THE season of Advent is once again with us. The preparation for Christmas is now entering its final stretch. But Advent means much more than just decorating our houses and offices with the frills of December.
Advent, more than anything else, is a reminder for us all that we need to prepare for the second and final coming of Christ. It reminds us that we have to look forward to that coming, with efforts to make Christ “all in all” in us, or “everything to everyone.”
This is the more important meaning of Advent. We have to rescue this liturgical season from the dustbin of obscurity and oblivion into which many of us have thrown it. We need to remember that our life here on earth is a pilgrimage, a work in progress, whose destination and completion is Christ, the Alpha and Omega.
We have been created in his image and likeness, and with his grace made children of his, meant to participate in God’s very own life. While God created us without us—to paraphrase St. Augustine—he cannot complete that creation without us. God does not impose his love and goodness on us. We need to correspond to it too.
This religious dimension and purpose of our life needs to be re-emphasized again and again, since we tend to forget it or take it for granted. As a result, many have already developed an anti-God or anti-religion mentality, perhaps not so much out of malice as of ignorance, confusion and error.
Let’s hope the media can help in this effort to remind and clarify things in this regard. It’s understandable that they go full blast into mundane issues like politics, business, culture, etc., but they should not leave religion and faith behind.
Ignoring faith and religion invariably leads us to paths of trouble, conflicts, misunderstanding and hatred, and all forms of abuses of our freedom and rights. That’s simply because ignoring faith and religion in our earthly affairs takes away the source and purpose of freedom.
Let’s remember that freedom comes from God. We did not generate it on our own. It’s a gift, the highest gift God gives us, since it is what resembles us with him, and enables us to love and be responsible for all our actions and, in fact, for our whole life.
This freedom is shown in its best form in the life of Christ who did nothing other than to do the will of his Father, no matter what the cost. Let’s hope that this truth of our faith gets a fair hearing in us individually and collectively, especially in the media, since they are a powerful force of influence in society.
Let’s bring this truth of faith about our freedom to its practical manifestations, freeing it from a mainly theoretical understanding. In our daily concerns as well as in the big political and socio-economic issues that confront us, we need to highlight how we ought to live our freedom well, always referring it to God.
At the moment, we find ourselves in such confusion that many of us don’t know anymore where to go. The local political squabbles, the world economic crisis, the social unrest in many parts of the world just don’t have purely political or socio-economic causes.
These causes would not be radical enough if they are not referred to how they violate the use of our freedom as given to us by God. The real germ of the problem would elude detection when the spiritual and moral roots of these causes are ignored.
The real culprit is when we misuse or abuse our freedom to do not God’s will but simply ours, in whatever level or way that will of ours can manifest itself. The real culprit is when we do our own will in opposition to God’s, cleverly using our talents, resources, and the imperfections of our political and legal systems.
In the media right now, for example, there is so much expression of nothing short than the sheer law of Talion, the eye-for-an eye type of justice, a primitive kind long considered to be inhuman. It’s amazing that this kind of mentality still prevails.
There’s quickness to get angry, to get even, to gloat at one’s misfortunes, to judge and condemn. Criminals are not anymore considered human and are therefore placed in a kind of hell here on earth.
This was never the example of Christ. He was quick to forgive and to understand. He was quick to heal. Let’s hope we truly understand the spirit of Advent!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Running amok
WHEN things are not inspired by charity, when we fail to keep a supernatural outlook in life, when we just depend on our reasoning and feelings, then most likely we end up running amok, killing everyone we meet.
This cruelty can easily be seen when political issues and controversies erupt. They erupt in the first place because many people think politics is outside the domain of charity, faith and religion.
The underlying mentality is that prayer and sacrifice have nothing to do with politics. One would be accused of living in a different planet if they behave along lines of charity and religion. He would not be “getting real.”
This attitude has been demonizing us for quite some time now that I’m afraid it has become part of our culture. Proof to that is the openness with which this inhumanity is expressed in public, and hardly anyone complains. On the contrary, a great majority applauds it.
I thought, for example, that gossiping and backbiting are done in whispers, quite hidden in some corner and in small groups. No, it’s not like that anymore. Gossips, backbiting, all sorts of impertinent ad hominems can now be broadcast on radio, TV and the Internet, with many people stoking them to their maximum viciousness.
What is worse—and I hope I’m wrong—is that they think they are doing the right thing, that their reaction is what is just and fair. They have lost the sense of balance, and charity is, of course, regarded as an outcast in the discussion.
In this kind of discussion, the targets are painted all in black. They do not seem to have any saving grace. They seem to be beyond redemption.
This does not bode well of us as a people. We will be hooked to divisiveness and to a spiral of vindictiveness if we exclude charity and the finer requirements of religion in our political discussions.
Let’s remember that our Lord himself told us to love even our enemies. He himself forgave those who crucified him. To the repentant thief, he also promised the Paradise. He told us to forgive not only seven times, but seventy times seven. He asked us to be merciful, because our heavenly Father is merciful.
We need to consider these words as the perfection of our humanity, a way to purify and heal us of our spiritual and moral wounds. They serve none other than to reconcile us with God and with one another. These commands and counsels are not optional. They are necessary.
The truth is that we are all sinners. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 Jn 1,8) We need to understand each other, and forgive each other. No use getting entangled with our sins, mistakes and failures. We just have to move on, doing all to make that possible as soon as we can.
I was both amused and bothered when I heard a radio commentator say that since justice is supposed to be equal, then everyone has to be treated in the same way whether the one involved is a high official or just an ordinary Juan.
In the first place, equality in justice is never to be interpreted as uniformity in treatment. This is commonsensical. Even in our family life, parents love their children equally but treat them differently, simply because the children are different from one another.
Wherever we go we try to be fair with everyone, but we always treat everyone differently, because people are just different. We don’t make a big fuss about this, unless there is clear injustice.
I froze in disbelief when the commentator said that if a public official who happens to be sick already has been arrested, he should go to prison with all the other criminals who had to bear with all the inconveniences of prison life, like hard labor and exposure to sickness because that is simply a prisoner’s plight.
That, he said, is equal justice. There should be no privileges like a hospital arrest. Then he launched into personal attacks on the public official involved, taking jibes at the physical defects of the person. All this at prime time and in a major media outfit. Unbelievable!
He forgot that everyone has a right to protect oneself, his name, his dignity. If many prisoners are treated inhumanly, it’s not because of some discrimination. It’s because of the imperfections of our human justice and legal system.
Again, if there is no charity, our justice can run amok.
This cruelty can easily be seen when political issues and controversies erupt. They erupt in the first place because many people think politics is outside the domain of charity, faith and religion.
The underlying mentality is that prayer and sacrifice have nothing to do with politics. One would be accused of living in a different planet if they behave along lines of charity and religion. He would not be “getting real.”
This attitude has been demonizing us for quite some time now that I’m afraid it has become part of our culture. Proof to that is the openness with which this inhumanity is expressed in public, and hardly anyone complains. On the contrary, a great majority applauds it.
I thought, for example, that gossiping and backbiting are done in whispers, quite hidden in some corner and in small groups. No, it’s not like that anymore. Gossips, backbiting, all sorts of impertinent ad hominems can now be broadcast on radio, TV and the Internet, with many people stoking them to their maximum viciousness.
What is worse—and I hope I’m wrong—is that they think they are doing the right thing, that their reaction is what is just and fair. They have lost the sense of balance, and charity is, of course, regarded as an outcast in the discussion.
In this kind of discussion, the targets are painted all in black. They do not seem to have any saving grace. They seem to be beyond redemption.
This does not bode well of us as a people. We will be hooked to divisiveness and to a spiral of vindictiveness if we exclude charity and the finer requirements of religion in our political discussions.
Let’s remember that our Lord himself told us to love even our enemies. He himself forgave those who crucified him. To the repentant thief, he also promised the Paradise. He told us to forgive not only seven times, but seventy times seven. He asked us to be merciful, because our heavenly Father is merciful.
We need to consider these words as the perfection of our humanity, a way to purify and heal us of our spiritual and moral wounds. They serve none other than to reconcile us with God and with one another. These commands and counsels are not optional. They are necessary.
The truth is that we are all sinners. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 Jn 1,8) We need to understand each other, and forgive each other. No use getting entangled with our sins, mistakes and failures. We just have to move on, doing all to make that possible as soon as we can.
I was both amused and bothered when I heard a radio commentator say that since justice is supposed to be equal, then everyone has to be treated in the same way whether the one involved is a high official or just an ordinary Juan.
In the first place, equality in justice is never to be interpreted as uniformity in treatment. This is commonsensical. Even in our family life, parents love their children equally but treat them differently, simply because the children are different from one another.
Wherever we go we try to be fair with everyone, but we always treat everyone differently, because people are just different. We don’t make a big fuss about this, unless there is clear injustice.
I froze in disbelief when the commentator said that if a public official who happens to be sick already has been arrested, he should go to prison with all the other criminals who had to bear with all the inconveniences of prison life, like hard labor and exposure to sickness because that is simply a prisoner’s plight.
That, he said, is equal justice. There should be no privileges like a hospital arrest. Then he launched into personal attacks on the public official involved, taking jibes at the physical defects of the person. All this at prime time and in a major media outfit. Unbelievable!
He forgot that everyone has a right to protect oneself, his name, his dignity. If many prisoners are treated inhumanly, it’s not because of some discrimination. It’s because of the imperfections of our human justice and legal system.
Again, if there is no charity, our justice can run amok.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Youth and social change
O, YOUTH! The dawning of the future, the shaper of tomorrow! If the child is the father of the man, then youth must be that crucial stage in-between that would determine whether the child is going to be a good father or a bad father of the man. Youth is the junction where one takes a life-defining choice. It is that transitory part of life that is still seeking stability and maturity.
That’s reason enough to put utmost attention and care on them. All sectors—Church, schools, civil society, government, media, etc.—ought to have a permanent concern for their well-being not only in the physical sense, but more so in the spiritual and moral sense.
By sheer number alone, barring the so-called demographic winter some countries are now suffering, the youth make for a tremendous force in the Church and in the world. They simply need to be well formed so that they too, can help in shaping the kind of world and future they want and ought to live, the world God wants for us.
They have to be gradually drawn to assume increasing responsibilities, instead of leaving them to fall into self-absorption and isolationism that are always a danger.
That’s because in spite of the new technologies that in theory should promote sociability, with the wrong attitudes and habits, the youth can instead harden in their egotism, vanity and individualism. Instead of getting more deeply in touch with reality, they can get lost in a world of virtuality, creating a bubble for themselves.
Toward this end, the youth need to be given clear doctrine and criteria, based on our natural law and our Christian faith, so that their innate dynamism would be well-guided and oriented.
With these, they can avoid the pitfalls of exaggerated idealism and activism, to mention a few of the anomalies that usually threaten them. Some other menaces can be extreme, radical independence on the one hand, and the tendency to fall into a herd mentality, on the other, which show a certain degree of instability in their condition.
Times are now complicated and confusing. The youth today are exposed to more things, both good and bad, constructive and destructive, than their counterpart of yesterday. They can flip quickly from local issues to the global ones, thanks to our new technologies. They now have in their hands powerful tools and instruments that can be used either for good or for evil.
Besides, the world environment has changed tremendously in so short a time. Materialism and commercialism are far fiercer in the present than in the past. And we are actually wallowing in a cesspool of secularism and relativism, made worse by the fact that these anomalies can now be better disguised and rationalized.
More than just being given doctrine and criteria, the youth must make these doctrine and criteria their own, to the point that these become their convictions, enabling them to think, judge, speak and act properly, and later to love and enter into a life of commitment. They have to go beyond the stage of theories, clichés and slogans.
This is the ideal situation. We need youth who are active agents of change for the better in society. But how can this happen?
I imagine that first of all, we have to take care of each one of them. Before they are treated as a group, a class or sector, they have to be considered individually and personally. Each one has to be known as he really is—his character and temperament, his strengths and weaknesses, his likes and dislikes, his dreams and fears, etc.
It’s important that each of them is able to share his thoughts and desires with someone he can trust completely. What is important is that each one feels loved and cared for so he too can learn to love and care for the others.
The earlier one realizes deeply that life is relational that involves not only physical and material things, but also and especially spiritual and moral things, the better for him and for everyone else.
Everyone has to learn how to love properly, based on the love of God and not just any form of human attraction. This is more properly known as communion. This realization will serve as the seed for the youth to become active agents in social change.
Social action should always be a function of charity, truth and justice, and should foster communion. While it involves issues, it should not just stop there, but rather proceed to build up communion.
That’s reason enough to put utmost attention and care on them. All sectors—Church, schools, civil society, government, media, etc.—ought to have a permanent concern for their well-being not only in the physical sense, but more so in the spiritual and moral sense.
By sheer number alone, barring the so-called demographic winter some countries are now suffering, the youth make for a tremendous force in the Church and in the world. They simply need to be well formed so that they too, can help in shaping the kind of world and future they want and ought to live, the world God wants for us.
They have to be gradually drawn to assume increasing responsibilities, instead of leaving them to fall into self-absorption and isolationism that are always a danger.
That’s because in spite of the new technologies that in theory should promote sociability, with the wrong attitudes and habits, the youth can instead harden in their egotism, vanity and individualism. Instead of getting more deeply in touch with reality, they can get lost in a world of virtuality, creating a bubble for themselves.
Toward this end, the youth need to be given clear doctrine and criteria, based on our natural law and our Christian faith, so that their innate dynamism would be well-guided and oriented.
With these, they can avoid the pitfalls of exaggerated idealism and activism, to mention a few of the anomalies that usually threaten them. Some other menaces can be extreme, radical independence on the one hand, and the tendency to fall into a herd mentality, on the other, which show a certain degree of instability in their condition.
Times are now complicated and confusing. The youth today are exposed to more things, both good and bad, constructive and destructive, than their counterpart of yesterday. They can flip quickly from local issues to the global ones, thanks to our new technologies. They now have in their hands powerful tools and instruments that can be used either for good or for evil.
Besides, the world environment has changed tremendously in so short a time. Materialism and commercialism are far fiercer in the present than in the past. And we are actually wallowing in a cesspool of secularism and relativism, made worse by the fact that these anomalies can now be better disguised and rationalized.
More than just being given doctrine and criteria, the youth must make these doctrine and criteria their own, to the point that these become their convictions, enabling them to think, judge, speak and act properly, and later to love and enter into a life of commitment. They have to go beyond the stage of theories, clichés and slogans.
This is the ideal situation. We need youth who are active agents of change for the better in society. But how can this happen?
I imagine that first of all, we have to take care of each one of them. Before they are treated as a group, a class or sector, they have to be considered individually and personally. Each one has to be known as he really is—his character and temperament, his strengths and weaknesses, his likes and dislikes, his dreams and fears, etc.
It’s important that each of them is able to share his thoughts and desires with someone he can trust completely. What is important is that each one feels loved and cared for so he too can learn to love and care for the others.
The earlier one realizes deeply that life is relational that involves not only physical and material things, but also and especially spiritual and moral things, the better for him and for everyone else.
Everyone has to learn how to love properly, based on the love of God and not just any form of human attraction. This is more properly known as communion. This realization will serve as the seed for the youth to become active agents in social change.
Social action should always be a function of charity, truth and justice, and should foster communion. While it involves issues, it should not just stop there, but rather proceed to build up communion.
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