Pentecost Sunday

PENTECOST Sunday reminds us that God is always with us. It

reminds us of a very wonderful truth of our faith as expressed by

Christ himself: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another

Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world

cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him…I will not leave

you orphans…” (Jn 14,16-18)

            This should embolden us to always be confident, at peace

and cheerful no matter what happens, because at the end of the day,

God is always with us. It would be a great pity if we fail to realize

this reality, because we do not live our faith well and prefer instead

to rely on our human estimations alone.

            To live by faith in order to live in the Spirit does not

mean that we should escape from the things of the world. The Spirit is

precisely everywhere. He is in all things that we handle, in all the

situations that we can find ourselves in. What we have to do is to try

to develop a contemplative spirit ourselves so that we can always

discern the presence and the constant interventions of the Spirit in

our lives.

            This means that while we are immersed in the things of

this world, we also have to learn to transcend from. That is to say

that while we tackle the temporal and worldly dimensions of everything

in our life here on earth, we do not allow ourselves to be trapped by

them. We have to learn how to enter into the spiritual and

supernatural dimension of our temporal and worldly affairs.

            That is simply because God, who is pure spirit and

completely supernatural, is in our temporal and worldly affairs. We

should not ignore this very important reality in our life. In fact, we

should always be aware of it and try to correspond to it as best that

we can.

            To be sure, we are enabled to discern God’s presence and

interventions, because of our intelligence and will. These are

powerful faculties that would enable us to know and to love, and

eventually to enter in the lives of others and ultimately to be with

God.

            But more importantly, we are always given the grace so

that our capacity to be with God is actualized. It’s not enough that

we are enabled to know and love God. That potency has to be put into

act with the grace of God who gives it to us in abundance.

            We have to do our part, of course. And the first thing to

do is to be aware that there is such a reality as developing a life in

the Spirit, and from there start cultivating the proper attitudes,

skills and virtues.

            This may look like a daunting, overwhelming task, but it

can always be done. Sure, there will be difficult, awkward moments,

but those usually happen in the beginning of the learning curve. As

long as we persist, time will come when living in intimate

relationship with the Spirit becomes second nature to us.

            If we live the life in the Spirit, we would always be

checking the spirit behind everything in our life. We cannot be naïve

and just accept things as they come. We need to check if the spirit

behind comes from God or not.

            In this, we have received enough warnings from Sacred

Scripture. “Beloved,” St. John, for example, in his first letter tells

us, “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether

they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the

world.” (4,1)

            There are many kinds of spirits roaming around the world,

and we have to learn how to discern them. There is the spirit of God,

the spirit of Christ as opposed to the antichrist. There is also the

evil spirit, and the spirit of the world that is dominated by the evil

one.

Punditry gone awry

PUNDITRY, of course, has its legitimate value and purpose

in our life. It facilitates our knowledge of things in areas that are

quite unfamiliar to us, since they are not our fields of

specialization and yet they also are relevant to us. It clarifies

things for us, and helps us in forming our own opinions, decisions and

choices. It actually is a great service to society.

            In politics, for example, which is important to our

collective life and where developments can occur in warp speed,

punditry can be very helpful since we can avail of expert opinions

from those who are closely following and studying its twists and

turns. I appreciate those fellows who are into this business, since

they are actually doing a very complicated job, sorting out complex

issues for us.

            We just have to be careful in distinguishing between a

good and enlightening punditry, on the one hand, and a rotten one, on

the other hand, that is full of rigid biases and prejudices.

Especially in the most delicate field of politics, we should be able

to keenly distinguish between the two, since every pundit will always

try his best to be very attractive, to sound very objective and fair,

when in fact they are the opposite.

            During these stay-home days, I had the chance to go

through the opinions of several talking head and opinion-makers in the

American political scene. As a priest, I do not indulge in partisan

politics, but that does not prevent me from following the political

developments, since this field of human endeavor, just like any other,

also needs to be evangelized, humanized and Christianized.

            In fact, politics’ need for evangelization, humanization

and Christianization should be more keenly felt since it involves the

whole society in a very direct way. Even if politics only has a

temporal purpose, it definitely has spiritual and moral dimensions

that need to be taken care of. It is for this latter reason that I

follow and study the political developments here and everywhere else.

            What I can say about the punditry in the American

political scene is that it has really gone awry. The pundits are

sharply divided and polarized to such an extent that, to my mind, each

party thinks he exclusively holds what is objective and fair for

everyone and the other side has none whatsoever.

            They are quick to find fault at each other. Bashing,

sowing intrigues, resorting to all sorts of fallacies and red herrings

now seem to be the main focus of their work. They can even go so low

as to get into insults, mockeries and all kinds of “ad hominem”

arguments. And all this is being supported by big and powerful

communication outfits!

            Even those pundits whose views I find to be more

reasonable, are not exempt from some irregular practices. Of course,

they can always rationalize that if those in the opposite side resort

to below-the-belt tactics, why shouldn’t they? As some conventional

wisdom would put it, all is fair in love and war.

            But that should not be the case. Difficult, if not

impossible, as it seems, we just have to make political punditry human

and Christian. It should not be field for a free-for-all approach.

It’s true that in this life, we are told to learn how to be wise,

shrewd and clever like serpents. But such traits should always be

accompanied if not inspired by the simplicity and innocence of doves.

(cfr. Mt 10,16)

            Pundits should realize more deeply that to do their job

really well they have to have a strong spiritual life, a life of close

relationship with God. Only then can they do their punditry in truth

and charity. It’s when they rely only on some ideologies that they

actually downgrade the quality of their job and mission in society.

            To be truly good pundits, not only should they be good

technically. More important is that they be truly good persons and

children of God!

God, freedom, love

HOW important it is that we have a clear idea of the

relationship between God and freedom, and between freedom and love.

Given our very confusing times, when the distinction between truth and

falsehood, good and evil, moral and immoral is blurred, it’s very

urgent that we get hold of this distinction, if we wish to be on the

right track in our life!

            Everything true, good and beautiful comes from God.

There’s no question about that. Nothing can be true, good and

beautiful if God is not at the core of it. Anything that is not true,

good and beautiful does not come from God, even if it has appearances

of what we subjectively consider as truth, goodness and beauty. And

sad to say, we often get caught in this trap of an anomaly.

            Of course, in the rough and tumble of our actual life in

this world, truth and falsehood, good and evil, beauty and ugliness

can get mixed up in us but never in the same aspects. One may be good

in looks but bad in manners, to cite an obvious example. So we have to

be extremely discerning to be able to distinguish, since this mixing

can be very subtly confusing. We may not even realize we are confused,

let alone, wrong.

            We have to realize more deeply then that our freedom, if

it has to be real freedom, has to come from God. It has to be related

to him, to his will, to his laws and commandments. Freedom is not real

freedom if it would just be a matter of doing our own will. Our will

has to conform to God’s will for us to enjoy true freedom.

            We need to strengthen our conviction about this essential

relationship between God and our freedom. This is the truth about

freedom. This is the truth referred to when Christ told the Jews who

believed him, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my

disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you

free.” (Jn 8,31-32)

            From here, we can already realize that our living and true

relationship with God is very indispensable. Without this relationship

in place, we simply would be left to our own devices. And that

realization should already egg us to really take care of our

relationship with God, knowing how limited and prone to confusion and

error our unguided human powers can be.

            With the relationship between God and freedom clarified,

we have to realize next that freedom is what enables us to love, just

as God’s love for us and all of his creation was an act of freedom on

his part. He was not forced to create anything or anyone. There

absolutely was no necessity for him to create us. But He did it just

the same, out of freedom.

            In other words, he created us and the whole universe out

of pure love, a total self-giving that can never be reciprocated

equally by his creatures. This is the essence of love which, according

to the First Letter of St. John, is the very essence of God: “God is

love.” (4,8)

            In short, for us to truly love, it has to be an act of

freedom. And to be able to love in true freedom and not false freedom,

it has to be based on God, rooted on his will and commandments, and

empowered by his Spirit.    Thus, Christ said, “If you love me, you

will keep my commandments.” (Jn 14,15)

            So, we should know where we can find true love and what

would constitute as authentic love, and not fake love. This is the

love that Christ himself has shown us. It’s a love that culminated in

his passion and death in total obedience to the Father’s will so our

sins can be forgiven. This is the love that he commands us to do!

Reinvent, recover, move on

WE have to be prepared for the ending of this stay-home

dispensation. Hopefully it will be soon. We just cannot be held in

lockdown mode indefinitely. One day, we just have to go out and try to

do the usual business as normally as possible.

            Definitely, things will not be the same. There may be new

circumstances that will only have a short life-span. We just have to

bear them and try to make the most out of them. But we also have to be

ready to contend with those that may last till death.

            The important thing is that we should not allow ourselves

to be dominated by gloom, sadness, feeling of frustration and

discouragement just because things would not be the same as they were

before the pandemic.

            We just have to learn to move on, doing whatever is

necessary to adapt to the new things that will surely come about. No

need to waste time to lament over lost opportunities, quashed dreams

and ambitions. To be sure, life still has a lot more to offer us, and

it’s up to us to face the new challenges that actually offer us new

opportunities.

            Thus, we have to learn to be resilient, knowing how to

re-invent ourselves to tackle more effectively these new challenges

and opportunities. Let’s remember that if one door closes, another one

opens. Let’s recover our zest for life. And if need be, let us just

grin and bear it, never allowing our smile and sense of humor to

disappear.

            Let’s remember that God is always in control, and that

with him everything works always for the good, including things that

can cause us great pain and suffering. Thus, the first thing to

recover and to keep strong and vibrant should be our spiritual life,

our life of faith, hope and charity, our piety, our prayer and spirit

of sacrifice.

            We already have all the means to protect ourselves, defend

and conquer the bad spirit that can insinuate itself into our life. We

have God’s word, we have the sacraments, we have the edifying

life-testimonies of saints and many other holy men and women,

including those who are still alive.

            It’s really up to us to choose which way we want to take

in facing a new chapter in our collective life after this horrible

pandemic. Of course, we need to study things very well. We have to

learn to listen to all parties with different and even conflicting

views, then weigh the various possibilities and options they offer us.

            There will always be some kind of general guidelines that

all of us should follow. But in the end, what we choose should be

something that is adapted to our personal situation.

            And while we have to make our own decisions, always taking

some unavoidable and calculated risks along the way, let’s always

assume a sportsman’s attitude. We should do our best to play the game

of life to win, but we should not forget that in spite of everything,

there is always the possibility of a loss or a defeat.

            So win or lose, up or down, we should just move on,

knowing what is absolutely essential in our life that can always be

attained by us, no matter what happens in our life. If we have the

proper spirit, we know, as mentioned above, that everything will

always work for the good in him who is with God.

            Thus, the ultimate secret, the most reliable key to the

real success of our life, is to be with God. Let’s remember that he

was the one who started everything in us, and he will also be the one

to complete and perfect things. Ours is simply to go along with him in

good times and bad, in our successes and in our failures.

            This truth of our faith should never be lost as we enter a

new, post-Covid19 phase in our life.

The apparent victory of evil

WE have to be ready for this. Evil, though it surely will

not have the last word, will always have a degree of victory over us

in our life here on earth. Let’s not be too idealistic that we can

wipe it out completely in our lifetime, or even the whole life of the

world, the entire span of time.

            Not even Christ, our savior, in all his divine power could

completely end it here on earth. Evil in all its forms will continue

to hound us until the end of time. In fact, it continues to mutate

into more subtle and more dangerous forms as we ourselves have also

learned how to combat it with better means.

            That is why Christ had to go through his passion and

death, because in spite of all the good that he said and did, evil

simply continues to rage. What Christ did was to show us how to handle

this lifelong predicament of ours.

            And that is simply to learn to suffer and eventually to

die with the same attitude, with the same spirit with which Christ

suffered and died on the cross. It is only by doing so that we can

aspire to share in his resurrection, the final victory over evil.

            It therefore is wrong to think that the ideal state to aim

at in this life is never to have anything to do with evil, whether it

is our personal weakness, temptations, sins, or those of the others,

or evil in general that is proliferating around us.

            That would make us fall into an anomaly called

perfectionism that can lend itself into various forms, like

Puritanism, conservatism, idealism and many other isms that do not

correspond to the objective reality of our human condition here on

earth. What we have to do is meditate very closely on the passion and

death of Christ, and try our best to live out the precious lesson

taught there.

            Yes, we have to do everything to follow the teachings of

Christ on how to be in the truth, how to be charitable, how to

ceaselessly preach the truth to everyone, how to do a lot of good, how

to avoid sin and temptation, etc. But it cannot be denied that at the

end of the day, evil would still have some hold and dominion over us.

            That is why St. Paul said: “All people, whether Jews or

Gentiles, are under the power of sin. As the Scriptures say, ‘No one

is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise. No one is seeking

God…” (Rom 3,9-11)

            St. Paul himself, for all his zeal for God, said: “I see

another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and

holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells in me.” (Rom 7,23)

            So, let’s not kid ourselves and pretend that we are

sinless or rid of any stain of evil, whether of our own making or that

of another. We just have to learn how to accept this reality of our

human condition and unite ourselves to Christ in his passion and death

so we too can share in his resurrection.

            Whatever personal responsibility we may have in evil in

all its forms, we should just ask for mercy which Christ is offering

us readily and in abundance. And we should just move on, doing our

best to follow God’s will as revealed in full by Christ.

            Let’s remember that when we find ourselves in the very

pangs of evil and tempted to fall into despair, let’s make Christ’s

words on the cross as our own: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” “It

is consummated.” “Father, into your hand I commend my spirit.”

            And let’s just move on, believing with strong faith, that

God will take care of everything.

The ultimate proof

I’M referring to what could be considered as the ultimate

proof that we are true Christians. I imagine that it would be the

willingness to offer our life for others, for our faith, for the

Church, the way Christ himself offered his life as the ultimate act of

his redemptive love for us in full obedience to the will of the

Father. (cfr. Mt 26,39)

            Christ did many, countless good things from the beginning

of this earthly life all the way the end. He preached, he performed

miracles, he travelled extensively just to reach out to people. But

all these were not enough. He capped everything by offering his life

on the cross. And by so doing he assumed all the sins of men, past,

present and future, and conquered them precisely through his death and

resurrection.

            Now if our Christianity goes all the way to that extent, I

believe that would constitute as the ultimate proof of our

Christianity. That would clearly show that we are truly and vitally

united with Christ, since only with Christ can we go that far, i.e.,

for us to give our all.

            Of course, we can already be a Christian just by being

baptized and doing some good work. But if our life happens to involve

suffering, especially of the extreme type, and eventually death, again

especially a cruel death, and we still would be willing to accept and

bear them as part of God’s will for us, I guess that would be a clear

proof that we are completely with Christ.

            No wonder that in the different causes of canonization for

some people who are proposed for sainthood, those of the martyrs are

given a quicker and shorter pass for the simple reason that they have

identified themselves with Christ more clearly. Their heroic acts of

love for God are more patent.

            This was the case of St. Lorenzo Ruiz and St. Pedro

Calungsod. Though they did not write many theological books and the

like, their identification with Christ through their martyrdom can be

more easily seen. The cause for canonization for those of the pastors,

religious, etc., would require greater scrutiny and, thus, a longer

process.

            We should try our best that in our effort to be like

Christ, we develop that attitude of being willing to offer our life

for God and for others. Such attitude would clearly indicate that we

have that love that Christ has, the love which is the very essence of

God, as St. John said in his first letter—“God is love.” (1 Jn 4,8)

            This is the love that summarizes and perfects all the

virtues and all that are good and proper for man as a child of God,

image and likeness of his, meant to share in God’s very own life. It’s

a love that knows how to be humble, patient, compassionate, merciful,

generous, magnanimous. It’s a love that knows how to be completely

detached from earthly things to give our whole heart to God.

            It is the love that follows to the letter and the spirit

behind all of Christ’s teachings and example. It is the love that

brings Christ to life in us. Christ would not just be a historical

character or a reference point. With this love, Christ becomes alive

in us. He and us become one.

            We have to learn how to develop this kind of love in the

daily events of our life. In things small or big, ordinary or

extraordinary, we should see to it that we are willing to give our

all, including our life.

            This is not easy to do, of course, but neither is it

impossible. As long as our union with Christ is vivid and intimate, we

know that nothing in the world can stop us from giving ourselves

completely to him. Everything becomes a means, occasion and reason to

give ourselves to him.

The Solemnity of the Ascension

NOW that we are still in various forms of quarantine, it

might be timely to remind ourselves of our need to keep heaven in

mind. The Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ gives us

good occasion for this consideration, actually a crucial one if we do

not want to lose our proper bearing here on earth.

            The simple reason is that heaven is where we all came

from, since we all came from God, and where we are meant to be in our

definitive state of life for all eternity. That’s how God, our Creator

and Father, wants it. He made us his image and likeness.

            For this reason he endowed us with the capacity to know

and to love, and gave us his grace so that what we cannot attain

through our natural powers, not to mention the dragging effects of our

sinfulness, we can still manage to attain through his supernatural

power to which we have to correspond as best that we can.

            That is why St. Paul tells us very clearly: “Set your

hearts on heavenly things, not the things that are on earth.” (Col 3)

It’s not that we disdain the earthly things. What is meant is that we

have to learn how to relate everything to heaven, and not get

entangled in our earthly and temporal affairs. Everything is meant to

start and end with God who is the Creator of everything and the very

foundation of reality.

            Thus, we are supposed to be always aware that we are in

some kind of journey toward heaven. Our earthly sojourn is just a test

to see if we also would like to be with God in heaven as he wants us

to be, since he does not force us to be with him. He wants us to also

choose him freely, that is, to love him. Our earthly life is actually

a test of love.

            This test of love is truly a big challenge for us, since

we have to learn how to be both in the world and yet to have our mind

and heart in heaven. We cannot enter heaven without going through our

test here on earth.

            But St. Augustine gives us an idea of how to go about this

task. It’s a matter of growing in our desire for heaven while here on

earth. “Such is our Christian life,” he said. “By desiring heaven we

exercise the powers of our soul. Now this exercise will be effective

only to the extent that we free ourselves from desires leading to

infatuation with this world.”

            How important, therefore, it is to always rectify our

intentions in all our earthly and temporal affairs. That is, we should

see to it that whatever we may doing, even if in the end, what we do

could be considered wrong or deficient in some sense, should be done

out of faith and love for God and for others.

            This is to live out what St. Paul once said: “Whether you

eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God.”

(1 Cor 10,31) It’s in this way that we can somehow live with the great

mystery of heaven. This is how we can set our hearts on heaven while

still grounded here on earth.

            We should then realize deeply that we need to develop the

virtue of hope. This virtue gives us the bigger picture of our

life—the ultimate dimensions and parameters of our life, our ultimate

goal and the means, energy and impulses to be used.

            Our present condition that involves an increase of

pressure, confusing knowledge overdrives, increasingly sophisticated

challenges and difficulties, require that we need to seriously

cultivate this virtue. There’s no other way. It’s either that or we

get into a free-fall toward disorder, chaos and desperation.

  

            Thus, we have to make a regular monitoring and accounting

of all the developments in our life to see if we are still on track.

More things in common than differences

IN our daily dealings with others, especially when we

encounter contradicting views and positions, we should remember that

while we do not ignore our differences, we actually have more things

in common than differences.

            We should try our best not to get stuck with our

differences, with what divide and separate us. Rather, what we should

do is to look immediately at what we all have in common and at what

would truly unite us. The latter has greater value and more lasting

effects than the former.

            In the end, what matters more is that we all are brothers

and sisters, all created by God and, with the endowments given by him,

children of his. We all come from and are meant to be with him in

eternity.

            That is the ultimate reality about us. Those who would

even deny that basic truth should not be dealt with animosity but

rather with kindness and charity, the kind that Christ himself showed

and commanded us to have, a charity that includes the willingness to

suffer and die for the others.

  

            It is this kind of charity that knows how to overcome our

differences if some errors are involved, or how to blend them into an

organic whole of different parts if what are involved are legitimate

differences among ourselves. These legitimate differences can serve as

complementary to each other to build up a greater whole, a larger

picture, a deeper truth.

            In this regard, it would be good if we take the initiative

to establish linkages with others, putting up more bridges than walls.

For this, we need to have an openness of mind and heart, of the kind

that is inspired by the example of Christ who was welcoming to

everybody and quick to forgive those who opposed him without condoning

what was objectively wrong.

            This means we should try to develop a universal heart that

knows how to be all things to all men, as St. Paul once said. (cfr. 1

Cor 9,22) We have to be careful because we tend to enclose and

restrict ourselves to our personal circumstances.

            While it’s true that we are always conditioned by certain

factors, we should never forget that we also have the power to go

beyond those limiting factors and conditiontings because of our

spiritual powers plus God’s grace that is never lacking.

            We just have to learn the social skills. We have to learn

how to be friendly with everyone, even with those who are not friendly

with us. We should try to feel at home with any kind of people we

meet—rich or poor, intellectual or manual worker, etc.

            We may have to use the languages of the heart before the

languages of the mind, by engaging in music, sports, outreach and

charitable works, and other works of volunteerism and altruism that

always attract almost everyone. We have to avoid developing a

bourgeois lifestyle, tribalism, elitism and the like.

  

            In all this, we have to expect a lot of sacrifice and

self-denial to be made. But if we are truly inspired by Christian

charity, we know that all that effort and sacrifice is all worthwhile.

We would be convinced that we actually would gain more than what we

seem to lose.

            We should sharpen our skill in discerning what unites us

more than what divides us. While it’s true that we have our biases,

preferences, favorites and pet peeves, we should not allow ourselves

to be trapped by them. That is why it pays we be sport and game with

anyone and in any situation.

            Especially in those areas where controversy and

contentiousness can be expected, as in politics, and even in our

religious beliefs, we should know how to cruise and maneuver without

getting confused and lost. As long as we always are with Christ, we

can manage. We can avoid getting scandalized and being a snowflake.