Thursday, March 17, 2011

Playing the devil’s game

TWO items hijacked my attention these days. One is a women’s group’s initiative to organize Catholics for RH Bill. The other is the emerging voice that Japan’s catastrophe proves there is no God.

What a time to spring these tricks to the public! Here we are trying our best to sort out a sensitive issue and to cope with a disaster that has a potential to affect nothing less than the world order, and then come these pains in the neck!

The devil really takes no vacation, and takes advantage at every opening that comes along the way. Very typical of one who acts when the other parties are vulnerable.

Those behind Catholics for RH Bill remind me of the temptation of Eve in Paradise. When told God forbade her and Adam to eat from the fruit of a certain tree, the serpent explained:

“No, you shall not die, for God knows that when you shall eat it, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3,4-5)

See how the devil cleverly twists being “as Gods” by violating the will of God himself! Those of the Catholics for RH Bill do the same. They cleverly redefine Catholics by going against the Catholic Church’s teaching.

Of course, they offer attractive arguments. But that is precisely the dynamics of demonic tricks and temptations. In the case of Eve, she looked at the forbidden tree, led by the devil. And she fell for it, because she “saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold.” (Gen 3,6)

The group behind Catholics for RH Bill is the same group that has been redefining things like morality, freedom that simply caters to freedom of any choice, rights that respect only some women’s caprices, reproductive health that has nothing to do with health, and responsible parenthood and sex education that are poisonous.

We have to call a spade a spade, and nip in the bud attempts to distort things. The latest diabolical trick in this regard is the claim that those against the RH Bill are imposing a Catholic option on the others.

What nerve! Who were the ones who introduced this RH Bill in the first place? Was there a problem when it was not proposed? Were people prohibited to contracept and even to abort if they really wanted to?

People could do whatever they want. We are free. But it’s another thing when something that is wrong and immoral by nature and not just by one’s beliefs is elevated into a law of the land. That would be institutionalizing evil!

As to the atheistic rant occasioned by the very unfortunate Japan disaster, for which we really have to pray a lot for God’s help, for his mercy and strength, I think that to lose faith in God is even a greater disaster than the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear radiation themselves.

Things happen according to the nature of things themselves. In our material universe, we can expect deterioration and death in many forms because that is how material things are. They are subject to decay and eventual collapse. We somehow have to expect these eventualities and be ready for them.

We as persons who think and choose, etc., also behave in accordance to our nature. We can also choose to do good or to sin and to kill one another or our own selves, and God allows it, precisely because we are free as our nature has it.

But all these things do not prove there is no God. Granted, some events in our life are painfully mysterious. But then again, mysteries are truths that simply exceed our understanding. The reality of God is not deleted just because we fail to understand him or some tremendous things in life.

While we need to be careful and prudent in bringing God to our discussions about our crises, to bar him would be most uncalled for.

When these terrible things happen, we have to realize that we need to return to God, not to flee from him. We have to have another conversion, because all the evils of this world are due to our sins.

That’s the long and short of it. In the beginning, when sin was not yet, everything was in order, in harmony, in what is termed insofar as man was concerned as the state of original justice.

But we should not worry, because Christ came to show us how to handle our predicaments now.

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