IN many parts of the Gospel, we are encouraged to develop a certain kind of cleverness and shrewdness that can only be qualified as holy.
For example, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, we hear our Lord say: “Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.” (10,16)
Then in the Gospel of St. Luke, we hear our Lord tell a parable about a dishonest steward who was praised not for his dishonesty, but for his astuteness, his being creatively enterprising.
The story ended with these words: “The owner gave his devious employee credit for being clever! Why? Because the worldly take more initiative than the otherworldly when it comes to dealing with their own kind.” (16,7-8)
We should take note in this particular passage of our Lord’s swipe at those who follow him—the otherworldly—who are quite naïve and simplistic in their ways, and do not know how to handle tricky earthly affairs like our business and politics, and now our emerging culture and faith war.
Holy shrewdness is an urgent necessity these days precisely because our environment is fast becoming inhabited by human wolves and hissing snakes full of tricks and deceit and ready to strike and to turn our country into a Godless one.
And they can do that even by shamelessly using the name of God and morality. Sometimes they can occupy high position not so much in civil society as in the Church itself.
Relevant to this, St. Paul already issued the appropriate warning still effective now: “For such false apostles are deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” (2 Cor 11-13-14)
It’s with this backdrop that we have to consider the Reproductive Health Bill, a highly divisive and invasive issue, now pending approval in our Congress. I’ve read it many times, and I have no doubt that it is a summary of all deceits that we and the devil can play on ourselves.
Its proponents say abortion is not included there, but contraception is, as if contraception is already morally ok. This is not to mention that in all countries where contraception is legalized and promoted, abortion unavoidably comes as a consequence.
They say that contraception is a matter of choice, but they are silent about its morality. And if they are not, they say that to allow and even to impose contraception on people and companies is part of our human freedom and is, ergo, moral. Sorry, but this sounds like the devil reasoning out.
They say that a vast majority of the people, even Catholics, are for contraception or at least are open to it or are somehow pressured to use it. They cite various survey results to prove their point. Thus, it should be legalized and promoted.
These survey results are no surprise to anyone. They simply reflect that we are all sinners and commit all sorts of sexual sins and marital infidelities. This will always be our problem that we should try to fight and solve.
But committing sin, even in large scale, is one thing, and legalizing, promoting and institutionalizing it is a completely different banana. We can continue committing sins and let’s hope we also can find a way to say sorry. But we should try to avoid legalizing, promoting and making it part of our culture.
The first is personal and, while already an anomaly, still remains in the domain of the moral order. The second is already institutional and cultural, and is a clear attempt to get out of that moral order. Being institutional, it can affect the whole of society adversely.
The proponents of the RH Bill appear to be Christian believers, even Catholics, but are not consistent with their faith. Some of them have gone to the extent of saying that their Christianity is a matter of conscience rather than some official affiliation to a group.
Again this is a devilish logic. It’s as if now we just depend absolutely on our own conscience. Our conscience becomes our own God, the source and maker of good and evil.
We need to react to this kind of mentality, with a lot of prayers, sacrifice as well as action. We have to be ready to make a war of peace and love, to keep our country safe from the tricks of the devil who makes use of some of us to go against God.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Person over ideas
IN our dealings with others, a daily, constant affair, we should pay a lot of attention to the concrete circumstances and conditions of the persons rather than just pursuing the abstract merits and demerits of our ideas, views and opinions.
We need to be personal rather than just go ideological, simply because in the end it’s not ideas we are actually interested in but rather the persons themselves. The ideas are hollow without the persons who are their subjects or targets, their sources and goals, their beginning and end.
Not that the ideas are unimportant. They are indispensable. But we need to hew them according to our actual grip of the who and how the persons we are dealing with are
We should not allow our ideas to have a life by themselves. They have to be made fit to all the persons involved—us, others and ultimately and constantly God. This is not just a theory. This is simply how things ought to be!
Without this conscious effort to adapt ideas to the circumstances of persons, they can go wild and extreme, absolutizing what is relative and vice-versa, and easily deteriorating into biases, rash judgments, and other forms of lack of charity.
That’s why our Christian faith always admonishes us to put charity and truth together, as well as mercy and justice. Truth and justice get spoiled once they get detached from charity and mercy. These latter virtues precisely lead us to treat others the way they should be treated—as persons and ultimately as children of God.
In Pope Benedicts’s third encyclical, Caritas in veritate (Charity in the truth), the same point is reiterated when he said: “To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity.” (1)
He also said that it’s when charity and truth are put together when meaningful and substantial dialogue among different and even conflicting parties as well as genuine integral human development can take place.
This, of course, will be a very dynamic affair, for which a lot of patience is needed, a lot of adjustments and adaptations made, an abiding monitoring of personal and other circumstances done.
Of course, this presumes the fundamental virtue of humility, since it’s only when one humbles himself—that self-denial that Christ told us—can we be patient and progress in our task of blending charity and truth together.
We need to develop the necessary attitudes and the appropriate skills to comply with this human requirement, because our tendency to go impersonal and to be led simply by ideas is strong and sadly quite inherent in us.
We need to go through a perpetual cycle of mutually relating theory and practice, doctrine and experience, ideas and persons, study and work, isolation for purposes of recollection and immersion through actual contact with people.
In our dealings with others, we have to know when to move fast and when to go slow, when to be demanding and when to be tolerant, when to be driven and when to waste time with them.
We have to wary to with our inclination to be indifferent to others, to consider only our own preferences and views, to control or herd others according to our schemes and plans.
We should find time to really get to know others thoroughly. Thus, we have to invest time and effort to improve our relationship with them, enhancing our friendship and fraternity with them.
And in this, we have to go all the way, down to the personal and even the intimate spiritual and moral levels. We have to learn how to listen, and simply to journey with them, but always trying to be a good friend, a help, a light.
We also have to be wary of the alienating elements that are sprouting thick and fast in our environment nowadays. These are the gadgets and other facilities that worsen our self-absorption by putting up invisible walls that separate us from others.
We need to continually examine ourselves just to be more discerning, since we are now living in a world where the line between good and evil is often blurred and where the new things can trigger dormant weaknesses that can lead us into a spiral of unhealthy obsessions.
Indeed, we need to constantly focus our mind and heart first of all on God, then on others before we think of ourselves and of our brilliant ideas.
We need to be personal rather than just go ideological, simply because in the end it’s not ideas we are actually interested in but rather the persons themselves. The ideas are hollow without the persons who are their subjects or targets, their sources and goals, their beginning and end.
Not that the ideas are unimportant. They are indispensable. But we need to hew them according to our actual grip of the who and how the persons we are dealing with are
We should not allow our ideas to have a life by themselves. They have to be made fit to all the persons involved—us, others and ultimately and constantly God. This is not just a theory. This is simply how things ought to be!
Without this conscious effort to adapt ideas to the circumstances of persons, they can go wild and extreme, absolutizing what is relative and vice-versa, and easily deteriorating into biases, rash judgments, and other forms of lack of charity.
That’s why our Christian faith always admonishes us to put charity and truth together, as well as mercy and justice. Truth and justice get spoiled once they get detached from charity and mercy. These latter virtues precisely lead us to treat others the way they should be treated—as persons and ultimately as children of God.
In Pope Benedicts’s third encyclical, Caritas in veritate (Charity in the truth), the same point is reiterated when he said: “To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity.” (1)
He also said that it’s when charity and truth are put together when meaningful and substantial dialogue among different and even conflicting parties as well as genuine integral human development can take place.
This, of course, will be a very dynamic affair, for which a lot of patience is needed, a lot of adjustments and adaptations made, an abiding monitoring of personal and other circumstances done.
Of course, this presumes the fundamental virtue of humility, since it’s only when one humbles himself—that self-denial that Christ told us—can we be patient and progress in our task of blending charity and truth together.
We need to develop the necessary attitudes and the appropriate skills to comply with this human requirement, because our tendency to go impersonal and to be led simply by ideas is strong and sadly quite inherent in us.
We need to go through a perpetual cycle of mutually relating theory and practice, doctrine and experience, ideas and persons, study and work, isolation for purposes of recollection and immersion through actual contact with people.
In our dealings with others, we have to know when to move fast and when to go slow, when to be demanding and when to be tolerant, when to be driven and when to waste time with them.
We have to wary to with our inclination to be indifferent to others, to consider only our own preferences and views, to control or herd others according to our schemes and plans.
We should find time to really get to know others thoroughly. Thus, we have to invest time and effort to improve our relationship with them, enhancing our friendship and fraternity with them.
And in this, we have to go all the way, down to the personal and even the intimate spiritual and moral levels. We have to learn how to listen, and simply to journey with them, but always trying to be a good friend, a help, a light.
We also have to be wary of the alienating elements that are sprouting thick and fast in our environment nowadays. These are the gadgets and other facilities that worsen our self-absorption by putting up invisible walls that separate us from others.
We need to continually examine ourselves just to be more discerning, since we are now living in a world where the line between good and evil is often blurred and where the new things can trigger dormant weaknesses that can lead us into a spiral of unhealthy obsessions.
Indeed, we need to constantly focus our mind and heart first of all on God, then on others before we think of ourselves and of our brilliant ideas.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Eucharistic adoration and social concern
IT’S good that the devotion to the Eucharist, through its adoration outside of the Holy Mass, is spreading quite well in our country. Wherever I go, I see special chapels where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration, and even for perpetual adoration.
I consider this another sign of the abiding faith we, a large number of Filipinos, have in God, and in particular in the real presence of Christ in the sacred species. This is something to be thankful to God for. But we also have to realize that we have in our hands a tremendous and delicate treasure that we need to take extreme care of.
This is a challenge actually to everyone, though certainly the leading role falls on the bishops, priests and other religious persons. We need to give more attention to this responsibility so that the devotion can truly mature and produce fruits not only for the individuals but also for the whole of society.
Truth is many people have complained that in spite of our supposedly Christian background and culture, our society is still wracked with all sorts of shameful anomalies in its different sectors and levels. We need to have more consistency between what we profess to believe, and what we do in our business and politics, etc.
First of all we need to highlight, as constantly as possible, the intrinsic link between the celebration of the Holy Mass and the Eucharistic adoration outside of the Mass.
In a 2007 document of Pope Benedict XVI, “Sacramentum caritatis” (Sacrament of charity), he noted that sometime ago there were some people who thought that the Blessed Sacrament is not meant to be looked at but only to be eaten.
This, the Pope said, is a false dichotomy. Quoting St. Augustine, he said that “no one eats the flesh without first adoring it.” He argues:
“In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us. Eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the Eucharistic celebration.”
He said that receiving the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive. The adoration outside the Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself.
We need to understand and discern this dynamics of the Eucharist. The Pope said that it is precisely this personal encounter with the Lord in the Eucharist that strengthens our social mission contained in it.
“The Eucharist,” he said, “seeks to break down not only the walls that separate the Lord and ourselves, but also and especially the walls that separate us from one another.”
These are nice words that certainly convey a deep insight about the mystery of the Eucharist. The challenge now is how to make everyone aware of this reality. We the clergy have to demonstrate and act this out ourselves first before we can dare to convince the others. But everyone has to do his part.
Little things count a lot here. The care and devotion we give when we kneel or genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament, for example, can already go a long way in helping us enter deep into Christ’s presence and into the lives of people.
This will be an entering that goes beyond our psychological, temperamental or social and cultural conditionings. It will be an entering that is led by faith and love. It will enable us to savor Christ’s presence and people’s lives in a manner that beggars description.
To achieve this in a stable way, we can think of developing the habit of making visits to the Blessed Sacrament everyday, spending time with the Lord there, talking to him not only about our personal affairs, but also about the affairs of society in general.
There is an awful lot of things to consider and bring up with our Lord in these visits. First of all, we need to ask for more light and strength, for more grace and courage. And then we need to consider the nitty-gritty of the different issues right in front of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
Many saints have done this and came out of it enlightened and enabled to undertake tremendous tasks. This Eucharistic moment is like the heart purifying used blood and pumping fresh arterial blood—the divine impulses—to our entire human system, from the personal to the social, material to spiritual, etc.
If only all of us, especially the clergy and our civil and political leaders, can have this Eucharistic devotion!
I consider this another sign of the abiding faith we, a large number of Filipinos, have in God, and in particular in the real presence of Christ in the sacred species. This is something to be thankful to God for. But we also have to realize that we have in our hands a tremendous and delicate treasure that we need to take extreme care of.
This is a challenge actually to everyone, though certainly the leading role falls on the bishops, priests and other religious persons. We need to give more attention to this responsibility so that the devotion can truly mature and produce fruits not only for the individuals but also for the whole of society.
Truth is many people have complained that in spite of our supposedly Christian background and culture, our society is still wracked with all sorts of shameful anomalies in its different sectors and levels. We need to have more consistency between what we profess to believe, and what we do in our business and politics, etc.
First of all we need to highlight, as constantly as possible, the intrinsic link between the celebration of the Holy Mass and the Eucharistic adoration outside of the Mass.
In a 2007 document of Pope Benedict XVI, “Sacramentum caritatis” (Sacrament of charity), he noted that sometime ago there were some people who thought that the Blessed Sacrament is not meant to be looked at but only to be eaten.
This, the Pope said, is a false dichotomy. Quoting St. Augustine, he said that “no one eats the flesh without first adoring it.” He argues:
“In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us. Eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the Eucharistic celebration.”
He said that receiving the Eucharist means adoring him whom we receive. The adoration outside the Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself.
We need to understand and discern this dynamics of the Eucharist. The Pope said that it is precisely this personal encounter with the Lord in the Eucharist that strengthens our social mission contained in it.
“The Eucharist,” he said, “seeks to break down not only the walls that separate the Lord and ourselves, but also and especially the walls that separate us from one another.”
These are nice words that certainly convey a deep insight about the mystery of the Eucharist. The challenge now is how to make everyone aware of this reality. We the clergy have to demonstrate and act this out ourselves first before we can dare to convince the others. But everyone has to do his part.
Little things count a lot here. The care and devotion we give when we kneel or genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament, for example, can already go a long way in helping us enter deep into Christ’s presence and into the lives of people.
This will be an entering that goes beyond our psychological, temperamental or social and cultural conditionings. It will be an entering that is led by faith and love. It will enable us to savor Christ’s presence and people’s lives in a manner that beggars description.
To achieve this in a stable way, we can think of developing the habit of making visits to the Blessed Sacrament everyday, spending time with the Lord there, talking to him not only about our personal affairs, but also about the affairs of society in general.
There is an awful lot of things to consider and bring up with our Lord in these visits. First of all, we need to ask for more light and strength, for more grace and courage. And then we need to consider the nitty-gritty of the different issues right in front of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
Many saints have done this and came out of it enlightened and enabled to undertake tremendous tasks. This Eucharistic moment is like the heart purifying used blood and pumping fresh arterial blood—the divine impulses—to our entire human system, from the personal to the social, material to spiritual, etc.
If only all of us, especially the clergy and our civil and political leaders, can have this Eucharistic devotion!
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