Holy shrewdness

IN many parts of the Gospel, we are encouraged to develop a certain kind of cleverness and shrewdness that can only be qualified as holy.

For example, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, we hear our Lord say: “Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.” (10,16)

Then in the Gospel of St. Luke, we hear our Lord tell a parable about a dishonest steward who was praised not for his dishonesty, but for his astuteness, his being creatively enterprising.

The story ended with these words: “The owner gave his devious employee credit for being clever! Why? Because the worldly take more initiative than the otherworldly when it comes to dealing with their own kind.” (16,7-8)

We should take note in this particular passage of our Lord’s swipe at those who follow him—the otherworldly—who are quite naïve and simplistic in their ways, and do not know how to handle tricky earthly affairs like our business and politics, and now our emerging culture and faith war.

Holy shrewdness is an urgent necessity these days precisely because our environment is fast becoming inhabited by human wolves and hissing snakes full of tricks and deceit and ready to strike and to turn our country into a Godless one.

And they can do that even by shamelessly using the name of God and morality. Sometimes they can occupy high position not so much in civil society as in the Church itself.

Relevant to this, St. Paul already issued the appropriate warning still effective now: “For such false apostles are deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” (2 Cor 11-13-14)

It’s with this backdrop that we have to consider the Reproductive Health Bill, a highly divisive and invasive issue, now pending approval in our Congress. I’ve read it many times, and I have no doubt that it is a summary of all deceits that we and the devil can play on ourselves.

Its proponents say abortion is not included there, but contraception is, as if contraception is already morally ok. This is not to mention that in all countries where contraception is legalized and promoted, abortion unavoidably comes as a consequence.

They say that contraception is a matter of choice, but they are silent about its morality. And if they are not, they say that to allow and even to impose contraception on people and companies is part of our human freedom and is, ergo, moral. Sorry, but this sounds like the devil reasoning out.

They say that a vast majority of the people, even Catholics, are for contraception or at least are open to it or are somehow pressured to use it. They cite various survey results to prove their point. Thus, it should be legalized and promoted.

These survey results are no surprise to anyone. They simply reflect that we are all sinners and commit all sorts of sexual sins and marital infidelities. This will always be our problem that we should try to fight and solve.

But committing sin, even in large scale, is one thing, and legalizing, promoting and institutionalizing it is a completely different banana. We can continue committing sins and let’s hope we also can find a way to say sorry. But we should try to avoid legalizing, promoting and making it part of our culture.

The first is personal and, while already an anomaly, still remains in the domain of the moral order. The second is already institutional and cultural, and is a clear attempt to get out of that moral order. Being institutional, it can affect the whole of society adversely.

The proponents of the RH Bill appear to be Christian believers, even Catholics, but are not consistent with their faith. Some of them have gone to the extent of saying that their Christianity is a matter of conscience rather than some official affiliation to a group.

Again this is a devilish logic. It’s as if now we just depend absolutely on our own conscience. Our conscience becomes our own God, the source and maker of good and evil.

We need to react to this kind of mentality, with a lot of prayers, sacrifice as well as action. We have to be ready to make a war of peace and love, to keep our country safe from the tricks of the devil who makes use of some of us to go against God.