Gratitude and lessons

YES, the sufferings, at least as shown in pictures and in the media and now slowly recounted in the first person by many people, are unspeakable. It’s a national nightmare of epic, even cosmic proportion. One foreign journalist described the whole thing as “worse than hell.”

            I, of course, like all others could not help but get painfully affected by all this. A brother priest, preaching a retreat to the Palo clergy, went missing for several days. Thank God that he was finally located and extracted from the place. And it was also like hell just to be worried about him.

            But the “hell” comment struck me in a peculiar way. I suppose the journalist was just saying it as a figure of speech, a hyperbole, with understandable literary license. But I don’t believe there could be anything worse than hell.

            In fact, in spite of all the pain and suffering, we still have reasons to be thankful. Things could have been much worse.  And the massive destruction in life, limb and property has all of us scrambling for anything to be of help.

            Many have become instant heroes to instant victims. We are given a great opportunity to show and live charity and generosity. We are learning precious lessons, albeit very costly, that we tend to take for granted. Most of all, all our suffering and death unite us to Christ in his suffering and death on the Cross.

            This is how we have to look at this disaster we are having these days. This is not sweet-lemoning. This is rather the objective way to see things, that is, not only from the point of view of the externals and appearances, but most importantly from the point of view of faith.

            Many of the good things, the more precious things that happened and continue to happen because of the unspeakable disaster that was Yolanda are mainly hidden and unappreciated.

            That many people prayed all of a sudden, that they were willing to make great sacrifices, even to die, that they did not anymore mind their sorry condition just to look after the welfare of their loved ones—these and a lot more are the many good things that happened.

            That they continue to build up hope even when they are already living on the edge—this is actually a miracle, since we also have endless reasons why we should feel bad, sad, angry or fall into discouragement, depression, self-pity, bitterness, hardness of heart, etc.

            There will always be some villains. We should not be surprised by this phenomenon. Much of it will be more subjective than objective. But there’s more good than evil in life. “Where sin has abounded, grace has abounded even more.” (Rom 5,20)

            But we cannot deny that we also have learned great lessons. Now our idea of disaster preparedness has gone several notches higher. I am sure that in the aftermath of this calamity, a lot of discussions about this will take place. And that’s good.

            Let’s just hope that the discussions are properly grounded and oriented. Let’s avoid provoking acrimony even as we wade through the different issues, different and even conflicting views, etc. It always pays to keep a cool, sober mind, always keeping the emotions, passions and the tongue in check.

            We will overcome this crisis. We can manage to rebuild, and more than restore, we can remake things, including our very own individual selves, in a much better way. This is actually our choice, our decision. Insofar as God is concerned, he gives us everything for us to make a better world. His grace and mercy is eternal.

            We just have to avoid spoiling things by distancing ourselves from him, that is, by preferring ways that are outside of charity, truth, justice, mercy. These values should not be empty words anymore to us. They have to be real, with our earnest effort to adhere to God and his ways, constituting their substance.

            That is why, we need to pray, avail of the sacraments, develop a certain plan to keep ourselves always growing spiritually and morally. We have to study more deeply the doctrine of our faith and make it the guide for our thoughts, words and deeds.

            We should now realize where the real foundations of our life are, and what is truly essential with it, knowing how to avoid getting entangled with the non-essentials. Yes, we have many more reasons to be grateful than to be sad with Yolanda. Let’s make Yolanda the grave from where to rise to become a new creation!