WE need to bring this issue out. It’s so important it can require some drastic action, a sea change in our mentality that can involve a shifting of the center of gravity of our attitudes toward something basic in our life.
For this, let’s use some words of St. Paul in his first letter to Timothy as the cue. We need to be familiar with these words, and in fact to act on them. Here they go:
"If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to that doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and strifes of words, from which arise envies, contentions, blasphemies, evil suspicions, conflicts…” (3-5)
Though these words were spoken in the context of particular issue and directly to Christian disciples, I believe they do possess a universal applicability. They simply point to the fact that the ultimate and constant source of knowledge should be our faith, and not just our own ideas, no matter how well derived they are.
Take note that St. Paul went to the extent of equating not following “the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to that doctrine which is according to godliness” with knowing nothing. In short, we can only say we truly know when we in effect follow the faith.
This is because all truths come from God and belong to God. The only things that do not come and belong to him are the lies and the sins, though God also knows them.
It would not be proper for us to think and, worse, to have the attitude that there are certain facts and truths that are purely our own, or are so of this world that God would have nothing to do with them.
Even our sciences—the math, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.—come from God, and therefore have to be used always in accordance to the mind and will of God, and not just at our own exclusive designs and purposes. The least thing we can do is to offer them to God and to thank him every time we use them. We just cannot forget God at all.
This abiding effort to relate things to God is crucial because as St. Paul said, if we fail to do that, then the bad consequences come—envies, quarrels, blasphemies, conflicts, etc. That we are seeing these things today all over the place can only mean that we are not grounding our knowledge and its use on God.
Thus, we are prone to simply use them for our own selfish ends. And we cannot avoid losing the sense of the common good and the need to give glory to God. Instead we tend to give glory to ourselves. We do the opposite of what St. John the Baptist said of himself: “That he must increase, and that I must decrease.” (Jn 3,30)
Besides, that kind of mentality will always lead us to misuse and abuse things. It’s precisely the germ of the Tower-of-Babel syndrome, where man’s pride can only cause division and conflicts.
We need to change our frame of mind, to have a paradigm shift. From being reason-and-emotion-centered, we have to be faith-centered. From being man or self-centered, we need to be God-centered in our thoughts and our behavior.
We have to constantly remind ourselves—and quite strongly especially at the beginning stage—that everything that we know and discover and use actually comes from God and has to be used for God’s glory. This is the proper way to behave and to live.
For this, we have to learn to pray and to immerse our thoughts and even our feelings in God, until we develop a sense of the spiritual and the supernatural, even while fully engaged in our earthly affairs.
As St. Paul recommended: “If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above…Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” (Col 3,1-2)
In short, we have to relate all our earthly affairs to God’s will. We should try to avoid being short-sighted and narrow-minded, our thoughts and desires mainly earth-and-time-bound.
In this, there are no excuses and dispensations. We just have to learn how to pray, spending time trying to develop an intimate relationship with God. We need to find the link between God and our things. That link is there always.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Where faith and piety start to trickle
IN a way, the world is getting more polarized these days. That’s actually an understatement. Let’s never forget that the world will always be an arena for the continuing battle of good and evil. Polarization is a dynamic thing. It has its ebb and flow.
But this conflict can have its sharpest moment during Holy Week. That’s the high point of the Christian world. And thus the enemies of Christ and of the Church can view it also as their lowest moment, a time to fight for survival.
That’s one angle. On the other hand, we cannot discount the possibility that all this fuss has been whipped more to generate readership and lucre in a media dead season than to give objective news. Sorry for this cynical impression, but I think it has good basis. We were not born yesterday.
The past weeks leading to Holy Week have seen some parts of the mainstream Western media hitting rock bottom in vile and malice. Stretching their arguments and evidence out of proportion, they attacked the Pope and the Church in general for past misconduct of some clerics.
For sure, there were serious errors, grave sins and screaming scandals involving some members of the clergy. Church authorities have admitted these anomalies, have profusely apologized, and where required, have paid the price, both in money and in other more serious intangible penalties.
But while we all try to avoid these, neither should we be surprised by them. This is part of our human condition. And the Church, in its human aspect, is not exempt from it.
As the Catechism says: “The Church, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal.” (CCC 827) Only fools don’t realize this.
The recent spate of media accusations against the Church have been reviewed and probed, and they were found to be simply exaggerated given the hue and cry Western media gave them.
It seems to me that they were made just to bash Christ, slam the Church, embarrass the clergy, put the whole world of faith and religion in ridicule.
Anyway, during this Holy Week, amid all the retreats, recollections, confessions and liturgical activities, I tried to take a break from these media-generated controversies mainly in the virtual world of the internet by going to small town churches and to observe the real pulse of the people.
It was a very rewarding plan, as I derived ample impulses of faith and hope by just looking at the simple people doing their prayers and other forms of atonement. There I saw what I consider to be the wellspring of faith and piety.
Simple people always attract the grace and mercy of God, and it’s gratifying, not to mention, purifying, to see this phenomenon in action, in real life. The city, of course, can have its share of God’s grace and mercy, but I believe it’s in the small towns where you these more clearly.
In these simple people, you see embedded in their raw and rough ways, a certain purity of heart and pristinity of character very rare to find in big, bustling places. I saw how they prayed and expressed their faith in God, and could not help but feel some holy envy for them.
I imagined that their faith was largely unsupported by academic philosophy and theology, and thus, purer, more spiritual and supernatural.
Not that philosophy, theology and other human sciences undermine faith. No. They are not supposed to have that effect. They are supposed to strengthen one’s faith. But in the real world, many times, for one reason or another, they do in fact weaken one’s faith and dampen one’s piety.
That’s because we tend, often without realizing it, to ground this knowledge improperly, mixing it with pride, vanity and self-interest, such that instead of enhancing our love for God and others, it intensifies our self-love and self-absorption.
And from there, all sorts of graver anomalies can grow, until faith and piety are practically muted and killed. This is what we are seeing in this world today. Parts of it are now openly against God, faith and religion, and are building up their own new morality.
We need to recover our proper bearings. Aside from prayer, recourse to the sacraments and a continuing formation and ascetical struggle, let’s look at where popular piety starts to trickle in the small places and among simple folks, to get our spiritual moorings right and to sustain our efforts.
But this conflict can have its sharpest moment during Holy Week. That’s the high point of the Christian world. And thus the enemies of Christ and of the Church can view it also as their lowest moment, a time to fight for survival.
That’s one angle. On the other hand, we cannot discount the possibility that all this fuss has been whipped more to generate readership and lucre in a media dead season than to give objective news. Sorry for this cynical impression, but I think it has good basis. We were not born yesterday.
The past weeks leading to Holy Week have seen some parts of the mainstream Western media hitting rock bottom in vile and malice. Stretching their arguments and evidence out of proportion, they attacked the Pope and the Church in general for past misconduct of some clerics.
For sure, there were serious errors, grave sins and screaming scandals involving some members of the clergy. Church authorities have admitted these anomalies, have profusely apologized, and where required, have paid the price, both in money and in other more serious intangible penalties.
But while we all try to avoid these, neither should we be surprised by them. This is part of our human condition. And the Church, in its human aspect, is not exempt from it.
As the Catechism says: “The Church, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal.” (CCC 827) Only fools don’t realize this.
The recent spate of media accusations against the Church have been reviewed and probed, and they were found to be simply exaggerated given the hue and cry Western media gave them.
It seems to me that they were made just to bash Christ, slam the Church, embarrass the clergy, put the whole world of faith and religion in ridicule.
Anyway, during this Holy Week, amid all the retreats, recollections, confessions and liturgical activities, I tried to take a break from these media-generated controversies mainly in the virtual world of the internet by going to small town churches and to observe the real pulse of the people.
It was a very rewarding plan, as I derived ample impulses of faith and hope by just looking at the simple people doing their prayers and other forms of atonement. There I saw what I consider to be the wellspring of faith and piety.
Simple people always attract the grace and mercy of God, and it’s gratifying, not to mention, purifying, to see this phenomenon in action, in real life. The city, of course, can have its share of God’s grace and mercy, but I believe it’s in the small towns where you these more clearly.
In these simple people, you see embedded in their raw and rough ways, a certain purity of heart and pristinity of character very rare to find in big, bustling places. I saw how they prayed and expressed their faith in God, and could not help but feel some holy envy for them.
I imagined that their faith was largely unsupported by academic philosophy and theology, and thus, purer, more spiritual and supernatural.
Not that philosophy, theology and other human sciences undermine faith. No. They are not supposed to have that effect. They are supposed to strengthen one’s faith. But in the real world, many times, for one reason or another, they do in fact weaken one’s faith and dampen one’s piety.
That’s because we tend, often without realizing it, to ground this knowledge improperly, mixing it with pride, vanity and self-interest, such that instead of enhancing our love for God and others, it intensifies our self-love and self-absorption.
And from there, all sorts of graver anomalies can grow, until faith and piety are practically muted and killed. This is what we are seeing in this world today. Parts of it are now openly against God, faith and religion, and are building up their own new morality.
We need to recover our proper bearings. Aside from prayer, recourse to the sacraments and a continuing formation and ascetical struggle, let’s look at where popular piety starts to trickle in the small places and among simple folks, to get our spiritual moorings right and to sustain our efforts.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Politicians and the cursed fig tree
IN just a few lines, Christ delivers a very strong message. He expects from everyone an all-time consistency in Christian faith and life, regardless of the pressures, for nothing is impossible with him. This is the story of the cursed fig tree, found in Matthew 21,19-22 and Mark 11,13-26.
It’s a simple story of how Christ saw a fig tree full of leaves, and yet not finding fruit. It was not the season for bearing fruit, and yet our Lord cursed it: “May no fruit grow on you henceforward forever.” (Mt 21,19) The tree dried up.
We may think our Lord was unreasonable. But then again, it is our Lord, who is God, speaking. He must know whereof he spoke. It is us who need to defer to him, rather than the reverse.
In fact, the lesson Christ drew from this story is that we should trust him, no matter how difficult the circumstances may be. “Have the faith of God.” (Mk 11,22)
Expanding on that, our Lord said: “Amen I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Arise, and hurl yourself into the sea,’ and does not waver in his heart, but believes that whatever he says will be done, it shall be done for him.” (Mk 11,23)
The point is clear. There will be extraordinary moments in our life when everything, if viewed purely humanly, may look unreasonable, impossible, inhuman, etc. But if it is the will of God, then we just have to do it, trusting always in him more than in ourselves. We need to trust God and not ourselves.
This has happened in the case of the apostles. Our Lord just told them, “Come, follow me,” and they followed. They were very ordinary, simple people entrusted with the impossible job of working with Christ for the redemption of men.
Their weaknesses were undisguised. Peter was impulsive. Matthew, being a tax collector, you can just imagine what shenanigans he was doing. Think of Judas. All apostles were easily affected by merely human and natural difficulties.
Except for Judas, they did the impossible, simply because they trusted Christ in spite of their defects. And what was impossible to them was always possible to God. Going through the lives of saints will yield the same lesson.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, we have this beautiful hymn of what faith can do for us: “By faith, they conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered from weakness…” (11,33-34)
We need to make adjustments in the way we think, feel and react to all kinds of events, especially the difficult ones. Faith and trust in God should always dominate.
We need to detach ourselves from our own selves. Otherwise, how easy for us to fall into doubts, fears, cowardice, self-pity, sadness and then hypocrisy, deception, infidelity, despair, etc.!
This point is, of course, meant for everyone. But we can apply it today most especially to our beloved politicians who in their line of work might be tempted to lose trust in God because of certain difficult issues.
We pray that they use the faith given to them as a gift, and that they don’t throw in the towel just because of the pressures. They have to be consistent to it but respectful always of the requirements of truth, justice and charity, especially in the public arena
One of our modern scourges is to find Christian politicians who suspend, ignore and even go against the faith for political expediency. Some have invoked the widespread foolishness of the doctrine of Church-state separation.
That doctrine is terribly twisted by all kinds of people. In its original version, no word, no line in it ever teaches a Christian believer in public life to set aside his faith just because he is a politician, or a businessman, etc.
Others say they have to be politically correct. They need to flow with the times. Still others are simply confused or are in error and may not even know it. This is the case of the invincibly ignorant. But that’s unlikely, what with all the information we have.
I appeal to those Christian politicians who are for the RH Bill and the condoms, etc., to be consistent to their faith. Otherwise, Christ, not I, will curse them: “May no fruit grow on you henceforward forever.”
Now is the time for them to stand up for the faith. Be brave, be consistent!
It’s a simple story of how Christ saw a fig tree full of leaves, and yet not finding fruit. It was not the season for bearing fruit, and yet our Lord cursed it: “May no fruit grow on you henceforward forever.” (Mt 21,19) The tree dried up.
We may think our Lord was unreasonable. But then again, it is our Lord, who is God, speaking. He must know whereof he spoke. It is us who need to defer to him, rather than the reverse.
In fact, the lesson Christ drew from this story is that we should trust him, no matter how difficult the circumstances may be. “Have the faith of God.” (Mk 11,22)
Expanding on that, our Lord said: “Amen I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Arise, and hurl yourself into the sea,’ and does not waver in his heart, but believes that whatever he says will be done, it shall be done for him.” (Mk 11,23)
The point is clear. There will be extraordinary moments in our life when everything, if viewed purely humanly, may look unreasonable, impossible, inhuman, etc. But if it is the will of God, then we just have to do it, trusting always in him more than in ourselves. We need to trust God and not ourselves.
This has happened in the case of the apostles. Our Lord just told them, “Come, follow me,” and they followed. They were very ordinary, simple people entrusted with the impossible job of working with Christ for the redemption of men.
Their weaknesses were undisguised. Peter was impulsive. Matthew, being a tax collector, you can just imagine what shenanigans he was doing. Think of Judas. All apostles were easily affected by merely human and natural difficulties.
Except for Judas, they did the impossible, simply because they trusted Christ in spite of their defects. And what was impossible to them was always possible to God. Going through the lives of saints will yield the same lesson.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, we have this beautiful hymn of what faith can do for us: “By faith, they conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered from weakness…” (11,33-34)
We need to make adjustments in the way we think, feel and react to all kinds of events, especially the difficult ones. Faith and trust in God should always dominate.
We need to detach ourselves from our own selves. Otherwise, how easy for us to fall into doubts, fears, cowardice, self-pity, sadness and then hypocrisy, deception, infidelity, despair, etc.!
This point is, of course, meant for everyone. But we can apply it today most especially to our beloved politicians who in their line of work might be tempted to lose trust in God because of certain difficult issues.
We pray that they use the faith given to them as a gift, and that they don’t throw in the towel just because of the pressures. They have to be consistent to it but respectful always of the requirements of truth, justice and charity, especially in the public arena
One of our modern scourges is to find Christian politicians who suspend, ignore and even go against the faith for political expediency. Some have invoked the widespread foolishness of the doctrine of Church-state separation.
That doctrine is terribly twisted by all kinds of people. In its original version, no word, no line in it ever teaches a Christian believer in public life to set aside his faith just because he is a politician, or a businessman, etc.
Others say they have to be politically correct. They need to flow with the times. Still others are simply confused or are in error and may not even know it. This is the case of the invincibly ignorant. But that’s unlikely, what with all the information we have.
I appeal to those Christian politicians who are for the RH Bill and the condoms, etc., to be consistent to their faith. Otherwise, Christ, not I, will curse them: “May no fruit grow on you henceforward forever.”
Now is the time for them to stand up for the faith. Be brave, be consistent!
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