Anticipating and planning

THIS is a skill we should try to cultivate as early as
possible. It’s actually a necessity, a vital consequence of our nature
that needs to work things out instead of just waiting for things to
work out by themselves. It’s what is proper to us.

            The youth need it urgently today. Having to contend with
their raging hormones that would usually put them in shallow,
knee-jerk mode, they are now continually tickled with so many images
and other things that would keep them from seeing beyond their noses,
made worse for us since we tend as a race to have short noses.

            Sad to say, many times we allow ourselves to drift away
and to be carried away by external forces in our environment, leaving
us completely at their mercy. We obviously are conditioned by certain
elements, both inside and outside us, but we are meant to direct our
own lives too, since we are the captains of our own ships.

            We should try to avoid what is called as fatalism, that
twisted trust in a destiny that is so blind that we would feel no need
to do anything at all. Equally to be avoided is that anything-goes
attitude of many reckless and irresponsible people nowadays.

            While we are not in full control of things, we have enough
elements to warrant the practicability and practicality of this skill
of anticipating and planning. And precisely because we are not in
control of everything, we have even greater reason to develop this
skill as soon as possible.

            We just have to be careful to avoid the other extreme of
over-anticipating and over-planning such that we end up over-anxious
and worried and fall into an obsessive-compulsive syndrome,
practically converting us into control freaks. Unfortunately, we also
have quite a number of people with this kind of disorder.

            We also have to learn how to live a sense of abandonment
in the hands of God. Let’s not forget that our life is always a joint
life between God and us. It’s both God’s and ours. Relying only on one
and neglecting the other in this indispensable duality of our life
would unavoidably lead us to some trouble, if not materially, socially
or economically, then, for sure, morally and spiritually.

            With all that said, we now have to proceed to how to
cultivate this very crucial skill. We need to respect a certain
learning curve in this that will always require some big effort in the
beginning until some ease, comfort, joy and connaturality would
develop.

            Development has to go through stages arranged in some kind
of an inclined plane. In the beginning, we always need to be spoon-fed
first. We have to be asked to make some kind of daily schedule,
defining our priorities, identifying our needs and resources we can
avail of, etc.

            Obviously, when dealing with kids, we start with the most
elementary and immediate needs that are not, of course, the most
important and basic. They need to be directly supervised from always
to occasional.

            But there has to be a gradual process of letting them get
involved into more and bigger responsibilities—their studies, the use
of money and other resources, then the development of virtues like
order, prudence, temperance, fortitude, etc.

            This has to go on until they realize the greatest need to
develop their spiritual and moral life that will always be an ongoing,
till-death affair. In each stage of development, appropriate
strategies have to be devised to help them anticipate and plan their
days, weeks, months, etc.

            One basic thing to remember always is to appeal to kids’
spiritual faculties of thinking, judging and reasoning, without of
course compromising their emotional and physical needs.

            The ideal situation would be that latter faculties be made
to lead them to discover and use the former faculties and to express
what the former would indicate. There has to be some healthy unity and
harmony between the intelligence and emotions, the spiritual and the
physical aspects.

            Another thing to keep in mind is to teach kids to
distinguish between the essential and non-essential, and better if the
differences between the two be made more and more nuanced, with the
finer distinctions well-defined and appreciated.

            Let’s never forget that in all this task of cultivating
the skill of anticipating and planning, just as in all other skills we
need to develop, there’s always need to have recourse to God for
guidance and for the grace to make things happen as they should.

            Let’s hope that we can have the next generation better
equipped in this skill.

The law of love

TO be sure, that’s the law that should govern us who,
being created in the image and likeness of God who is love, are meant
to love and for love. In short, love is the be-all and end-all of our
life and our whole being. Short of that, we are actually not living as
we ought to live.

            That’s why when Christ was asked what the greatest
commandment was—read, what does God really want us to do—he replied
very clearly: it is to love God with everything that we are and have,
and to love our neighbour as ourselves.

            Later on, he perfected that divine imperative by giving us
a new commandment, and that is that we have to love one another as he
himself has loved us. Christ, who declared himself to be our way, our
truth and our life, is the standard of the love we ought to have.

            He is the giver and author of that love, the very pattern
as well as the goal of that love. A love that does not come from him,
or does not have at least some semblance of that love, albeit
unwittingly held by us, is not true love.

            We need to do everything to be able to love as Christ
himself loves us. It is a love that has clear do’s and don’ts,
although it is also a love full of mercy and compassion. It’s a love
that perfectly blends truth and charity, justice and mercy and
compassion, and is capable of being consistent despite the changing
circumstances of place and time.

            In this regard, it might be good to review the doctrine on
the ‘law of gradualness’ as contrasted to the ‘gradualness of the law’
in order to have a good idea of how this love with clear content that
is exclusive can be made compatible also with the demands of mercy and
compassion that are inclusive.

            This is now a relevant and urgent point worth considering
given the fact the papacy of Pope Francis whose thrust is mercy and
compassion is trying to delineate the grey areas where truth and
charity are at play, where justice and mercy and compassion have to
blend.

            The ‘law of gradualness’ means that we have to have a
decisive break with sin while leading a progressive path toward a
total union with God’s will and his loving demands. It’s a gradual
process with a clear idea of what sin is. In this law, we don’t deny
the objectivity and gravity of sin, even as we try our best to grapple
with it in varying degrees.

            The “gradualness of the law” implies that the objectivity
of the sin and its gravity may vary according to one’s subjective
understanding of it or of his condition and circumstances at a given
moment.

            It is a total subordination of the objective to the
subjective. A sin may be a sin or not, its gravity grave or not,
depending totally on how one sees it or on how his condition would
grapple with it.

            This is not right. While it’s true that subjectivity has a
say on the gravity of sin, it cannot redefine the objectivity of sin.
Sin is sin irrespective of one’s knowledge and awareness of it or not.

            But it’s also true that pastoral and disciplinary aspects
of the morality of our human acts, especially our sinful acts, would
somehow be adapted to the circumstances of the person, and of time and
place, etc.

            This is where a continuing assessment of things ought to
be done especially by our Church leaders with the participation of as
wide a contributor of people as possible.

            Our estimation of the love that Christ wants for us will
always be a work in progress especially in its pastoral and
disciplinary aspects. We can never say that we already have it so
perfectly that we do not need anymore to make any improvement or
refinement.

            Let’s remember that our pastoral and disciplinary laws and
ways, no matter how effective they may be in a given period of time or
in a given place, are at best human estimations that will always be in
need of updating, adapting, revising, modifying, enriching, etc. They
will always remain human, and as such will always have changeable
parts though there are also permanent and absolute parts.

            This is, I think, what Pope Francis is trying to do with
his insistent call for more mercy and compassion to those who need to
be better treated by updated pastoral and disciplinary laws.

Adaptation and consistency

THIS is a question whose answer we have to figure out
everyday. We are asked to adapt ourselves as much as we can to every
person and to every situation of our life, and this can expose us to a
dizzying variety of possibilities.

            A quick look around would readily show that with all these
fast-paced developments today, we can see a multiplying number of
differences among ourselves not only in terms of age, character,
temperament, social and economic status, but also of outlook,
lifestyles, cultures.

            There are also work-related differences as the field of
professions continues to subdivide itself. There are the intellectual
type and the manual labor type, the techie and the artistic, etc.

            This is not to mention that political and ideological
factors also generate a widening variety of statuses that need to be
adapted to if we are to live in some degree of harmony. Thus, we have
what are called the conservatives and the liberals, and in terms of
the so-called sexual orientation, there are the straights and the
gays.

            And in terms of the moral and spiritual life, we can have
the saintly and the sinful, the pious and the irreverent, the simple
and the complicated, the humble and the proud, the generous and the
greedy, the sincere and the hypocrites, etc.

            But as St. Paul would put it, he had to be all things to
all men. To the weak he became weak. To those under the law as if he
was under the law, etc.  (cfr 1 Cor 9,21ff) And yet it was not as if
he did not cling to something consistently. There was always something
consistent in all his efforts of adaptation.

            How can we achieve this ideal? How can we adapt to every
person and situation and yet remain consistent as we ought? What would
comprise our consistency? What things can be discarded to be adaptive,
and what things ought to be kept regardless of circumstances in order
to be consistent to our identity and dignity? What principle should we
follow? What motives should drive us?

            These questions should move us to pause, reflect and study
the very word of God that contains the answer to them. If we look more
at that Pauline passage, for example, we can see that the very motive
of St. Paul’s adaptability is the salvation of souls.

            “I became all things to all men, that I might save all,”
St. Paul said. So, it is our salvation that drove him and should also
motivate us in all our efforts to adapt ourselves to every person and
to every situation of our life. It is the eternal salvation of man
that would give consistency to the changing demands of adaptability.

            Our adaptability should not just be a function of an
exclusively practical and worldly value and purpose like convenience,
or the pursuit for wealth, power and fame. Of course, these motives
can be legitimate as long as they play an instrumental role, always
subordinated to the necessary motive of our eternal salvation.

            To be sure, this necessary motive of our eternal salvation
does not mean that just about anything can be ok. There are laws,
there are standards. Ultimately, our salvation would depend on whether
we love God and everyone else.

            But that love has a specific substance. It is about
following the commandments of God. It is about respecting and
following the nature of things, and especially of our human nature,
and the essential things of men—belief in God, honoring parents and
authorities, respecting life, our sexuality, marriage and family life,
respect for truth, etc.

            We have to be wary of our tendency to interpret the
present call of the Holy Father for mercy and compassion and his
description of God as a God of surprises to mean that just about
anything can be done or is permissible.

            Yes, God can forgive anything. He will always have the
last word, the final judgment. But we cannot preempt him by going
against what we already know as laws coming from God himself through
Christ in the Holy Spirit and now authoritatively taught by the
Church.

            Some quarters claim that some of our Church laws and
doctrine are like those pharisaical legalisms and traditionalisms that
nullify God’s word and spirit. This is always a possibility, but we
have to look closely at this issue and not just make blanket
assertions that often are mere rationalizations of illegitimate and
immoral causes.

            What is clear is that to be adaptive and consistent, we
need to be vitally united to God who is love and truth himself.

Let’s go on dreaming

THAT’S what Pope Francis encouraged us to do when he met
with the families in the Mall of Asia last January 16. “It’s important
to dream in the family,” he said. “All mothers and fathers dream of
their sons and daughters in the womb for 9 months. They dream of how
they will be. It isn’t possible to have a family without such
dreams...”

            We can never say enough about the importance of the
family, about the fundamental and most strategic role it plays in
one’s life and in that of society in general. Let’s hope that we never
stop dreaming about our respective families, because it is through it
that families can cope with the complicated challenges of our times.

            This was, more or less, the take-home message I got after
attending a Family Congress recently. I was there not as a speaker but
simply as a listener, and to give company to Archbishop Jose Palma and
the main guest speaker, Dr. Bernardo Villegas.

            Dr. Villegas was my economics teacher when I was still
studying in La Salle. I already know his calibre as an economist and
teacher. He was great, and he showed it once again in that congress
with his most insightful discussion on the Filipino family that is
supposed to be on the way to a first-world future.

            He said that the Philippines now enjoys a high growth rate
that he believes will be sustained and will most likely even increase
because the proper economic drivers are already in place, namely the
remittances of our OFWs, the income we get from BPOs and KPOs, and the
thriving domestic tourism we are having these days.

            But most importantly, he was one of those who changed my
life because of the way he was and continues to be—brilliant but not
proud, very knowledgeable but always simple, with a good sense of
humor, sometimes mischievous, but always oozing with goodness.

            At one point of his talk, he said that the Philippine
economy is already quite stable such that its progress can be
sustained irrespective of whoever sits in Malacanang, whether it is
Vice Ganda or Binay.

            Anyway, he mentioned about how families should always be
protected and strengthened against some economic or social forces and
developments that can undermine them. He also touched on how the
family should be properly anchored on faith.

            But what caught my attention the most was a comment during
the panel discussion toward the end of the congress. Someone suggested
that parents should be more sensitive to the different changes that
children go through as they grow from infancy to toddler to middle
child-age, to puberty, to teener and young adult. Parents need to
change strategies in dealing with their children as they go through
these stages.

            Though I know there are such stages of development with
their corresponding distinctive characteristics, I never really gave
much thought about how each stage is different from the others, and
how children ought to be treated in these different stages. What I
heard was a great learning moment for me.

            I am happy to note that there are now a good number of
couples, all of them professionals in the different fields, who are
willing to spare part of their precious time to go into more serious
study about this concern, and to share their findings with other
parents. Indeed, the family is worth all this effort and sacrifice.

            I am praying that this interest can be sustained and
acquire more strength and coverage. I dream that helpful information
about marriage and family life can continually be brought out in the
media for everyone to know, learn or simply be reminded. We are now
living in very challenging times, with new developments popping up
rapidly.

            We need to make adjustments in our way of life and
outlook. What was helpful and effective before obviously should not be
set aside, but rather be more polished, more updated to take in the
inputs of the new things coming our way these days.

            That’s why we have to keep on dreaming. We should never
tire, much less, be afraid because of the difficulties. If we are
properly rooted on God and on our faith as well as on the flowing
developments of our world, we will always have reason to hope and find
ways to cope with the challenges.

            In fact, not only cope with the challenges, but also to
take advantage of them to attain a greater perfection of our own
lives, both humanly and supernaturally.

Our sinfulness and God’s mercy

NOW that we are in the season of Lent, it’s good to
consider some facts of life that we tend to take lightly, if not to
ignore altogether. We need to confront the dark reality of our
sinfulness as well as the reassuring reality of God’s mercy.

            These two realities should go together, and the Lenten
period is the good time to strengthen our conviction about the helpful
relationship these two should have with each other.

            Whenever we feel the sting of our weaknesses and
sinfulness, together with their antecedents and consequences, their
causes and effects, let’s never forget to consider also God’s mercy
that is always given to us, and, in fact, given to us abundantly.

            What we have to avoid is to get stuck with one while
ignoring the other. Our sinfulness should be viewed in the context of
divine mercy. And vice-versa: God’s mercy should be regarded in the
context of our unavoidable sinfulness.

            And from there, let us develop the unshakable conviction
that no matter what sins we commit, no matter how ugly they are, there
is always hope. God’s mercy is never lacking.

            We have to counter that common phenomenon of many people
drifting and plunging into despair, before falling into the worse
condition of hardened immorality and amorality, because they fail to
realize the constant availability of divine mercy.

            It might be good to recall those gospel episodes where
Christ fraternized more with the publicans and sinners over those who
were self-righteous, although he was also concerned about the latter.

            More specifically, let’s recall that parable of the two
men, one a Pharisee and the other a publican, who went to the temple
to pray. (cfr Lk 18,10ff) The former was proud of his accomplishments,
while the latter could hardly lift up his eyes towards heaven, but
simply struck his breast, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’

            Christ said that the latter came out more justified than
the former. Let’s not forget that no sin, no evil can be unforgivable
to Christ who was and is willing to die on the cross, bearing all our
sins, so that we can find a way to our salvation through his own
resurrection.

            May it be that while our sinfulness would have the
understandable effect of making us feel bad and sad, we should not
allow it to scandalize ourselves to the point of running away from
Christ rather than going to him contrite.

            Let’s strengthen our conviction that Christ has a special
attraction to sinners, that he is ever willing to forgive us as long
as we show some signs of repentance that he himself, through his
grace, will stir in us.

            Let’s play the part of Peter who, after denying Christ
three times, realized his mistake and wept bitterly in repentance.
Christ looked kindly on him and forgave him and even made him the
prince of the apostles.

            Let’s avoid playing the part of Cain and Judas who, after
committing their crimes, ran away instead of going back to God
repentant. Of course, in saying this, I am at all judging that they
are in hell. That judgment belongs to God alone.

            We can only judge based on what we know, and for sure we
do not know everything in their cases. God has the last word. What we
know is that God is always merciful with a mercy that is always
compatible with justice.

            While we should try to be most aware of our sinfulness, we
should also try to strengthen our conviction about God’s mercy. That
we are sinful is not hard to see. We see our weaknesses and
vulnerabilities quite openly. Temptations are also abundant.

            We should try our best to fight and cope with them as best
as we can, using all the means that Christ himself and the Church now
are giving us. We have a very precious treasure in fragile vessels of
clay. (cfr. 2 Cor 4,7) We may have a lot of talents and other
brilliant endowments, but let’s never forget that we have feet of
clay.

            This realization should make us most careful and ever
vigilant, and should elicit in us great desires to follow Christ as
closely as possible and to learn the art and skills of spiritual
combat to tackle the unavoidable weaknesses, temptations and falls we
will have in life.

            On top of all this, and since our best efforts may still
be found wanting, let’s never forget the abundant and ever-ready mercy
of God whenever we find ourselves in the worst scenarios in life.

When mainstream is actually peripheral

POPE Francis’ visit here in our country left us with a
clear message that we have to care for the poor and those who are
considered to be in the peripheries of society, whose hold on human
life and the very basic of human dignity is considered at best as
tenuous, or weak and unstable.

            This message should be taken seriously and should elicit
in us a sincere desire and all-out effort to help in any way we can.
We need to get out of our comfort zone and be ready to get wet and
dirty in this urgent business of helping the poor, the sick, the
ignorant and illiterate, those with disabilities, the prisoners,
beggars, etc.

            In our country, in spite of the many advances we already
have made to address this issue, we can still find many of our people
suffering from all kinds of inhuman privation and indigence, lending
credence to what Christ once said, “You will always have the poor with
you.” (Mt 26,11)

            The papal message is yet another strong reminder of that
classic call for a “preferential love for the poor” that should not be
too romanticized and idealized that it becomes divisive instead of
unitive, giving rise to unnecessary distinctions and conflicts among
ourselves.

            We have to keep it from playing the subtle games of some
ideologies that in the end are not very human and, much less,
Christian. In a sense, all of us are poor because irrespective of our
social and economic status, we are all in need of God. This is the
poverty common to all of us.

            This kind of poverty, which I consider to be the ultimate
form of poverty, may even be more severe among the so-called educated
and the rich people. It’s a poverty that refuses to consider itself to
be so, and that is the worst cut.

            In some instances, the poor may even give more than the
rich, not in terms of money, but more of the heart. The rich may be
poor in terms of cultural, moral and religious poverty.

            Just recently, a priest-friend of mine who is doing some
renovation work for his church was moved to receive a small piggy bank
from a poor woman with a note that she was giving all she had in that
little box for the church works with the request that the priest pray
for her intentions.

            The reaction of my friend was that he now understood
better what Pope Francis said in one of his addresses during his visit
here—that we should learn from the poor. Indeed, this is a reprise of
that gospel episode of Christ praising the poor widow who gave her two
mites more than the rich who gave a lot to the treasury. (cfr Mk
12,41ff)

            And given the power and influence that rich people with
this graver kind of poverty wields in society, the moral and religious
poverty they suffer can in fact be the mainstream in society. That is
when we have to see in this mainstream one of the worst peripheries
that we have to take care of. We should not ignore this fact. This is
a great challenge.

            We need to reach out to them for another and deeper
conversion of heart so that they can realize their poverty and
hopefully start to develop the real Christian poverty of detachment
from things and generosity of heart to offer everything they have to
God and share what they have with everybody else.

            Let’s remember that gospel episode when Christ told a rich
young man, who wanted to know how to get to heaven, to sell all that
he had and then give to the poor and then to come, follow Christ.
(cfr. Mk 10,17ff)

            Imagine if we manage to convince the rich to be poor with
the Christian spirit of poverty, what immense good these poor rich
people can do! We need to reach out to them, especially because it is
through their wealth that much of our spiritual and material acts of
mercy can be sustained.

            In reaching out to the poor, the sick, the handicapped,
etc., let’s see to it that we are not contented simply with giving
dole-outs that are highly short-lived. We should come out with plans,
programs and initiatives that can last long and can be abiding, since
as Christ himself said, the poor will always be with us in spite of
our best efforts.

            We have to involve the rich to help the poor. Then we can
turn the hidden poverty of the mainstream to help the poverty of the
peripheries.

Lent and its implications

WE are once again in the season of Lent. It’s a period of
preparation for the greatest event in the history of mankind—the
passion, death and resurrection of Christ—which we will celebrate
within the Holy Week, from the evening of Holy Thursday to Easter
Sunday.

            It’s a period meant to purify ourselves, with the aim of
strengthening us spiritually and morally, and with the view of making
ourselves more and more identified with Christ, who is the very
pattern of our life, “the way, the truth and the life” for us.

            We cannot deny that we need some purification because in
spite of our best efforts, we cannot help but get dirtied somehow with
the many and multiplying things we have to handle in the world today.

            There are many new things coming up, and our curiosity
gets aroused. We also know that our learning process to grapple with
these new developments will always involve some falls, some mistakes
which can either be small or big.

            We need to pause and reflect on the significance of this
period because with all the activities, concerns, not to mention the
challenges and trials of our life, we tend to take Lent for granted
and content ourselves with going through the motions of some
sacrifices just to get by.

            Lent is actually a very happy occasion, because in spite
of the fasting and abstinence asked of us on certain days and the
prodding to be generous with all kinds of self-denial and works of
mercy, we are slowly being molded into another Christ, our sole
Redeemer, with whom we also have to redeem ourselves.

            Let’s remember that each of us is expected to be a
co-redeemer with Christ. No matter how much Christ wants to save us,
even to the extent of offering his life on the cross, if we do not
correspond to his redeeming will and ways, we will not be saved.

            St. Augustine once said: “God made us without us, but he
cannot save us without us.” We have to understand that Lent is a very
good occasion to go through another conversion, another renewal,
another reaffirmation of our commitment to follow Christ faithfully,
so that our redemption becomes a joint effort between Christ and us as
it ought to be.

            We should then realize that all those fasting and
abstinence, those acts of self-denial and works of mercy, should leave
us with a growing sensation that we are becoming more and more like
Christ,, thinking, choosing, doing things like him and with him.

            Otherwise, all these acts would lose their purpose. They
would just become mechanical, soulless acts, a routine just to pass
the time. We have to make sure that with God’s grace that would always
require of us humility and simplicity and all the virtues, we get the
sensation that we are another Christ.

            And we should not be afraid to be so. We should disabuse
ourselves from the fear that by aiming to be another Christ, we would
become proud and vain, feeling superior over others, and falling into
a psychological disorder called messianic complex.

            Obviously, all these can happen if we are not careful. But
if we make the effort to correspond to God’s grace always, then we can
be and we can do what Christ was and did. He was humble and simple,
merciful and compassionate. He lived the true spirit of poverty.

            He also said that his food was to do the will of his
Father, that he came not to condemn but to save the world. These would
also be the mind that we would have if we grow to become another
Christ.

            Like Christ, we would not to be afraid to suffer. We would
be willing to bear the burden of the others. As commanded by Christ
and lived by him, we would know how to love everyone, including those
who consider themselves as our enemies.

            We have to see to it that these traits and qualities of
Christ are slowly taking root in our lives. We should feel the need to
pray, like what Christ did also, even waking up early before sunrise
to go a certain place to pray. We should be able to have intimate
conversations with our Father God.

            Like Christ, we should do our work well to such an extent
that we can gain that reputation that Christ himself had: “bene omnia
fecit,” he did all things well.

            We have to understand Lent as a period of sculpting the
image of the living Christ in us.

Our individuality and universality

I BELIEVE these are aspects of our life that we need to be
more aware of. The idea is to let ourselves be more conscious of their
implications and consequences, especially the rights, duties and
responsibilities we have because of them.

            This is not to mention the many dangers that often beset
us due to our ignorance, misunderstanding or confusion about them. Sad
to say, these dangers are usually taken for granted, and so we suffer
as a result, often unnecessarily. We have to learn to avoid them, if
not nullify or, even better, to eliminate them.

            It is a fact of life that we as human persons are composed
of a material body and a spiritual soul. The materiality of our body
cannot be denied. The spirituality of our soul can be proven by the
fact that we can do the spiritual operations of thinking, knowing,
reasoning, willing and loving.

            It is also because of the spirituality of our soul that we
have the capacity to receive the supernatural grace that God, our
Creator, in whose image and likeness we are made, constantly supplies
us. This is especially true of the actual grace, more than the
sanctifying grace.

            As such, we are both individuated and at the same time
meant to enter into communion with others, starting with God. That we
are individuals never means we are meant to be alone, isolated,
indifferent to others. And that we are meant for communion with others
neither means we are not individuals.

            That’s just how the cookie crumbles for us. Because of our
material body, we will always be an individual subject of many things,
since matter is the very principle of individuation. We will always be
subject to space and time. We cannot be in two places at the same
time, unless we enjoy the supernatural gift of bilocation.

            Whatever we have, including those elements that can and
ought to be shared with others, like our feelings and emotions, our
talents and aptitudes, our skills and even some special charisms that
we may be privileged to have, will always be held by our individual
selves. They can never be held collectively or communally without
first being held individually and abidingly.

            This is where we have to learn how to blend our
individuality with our universality. Yes, there will be some tension
involved here, but it is going to be a healthy tension that will give
verve and suspense to our life. Let’s just be game about this.

            May it be that while we enrich our individuality as we
should, we don’t become individualistic, isolated and indifferent to
others. In the same way, while we try to enrich our universality as we
should, we avoid becoming so universally minded that we trample on our
individuality with the legitimate differences that we will always
have.

            These differences, we have to understand, are meant not to
be divisive and destructive, but rather to unleash the dynamics of
complementation and ultimately of love and mercy and compassion which,
in the end, are what matter in our life.

            And so all the channels for dialogue and for fostering
family life and fraternity among ourselves should be made available,
and ideally, made part of a living and working structure of the
family, firms and companies, and the community and society in general.

            We have to learn to respect our individual differences,
being quick to identify both our individual strengths and weaknesses,
so as to integrate them properly toward a working and productive
order.

            We have to avoid petty envies and jealousies, unfair and
biased comparisons, indifference as well as greed, rash judgments,
gossips and backbiting, laziness as well as pride and vanity,
unreasonable impatience and intolerance, bigotry and discrimination.

            Sad to say, my personal experience is that even among
priests who ought to know better and have the obligation to be models
and examples of what is proper to us all, these bad things are
rampant.

            All of us have to learn to be always mindful and
thoughtful of others, trying to follow what St. Paul once said to be
“all things to all men to save all.” (1 Cor 9,22) Take note that the
motive to be all things to all men should be that of Christ, that is,
to save men. Absent this motive, we cannot go far.

            This may not be easy, given our human limitations, but if
we strive to be with Christ, we too can say together with St. Paul: “I
can do all things in him who strengthens me.” (Phil 4,13) So, let’s
not be afraid and doubtful. Let’s just have faith, and see how Christ
can work wonders in us!

Cultivating leaders

LET’S give due attention to this need of raising and
training leaders. We cannot and should not take this for granted. We
should not think that leaders would just come out of the blue, whether
we like or not, whether we do something about it or not. We have to
look for them, those with potentials, and train and form them to be
such.

            While it’s true that God’s grace can make leaders out of
the commonest of persons, it’s also true that grace requires human
cooperation not only from those directly called to be leaders but also
from all of us who in varying degrees are involved in raising and
training leaders.

            Yes, St. Paul once said that God often chooses the weak,
the foolish and base things of the world to confound the strong, the
wise and the proud. Or if we want to be more graphic, God can, as the
Bible says, lift up the poor from the dunghill so he can sit with
princes. (cfr 1 Sam 2,8)

            Just the same, these divine affirmations do not preclude
the necessity for some leadership training to be done by us. Christ
himself, insofar as he is man, submitted himself to the rearing and
care of Mary and Joseph to become later on the supreme servant-leader
of God’s people tasked for the salvation of mankind.

            He had the reputation of “doing all things well” (bene
omnia fecit), and this must be due to a large extent to the formation
Mary and Joseph must gave him in his formative years as a kid.

            We need to be more aware of this concern. We cannot be
oblivious to the increasingly obvious fact that more and more people,
the youngsters especially, seem to refuse to grow to maturity,
assuming more responsibilities, and to become good, effective leaders.

            There seems to be an epidemic of what may be called as the
Peter Pan syndrome, a condition that restrains people to grow up. They
prefer to stay young, carefree, capricious, irresponsible. They prefer
to simply follow what is convenient and advantageous to them, taken in
a self-centered way.

            Yes, it’s true that our age has produced, thanks be to
God, great inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders in the
fields of politics, culture, academics, etc. But we can also say that
a tremendous number of people are wasting precious talents and gifts
in idleness or misusing them in varied selfish and often harmful
pursuits.

            We have to alert the basic social and educational units,
namely the family first, and then the schools, and then onward in the
ascending social and educational hierarchy, to pay special attention
to this concern, and to equip them with the relevant skills.

            It cannot be denied that many parents and teachers
nowadays are getting below par in carrying out their duties. This is
also a very worrying concern that needs to be promptly addressed.

            Though for sure a lot of details and items have to be
tackled in the often long and winding process of formation, those in
charge of these social and formative units should not get lost as to
what is the essential purpose of their educational task.

            It would be good that early on, the different potentials
of children are recognized and given their proper plan of development.
We have to consider their character and temperaments, their talents
and aptitude, and know where to place them where they can be at their
best condition.

            Leadership can take many forms. There’s a type of leader
who goes in front of a group, another who walks beside or behind the
group. There’s the innovative and creative type, and also the
inspiring one.

            In all types, there should be an easily recognizable
amount of competence in the field involved, a certain vision and a
self-propelling motivation. A good leader is also one who knows how to
follow, for he needs to read the signs of the times, to discern the
needs of the people and the common good.

            Obviously, a good leader would realize that he needs God
to be one, for only in God would he be able to serve both God and man
properly. Only in God would he have the necessary wisdom, knowledge
and strength to lead.

            Remember St. Paul saying, “I can do all things in him
(God) who strengthens me.” (Phil 4,13) Being with God and acquiring
all the human skills of leadership are not incompatible. In fact, they
mutually need each other.

            So, a good leader is first of all a man of God, before he
can be a man for others.

God’s providence and our work

IT’S always a necessity for us to be able to see the
bigger, if not the whole picture, and to avoid getting stuck with the
small picture. More than that, we need to see the vital link between
the small picture and the big one, the local and the global, the
here-and-now and the ultimate, and play the part of that link that
belongs to us.

            We need to convince ourselves that our life and everything
in it, including our work especially, is not an isolated and unrelated
element in the very fluid ocean of the universe. We are always a vital
part of a whole plan of God’s love and wisdom, a verse in the divine
epic of the continuing work of God over all of his creation.

            We have to overcome our tendency to have a very
restrictive, narrow and shallow view of our life, ruled solely by mere
human estimation of things, worldly standards and criteria, instead of
our faith that gives us the complete vision of things and the adequate
means to reach our ultimate end.

            We have to be most wary when we are simply carried away by
the impulses of our senses, our emotions and passions, and some
worldly values that, while legitimate, do not give us the complete
picture. This is a real challenge, because we do need a radical
paradigm shift, a quantum leap to achieve what is ideal for us.

            Again, to be sure, God has given us everything for us to
be what we ought to be, to do what we ought to do. Things now just
depend on us, on whether we are willing and humble enough to make the
necessary adjustments to conform ourselves to God’s plans and ways.

            We have to be more aware that with our creation by our
Father God, we are meant to work. Work for us is an essential,
inalienable part of our human nature. It is the very operation of our
God-given powers and faculties that range from the spiritual to the
intellectual and mental, to the emotional all the way to the manual
and the physical.

            It is what relates us to God and to others, what enables
us to attain the ultimate goal of our life—full communion with God and
with others. We need to understand then that our work is a vital part
of God’s abiding providence over all his creation, especially over us.

            God’s providence is the organic, necessary extension in
time and all the way to eternity of God’s creation. When God created
us, he just did not put us into existence and then left us to be on
our own. He continues to be with us, governing and leading us to him
with due respect of our freedom, because as Creator, God cannot leave
us, otherwise we will cease to exist.

            This providence of God now involves itself in the
salvation of man, after we have alienated ourselves from him through
sin, both the original and the personal. Since our work is our
participation in that divine providence, we have to understand that
our work ought to be involved too in our own salvation.

            It therefore has an eminently redemptive character. It
just cannot be stuck with purely worldly objectives, no matter how
valuable, recommendable and legitimate these worldly objectives are.

            It’s indeed time to realize more deeply this distinctive
character of our human work. It just cannot be wasted on brilliant
technicalities, very advantageous, profitable and most tempting and
irresistible earthly motives and worldly pursuits.

            We have to be more aware of the ultimate value and purpose
of our work, no matter how small and humanly insignificant it may
look. We need to sanctify it, offering it to God and doing our best in
carrying it out, and always trying to see how our work at the moment
plays in the over-all plan of divine providence.

            But beyond that, we need to continually discern what God
wants of us in a given moment, what work we are supposed to be doing
at that time. Yes, we are already given some general indications of
this by the duties and responsibilities attached to our state in life.
But we always need to more sharply figure out what God wants us to do
in a given moment.

            We have to help one another in this regard. This is not an
easy task at all. But trusting in God’s grace and guidance, we can
always make some progress in this pursuit. God’s providence somehow
needs our work!

Raising our Eucharistic piety

PREPARATIONS are now in full swing for the International
Eucharistic Congress (IEC) to be held in Cebu next year. We need to
give our all-support for this event that for sure will give a big
boost to our spiritual lives taken individually and collectively.

            For example, we can step up our prayers, sacrifices and
the recourse to the sacraments, the basic spiritual means we ought to
use, so that this landmark celebration would yield a lot of fruit for
the good of everyone, the abundant graces that can be expected to be
poured on us not going to waste.

            Obviously, any earnest effort to sanctify oneself by
fighting against temptations and sin, growing in the virtues, carrying
out one’s responsibilities dutifully, etc., and offering all this for
this intention of the IEC, will go a long way in insuring the
spiritual and pastoral success of this event.

            We have to understand that the first and indispensable
support we can give should always be of the spiritual and moral kind
before it is in kind.

            And for those who can, may this occasion tickle their
generous heart to give whatever service or material and financial help
they can. That support, for certain, will redound a hundredfold to the
good not only of the donors and volunteers themselves but also of
everybody else.

            Such generosity would be a tremendous expression of faith
and love for God and for his people, and will surely be rewarded
roundly. Let’s remember that God cannot be outdone in generosity. The
more generous we are with him, the more he also will be with us, and a
lot more.

            What is even more important in this time of preparation is
the deepening and strengthening of our Eucharistic piety, based on
solid doctrine that is lived faithfully to its ultimate consequences
and made to bear fruit in everyone.

            We need to do a lot of catechesis about the Holy
Eucharist. There is actually a lot to learn—in fact, endless things to
know, appreciate and live. For what we have in the Holy Eucharist is
nothing less than Christ himself, his real presence plus the whole
range of the merits that his redemptive work has made available for
us.

            These things are mainly spiritual and supernatural in
nature, and therefore mysterious. If we don’t exercise our faith, ask
for God’s grace and try to meditate and study the truths about the
Eucharist, then we will miss out many important and crucial things
that the Eucharist can do for us.

            Thus, we need to once again realize more deeply the
necessity of being ruled by faith and piety more than by our sense of
practicality and convenience alone. We need to nourish and strengthen
our faith and piety, giving them their due time and availing ourselves
of the relevant practices.

            In this, we have to feel the need to help everybody else,
starting with the family. Parents should lead the way, giving good
example to their children with respect to catechizing their children
about the Eucharist and developing the relevant Eucharistic practices,
like going to Mass together on Sundays, making visits to the Blessed
Sacrament, inculcating the practice of reciting spiritual communions
often, etc.

            From the family, let’s see if we can do some personal
apostolate about the Eucharist among our friends, colleagues, etc.

            Let’s take advantage, for example, of the common practice
of people making a sign of the cross or any sign of reverence whenever
they pass by a church or chapel, to explain more the reasons behind
that informal tradition. Thanks to God we can already notice
rudimentary forms of Eucharistic piety that can be developed and
enriched some more.

            The Holy Eucharist is, of course, a great mystery, but we
have to overcome that deficient understanding of it and the
corresponding attitude that consists of considering the sacrament as
too mysterious as to be completely detached from our daily concerns,
if not also from our worldly affairs.

            In short, it is considered practically irrelevant and that
the only reason why we have some Eucharistic practices is to meet some
social expectations. We have to establish very clearly and concretely
the vital and inalienable connection between the Eucharist and our
earthly affairs.

            We need to highlight the basic truth about it being the
source and culmination of Christian life here on earth. We actually
are not true Christians as we ought unless we are genuine Eucharistic
souls who are always in need of the Eucharist.

            Let’s hope that in this period of preparation for the IEC,
we become true Eucharistic souls!

Pope Francis shows us how to preach

IF there’s anything distinctive of Pope Francis that could
explain, at least to some extent, his great power to attract people to
him, I would say it is his way of preaching. Let’s remember that in
his recent visit here in our country, thousands and even millions of
people happily came to see and hear him in spite of the very bad
weather and the many other inconveniences.

            The secret, I think, lies in that the Pope somehow manages
to present the over-all beauty of God’s word and the joy it produces,
in spite of the unavoidable struggle and sacrifices that it also
involves and, in fact, requires.

            As he said in a Church document, the word of God is first
of all a gift, before it is a demand. God gives himself to us before
we, in reciprocation, would be able to give ourselves to him and to
others.

            This is a point worth meditating on thoroughly, because we
often feel that loving God and others is mostly a function of our own
human powers, forgetting that our capacity to love depends on the love
that we receive first from God. We need to feel that love of God first
before we can give it to others.

            This principle is clearly lived in the way the Pope
preaches. He makes his preaching the vehicle of God’s initiative to
talk with man. He is attentive to both God and man. He understands his
preaching as a kind of dialogue initiated by God but always attentive
to the needs and circumstances of man.

            His preaching, therefore, is a form of mediation. It tries
to capture what God wants to tell the people in a given moment, and
what the people need to hear from God. It tries to link God with man,
and vice-versa, man with God.

            That’s why his preaching is not done in a purely
moralistic or doctrinal tone that tends to turn off people. It’s not
pedantic nor merely theoretical. It’s not a lecture, much less a
scolding that, sad to say, many people now claim is getting common in
homilies. The Pope’s preaching is not a wet blanket, not a spoiler.

            It is full of human warmth, affection and compassion,
typical of God’s love for us. In spite of man’s sins and infidelities,
God’s mercy and compassion dominates in his preaching.

            That’s why in spite of the heavily spiritual, supernatural
and mysterious messages that have to be conveyed, his preaching is
always clothed with easily relatable concepts, images, examples and
anecdotes that can only indicate the Pope has read quite well the
hearts of the flock he is tending.

            His style is simple, unpretentious, far away from the
lightning-and-thunder type of speaking. He knows how to encourage and
comfort troubled lives. He goes beyond the defects, mistakes and sins
of men to offer healing and divine salvation. That’s why people like
to listen to him, since he makes God feel like a good, approachable
father.

            But neither is his preaching just a matter of a feel-good
affair, filled with gimmicks and theatrical antics. It was always
sober but somehow light. He knows how to present the cross of Christ
that inevitably demands sacrifice and suffering but at the same time
saves. He does not water down the necessity of the cross in our life,
but somehow shows this with a fatherly smile.

            This can only indicate that the Pope is truly immersed in
God as well as immersed in the lives of people. His life of prayer and
reflection, of study, as well as his rich pastoral experience, all of
course under the working of grace, must have given him that quality to
being an effective vehicle of the continuing dialogue between God and
man.

            In his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii gaudium (The Joy
of the Gospel), issued in November 2013, he spells out the qualities
and requirements of good and effective preaching. It might be good for
priests especially to go through it again, and see how those incisive
insights of the Pope about preaching can be followed.

            Since the Church will always be involved in
evangelization, and preaching is a major part of it, it would really
be good is the art of preaching improves. At the moment, we can still
see a lot of improvisations and pretensions, so obvious that we do not
talk about it anymore.

            The secret is making the effort to make ourselves,
especially the priests, a true man of God as well as a man of the
people, a man for others.

Our need to cry

POPE Francis reminded us of this need in one of his
messages during his pastoral visit here. We have to learn to cry! Yes,
we need it, not in the sense that we should always be crying, but that
crying is somehow part, a significant part of our humanity, and yes,
even of our Christianity.

            As babies, we cry because that is how we communicate our
needs to our parents and others. As babies, we are completely helpless
and dependent on others. We cannot even speak. We just cry and
practically the whole world comes to pay attention. There’s a certain,
unique eloquence of babies’ cries.

            And even if are already grown up, somehow we cannot wipe
out all our state of helplessness and dependence. There will always be
some reason to cry, because despite our best efforts, we will always
be hounded by unmet needs, if not problems and difficulties, and some
of them can be insoluble. We can even have calamities and disasters,
physical and moral, and we cannot help but cry.

            As lovers, we also cry. Loving and crying seem to be
intimate partners in life. And that’s simply because loving is an
increasingly demanding act of self-giving, a self-giving without
measure, without limit. It can never be satisfied and contented to get
stuck at a certain level.

            This somehow gives us reason to cry. That constant
striving to give more, to have more, to be more, which is what loving
entails, will always lead us to cry. Thus, many love stories and love
songs are filled with episodes of crying. And true lovers are
unabashed about it.

            In this regard, I remember songs like “Cry me a river,”
“Crying in the rain,” “As my guitar gently weeps,” etc. They express
sentiments in so intense and vivid a way that you can practically see
and feel the heart of the lover and the beloved.

            As children of God and Christian believers, we even have
more reason to cry, because we cannot help but reflect Christ’s life
that was also marked by crying. He wept over the crowd because he saw
them like sheep without a shepherd. He cried when he saw the widow
burying her only son.

            In his prayers to the Father, he cried. That’s what
happened in the garden of Gethsemane and right there on the cross,
moments before he died. “Father, why have you forsaken me?” We cannot
imagine those words spoken without tears.

            And this is Christ already, who is both God and man. He
could not help but cry too. His divinity did not detract from his
humanity, and vice-versa. When Christ cried, he cried as both God and
man.

            Besides, Christ is always moved when people approach him
crying. The sinful woman who gate-crashed into a dinner where Christ
was and started to bathe his feet with her tears and wipe them with
her hair is proof of this. Christ told his sceptical host, Simon, that
her sins were forgiven precisely because she repented much through
crying.

            Crying is an integral part of our humanity and
Christianity. If we don’t cry, we would have reason to suspect that we
are losing or at least weakening in our humanity and Christianity.

            This is now a challenge to us because our present,
dominant culture, especially affecting the young ones and the
so-called go-getters, seems to altogether write-off the need for
crying. For them, crying is by definition an anathema.

            It’s obvious, of course, that we should not exaggerate the
need to cry. We have to avoid being cry-babies, whining and
complaining at the slightest touch of inconvenience. But it also is
definitely wrong to go to the other extreme of avoiding crying at all
costs.

            We need to cry sometimes. It will be a sure and healthy
sign that we are still human and Christian. If done properly, with the
proper motives and in the right occasions, our crying will do us a lot
of good.

            We have to realize that we will always have reason to cry
because we will always have an abiding need that cannot be fully met,
and that is to be definitively with God. We will always be “poor in
spirit,” as the first beatitude would put it, always in need of God.
That’s the reason why Christ told his disciples to always insist in
praying.

            “Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and you shall find.
Knock, and it shall be opened to you.” (Mt 7,7) These words, if
followed earnestly, will always involve some form of crying. We have
to learn to cry!

Heaven and earth

WE need to see the unity between heaven and earth, and try our best,
with God’s grace, to conform to such reality. Obviously, this unity
between heaven and earth will always be a tentative one while we are
still here on earth, but we need to work on it.

    That’s the reason why in the Lord’s prayer, we are asked to
constantly pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven.” Many
other passages in the gospel can attest to this. St. Paul in his First
Letter to the Corinthians said: “As we have borne the image of the
earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly.” (15,49)

    In his Letter to the Philippians, the same sentiment is made—that our
conversation be in heaven even if we are still here on earth. (3,20)
Let’s hope that we take this truth of our faith seriously, avoiding
anything that can trivialize it.

    For us who are the image and likeness of God, adopted children of
his, meant to participate in the very life of God, we have to
understand that our earthly life is a journey toward heaven, from
where we come and to where we belong. That’s because God is our
Creator and our beginning, as well as our Ultimate End, and he is in
heaven.

    Our earthly life is the time and space of our trial—to see if we also
like to be God’s children. God wants us to be his children, but he
does not impose it on us. We have to freely choose it, by
corresponding to his love with our love which is a matter of keeping
his commandments, doing his will.

    For this purpose, God has given us everything. In fact, God has given
us his very own son who became man, Jesus Christ, to be “the way, the
truth and the life” for us. We have no reason then to think that this
truth of faith cannot be attained by us.

    God has become man, has assumed everything human except sin, so that
what is his becomes ours, and what is ours also becomes his. St. Paul
went to the extent of saying that Christ made himself like sin just to
save us. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that
in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5,21)

    God is never scandalized by our sins. In fact, our sins attract him
in a special way. On the cross, offering his life, he went to the
extent of bearing all our sins. “God so loved the world as to give his
only begotten Son…” Nothing of our sinfulness, including all the ugly
consequences of our sin, is invincible to God’s love, mercy and
compassion.

    We need to meditate on this truth slowly and deeply, so that can we
learn to adapt the very same spirit of God in his love and mercy for
all of us, and avoid the subtle and devious ways of
self-righteousness. We need to imitate Christ, the master of
adaptation, who can take on anything that can take place in our
earthly life.

    The other day, in a visit to Bohol, I dropped by a church to do my
afternoon prayer. Of course, after the 2013 killer earthquake, the
big, beautiful church is gone, and in its place is a small, poor
makeshift chapel, full of improvised ornaments.

    A funeral Mass was going on when I entered. The place was full of
people, simple townspeople whose greatest wealth can only be their
undeniably strong faith and piety.

    I could not help but notice the indigence of the place. But I was
warmed to see the fervor of the people while attending the Mass. Yes,
I missed the splendor of a solemn Mass with all its rich vestments and
vessels. But in that particular setting, I was happier to notice how
the people prayed and paid attention to the priest-celebrant.

    Then I remembered the Mass of Pope Francis in Tacloban. He was in a
raincoat because it was raining heavily. Due to the weather, the altar
used was a simple table, instead of the prepared ornate one. The
people were all in raincoats, but attentive and solemn in their
prayers.

    No doubt, heaven can adjust itself to the conditions of our earth, no
matter how poor it may be in its physical and material dimension. It’s
in the spirit of Christ’s love and mercy, that presumes faith and
requires hope, that heaven and earth can be united, and the fullness
of time achieved.

Amazement and familiarity

 BACK in 1995, the Vatican issued a document that to me

holds special and urgent relevance today. It’s entitled, The Truth and
Meaning of Human Sexuality, and precisely talks about a topic that
should be made mainstream.

            It needs to be brought out more in the open. Given the
many issues in this area that have managed to generate a lot of
confusion and complications, the document offers a basic and
comprehensive primer especially to parents who are the first teachers
and formators of their children.

            What we have in society only reflects and is a result of
what we have in the families. If the families do not do well or even
fail in the education of their children in human sexuality, we cannot
expect a society that will have a healthy attitude toward this very
important aspect of human life.

            The naked truth is that problems in this area have
multiplied not only in number but also in kind. Wherever we go, even
if we just take a cursory look around, we can immediately see that
there are things that are not quite right or, shall we say, that at
least raise eyebrows, provoke questions and concern, etc.

            Pornography is now so easily accessible that even little
innocent children can already get exposed to them. Teen-age pregnancy
is on the rise, together with casual sex and hook-ups, STD, abortion,
contraception, and illegitimate children. This is not to mention the
rise of problems related to the confusion in sexual identity.

            There is a tendency not to talk about these issues, except
when they involve people who are supposed to be the teachers,
defenders and models of healthy human sexuality either in the state of
marriage or celibacy.

            When these latter cases happen, you can be sure that a lot
of talk will take place. People like to feast on scandals. But if the
same problems involve those who consider themselves ‘liberated,’ then
hardly anything is heard unless violence or killing is committed, or
some discrimination is done. I find this funny.

            In a way, there is good reason not to talk too openly
about human sexuality, because it touches on very private, personal,
confidential matters. Besides, it’s such a sticky thing that it would
require some precautions before talking about it. There are some
people who are so sensitive that the mere mention of the word, ‘sex,’
would already make them wild.

            But we really do have great need now, more than ever, to
talk about this topic both openly and discreetly, realistically and
prudently. Obviously, the more proper venue for this talk would be
within the family, and personal conversations between parents and
children, the father with the boys, and the mother with the girls.

            Discussions of this topic in public should be done in
subsidiary roles, focusing more on explanations and reminders of
relevant moral principles than on displaying certain techniques, more
on appeal to virtues than on simply enumerating a list of do’s and
don’t’s.

            These public discussions should not replace the primordial
duty of parents to be the primary teachers of their children in human
sexuality. These discussions are supposed to help parents fulfill
their duty as teachers to their children.

            We have to stress the original beauty and truth of human
sexuality, its great positive and constructive power and contribution
to our lives. And so we have to highlight its origin in our human
nature as designed by our Creator himself. We therefore cannot help
but view human sexuality always within the framework of our Christian
faith.

            From there, we have to stress why our human sexuality is
to be lived always in the context of truth and love, that is, in
chastity, and not just in the context of our feelings and passions,
and other worldly trends and some ideologies detached or even hostile
to the faith.

            Since we cannot avoid having some conflicting discussions
in this topic, we have to have a clear idea of the distinction between
good tolerance and bad tolerance, between healthy open-mindedness and
the unhealthy one.

            More importantly, we have to find ways to make this
concern of teaching the truth and meaning of human sexuality an
ongoing affair. Some structures have to be put up to continually help
parents effectively discharge their duty of being teachers to their
children, especially in the area of human sexuality.

            All parties should be involved here—individual persons,
parents, teachers, clergy, media, government, etc. Let’s hope that we
can create a world where the whole truth and beauty of human sexuality
is lived.

The delicate topic of human sexuality

BACK in 1995, the Vatican issued a document that to me
holds special and urgent relevance today. It’s entitled, The Truth and
Meaning of Human Sexuality, and precisely talks about a topic that
should be made mainstream.

            It needs to be brought out more in the open. Given the
many issues in this area that have managed to generate a lot of
confusion and complications, the document offers a basic and
comprehensive primer especially to parents who are the first teachers
and formators of their children.

            What we have in society only reflects and is a result of
what we have in the families. If the families do not do well or even
fail in the education of their children in human sexuality, we cannot
expect a society that will have a healthy attitude toward this very
important aspect of human life.

            The naked truth is that problems in this area have
multiplied not only in number but also in kind. Wherever we go, even
if we just take a cursory look around, we can immediately see that
there are things that are not quite right or, shall we say, that at
least raise eyebrows, provoke questions and concern, etc.

            Pornography is now so easily accessible that even little
innocent children can already get exposed to them. Teen-age pregnancy
is on the rise, together with casual sex and hook-ups, STD, abortion,
contraception, and illegitimate children. This is not to mention the
rise of problems related to the confusion in sexual identity.

            There is a tendency not to talk about these issues, except
when they involve people who are supposed to be the teachers,
defenders and models of healthy human sexuality either in the state of
marriage or celibacy.

            When these latter cases happen, you can be sure that a lot
of talk will take place. People like to feast on scandals. But if the
same problems involve those who consider themselves ‘liberated,’ then
hardly anything is heard unless violence or killing is committed, or
some discrimination is done. I find this funny.

            In a way, there is good reason not to talk too openly
about human sexuality, because it touches on very private, personal,
confidential matters. Besides, it’s such a sticky thing that it would
require some precautions before talking about it. There are some
people who are so sensitive that the mere mention of the word, ‘sex,’
would already make them wild.

            But we really do have great need now, more than ever, to
talk about this topic both openly and discreetly, realistically and
prudently. Obviously, the more proper venue for this talk would be
within the family, and personal conversations between parents and
children, the father with the boys, and the mother with the girls.

            Discussions of this topic in public should be done in
subsidiary roles, focusing more on explanations and reminders of
relevant moral principles than on displaying certain techniques, more
on appeal to virtues than on simply enumerating a list of do’s and
don’t’s.

            These public discussions should not replace the primordial
duty of parents to be the primary teachers of their children in human
sexuality. These discussions are supposed to help parents fulfill
their duty as teachers to their children.

            We have to stress the original beauty and truth of human
sexuality, its great positive and constructive power and contribution
to our lives. And so we have to highlight its origin in our human
nature as designed by our Creator himself. We therefore cannot help
but view human sexuality always within the framework of our Christian
faith.

            From there, we have to stress why our human sexuality is
to be lived always in the context of truth and love, that is, in
chastity, and not just in the context of our feelings and passions,
and other worldly trends and some ideologies detached or even hostile
to the faith.

            Since we cannot avoid having some conflicting discussions
in this topic, we have to have a clear idea of the distinction between
good tolerance and bad tolerance, between healthy open-mindedness and
the unhealthy one.

            More importantly, we have to find ways to make this
concern of teaching the truth and meaning of human sexuality an
ongoing affair. Some structures have to be put up to continually help
parents effectively discharge their duty of being teachers to their
children, especially in the area of human sexuality.

            All parties should be involved here—individual persons,
parents, teachers, clergy, media, government, etc. Let’s hope that we
can create a world where the whole truth and beauty of human sexuality
is lived.

Fighting against lukewarmness

THIS is a very common spiritual illness. What’s so dangerous about it

is that it often passes as something ordinary and normal. It hardly

causes any worry, much less, alarm. It lulls many of us to think

there’s no problem.

It’s an attitude, a mindset, and, worse, a culture that is stuck with

the minimalist virus, contented with what is practical, convenient,

popular, profitable, etc., and goes no further. It justifies itself by

saying, “Why do I need to go any further? Things are already ok as

they are.”

It is the perfect expression of the adage, “The good is the enemy of

the best.” And so it fails to submit itself to the law of love that

requires self-giving without measure, a total self-giving whose

language is generosity and heroism all the way to death.

Of course, behind that justification is a subtle, unspoken compromise

with one’s laziness and other weaknesses, not to mention, his lack of

faith and spirit of sacrifice. That justification puts one in the Stop

mode of his spiritual life, when it is supposed always to Go, to Move,

to Grow always.

In the Book of Revelation, there is a clear condemnation of such

spiritual illness. “Because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor

hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.” (3,16)

We have to be more aware of this danger and do all to avoid, if not

fight against it. The basic and indispensable antidote to this danger

is love, the proper kind of love that comes only from God and is a

living participation of the very love of God which is the only kind of

love there is.

  

This love has the power of continuing self-renewal and

self-perpetuation, and of supporting and even going beyond our

physical and other natural powers. This is the love that will keep us

always young and vibrant, and will give us a taste of eternity while

still in time.

How to keep that love burning, how to continually feed it is a concern

we ought to cultivate in ourselves. We can be sure that we are not

engaging here in some quixotic, unrealistic adventure, since on the

part of God, everything is already given to us.

He has given us his grace in abundance, his saving doctrine, his

sacraments, the Church, the living Christian tradition, etc. The Holy

Spirit is with us. Christ has promised that he will be with us till

the end of time.

What is needed is our prompt and permanent correspondence. In this

regard, we have to realize the importance of some practical plan or

program that would help maintain our love aflame.

Certainly, we need to have time everyday for deep prayer, an intimate

conversation with God where we bring all our concerns and meditate on

God’s word so we would be in vital contact with him and his will for

us. We have to find means to keep ourselves in his presence all

throughout the day.

We need to have time to go the sacraments, especially Confession and

the Holy Eucharist. We have to wage a continuing struggle against our

weakness, temptations and sin, and to grow in the different virtues.

For sure, if our prayer and dealings with God are authentic and not

just formalistic and even hypocritical, we would always feel the urge

to immerse ourselves in the lives of others and the affairs of the

world. We would be consumed with the attitude and desire of Christ

towards all men and the world, and that is to save and not to condemn.

  

In this regard, we will feel the urge to evangelize others and the

world in general, as well as the certainty of being evangelized by

them, since God, no doubt, will speak to us through them, showing us

the concrete and finer points of his will for us.

We have to realize that no matter how dirtied and corrupted by evil

people and the things of the world are, we can always discern, if we

have faith, if we are with God himself, precious lessons and messages

that would be good to our soul.

  

This is how to fight lukewarmness and complacency. It is a matter of

filling ourselves with love that God himself gives us in abundance,

making use of a practical and practicable program that would help us

to be always with God.

It would be good if we can avail of some spiritual direction and

counseling so we can devise a plan of spiritual life that is suited to

our specific conditions.