The Filipino piety

WE should be most thankful to God for the tremendous piety
we, as a people, have. If we just look at the very impressive pictures
of the people who joined the “Traslacion” of Hesus Nazareno in Manila
recently, we cannot help but feel breathless at the amazing display of
religious fervor. The crowd was so thick and solid that not even a
needle could pass through them. The threat of terror could not throw a
wet blanket on such fervor.

            In Cebu recently, the same observation can be made. The
people’s devotion to the Child Jesus (Sto. Nino) is so palpable and
mesmerizing that the heavy rains and the floods, not to mention, the
fear of terroristic violence, could not dampen. Just by being there in
one of the Masses or in the processions, you cannot help but be swept
away by the intensity of the people’s piety.

            But for all this blessing and privilege we enjoy, we
should not forget to acknowledge the great responsibility of managing
our popular piety well. We cannot deny that there are things that need
to be clarified, purified, re-grounded and refocused, or that simply
have to be enriched since the fertile conditions for enrichment are
already there.

          We have to understand that this is a continuing task. We can
never rest in this. We have to be wary of our tendency to be taken in
by a sense of euphoria that can deaden our sense of duty.

            We have to make sure that the religious dimension is
always preserved as the main animating element of the celebration. We
need to strengthen it, and equip it with the appropriate “antidote”
against foreign elements that can also be expected to come.

            That’s because popular piety can attract all sorts of
things. It’s like a pie in the open air. Politicians, for example,
will take advantage of it. For good or evil, we cannot determine for
now. So, some regulating indications have to be made.

            Business people, the big ones and the small ones,
obviously will also do some milking and killing of the big event. This
is all very understandable. Again, some effective regulating
provisions have to be made.

            Different people from different fields will use it for
their respective interests. There has to be a way of determining which
is compatible with the over-all celebration and which is not. People
from the fields of culture, education, sports and entertainment, etc.
will all have a field day.

            The Church leaders have to be most active and persistent
in stressing the spiritual and supernatural dimension without
detracting from the legitimate human dimension. This is not an easy
task.

            The clergy should take the lead in undertaking a most
active and effective evangelization with respect to popular piety. Of
course, the laity too should do their part. The whole Church should be
involved in some organic fashion in this duty.

            The aim to reach is to make everyone closer to God, with
faith strengthened and alive, producing fruits of sanctity and
apostolate and not just something professed and bandied about. In
short, everyone should grow in his spiritual life, with a spirituality
that is abiding and properly adapted to one’s personal and social
circumstances.

            This will involve a whole range of details that embrace
the entire gamut of Christian and human life. Catechesis has to be
done always, with the appropriate plan to cover the Creed, the
Sacraments, the Commandments and morality, and Prayer.

            It cannot be denied that popular piety can highlight one
aspect of Christian life at the expense of the other aspects. For
example, people can get very hot about lighting votive candles before
their favorite saint, but fail to appreciate the need for going to
Mass and to confession. They can look fervent in churches, but are
little devils or even horrible monsters at home or in their work
places.

            Of course, our popular piety should bear fruit in our
spiritual and moral lives. It just cannot be an emotional or
psychological affair, a matter of merely following social fads and
trends, something that is showy on the outside but quite empty inside.
It has to be rooted on genuine relationship of love with God and
everybody else. Otherwise, it would just be a sham, perhaps making a
lot of noise but having no effect.

            In this regard, again the clergy should be on the
frontline. Let’s pray that the bishops and priests realize this duty
more deeply and act on it. This should be given more priority over
some administrative or bureaucratic tasks that often take
their—our—time.

The need for order

WE should develop an abiding sense of the need for order.
And that’s simply because there is always some kind of order in the
world to which we have to conform ourselves freely.

            Even from the natural level, it’s obvious that different
kinds of law ought to be observed to put some order in the world as
God, its creator, has wanted it to have. There are laws of physics,
chemistry, biology, etc., for this purpose.

            In our common life as a people who have to live together,
we can observe and also make some laws to put order in that integral
aspect of our life. For this, we have laws of sociology, economics,
culture, history, politics, etc.

            It’s obvious that we try our best to have some order in
our life. We just have to realize that we also have to be most aware
of the laws that govern the spiritual and moral aspects of our life,
not to mention the supernatural goal of which our Christian faith
teaches us.

            That is why we have moral laws and certain indications
regarding spirituality and piety. We need to be always conscious of
them and try our best to observe them. But all this need to develop an
abiding sense of order starts with our daily effort to live and to put
order into our things.

            Unless we live order in a daily basis and in our ordinary
little things, I don’t think we can be ready to live order in the big
and ultimate things in our life. That is why we have to develop a
certain discipline that would help us acquire this indispensable
virtue in our life.

            Offhand, what comes to mind as the basic requirements for
this effort is the clear idea of what our goals are—both the short-run
and the long-run, the immediate and the ultimate—as well as the means
and resources we need and have to achieve these goals.

            For Christian believers, it’s clear that the ultimate goal
is to be with God always, to give glory to him, to love him and to
love everybody else. The basic means and resources are God’s grace for
which we should always ask, our effort to correspond to that grace,
etc.

            But the immediate goals would be our daily planning and
scheduling of things, always remembering the importance of our time
which we should never waste. Time is a God-given resource that has a
very strategic purpose in our life. By planning and scheduling our
activities we not only save time, but somehow can also multiply time,
since order enables us to do more things.

            This is a very important skill to have for which we have
to cultivate the proper attitudes and practices. Toward this end, we
should try to have a running inventory of the things we have to do,
the duties and responsibilities we have to carry out. For sure, a
daily to-do list would help.

            If we could just spend a few minutes to make this to-do
list, we can achieve a lot more than just going through the day
without it, completely subordinating ourselves to the changing
circumstances like our moods, the happenings around, etc.

            With that list, we have a better way of discerning the
proper priorities of the day. Prayer and our direct duties toward God
should have pride of place, which does not mean that we spend the
greater part of our day for these activities. These duties toward God
should inspire the rest of our earthly and temporal responsibilities.

            With that list, we would be better protected from
distractions, especially these days when distractions are aplenty. We
would have a clear sense of purpose and our ability to go from one
thing to another would be facilitated.

            With that list, we can truly aspire to gain dominion over
our day, if not, over our whole life. We would not be held captive by
passing and irrelevant elements, like our moods. It certainly would
help grow toward our human and Christian maturity.

            We just have to see to it that our need for order does not
fall to the other extreme of getting exaggerated as to make us rigid
and inflexible, wanting always to control everything and therefore
being close-minded, and easily falling into helplessness and despair
when things do not come out the way we have planned them.

            Our effort to develop this basic virtue of order should
not lead us to an anomaly that is usually called obsessive-compulsive
disorder. Order should be compatible with charity, patience, mercy,
flexibility, adaptability, etc.

Progress in theology

THEOLOGY, of course, is indispensable in our life. It is
the required effort to study our faith that is supposed to guide and
shape our life. It’s actually meant for everyone, and not just for a
few. Truth is, whether we are aware of it or not, all of us do some
theologizing the moment we try to understand and act on our beliefs.

            Theology is supposed to help us in our life of piety and
in carrying out the multi-faceted duties and responsibilities that we
have. It is a serious obligation for all of us. We just have to help
one another in giving it the proper place in our life.

            Since our faith is supernatural and full of mysteries, its
study will always be a continuing and dynamic affair. It will be
coterminous with one’s life itself. We can never say that we have
studied and mastered our faith enough. Our faith will never stop
leading us to more and more things in life.

            Theology is not like some exact science where things can
be fixed, frozen and completely objectified. It’s a living thing with
a subjective component that needs to be taken care of all the time. We
can never say we have perfected it.

            It cannot be left alone in the books. It will always
involve a vital relationship with God and with everybody and
everything else. It should not be held captive by a certain school of
thought, or some ideological structure and system. It always has to be
open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit who will always make his
presence felt in different and sometimes unexpected ways.

            As such, theology needs to grow, to deepen and broaden, to
strengthen and get more and more refined. While always faithful to
what is essential, theology needs to flow with the times and to adapt
itself properly with the changing situations.

            That is why, a document of Vatican II gives out the
following indication with respect to the study of dogmatic theology:

            “The following order should be observed in the treatment
of dogmatic theology: biblical themes should have first place. Then
students should be shown what the Fathers of the Church, both of the
East and West, have contributed toward the faithful transmission and
elucidation of each of the revealed truths. Then the later history of
dogma, including its relation to the general history of the Church.

            “Lastly, in order to throw as full a light as possible on
the mysteries of salvation, the students should learn to examine more
deeply, with the help of speculation and with St. Thomas (Aquinas) as
teacher, all aspects of these mysteries, and to perceive their
interconnection.” (Optatam totius 16)

            The Vatican document further states: “They (students)
should learn to seek the solution of human problems in the light of
revelation, to apply its eternal truths to the changing conditions of
human affairs, and to express them in a language which people of the
modern world will understand.”

            It is quite obvious that for theology to grow and
progress, a lot of care and prudence is necessary. The Magisterium
itself, in the person of the Pope alone or together with all the
bishops, has to be truly discerning of what the Holy Spirit is
prompting him/them.

            The growth and progress of theology, while kept in strict
compliance to the requirements of a homogeneous development of
doctrine, should be open to new things that may seem to go beyond but
not contradict what so far have been defined.

            This is a very delicate aspect in the process of making
our theology grow and progress. A lot of prayer, sacrifice and study
is involved here. More than that, a lot of consultation and a deeper
sense of communion in the whole Church is also involved here.

            So far, the above cited Vatican document has the following
to say with respect to how one can be guided in his study of theology:

            “Theological subjects should be taught in the light of
faith, under the guidance of the Magisterium of the Church, in such a
way that students will draw pure Catholic teaching from divine
revelation, will enter deeply into its meaning, make the nourishment
of their spiritual life, and learn to proclaim, explain and defend it
in their priestly ministry.” (Optatam totius 16)

            In the end, we should all pray that our effort at making
progress in our theology would always be done under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit, and that all human instruments be humble enough to
acknowledge the necessity of being truly united with the Spirit. It
should be an ecclesial event.