Preaching

PREACHING is, of course, an indispensable activity of the Church, because this is none other than transmitting the word of God. Yes, the word of God, eternal and ever relevant to us, needs to be proclaimed always, so as to be known, loved and lived by all as much as possible.

It is the word that gives us eternal life and not just some human and natural knowledge. As St. Peter said when our Lord asked the apostles if they too would leave him after telling them he was the bread of
life that caused disbelief among the Jews, “To whom shall we go? You have the word of eternal life.” (Jn 6,68)

If we go by the standard expressed by St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, then this must be a tremendous responsibility requiring nothing less than vital union with God.

“My speech and my preaching was not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the showing of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not stand on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God,” says St. Paul. (2,4-5)

Further down this Pauline chapter, the apostle of the Gentiles professes that “we have the mind of Christ.” (2,16) It’s a “we” not an “I”, for St. Paul refers to himself, first, then to the others, his
listeners, for only when we have the mind of Christ, one way or another, can we appreciate preaching, whether we are the giver or the listener.

We have to be wary therefore of preaching or listening to it outside of Christ’s mind, doing it solely on the basis of our human talents and conditions, without referring it to Christ.

This happens when one preaches oneself instead of Christ. This happens when instead of making the gospel and the doctrine of our faith as the framework of preaching, one uses mere rhetoric, or his mastery of the sciences, or he exhibits his talents.

Nowadays, more and more people are relying on their human knowledge rather than on word of God as their ultimate key to human development and happiness. And some of them have brought this human knowledge with its accompanying skills to such polish and perfection that the word of God becomes totally irrelevant if not discredited.

They have also become smooth talkers, and many people also have practically lost any touch with the “mind of Christ,” such that they can only welcome the wisdom of the world rather than the word of God.

Again St. Paul referred to this when he said: “There shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears,
and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned to fables.” (2 Tim 4,3-4)

We have to make our preaching effective. The desire for it should be made to burn in spite of the inhospitable environment. But, yes, there have to be appropriate, creative ways to do it.

Preachers really have to prepare their material well. It starts with a consistent life of prayer and earnest search for sanctity. Without these, no amount of brilliant and clever delivery can cover the hideous hole that will always be apparent when such consistency is missing.

Obviously, preachers have to think of their audience and try to figure out who they really are and what God wants to tell them in their current conditions. Thus, abiding observation of the people and the
social developments is a must.

But let’s not forget that the best way to know the people is when one spends hours hearing confessions. Here he can really get a good glimpse of the intimate interior lives of the people.

The gospel should be made the background of preaching. We have to be wary when we are drawn to participate in secular debates and discussions. The gospel should inspire such exchanges, not the other
way around, or worse, discarding the gospel.

This is a proximate temptation because in the desire to be up-to-date or to be knowledgeable about social, economic or political events and developments, the gospel can be sidelined or simply treated as an ornament.

Preaching has to bring these discussions to Christ, and in fact should inspire them. The word of God is always relevant to these discussions. And these discussions are in great need of divine inspiration.

Let’s also pray that the listeners have the proper attitude toward preaching. They should not expect social or political theories, but rather only to hear God’s word.

The wisdom of the world

WHAT a week it was! First, you had the 192 Ateneo professors digging

in their heels in support for the RH Bill after bishops called the

attention of their Catholic school.

Cleverly using the cover of a Catholic school, they now openly go

against Catholic teaching, something the school itself should check

but seems hesitant to do.

The professors cite excuses like respecting academic freedom, human

rights and other legalistic maneuvers, when what is clear is there is

academic license, i.e., abuse of academic freedom, and outright

violation of the school’s Catholic identity.

These dissenters claim for themselves the exclusive right to know

what’s right and wrong about the RH Bill. They even claim they are in

line with Church social doctrine, when the Church authorities

themselves already consider them to be out of line. Ergo, to their

mind, the Church authorities are the ones not in sync with what is

Catholic.

Then in the US, it was reported the Democratic Party’s platform has

dropped any reference to God, a development pregnant with

implications. Atheists applauded this development, claiming it was the

right thing to do to follow their own version of Church-state

separation.

I was actually expecting this, since there’s such thing a slippery

slope theory. But that it actually took place still causes

apprehension. The world is drifting away from God!

Yes, they still pay lip-service to things like faith and religion, but

that’s about it, just lip-service, if only to keep their supporters

who still have leanings on faith and religion. But they present a God

of their own making and ideology. In fact, the God taught by the

Church is considered a false God.

In both events, well-crafted statements were made, employing the best

of rhetoric and style. Of course, some logic was put in, pieces of

supporting evidence and proofs were cited. Some legal, economic,

social considerations were made to make themselves sound convincing.

Still, I feel these are traces of what our Lord warned us about:

“There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show

great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive even the elect.” (Mt

24,24)

St. Paul adds: “The wicked one comes according to the working of

Satan, in all power, and signs and lying wonders.” (2 Thes 2,9) And

those seduced by him will receive from God the “the operation of

error, to believe lying.” (2,11)

It was obvious both statements fell long in rationalizations but short

in substance. They made long-winded arguments, but they still missed

the point. They keep the arguments strictly at ground-level, as if

there are no other levels to consider.

Which remind me of what St. Paul said in his first letter to the

Corinthians: “Make no mistake about it. If anyone of you thinks of

himself as wise, in the ordinary sense of the word, then he must learn

to be a fool before he really can be wise.

“Why? Because the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As

scripture says: The Lord knows wise men’s thoughts: he knows how

useless they are. Or again, God is not convinced by the arguments of

the wise.” (3,18-20)

But would these words still mean anything to those whose faith is more

in themselves than in God and his Church? Wisdom to them is the wisdom

of this world with its worldly values: practicality, convenience,

popularity, etc.

It’s not the wisdom that comes from above and is taught and

transmitted by properly authorized instrumentalities. This wisdom of

the world is more individualistic or simply a result of some

consensus, but is in clear rupture from authentic Christian teaching

and tradition.

Defying God and the Church, even among some Catholics, has now become

less subtle and more open. Or at least playing games with God and

religion has become some kind of a fad, if not already a norm of

conduct.

We have to be most wary of this trend. Many world leaders are leading

people away from God. They offer instead their own version of a

utopia, promising an earthly paradise that has nothing to do with a

transcendent, supernatural heaven, while mocking the institutions duly

established by God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

This is the time to strengthen our true Christian identity, to tighten

our Christian consistency that should cover not only our personal

lives and affairs, but also our common life and affairs together.

This is the time to let our integral Christian faith bear on the

multitude of implications of our human affairs in this world. Beware

of the wisdom of this world!

Capax Dei

THAT means, capable for God. It’s an expression from St. Augustine

that asserts that man, in spite of his limitations, both natural and

infranatural, i.e., those that are consequences of sin, is capable of

knowing God, of launching into the infinite, of longing for the

absolute.

    We have been designed and wired for it. Even if we don’t consider yet

the truths of faith about ourselves, somehow we can already know we

are meant to know God. That’s because there’s something spiritual in

us. We are not purely material beings, stuck to the material world

only.

    Our spirituality can be discerned by the fact that we are capable of

thinking and loving, operations that are not material but are

spiritual. Here we use concepts and reasons that are spiritual, not

material.

    Since we are capable of spiritual operations, there must be something

spiritual in us, following the principle that “operare sequitur esse,”

the operation follows or is determined by one’s being or essence. This

is how we can rightly conclude we have a spiritual soul.

    It’s our spirituality that enables us to know, to will and to love,

and its field of coverage is actually infinite. It’s our spirituality

that enables us to transcend the material dimension of our life, the

here and now, the cultural and other human conditionings, in order to

enter into the world of the spiritual and supernatural even if we

cannot fully fathom and capture it.

    In his encyclical, “Veritatis splendor” (The splendour of truth),

Pope John Paul II rightly said that “in the depths of man’s heart

there always remains a yearning for absolute truth and a thirst to

attain full knowledge of it. This is eloquently proved by man’s

tireless search for knowledge in all fields.

    “It is proved even more by his search for the meaning of life. The

development of science and technology, this splendid testimony of the

human capacity for understanding and for perseverance, does not free

humanity from the obligation to ask the ultimate religious

questions...”

    We have that yearning and are enabled to pursue it. This basic truth

about ourselves is very important especially considering the current

world trend that is drifting if not wallowing in what is called by

people like Pope Benedict XVI as relativism.

    This is the mentality, if not the ethos, that maintains that there

are no absolute truths, and that things simply depend on how one is,

his culture, and other conditionings. Everything is relative to

something. In the end, it denies there is a God, or an objective

universal moral law, or any intrinsic evil, or sin.

    It’s absolutizing the belief that what is true to you may not be true

to me. In short, it absolutizes the relative, an inherent

contradiction and anomaly in its system. It holds that man cannot

transcend his material dimension and the other conditionings that come

into play.

    Pope Benedict XVI, just before becoming Pope, made a strong

denunciation of this phenomenon that is gripping the majority of the

people these days. He continues to denounce it, stressing its

unspeakable dangers if it is allowed to develop to its last

consequences.

    There would be total confusion and chaos, as each one, each group,

etc., will hold on to their respective beliefs, without ever hoping

that there is a universal bond that can hold us together, despite our

personal, cultural, social differences.

    While it’s true that we are subject to some conditionings, it’s not

true that we cannot go beyond them. While our knowledge of the

absolute truth may not be full, perfect and changeless, it is not true

that we cannot know the absolute truth or that there is no absolute

truth.

    Relativism has its roots in isms like atheism or non-belief in God,

agnosticism or the belief that God cannot be known no matter how one

tries. It springs from a lifestyle where the spiritual dimension of

man is practically dead while his material aspect is given full rein.

    This is actually the real problem we have, for which a lot has to be

planned out and done to solve it. It’s a big challenge, because it

involves convincing people about the reality of the spiritual and

supernatural world.

    At the moment, there is well-entrenched belief that any reference to

things like faith, the spiritual, the supernatural, the Church, is

some indication one is out of touch, is not living in this planet, is

unfeeling about the plight of the people.

    It’s indeed a big challenge to dismantle this belief, and to affirm

that we truly are “capax Dei.”