THE expression comes from Opus Dei founder, St. Josemaria Escriva. He articulates the proper Christian attitude towards death.
Remember that Christ himself was talking a lot about his own death, even predicting it. We have to understand that we need to have death in our minds. In fact, we need to be friendly with death.
Thus, St. Josemaria said: “Don’t be afraid of death. Accept it from now on, generously…when God wills it, where God wills it, as God wills it. Don’t doubt what I say: it will come in the moment, in the place and in the way that are best—sent by your Father God. Welcome be our sister death.” (The Way, 739)
As a priest, I get to talk a lot about death. I often get invited to wakes, and to say funeral and death anniversary Masses. Truth is I always find death a theme ever rich in meaning, a mystery every inviting us to fathom and plumb. I can never say enough about it.
My wish is that not only priests in general should be talking about death. Everyone of us should. There’s a lot to learn from it, a lot of advantages to derive. It’s a great teacher, an important illuminator and rectifier in our life.
I would even say that if our culture becomes more friendly and even intimate with the reality of death, we can expect a change for the better, a boost to sobriety and objectivity where we tend to be frivolous and subjective.
The youth, the businessman, the politician—all of us—can have a wonderful built-in mechanism to effectively tackle the weaknesses, limitations and
temptations we all are exposed to in this life.
Being the last part of our life—no repeat performance here—and often accompanied by tragic elements like sicknesses, accidents, crimes, suffering, pain, trials, etc., death puts us at an edge, giving us a very strategic vantage point.
It makes us consider the real meaning of our life here on earth, and to acknowledge the reality of our life hereafter. In other words, it makes us realize the real essence of time. It also gives us glimpses of eternity.
In short, the consideration of death enables us to acquire an added and crucial dimension in our over-all outlook. Sad to say, this is a dimension often ignored, neglected, taken for granted. Even derided! This is unfortunate.
This is the dimension that completes our understanding of things, that helps us to distinguish between the essential and the merely accidental, that reminds us of the most radical and ultimate elements of our life. It identifies for us the irreducibly necessary in our life.
While we have to pay attention to the here and now, we should never forget
what is beyond the present and the actual. As persons and as children of God, we have to realize that our actuations do not only have a temporal scope. They also do have an eternal character.
This point, in my view, deserves to be pounded a bit more in our head and heart, because there’s a common thinking that considering death is just some kind of theoretical, abstract—read, useless—exercise.
Worse, there are those who think the habit of considering death regularly is kind of weird, a sign of a sick and unhealthy mind. Again, this is very unfortunate.
The challenge now is how to make the frequent and practical consideration
of death a normal part of our thoughts and concerns. I would say that such consideration stimulates our prayer. It leads us to get in touch with the spiritual world. It fosters our supernatural outlook in life.
Far from developing a dark attitude toward life and the world in general, the habitual consideration of death will redeem us from being hooked simply to the material and the here and now. It will lead us to our genuine freedom!
Tuesday, May 2, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Please read, write and study
It may sound like an unwanted reminder, but I think we need to give a boost to these basic and indispensable exercises no matter how old and accomplished we may be by now.
I believe that the older and more accomplished we are, the more sharply we should feel the need to read, write and study. These activities correspond to our human nature as persons and dignity as children of God.
Sad to say, now we see many people neglecting this duty and thus we see the logical consequences. Many do not know anymore how to think properly, how to express themselves adequately, how to argue and reason.
Many people do not know how to relate things together and come out with well-integrated views. Now we find it harder to get beyond the immediate and concrete environment, beyond current biases and conditionings.
We may display an impressive facade of sophistication, given the amount of date we may have. But since these data are now well-processed, we still end up clueless, naive, even gullible.
Complicating this veneer of superficiality, narrow-mindedness and short-sightedness is the likelihood of self-righteousness and malice. We have to be more aware of this possibility. How is this to happen?
Our nature cannot suppress the spontaneous working of our will or ego. If that ego is not given its true bearing, thus acting as a child of God, then it seeks to be puffed up, not with real substance but with hot air. We start acting like something other than a child of God.
Thus, a growing environment of confusion, error and arrogant ignorance is made. Maliciously cultivated self-images of ourselves proliferate. We won't be talking with real persons anymore, but with masks and objects.
I just wonder where all these would lead us. Thus, we need to rouse ourselves and do something drastic. Reading, writing and studying are basic skills we always need to do to keep and develop our humanity.
Reading, writing and studying help us to perceive and live in a reality more proper to us--not in a world of the material and the physical only, but also in the world of the spiritual.
These skills allow us to enter into areas otherwise closed to the power of our senses. They expand our world, deepen our perceptions, exercise our distinctively human powers as compared to our merely animal powers.
These skills enable us to enter into meaningful dialogue with the past and the present worlds, to participate in some global dialogue and debate, to shape our future somehow. They figure prominently in our ongoing, lifelong formation.
They let us develop a sense of the global market of ideas, important for us to develop also a sense of what we can contribute to this market, much like what a business entrepreneur does.
They effectively ground us in history, culture and tradition, while sharpening in us a sense of creativity and inventiveness. They are indispensable to actualize our potentials and to pursue our goal of wisdom and maturity.
We have to rouse ourselves from our tendency to be passive and complacent with respect to knowledge, contented with simply watching TV or relying on the media alone, listening to gossips or pursuing idle curiosities.
In all these, effort has to be made to do all our reading, writing and studying in the presence of God. Otherwise, we tend to fail to distinguish between fact and fiction, truths and products of our imagination, beliefs and make-believe. And we would get into more serious trouble.
Let us encourage everyone to develop the habit of reading, writing and studying!
I believe that the older and more accomplished we are, the more sharply we should feel the need to read, write and study. These activities correspond to our human nature as persons and dignity as children of God.
Sad to say, now we see many people neglecting this duty and thus we see the logical consequences. Many do not know anymore how to think properly, how to express themselves adequately, how to argue and reason.
Many people do not know how to relate things together and come out with well-integrated views. Now we find it harder to get beyond the immediate and concrete environment, beyond current biases and conditionings.
We may display an impressive facade of sophistication, given the amount of date we may have. But since these data are now well-processed, we still end up clueless, naive, even gullible.
Complicating this veneer of superficiality, narrow-mindedness and short-sightedness is the likelihood of self-righteousness and malice. We have to be more aware of this possibility. How is this to happen?
Our nature cannot suppress the spontaneous working of our will or ego. If that ego is not given its true bearing, thus acting as a child of God, then it seeks to be puffed up, not with real substance but with hot air. We start acting like something other than a child of God.
Thus, a growing environment of confusion, error and arrogant ignorance is made. Maliciously cultivated self-images of ourselves proliferate. We won't be talking with real persons anymore, but with masks and objects.
I just wonder where all these would lead us. Thus, we need to rouse ourselves and do something drastic. Reading, writing and studying are basic skills we always need to do to keep and develop our humanity.
Reading, writing and studying help us to perceive and live in a reality more proper to us--not in a world of the material and the physical only, but also in the world of the spiritual.
These skills allow us to enter into areas otherwise closed to the power of our senses. They expand our world, deepen our perceptions, exercise our distinctively human powers as compared to our merely animal powers.
These skills enable us to enter into meaningful dialogue with the past and the present worlds, to participate in some global dialogue and debate, to shape our future somehow. They figure prominently in our ongoing, lifelong formation.
They let us develop a sense of the global market of ideas, important for us to develop also a sense of what we can contribute to this market, much like what a business entrepreneur does.
They effectively ground us in history, culture and tradition, while sharpening in us a sense of creativity and inventiveness. They are indispensable to actualize our potentials and to pursue our goal of wisdom and maturity.
We have to rouse ourselves from our tendency to be passive and complacent with respect to knowledge, contented with simply watching TV or relying on the media alone, listening to gossips or pursuing idle curiosities.
In all these, effort has to be made to do all our reading, writing and studying in the presence of God. Otherwise, we tend to fail to distinguish between fact and fiction, truths and products of our imagination, beliefs and make-believe. And we would get into more serious trouble.
Let us encourage everyone to develop the habit of reading, writing and studying!
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Weirdos?
St. Paul already warned us quite clearly. Those who take their Christian faith seriously better be prepared to be humiliated and treated like a laughing stock.
“We have been made a spectacle to the world…we are fools for Christ…we are maligned…we have become as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all.” (1 Cor 4,9-13)
Talking about Christ, now as it was then, will always meet some resistance. “For the Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks look for ‘wisdom,’ but we, for our part preach a crucified Christ—to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block and to the Gentiles foolishness.” (1 Cor 1,22-23)
These thoughts came to mind when I was following some commentaries related to the forthcoming showing of the film, “Da Vinci Code.”
Yes, dear, we are now in the middle of a media firestorm to hype this controversial movie. So, we just have to activate our critical mind. We cannot be naïve. Times are extremely tricky.
The usual tack used by most commentators is that we should not be too bothered by this movie, since after all the author of the book on which it based said it’s just fiction.
Actually this view amuses me more than piques me. I smell naiveté here or a sense of helplessness. It is as if these hardened commentators suddenly become ignorant of the many tricks and gimmicks in this world.
What most amused me most was to read a columnist who said that those who are asking for the banning of the movie are actually “weirdos.” Now, wait a
minute! Am I now a weirdo?
Though I’m too old to be talking about banning and boycotting a movie, I just can not let a movie that satirizes my faith, my most intimate treasure, to pass by without me airing some complaint.
How would you react if someone approaches you to say the he has just written a book, now being made into a movie, and that he has used your wife or mother as the main character, portraying her as a slut, but that you should not worry because the book is just fiction?
If to complain about this development is to be a weirdo, then by all means I am one such weirdo.
The problem we have is that many of us are such suckers of any movie and novel that we seem not to mind anymore if there are certain basic values that are being perverted in the process.
Especially if the movie has some action, drama or feel-good themes, or it has some titillating sex scenes, it seems to me that we can just forget about the integrity of our faith.
This, in my view, is again another manifestation of addiction and obsession. And I must say this phenomenon is quite widespread.
I find this funny, because many people come to me and ask why they have a hard time praying, etc. I also ask them, how many hours do you spend on TV and the DVD? I always find a correlation between more movies and less prayer.
We need to discipline ourselves. We need to be more discerning. As I said, I will not talk about banning or boycotting the movie. The nature of the story itself should tell us whether it should have been written in the first place, then read and promoted, then filmed and watched.
Alas, we expose the real problem we have. It has many layers. Among them, that many of us are so weak we cannot say no to any curiosity that may grip us. Worse, is the crisis of faith that many of us are having, most of the time not even being aware of it.
As for me, I remain unrepentant in pursuing my resolution not to read the book, much less to see the film. And I will pray for divine mercy and divine retribution.
“We have been made a spectacle to the world…we are fools for Christ…we are maligned…we have become as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all.” (1 Cor 4,9-13)
Talking about Christ, now as it was then, will always meet some resistance. “For the Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks look for ‘wisdom,’ but we, for our part preach a crucified Christ—to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block and to the Gentiles foolishness.” (1 Cor 1,22-23)
These thoughts came to mind when I was following some commentaries related to the forthcoming showing of the film, “Da Vinci Code.”
Yes, dear, we are now in the middle of a media firestorm to hype this controversial movie. So, we just have to activate our critical mind. We cannot be naïve. Times are extremely tricky.
The usual tack used by most commentators is that we should not be too bothered by this movie, since after all the author of the book on which it based said it’s just fiction.
Actually this view amuses me more than piques me. I smell naiveté here or a sense of helplessness. It is as if these hardened commentators suddenly become ignorant of the many tricks and gimmicks in this world.
What most amused me most was to read a columnist who said that those who are asking for the banning of the movie are actually “weirdos.” Now, wait a
minute! Am I now a weirdo?
Though I’m too old to be talking about banning and boycotting a movie, I just can not let a movie that satirizes my faith, my most intimate treasure, to pass by without me airing some complaint.
How would you react if someone approaches you to say the he has just written a book, now being made into a movie, and that he has used your wife or mother as the main character, portraying her as a slut, but that you should not worry because the book is just fiction?
If to complain about this development is to be a weirdo, then by all means I am one such weirdo.
The problem we have is that many of us are such suckers of any movie and novel that we seem not to mind anymore if there are certain basic values that are being perverted in the process.
Especially if the movie has some action, drama or feel-good themes, or it has some titillating sex scenes, it seems to me that we can just forget about the integrity of our faith.
This, in my view, is again another manifestation of addiction and obsession. And I must say this phenomenon is quite widespread.
I find this funny, because many people come to me and ask why they have a hard time praying, etc. I also ask them, how many hours do you spend on TV and the DVD? I always find a correlation between more movies and less prayer.
We need to discipline ourselves. We need to be more discerning. As I said, I will not talk about banning or boycotting the movie. The nature of the story itself should tell us whether it should have been written in the first place, then read and promoted, then filmed and watched.
Alas, we expose the real problem we have. It has many layers. Among them, that many of us are so weak we cannot say no to any curiosity that may grip us. Worse, is the crisis of faith that many of us are having, most of the time not even being aware of it.
As for me, I remain unrepentant in pursuing my resolution not to read the book, much less to see the film. And I will pray for divine mercy and divine retribution.
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