I FOUND it most moving to hear the Pope asking forgiveness and vowing to do everything to resolve the scandals involving priests right in the Holy Mass in the middle of the culminating activity of the Year for Priests in Rome recently.
That was a very brave act of his, full of true humility, that deserves to be emulated by other Church leaders. After all, the Church which is holy on account of Christ, is also a sinner in need of repentance and purification on account of her members, us, who still bear the weaknesses of humanity.
This business of asking forgiveness should be an ordinary, regular event in the life of the Church not only in her individual members but also as an institution.
This will reflect a more complete picture of the Church in her pilgrim way here on earth. It identifies her more closely with Christ, her founder, who on the cross just before dying asked forgiveness from his Father on behalf of all men.
This papal gesture also shows a special kind of magnanimity, a greatness of heart that is not afraid to own up certain negative elements in the Church in her human aspects, unavoidable as it were, and to go through the painful process of purification and atonement.
This helps to correct the unintended side-effects of triumphalism and other forms of religious abuse that can subtly develop through the years in the Church, again because of our many human weaknesses that can become parts of our cultures and social structures.
We should be more aware of these tendencies, and learn how to handle them. I am sure the wealth of experience the Church has gained through the years will greatly help us to form a sharper sensitivity to the bad double-effects of otherwise good intentions and efforts pursued in the Church.
This again makes the Church resemble all the more with Christ, who was not afraid to make as his own the sins and faults of men and to die for them and to them.
This is how Christ turned evil into good, the offense into a gift. The logic of this beautiful phenomenon can be found in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, and reiterated in several of his other epistles, where he said:
“Not like the offense is the gift. For if by the offense of the one the many died, much more has the grace of God, and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ, abounded unto the many…” (5,15)
Pope Benedict XVI applied this kind of reasoning to the issue of recent clerical scandals when he said in the homily of that Mass: “Had the Year for Priests been a glorification of our individual human performance, it would have been ruined by these events.
“But for us what happened was precisely the opposite: We grew in gratitude for God’s gift, a gift concealed in ‘earthen vessels’ which ever anew, even amid human weakness, makes his love concrete present in this world.
“The scandals should be looked upon as a summons to purification, as a task which we bring to the future and which makes us acknowledge and love all the more the great gift we have received from God.
“In this way, his gift becomes a commitment to respond to God’s courage and humility by our own courage and our own humility.”
Let’s hope that these words become a living reality in the Church in her individual members as well as in her institutional status. This will take time. But at least a good start in some attitudinal change in the Church is already made.
Sad to say, not all people appreciate this kind of reasoning. Of course, that’s also understandable, since these words have to be taken in the context of faith. Without that faith, no amount of reasoning can become convincing.
I learned, for example, that a group of victims of clerical abuse is not too happy with what the Pope has done. They want that these scandals in the Church be the reason to what they call as the need to democratize the Church.
Now this is a different issue altogether. It has strayed from its proper context of discipline to another context, more serious this time, of the very nature of the Church.
Sorry to say, but this switch of context is a foul. We can discuss this question in another occasion. As of now, I’m very happy with what the Pope has done regarding the scandals.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The art of blending
OUR life, as it is, consists of many aspects, dimensions, layers and levels. There’s the personal and the social, the internal and the external, the material and the spiritual, the temporal and the eternal, the mundane and the sacred, the natural and the supernatural, etc.
It’s obvious that we need to learn how to integrate them together to establish and keep our true identity and dignity as persons and as children of God. We have to observe the appropriate priorities. In a way, our humanity can be defined and developed in the effort we blend and order all these items.
In fact, the main drama of our life can be microcosmed in this abiding task of ours. How important it is, therefore, that we train ourselves adequately for this purpose, learning the proper criteria and skills, and adopting the right attitudes, mentality and frame of mind!
This is actually an enormous challenge for all of us, for which we need to help one another. First of all, we need to be open to this idea, which is actually a universal goal for all of us to reach. We have to overcome whatever bias and erroneous thinking—there are many—we may have regarding this point.
Toward this end, we should be stouthearted and persevering in spite of the many difficulties, mistakes and failures we surely will encounter. We just have to strengthen our resolve to simply go on no matter what, ever humble to learn from our stumbles, and, of course, never neglecting to ask for God’s grace.
Thing is we need to keep our mind and heart ever alert and nimble, so we can always be active, flexible, creative and inventive, as well as resistant to temptations and discouragement, and to other worldly allurements that can detract us from our proper focus.
The other day, while attending the thanksgiving party of a recently ordained priest, I felt a little uncomfortable at what I thought was already an exaggerated manner of thanking God and everybody else for the tremendous gift of priesthood.
For sure, our ways of expressing our gratitude can be countless, and what may be ok for one may not be quite ok with another. We have to expect this wide range of possibilities and be broadminded to accept them.
Just the same, we also have to constantly check ourselves, examining our conscience, and ever watchful of pertinent signs around us to see if we are truly doing things properly.
That is simply because it’s very easy to fall into frivolity and insobriety. The ways of vanity and pride are subtle. The road to imprudence and perdition is wide. They can stealthily spin invisible thread and embed disorderly attachments to otherwise good efforts of ours, disabling us to fly to our appropriate destiny.
And so we need to constantly rectify our intentions, seeing to it that they are completely engaged with God’s will and driven only by love and freedom. As much as possible, we should feel the passion for loving God by loving everybody else all the way.
For this purpose, we have to learn how to be immersed in things and yet also know how to transcend them. We have to learn to forget ourselves to think only of God and of the others. We should be convinced that love is lived best when it involves suffering and sacrifice and having to ask and give mercy.
So we have to learn how to be both agile and stable, active and contemplative, spontaneous and thoughtful, impatient and patient, intolerant and tolerant, and, yes, why not, manual and mental, emotionally involved and coolly detached.
We have to learn how to be in the world without being worldly. In fact, Christ prayed for this when he said: “I pray not that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from evil. They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.” (Jn 17,15-16)
We have to understand that this condition can only be possible if we have a living contact with God himself, with the Holy Spirit who always will prompt us what to think and what to do in every moment. Let’s remember that our life is supposed to be a shared life—it’s both God’s and ours.
And so in the practical level, we have to continually check that we are always with God, and through Him with everybody else, doing all these with naturalness and discretion without attracting undue attention.
It’s obvious that we need to learn how to integrate them together to establish and keep our true identity and dignity as persons and as children of God. We have to observe the appropriate priorities. In a way, our humanity can be defined and developed in the effort we blend and order all these items.
In fact, the main drama of our life can be microcosmed in this abiding task of ours. How important it is, therefore, that we train ourselves adequately for this purpose, learning the proper criteria and skills, and adopting the right attitudes, mentality and frame of mind!
This is actually an enormous challenge for all of us, for which we need to help one another. First of all, we need to be open to this idea, which is actually a universal goal for all of us to reach. We have to overcome whatever bias and erroneous thinking—there are many—we may have regarding this point.
Toward this end, we should be stouthearted and persevering in spite of the many difficulties, mistakes and failures we surely will encounter. We just have to strengthen our resolve to simply go on no matter what, ever humble to learn from our stumbles, and, of course, never neglecting to ask for God’s grace.
Thing is we need to keep our mind and heart ever alert and nimble, so we can always be active, flexible, creative and inventive, as well as resistant to temptations and discouragement, and to other worldly allurements that can detract us from our proper focus.
The other day, while attending the thanksgiving party of a recently ordained priest, I felt a little uncomfortable at what I thought was already an exaggerated manner of thanking God and everybody else for the tremendous gift of priesthood.
For sure, our ways of expressing our gratitude can be countless, and what may be ok for one may not be quite ok with another. We have to expect this wide range of possibilities and be broadminded to accept them.
Just the same, we also have to constantly check ourselves, examining our conscience, and ever watchful of pertinent signs around us to see if we are truly doing things properly.
That is simply because it’s very easy to fall into frivolity and insobriety. The ways of vanity and pride are subtle. The road to imprudence and perdition is wide. They can stealthily spin invisible thread and embed disorderly attachments to otherwise good efforts of ours, disabling us to fly to our appropriate destiny.
And so we need to constantly rectify our intentions, seeing to it that they are completely engaged with God’s will and driven only by love and freedom. As much as possible, we should feel the passion for loving God by loving everybody else all the way.
For this purpose, we have to learn how to be immersed in things and yet also know how to transcend them. We have to learn to forget ourselves to think only of God and of the others. We should be convinced that love is lived best when it involves suffering and sacrifice and having to ask and give mercy.
So we have to learn how to be both agile and stable, active and contemplative, spontaneous and thoughtful, impatient and patient, intolerant and tolerant, and, yes, why not, manual and mental, emotionally involved and coolly detached.
We have to learn how to be in the world without being worldly. In fact, Christ prayed for this when he said: “I pray not that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from evil. They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.” (Jn 17,15-16)
We have to understand that this condition can only be possible if we have a living contact with God himself, with the Holy Spirit who always will prompt us what to think and what to do in every moment. Let’s remember that our life is supposed to be a shared life—it’s both God’s and ours.
And so in the practical level, we have to continually check that we are always with God, and through Him with everybody else, doing all these with naturalness and discretion without attracting undue attention.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Dearer than life
WHAT could be more precious than life? I had some funny inkling the other day when a friend of mine invited me to take a ride on the zip line as a way to have a break and fun in the middle of a nosebleed-causing seminar of classes, talks and lectures.
This friend is actually very different from me. Yes, we share a lot of things in common, like love for books and discussing ideas and issues, but we are almost poles apart in terms of character and temperament. We kind of follow the law of the magnet: like poles repel, unlike poles attract.
This is a law that at least for me actually works well in gaining and keeping friends. I also have friends whose character and temperament are like mine, but whose ideas and convictions are opposed, even hostile to mine. Still, I manage to make friends this way.
Itś this kind of friendship that has enriched me with insights and experiences I would have missed if I didn´t have it. In fact, the discovery of my vocation to the priesthood went through this itinerary. A friend introduced me to a priest, then to things spiritual and religious, and then to my vocation.
Though I at first did not like the idea of seeing a priest, I could not say no to my friend. What started as a noblesse oblige ended up hooking me to a commitment of a lifetime and even beyond. That´s one example of God´s inscrutable ways.
Back to the zip line, I of course would not think of it even if the now famous Dahilayan Adventure Park in Bukidnon that features Asia´s longest zip line of more than a kilometer was just at the next hill. I could even hear the screams of the girls riding it, and in fact could see from where I was, plus of course a little of imagination, a faint image of the people enjoying it.
Still, these things just made me amused and happy for those who are having fun with it. It did not occur to me to try it. So when this friend proposed it to me, I was at first surprised, and with my built-in naughty mind, suspected the idea must be one in his bucklet list. But I reconsidered. A friend´s idea just cannot be dismissed outright.
So, one morning, dressed in excursion clothes and trying our best not to behave very conspicuously as priests, my friend and I found ourselves queueing up for the ride. But we were not successful in our masquerades, because after a few minutes, we heard someone calling us, ¨Father, I´m so glad to see you here...¨
We were made to read some indications printed on the wall. The last line said, the park management tries their best to secure safety, but is not responsible for any untoward incident that may occur, including death. Of course, I didn´t like to read that, but there was no more turning back.
The attendants put us in a harness for the first leg of the ride—320 meters long. We were given helmets too for our heads, then some instructions, and there we were, poised at a certain launching pad with a deep valley below.
I tried not to get scared, and I was amazed to see how the mind automatically looked for justifications to appease the normal fears. If those little girls could do it, if those old women could do it, heck, I could do it. Of course, afterwards I was ashamed to myself that I entertained those thoughts.
We were pushed, then off we hanged in mid-air sliding toward a certain destination I didn´t have the chance to know from the attendant. Things moved so fast I was at loss what to think and see. I found myself twirling and could not control my direction. I wanted to see things around, but then the bump to stop me already hit me.
Then we went to the second leg, a shorter line of 150 meters. This time, fear simply vanished, and replaced instead by a spontaneous bravado softened by laughter and back-patting. I knew this was not my usual behavior, but, ok, at least for this time, I decided not to give it a hoot. This is just for fun with a friend.
The third leg was the real challenge, a line of 860 meters. To cut it short, we made it, and found ourselves feeling much younger. Lesson: having fun with a friend out of trust and care for him can be dearer than life.
This friend is actually very different from me. Yes, we share a lot of things in common, like love for books and discussing ideas and issues, but we are almost poles apart in terms of character and temperament. We kind of follow the law of the magnet: like poles repel, unlike poles attract.
This is a law that at least for me actually works well in gaining and keeping friends. I also have friends whose character and temperament are like mine, but whose ideas and convictions are opposed, even hostile to mine. Still, I manage to make friends this way.
Itś this kind of friendship that has enriched me with insights and experiences I would have missed if I didn´t have it. In fact, the discovery of my vocation to the priesthood went through this itinerary. A friend introduced me to a priest, then to things spiritual and religious, and then to my vocation.
Though I at first did not like the idea of seeing a priest, I could not say no to my friend. What started as a noblesse oblige ended up hooking me to a commitment of a lifetime and even beyond. That´s one example of God´s inscrutable ways.
Back to the zip line, I of course would not think of it even if the now famous Dahilayan Adventure Park in Bukidnon that features Asia´s longest zip line of more than a kilometer was just at the next hill. I could even hear the screams of the girls riding it, and in fact could see from where I was, plus of course a little of imagination, a faint image of the people enjoying it.
Still, these things just made me amused and happy for those who are having fun with it. It did not occur to me to try it. So when this friend proposed it to me, I was at first surprised, and with my built-in naughty mind, suspected the idea must be one in his bucklet list. But I reconsidered. A friend´s idea just cannot be dismissed outright.
So, one morning, dressed in excursion clothes and trying our best not to behave very conspicuously as priests, my friend and I found ourselves queueing up for the ride. But we were not successful in our masquerades, because after a few minutes, we heard someone calling us, ¨Father, I´m so glad to see you here...¨
We were made to read some indications printed on the wall. The last line said, the park management tries their best to secure safety, but is not responsible for any untoward incident that may occur, including death. Of course, I didn´t like to read that, but there was no more turning back.
The attendants put us in a harness for the first leg of the ride—320 meters long. We were given helmets too for our heads, then some instructions, and there we were, poised at a certain launching pad with a deep valley below.
I tried not to get scared, and I was amazed to see how the mind automatically looked for justifications to appease the normal fears. If those little girls could do it, if those old women could do it, heck, I could do it. Of course, afterwards I was ashamed to myself that I entertained those thoughts.
We were pushed, then off we hanged in mid-air sliding toward a certain destination I didn´t have the chance to know from the attendant. Things moved so fast I was at loss what to think and see. I found myself twirling and could not control my direction. I wanted to see things around, but then the bump to stop me already hit me.
Then we went to the second leg, a shorter line of 150 meters. This time, fear simply vanished, and replaced instead by a spontaneous bravado softened by laughter and back-patting. I knew this was not my usual behavior, but, ok, at least for this time, I decided not to give it a hoot. This is just for fun with a friend.
The third leg was the real challenge, a line of 860 meters. To cut it short, we made it, and found ourselves feeling much younger. Lesson: having fun with a friend out of trust and care for him can be dearer than life.
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