“OH, no, they’re coming!” That’s only my initial and spontaneous reaction when the kids, grade schoolers in the morning and high schoolers in the afternoon, descend every Saturday to the place where I stay.
My place is, of course, a nice, cozy home that happens also to be an activity center for different groups, including kids. Well, that’s modern life for you today! We, including our homes, need to be all things to all men and kids!
All of a sudden, the house becomes an anthill, the sound and action level takes a quantum leap, you get the effects of a typhoon or a tsunami, and I have to be more prayerful and supernatural to cope with the reality.
We try our best to make the house kid-proof—minimizing anything breakable, locking the TV, and hiding the computers except for one or two, for you just can’t keep the kids from playing with these gadgets.
Obviously, they need to be accompanied, or at least supervised every minute, and there has to be a well-thought-out plan of activities for them for the day. Thanks to God, that’s always prepared when they come.
I’m not directly involved in the activity. I see them from a distance, but I get moved all the time. Such exploding energy, such bursting creativity actually cries to be given proper direction and supported with an appropriate structure.
When I get the chance, I give suggestions to those in charge. Age has given me a certain understanding of how kids think and behave, and what they need to grow and gain maturity. Of course, this requires constant verification.
That’s why, I even dare to foray into their world, mixing and roughing it up with them. This is my way of knowing them and how they are, and also of what’s the latest in their planet, and assessing them.
The latter task is very crucial, since everything that should be done with the kids should be related to a clear goal. We cannot afford to be off-the-scent insofar as children’s development is concerned.
And the goal should be nothing less than to make them truly Christian. This, of course, demands a lot of things—time, effort, money, integrated systems and programs involving several stages and aspects. But the goal should be clear.
With kids, one has to be patient and endlessly creative and sporty as well. He has to be a dynamo of energy. These are indispensable since he needs to play with them, know how to give and take, demand and tolerate, etc.
It’s important to realize that what ought to be done is to help the kids clearly define and develop their own characters. These can come in many forms, of course, but they can still be animated by one same spirit—that of Christ.
Early on, the kids have to understand that being a person means giving oneself to God and to others. It means serving, thinking of others all the time. They have to be slowly weaned from their natural tendency to be self-centered.
They actually go through the process in some natural way, and thus, they have to be respected in their ways and pace of transforming themselves. We have to be sensitive to their subjective conditions, which can widely vary from kid to kid, and be ready with prompt reinforcing motives to go on.
We should avoid giving the impression that we are controlling them. They can have a fierce sense of freedom and individuality, which has both good and dangerous potentials. We have to discern which is which and act accordingly.
Obviously, a good mix of activities should be found, constantly varying them as circumstances dictate. The physical, social, cultural, intellectual and spiritual aspects should be given due attention.
They have to be helped to discover their talents and other good natural endowments and to employ them properly. It’s important that what they enjoy doing do not become occasions to develop obsessions and self-absorption.
They also need to know how to deal with their weaknesses and temptations, especially those related to chastity.
They need to learn to pray as early as possible, making them understand that prayer is not just some sentimental pietistic act, but rather a realistic way of knowing the truth since with it they talk with God, who is truth himself. Practical examples and direct help should be done to make them see this truth clearly.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Taxi driver, politicians, bishops
I JUST had an interesting if funny chat with a taxi driver the other day. He was young, clearly from the province, what with the accent and the fresh, simple manners he had, and excited to have a priest as a passenger.
He was not listening to the radio nor did he have an Ipod or MP3 stuck into his ears. So I felt lucky, since we had a chance to talk, something rarely done nowadays between drivers and passengers. You know, gadgets tend both to undermine personal dealings and to harden self-absorption.
Perhaps to make me happy, he told me he was glad that Cardinal Vidal launched a signature campaign against the Reproductive Health Bill. I thought, how nice to have a taxi driver having more sense than many of our congressmen and congresswomen!
I soon discovered that he was still single and that he was planning to get married soon. I asked him how many children he would like to have. He said, just about 2 or 3. He gave the usual reasons.
When I asked him how he was going to do it, he said, “Simple, Father, after 2 or 3, I will have a vasectomy.” You could imagine how I reacted at that instant. But I managed to control myself, look at the bigger picture and talk to him calmly without scaring him.
Until we reached my destination, I talked to him about the nature and dynamics of responsible parenthood and conjugal chastity. The nice thing about it was at the end, I really felt that he was sincere when he thanked me and told me he would follow my advice.
“I actually know already what you’ve said, Father,” he said. “Except that these days I don’t hear anything about them, while the wrong view has become the popular position.”
I immediately realized how sadly true his observation was, and how enormous the challenge is of conveying the truth about responsible parenthood and the faith, piety and chastity that accompany it.
I always believe that no matter how wounded and dirtied, the human heart can never forget the natural moral law that is written in it by God. It’s still capable of recognizing what is true and false, what is good and evil.
All this, in spite of the fact that the media is not helping. It seems to go where the money is. Plus, many civic and political leaders, who are supposed to know better, actually give the wrong doctrine often matched by errant behavior.
In the US , for example, we recently heard of how two national political leaders, Catholics both, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden, committed grave mistakes in public.
The woman said that in her long study of the Church position on abortion, she found out that the Church fathers and doctors (theological not medical) did not know when human life actually started.
She was immediately corrected by American bishops who found her misrepresenting the Church teaching on this matter.
The man, more wily, said that while he admitted what the Church teaches on when life begins, he considers such doctrine as a personal affair and religious in nature, and therefore, not to be imposed on others.
Again, the bishops corrected him saying that the claim that life begins at conception is a scientific truth and not just a religious doctrine, and that it has a universal application and not just a personal affair of some individuals.
I was happy to learn about these immediate corrections and direct interventions of the American bishops, and I hope that the same action can be expected of our bishops here in our country.
The impression of many is that our bishops are slow and remiss in correcting our Catholic politicians who deviate in their public pronouncements from Church teachings on faith and morals. They seem to be trigger-happy instead in purely political issues that are open to different valid opinions.
The question is asked: if a taxi driver can be corrected by a priest, and a politician by a bishop, who can correct priests and bishops when they are wrong or at least remiss in their duties especially of proclaiming and defending Church doctrines relevant to public issues?
Actually, the answer is known. But is it followed, is it applied to concrete cases of clear imprudence and neglect? No one seems to hear anything about any such instance.
He was not listening to the radio nor did he have an Ipod or MP3 stuck into his ears. So I felt lucky, since we had a chance to talk, something rarely done nowadays between drivers and passengers. You know, gadgets tend both to undermine personal dealings and to harden self-absorption.
Perhaps to make me happy, he told me he was glad that Cardinal Vidal launched a signature campaign against the Reproductive Health Bill. I thought, how nice to have a taxi driver having more sense than many of our congressmen and congresswomen!
I soon discovered that he was still single and that he was planning to get married soon. I asked him how many children he would like to have. He said, just about 2 or 3. He gave the usual reasons.
When I asked him how he was going to do it, he said, “Simple, Father, after 2 or 3, I will have a vasectomy.” You could imagine how I reacted at that instant. But I managed to control myself, look at the bigger picture and talk to him calmly without scaring him.
Until we reached my destination, I talked to him about the nature and dynamics of responsible parenthood and conjugal chastity. The nice thing about it was at the end, I really felt that he was sincere when he thanked me and told me he would follow my advice.
“I actually know already what you’ve said, Father,” he said. “Except that these days I don’t hear anything about them, while the wrong view has become the popular position.”
I immediately realized how sadly true his observation was, and how enormous the challenge is of conveying the truth about responsible parenthood and the faith, piety and chastity that accompany it.
I always believe that no matter how wounded and dirtied, the human heart can never forget the natural moral law that is written in it by God. It’s still capable of recognizing what is true and false, what is good and evil.
All this, in spite of the fact that the media is not helping. It seems to go where the money is. Plus, many civic and political leaders, who are supposed to know better, actually give the wrong doctrine often matched by errant behavior.
In the US , for example, we recently heard of how two national political leaders, Catholics both, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden, committed grave mistakes in public.
The woman said that in her long study of the Church position on abortion, she found out that the Church fathers and doctors (theological not medical) did not know when human life actually started.
She was immediately corrected by American bishops who found her misrepresenting the Church teaching on this matter.
The man, more wily, said that while he admitted what the Church teaches on when life begins, he considers such doctrine as a personal affair and religious in nature, and therefore, not to be imposed on others.
Again, the bishops corrected him saying that the claim that life begins at conception is a scientific truth and not just a religious doctrine, and that it has a universal application and not just a personal affair of some individuals.
I was happy to learn about these immediate corrections and direct interventions of the American bishops, and I hope that the same action can be expected of our bishops here in our country.
The impression of many is that our bishops are slow and remiss in correcting our Catholic politicians who deviate in their public pronouncements from Church teachings on faith and morals. They seem to be trigger-happy instead in purely political issues that are open to different valid opinions.
The question is asked: if a taxi driver can be corrected by a priest, and a politician by a bishop, who can correct priests and bishops when they are wrong or at least remiss in their duties especially of proclaiming and defending Church doctrines relevant to public issues?
Actually, the answer is known. But is it followed, is it applied to concrete cases of clear imprudence and neglect? No one seems to hear anything about any such instance.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Promoting dialogue
THIS is what we should be doing always. Engaging in dialogue, first with God and then with everybody else, is a basic and indispensable prudential norm in life, given our nature, dignity and present condition and circumstances.
Our problem often is that we snub the value of dialogue. And if we do some dialoguing, we fail to go all the way, or we approach it with wrong attitudes and inadequate dispositions and ways.
Even up to now, despite the sophisticated information technologies we are having, we still find ourselves largely clumsy about this business. There’s a lot of improvisation and ad hocism involved. In fact, there’s hardly any system or structure for it.
And the little system and structure we have is often set aside when emotions run high. Thus, while we complain against extrajudicial killings, we often have no qualms to go extrajudicial when resolving political issues.
In this regard, we have to be wary with the tricks of media, ideologues and some politicians who stir us to become a rampaging mob bent more to destroy than to correct what is wrong in our society. They have a way of boiling our hormones while freezing our reason.
Worse, our dialogue is often confined to attaining personal benefits only. It’s notoriously self-centered, parochial and shallow. Heavily emotional, it often refuses to go any further after those personal gains are made.
At best, it can be used to derive mutual advantages from among the parties concerned. But there’s hardly any effort to use it to arrive at a deeper, clearer and stronger grasp of what is objectively true and good for all of us. This is the tragedy of the whole thing. We need a paradigm shift.
In many Church documents, the constant recourse to dialogue is abundantly recommended. It’s a way to build and strengthen our unity, tenuous as it is, considering the many and often competing forces that go into it.
Dialogue fosters the sense of solidarity among the people. It facilitates the identification and the pursuit of the common good. Thus, the Church’s social doctrine tries to be interdisciplinary in its approach.
“To better incarnate the one truth about man in different and constantly changing social, economic and political contexts, this teaching enters into dialogue with the various disciplines concerned with man,” the Church’s Compendium of Social Doctrine teaches. (76)
We have to do everything to make this continuing dialogue among ourselves work. It starts with each one of us cultivating the proper attitudes and skills for it.
We have to learn to be open and sincere with everyone, respectful to one another, no matter how different our views may be. We have to learn to listen, restraining our tendency to make hasty judgments and to be dominated by emotional, knee-jerk reactions.
We need a lot of patience, and the strength to discipline our temper and passions. We also need to know how to converge or even integrate diverging if not conflicting views. We should avoid getting entangled in the differences.
We have to learn to quickly disregard irritating details, and instead focus on the essentials. Thus we need to really know the objective content of our common good.
Let’s polish and refine the way we deal with others, knowing how to be consensual, and never hostile, not even bearing grudges. We can never overdo this.
We have to know to forgive and forget, and also to ask for forgiveness. We should avoid cornering a person, giving everyone a graceful exit. The “gotcha” mentality belongs to the barbarians.
Always gracious and magnanimous, we should avoid lording it over. And neither should we give refuge in our heart to any trace of resentment and revenge.
The idea is to fill ourselves with goodness, because that is the way to generate more goodness around us. We sow sarcasm and resentment now, and we reap more of the same later on. Here the principle is we receive what we give.
Inhuman or impossibly superhuman? Well, only for those who don’t want to try and who prefer to remain cynical. But we certainly have the capability for it, and God’s grace is never lacking.
Our problem often is that we snub the value of dialogue. And if we do some dialoguing, we fail to go all the way, or we approach it with wrong attitudes and inadequate dispositions and ways.
Even up to now, despite the sophisticated information technologies we are having, we still find ourselves largely clumsy about this business. There’s a lot of improvisation and ad hocism involved. In fact, there’s hardly any system or structure for it.
And the little system and structure we have is often set aside when emotions run high. Thus, while we complain against extrajudicial killings, we often have no qualms to go extrajudicial when resolving political issues.
In this regard, we have to be wary with the tricks of media, ideologues and some politicians who stir us to become a rampaging mob bent more to destroy than to correct what is wrong in our society. They have a way of boiling our hormones while freezing our reason.
Worse, our dialogue is often confined to attaining personal benefits only. It’s notoriously self-centered, parochial and shallow. Heavily emotional, it often refuses to go any further after those personal gains are made.
At best, it can be used to derive mutual advantages from among the parties concerned. But there’s hardly any effort to use it to arrive at a deeper, clearer and stronger grasp of what is objectively true and good for all of us. This is the tragedy of the whole thing. We need a paradigm shift.
In many Church documents, the constant recourse to dialogue is abundantly recommended. It’s a way to build and strengthen our unity, tenuous as it is, considering the many and often competing forces that go into it.
Dialogue fosters the sense of solidarity among the people. It facilitates the identification and the pursuit of the common good. Thus, the Church’s social doctrine tries to be interdisciplinary in its approach.
“To better incarnate the one truth about man in different and constantly changing social, economic and political contexts, this teaching enters into dialogue with the various disciplines concerned with man,” the Church’s Compendium of Social Doctrine teaches. (76)
We have to do everything to make this continuing dialogue among ourselves work. It starts with each one of us cultivating the proper attitudes and skills for it.
We have to learn to be open and sincere with everyone, respectful to one another, no matter how different our views may be. We have to learn to listen, restraining our tendency to make hasty judgments and to be dominated by emotional, knee-jerk reactions.
We need a lot of patience, and the strength to discipline our temper and passions. We also need to know how to converge or even integrate diverging if not conflicting views. We should avoid getting entangled in the differences.
We have to learn to quickly disregard irritating details, and instead focus on the essentials. Thus we need to really know the objective content of our common good.
Let’s polish and refine the way we deal with others, knowing how to be consensual, and never hostile, not even bearing grudges. We can never overdo this.
We have to know to forgive and forget, and also to ask for forgiveness. We should avoid cornering a person, giving everyone a graceful exit. The “gotcha” mentality belongs to the barbarians.
Always gracious and magnanimous, we should avoid lording it over. And neither should we give refuge in our heart to any trace of resentment and revenge.
The idea is to fill ourselves with goodness, because that is the way to generate more goodness around us. We sow sarcasm and resentment now, and we reap more of the same later on. Here the principle is we receive what we give.
Inhuman or impossibly superhuman? Well, only for those who don’t want to try and who prefer to remain cynical. But we certainly have the capability for it, and God’s grace is never lacking.
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