WHAT a beautiful message Pope Benedict gave on the occasion of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception last December 8! It was truly prophetic because it hit bull´s eye one of the nagging problems we are facing these days.
He talked about what he called the ¨pollution of the spirit.¨ We need to be aware of it, and learn how to deal with it effectively. We need to develop the appropriate attitudes, virtues and discipline. These were his pertinent words:
¨We often lament the pollution of the air, which in certain places of the city is unbreathable...And yet, there is nother pollution, less perceptible to the senses, but just as dangerous.
¨It is the pollution of the spirit. It is what renders our faces less smiling, more gloomy, what leads us not to greet one another, to not look at one another in the face.¨
This is the immediate description of this pollution of the spirit. But it has graver implications. Again the Pope´s words:
¨The city is made up of faces, but unfortunately the collective dynamics can make the perception of their depth disappear. We see everything on the surface. Persons become bodies, and these bodies lose the soul, become things, objects without a face, to be exchanged and consumed.¨
The Pope tried to explain how this pollution of the spirit came about. A good deal of the blame, according to him, would fall on the media. These were his words:
¨Every day, in fact, through newspapers, the television and the radio, evil is recounted, repeated, amplified, accustoming us to the most horrible things, making us become insensitive and, in some way, intoxicating us, because the negative is not fully disposed of and accumulated day after day. The heart hardens and thoughts become dark.¨
How true! Sometimes I wonder if the media are truly serving the common good, since many times they just seem to focus on the negative side of life, without giving due attention to the positive and redeeming side. We seem to be educated into a new normal in our life. The Pope had this to say about this point:
¨In the city live -- or survive -- invisible persons, who every now and then leap onto the front page or on television screens, and are exploited to the end, so that the news and the image attract attention.
¨It is a perverse mechanism, to which unfortunately one finds it hard to resist. The city first hides and then exhibits to the public, without pity, or with false pity.¨
Think of the present predicament of Tiger Woods or our very own Manny Pacquiao. Their sins or ¨trangressions,¨ the word favored more by Tiger, are feasted by the press, now behaving like sharks in a feeding frenzy.
Scandals now appear to be normal fare in the press. The more scandalous the item is, the better for the media. Imagine if the protagonists were clerics!
Another interesting observation of the Holy Father is that the media tend to ¨make us feel always as spectators, as if evil refers only to others, and certain things could never happen to us.¨ He said that in reality, we are all ´actors´ and, both in evil and in good, our behavior can influence others.
We need to be more sensitive to the fact that our actions, no matter hidden and unknown to the public, will always have an effect on others. This is precisely because of what our Christian faith terms as ¨communion of saints.¨ Our humanity binds us together with many invisible ties into one living organism. What happens to one, what one does, will have an effect on others.
To this predicament, the Holy Father offers the image and message of Mary. To him, our Lady highlights that Pauline insight that ¨where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.¨ He wants us not to get entangled with the sin side, but to focus more on the grace side. This is, in fact, the more challenging and exciting part of life in general and of media´s work in particular.
¨Her presence speaks to us of God, reminds us of the victory of grace over sin, and induces us to hope,¨ he said. In the Philippine setting, we are very lucky because the devotion to Mary is quite widespread. What´s needed perhaps is to make it deeper and more abiding. It should leap from the field of the simple people to that of the more sophisticated ones.
Let´s see if we can grow some more in our Marian devotion.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Our standard, our reference
WE celebrated the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary last December 8. We had a school-wide Mass at the gym, and we said it in Latin. Everyone had the English-Latin missalette so they can follow and participate in the Mass more actively.
On my way to the Mass, a student approached me to ask what the Mass was for. It turned out that he did not know about the Immaculate Conception. In the minute that took me to reach the place, I tried to explain to him the nature and significance of the feast. But I can’t help but feel flabbergasted that he was practically ignorant of it.
Of course, I knew that the fellow came from a public high school. But he was already one of our top freshman students. I wondered how many young people were like him, knowledgeable about computers but a “tabula rasa” in religion.
That experience gave me the idea that I needed to talk a lot about the Immaculate Conception. The feast is in fact a very important feast in the liturgical calendar, one of the holydays of obligation together with Sundays and Christmas and the New Year which is actually the Solemnity of Mary’s Divine Motherhood.
That underscores the importance of the Marian solemnity. And rightly so, since it reminds us of who we really are, what kind of dignity we have. The Immaculate Conception of the Mary shows us the standard we should never lose sight of as we go through this world of sin, temptation, problems, etc.
Some lines of the feast’s Eucharistic preface point to this truth: “Full of grace, she was to be a worthy mother of your Son, your sign of favor to the Church at its beginning, and the promise of its perfection as the bride of Christ…You chose her from all women to be our advocate with you and our pattern of holiness.”
Our predicament is that with all the problems, pressures and difficulties we face everyday, not to mention the temptations and sins, we tend to think that the usual state of our life is all that there is to it. So we are tempted to lower our standard, not realizing that doing so can trigger a freefall to worse conditions.
With this feast we are reminded of how we were at the beginning and how we ought to be in the end. That is, as masterpiece of God’s creation, we are made in his image and likeness, elevated through grace to be children of his, meant to participate in his very own life, and not just creatures who simply come and belong to him.
We are supposed to be like God, holy and perfect like him, sinless like him and also like our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary. God chose her to be the mother of his son who became man to save us, Jesus Christ.
The Solemnity of Mary’s Immaculate Conception means that this woman was given the rare privilege of being exempted from original sin, that is, her conception was not accompanied by the handicap of not being in the state of grace as we originally were meant to be. In fact, she was filled with grace.
Original sin precisely means that what was meant to be our state at conception, that is, to be in grace, is missing because that state was lost with the sin of Adam and Eve in paradise. It is not a sin we commit. It is one we inherit. We fall heir to a wounded and handicapped state at our very conception.
Mary’s privilege did not however remove her freedom to commit sin, if she wanted to. To her credit was her total correspondence to the grace given her. She was sinless all throughout her life.
Her example certainly is most worthy to be emulated. At least it gives us a clear idea of the standard we should never forget as we go through our daily life. We may not be like her now, but we can want to be like her, and that’s already a big thing.
She stands as a bright light that leads to our true destination in a world filled with darkness or false lights. Thus it is all worthwhile to deliberately develop a devotion to her, looking at her, knowing her more, loving her, bringing her with us wherever we go, involving her in everything in our life.
She loves to play that role with us, because she was given to us by Christ himself to be our mother too, and not only his.
On my way to the Mass, a student approached me to ask what the Mass was for. It turned out that he did not know about the Immaculate Conception. In the minute that took me to reach the place, I tried to explain to him the nature and significance of the feast. But I can’t help but feel flabbergasted that he was practically ignorant of it.
Of course, I knew that the fellow came from a public high school. But he was already one of our top freshman students. I wondered how many young people were like him, knowledgeable about computers but a “tabula rasa” in religion.
That experience gave me the idea that I needed to talk a lot about the Immaculate Conception. The feast is in fact a very important feast in the liturgical calendar, one of the holydays of obligation together with Sundays and Christmas and the New Year which is actually the Solemnity of Mary’s Divine Motherhood.
That underscores the importance of the Marian solemnity. And rightly so, since it reminds us of who we really are, what kind of dignity we have. The Immaculate Conception of the Mary shows us the standard we should never lose sight of as we go through this world of sin, temptation, problems, etc.
Some lines of the feast’s Eucharistic preface point to this truth: “Full of grace, she was to be a worthy mother of your Son, your sign of favor to the Church at its beginning, and the promise of its perfection as the bride of Christ…You chose her from all women to be our advocate with you and our pattern of holiness.”
Our predicament is that with all the problems, pressures and difficulties we face everyday, not to mention the temptations and sins, we tend to think that the usual state of our life is all that there is to it. So we are tempted to lower our standard, not realizing that doing so can trigger a freefall to worse conditions.
With this feast we are reminded of how we were at the beginning and how we ought to be in the end. That is, as masterpiece of God’s creation, we are made in his image and likeness, elevated through grace to be children of his, meant to participate in his very own life, and not just creatures who simply come and belong to him.
We are supposed to be like God, holy and perfect like him, sinless like him and also like our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary. God chose her to be the mother of his son who became man to save us, Jesus Christ.
The Solemnity of Mary’s Immaculate Conception means that this woman was given the rare privilege of being exempted from original sin, that is, her conception was not accompanied by the handicap of not being in the state of grace as we originally were meant to be. In fact, she was filled with grace.
Original sin precisely means that what was meant to be our state at conception, that is, to be in grace, is missing because that state was lost with the sin of Adam and Eve in paradise. It is not a sin we commit. It is one we inherit. We fall heir to a wounded and handicapped state at our very conception.
Mary’s privilege did not however remove her freedom to commit sin, if she wanted to. To her credit was her total correspondence to the grace given her. She was sinless all throughout her life.
Her example certainly is most worthy to be emulated. At least it gives us a clear idea of the standard we should never forget as we go through our daily life. We may not be like her now, but we can want to be like her, and that’s already a big thing.
She stands as a bright light that leads to our true destination in a world filled with darkness or false lights. Thus it is all worthwhile to deliberately develop a devotion to her, looking at her, knowing her more, loving her, bringing her with us wherever we go, involving her in everything in our life.
She loves to play that role with us, because she was given to us by Christ himself to be our mother too, and not only his.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Quest for beauty, quest for God
IT’S truly nice to hear Pope Benedict regularly talk about beauty. I notice that since he became Pope, he makes it a point to give some incisive thoughts about this reality that we often miss.
Recently, he had a wonderful get-together with some 260 artists from different fields—painting, acting, architecture, literature, music, etc.—where again he told them not only of the elements of beauty—its essence, source, purpose—but also of their—our—duties towards it.
Ever since I got bitten by the beauty bug, I have been into some kind of adventure in search of it. I remember some verses of a poem we studied in first year high school—quit the naughty thought of when it was—that got stuck with me through the years.
They gave me my first taste of what I call the irresistible charm and mystique of beauty and launched me to its quest, sometimes bumpy, sometimes smooth and sweet. I now don’t remember the title and the author, but they went this way:
“Rhodora / if sages ask thee why / thy beauty is wasted on the earth and sky / Tell them, dear / that if eyes were made for seeing, / then beauty is its own excuse for being.
From then on, I had that lingering idea that whatever it is that we consider true and good, whatever it is that can give us happiness, can be summarized under one category—beauty. It was the catchall for all these ideals that somehow satisfy or at least pacify the unutterable yearnings in our heart.
Pope Benedict’s meeting with the artists had that beautiful tone of being both cordial and frank, sublime and challenging. He welcomed them and invited them to “friendship, dialogue and cooperation” with the Church, even if they may still be quite remote from the practice of religion.
What was important, the Pope pointed out, was that there was that common interest in the pursuit of beauty, extricating it from the usual pitfall of “reducing the horizons of existence to mere material realities, or to a reductive and trivializing vision.”
Or even to worse things, like the erupting firework of a wide range of human depravity. We seem to have a carpet bombing of that ugly aspect lately. With the election fever rising, we are witnessing the dark side of humanity, as ad hominem attacks, rash judgments, demonizing arguments, etc. fill the media.
Mere opinions are made into dogmas, suspicions and biases are turned into facts and made the explosives of their mutual accusations. The air is poisoned, the place becomes a war zone and everyone suffers. Really ugly! The Maguindanao massacre now looks puny.
Still, there’s hope. We should refuse to be dragged down to hell by these demonic gimmicks done by a few so-called clever guys we have around. Let’s use these black spots as illuminating contrast to the real beauty meant for us.
But we have to know what authentic beauty is. There had been false but subtle pictures of it, ridiculous caricatures and outright direct assaults on it. We need to be very discerning and prudent, because truths and falsehoods are often mixed up nowadays and found in opposite camps.
Thus, the work of artists is pivotal. They are expected to provoke in others and to sustain the sense of beauty that leads to its true origin and essence, that is, to God. The search for beauty is a pilgrimage toward God.
Pope Benedict quotes Hermann Hesse who said: “Art means revealing God in everything that exists.” I agree with this completely. At the end of the day, that’s what art really is.
With their talent to touch and enter the heart of humanity, the artists in their respective field now face the challenge and bear the duty to captivate all in the appreciation of real beauty, freeing them from a beauty that is reduced, entangled and stifled.
Let’s hope that they manage to pursue their artistic creativity and originality along the lines of fidelity to God and continuity with his will and ways. This is the trickiest part of the artists’ life. They have to resolve the apparent contradiction.
Rightly calling artists the “custodians of beauty,” the Pope cited some words of Pope John Paul II in asking, “To communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art. But does art need the Church?”
Let’s pray that they get to see the point.
Recently, he had a wonderful get-together with some 260 artists from different fields—painting, acting, architecture, literature, music, etc.—where again he told them not only of the elements of beauty—its essence, source, purpose—but also of their—our—duties towards it.
Ever since I got bitten by the beauty bug, I have been into some kind of adventure in search of it. I remember some verses of a poem we studied in first year high school—quit the naughty thought of when it was—that got stuck with me through the years.
They gave me my first taste of what I call the irresistible charm and mystique of beauty and launched me to its quest, sometimes bumpy, sometimes smooth and sweet. I now don’t remember the title and the author, but they went this way:
“Rhodora / if sages ask thee why / thy beauty is wasted on the earth and sky / Tell them, dear / that if eyes were made for seeing, / then beauty is its own excuse for being.
From then on, I had that lingering idea that whatever it is that we consider true and good, whatever it is that can give us happiness, can be summarized under one category—beauty. It was the catchall for all these ideals that somehow satisfy or at least pacify the unutterable yearnings in our heart.
Pope Benedict’s meeting with the artists had that beautiful tone of being both cordial and frank, sublime and challenging. He welcomed them and invited them to “friendship, dialogue and cooperation” with the Church, even if they may still be quite remote from the practice of religion.
What was important, the Pope pointed out, was that there was that common interest in the pursuit of beauty, extricating it from the usual pitfall of “reducing the horizons of existence to mere material realities, or to a reductive and trivializing vision.”
Or even to worse things, like the erupting firework of a wide range of human depravity. We seem to have a carpet bombing of that ugly aspect lately. With the election fever rising, we are witnessing the dark side of humanity, as ad hominem attacks, rash judgments, demonizing arguments, etc. fill the media.
Mere opinions are made into dogmas, suspicions and biases are turned into facts and made the explosives of their mutual accusations. The air is poisoned, the place becomes a war zone and everyone suffers. Really ugly! The Maguindanao massacre now looks puny.
Still, there’s hope. We should refuse to be dragged down to hell by these demonic gimmicks done by a few so-called clever guys we have around. Let’s use these black spots as illuminating contrast to the real beauty meant for us.
But we have to know what authentic beauty is. There had been false but subtle pictures of it, ridiculous caricatures and outright direct assaults on it. We need to be very discerning and prudent, because truths and falsehoods are often mixed up nowadays and found in opposite camps.
Thus, the work of artists is pivotal. They are expected to provoke in others and to sustain the sense of beauty that leads to its true origin and essence, that is, to God. The search for beauty is a pilgrimage toward God.
Pope Benedict quotes Hermann Hesse who said: “Art means revealing God in everything that exists.” I agree with this completely. At the end of the day, that’s what art really is.
With their talent to touch and enter the heart of humanity, the artists in their respective field now face the challenge and bear the duty to captivate all in the appreciation of real beauty, freeing them from a beauty that is reduced, entangled and stifled.
Let’s hope that they manage to pursue their artistic creativity and originality along the lines of fidelity to God and continuity with his will and ways. This is the trickiest part of the artists’ life. They have to resolve the apparent contradiction.
Rightly calling artists the “custodians of beauty,” the Pope cited some words of Pope John Paul II in asking, “To communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art. But does art need the Church?”
Let’s pray that they get to see the point.
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