DOES faith play a role in politics? The answer is a big yes. Faith should always be at work in us whatever activity we may be doing. It’s not like an attire that we can wear on certain occasions and take off at other moments.
And so in business, politics, entertainment, sports, education, while we are at work or resting, in public or in private, faith has to be with us because that is what it is meant to be. We actually cannot be without faith.
Our reasoning, our judgments, our understanding of things would be severely handicapped if faith is missing. In fact, if we take a close look at how these human operations work, we can get convinced that faith is needed.
Without faith, these activities will miss not only a crucial thing, but also an essential one. Without faith, our activities, no matter how brilliant, will fail to reach their ultimate end, which is not merely human and natural, but supernatural. That is, to bring us and our activities to God.
Without faith, we will be at the mercy of a purely human world, which is a nonsense, since man without God has no meaning. We are always in need of God. We just cannot be left on our own. It’s in our nature to refer ourselves to something else or to someone else, and ultimately to God, the Ultimate Other.
Without faith, our reasoning and thinking would just go in circles, if not stray into dangerous territories. It’s like we would be drifting aimlessly in an empty space, hoping to discover something along the way. We would have no sure guidance, no clear port to go to.
Faith is the final arbiter for defining what is natural to us, what is good and bad, what is true or false in nature. It just cannot be our reasoning alone, our cleverness and whatever that is purely human and natural.
Unless we don’t believe that we are creatures and that therefore there is a Creator, or unless we just believe that we are our own creatures and our own Creator, we need to refer to someone outside ourselves to determine who and what we really are, what is good for us, etc.
It’s actually an anomaly to disrupt our natural tendency to look for God, and just be contented at a certain point with what we already gain or possess. Our life is a journey into infinity, since there is something in us that will never get satisfied with an earthly or temporal good, as long as it is not deliberately thwarted.
When someone says he does not have faith, he actually means he refuses to have it. Or he rejects it at a certain point. Because faith is a free gift from God, readily and abundantly available if sought.
When someone says he does not have faith, he actually means he puts his faith more in himself, in what he already has, rather than in God who always beckons on us, though wrapped in mystery.
This is a truth about faith that we need to clarify these days. What is prevalent is the thinking that faith is not necessary. We need faith, like we need air to breathe, a home to stay and live.
It’s not a biological need, though, or a purely human and natural need, that can automatically be felt. It’s a spiritual and supernatural need that we in our human condition have to cultivate and nurture.
In this current RH bill controversy, it’s painful to hear Catholic leaders not only suspending their faith but also going against it with the excuse that with purely practical reasons they have to set aside their faith because they are leaders not only of Catholics but of everyone, including those without faith.
Worse is to hear Catholic citizens who make their own personal brand of Catholicism, alleging that they have their rights and freedom, and yet going against the doctrine of their faith. They make themselves their own Catholics, not realizing that to be Catholic means to adhere to its faith, and not to make one’s own.
They empty their Catholicism and Christianity. They are the cafeteria Catholics who choose only those parts of the faith convenient to them. They can be called Catholics In Name Only (CINO).
Living one’s faith, being consistent to it, does not mean one is rigid or is a bigot. If lived properly, faith makes one always charitable, open to a variety of options, patient with defects and mistakes, but always upholding the truth, never denying it.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Serve and not be served
OUR Lord was quite clear about this. “The Son of man has not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20,28)
The context of these words is that part where the mother of the brother-apostles, James and John, requested him that her sons sit at our Lord’s side in his kingdom.
The other apostles were indignant when they heard about this request. And so our Lord had to clarify:
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. Not so is it among you. On the contrary, whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.”
I believe that these words are most relevant to us today, since we need to be reminded of a basic attitude we ought to have if we want to be truly human and Christian, with love supposedly the driving principle of our life.
To serve is the language and the action of love. It authenticates any affirmation of love we do, converting it from intention to tangible reality.
This is the attitude meant for us, with God himself as the exemplar. Imagine, Christ served us by dying on the cross. Before that, he shocked his apostles when he insisted that he be allowed to wash their feet. That was to give example to them, and us, so that what he did we would also do.
The angels too, superior to us in nature, are made to serve us, following a divine law articulated by Christ himself when he said: “Let him who is greatest among you become as the youngest, and him who is the chief as the servant.” (Lk 22,26)
We need to be more keenly aware of this law. This is truly what is good for us, providing us with the basic source of strength and consistency we need as we grapple with life’s endless challenges.
Before we worry about the big and destructive enemies of our soul, we have to realize that our most insidious foe is right within us, when this attitude of serving others is not firmly established in our mind and heart.
That it was the mother of James and John who made that questionable request only shows how easy it is for us who try to be close to God to fall for the tricks of our soul’s enemies.
The mother most likely was motivated by the best intentions. Still, those intentions were wrong. Like her, we could be subjectively loving, but objectively not so. Thus, the need to constantly rectify our intentions.
It is this missing attitude of wanting to serve in each one of us that sooner or later grows into social and cultural proportions, then into something global with ideological supporting structures, that offers the seed, sun and water for the big enemies we have against our spiritual life
The absence of this attitude nullifies whatever big and ardent professions of love we may have toward God and others. Our desire to love could not soar into the flight of authentic love when this eagerness to serve is absent.
Any attempt to love with this attitude not in place would be plain mimickry. It would attract many problems and anomalies. It will drown in the quicksands of pride, vanity, envy, jealousy, and the other subtle forms of egoism. It cannot survive the mere tests of differences of characters and opinions, for example.
This eagerness to serve really has to be worked out, because with our fallen and wounded nature, every pore of our being tends to go against the law of love expressed in service that God meant for us.
We need to pause and reflect to get a clear view of our predicament, then beg and pray for God’s grace for we can do nothing without it, and then little by little, day by day, start to develop the mind and the skills to bring us always ready and happy to serve.
Let us remember that the fall of the angels started when one of them said, “I will not serve.” Our first parents fell because they too chose to serve themselves instead of God.
Every sin and moral evil has in its core the virus of not wanting to serve. And so, perhaps as a motto that we can repeat often, we should say to ourselves, and to God and all: “Serviam” I will serve!
The context of these words is that part where the mother of the brother-apostles, James and John, requested him that her sons sit at our Lord’s side in his kingdom.
The other apostles were indignant when they heard about this request. And so our Lord had to clarify:
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. Not so is it among you. On the contrary, whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.”
I believe that these words are most relevant to us today, since we need to be reminded of a basic attitude we ought to have if we want to be truly human and Christian, with love supposedly the driving principle of our life.
To serve is the language and the action of love. It authenticates any affirmation of love we do, converting it from intention to tangible reality.
This is the attitude meant for us, with God himself as the exemplar. Imagine, Christ served us by dying on the cross. Before that, he shocked his apostles when he insisted that he be allowed to wash their feet. That was to give example to them, and us, so that what he did we would also do.
The angels too, superior to us in nature, are made to serve us, following a divine law articulated by Christ himself when he said: “Let him who is greatest among you become as the youngest, and him who is the chief as the servant.” (Lk 22,26)
We need to be more keenly aware of this law. This is truly what is good for us, providing us with the basic source of strength and consistency we need as we grapple with life’s endless challenges.
Before we worry about the big and destructive enemies of our soul, we have to realize that our most insidious foe is right within us, when this attitude of serving others is not firmly established in our mind and heart.
That it was the mother of James and John who made that questionable request only shows how easy it is for us who try to be close to God to fall for the tricks of our soul’s enemies.
The mother most likely was motivated by the best intentions. Still, those intentions were wrong. Like her, we could be subjectively loving, but objectively not so. Thus, the need to constantly rectify our intentions.
It is this missing attitude of wanting to serve in each one of us that sooner or later grows into social and cultural proportions, then into something global with ideological supporting structures, that offers the seed, sun and water for the big enemies we have against our spiritual life
The absence of this attitude nullifies whatever big and ardent professions of love we may have toward God and others. Our desire to love could not soar into the flight of authentic love when this eagerness to serve is absent.
Any attempt to love with this attitude not in place would be plain mimickry. It would attract many problems and anomalies. It will drown in the quicksands of pride, vanity, envy, jealousy, and the other subtle forms of egoism. It cannot survive the mere tests of differences of characters and opinions, for example.
This eagerness to serve really has to be worked out, because with our fallen and wounded nature, every pore of our being tends to go against the law of love expressed in service that God meant for us.
We need to pause and reflect to get a clear view of our predicament, then beg and pray for God’s grace for we can do nothing without it, and then little by little, day by day, start to develop the mind and the skills to bring us always ready and happy to serve.
Let us remember that the fall of the angels started when one of them said, “I will not serve.” Our first parents fell because they too chose to serve themselves instead of God.
Every sin and moral evil has in its core the virus of not wanting to serve. And so, perhaps as a motto that we can repeat often, we should say to ourselves, and to God and all: “Serviam” I will serve!
Saturday, October 2, 2010
The e-word today
IT’S not anymore electronic. The new e-word is excommunication. Frankly, I’m happy that it has re-emerged into public attention, after years of hibernation, because I believe people need to know about it.
You mention the word especially to the young today, and even to the older ones, and you most likely get a blank stare. Does it have to do with modern communication, they would often ask.
It was dropped a few days ago in a radio interview with a bishop, and even if the transcript of that interview revealed no sensational undertones, the word hit ground, at least in some quarters, as if it was a nuclear bomb.
Obviously, the mischievous media played it up, another indication we are into some dead season in news items. No amount of effort to size up the whole affair could convince me it had real basis for the noise created in the press.
Of course, there were many people who bit the bait, thousands of them giving feedback to newspapers and jamming Facebook and other social networking facilities.
They spewed off their opinions that obviously have shreds of truths and good things, but otherwise simply showed their biases that can cover a wide range of possibilities—from fair commentaries to severe cases of ignorance, confusion, error and outright malice.
What we know is that PNoy went to the States, he got some American aid that most likely is now underwritten by Chinese money, and when he returned, he out of the blue talked about contraceptives, freedom of choice and a strange kind of responsible parenthood, and the notorious RH bill.
I don’t know whether there is connection in that flow of events, but obviously, the bishops can not take this development sitting down. What is involved here is morality that covers the whole spectrum of human behavior, from the personal and individual to the social and global.
It’s a morality that is not just man-made, but God-given, meant not only for Catholics but for all, but obviously to be taught, spread and lived as charitably as possible.
This has always been the way of Christ, now adopted by the Church, and always tried out by Church leaders, irrespective of their own peccadillos. That “Damaso” incident did not prove anything of substance. It simply showed a quirk, worse than the “major, major” blunder of a beauty queen.
It’s amazing that a guy like Manny Pacquiao can understand this, while our highly educated technocrats and powerful political leaders can’t. I suppose this is more a matter of faith than of intelligence and human power. The gospel is full of examples of this kind of riddle.
Morality cannot be reduced to a matter of opinion, of personal preferences, of purely cultural and social consensus. It comes from God, written in our nature, and simply to be respected by all—though admittedly, the realization of all these will take a tortuous path given our human condition.
As Pope Benedict said in his visit to England, morality is not for the State to legislate. It simply has to be acknowledged. And neither can it be reduced as a private matter, which the Church should not talk about in public, but strangely enough, the government can.
It’s a crazy world. There’s a funny version of the doctrine of separation of Church and state that veritably allows the one with authority and competence to keep quiet and the other that does not have it to talk a lot.
In this recent controversy, pictures of poor and large families in inhuman condition were splashed in the papers to generate support for the government and hatred for the Church. It’s a pitiable gimmick that can hardly be given a decent name.
Everyday, I also meet such brothers and sisters of ours. I ask myself, what can I do? And since obviously, I alone cannot solve this problem alone, I ask what can the others do to help, the government, the society, the Church?
It has not occurred to me to just give them condoms so they don’t reproduce much. That would treat them like animals. Morality is an irreplaceable requirement for human dignity. I know it’s going to be a very complicated problem.
If living one’s sexuality properly is already a big problem, you can just imagine how it’s going to be when a couple is involved, and then later on when societies are involved! It’s not going to be easy.
But easy or hard, we just have to find solutions fit for us. No immoral short-cuts, please, no matter how practical.
You mention the word especially to the young today, and even to the older ones, and you most likely get a blank stare. Does it have to do with modern communication, they would often ask.
It was dropped a few days ago in a radio interview with a bishop, and even if the transcript of that interview revealed no sensational undertones, the word hit ground, at least in some quarters, as if it was a nuclear bomb.
Obviously, the mischievous media played it up, another indication we are into some dead season in news items. No amount of effort to size up the whole affair could convince me it had real basis for the noise created in the press.
Of course, there were many people who bit the bait, thousands of them giving feedback to newspapers and jamming Facebook and other social networking facilities.
They spewed off their opinions that obviously have shreds of truths and good things, but otherwise simply showed their biases that can cover a wide range of possibilities—from fair commentaries to severe cases of ignorance, confusion, error and outright malice.
What we know is that PNoy went to the States, he got some American aid that most likely is now underwritten by Chinese money, and when he returned, he out of the blue talked about contraceptives, freedom of choice and a strange kind of responsible parenthood, and the notorious RH bill.
I don’t know whether there is connection in that flow of events, but obviously, the bishops can not take this development sitting down. What is involved here is morality that covers the whole spectrum of human behavior, from the personal and individual to the social and global.
It’s a morality that is not just man-made, but God-given, meant not only for Catholics but for all, but obviously to be taught, spread and lived as charitably as possible.
This has always been the way of Christ, now adopted by the Church, and always tried out by Church leaders, irrespective of their own peccadillos. That “Damaso” incident did not prove anything of substance. It simply showed a quirk, worse than the “major, major” blunder of a beauty queen.
It’s amazing that a guy like Manny Pacquiao can understand this, while our highly educated technocrats and powerful political leaders can’t. I suppose this is more a matter of faith than of intelligence and human power. The gospel is full of examples of this kind of riddle.
Morality cannot be reduced to a matter of opinion, of personal preferences, of purely cultural and social consensus. It comes from God, written in our nature, and simply to be respected by all—though admittedly, the realization of all these will take a tortuous path given our human condition.
As Pope Benedict said in his visit to England, morality is not for the State to legislate. It simply has to be acknowledged. And neither can it be reduced as a private matter, which the Church should not talk about in public, but strangely enough, the government can.
It’s a crazy world. There’s a funny version of the doctrine of separation of Church and state that veritably allows the one with authority and competence to keep quiet and the other that does not have it to talk a lot.
In this recent controversy, pictures of poor and large families in inhuman condition were splashed in the papers to generate support for the government and hatred for the Church. It’s a pitiable gimmick that can hardly be given a decent name.
Everyday, I also meet such brothers and sisters of ours. I ask myself, what can I do? And since obviously, I alone cannot solve this problem alone, I ask what can the others do to help, the government, the society, the Church?
It has not occurred to me to just give them condoms so they don’t reproduce much. That would treat them like animals. Morality is an irreplaceable requirement for human dignity. I know it’s going to be a very complicated problem.
If living one’s sexuality properly is already a big problem, you can just imagine how it’s going to be when a couple is involved, and then later on when societies are involved! It’s not going to be easy.
But easy or hard, we just have to find solutions fit for us. No immoral short-cuts, please, no matter how practical.
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