I WAS happy to have been invited to give a talk to youth
leaders of the Cebu Archdiocese the other day. I was asked to talk
about "Communication, Media and Catechesis." I immediately thought
that it was a good occasion to encourage these young ones to get more
involved in what I term as the apostolate of public opinion.
I was happy to note that they actually wanted to do more
than just teach catechism to parochial children, but they did not know
how. Without disparaging the parish-based catechism classes, I gave
them ideas along the line of going beyond preaching to the choir and
reaching out to those who are a bit far from the Church and religion
in general.
I told them about the new Areopagi in the form of the new
technologies and of what possibilities these can offer them. But
obviously, I reminded that all these endeavors should be grounded on a
working spiritual life where piety and doctrinal formation should
continue to grow.
I told them to develop a keen interest in the goings-on of
society and the country in general as reflected in the media that now
includes the social media in the Internet. They ought to know the
issues, especially those with strong spiritual and moral implications,
and the different resources they can use to positively contribute in
clarifying those issues.
I encouraged them to be broad-minded so they can
participate in a meaningful discussion of the issues. This can mean
the ability to apply the catechetical points to the issues involved,
knowing how to make the necessary adaptations without compromising the
doctrine of the faith. This will require some special training, and of
course, the grace of God.
I cautioned them to be prudent and always positive in
their approach, but also sharply aware of the usual dangers. They have
to learn to hold their horses, especially when the topic becomes
contentious, and to do a lot of self-deliberation, that should include
prayer and study, before they open their mouth or take the pen.
There were actually many other things I told them, but I
focused more on the need for them to always be charitable in their
interventions in the media. This is where I told them about the need
to distinguish between good and bad exclusivity that the pursuit of
truth would inevitably involve.
With so many hot-button issues nowadays, it’s important to
know that the exclusivity of truth does not degenerate into bigotry,
narrow-mindedness, bitter zeal and self-righteousness. These, sad to
say, are the common subtle anomalies that many so-called ‘good people’
succumb to.
A good exclusivity of truth will always search, uphold and
defend the truth in charity with all the other virtues that charity
would engender. It practises the charity of Christ. A bad exclusivity
will do it without charity and would rather stick to its own version
of truth. It is a rather subjective kind of truth that is searched,
upheld and defended.
A good exclusivity knows how to be patient and kind in its
expressions. It is willing to suffer for the truth. A bad one is
rather impatient and tends to impose its idea of truth on others. It
prefers for truth to suffer for them.
A good exclusivity will know how to understand those who
differ from its position and will do everything to clarify itself. A
bad one can hardly stand opposition and is more interested in scoring
points. It likes to be triumphalistic.
A good exclusivity knows that views are not simply
intellectual affairs, but involve at the end of the day the whole
person. It is more interested in the person than in the ideas. It's
more interested in charity than in correctness and winning an
argument. A bad one is often stuck with ideas alone and the person is
considered secondary and dispensable.
A good exclusivity captures the spirit once articulated by
St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians. “Let no evil talk come out of
your mouths,” he said, “but only such as is good for edifying, as fits
the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear...Let all
bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from
you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (4,29-32)
A good exclusivity would simply drown evil with an
abundance of good. It's more into proclaiming the Good News than into
entering into debates. But it's not afraid to suffer.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Why don’t our bright boys get it?
IT’S a question whose answer I really
do not know. I guess
one has to plumb deep into the hearts of the people concerned to get a
glimpse of the reason.
I’m referring to why, in spite of all the explanations on
the subject given by the Church magisterium, even highly placed
priest-professors in seminaries and other ecclesiastical centers of
learning do not understand the true nature and role of conscience in
our life.
It would be very easy to brand them as incorrigible
modernists and relativists whose congenital defect is their
overpowering self-confidence that they hold the ultimate key to the
answers of our faith’s mysteries and moral questions. But that, I’m
afraid, would still be off the mark.
By the way, they seem to be quite a number of them
dangerously lodged in these formation centers, giving rise to fears
that the training of our future priests and other religious men and
women could be seriously compromised.
In many published papers and commentaries, posted even in
the Internet, they affirm that conscience is our ultimate arbiter to
know what is right and wrong in our actions.
They can go so far as to admit that we can consider and
make inputs from other sources, even from the Church teaching, but in
the end, it’s our conscience that makes our actions moral or immoral.
They understand conscience not only as the ultimate judge
of the moral quality of our actions. It is also an independent and
supreme judge who makes its judgments alone and no authority can
question it. That’s how they understand the freedom of conscience.
In this set-up, it would seem that even God has to defer
to the judgment of one’s conscience. As to the Church authority over
it, one better has to forget it. In their mind, our conscience is
supreme and infallible.
Thus, they tend to flaunt the reasoning that in spite of
how wrong their action is if judged according to Church-taught moral
principles, they still would feel it was right, if it’s their
conscience that said so. No question can be asked, period. You have
reached the end of the line!
This is really strange, because ever since I became aware
of the existence of conscience, I always understood it as a judgment I
make about the morality of my actions according to a law that is not
mine. It’s a law written in my heart, definitely not by me, but by
someone else.
Later, I was convinced that this law must have come from
my creator, God. I understood conscience as a judgment I make always
with God, no matter how poorly I perceive him. It can never be a
judgment arrived at by my lonesome self.
Everything tells me I do not and cannot live alone, by
myself, though I can foolishly think that I am alone, which sadly
happens from time to time. Objectively, and irrespective of whether we
are aware of it or not, we are always into some relationship. That’s
how I understand my life or anybody’s life to be.
Thus, I was happy to learn years later on that the
Catechism, for example, upholds this childhood insight of mine just as
it is the insight of many others. Some relevant points could be the
following:
* 1776 – “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law
which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its
voice…sounds in his heart at the right moment… For man has in his
heart a law inscribed by God.”
* 1779 – “Return to your conscience, question it… Turn
inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness.”
(St. Augustine)
* 1795 – “Conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary.
There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” (Gaudium
et spes 16)
I suppose with this understanding of conscience, what we
have to do is to improve our sensitivity to discern God’s presence,
praying, developing the virtues, mastering Christian doctrine taught
by the Church, etc.
These will improve our most important, basic and
pattern-forming relationship with God and our skill to apply his law
to our actions. We have to do everything to insure that we always
pursue this ideal.
We have to be wary with our tendency to just
intellectualize our understanding of conscience, which can give us
impressive but not life-transforming lights, since it is detached from
the true and ultimate Light.
This is the usual Achilles’ heel of our bright boys.
one has to plumb deep into the hearts of the people concerned to get a
glimpse of the reason.
I’m referring to why, in spite of all the explanations on
the subject given by the Church magisterium, even highly placed
priest-professors in seminaries and other ecclesiastical centers of
learning do not understand the true nature and role of conscience in
our life.
It would be very easy to brand them as incorrigible
modernists and relativists whose congenital defect is their
overpowering self-confidence that they hold the ultimate key to the
answers of our faith’s mysteries and moral questions. But that, I’m
afraid, would still be off the mark.
By the way, they seem to be quite a number of them
dangerously lodged in these formation centers, giving rise to fears
that the training of our future priests and other religious men and
women could be seriously compromised.
In many published papers and commentaries, posted even in
the Internet, they affirm that conscience is our ultimate arbiter to
know what is right and wrong in our actions.
They can go so far as to admit that we can consider and
make inputs from other sources, even from the Church teaching, but in
the end, it’s our conscience that makes our actions moral or immoral.
They understand conscience not only as the ultimate judge
of the moral quality of our actions. It is also an independent and
supreme judge who makes its judgments alone and no authority can
question it. That’s how they understand the freedom of conscience.
In this set-up, it would seem that even God has to defer
to the judgment of one’s conscience. As to the Church authority over
it, one better has to forget it. In their mind, our conscience is
supreme and infallible.
Thus, they tend to flaunt the reasoning that in spite of
how wrong their action is if judged according to Church-taught moral
principles, they still would feel it was right, if it’s their
conscience that said so. No question can be asked, period. You have
reached the end of the line!
This is really strange, because ever since I became aware
of the existence of conscience, I always understood it as a judgment I
make about the morality of my actions according to a law that is not
mine. It’s a law written in my heart, definitely not by me, but by
someone else.
Later, I was convinced that this law must have come from
my creator, God. I understood conscience as a judgment I make always
with God, no matter how poorly I perceive him. It can never be a
judgment arrived at by my lonesome self.
Everything tells me I do not and cannot live alone, by
myself, though I can foolishly think that I am alone, which sadly
happens from time to time. Objectively, and irrespective of whether we
are aware of it or not, we are always into some relationship. That’s
how I understand my life or anybody’s life to be.
Thus, I was happy to learn years later on that the
Catechism, for example, upholds this childhood insight of mine just as
it is the insight of many others. Some relevant points could be the
following:
* 1776 – “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law
which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its
voice…sounds in his heart at the right moment… For man has in his
heart a law inscribed by God.”
* 1779 – “Return to your conscience, question it… Turn
inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness.”
(St. Augustine)
* 1795 – “Conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary.
There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” (Gaudium
et spes 16)
I suppose with this understanding of conscience, what we
have to do is to improve our sensitivity to discern God’s presence,
praying, developing the virtues, mastering Christian doctrine taught
by the Church, etc.
These will improve our most important, basic and
pattern-forming relationship with God and our skill to apply his law
to our actions. We have to do everything to insure that we always
pursue this ideal.
We have to be wary with our tendency to just
intellectualize our understanding of conscience, which can give us
impressive but not life-transforming lights, since it is detached from
the true and ultimate Light.
This is the usual Achilles’ heel of our bright boys.
Saturday, September 17, 2016
Be spiritual not carnal
THAT’S the ideal that we should aim
at. And let’s help
one another to be spiritual and not just carnal. It’s not a matter of
suppressing our sensual, material and earthly condition, but rather of
going beyond that level. That’s where the road to the fullness of
humanity can be found. That’s where we are freed from the constricting
world of our senses, emotions and passions.
St. Paul said something to this effect. “Put off your old
nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt
through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true
righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4,22-24)
In another instance, St. Paul talked about talking or
preaching in a spiritual way and not just according to human and
worldly wisdom. “My message and my preaching,” he said, “were not with
wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s
power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s
power.” (1 Cor 2,4-5)
More clearly, he said: “We speak, not in words taught us
by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining
spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.” (1 Cor 2,13)
This is a big challenge for us all. We have to learn to
think, speak and act in a spiritual way, and not just mainly
conditioned by our sensual, material and worldly aspects.
When we see a person, thing or event, we should not get
stuck in knowing their physical appearance or external characteristics
alone. We should go beyond them, discerning the spirit that animates
them. In this we have to train ourselves endlessly. We need to check
if the spirit behind them is of God or not.
In this, we have received enough warnings from Sacred
Scripture. “Beloved,” St. John, for example, in his first letter tells
us, “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether
they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the
world.” (Jn 4,1)
There are many kinds of spirits roaming around the world,
and we have to learn how to discern them. There is the spirit of God,
the spirit of Christ as opposed to the antichrist. There is also the
evil spirit, and the spirit of the world that is dominated by the evil
one.
St. Paul distinguished between the fruits of the Spirit of
God and the works of the flesh dominated by the evil spirit. The
former include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (cfr Gal 5,22-23)
The latter include fornication, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness,
dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing. (cfr Gal
5,19-21)
We have to learn to walk in the Spirit rather than to walk
in the flesh. We have to train ourselves to think, speak and act in
terms of our faith, and in intimate relationship with God and the
saints. This is always possible and very doable.
Since we are made of flesh and spirit, we have to learn
how to deal with these constitutive elements of ours, respecting their
nature and character, observing the proper hierarchy between them, and
grounding and orienting them properly.
The learning process may take a lot of time and effort,
but it will all be worthwhile. We just have to proceed with it no
matter what the costs. Setbacks and failures should not discourage us,
but rather spur us to get closer to God and to begin again.
Our problem is that even among those who are supposed to
be ¨spiritual¨ already because of their status in life—like priests
and others supposedly active in Church affairs—there is so much
ignorance, confusion, error, incompetence, inconsistency, pretension,
hypocrisy, laziness, complacency in this regard.
We need to develop a working spirituality that would have
a kind of mechanism, embedded into our personal system, that
continually addresses the dangers all of us are exposed to and even
prone to, like lust, greed, pride, rash judgments, etc.
To achieve this spirituality, we have to devise a
realistic plan of spiritual life, consisting of practices of piety,
well-defined yet flexible to varying circumstances, that would help us
at least to stay in touch with God even as we get immersed in the
things of the world.
We need to be always in the presence of God, ever quick to
discern his will and ways every moment of our life. This is how we can
be spiritual and not just carnal.
one another to be spiritual and not just carnal. It’s not a matter of
suppressing our sensual, material and earthly condition, but rather of
going beyond that level. That’s where the road to the fullness of
humanity can be found. That’s where we are freed from the constricting
world of our senses, emotions and passions.
St. Paul said something to this effect. “Put off your old
nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt
through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true
righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4,22-24)
In another instance, St. Paul talked about talking or
preaching in a spiritual way and not just according to human and
worldly wisdom. “My message and my preaching,” he said, “were not with
wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s
power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s
power.” (1 Cor 2,4-5)
More clearly, he said: “We speak, not in words taught us
by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining
spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.” (1 Cor 2,13)
This is a big challenge for us all. We have to learn to
think, speak and act in a spiritual way, and not just mainly
conditioned by our sensual, material and worldly aspects.
When we see a person, thing or event, we should not get
stuck in knowing their physical appearance or external characteristics
alone. We should go beyond them, discerning the spirit that animates
them. In this we have to train ourselves endlessly. We need to check
if the spirit behind them is of God or not.
In this, we have received enough warnings from Sacred
Scripture. “Beloved,” St. John, for example, in his first letter tells
us, “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether
they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the
world.” (Jn 4,1)
There are many kinds of spirits roaming around the world,
and we have to learn how to discern them. There is the spirit of God,
the spirit of Christ as opposed to the antichrist. There is also the
evil spirit, and the spirit of the world that is dominated by the evil
one.
St. Paul distinguished between the fruits of the Spirit of
God and the works of the flesh dominated by the evil spirit. The
former include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. (cfr Gal 5,22-23)
The latter include fornication, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness,
dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing. (cfr Gal
5,19-21)
We have to learn to walk in the Spirit rather than to walk
in the flesh. We have to train ourselves to think, speak and act in
terms of our faith, and in intimate relationship with God and the
saints. This is always possible and very doable.
Since we are made of flesh and spirit, we have to learn
how to deal with these constitutive elements of ours, respecting their
nature and character, observing the proper hierarchy between them, and
grounding and orienting them properly.
The learning process may take a lot of time and effort,
but it will all be worthwhile. We just have to proceed with it no
matter what the costs. Setbacks and failures should not discourage us,
but rather spur us to get closer to God and to begin again.
Our problem is that even among those who are supposed to
be ¨spiritual¨ already because of their status in life—like priests
and others supposedly active in Church affairs—there is so much
ignorance, confusion, error, incompetence, inconsistency, pretension,
hypocrisy, laziness, complacency in this regard.
We need to develop a working spirituality that would have
a kind of mechanism, embedded into our personal system, that
continually addresses the dangers all of us are exposed to and even
prone to, like lust, greed, pride, rash judgments, etc.
To achieve this spirituality, we have to devise a
realistic plan of spiritual life, consisting of practices of piety,
well-defined yet flexible to varying circumstances, that would help us
at least to stay in touch with God even as we get immersed in the
things of the world.
We need to be always in the presence of God, ever quick to
discern his will and ways every moment of our life. This is how we can
be spiritual and not just carnal.
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