The missing boy

IT’S not that by practice I like to read gossip columns. It’s just that every time I open the papers or the Internet, gossip items just pop up, and even if you don’t read the whole story, you get to read the titles and the subtitles.

Of course, the lurid pictures are there to grab our attention too. No matter how well-intentioned and focused we are, we end up actually being at the mercy of the many tricks and gimmicks of the media.

That’s how I got to learn, for example, that now the so-called “golden couple,” Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, are filing for a divorce, with the purring Angelina declaring that this business of fidelity is overrated. Whoa!

Let’s get this straight. If I remember right, when they started to live together, they vowed never to get married unless gay couples were also allowed to marry. So, if they were not married, what’s there to divorce? Maybe, divorce here means division of their assets. Maybe…

Anyway, I found that view rather strange. Are they gay themselves, I asked myself, and what connection is there between their marriage or non-marriage with gay marriage in general? Clearly, I’m missing something.

But similar views are also expressed by similar characters. George Clooney, for example, pictured with a gorgeous chick curled around him, also said he will never get married. I didn’t bother to know the reason why.

Sometime ago, another actress, Halle Berry, was just contented getting pregnant by some male model and again declaring she’ll never get married. She offered some reason, but it didn’t stick in my mind. I only remember that the logic was as slippery as an eel.

What’s happening? And why are some of our local papers patronizing this kind of stories? Is this supposed to show our openness of mind, our tolerance in a pluralistic world, our flowing with the times, our keeping up with the Joneses?

Are we now writing off the Ten Commandments, religion and morality? What is now the basis of our sense of right and wrong? Are we having a new normal, typified by things like vanity and egoism, lust and eroticism, promiscuity and infidelity, etc.?

Are these supposed to be the expressions of freedom? We seem to be getting confused and lost. Worse, we are losing our sense of shame, modesty and outrage. Our moral sense seems to be dead or in coma.

What’s supposed to be hidden and hushed up is now flaunted and proclaimed to the four winds. Some people, usually stars and celebrities, glory in what supposed to be their own shame. They couple and decouple at the turn of the weather vane.

Self-assertion now completely replaces self-denial. The cross is simply a decoration, a fashion statement, or even a symbol of youthful dissent, completely devoid of its religious content.

It appears that in this field, any mention of Christian or religious or moral guideline is considered taboo or out of place. The world of entertainment is supposed to be a free-floating open city where anything goes as long as one avoids creating a public mess. Only primitive instincts are allowed.

It’s clear that we are missing the boy who dared to say the king was naked when everyone else just played along with the fiction that the king was in golden robes.

Many of our media indiscriminately download celebrity items and other gossips purely to cater to and exploit the lower tastes and desires of the people. And thus, they contribute to the moral desensitization of the people. And from there we can only expect worse things.

Of course, to correct this anomaly would require a higher sense of morals, and nothing less than genuine spiritual life, from all of us and especially those directly involved in the media.

But this idea might be considered preposterous as of now. There’s literary or artistic freedom, rather its hydra-like false versions, to contend with, in the first place. And there’s the practical considerations of profitability, pressures at work, etc. to consider.

I still think there’s hope. We just have to kneel down and pray, and beg God that something be done, and we, in whatever capacity and possibility we have, can write to the media people pointing out the faults, or suggesting ideas, or even getting into the business itself.

This problem will require a massive and active participation of the people. Even if we have found the missing boy, all of us also need to act.

Rumblings and shiftings

CONSIDER the following recent facts—

- In a survey conducted lately by the Knights of Columbus in the US, 56% said that abortion is “morally wrong.” Only 19% said it is “morally acceptable,” while 25% said it is not “morally relevant.”

This is a major shift from the sentiments of the previous years when the majority of the Americans considered killing babies as morally acceptable. In the first place, by a devious twist of the so-called scientific logic, many did not consider the fetus as a human baby. It was merely a blob of flesh.

- Last January 22, as many as 300,000 gathered in Washington D.C. to participate in the prolife-organized March for Life as a sign of protest to the legalization of abortion in the US 37 years ago. Half that number were 25-year-olds and under, a heartwarming fact.

Together with this march, 75,000 participated in the Virtual March for Life online, each one choosing an avatar—a digital character—placed on a map fronting the congressional buildings, thereby expressing their view of defending life.

- Last January 19, in a stunning upset in the election for the Senate seat vacated by the now deceased Sen. Ted Kennedy, an underdog Republican Scott Brown defeated the initially favorite Martha Coakley, who was for the pro-Obama health care plan that included abortion.

Political pundits, often running out of superlatives, are still relishing the amazing feat pulled by the very clever Brown against the powerful attorney general Coakley. Everyone agrees a strong rebuke from the people has just been delivered to the very liberal agenda of the Obama leadership.

There are still many other emerging facts of interest, like the Manhattan Declaration last November, put up by a broad coalition of 150 American Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical leaders who expressed their willingness to go against any pressure for them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.

But these are enough for now. The point is there are significant rumblings and shiftings at present in the socio-political American landscape, generated and driven by moral considerations. It seems more and more American people are waking up from their freefall to liberal immoralities.

What is the relevance of these data to us? A lot! Especially now that we are in an election year, we have to make sure that we choose leaders who uphold and defend clear moral positions.

We should not enter where the Americans are now exiting. Since we are now very globally interconnected, what happens in the States or in Europe can easily affect us. When they go wildly liberal or socialist, for example, we most likely follow them in some ways.

Since the present American government is openly promoting contraception, abortion, immoral reproductive health with very questionable sex education programs, etc., we cannot be naïve and take these things for granted.

We have in our midst politicians and candidates who are clearly kowtowing to these foreign powers. And thus we already have in our Congress such things as the Reproductive Health Bill and Anti-Discrimination Bill that include immoral or at least potentially dangerous features.

The Magna Carta for Women, already passed, actually contains dangerous features whose effects are not yet patent since the other auxiliary laws are not yet in place. But it can be a wedge to open the door to more dangerous laws.

Some politicians and candidates are already talking about putting an expiry date on marriage, allowing the so-called same-sex marriage, etc. They already floated the idea of divorce and abortion before.

In choosing our president, senators and congressmen down to mayors and councilors, we need to know what their stand is regarding these issues. These are the more important issues.

I suppose all the candidates are for good governance, against corruption, for economic development, etc. Fine, let’s make our assessments on these criteria calmly and respect each other’s choices. But these considerations take secondary roles to the more important moral issues.

It’s when a candidate is for Reproductive Health as defined now, or for divorce, same-sex marriage, or when he is not certain about these issues or even is clearly playing footsie with questionable ideologues, that we have to put our foot down and roundly reject them.

Let’s spare ourselves the complicated times gone through many of the developed countries now into some deep moral fix because they gave undue concessions to sinful laws purportedly to respect people’s freedom of choice.

Let’s remember that politics can be good or bad, depending on the moral direction we take as a state and as a people. Politics is never morally indifferent.

Haiti summons us to the cross

I’M sure we have been devastated by the latest disaster in Haiti. Imagine the magnitude—200,000 dead, 1.5 million homeless, spreading starvation and disease, buildings collapsing, including the presidential palace, the cathedral, the UN office, etc. And the crisis is still growing, in number and in intensity.

We really have to pray hard. That’s what we should always do, especially when we find ourselves helpless and cornered before an unfolding deadly adversity.

We have to mobilize whatever we have and can do to help. This is the immediate response. And it’s deeply gratifying to see the whole world practically scrambling to lend a hand to this nation in serious and unspeakable difficulty.

Images that have so far come to us through the media and the Internet are definitely breath-stopping. We run out of words to describe what we see and feel. And yet it’s heartwarming to note that in the midst of this sea of troubles, there are beautiful stories of heroism and deep, unshakeable faith.

An elderly woman, extricated from the rubble after one long and agonizing week, could only say she did nothing other than pray and talk to God. That’s all she could say. It all came from her heart. She had no other explanation.

Another, who lost husband and relatives, said her faith kept her strong and hopeful in what seemed like an eternity of darkness and uncertainty. Her faith was her last resort. It was what made her calm and sane.

I’m sure that through all this we have been asking ourselves, even if we do not want to say it aloud, why this disaster had to happen, what’s its meaning and purpose, if any…?

I’m sure many thoughts have come to our mind to try to answer and clarify. This is an unavoidable human reaction. We may not like to admit it now when the urgent humanitarian efforts are still going on. But that’s what is on our mind.

Of course, everything depends on our cast of mind and level of knowledge, on whether we just keep to reason and the sciences or we also take in faith and beliefs…

That’s why there had been many voices trying to explain things. The American evangelist Pat Robertson insensitively said Haiti is a cursed nation because of some pact with the devil in the past. Of course, he was immediately rebuked.

The Hollywood star Danny Glover said the disaster came because the rich countries failed to make an agreement on global warming/global cooling/climate change, whatever it is now, in the recent Copenhagen summit. Obviously, no one took him seriously.

The naturalists and science-dominated people just clinically gave an emotionless geological analysis of the situation. In this level, many of the atheists and skeptics gather and tend to agree. They don’t want to go beyond. For them, nature and science mark the boundary of speculation.

But the human heart wants more. It would take a wickedly deliberate and gigantic effort to muffle this spontaneous and earnest cry of our heart.

And it sooner or later realizes that it has to grapple with a mystery, a truth that can only be fully revealed not here and now, but in some distant state of life. The heart knows that much.

Reason and the sciences just cannot have the last word. They can give some light, all right, but they cannot explain all. They cannot give closure to the whole issue.

If we just rely on them, we will surely get stuck somewhere. And often we will just be left with depression, anxiety, fear, as meaninglessness sets in. This Haiti disaster, like all other disasters, is an invitation for us to go beyond reason. We need to disentangle ourselves from the exaggerated grip of reason on us.

We have to go into faith and into the misty ways of mysteries. The challenge of the mysteries is not meant to grind us to a halt in our pursuit of knowledge. Rather it is stimulate us to go further, with humility and simplicity, the prerequisites of faith.

Obviously, for Christian believers, the mystery involved in events like this Haiti disaster is the mystery of the cross, of why God to recover us had to send his son, and the son had to die on the cross.

It’s a mystery that will continually give us fresh glimpses of the eternal wisdom that can explain everything. It may keep us in suspense, but it reassures us that we are in the right orbit. We just have to remain humble, and pray.

Politicizing the nature of marriage

THE stir created recently by some leaders of a women´s party list group has bared the fact that some of our politicians are actually ideologues bent in crafting laws detached not only from the people´s culture but also from nature itself.

It´s about time we examine again the mechanics of the party list system. There are now clear signs and proofs that groups using it are just covering for some ideology rather than representing a marginalized but significant population.

Imagine the brilliant idea they are proposing—that marriage now should be subjected to an expiry date and that it should be renewed and renegotiated after some years. I don´t know what planet they are living, but down here where we are, the proposal just won´t wash.

Of course, the rationalizations are not lacking. It´s meant to protect women, to rescue battered spouses in hopeless marital situations, etc., etc. The way things are now, ideological groups never run out of excuses if they want to advocate something.

They are good at making spins to make their views acceptable. Like, since we are in a democracy, then any group and any idea just have to be accommodated. All positions enjoy the same freedom and weight irrespective of how they really stand with any criteria.

In this thinking, there´s no more need to subject these views to further examination. It´s enough that some people are advocating for them.

Or they can cleverly turn the exceptions that are supposed to prove the rule into exceptions that now make the rule. The exceptional cases are given the same status as the normal and the natural.

Or in a democracy, change is necessary. Nowadays many politicians are singing this mantra of change and some have greatly benefited from it. But this attitude often leads to indiscriminate changes, not anymore distinguishing what can and should change and what should not change.

Or again, that in a democracy everything has to be submitted to the polls, politicizing even marriage itself. This is, of course, a lie, since not all things are subject to the opinion of the people.

All these rationalizations are biased assessments of things, grounded on very restricted considerations. We have to be quick to expose the tricks and fallacies involved, before they finally get to mesmerize the people.

The nature of marriage has already been long settled. And as nature, it cannot be redefined. The definition might be enriched or enhanced as more data come, but it cannot be given a substantially different definition.

For sure, the nature of marriage has not been defined simply on the basis of faith or religion. That´s what ideologues also like to claim—that the definition of marriage has so far been tilted unfairly toward some faith-based beliefs. They, who have a different take on it, now assert they should be given the same treatment.

The nature of marriage is defined by just looking at it, discerning what it is supposed to be, what its purpose is, etc. It’s based on the nature itself of man who for his proper development need an institution to perpetuate himself and his descendants in a way fit for his dignity.

And this can only be marriage as it is known up to now—a life-long commitment between a man and a woman, based on the fullness of love that includes the use of the body.

We are capable of entering into this commitment, and this commitment also in turn helps in developing us toward full human maturity.

We are capable of this commitment because in spite of our changing conditions there is something in us—precisely our spirit, our soul, our heart and will—that enables us to remain constant and consistent even as we face varying circumstances.

That is why, more than our bodily senses and powers, we really have to take care of our spiritual faculties, because they are the main engine for our development and our fidelity in our commitments.

Marriage is to last until death, since it is supposed to be driven by a love that involves everything in our life. A love that changes along the way is not true love, and in the process it can only harm us.

That is why, one’s marital commitment should lead him to renew and refresh his love and sense of commitment everyday, always looking for new ways to show that love with deeds. One should avoid remaining in the level of intentions and theories. It should go down to the level of praxis.

Marriage is also between one man and one woman. Period.

That elusive unity

JANUARY 18 to 25 is, in the Catholic liturgical calendar, the Christian Unity Octave. It’s a week of intense prayer for achieving this tremendous gift of unity among all Christians who, sadly, have been divided through the ages for one reason or another.

That it ends on January 25, the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, is significant, since St. Paul is known to be that special vessel appointed by Christ to bring the Gentiles, those who were not Jews, the Chosen People, to the faith. He can therefore be the symbol for Christian unity.

Our prayers in this Christian Unity Octave echo that intense prayer of our Lord just before he entered into his passion and death where that famous expression, “ut unum sint,” that they may be one, is made.

That our Lord made this prayer can mean that the goal of unity will be an ongoing concern that will be us till the end of time. That’s because it is a goal inseparably united to our task to love in the truth. And loving will be an endless activity for us. Unity can only be had through love. No love, no unity.

It might be worthwhile to reprise that prayer here, since it contains what I consider to be our Lord’s most heartfelt desire before he “left” us with his death. The word, left, has to be in quotes, since in reality, he never left us.

From the Gospel of St. John, we have this beautiful prayer for us to relish always: “I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them whom you have given me, because they are yours. And all my things are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

“And now I am not in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to you, Holy Father. Keep them in your name whom you have given me, that they may be one, as we also are one.” (9-11)

I must say that repeating these words can give us great benefit since they can unite us with Christ, conforming our sentiments to the deepest yearnings that the heart of our Lord has for us.

Given today’s very secularized world, that is, a world almost Godless and paganized, deformed by all sorts of human miseries, these words can lead us back to the loving heart of Jesus where truth and charity can be found, thereby recovering the original character of our heart that always seeks unity.

We need to work out the recovery of our heart’s original character that is meant for loving, since we are the image and likeness of God, who is love, and with his grace, we have been made children of his, sharers in his very own life.

And unity is the consequence of this love in the truth. It’s a unity that is not uniformity, because God’s love, the pattern of our life, not only respects but also fosters diversity and pluralism, not to cause conflict but rather to enhance points of complementation, understanding and mercy, the essential elements of love.

Love is born, grows and dances in contrasts, much like the magnet where unlike poles attract each other, while like poles repel.

We need to understand well this relation between love and unity. I must say that this point has been largely neglected. Many people have been pursuing false versions of love such that instead of unity, there is conflict and division, envy and even hatred and terrorism.

Or a protracted air of separation and enmity, even if the objective differences are found to really have no basis. This is made possible because of pride that manages to sour any impulses, both spontaneous and deliberate, to attain unity.

This is what I believe is the main culprit to the lack of unity we still have among us, Christian believers. Pride, both of the subtle and the outright types, is responsible for the hardening and the hardened positions the different parties involved in this affair are stuck with.

Thus, that elusive Christian unity can only be attained not so much with polemics as with prayers, sacrifices, common areas of working together for charitable purposes, and, of course, a continuing dialogue always done in a respectful manner.

Only in humility and with bended knees as we repeat Christ´s words, ¨ut unum sint,” that they may be one, can we get closer to genuine Christian unity.

A shared life

OUR life, whether considered in its purely natural aspect or in its supernaturally oriented spiritual dimension, that is, particularly our Christian life, is by definition a shared life.

I think we need to be reminded of this fundamental truth about ourselves, since there are now many tricky factors around us that tend to undermine this important character of our life. They make us think our life is just our own.

In fact, I would say that we need to develop the skills not only to protect and keep this property of our life, but also to continually reinforce and enhance it. That’s because our life is always a dynamic affair, with new challenges and changing circumstances.

We cannot remain naïve and think that our life more or less would just automatically be a shared life. Some people say so, because they claim we cannot avoid sharing our life with others.

To a certain extent, that assertion is true. But neither can we be blind to the fact that we and the world in general have ways, often subtle and deceptive, that effectively annul this shared characteristic of our life.

We can appear to share our life with others, but in the end, we actually are maneuvering things so they play to our own advantage, if not nourish our own selfishness.

This is not to mention that there are now a good number of people who openly think our life is not a shared life. They even have developed philosophies and ideologies that praise and adore the “goodness” of greed, egoism and practical isolationism.

But first, let’s clarify why our life is a shared life.

Firstly, because that’s how we are made, how we have been hard-wired. That we have intelligence and will, that we have feelings, memory, imagination, etc., can only show we are meant to be with others, we are meant to go out of our own world. They are not there just for our own private enjoyment.

But more importantly, especially for those with Christian faith, it’s because God created us that way. We are the image and likeness of God, elevated through grace to be nothing less than children of his.

And since God is love, is self-giving, we therefore cannot be other than that—that is, we are meant to love also and to give ourselves to others. Thus, God’s commandments to us always exhort us to love, first Him, and then everybody else.

We actually are sharers of God’s divine life. Of course, with the misuse of our freedom, we can lose that most sublime privilege. But there is no doubt, through faith, that we are meant to share in God’s life.

Our sharing in God’s life takes a very dramatic turn with the Son of God becoming man, Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate on Christmas.

The Incarnation, God becoming man, means that in Jesus Christ, God enters into our own life, assumes everything that is human except sin, such that what is His is also ours, and what is ours is also His.

The Catechism expresses this truth in this way: “Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us…the Son of God has in a certain way united himself with each man…” (521)

This means that we don’t have to look far to find Christ. Even the most ordinary thing in our life has Christ in the middle of it. St. Josemaria Escriva described this well when he said:

“Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.”

It’s this teaching that has recovered the often neglected truth that holiness, especially for the ordinary believers immersed in earthly affairs, can be achieved by everyone as it is meant to be.

The lay believers should not feel like second-rate citizens in the Church, inferior to the priests and religious. Everyone is on the same footing insofar as the duty to be holy is concerned.

Christ shares our life, and our life cannot be any other than a life shared with Christ, and through Christ, with everybody else.

The crucial thing to remember though is that we have to develop that shared life according to Christ’s will, not the reverse. Whatever situation we find ourselves in, Christ always something to say, and we have to follow it.

That’s why he said, we have to love one another as He has loved us.

Choking my sympathies

PERHAPS because my exposure to the environment since childhood and even up to now has been good, I feel uncomfortable whenever some people talk about environmental issues in tones that sound to be frightening.

Growing up in Bohol left me with very pleasant memories of clean air, beaches, mountains, churches, mangrove, springs, birds, the tarsiers, the rivers, and especially, the people, who without exception were all nice and warm to me.

Those were very happy years I will always treasure in my heart. Not that there were no problems and even traumas. There were, but precisely because of the many beautiful things around, the negative things just sink into oblivion.

If ever I remember them, they are always framed within the beauty—natural, spiritual and even mysterious—of the environment I lived in. And somehow, I can derive the reasons, both the immediate and the ultimate, of why they came.

Of course, I also listen to anyone who talks about what’s wrong with the environment these days. And if ever there’s something that hits me, I try to do something.

As a consequence, I limit the use of my car. I commute many times, or I just walk. I limit my personal items to the minimum. Many times, I power down and avoid using gadgets for a while. I reuse and recycle things.

I try my best to avoid waste in terms of time, food and other materials. I discipline my imagination and thoughts. I try to live in austerity. I refrain from creating needs, believing that one has most when he needs least.

The only exception to this lifestyle is when I do liturgical acts. That’s where I spend what I can afford to get the best things. But as you can see, they are not for me. They are for Someone, and for everybody else. Austerity need not replace generosity and magnificence wherever these are needed.

That’s why I get uncomfortable whenever I hear complaints about the environment. Of course, there are a lot of things that are wrong in the environment now and we all have the duty to protect it and even enhance it.

It’s just that I don’t like to be scared, and to be drawn into a fear-dominated frame of mind. If I do something, it must be because I want to do it, not because I’m afraid, or worse, am forced. That would only elicit a strong adverse reaction from me.


If suggestions have to be made, then they should be done calmly and positively, cutting out the unnecessary hue and cry, the shrill screams of wounded self-righteousness. These turn me off instantly.

Besides, it is now clear to me that a lot of this environment talk is driven by dubious motives. There’s an ideological spin to it now. And because of that, there had been shameless exaggerations and exploitations made.

The sciences, for example, have been stretched beyond their legitimate fields just to support ideological positions. They seem to approach if not appropriate for themselves the status of a religion.

Now I am amused to see the predicament of the environmentalists who cannot anymore decide whether we are going to have global warming or global cooling. Some twisting of so-called scientific data have been discovered. Much of their claims sound like gobbledygook that are now turning to be mere myths and speculations.

Pope Benedict, now dubbed as the green pope because of his concern for the environment, puts the whole issue in its proper context. In a recent address with the members of Vatican’s diplomatic corps, he said:

“The causes of the situation which is now evident to everyone are of the moral order, and the question must be faced within the framework of a great program of education aimed at promoting an effective change of thinking and at creating new lifestyles.”

So what is clear is that all this environment talk has to conclude always on the moral aspect, and not so much entangled about what to avoid, what to do and have, etc. We have to take care first of the moral and spiritual grounding of the people, since otherwise, we would just be beating the air in our effort to help the environment.

If the environmentalists want to have their points received well by the people, they have to go through the natural process of educating people. They should avoid taking the short-cut route, especially by means of scare tactics. That will not work. They will lose whatever sympathy they have won from the people.

Memory and foresight

I SUPPOSE we did some reviewing and forecasting during the New Year celebration. That's what is expected. A little of looking back and of looking forward.

Actually we need to do this all the time, and we need to do it well. We have to be wary of influences that tend to tie us down to the present alone, making us unmindful of the past and of the future, and especially of eternity.

The growing cases of Alzheimer's disease and of autism may just reflect a trend of self-absorption gripping many people these days. You see them plugged to their mp3s, computers, etc., veritably establishing their own parallel realities, with themselves as their own suns around whom everything else revolves.

Of late, I've been hearing some persons complain that we as a people seem to be short of memory. I've taken that lament with a grain of salt, though I'm also sure there are also grains of truth contained in it.

I understand what they mean. When people do not cultivate their memory, they tend to have a shallow culture, one that is stuck in the surface and the appearances, but hardly any soul that serves as its principle of life and unity.

The other day also, some youngsters when asked what kind of movies they like to see, proudly replied, the ones that don't require thinking. Sorry, but in my calculation, that can only mean violence-and-sex movies. Many are now averse to use their spiritual faculties. They're hooked on the purely carnal.

The truth is we need to work out our memory and our foresight. These are an integral part of our human condition. We are meant to remember the past and to construct the future. More, we are meant to work for our eternity. We cannot ignore this duty. This is part of our being persons, with subjectivity.

But we have to understand that the foundation of our memory and our foresight cannot be other than God. It cannot be our own selves alone, our own ideas, our own preferences, or our own ideologies and philosophies, no matter how helpful and indispensable they are.

God is the source, measure, pattern and goal of reality. We are supposed only to reflect and correspond to the will of God. We did not generate our own selves, much less, the world we live in. God did it all, my dear!

Thus, we need to develop the basic attitude of being reflective, even contemplative, and at the same time, of being active and cooperative. These two sets should go together, like the two sides of the same coin.

Our creativity and originality can never be absolute. They cannot fly or float in a vacuum. They require a reference point, an environment, and that reference can ultimately be God, not something of our own making, though we are capable of producing one, at least for a while.

We have to understand that our sense of freedom should coincide with our sense of obedience and docility to God's will in the end. Unless we realize this and try to achieve this, we might be having some blast of an adventure in life, but for sure we would be going nowhere.

No, one set of qualities without the other results in some anomaly. We can easily fall into the irregularity of quietism and indifference on the one the hand, and of activism on the other. The two should be together, never decoupled.

With God as the constant and ultimate reference point, and with the basic attitude of humility, obedience and reflectiveness, we can go far in rectifying and enriching our memory, and in clarifying what is truly essential to guide us into the future. Our foresight would take wing.

We precisely would know how to resolve past troubles, ultimately reconciling us with God and with others, even if there are still items that need to be solved. This is how our memory is cleaned and put to its proper condition so we would be filled with nothing other than sentiments of gratitude and fulfillment.

We also would know how to look at the future, learning how to judge the variable elements that come along the way, since we already know our constants-our beginning, our end, our pattern, our source of energy, etc.

We have to work on our memory and foresight! This is not optional task. It's a must for all of us.

Spiritual childhood and maturity

PIT Senyor! Cebu now is abuzz with the celebration of the feast of the Holy Child, Senyor Santo Niňo. I find it very gratifying to note that in spite of the complications of the world today, we still can find simple and spontaneous popular piety throbbing vigorously in this little island province.

This is actually true in many places in our country, thank God, but Cebu iconizes this phenomenon beyond compare. Let’s continue to derive precious lessons from this celebration, avoiding casting pearls before swines. For precious lessons, there truly are a lot!

The image of the Santo Niňo reminds us of two seemingly contrasting qualities that we need to blend properly in each one of us and in our society. They can generally be termed as the qualities of spiritual childhood and spiritual maturity.

That’s what we can immediately see in the Santo Niňo. He is at once a child and a king, the ruled and the ruler, helpless and in control of the world, asking to be taken care of yet he actually takes care of us.

It’s the same combination that we hear St. Paul once said about Christ’s ministers: “Let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God…as dying, and behold we live; as chastised, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as needy, yet enriching many; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.” (2 Cor 6,9-10)

Of course, earlier we hear our Lord telling us in no unclear terms: “Be wise as serpents and simple as doves.” (Mt 10,16) Our human condition, limited compared to its supernatural goal and weakened further by sin, conflicts these qualities that are meant to be consistent in the mind of God for us.

We have to find a way to achieve this Christian fusion. Especially now when we are plunging deeper into more pluralistic cultures, usually accompanied by complications, we urgently need to develop the pertinent attitudes and skills to combine charity with truth, mercy with justice, tolerance and convictions.

Pluralism is part of God’s will for us. That’s because he gave us freedom that has to be exercised in the context of our human condition, both material and spiritual, temporal and eternal, mundane and sacred… We cannot avoid this.

In fact, pluralism has to be fostered, and not only to be put up with. Depending on how we use our freedom, pluralism is the inevitable way to either our development or our destruction.

Thus, we need to have a certain openness of mind and outlook, even to the extent of suffering the evil consequences of such openness. This is what we see in the life of Christ. He was open to all the twists and turns of our freedom, but he also managed to carry out the will of his Father.

This is the challenge we have—how to be both accommodatingly open and tolerant, on the one hand, and demandingly faithful and loyal, on the other. Truth is we often get lost along the way, ending up by being either too lax or too strict.

Obviously, this combination can only be lived in Christ, who said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one goes to the Father except through me.” This is something we have to remember always. Only in Christ, and Christ on the Cross, is this blend of qualities possible.

Christ precisely gave us the new commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you.” That means, all the way, up to death, a love that knows how to suffer, how to respect our freedom however it is used or misused, a love that drowns evil with an abundance of good.

It surely is not just a sentimental kind of love. It’s full of tenderness, all right, but it’s definitely a strong and mature love, full of daring and prudence, generosity and wisdom, magnanimity and determination.

It’s a love that lives out to the hilt Christ’s command even to “love your enemies, do good to them that hate you and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you…for if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans do this?” (Mt 5,44-46)

We have to be wary of our tendency to fall into complacency, on the one hand, and self-righteousness and bitter zeal, on the other. We have to have a universal heart to fit all. With God’s grace and our efforts, this is always possible.

This is what Senyor Santo Niňo is teaching us!

Catechism and political engagement

A CATECHISM has just been issued by the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life. It’s entitled, “A Catechism on Family and Life for the 2010 Elections.” Its purpose is to form and guide the consciences of the Christian faithful in their duties toward family and life especially as these values impact on our public life.

It has 15 points, with questions that go directly to the issues, and answers that while a bit kilometric are succinct enough to cover these issues sufficiently. It requires some effort, but it surely will also reward that effort.

I would say it’s a tremendous material that will go a long way in helping families and individual persons to be more consistent in their Christian faith and morals. Consistency in this case means the faithful’s duty as citizens also to promote and defend their family and life values in the political arena.

This is a very exciting challenge. For some time now, this aspect of the Christian life has been neglected, presumed to take care of itself by some naïve belief in an invisible hand, not realizing that powerful forces prowl our social and political life, taking advantage of the democratic atmosphere to retail their evil designs.

Thus, while churches may be full especially on Sundays, and public devotions and shows of popular piety are never lacking, we now have the anomalous situation where in our Congress we have lawmakers poised to legalize practices that are openly against morals, not to mention, our culture, scientific data, and even common sense.

I pray that this catechism be given widespread airing in the parishes, families, schools, companies, social groups, etc. I pray that it be studied by our politicians and the other leaders and prominent figures in the fields of media, business, sports and entertainment, etc.

A social network of sorts should be put up, with everyone taking the initiative to do whatever he can to spread this document. It can be uploaded in the Internet, emailed to friends, including discussion groups. It can be given especially to our public officials like our senators, congressmen, governors, mayors, etc.

We have to wake up. We cannot deny the fact that especially with this unavoidable trend toward globalization that certainly has its good aspects, we are also now getting entangled with a worldwide campaign to push wildly liberal ideas and values, unhinged from the sure core of beliefs of who we really are.

We cannot be brainless and idiotic before this disturbing development not only in our country but also in the whole world. Sad to say, many of our political and social leaders are playing deaf and dumb to the true character of these issues. They are playing footsie with powerful and moneyed ideologues.

This is not to mention that many of them profess to be good and pious Christians. They like to flaunt their Christianity around, making sure they are in the limelight in public occasions. But they are notoriously inconsistent with their Christian faith and morals.

Yes, we need to help them to leap from being Christian in name only (CINO) to Christian in life really (CILR). If they are humble enough to realize their need for conversion, there’s always hope.

The purveyors of these wild ideas cleverly use sophisms and casuistry to argue their points. And so, together with their generous dole-outs of money, they are quite successful already in mainstreaming the contraceptive mentality and in developing a sizable and noisy following.

But the truth is not with them. And that fact has to be exposed promptly and thoroughly. Silence in this case is a devil’s tactic. Thus, this Catechism comes in handy. It answers in the clearest terms, within the bounds of data, logic and charity, the questions often raised to distort if not disable the ethical aspects of these issues.

Among the points clarified in the Catechism are the often misunderstood doctrine on the separation of the Church and State, the role of Catholics and Christians in enriching the democratic system, the role of conscience in developing our positions and our duty to form it well.

Very significantly, the Catechism once again articulates why contraception is wrong, why the Reproductive Health Bill now pending approval in our Congress is dangerous, why voting for candidates who favor RH is not morally sound.

In all of this, let’s never forget that this political engagement is a struggle for truth and justice, for peace and love for all. Let’s not spoil it with petty quarrels and useless acrimony.

Our constants and variables

OUR life can be described in mathematical terms, with constants and variables making up the elements and factors in the equation. Of course, this is just an aid—not meant to capture all of life’s nuances--but it can give light to our situation.

Yes, we have constants and variables in our life. It’s good to know them as well as how to blend them together. There are things that are absolute and others that have a relative value, things necessary and contingent, fixed and movable.

We have to outgrow the predicament of the ancient Greek world where one camp, headed by Parmenides, said everything is permanent, nothing changes, while Heraclitus of the other camp said everything changes, nothing is fixed.

Among the constants in our life is God, his existence, his goodness, his power, his mercy and love for us, etc. He is the absolutely necessary being in whom we should trust and love all the time. In fact, our sense of what is constant and what can be considered variable depends on our faith and love of God.

We should not allow this faith and love of God to be diluted by our purely human affairs and concerns. Whatever be the twists and turns of our life, may it be that our faith and love of God always remain, and can even grow stronger with every trial.

We have the capability for that. Our faith tells us that God never scrimps on his grace for us. He is quite lavish in giving it—“Where sin has abounded, grace has abounded even more.” And our nature has the capacity to be raised beyond its usual limits, because there’s something spiritual in it that is open to infinite possibilities.

This faith and love of God should be with us to resolve everything in our life, no matter how humanly insolvable it is. We need to be reminded more often and more deeply of this truth, since we tend to get stuck with the uncertainties of our human affairs.

Our present culture tends to exaggerate our urge to manage and control everything, such that we can fall into the funny situation of thinking that everything absolutely depends on us. There’s no more room for a sense of abandonment in God’s providence.

The ideal attitude, to my mind, is that given our nature as free and intelligent beings, it’s proper to think that everything depends on us. But since our intelligence and will have God as their source and object, we should always realize that everything first of all depends on God. We have to find a way to merge these two mentalities in us.

Anyway, this tendency to control everything can start imperceptibly in us in that almost automatic reaction of always making rash judgments on anything we see. Many times these judgments go uncorrected and made to end in more bizarre conclusions.

Instead of seeing things with the eyes of God, that is, with love, with understanding and compassion, with eagerness to forgive and to help, we just allow our own weaknesses and biases to guide us.

We mistake our spontaneous thoughts to be the sincere and fair thoughts, not realizing that these thoughts often spring from our own limitations, not mention, our own sinfulness.

Since our thoughts are very private and personal, they can tend to grow simply on their own, fiercely defending their so-called independence and autonomy, again not realizing that they need to be conformed not only to the rules of logic, but also and most especially to the requirements of faith and charity.

Given our congenital weakness, we need to educate ourselves to think properly, always infusing it with faith and charity, so that even in our inevitable conflicts, we would know how to resolve issues.

Perhaps we would not be able to put closure to these issues in the political, economic or social sense, but with faith and charity we can manage to have some resolution proper to our true dignity as persons and children of God. This is always possible.

This is something we have to learn well, and quickly and massively. Our present world cannot help but develop into ever more diverse cultures, mentalities and styles. These things have to be respected and even promoted. But we have to learn how to hold everything together by adhering to our faith and charity.

These are the constants that bring all the variables of our life into one working, healthy whole that all of us should be aiming at.

Leadership unmoored, adrift…

THERE are, of course, many bright spots insofar as leadership is concerned in the world today, be it in the field of politics, business, economics and finance, culture, social life, etc. That we are still a functioning world, despite errors and defects, can only bespeak of a leadership that’s still floating.

Leadership and the use of authority are a dynamic thing. They can have their ups and downs, their highs and lows, their boom and bust. We just have to understand that a lot depends on the kind of people involved in them, and especially on whether they understand the true nature, origin and end of power.

And this is none other than that leadership, authority and power can only have their source in God, their purpose also in God, and the proper way to handle them in God as well. It cannot be any other way.

The other way, which can only be by making ourselves the be-all and end-all of power and authority, can spell disaster, trouble, endless strifes and rivalries, no matter how successful so far we may have been able to govern ourselves through different systems.

Leadership, power and authority cannot be other than our participation in the leadership, power and authority of God. They come from God. They can only be exercised in him, and for the purpose God has for them.

This does not mean that we have to have a kind of theocracy as our form of government, or fanaticism and fundamentalism as a way of life.

We know enough that God does not mean that, since human affairs can involve a wide variety of positions, ways and means that can even be conflicting with each other and that need to be respected.

It simply means that in any exercise of leadership, power and authority, while a lot depends on us, the primary role of God should always be acknowledged, respected and defended. It’s not something to be afraid of or to be ashamed of.

But this is what we are seeing these days. Religion, faith or any reference to God and to things spiritual and supernatural are often accused these days as divisive or as downright irrelevant to human affairs. At best, they are meant to be strictly a personal private affair of an individual.

This goes precisely against the very nature of God who is God not only in our private life, but also in our public affairs. He is a God of everyone in all levels and aspects.

This is the essence of the feast of the Epiphany of our Lord—Jesus wanting to manifest himself to the whole world. We just have to learn how to do this crucial aspect of our life properly, looking at the example of Jesus always whose theophany was done always in a discreet way.

God cannot be a cause of division, since he is the principle of unity and the end of everything and of everyone. At least, this is what Christianity and practically all religions are all about. Christianity does this by showing the extreme of charity—to the point of dying for love of God and of souls.

It upholds truth and justice, but it does this always in the context of understanding, compassion, quickness to forgive and forget, willingness to drown evil with an abundance of good. The only violence involved is the one inflicted on oneself rather than on others, of the kind that is more moral than physical.

There are also those who think that an emphasis on religion in wielding power in our human affairs will make us awkward and even incompetent. This, of course, can happen precisely if religion is misunderstood and mishandled.

But it need by like that. In fact, it should not be like that. If anything, what an abiding relation with God does is to give us a greater sensitivity and firmer determination to identify, assess, solve our problems thoroughly.

It would truly be funny, if not utterly dangerous, if we just rely completely on our own resources and devices, independently of God. We would have every reason to worry and fear, because no matter how smart and clever we can be, such qualities are nothing compared to the challenges we have to face.

Even without mentioning our spiritual enemies, our natural and infranatural challenges alone can already be so daunting as to guarantee our defeat and failure. We need to hook our exercise of leadership, power and authority on God always! We just have to learn how to do it with naturalness.

Memory and foresight

I SUPPOSE we did some reviewing and forecasting during the New Year celebration. That’s what is expected. A little of looking back and of looking forward.

Actually we need to do this all the time, and we need to do it well. We have to be wary of influences that tend to tie us down to the present alone, making us unmindful of the past and of the future, and especially of eternity.

The growing cases of Alzheimer’s disease and of autism may just reflect a trend of self-absorption gripping many people these days. You see them plugged to their mp3s, computers, etc., veritably establishing their own parallel realities, with themselves as their own suns around whom everything else revolves.

Of late, I’ve been hearing some persons complain that we as a people seem to be short of memory. I’ve taken that lament with a grain of salt, though I’m also sure there are also grains of truth contained in it.

I understand what they mean. When people do not cultivate their memory, they tend to have a shallow culture, one that is stuck in the surface and the appearances, but hardly any soul that serves as its principle of life and unity.

The other day also, some youngsters when asked what kind of movies they like to see, proudly replied, the ones that don’t require thinking. Sorry, but in my calculation, that can only mean violence-and-sex movies. Many are now averse to use their spiritual faculties. They’re hooked on the purely carnal.

The truth is we need to work out our memory and our foresight. These are an integral part of our human condition. We are meant to remember the past and to construct the future. More, we are meant to work for our eternity. We cannot ignore this duty. This is part of our being persons, with subjectivity.

But we have to understand that the foundation of our memory and our foresight cannot be other than God. It cannot be our own selves alone, our own ideas, our own preferences, or our own ideologies and philosophies, no matter how helpful and indispensable they are.

God is the source, measure, pattern and goal of reality. We are supposed only to reflect and correspond to the will of God. We did not generate our own selves, much less, the world we live in. God did it all, my dear.

Thus, we need to develop the basic attitude of being reflective, even contemplative, and at the same time, of being active and cooperative. These two sets should go together, like the two sides of the same coin.

Our creativity and originality can never be absolute. They cannot fly or float in a vacuum. They require a reference point, an environment, and that reference can ultimately be God, not something of our own making, though we are capable of producing one, at least for a while.

We have to understand that our sense of freedom should coincide with our sense of obedience and docility to God’s will in the end. Unless we realize this and try to achieve this, we might be having some blast of an adventure in life, but for sure we would be going nowhere.

No, one set of qualities without the other results in some anomaly. We can easily fall into the irregularity of quietism and indifference on the one the hand, and of activism on the other. The two should be together, never decoupled.

With God as the constant and ultimate reference point, and with the basic attitude of humility, obedience and reflectiveness, we can go far in rectifying and enriching our memory, and in clarifying what is truly essential to guide us into the future. Our foresight would take wing.

We precisely would know how to resolve past troubles, ultimately reconciling us with God and with others, even if there are still items that need to be solved. This is how our memory is cleaned and put to its proper condition so we would be filled with nothing other than sentiments of gratitude and fulfillment.

We also would know how to look at the future, learning how to judge the variable elements that come along the way, since we already know our constants—our beginning, our end, our pattern, our source of energy, etc.

We have to work on our memory and foresight! This is not optional task. It’s a must for all of us.