THANKS be to God, our country is still so largely infused with Christian piety that together with the Holy Week, the Solemnity of All Saints and the Commemoration of All Souls on the first days of November draw great crowds of the faithful to cemeteries to pay homage to the dead.
Such wonderful phenomenon may be dismissed as a show of a contrived Deus-ex-machina show of faith, reinforced by a mounting evidence of inconsistencies in the life of the believers.
That’s how non-believers see it. The most they can concede to participating in this yearly activity is for sentimental reasons or for social and political correctness. Nothing more or beyond these.
In short, they consider the phenomenon as a superstition, a gratuitous nonsense built up through years of ignorance and blind obedience to Church teaching. It’s supposed to thrive in a chicken-run kind of locality, still removed from the liberating light of reason and science.
But that is not so. Contrary to what non-believers may say, we have within ourselves, whether strongly or faintly felt, an urge to communicate with our dearly departed.
Such urge springs from the belief that we continue to live in another form after our death here on earth. We believe that there is in us something that refuses to die, in spite of our death here on earth. We just continue to live on.
We can’t explain it thoroughly because it’s a belief that exceeds the powers of empirical verification. But it is not completely unreasonable.
If we think and reason, if we will and love, then we must have something spiritual in us, since spiritual activities presume a spiritual subject. “Operare sequitur esse” (operation follows being) goes a philosophical principle that applies here.
Anyway, without being aware of this principle, we somehow hold on to the truth of our spiritual nature and our supernatural calling. We refuse to be held captive by the limits of a rationality that is hooked to the merely empirical.
And thus we believe that even if we die here on earth, there is something in us that does not die. It is our soul, the spirit that animates us, that is above the wear and tear of earthly life and thus enjoys immortality.
If not destroyed by some factors, this natural tendency to believe focuses our attention to the spiritual world, and then to the possibility at least to a supernatural reality. This will require the gift of faith.
That’s the problem with our brothers and friends who reject the faith. They make their own reason the ultimate guide in their life. But it is a reason that refuses to admit its limits, and refuses to be open to anything smelling of faith and mystery. It refuses to accept what it could not understand.
As a consequence, they can not figure out the objective reality of the spiritual world, let alone, the supernatural realm. These are Greek to them. These just don’t make sense. They prefer to stick to what could be touched, seen and comprehended.
The ways of the simple people who honor the dead on these November days may reek of sentimentality and may be accompanied by imperfections and exaggeration, but they objectively leap from an objective truth about us.
I pray that they be left in that belief even as I encourage them also to go deep into the full meaning as well as the consequences and implications of our death. We have to mature in our attitude towards death.
Death should not be a cause of fear. That would be useless, since we can not escape it. It’s part of our continuing life, a crucial event that brings us from time to eternity.
Something in it should attract us to it, since it is the doorway to our definitive life. But to cross it, we need to be fully ready and live our earthly life the way it should be.
What can help us is to study the dispositions the saints, and especially the martyrs, had towards death. They will give us concrete ideas of how we can welcome and embrace death.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Fraternal correction
WE have to be familiar with this practice which I think is increasingly needed these days.
I know it’s an unpleasant thing, both for the giver and the recipient. But the matter involved can be crucial and silence about it can be fatal or at least can give rise to dangerous potentials.
It’s a practice recommended by our Lord himself in the gospel. “If your brother shall offend against you, go and rebuke him between you and him alone. If he shall hear you, you shall gain your brother,” he said. (Mt 18,15)
All of us need correction, if not always then at least at one time or another. No matter how good, smart and clever we may be, we certainly have defects and we commit mistakes that need to be corrected.
With the present pace of development where we are drawn to more and more new things and unfamiliar situations, the chances of us committing mistakes and getting stuck with our weakness are multiplied.
And given our human condition that blinds us to most of our frailties, we cannot rely solely on ourselves for these corrections to take place. We need others, as brothers and sisters who truly care for us, to point them out to us.
If done and received with the proper dispositions and ways, then these corrections can truly be considered not only as coming from our brothers and sisters, but from God himself.
The fraternal correction can become a genuine manifestation of charity, deepening our friendship and fraternity with the others. It enables us to fulfill an important part of the gospel message of being a Good Shepherd to the others.
We also relive what is said in the Letter to the Hebrews: “For whom the Lord loves, he chastises, and he scourges every son whom he receives…For what son is there whom the father does not correct.” (12,6-7)
We have to understand that God’s love for us, which is the pattern of our love for one another, blends maximum patience and affection with maximum rigor and strictness.
This is more because of our human condition. If God alone would have his way, so to speak, he surely would shower us with all sweetness. This, I imagine, is what heavenly bliss is all about.
But here on earth, God has to contend with the way we use or misuse our freedom. With our limitations, not to mention our mistakes and sins, God has to use both soft and hard means, gentle and harsh ways to guide and govern us.
Since we are his children, created in his image and likeness, we are asked to participate in his divine providence over us. Thus, we too cannot avoid having to use both soft and hard means to govern ourselves.
The fraternal correction should be widely used especially in the family. Children grow mightily when corrections are made on them. But it should also be done generously in other areas, especially among peers and colleagues.
Among priests, for example, the practice of fraternal correction is highly recommended. Bishops should take the lead. This is what the document “Pastores gregis” says about the matter:
“In cases of grave lapses, and even more of crimes which do damage to the very witness of the Gospel, especially when these involve the Church’s ministers, the Bishop must be firm and decisive, just and impartial.
“He is bound to intervene in a timely manner, according to the established canonical norms, for the correction and spiritual good of the sacred minister, for the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice, and for all that is required for the protection and assistance of victims.” (21)
But even before things become very serious, fraternal corrections should already be given generously. Usually they can be in the areas of prudence, as in the priest’s relations with women and in his public actuations.
Or in the way a priest carries out his duties. First would be his own life of prayer and the sacraments, then in his preaching, in his availability and manner of serving the people. Suggestions and corrections can abound here.
I know it’s an unpleasant thing, both for the giver and the recipient. But the matter involved can be crucial and silence about it can be fatal or at least can give rise to dangerous potentials.
It’s a practice recommended by our Lord himself in the gospel. “If your brother shall offend against you, go and rebuke him between you and him alone. If he shall hear you, you shall gain your brother,” he said. (Mt 18,15)
All of us need correction, if not always then at least at one time or another. No matter how good, smart and clever we may be, we certainly have defects and we commit mistakes that need to be corrected.
With the present pace of development where we are drawn to more and more new things and unfamiliar situations, the chances of us committing mistakes and getting stuck with our weakness are multiplied.
And given our human condition that blinds us to most of our frailties, we cannot rely solely on ourselves for these corrections to take place. We need others, as brothers and sisters who truly care for us, to point them out to us.
If done and received with the proper dispositions and ways, then these corrections can truly be considered not only as coming from our brothers and sisters, but from God himself.
The fraternal correction can become a genuine manifestation of charity, deepening our friendship and fraternity with the others. It enables us to fulfill an important part of the gospel message of being a Good Shepherd to the others.
We also relive what is said in the Letter to the Hebrews: “For whom the Lord loves, he chastises, and he scourges every son whom he receives…For what son is there whom the father does not correct.” (12,6-7)
We have to understand that God’s love for us, which is the pattern of our love for one another, blends maximum patience and affection with maximum rigor and strictness.
This is more because of our human condition. If God alone would have his way, so to speak, he surely would shower us with all sweetness. This, I imagine, is what heavenly bliss is all about.
But here on earth, God has to contend with the way we use or misuse our freedom. With our limitations, not to mention our mistakes and sins, God has to use both soft and hard means, gentle and harsh ways to guide and govern us.
Since we are his children, created in his image and likeness, we are asked to participate in his divine providence over us. Thus, we too cannot avoid having to use both soft and hard means to govern ourselves.
The fraternal correction should be widely used especially in the family. Children grow mightily when corrections are made on them. But it should also be done generously in other areas, especially among peers and colleagues.
Among priests, for example, the practice of fraternal correction is highly recommended. Bishops should take the lead. This is what the document “Pastores gregis” says about the matter:
“In cases of grave lapses, and even more of crimes which do damage to the very witness of the Gospel, especially when these involve the Church’s ministers, the Bishop must be firm and decisive, just and impartial.
“He is bound to intervene in a timely manner, according to the established canonical norms, for the correction and spiritual good of the sacred minister, for the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice, and for all that is required for the protection and assistance of victims.” (21)
But even before things become very serious, fraternal corrections should already be given generously. Usually they can be in the areas of prudence, as in the priest’s relations with women and in his public actuations.
Or in the way a priest carries out his duties. First would be his own life of prayer and the sacraments, then in his preaching, in his availability and manner of serving the people. Suggestions and corrections can abound here.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Chastity education vs. sex education
THESE two types of education have to be clearly distinguished. Of course, between the two, I strongly recommend chastity education. Sex education? The most charitable thing I can say about it is, be very suspicious of it!
There’s no doubt that we, in general, feel the great need to educate everyone, especially the young ones, on the nature, meaning and purpose of our human sexuality.
Current developments in the world, driven by the wonders of information technology, infuse this need with urgency. These have not served to dull people’s sexual appetites. Rather they tend to stimulate them, or at least to stir them.
As usual many feel they are at the mercy of their sexual urges, with hardly any effective means to dominate them. Their wills have been weakened and perverted, their passions constantly abused, their bodies debased.
And a corresponding culture of distorted sexuality is emerging worldwide. We cannot simply dismiss this sad phenomenon as an unavoidable part of development. That’s a myth. It’s a great responsibility to do something about this.
Things are so bad that the cover of decency is thinning rapidly. Aberrations in this area are now being flaunted even by our celebrities. Many young people enter adulthood with this aspect of their life already compromised.
In the face of all this, it’s puzzling why sex education, touted to be “highly informative” but notoriously morally blind, is promoted. As a solution, it does not go deep enough.
On the contrary, it tends to aggravate things, as evidenced in many countries. In these places, safe sex techniques have not diminished but rather increased the cases of infidelity, promiscuity, pre- and extra-marital sex.
Sex education misses the crux of the matter. It’s merely cosmetic, merely
prophylactic. It is keyed to the sensible aspect of our sexuality, and aimed at the practical, not moral, management of it. It treats men and women as objects, not as persons.
Without the spiritual and moral grounding, sex education tends to make our sexuality a very fertile breeding ground for other irregularities to develop, as deceit, hypocrisy, etc., thrive in it.
What is needed is an honest to goodness training in chastity!
Chastity education is more about virtues rather than about techniques. It focuses more on the maturation of the person himself rather than on data and info meant to help us derive the most practical benefits of our sexuality.
It goes beyond the merely physical, biological or hormonal. It goes much further than making psychological or sociological considerations. It enters the world of one’s heart and soul, and purifies them.
Chastity education is more about love, about self-giving and making sacrifices, rather than just “self-pleasuring.” In the language of Pope Benedict’s “Deus caritas est,” this type of education brings sex as “eros” to its perfect form of “agape.”
Chastity education links human sexuality to right reason, then to our faith. It integrates our sexuality to our true dignity not only as persons but also as children of God. It involves a certain spirituality, more than just a life style.
Chastity education is done more at homes rather than in schools, more between fathers and sons, or mothers and daughters, than between teachers and students. It’s more a personalized conversation rather than indiscriminate classroom lecture.
We have to help everyone, especially the parents, to be properly equipped to handle this kind of education. Where the parents are wanting, then by the law of subsidiarity, higher institutions like schools, governments, Church, etc., have to help.
We certainly need to explode many myths related to chastity education. Like, some irregular sexual practices are allowable since they are part of growing up. Or that we can expose teeners to things like pornography, etc., so as to immunize them.
We have to be clear that chastity is a matter of love for God with the corresponding love for others. The objective content of this kind of love has to be known. But more important is the formation of solid attitudes, practices and virtues.
Chastity is a matter of how ardent one’s love for God and others is.
There’s no doubt that we, in general, feel the great need to educate everyone, especially the young ones, on the nature, meaning and purpose of our human sexuality.
Current developments in the world, driven by the wonders of information technology, infuse this need with urgency. These have not served to dull people’s sexual appetites. Rather they tend to stimulate them, or at least to stir them.
As usual many feel they are at the mercy of their sexual urges, with hardly any effective means to dominate them. Their wills have been weakened and perverted, their passions constantly abused, their bodies debased.
And a corresponding culture of distorted sexuality is emerging worldwide. We cannot simply dismiss this sad phenomenon as an unavoidable part of development. That’s a myth. It’s a great responsibility to do something about this.
Things are so bad that the cover of decency is thinning rapidly. Aberrations in this area are now being flaunted even by our celebrities. Many young people enter adulthood with this aspect of their life already compromised.
In the face of all this, it’s puzzling why sex education, touted to be “highly informative” but notoriously morally blind, is promoted. As a solution, it does not go deep enough.
On the contrary, it tends to aggravate things, as evidenced in many countries. In these places, safe sex techniques have not diminished but rather increased the cases of infidelity, promiscuity, pre- and extra-marital sex.
Sex education misses the crux of the matter. It’s merely cosmetic, merely
prophylactic. It is keyed to the sensible aspect of our sexuality, and aimed at the practical, not moral, management of it. It treats men and women as objects, not as persons.
Without the spiritual and moral grounding, sex education tends to make our sexuality a very fertile breeding ground for other irregularities to develop, as deceit, hypocrisy, etc., thrive in it.
What is needed is an honest to goodness training in chastity!
Chastity education is more about virtues rather than about techniques. It focuses more on the maturation of the person himself rather than on data and info meant to help us derive the most practical benefits of our sexuality.
It goes beyond the merely physical, biological or hormonal. It goes much further than making psychological or sociological considerations. It enters the world of one’s heart and soul, and purifies them.
Chastity education is more about love, about self-giving and making sacrifices, rather than just “self-pleasuring.” In the language of Pope Benedict’s “Deus caritas est,” this type of education brings sex as “eros” to its perfect form of “agape.”
Chastity education links human sexuality to right reason, then to our faith. It integrates our sexuality to our true dignity not only as persons but also as children of God. It involves a certain spirituality, more than just a life style.
Chastity education is done more at homes rather than in schools, more between fathers and sons, or mothers and daughters, than between teachers and students. It’s more a personalized conversation rather than indiscriminate classroom lecture.
We have to help everyone, especially the parents, to be properly equipped to handle this kind of education. Where the parents are wanting, then by the law of subsidiarity, higher institutions like schools, governments, Church, etc., have to help.
We certainly need to explode many myths related to chastity education. Like, some irregular sexual practices are allowable since they are part of growing up. Or that we can expose teeners to things like pornography, etc., so as to immunize them.
We have to be clear that chastity is a matter of love for God with the corresponding love for others. The objective content of this kind of love has to be known. But more important is the formation of solid attitudes, practices and virtues.
Chastity is a matter of how ardent one’s love for God and others is.
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