JUST like in some aspects and affairs in our life, in our spiritual life we also need to be hot. If we truly are to be spiritually alive, thatś what is necessary. Otherwise, weĺl just be wasting our time and exposing ourselves to danger.
In the Book of Revelation itself, the exhortation to be hot (or cold) is made. ¨I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot. But because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth.¨ (3,15-16)
In the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, though marked with a certain calmness and restraint, what is clear is the determination and single-mindedness to carry out this mission. When it was time for him to go to Jerusalem to finish his work by offering his life on the Cross, he could not be stopped.
Peter tried to, and he received a stinging rebuke: ¨Get behind me, Satan. You are a scandal to me, because you savor not the things of God, but only the things of men.¨ (Mt 16,23)
In another part of the Gospel, our Lord showed that determination by saying: ¨No man takes my life away from me. I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.¨(Jn 10,18)
A closer scrutiny of our Lordś life reveals that he was always doing the will of his Father. ¨Not my will, but yours be done,¨ (Lk 22,42) goes that famous line showing how united his will was to his Fatherś will, in spite of all the suffering.
It might be good for all of us to examine how we use our own will, and in what condition it is found. Is our will simply our own, completely possessed and used by us as if it did not come from somewhere and meant to be engaged somewhere? Is that will hot in pursuit of something, or is it simply taking it easy, waiting for things to happen?
Very often we take this matter for granted, in the thought that our will is simply our own, our most precious treasure where no one is supposed to enter or to influence, except what we want to do with it.
This attitude, to my mind, is the very basic anomaly that can come to us. Itś the unfaithful spouse and parent who begets all the other disorders in our life. Unless we realize this, I don´t think we can start to really understand the nature, purpose and meaning of our life here on earth.
Our will is a gift from God. Together with our intelligence, itś what makes us image and likeness of God. With grace, it makes us children of his, meant not only to come from him and to belong to him like all other creatures, but also to participate in Godś very own life.
We need to engage our will with the will of God always. We cannot use it just by ourselves, hooking it up with just anything. That would be unfaithful to its origin and objective. That would hold it captive merely to our own designs and detached from the very mighty source of its life and energy.
We need to continually reinforce this union and consonance between Godś will and ours, given the fragile human condition we are in, what with all our weaknesses of the flesh and of the spirit, not to mention the confusing allurements of the world and the snares of the devil.
Thatś why thereś always need for it to be revved up and made hot frequently. Itś actually a bad sign when that will is idle and quite empty of the good stuff it is supposed to feed on, that is, the things of God and things of the others that should always occupy our mind and heart. This is what true love, our will’s best use, is.
This is our main problem. We do not know how to plug our will on God, and make it hot all the time.
For this, of course, we need to be trained. This should be our first and constant concern. This is possible. The means are there. In the first place, this is Godś will for us.
Otherwise, we will receive the reproach of Christ: ¨What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul?¨ (Mt 16,26)
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
From one bigotry to another
POPE Benedict recently reminded the academic world to do its task of educating students properly. He zeroed in on the need for solid, clear ethical grounding that the youth need if they have to be properly equipped to face the multi-challenges of the present and the future.
“University communities cannot be satisfied with merely imparting knowledge. They must also teach students values and profound motivations,” the Pope said.
This is, plainly speaking, a tall order. The task of imparting knowledge alone is already a gigantic job, what with all the explosion of data that are now almost literally floating in space, waiting to be known and utilized.
At the moment, many people are at a loss as to what to make of the profusion of information glutting our media and other places. In this kind of situation itś very easy to appear knowledgeable without being truly educated.
But the task of teaching “values and profound motivations,” which is actually the real McCoy in the business of education and formation, is simply beyond description.
It involves nothing less than entering into the minds and hearts of the students, and forming them in the truth and in charity in all their aspects and levels. This is mainly a spiritual affair, to which many of us are still very much uncomfortable.
And mind you, this cannot be done simply by giving classes and dishing out lessons plans and modules of data and information, no matter how indispensable they also are.
Our problem is that we are often stuck with the collective means of formation, remaining most of the time on the surface only, on the formal and external levels. Thereś a crucial gap that is not effectively addressed by us. We are still averse to the idea of getting into peopleś interior life.
This is not to mention that many teachers and educators are in the dark about what to say and teach about values formation and motivating students. In many instances, deformation is made rather than formation, because of ignorance and incompetence in this area.
My experience is that every time I get to talk to a student individually, especially when I look at their eyes, I see an abyss, a veritable whole new world and universe that needs to be explored, understood and tutored.
It’s a delicate world out there that needs to be handled properly. A lot of patience is required, plus a great capacity for understanding and compassion, for creativity, flexibility and optimism.
Of course, one has to be well grounded on the clear if not correct anthropology, on a good understanding of the true nature of man, in all his aspects. He too has to learn the art and skill of dispensing pieces of advice in a timely manner.
I don’t think it’s an impossible task. But definitely it’s a very difficult and most trying job. Just the same, if the will is set on it, and that will is translated into action stretched in perseverance and is made to develop into a kind of system, things can be a lot easier and even enjoyable, gratifying and enlightening.
What we have to avoid is to allow the process of education to stay in the external level. It has to go all the way to touching the very mind and heart of the student, conforming them ultimately to the mind and heart of God.
A stunted kind of formation will produce the anomaly known as bigotry or narrow-mindedness. In time, its ill-effects on the persons and society will appear, leaving a mess of one kind or another.
In the past, when the religious kind of formation was dominant, this disorder of religious and clerical bigotry came about, precisely because the education froze in the formalistic aspect without touching base with the hearts of people.
This bigotry produced people who could not apply their professed faith into their work and other earthly affairs like business and politics. There’s inconsistency. And it breeds all forms of deceit and hypocrisy.
Nowadays, when education is dominated by a secular approach, a swing to the other extreme takes place. When the same neglect is also committed, we get the phenomenon of secularist bigotry, intolerant of things spiritual and supernatural.
What we have to aim at is an education and formation that is ongoing and abiding, that goes all the way both to its foundations and to its real goals, and is holistic since it blends all the aspects of man, material and spiritual, natural and supernatural, temporal and eternal.
“University communities cannot be satisfied with merely imparting knowledge. They must also teach students values and profound motivations,” the Pope said.
This is, plainly speaking, a tall order. The task of imparting knowledge alone is already a gigantic job, what with all the explosion of data that are now almost literally floating in space, waiting to be known and utilized.
At the moment, many people are at a loss as to what to make of the profusion of information glutting our media and other places. In this kind of situation itś very easy to appear knowledgeable without being truly educated.
But the task of teaching “values and profound motivations,” which is actually the real McCoy in the business of education and formation, is simply beyond description.
It involves nothing less than entering into the minds and hearts of the students, and forming them in the truth and in charity in all their aspects and levels. This is mainly a spiritual affair, to which many of us are still very much uncomfortable.
And mind you, this cannot be done simply by giving classes and dishing out lessons plans and modules of data and information, no matter how indispensable they also are.
Our problem is that we are often stuck with the collective means of formation, remaining most of the time on the surface only, on the formal and external levels. Thereś a crucial gap that is not effectively addressed by us. We are still averse to the idea of getting into peopleś interior life.
This is not to mention that many teachers and educators are in the dark about what to say and teach about values formation and motivating students. In many instances, deformation is made rather than formation, because of ignorance and incompetence in this area.
My experience is that every time I get to talk to a student individually, especially when I look at their eyes, I see an abyss, a veritable whole new world and universe that needs to be explored, understood and tutored.
It’s a delicate world out there that needs to be handled properly. A lot of patience is required, plus a great capacity for understanding and compassion, for creativity, flexibility and optimism.
Of course, one has to be well grounded on the clear if not correct anthropology, on a good understanding of the true nature of man, in all his aspects. He too has to learn the art and skill of dispensing pieces of advice in a timely manner.
I don’t think it’s an impossible task. But definitely it’s a very difficult and most trying job. Just the same, if the will is set on it, and that will is translated into action stretched in perseverance and is made to develop into a kind of system, things can be a lot easier and even enjoyable, gratifying and enlightening.
What we have to avoid is to allow the process of education to stay in the external level. It has to go all the way to touching the very mind and heart of the student, conforming them ultimately to the mind and heart of God.
A stunted kind of formation will produce the anomaly known as bigotry or narrow-mindedness. In time, its ill-effects on the persons and society will appear, leaving a mess of one kind or another.
In the past, when the religious kind of formation was dominant, this disorder of religious and clerical bigotry came about, precisely because the education froze in the formalistic aspect without touching base with the hearts of people.
This bigotry produced people who could not apply their professed faith into their work and other earthly affairs like business and politics. There’s inconsistency. And it breeds all forms of deceit and hypocrisy.
Nowadays, when education is dominated by a secular approach, a swing to the other extreme takes place. When the same neglect is also committed, we get the phenomenon of secularist bigotry, intolerant of things spiritual and supernatural.
What we have to aim at is an education and formation that is ongoing and abiding, that goes all the way both to its foundations and to its real goals, and is holistic since it blends all the aspects of man, material and spiritual, natural and supernatural, temporal and eternal.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The gap between morality and legality
THESE are two different realities. Itś good to know each of them—their nature and properties—and how they are related to each other. Thereś a lot to gain from this knowledge, especially the light we need to cruise through our increasingly complicated times.
Morality is the objective quality of our human acts, starting with the internal ones like our thoughts and intentions, insofar as these bring us or not to our proper end. Thus, our human acts can be either morally good or bad.
Morality covers everything that can be called as a human act, one that is done knowingly and freely, and thus one for which we are responsible. The morality of our actions, good or bad, is most clear to the extent that our knowledge, consent and responsibility for such actions are also at their fullest.
Thatś in theory and in principle. In practice and in real life, things are a lot messier, since assessing oneś knowledge, consent and responsibility for his actions is a very dynamic affair, often shrouded in mystery and beset by ignorance and confusion by the persons concerned.
In the end, morality depends on oneś self-knowledge and on God, who is the Creator of all things and continues to govern everything with his Providence. Thus, we can readily see how important it is to have good self-knowledge and clear and deep convictions about religion, our relation to God.
Weak and vague in this fundamental aspect, we may as well set off a course that later will turn to pure chaos and anarchy.
Thus, morality is based on our nature and dignity as persons and ultimately as children of God. It depends on our core ideas and beliefs about who and what we really are. These will ultimately define what our nature and dignity is, who we really are.
Legality, on the other hand, is a human construct made to promulgate and determine the content of morality. Its purpose is to regulate our life in society so that we can attain our common good.
Since our common good always include not only the material, social and political, but also the spiritual and personal, legality cannot get away from morality.
Legality can only have a very limited scope compared to the one of morality It cannot promulgate, determine and regulate everything in the moral law. But it cannot stay away from morality. It has to be the moon to morality’s sun. It can only reflect and work for morality, never against.
Thus, we can have the following principle to follow: no act morally bad can be sanctioned by civil law, and no act morally necessary can be prohibited. But not all morally good acts can be regulated civilly, nor can all morally bad acts be coercively prohibited, Only the morally bad relevant to our social or political common good can be prohibited.
It’s this gap between morality and legality that we have to most cautious about these days. At the moment, many pieces of evidence all over the world point to how this gap is cleverly manipulated to pursue questionable objectives.
A case in point is the Reproductive Health Bill. Its good intentions are patent, but its means are immoral. Our local version may not yet include the clearly immoral abortion, but it promotes contraception and other things that are also clearly immoral, though not in the same category as abortion.
This is an example of how legality is made to go against morality. Of course, many justifications and rationalizations are now made, including rewriting Christian morality by those who claim to be Catholics but do not follow Christian moral doctrine. They look like mongrel Christians.
Of course, those who are not Christians or Catholics, not to mention, the professed atheists and non-believers, make their own version of morality derived from their own understanding of the natural moral law that highly favors what they want: contraception, sterilization, etc.
Fortunately, there are also many non-Christian people who follow the correct morality based on their own religion and their own efforts to know the contents of the natural moral law. This only shows that the natural moral can transcend religious differences.
Whatever the situation may be, we need to raise everyone’s awareness to work for an increasingly harmonious relation between morality and legality. Our leaders, especially Church and civil leaders and politicians and other people of influence, should be in the forefront of this effort.
How we behave in this gap will show the kind of persons we are!
Morality is the objective quality of our human acts, starting with the internal ones like our thoughts and intentions, insofar as these bring us or not to our proper end. Thus, our human acts can be either morally good or bad.
Morality covers everything that can be called as a human act, one that is done knowingly and freely, and thus one for which we are responsible. The morality of our actions, good or bad, is most clear to the extent that our knowledge, consent and responsibility for such actions are also at their fullest.
Thatś in theory and in principle. In practice and in real life, things are a lot messier, since assessing oneś knowledge, consent and responsibility for his actions is a very dynamic affair, often shrouded in mystery and beset by ignorance and confusion by the persons concerned.
In the end, morality depends on oneś self-knowledge and on God, who is the Creator of all things and continues to govern everything with his Providence. Thus, we can readily see how important it is to have good self-knowledge and clear and deep convictions about religion, our relation to God.
Weak and vague in this fundamental aspect, we may as well set off a course that later will turn to pure chaos and anarchy.
Thus, morality is based on our nature and dignity as persons and ultimately as children of God. It depends on our core ideas and beliefs about who and what we really are. These will ultimately define what our nature and dignity is, who we really are.
Legality, on the other hand, is a human construct made to promulgate and determine the content of morality. Its purpose is to regulate our life in society so that we can attain our common good.
Since our common good always include not only the material, social and political, but also the spiritual and personal, legality cannot get away from morality.
Legality can only have a very limited scope compared to the one of morality It cannot promulgate, determine and regulate everything in the moral law. But it cannot stay away from morality. It has to be the moon to morality’s sun. It can only reflect and work for morality, never against.
Thus, we can have the following principle to follow: no act morally bad can be sanctioned by civil law, and no act morally necessary can be prohibited. But not all morally good acts can be regulated civilly, nor can all morally bad acts be coercively prohibited, Only the morally bad relevant to our social or political common good can be prohibited.
It’s this gap between morality and legality that we have to most cautious about these days. At the moment, many pieces of evidence all over the world point to how this gap is cleverly manipulated to pursue questionable objectives.
A case in point is the Reproductive Health Bill. Its good intentions are patent, but its means are immoral. Our local version may not yet include the clearly immoral abortion, but it promotes contraception and other things that are also clearly immoral, though not in the same category as abortion.
This is an example of how legality is made to go against morality. Of course, many justifications and rationalizations are now made, including rewriting Christian morality by those who claim to be Catholics but do not follow Christian moral doctrine. They look like mongrel Christians.
Of course, those who are not Christians or Catholics, not to mention, the professed atheists and non-believers, make their own version of morality derived from their own understanding of the natural moral law that highly favors what they want: contraception, sterilization, etc.
Fortunately, there are also many non-Christian people who follow the correct morality based on their own religion and their own efforts to know the contents of the natural moral law. This only shows that the natural moral can transcend religious differences.
Whatever the situation may be, we need to raise everyone’s awareness to work for an increasingly harmonious relation between morality and legality. Our leaders, especially Church and civil leaders and politicians and other people of influence, should be in the forefront of this effort.
How we behave in this gap will show the kind of persons we are!
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