THIS is a concern for all of us. Though at bottom we are a religious being, since we have an innate yearning for God—whatever and whoever that may be for us—we oftentimes get aborted in developing this relationship with him, because we don’t go all the way in developing piety.
We easily get stranded somewhere. It could be because of laziness, or disordinate attachments to self and things, or an impoverished life of prayer and sacrifice, or a neglected effort to cultivate virtues, etc. Many are the factors and causes that prevent us from developing piety.
Yet one fundamental cause for this arrested or stunted spiritual growth is the lack of proper understanding of the pivotal roles of the practices of piety that we need to do.
Especially these days when we are constantly barraged by exhilarating commercial images and messages, we find it increasingly hard to appreciate the value of these pious practices that require grace and a certain kind of attitude and outlook.
For some, these practices of piety just get in the way in the pursuit of their plans, ambitions, projects. For others, these practices have fallen to the category of the meaningless, the time-wasters and the useless.
There certainly is a crying need for a basic catechesis on piety. If just understood well, this virtue ought to command not only respect from us, but also a sense of duty and obligation. It actually gives meaning and substance to our life.
These practices that foster our sense of piety can cover a lot of things: prayer, sacrifice or mortification, recourse to the sacraments like confession, Holy Mass and communion, visit to the Blessed Sacrament, rosary, examination of conscience, spiritual reading, etc.
They should correspond to all the different aspects and needs of our spiritual life as it impacts on our daily activities and concerns.
They can be described as guideposts in our journey of life full of challenges, problems, pressures and other confusing elements. Or they can offer us the needed respites in our activities, giving us moments to recharge ourselves spiritually so we can maintain a supernatural outlook in life.
They are like home bases in our pilgrimage of life where we can recover our spiritual and moral strength. There we can have God in a more direct and intimate condition. There God makes himself available to us, while in our work God expects us to look for him.
They are supposed to be vital organic parts of our day that comprise mostly of mundane activities that need to be sanctified and offered to God and to others. Like meals and our sleep, they are supposed to be availed of by us in a most natural and regular way.
We should just flow into them, since in the end all our activities should be oriented toward the ultimate goal of our life, and that is worship of God. These practices should not be considered alien to our daily routine.
This is the task we have to do—developing an attitude of relating everything to God by letting all our activities to lead us to these practices. We just have to find a way, with God's grace, to cultivate a spiritual hunger or urge for these practices.
If sin and moral evil just do not die by natural causes, neither do piety and a spiritual and supernatural outlook in life just flower by natural causes. We need God's grace for this, and our unrelenting and ever creative correspondence.
This is precisely the challenge we face these days. Even many of those who are supposed to be close and dedicated to God—priests, nuns and other religious and consecrated persons—find it hard to make these pious practices an integral part of their day. Many still find it awkward to do them.
What is needed is a certain plan, much like a regimen to which many of us willingly submit when we work out our physical fitness, so that a working and fruitful piety would really take root in our life.
So, in the beginning, much like little children, we need to be initiated into this kind of lifestyle, often forcing ourselves a little and submitting ourselves to some experts—our confessors and spiritual directors—so that the seeds of piety can really grow to maturity.
We have to go from the fundamental to the more complex levels of spirituality, from the amateur to the professional, from the beginner's stage to the veteran's, until we reach what St. Paul once described as the “fullness of God” to which we are destined.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Democracy in the Church
BECAUSE of some hot-button issues like the RH Bill, and now divorce, the charge is thrown into the open that the Church is dictatorial, is not democratic. I suppose, if we follow this line of thinking to the end, we will arrive at the conclusion that the Church is inhuman, is bad, and therefore should be killed, extinguished, annihilated.
Of course, this is a ridiculous. This brings us to the realization that in our discussions, our passions should be held in control. Otherwise, they would just mess up with our reasoning, exposing our biases, and leading us to all sorts of non-sequiturs, fallacies and ad hominems.
I find the charge both understandable and without basis. Both principal terms of the charge, democracy and Church, are complex phenomena that just cannot be treated lightly. They can lend themselves easily to all kinds of interpretations, including the wrong ones.
Democracy, while people-based, simply cannot work if no organization is put in place there, with leaders vested with some authority and accountable to the people—and to God—running the show.
Through some agreed processes, people in a democracy decide how things ought to be done—what kind of government they want, how are leaders to be chosen, how are officials held accountable for their acts, etc.
It just cannot be an unorganized government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” Chaos is sure to erupt if we leave it that way. It needs a deeper grounding.
Ultimately, it has to believe in God and to obey his laws. Otherwise, it would be setting out on its own, relying on its lights which cannot be guaranteed, and we would be at the mercy of who has the most money, the best armed, the most popular, etc.
Democracy would overstep itself if it detaches itself from God, and just relies completely on the so-called people’s will. Mob rule will sooner or later come. The dictum “vox populi, vox Dei” would be emptied of its original meaning.
We have to be clear about this: democracy needs God. It’s not just a people thing. It has to take care that this need for God is always felt, nourished and developed, especially as it enters into its more challenging, difficult stages.
The truth is that God is always present and is guiding us through his Providence in all aspects and situations of our life—be it in the personal, individual level or in the social and governmental level. God is there and it is for us to find him, discern his will and act upon it.
Now the Church is a different banana. It’s not a people thing. It’s the people of God—that’s us—gathered together by Christ through his words and deeds and ultimately through his passion, death and resurrection.
It has been given a structure by Christ, with Peter and the apostles vested with power to preach, rule and sanctify it. Its structure is therefore did not come from us, though since it is for us and with us, it certainly is attuned to our nature and to the way we are.
In spite of its human shortcomings and failures, Christ has guaranteed that “the gates of hell shall not prevail over it.” Its life and effectiveness lie in Christ more than in us. So, while we acknowledge these human failings, we should not exaggerate them either. We just have to move on, finding solutions to problems along the way.
But we should not deny that the Church, in fact, teaches the basis of democracy, since it teaches what Christ teaches—that we are all children of God, created in his image and likeness. As such, we enjoy equal dignity even if we have different functions and status in the Church.
We also have the same duty and responsibility: to sanctify ourselves and to do apostolate. We have to like God, holy and full of love, caring for one another. It dispenses divine mercy. It fosters reconciliation, love and unity. What could be more democratic than these?
It’s this nature and character of the Church that sometimes gives the impression that there is no democracy in it, since what it is and does is something that does not depend on us, but rather on God.
The truths of faith and morals are given to us by God. They are not subject to the approval of the majority. All we have to do is to follow, since we are not only our own being, but God’s first.
Of course, this is a ridiculous. This brings us to the realization that in our discussions, our passions should be held in control. Otherwise, they would just mess up with our reasoning, exposing our biases, and leading us to all sorts of non-sequiturs, fallacies and ad hominems.
I find the charge both understandable and without basis. Both principal terms of the charge, democracy and Church, are complex phenomena that just cannot be treated lightly. They can lend themselves easily to all kinds of interpretations, including the wrong ones.
Democracy, while people-based, simply cannot work if no organization is put in place there, with leaders vested with some authority and accountable to the people—and to God—running the show.
Through some agreed processes, people in a democracy decide how things ought to be done—what kind of government they want, how are leaders to be chosen, how are officials held accountable for their acts, etc.
It just cannot be an unorganized government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” Chaos is sure to erupt if we leave it that way. It needs a deeper grounding.
Ultimately, it has to believe in God and to obey his laws. Otherwise, it would be setting out on its own, relying on its lights which cannot be guaranteed, and we would be at the mercy of who has the most money, the best armed, the most popular, etc.
Democracy would overstep itself if it detaches itself from God, and just relies completely on the so-called people’s will. Mob rule will sooner or later come. The dictum “vox populi, vox Dei” would be emptied of its original meaning.
We have to be clear about this: democracy needs God. It’s not just a people thing. It has to take care that this need for God is always felt, nourished and developed, especially as it enters into its more challenging, difficult stages.
The truth is that God is always present and is guiding us through his Providence in all aspects and situations of our life—be it in the personal, individual level or in the social and governmental level. God is there and it is for us to find him, discern his will and act upon it.
Now the Church is a different banana. It’s not a people thing. It’s the people of God—that’s us—gathered together by Christ through his words and deeds and ultimately through his passion, death and resurrection.
It has been given a structure by Christ, with Peter and the apostles vested with power to preach, rule and sanctify it. Its structure is therefore did not come from us, though since it is for us and with us, it certainly is attuned to our nature and to the way we are.
In spite of its human shortcomings and failures, Christ has guaranteed that “the gates of hell shall not prevail over it.” Its life and effectiveness lie in Christ more than in us. So, while we acknowledge these human failings, we should not exaggerate them either. We just have to move on, finding solutions to problems along the way.
But we should not deny that the Church, in fact, teaches the basis of democracy, since it teaches what Christ teaches—that we are all children of God, created in his image and likeness. As such, we enjoy equal dignity even if we have different functions and status in the Church.
We also have the same duty and responsibility: to sanctify ourselves and to do apostolate. We have to like God, holy and full of love, caring for one another. It dispenses divine mercy. It fosters reconciliation, love and unity. What could be more democratic than these?
It’s this nature and character of the Church that sometimes gives the impression that there is no democracy in it, since what it is and does is something that does not depend on us, but rather on God.
The truths of faith and morals are given to us by God. They are not subject to the approval of the majority. All we have to do is to follow, since we are not only our own being, but God’s first.
Pajero as the new wedge
IF it were not ridiculously funny, I would have been gravely mortified, even devastated. But I think that the government expose that some bishops received Pajeros from the PCSO of the previous administration had no aim other than to embarrass these bishops and drive a wedge into the Church.
It’s a demolition job of the lowest and thoughtless kind, reeking of rash judgments, detraction, malice, unfair innuendoes, self-righteousness, etc. It’s a very clumsy political operation that speaks badly more of its perpetrators than of its intended victims.
Its authors try to tell people that a government agency giving Pajeros to some bishops only has one interpretation, theirs. There can be no other possible scenario. In their political game plan, they want to inflict their own exclusive twisted view on all of us.
It’s a puny declaration of war, abetted by the media, that will only go pfffft, since it would require from us that we don’t think, that we let go of our common sense, that we have to automatically think badly of some people and of some transactions, etc.
Where is the respect for freedom and responsibility, and for the dignity of persons, when people are automatically held guilty for the mere act of receiving Pajeros from a government agency?
If it were not a demolition job, then why single out these bishops? Did that agency give Pajeros and we don’t know what else only to them? Were there no other recipients—politicians in all their shifting colors, relatives of politicians, other religious leaders, etc.?
If it were not a demolition job, then why would they give the impression to the public that the mere giving by a government agency of cars to some bishops is intrinsically wrong?
Does that mean that bishops in all instances cannot receive these benefits, while others can? Does that mean that there can be no justification for such act of generosity on the part of the government to bishops?
If it were not a demolition job, why bring this accusation to the public only now? Was this practice limited only to a certain period of time, that of the previous administration? Could it not be that it is very politically motivated, since Church people are now more vocal about certain government maneuvers that clearly are immoral?
This unfortunate affair reminds me of what St. Augustine once said: “Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin. Our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon.
“But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others.”
This, I think, is what is happening here. We are too quick to judge others, not realizing that we all need to ask for pardon because we are all sinners, and we just have to help one another do this. The Church, let’s remember, is not so much a museum of saints as it is a hospital of sinners.
Sad to say, the right of Church leaders to make pronouncements on the morality of certain government and public issues is not yet well understood by many public officials. And I think it is not because of lack of explanations. It is more of hardheadedness of some officials, if not worse things, like atheism, agnosticism, etc.
What worsens this affair is that some clerics are buying the demolitioners’ line, falling into their web, unwittingly playing crucial roles in the demolitioners’ storybook. Obviously, this is what the demolitioners want to happen—to insert a wedge among them, bishops and priests, if not the Church as a whole.
In their reckless, off-the-cuff comments, these bishops and priests reinforce the political angle of the car donations, making blanket judgments on the acts of their fellow bishops and priests.
Sorry, but I find that self-righteous and grossly imprudent. If ever there has to be some investigation of some actuations of bishops, would it not be better to do it in a proper venue, far from where things can easily be misinterpreted? This is usually done in all cases, unless dirty politics is involved.
Obviously, not everyone has the same right to know everything about certain cases. That scenario is reserved to the Last Judgment, not here. Otherwise, we would have a mob rule, and further grave injustices can be committed. Pieces of evidence lending credence to this claim are just aplenty.
We should stop wasting our time making these reckless public accusations.
It’s a demolition job of the lowest and thoughtless kind, reeking of rash judgments, detraction, malice, unfair innuendoes, self-righteousness, etc. It’s a very clumsy political operation that speaks badly more of its perpetrators than of its intended victims.
Its authors try to tell people that a government agency giving Pajeros to some bishops only has one interpretation, theirs. There can be no other possible scenario. In their political game plan, they want to inflict their own exclusive twisted view on all of us.
It’s a puny declaration of war, abetted by the media, that will only go pfffft, since it would require from us that we don’t think, that we let go of our common sense, that we have to automatically think badly of some people and of some transactions, etc.
Where is the respect for freedom and responsibility, and for the dignity of persons, when people are automatically held guilty for the mere act of receiving Pajeros from a government agency?
If it were not a demolition job, then why single out these bishops? Did that agency give Pajeros and we don’t know what else only to them? Were there no other recipients—politicians in all their shifting colors, relatives of politicians, other religious leaders, etc.?
If it were not a demolition job, then why would they give the impression to the public that the mere giving by a government agency of cars to some bishops is intrinsically wrong?
Does that mean that bishops in all instances cannot receive these benefits, while others can? Does that mean that there can be no justification for such act of generosity on the part of the government to bishops?
If it were not a demolition job, why bring this accusation to the public only now? Was this practice limited only to a certain period of time, that of the previous administration? Could it not be that it is very politically motivated, since Church people are now more vocal about certain government maneuvers that clearly are immoral?
This unfortunate affair reminds me of what St. Augustine once said: “Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin. Our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon.
“But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others.”
This, I think, is what is happening here. We are too quick to judge others, not realizing that we all need to ask for pardon because we are all sinners, and we just have to help one another do this. The Church, let’s remember, is not so much a museum of saints as it is a hospital of sinners.
Sad to say, the right of Church leaders to make pronouncements on the morality of certain government and public issues is not yet well understood by many public officials. And I think it is not because of lack of explanations. It is more of hardheadedness of some officials, if not worse things, like atheism, agnosticism, etc.
What worsens this affair is that some clerics are buying the demolitioners’ line, falling into their web, unwittingly playing crucial roles in the demolitioners’ storybook. Obviously, this is what the demolitioners want to happen—to insert a wedge among them, bishops and priests, if not the Church as a whole.
In their reckless, off-the-cuff comments, these bishops and priests reinforce the political angle of the car donations, making blanket judgments on the acts of their fellow bishops and priests.
Sorry, but I find that self-righteous and grossly imprudent. If ever there has to be some investigation of some actuations of bishops, would it not be better to do it in a proper venue, far from where things can easily be misinterpreted? This is usually done in all cases, unless dirty politics is involved.
Obviously, not everyone has the same right to know everything about certain cases. That scenario is reserved to the Last Judgment, not here. Otherwise, we would have a mob rule, and further grave injustices can be committed. Pieces of evidence lending credence to this claim are just aplenty.
We should stop wasting our time making these reckless public accusations.
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