, sustain it and end it with fruits to show.

We need to continually work on these dispositions because our human condition does not automatically lead us to pray. In fact, certain factors go against our need to pray.

We have to contend with our human weaknesses, first of all. Then there are those deformities caused by sin, ours and those of others, that we need to identify and cure as best as we could.

The environment can be hostile, or at least deceptive. Our country is still considered very Catholic and pious, and yet there are many aspects in the way we pray, privately and publicly, that cry to be purified and refined.

This is not to mention the powerful spiritual enemies that are ranged against us. For these, we need to learn how to discern spirits, to distinguish the good and the evil ones. And in this field, the tricks and deceptions are far worse.

Working on our dispositions can be an absorbing business, but all worth it. Once we develop the skill of praying, and even the spirit of it precisely because of our stable proper dispositions, then we will see that our prayer can go far and wide. It can give us a sensation of flight and penetration into the mysteries of our faith.

First would be the conviction that to succeed in prayer, we need to exert effort. Prayer without struggle, without discipline, simply does not take off. It remains grounded on the sensible and temporal, and cannot enter the spiritual and supernatural. We should not be sparing in this effort.

Then we need to be recollected, to gather our senses so that they get focused and attuned to the things of God and those of our soul. Some exercises may be needed for this.

But more than this, we have to prime ourselves to develop a certain devotion. Devotion is marked by a joy and quickness of heart to acknowledge God’s presence and do his will even at the slightest indication that can come to us in many mysterious ways.

Then we should approach our prayer with a humble heart. A proud heart is never welcomed by God. Humility keeps us objective and disposed to the truth. Pride does the opposite. Humility keeps the true relationship we have with God. Pride distorts it.

And together with humility, we have to learn to be confident in our prayer. We have to banish doubts and questions about God and his goodness. God is not only the first and supreme being. He is also our father who loves us to madness. We should try to be personally direct with him, not hide in anonymity.

Then we have to be persevering in our prayer. No matter what happens, even if we may be waiting for ages, we just have to persevere. Our faith in God should be such that we give him full trust regardless of the trials and difficulties.

And lastly, we have to learn to accept God’s will, or at least to have a sense of abandonment in God’s ways. We are free to ask and to insist, even to ask for the moon, but we should always accept what God gives at the moment, whether we like or not.

Journalist’s powers and limits

FIRST, I would like to thank Cardinal Vidal and the Cebu Archdiocesan Mass Media Award (CAMMA) for considering yours truly the Best in Column Writing this year. This is already my second time to receive the honor given biennially. It surely both humbles me and encourages me to do better.

It seems that what started as a hobby is now a serious thing, what started as a small cottage industry has assumed big industrial proportions, thanks also to our advanced technologies. I thank God for everything. It looks like the amateur has gone pro.

I will do my best, as the good Cardinal suggested, quoting Pope Benedict during the awarding ceremonies, to promote not only “a global village of neighbors, but also of brothers and sisters” through my writing.

Precisely because of that, I would like to highlight one point which I consider crucial in this business of writing for the papers. It’s to revisit the nature, character and purpose of words, the currency of every communication we make.

I’m afraid that since words are so common and so basic, we often fail to go beyond what they mean. Or better said, we fail to closely examine the things that go into the making of these words, that is, their origin, their suppositions and requirements. We are notorious in taking them for granted.

Without a good grasp of these aspects of words, we can tend to misuse them. We just use them in any way we want. Our attitude toward them is almost exclusively pragmatic. We become mere users, and often abusers.

As a result, verbal promiscuity, not fidelity, often takes place, since their ultimate point of reference is not God, who is absolute, but men, who are constantly changing. Confusion and contention, discord and agitation emerge. We can have the Tower-of-Babel syndrome.

That’s the point. We have to understand that our words are not meant to exist only because of us, or worse, as a mere product of our senses, instincts, passions, or even our thinking and common observations. They cannot and should not be purely man-made.

We should not just invent them completely on our own, nor use them, again completely on our own. We have to respect their true origin, as well as the laws that go with them, precisely to govern them properly when we coin and use them. Such laws exist.

Words, by necessity, need to spring up from God, or from our union with God. It is supposed to be a fruit of God’s mind and will, the creator of the real world and the ultimate measure of truth. Their minting is, of course, done by us, since they are by definition a product of a God-and-man joint venture.

Thus, words do possess both a divine and a human character. We need to be careful with them. Troubles arise when one aspect is highlighted at the expense of the other. Both aspects have to be considered and respected. Our fundamental problem with words often begins here.

These two constituent aspects of words are not meant to conflict with each other. Words cannot be truly human if they are not divine words. They cannot be divine either if they also are not thoroughly human words.

Their divine origin and inspiration should not restrain but rather enhance their human character, be that character literary, technical, academic, business, cultural, etc.

Our Christian faith sheds clear and strong light on this point. The Son of God who became man to save us by reconstituting our sin-damaged nature, is precisely God’s Word from whom all human words should come and to whom all our words should lead to.

We have to understand that by the very dynamics of our words, we are supposed to get engaged with God, coming from him and going to him. Bluntly said, when our use of words does not produce this behavior, we would clearly be misunderstanding and misusing them.

Journalists should realize this basic truth deeply. Though they—we—monitor and comment on daily events and issues and, thus, at best can only have tentative views, we have to make sure that on the whole there should be a movement towards truth and charity, that is, towards God.

The autonomy we enjoy in journalism, as in any human endeavor, is not supposed to desensitize us from our need to be in God’s orbit all the time.