Ascende Superius!

FORZA! SEMPRE AVANTI CON DON BOSCO!

2011-04-05T13:12:00.000+08:00

N.B. The following is a talk I gave to graduates of Don Bosco College in Canlubang during their recent Commencement Exercises last April 2, 2011

It feels good to be back.

This is a place that shaped me to be what and who I am. This is a school that moulded me, and, by God’s grace, a home that I also helped develop over the many years I was here – all told, a total of 20 years of my life!

I came here as a wide-eyed college freshman back in 1972, when the South Luzon tollway was yet on the drawing board. Back then, from everywhere we stood in campus, we could see untrammeled, three distinct and unmistakable landmarks that told us we were in beloved Canlubang – the slopes of Mt. Makiling in the east, the horned peak of Mt. Sungay in the west, and the signature smoke stacks of the then enviable, remarkable, and at one and the same time, rustic, yet progressive, Canlubang Sugar Estate.

The Philippines then, and its system of education, was the envy of the rest of our Asian neighbors. A significant number of their citizens flocked to our universities to get a solid education in all imaginable fields. When I left Canlubang in 1979, for Theological studies, the South Luzon expressway was then in full operation, and whilst our educational system still could make a few of our Southeast Asian neighbors’ heads turn, things were starting to take a back seat to a highly politicized people whose tolerance for a heavy-handed and authoritarian regime, was running low.

I came back here in 1983, after four years of theological studies, an emaciated but enthusiastic young priest, who would rather be doing ministry anywhere else but in Canlubang. The economy was in disarray. The political scene was beginning to crumble. We hit rock bottom when Ninoy Aquino, on whom the whole nation pinned her hopes for better governance, was assassinated. That was the time when we were at our worst, and at our best. The economy was on a tailspin dive. Money was hard to come by, and imports dwindled to a trickle. But, true to our form as a resilient people, we rose to the occasion, and made miracles out of whatever precious little we could come up with. The lowly lugaw became dish extraordinaire to savor with relish, and fill growling stomachs. A variety of street food the likes of which my generation would never have dreamt of, nor imagined as children, became fare de rigueur: isaw, IUD, day-old chicks fried to a crisp and dipped in bright orange batter, adidas, and helmet, and the now all-time favorite, tokwa’t baboy.

We became creative in many aspects of our lives, from gustatory delights made from stuff that no self-respecting chef anywhere in the world would dare even touch, to hand-me-down right-hand drive vehicles that were converted in no time to run on pothole-ridden streets all over the country, to making fun of the powers-that-be through rhyme or rhythm, drama or dance. We registered our protest in music and mime, and made known our dissatisfaction with government in poetry and prose, by means fair or foul, in every imaginable way. We definitely suffered as a people. But we thrived. We flourished in circumstances where others of weaker fiber, would probably have perished.

At the lowest point in our civil lives, we rose in the estimation of the whole world. We made history as a people in 1986, precisely when we were in the nadir of our collective experience of oppression and injustice. We were at our best when we thought we were at our worst. We came up with the ultimate wonder that shocked and awed the whole world, a miracle that could not have happened without intervention from above. It was indeed, as the popular song goes, a great “handog ng Pilipino sa mundo” a gift of the Filipino people to the world.

But further tests and trials came our way. We could not handle success. We did not know what to do with newfound freedom. Just when we were poised to take off and once more take our rightful place under the sun of respected, developing and developed nations, we shot ourselves in the foot. Not once. Not twice, but many times over. We learned the art of making coup d’etat. We almost became a banana republic. But then again, some enterprising guy made use of that concept, turned it around, and capitalized on it by selling apparel appropriately named – what else? – but Banana Republic!

We found solace in humor. We rolled on the floor with national dignity and poise intact, laughing at ourselves. Congressman Manhik-Manaog became a familiar figure in our households. The face and the person behind those infamous three thousand pairs of shoes became object of endless satire and subtle – but always funny – innuendoes. We laughed when we were angry. We laughed even when our government was almost down on her knees one fine day of December 1989, when two US Phantom jets had to do what they called persuasion flights in order to send the dog of rebellion away, with tail tucked between its legs.

And it was not funny at all. We knew that. People were dying for nothing, some of them hit by stray bullets, because they were laughing their way through the lines of battle, giving silly victory signs to media people from all over the world.

We were so taken up with what they call a healthy sense of humor. Yes, probably therapists were right in talking about the uncanny ability of us Pinoys to laugh endlessly at our own foibles.

But on hindsight, even as we laughed and guffawed our way to mental health, we might have missed out on a whole lot of other things. We were growing immune to emerging national problems, and getting used to shooting ourselves in the foot once too often. Liberal mainstream media came out to entertain us, to inform us, and, I might add, to dehumanize us. TV Patrol took news reporting to a whole new level. Without us realizing, that prime time bit of tabloid entertainment masquerading as news began to set the tone followed by the other network, and recently followed by a third emerging media giant, all three specializing in doling out what is passed off as news - editorialized, biting against those who are not on their side, and definitely biased. As we made minced meat of the shenanigans of public figures through laughter, we missed out on so many more important issues, and we woke up one morning realizing that, first, we had no safety nets to cushion the runaway population growth and the concomitant swelling ranks of half educated graduates who had no jobs to look forward to. Second, our hearts sank in disbelief and denial realizing that the envied educational system of yore, has turned into yarn, or has become mere urban legend. Would-be lawyers who were graduates of the best law schools of the land could not pass the bar exams because of their atrocious English. They did not understand the questions, so how were they expected to give answers? Up till now, I still am of the opinion that not all of us have fully realized that the demons we fought so hard for, and laughed about and against, prior to 1986 are now back with a vengeance, or that most probably, they actually had never left at all. Hydra-headed corruption, institutionalized and deeply embedded in all aspects of our private and public social institutions, including schools, from the national government down to the lowly, but lucrative barangay offices, has actually not disappeared, but merely temporarily retreated until the coast was cleared. It rose to prominence when we let down our guard. As we laughed, it quietly took root. Even as we protested quietly, it careened out of anyone’s control. First, we thought it was only Customs or BIR that was involved. Then, before we knew it, it was the Bureau of Immigration, too; the LTO, and the AFP. The standing joke right now, as you know, is that the best business school in the world as of this time is not Wharton School of Business, but the PMA, where honor, integrity, loyalty are good only for photo ops during graduation. Now, it is all part of what Jun Lozada popularized simply as “kalakaran,” from the NAIA, to NIA; from SUCs to LGUs. We realized that, for all the efforts, hopes, and pleadings we put into getting up two historical EDSA revolts, it only takes four short years for a greedy AFP general to quietly stash hundreds of millions of pesos, and buy some ten houses somewhere in their favorite vacation and shopping place, the great United States of America, with plenty of cash to spare for relatives and friends back home.

But now, back to my story about Canlubang and me. Ten years into my priesthood, fresh from studies in the eternal city, I was back here in Canlubang in 1992. There were more seminarians than the facilities could handle. The College was getting to become close to impossible to run as a College should be run, what with the sore lack of funds to keep the enterprise of quality education going. Problems ranged from dealing with the daily hours-long "brown-outs" (power outages) to looking for decent plates, cups, and saucers, and study desks and chairs, the sore lack of which almost made college and seminary life look more like they were on perpetual camping mode with very little study on the side.

Problems had a name ... Legion ... and my having just planed in then from affluent Western Europe and USA didn't help any with my creeping sense of despondency and depression. Buildings and facilities were run-down. Cow manure littered the whole place, including the corridors. Praying the rosary while walking up and down campus was a little like playing Russian Roulette. Every evening promised to be full of surprises. And quite unlike Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, "you never knew what you were gonna git," it was just a matter of minutes before the smell of freshly stepped on manure, would waft through the air, signaling that some unfortunate soul had stepped on some mine that was definitely not gold, but something that would goad you into running for the nearest faucet for a good foot bath.

I would like to stop here ... Yes! and no, ... I am not referring to my talk, but what I mean is to stop giving you all a litany of woes.

Why do I tell you this story, you might wonder? It is simply this ... I have a story to tell and it is not about me, but about you all ...

But first, let me begin with a story within a story ... It is a story of a man named Richard Rich. In Robert Bolt's moving play "A Man for All Seasons," Richard Rich was a promising and ambitious young man who happened to cross paths with the great Thomas More. Focused on his goals, Richard, who saw an opportunity of a lifetime, petitioned the Chancellor Thomas More to give him a position among the gliteratti of King Henry VIII's court. "I can offer you no position as a courtier, but only one as teacher," the saint answered the young man. Rich was crestfallen. To lift up his spirits a bit, More rejoined: "You will make for a good teacher." The ambitious young man then asked him, "And if I were, who would know it?" He did not want to be a nobody. He wanted to make it big and be somebody. Sometime later in the moving story, after More had done him a favor by giving him a gift of a golden goblet which the saint refused to use, thinking that it had been given to him as a bribe. Richard Rich accepted it, and later perjured himself, betrayed his benefactor and mentor, testified against him for the trumped up crime of bribery, in exchange for being a collector of tax revenues for Wales, and effectively sent the saint to death in the gallows. He made it big alright, but at the expense of a man who knew what it meant to live with honor and integrity.

This is a story within a bigger story that I want to share with you today, especially the graduates.

This is the story of Don Bosco College, Canlubang and a great deal of the graduates that she has produced since 1963, and the people who formed them ... a story of simplicity and quiet dedication to things that people wouldn't even know about. This is the story told by so many individuals who were the exact antithesis of the likes of Richard Rich and his ilk, who had focus, but no refinement; goals, but no vision; ambition but no dedication; achievement but no honor and integrity.

This is the story of Father Joseph Carreno, who, together with the likes of Father Carlo Braga, and the selfless generosity of the late Don Jose Yulo, Sr. saw beyond the seeming lack of promise and prosperity in the sugar cane studded fields out in the boonies of Laguna, and invested their time, treasure and talent, and a lot of courage and hope to lay the foundations of a college you chose to enroll in.

Father Joseph Carreno, educated beyond my capabilities, learned beyond compare, a mathematician, a polyglot, a scientist, and so many other things all rolled into one, left a very successful mission in far flung India to lay the cornerstone of a dream that was Don Bosco College. Quite unlike the ambitious Rich in Bolt's play, he died relatively unknown, uncelebrated, perhaps even unappreciated in his native Spain. He worked hard for others, but did not work hard at getting a name for himself.

This is a story about the likes, too, of Fr. Alfred G. Cogliandro, founder, builder, photographer, preacher par excellence, spiritual director and leader. Having spent so many years in Italy, India, and the United States, he saw the best and the worst of both worlds. He was at home in plenty, and even more so at home in situations of want. He had a vision, and little ambition. He lived and worked quietly, simply, faithfully all the way till the last days of his earthly life till he died September 11, 1992.

This is the story of Father John Monchiero. He was a Jack-of-all trades. He was a farmer, a pastor, a confessor, a self-styled chemist, and a social worker. As Director of RI, he was the lifeline of many a poor family in Buntog, Mabato, Mangumit, Kasile and many other far-flung barrios. He would buy their meager vegetable harvest, for they had no way of taking them down to market. He helped many sick people earn back their health and regain their self-respect. His simplicity is summed up by his motto which we found attached to his bed: "Ask for nothing. Refuse nothing. Expect nothing. Be satisfied if they tolerate you."

This is the story of Fr. George Schwarz, a scientist, a confessor, a builder, a total educator. Hundreds of millions passed through his hands. When he died, he had nothing more than a few shirts, a few pairs of pants, and a few threadbare cassocks in his possession.

This is the story of Jomar Forcadilla, Noel Caibiran, Jovito Soberano and everyone they stood for ... No one, then and now, would know it. No one would probably care anymore. But theirs is a story of simple and quiet personal transformation. They all died in their prime, but they died as they lived ... simple and unassuming.

But this, too, is the story of a great many of the graduates of this college since 1963. The great majority of us are not known and definitely not adulated. We don't make it to the headlines, and we don't hog primetime TV like that boorish yet immensely popular guy of Wowowee notoriety. We are not matinee idols and most of us would not attract second glances at any event.

But ours is a story of simple and silent transformation ... of ourselves, and of the places that are blest and enriched with our presence. We have graduates who live and work in the US; graduates who find themselves in Western Europe, South America, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea, China, Japan, the Middle Eastern countries, Australia, New Zealand, and many others in more than 140 countries all over the world. They do everything one can imagine. Most are teachers and educators like me. A few who sort of “fell along the way,” five of them to be exact, are Bishops serving not only here, but abroad. A great many are lowly machinists and machine operators who take pride in their work. But almost all are engaged in what Don Bosco College has trained most of us for, and hopefully, you too, and that is, engage the world in a constructive interaction for quiet transformation and social change. Even now, the magic of social networking sites show me almost on a daily basis what good so many Bosconians from Canlubang have done, and are doing quietly, in their little corner of the world.

This is the unfolding story of bloggers, of accomplished writers in their own right, ordinary workers and employees, teachers, managers, or successful entrepreneurs who tell the world about what they have learned from the school of St. John Bosco. As a former student, teacher, formator, leader, administrator and pastor myself in this august institution, I can tell you that there is nothing sweeter than to hear former students give us back what they learned from us, or heard us say, all done in the spirit of gratitude and simple delight.

But this story is an ongoing one. It is by no means finished yet. And today, as I tell you some bits and pieces of this ongoing saga, I would like to offer a word of caution.

We live in a world saturated by conflicting and contrasting stories. Whilst we have, and can recount stories of selfless quiet heroism, we do live in a postmodern world, which, according to Elaine Robinson, is filled with the contours of hopelessness. The mainstream world of mass media is never wanting of wicked stories of exploitation, abuse, and dehumanization. The so-called "media moment" dominates our waking thoughts, and inundates our subconscious. The precious little young people can now get from education in a catholic school such as ours, is effectively canceled out by crass materialism, hedonism, and what Fr. Rolheiser refers to as “unbridled restlessness.”

Back in 1986, I was here. And so were some of you who are here now, including your most capable Dean of College. I was in tears when, just a few days prior to the four fateful and faith-filled days of February, I had to be sent on exile for doing what I thought was the best then, help the best way I knew how, to engage the world around me in quiet transformation. Forbidden to leave my post, but raring to join the millions who braved hunger and the very real possibility of their lives being snuffed out by the big guns out there in EDSA, I kept tearful vigil listening all day and all night to Radyo Bandido. Fast forward to 1989 ... at an early December late afternoon, atop my perch at the antenna tower of Don Bosco in Mandaluyong, as I saw the Tora-Tora planes pulverize Camp Aguinaldo, again, like the cry-baby that I had always been, I was in tears, grieving for a country brought down to its knees, and set back by another decade, poised as it was to take off, and join the league of respectable nations. Again, fast forward to the year 2000 ... I was fuming mad in my office here in Canlubang, as I saw the now infamous non-opening of that sealed envelope. As I was wiping away tears, I called for a quick prayer service and gathered a little crowd of students and families from around Ceris, Canlubang, and Mayapa. After the rosary, I told the little flock: "Something big will happen later this evening. We have to be prepared to do something." That very evening, I mobilized this little flock and went to EDSA. And I am proud to tell you, that we were among the first few people that got to EDSA. And as you all know by now, the crowd swelled to hundreds of thousands within a few hours.

The story goes on. I came not just to tell you snippets of it. I accepted the invitation to challenge everyone who has spent many years internalizing the school motto that we set in place way back in 1993, AD MAIORA NATUS.

The story is ongoing because it is a story still being written by others who, like me, follow the footsteps of giants like Fr. Carreno, Fr. Cogliandro, Fr. Monchiero, Fr. Schwarz, and everyone else I mentioned, and many more I choose not to mention. It is a story which I definitely hope would have some consistency and continuity further down the road, egged on by respect for history and tradition, spurred on by the spirit that originally inspired the founders of this institution.

It is a story that I challenge everyone of you now graduating to continue on writing, if needed, with blood, sweat, and tears, as those who came before you did.

The world as we know it now is deeply mired in everything that is not life. Life disabling events continue to barrage our daily lives, and life-enabling leaders are few and far between. The landscape of our lives is characterized, like Robinson says, with the unmistakable contours of hopelessness. Millions of Filipinos cheered, and clapped, and laughed as Jan-Jan, the little boy of 6, was being subjected to a degrading, dehumanizing, and life disabling ridicule as he “macho-danced” and shed tears before what appeared to me like Roman crowds of old, lusting and thirsting for blood in the cruel circus of life as we now know it. The Wowowee or Willing-wili culture has taken hold of the national psyche of the Filipino, to our national shame, and, the worst part of it is, no one seems to be bothered anymore.

This is a story that I challenge you, even beg you, to write. Just recently, I was saddened to have noted that, at least one company around Canlubang has banned Bosconians from ever being employed therein. Reason? Some alumni were involved in pilferage and falsification of inventory records.

I could go on and on. The fact that it almost took ten years since I left Canlubang for me to be officially invited to do something like this does not help me any right now. I have a lot to share. As an educator, poor copy though I am, of the giants I talked to you about, I do take my role seriously. And this is where I go personal, and, with your indulgence, a little theological.

Your theme could not have been better chosen, GRACED BY HIS VISIT, SPURRED BY HIS SPIRIT. Don Bosco’s sacred relics just paid you a historical and monumental visit. The saint, the man, the father and teacher of youth, is credited with setting into motion a whole slew of everything you can think of to transform culture on a grand scale. In his humble and seemingly little ways, he spurred the young to do ordinary things extraordinarily well. He engaged the world of his time and place in a mutually interactive mode that led gradually to social transformation and personal change. The places he visited in his life, the people he interacted with, powerful and powerless alike, rich and poor, educated or not educated, felt graced, empowered, & enabled. But all those who felt graced and empowered, were also eventually spurred on, goaded on, and encouraged to do likewise. And the remarkable thing about all those who followed him and were spurred on by his spirit, was that they were all simple and humble folks, ordinary people like you and me, but called to do extraordinary things.

Richard Rich, for all his naked ambition, did make it big up there. But he was no more than a hated tax collector. He was nothing more than a person with a pusilla anima, a small insignificant soul. Fr. Carreno was a giant, a soul that can only be described as magna anima, magnanimous in his dreams for others, magnanimous in his work as genius, magnanimous in his gift of himself as formator, teacher, writer, father, and friend, par excellence. Ad maiora natus was the spirit that spurred him on, the same spirit that led all the others I mentioned to heights albeit unrecognized by the world deeply steeped in the Willing Willie culture of inanity and plain sordid and shallow material gain.

This is the story I would like you to tell …a paradoxical, seemingly contradictory story of humility and greatness; a story of quiet dedication and commitment; a story of silent magnanimity of heart, never mind if the world does not recognize it; a story akin to what Hans Urs von Balthasar calls the “theo-drama,” where not all are prima donnas, not all are top billing actors, and not all can be accommodated to the courts of the reigning Kings and Queens of our times. From here on, I would like to get it straight from the horse’s mouth. I quote Robert Barron who wrote apropos this so eloquently:

“Our lives are not, finally, about us, and thanks be to God for it. We are part of what Urs von Balthasar calls the theo-drama, the theater of God’s glory. We are not the directors of the great play; we are but actors in it, struggling to follow the stage direction of the Spirit.”

“In any well written play, even the minor characters have an essential purpose, and sometimes those players who seem least significant for the bulk of the drama emerge, by the end, as the decisive figures. So it is in the theo-drama. Every human being has been created, our faith wagers, for participation in the play that God writes, and no one’s role is unimportant. In fact, those people who seem most weighty in the ordinary judgment of the world – presidents, epic poets, generals, business moguls – might be, in the context of the theo-drama, only bit players, while, on the contrary, those who seem least significant to the world might, in the end, be the stars of God’s production. The essential task for those in any drama is to listen to the director and to trust in his vision. When one player attempts to upstage another or to reinterpret her role, he upsets the delicate balance that the director wants to achieve. So in the theo-drama, we must obey the promptings of the spiritus rector and accept the role that his love holds out to us, even if it seems less than satisfying from our perspective.”

The story goes on … this theo-drama in a world satisfied with mediocrity and a lack of pursuit of excellence. Ad maiora natus is an antidote to all this. Forza is our battle cry as we Bosconians go out in full force to engage the world toward transformation. But while I spoke about things in the past, the recent visit of Don Bosco is really a call to engage the future. Graced by his visit in the past, we need to allow him to spur us on further, not in time past, but in time future and time present. As T.S. Eliot puts it, “time past and time future, what might have been and what has been, point to one end, which is always present.” (Burnt Norton)

But we need to go a little philosophical and spiritual about it. We need to disabuse the linear mode of thinking that equates success with power, prestige, position, perks, and perch. We need to allow the spirit of the founders to gently mould us into becoming seeming signs of contradiction: learned without being pedantic; moneyed without being enslaved to it; educated without becoming bloated with intellectual pride; simple whilst not being simpletons; humble without being irrelevant; engaged without being too involved in sordid affairs; focused on goals without being myopic; in love with life yet not being unduly attached to it; earthly without being worldly; heavenly in outlook whilst not being too spiritualistic; … yes, born for greater things, without being too engrossed into things; imbued with a passion for greatness without being given to grandiosity. This is the classical way of our God, who is Lord and King, but who was never curvatus in se, that is, caught up in Himself, but one who humbled Himself as man like us, and gave Himself fully “for the life of the world,” pro mundi vita! This is the way of paradox … a way that the world does not easily understand, a way that is summed up by this great teaching of Scripture, that the way ultimately to life in its fullness, is by way of death, death to self, death to all that is not life.

When I left this little paradise in 2002, I wrote in borrowed words the deep emotions I had, that were all part of the great love I nurtured, and still nurture, for this place that molded me beyond my imagination:

Old men ought to be explorers

Here and there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and empty desolation,

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

(T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”)

I end this talk with more borrowed words from this great poet, T.S. Eliot … words that speak to me of this paradox of life that has to do with simplicity and greatness and active, while at the same time, passive engagement with the world:

To arrive at where you are, to get from where you are not,

You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.

In order to arrive at what you do not know

You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

In order to possess what you do not possess

You must go by the way of dispossession.

In order to arrive at what you are not

You must go through the way in which you are not.

And what you do not know is the only thing you know

And what you own is what you do not own

And where you are is where you are not.

Forza dear graduates! Sempre Avanti con Don Bosco!

References:

Barron, Robert (1998). And Now I see: A Theology of Transformation. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company.

Eliot, Thomas Stearns (1971). Four quartets. New York: Harcourt Publishers.

Robinson, Elaine A. (2004). These Three: The Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press.

INTO ANOTHER INTENSITY: THE TEACHING OF MORAL THEOLOGY AND THE NEED FOR INTEGRATION

2010-01-08T06:20:00.004+08:00

N.B This is a talk I delivered to seminary formators and theology professors at San Carlos Seminary in October 2009

INTO ANOTHER INTENSITY:

THE TEACHING OF MORAL THEOLOGY AND THE NEED FOR INTEGRATION

Before anything else, I would like to start with a disclaimer. I lay no claim to being a theologian of any stature, by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, I am a perpetual student of theology, who, by necessity, happens to have been teaching moral theology subjects over the past 18 years, among other things.

My talk today will have to be based, neither on something patently original, nor on some fruit of a lifetime work of research, but on good old experience that teaching this subject for those many years, has led me to, and also on a reasoned reflection on that experience that could hopefully resonate with yours. I also speak from the point of view of one who, for more than the years I have been teaching theology, has been involved both directly and indirectly with formation work for young seminarians, students of theology, and young male and female professed religious, either as teacher or counselor – and – in these recent years, also as therapist.

Secondly, I would like to make an admission. Having earned my humble degree in Moral Theology back in the day when the current called “revisionism” was at its height, I was among those who at least thought that revisionist theologians’ writings were welcome news for moral theology that was called to task by Vatican II in these now famous words:

“Special care should be given to the perfecting of Moral Theology. Its scientific presentation should draw more fully on the teaching of holy scripture and should throw light upon the exalted vocation of the faithful in Christ and their obligation to bring forth fruit in charity for the life of the world” (OT 16).

The buzz, then, during our theology days, was all about fundamental option. The pole of human experience, in contraposition to the pole of the data of revelation and the handed-down tradition, epitomized, at least initially, and modeled for many, many years, by the positive approach adopted by the great Redemptorist moral theologian Bernard Haring (1966), was what students then felt so much at home in. In answer to the renewal called for by Vatican II, said approach produced a moral theology that was person-centered, rather than act-centered. It paved the way towards approaching moral obligation from the point of view of a call and saw moral behavior as a corresponding response, rather than mere obedience to categorical and unbending laws. That call, furthermore, was always understood in the context of a community instead of something that was directed only to individuals, and it opens positively with the teachings on grace rather than sin, on the paths that led to salvation, rather than what would occasion damnation. It was focused on the “exalted vocation of the faithful in Christ” primarily, and only secondarily, on “their obligation to bring forth fruit in charity for the life of the world.”

It all unfolded as a response to the clarion call for openness to the modern world that was the watchword of Vatican II.

Such openness translated to moral theology teachers’ capacity or difficulty, to engage in dialogue with the “signs of the times.” Following Gaudium et Spes, the “dialogical nature of moral theology” meant more than the above-mentioned “call-response” character (or simply put, the “responsive character) of Moral Theology that capitalized on that “exalted vocation of the faithful in Christ,” on the one hand, and the loving response of man to that sublime call from above, on the other. It also was taken to mean, dialoguing and interfacing with human sciences, with culture, with the world, and everything that the developing, changing world, could offer.

But as we know very well, more than just “fresh air” entered the windows of the Church, flung open by the Second Vatican Council. On all fronts, be it from the sociological, philosophical, psychological, cultural, anthropological, and scientific realms, changes proved to be problematic for many traditional disciplines that were taken, prior to all this, as monolithic and not open to challenge.

At this point, apart from a disclaimer and the admission that I just made, I also would like to make a confession. After teaching moral theology for 18 years, you would think I would find it easier as the years go by. No … and this is the point of the confession … I find it more and more difficult every year. This is the core and crux of this talk. Let me explain why.

But this leads me to the structure of this talk. Following the time-tested methodology handed down to us in teaching Catholic Social Doctrine, that is, a three-tier approach called See-Judge-Act method (CCE 1988, #7), I divide this talk into two main parts that roughly correspond to the 1^st and 3^rd tiers of said methodology. I leave out the second part, as I do not want to belabor what obviously we are all familiar with as seminary professors.

SEE:

THINGS FALLING APART; THE CENTRE UNABLE TO HOLD

I would like to quote William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” …

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

I don’t know about your own experiences, but as an educator, I am faced almost daily with a cross-section of what so many authors seem to be ranting about these days. They talk about the culture – both in the Church and in the world, the culture of postmodernity, the pros and cons of globalization, the state in which those who claim to be Catholics and behave as such, and those who claim to be Catholics but who behave more like Protestants. They approach the “things that fall apart” from the philosophical viewpoint; from the point of view of cultural anthropology. Name it, they have it, including the culture and status of those who knock at the doors of our seminaries, asking to become priests.

This first major part, therefore, will have to ramify into several sub-parts. I hope not to bore you, but I do need to tell you why I confessed I find it harder and harder to teach Moral Theology.

Confusion and Controversy

I think that Neuhaus (2006) epitomizes what I would like to say in the title of his book “Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth.” I would not like to mince words here. There is confusion, not so much in the Church of our times, as among those who lay claim to membership in the Church. There is controversy. There is polarization. In a “just off the press” book that I have been awaiting since it was announced, Cardinal Francis George (2009) of Chicago alludes to this when he makes a critique of both liberal and conservative Catholicism. Suggesting that the American political culture has influenced many, Catholics now align themselves with either liberals or conservatives. “Liberals,” he says, “often function as chaplains of the status quo, taking their cues from the prevailing secular mindset, while conservatives often end up in a sectarian dead-end, clinging to a narrow and triumphalistic version of Catholic identity sealed off from the surrounding culture” (Allen, 2009).

Robert Barron (2004) speaks of the same “great divide” and writes about the “terrible war of attrition between two extreme camps (with admittedly numerous shades in between): progressives overly in love with the culture and pushing myriad reforming agendas and conservatives trying to recover the form of Catholicism that predated the council.” “Some of these liberals,” according to Barron, “were so enamored of growth, play, and free development that they allowed John XXIII’s flourishing garden to become overgrown and untamed; while some of these traditionalists were so attached to an outmoded cultural expression of the Church’s life that they effectively killed off the plants in the garden, pressing their dead leaves between the pages of a book.”

This, for me, is problem number one. Given the very limited time allotted to the “scientific exposition” called for by Optatam Totius, the tendency is either to “go for the jugular,” as it were, and go directly to what traditional catholic doctrine teaches. In practice, this translates to what is easiest, what is most convenient to teach, what most readily lends itself to easy recall. This means being traditional, being neo-Scholastic, and going for the no nonsense approach of the neo-manuals. Introduction to Moral Theology may run the risk of becoming no more and no less than a glorified set of catechism lessons, that make for easy recall for the students, and easy grading on the part of teachers. They also avoid the convoluted issues being pushed by so-called “liberals” and they lend themselves to easy and simple codification, minus the need to go into the finer details of what are discussed in volume upon volume written by so many authors. Based to a large extent on an essentialist and static scholastic philosophy, the students’ capacity to fully grasp and appreciate what these books expound would depend a whole lot on their background on the same philosophical tradition. As it often happens, the course on moral theology becomes a review, or in some cases, an extension, of moral philosophy, or a lame commentary to the official Church documents on the raging issues at hand. Although I am not making any facetious conclusions, the element of danger in said approach lies on its facile identification with reason as the basic starting point of theologizing, and not faith. Apropos this, Servais Pinckaers’ reminder comes in handy:

“The theologian is not simply an intellectual, a scholar who chooses the texts of revelation and the life of the Church as object of study. The theologian is before all else a believer, well aware that for one who receives the Word of God with a docile mind, it becomes a source of light and life surpassing all human reason and communication” (Pinckaers, 1995, p. 294).

I don’t know about your experience, but from my end, in the many years I did seminary formation work, I did have to grapple (and I still do as teacher) with the glaring fact that most of those who knock at the doors of our seminaries, with the possible exception of some of the so-called adult vocations, know next to nothing about basic catechism. Given the mostly and, in some cases, purely academic orientation of our seminary curricula and formation programs, the possibility of seminarians being thrown into the sea of “scientific expositions” of heady philosophical and theological subjects, may compromise what Pinckaers also says that theology ought to do – “to work in the pure light of faith joined to reason, for the forming of Christian wisdom, which will be the fruit of the believing mind and will witness the truth of the Gospel to all people and all tenets.” “This,” he adds, “is what we may call authentic Christian humanism” (p. 296).

What, then, exactly, is the problem vis-à-vis the teaching of Moral Theology? Barron, Cardinal George, and Neuhaus are one in saying that falling into the trap of the bland “middle way,” the nondescript “middle ground,” what Barron refers to as “beige Catholicism” is not exactly the answer. It is not straddling the road that defines the way for us to go. Barron avers that

“there are extremists in the Church today, and there are moderates – and all of them are wreaking havoc. They are causing such distress precisely because they are ignoring, each in a particular way, the strangeness that lies at the heart of Christianity. It is my contention that the chief problem we face in the Church is not lack of loyalty to Rome, not insufficient concern for the poor, not ignorance or women’s concerns, not liturgical abuse, not theological imprecision, nor resurgent triumphalism – though each of these is, I think, cause for worry. No, the chief difficulty we face is lack of imagination, the inability to hold opposites in tension, the failure to be, boldly and unapologetically, bi-polar extremists” (Barron, 2004, p. 3).

Neuhaus (2006) argues in favor the good, old tradition of “sentire cum ecclesia.” By it, he means not falling in with those who tend to shore-up religious truth and draw clear battle lines with those who are at the opposite end of the spectrum, nor identifying with all those who believe that the pole of human culture, contemporary history, and current modes of thinking ought to be given the priority in moral reflection. Following Tillich, he makes a distinction between ‘Catholic substance,’ understood as the received tradition, and the ‘protestant principle,’ taken to mean simply the critique of that tradition. As regards the latter, he makes the following scathing remark:

“The Protestant principle, as we know by sad experience, is so protean and subject to variation that it results either in gutting the tradition or in creating new traditions around which further schisms are formed. Theology that is not in service to the ‘faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3) will, in time, turn against the faith once delivered to the saints. Ideas that are not held accountable to the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of truth’ (1 Tim 3:15) will, in time, become the enemy of that truth” (p. 58).

True to his form as a pastor, first and foremost, and an intellectual heavyweight in his own right, Cardinal Francis George (2009), muddling through the raging debacle of the two warring camps in the Church of our times, argues in favor of what he terms “simply Catholicism,” meaning a clear sense of Catholic identity that is nevertheless open to the world (Allen, 2009). What is wrong with liberals and conservatives, he says in effect, is that both of them are focused too much on authority. Liberals are critical of authority. Conservatives may be less critical of authority, but are equally dependent on them. “Both of them are defining themselves vis-à-vis the bishops, rather than vis-à-vis Christ, who uses the bishops to govern the Church. It’s not a Christ-centered Church, as it’s supposed to be; it’s a bishop-centered Church” (Allen, 2009).

Anarchy Loosed Upon the World

The immediately foregoing refers to us who now are part of the power structure, whether we accept it or not, those who mould the minds of the future leaders in the Church that seems to be fraying at the edges, with leaders trying to shore up “catholic substance,” and those intermediate or the equivalent of middle managers – the pastors in the trenches – acting more like they are at the service of the “protestant principle,” by their silence and avoidance of the difficult issues that sorely divide the faithful, caught as they are in “confusion and controversy.”

Since July of this year, I have been working as Principal of a Catholic High School in US territory. The island is traditionally Catholic for as long as the Philippines have been Catholic predominantly. The official collective belief especially of the leadership, contrary to what I observe, is that the whole island and its people are staunchly Catholic. The leadership is gallantly waging a lonely battle against the worst that a postmodern, secular world offers, trying to shore up the “catholic substance” that we refer to above. But for all the press releases, the pastoral letters, and the high profile opposition to “catholic legislators” who make laws contrary to the catholic substance, the picture that emerges from the trenches is a patently different one. In contrast to the “fire and brimstone” rhetoric penned down by the theologically correct, but politically incorrect, representatives of those who, rightly or wrongly, are seen as belonging to the extreme right of the spectrum, the pastors in the front-line of battle, behave more like the sales reps of a bland, colorless, and flavorless spiritual presence, more at home with rituals than with being spokesmen for the received tradition of catholic teachings. They are, as far as I am concerned, the perfect examples of what Barron refers to as “beige Catholicism.” The leadership is surrounded by those who make maximum use of authority to put forward their brand of truth while the rest, wary of – and focused on the very same – authority, but uncomfortable about the way it is used, seems to defy authority, by not making use of their primary authority to teach and preach, in season and out of season.

The same, I presume, may well be happening in our seminary classrooms of our theological faculties. On the one hand, we have those who “teach by the book,” as it were, and those, on the other hand, who, focusing more on theories rather than teachings, give more importance to the environing culture rather than being evangelizers of the same culture, and end up being spokesmen of the “protestant principle,” and purveyors of “beige catholicism.” It seems to me that it was Cozzens (2000), who first spoke of “soft liberals” who don’t openly go against the official teachings of the Church, but who do not enthusiastically promote it either, preferring to remain on the level of well-placed subtle and not-so-subtle innuendoes against a great many of the Church’s official teachings.

A Frayed Fabric?

I would like to say a little more on the environment that is the context of all this confusion and controversy. Robinson (2004) attacks the same issue from the point of view of culture. Speaking largely about the Protestant mega-churches that dot the American religious landscape, vis-à-vis what American sociologists describe as the decline of “social capital” (p. 3) in American society, characterized by a “marked reduction in social connectedness and civic-mindedness,” Robinson (p. 6ss) describes two extreme heuristic models of the church that people join: the consumerist model, in which the “church becomes a commodity and its service consumer-driven, which becomes a meeting place, a social club, a business network, and a source of intellectual stimulation”; and the “churches that serve as the locus of moralism, the regulator of behavior.” In this latter type, “conformity and straightforward answers are primary.” Here, too, “the moral code becomes paramount and absolutism seats itself in the chair beside the pulpit, keeping careful watch over the flock, issuing warnings to steer clear of the world and its evils.”

The former, she says, become the “breeding ground of nominal Christians who are given the freedom in Christ to do as they please, to worship as they see fit, to live the good life of prosperity and happiness in the world, to take as their mantra, ‘God is good all the time. All the time God is good.’” She goes on to say that this “is the premodern church in which freedom and pragmatism become paramount; relativism lurks just beyond the stained-glass windows as the key to strong membership rests in giving the consumer what he or she demands. Entertainment and smorgasbord of programs and services are primary.” She thus speaks about Christianity as a “tale of two cities: the way of consumerism, which downplays moral choices and a common life of discipleship in favor of cultural acceptability, or the way of legalism, which makes morality authoritative, downplays individual discernment, and stresses a ‘countercultural’ attitude” (p.7).

The Centre Unable to Hold

The all too common tendency for people caught in between two diametrically opposed factions is to go the middle way, go moderate, or to straddle the theological road of nondescript indifference. But as Yeats words may suggest to us, “the centre cannot hold.” A bland type of callous indifference simply will not do. This is not what we hear Cardinal George is saying. He speaks of “simply Catholicism” which according to Allen (2009) refers to a clear sense of Catholic identity that is nevertheless open to the world. This, too, is not what we hear Barron (2004) say. In the face of this seeming impasse, he recognizes that some will opt for “popular but dangerous extremism” while some others will adopt a “prudent but uninspiring moderation.” Choosing the former, he says, will lead the Church towards “a divisive and explosive future,” while opting for the latter might make us all “destined to become more and more irrelevant, going out not with a bang, but with a whimper” (p. 4). Taking common cause with Tillich and Chesterton, who both believed that moderation was a pagan and not a Christian virtue, Barron says that,

“to stand blandly in the middle is to miss the thrill and the romance of Christianity, to overlook the strange event which stands at the heart of the Church and which separates it from any mythology or philosophy that preceded it. It is to overlook the Incarnation” (p.6). Barron is concerned that “the poetry of the Incarnation is not much in evidence in the weary debates today between liberals, moderates, and conservatives” (p. 8).

Much like George who makes a call for “simply Catholicism,” Barron speaks of authentic Christians who “must be, at one and the same time and with unabashed fervor, radically liberal and radically conservative, passionately left-wing, and passionately right-wing, excessively optimistic and excessively pessimistic.” “The authentic Christian wants, not the optimist alone, and not the pessimist alone, and by no means some monstrous blend of the two. No, she wants the optimist at full volume and the pessimist at full volume. Is this madness? No, it is, I would argue, the bi-polar extremism that has always characterized Christianity at its best” (p.10).

Barron makes a case against teachers, nuns, and priests of his generation who were and are, unduly concerned about making Catholicism “as non-threatening, accessible, culturally appealing as possible.” Capitulating to the prevailing culture, they seem to be focused on translating “uniquely catholic doctrine, practice and style into forms acceptable to the environing culture, always downplaying whatever might be construed as ‘odd’ or ‘supernatural.’ Thus, the Biblical and theological tended to be replaced by the political, the sociological, and above all, the psychological” (p.17). Apropos this, there is a lot to be said about a culture that, throwing all its eggs in the basket of an exclusively therapeutic mind-set, looks at life’s goal, not in terms of a “good life,” but in terms of “better living,” looking at psycho-analytic therapeutic processes as the panacea to the world’s ills, which Rieff refers to wryly as the “triumph of the therapeutic” (Rieff, 1987).

But so far, the SEEING that we have been doing up till now, in this first part, would have us look mostly at the moral theology professors – the “teachers, nuns, and priests” that Barron speaks about. But what about the recipients of our gallant teaching? What about those on the other side of the cathedra from which we pontificate? I would now like to take a look at the students that Divine Providence sends us.

Innocence Drowned

I said in passing above how the candidates for seminary formation that come to us tend to have little catechetical background. But that is an understatement. Whilst the sweeping statements that may come from me are for the most part debatable, and that there are variations from place to place, the 18 years that I have been in formation and teaching work have convinced me that we do witness the law of diminishing returns in many senses in terms of quality and the level of preparation of our candidates – on all aspects and levels of human maturity. Many come from broken families, blended families, and from a multiplicity of what people so often refer to as dysfunctional families, never mind if most people really do not know what that means. With the exception of a select few who are fortunate enough to come from expensive, private, and elitist schools, you and I know only too well, that most come from a background that leaves much to be desired in terms of readiness to tackle the fineries of what ought to be a solid liberal education that the Church documents have enshrined for centuries after Trent. Typically, the screening and admission capitalize a whole lot on IQ and on some kind of personality assessment. I have not heard of any seminary who has a tool to measure the applicant’s catechetical IQ, or the stage and level of their personal faith, or their grasp of, understanding, and living out of the catholic tradition. In many cases, from a poorly understood and even more poorly lived out catholic life and practice, seminarians are plunged directly into the finer nuances of philosophical and theological discussions that all remain in the province of theory.

I agree with Weigel (2002), who, apropos this issue, wrote:

“Many seminary faculty are trained in graduate schools of theology, and bring the critical approach to theology they acquired there to their seminary teaching. The result, unfortunately, is that too many seminarians are taught to deconstruct the Catholic tradition before they have even learned what the tradition is … The first thing that candidates for the priesthood must learn is the Church’s doctrinal, moral, liturgical, and spiritual tradition. Only after they have learned the tradition can they fruitfully engage it critically. If a seminarian’s theology program does not begin with learning the Catholic tradition, the result will be intellectual chaos and moral confusion – and yet another generation of boring sermons” (p. 167).

The possibility, therefore, of seminarians’ merely going through the motions of a fine, scientific, and systematic – if purely academic – exercise of the theological enterprise, leading to what Newman (1870) refers to as mere “notional” as opposed to “real” assent, is not at all far-fetched. Limited thus to the mind acquiescing to general ideas, concepts, and abstraction, notional assent does not lead to decisive action, for the simple reason that the heart and the imagination are not sufficiently engaged. The soul is not fired up and is never compelled to act. It is interesting to note that Newman himself says that no one really dies for an idea, but people do give their lives for friends, for family, and for homeland. Could this be the reason behind the lackluster and bland commitment of many of us to the splendor of truth in the midst of so much confusion and controversy?

But there is more to say about the students that we sometimes love to hate. They come from a culture and context that is hard to define. Like the word “dysfunctional” has been attached too often and too facetiously to families over the recent years, the word “postmodern” has also been liberally used and abused by both the experts and the plebeian folks alike, with little understanding about what exactly the word means in concrete.

But with your indulgence, I would like to use it this time, at the risk of being lumped together with those who bandy about the word to impress and to lend an air of scholarship to one’s talk. The concept has been analyzed ad nauseam, from the philosophical, sociological, and cultural points of view. But the best and neatest summary I came across with recently is that of Robinson (2004), who writes about the “contours of hopelessness” that characterize “the landscape of our lives,” that bear “the tattered imprint of modernity.” She discusses the sea change that has taken place with regard to our vision of life and knowledge of life on earth, with specific reference to time, space, and culture – and what she calls the “media moment” that acts as the principle of acceleration to all the changes that are happening. Simply put, time has become a factor of compression and of immediacy. Space, too, is shaped by the phenomenon of global contraction and expansion at one and the same time, and culture acts as the backdrop of diversity and plurality.

The compression of time, along with the contraction of space, which both do away with the concept of waiting, wear away the foundation of hope for many of us. “The changing face of time,” according to Robinson, “has led us to pursue the good life here and now in what we accomplish and accumulate. Fulfillment has become our byword” (p.91). The contraction of space, with a lot of help from technology, has made a vast array of human interactions in a disembodied manner. We have a thousand and one “friends” in Facebook, minus the emotional investment that ought to be part of what normally should be embodied relationships, that is situated in time and place. Culture, that is the binding element for centuries, has ceased to be monolithic. A vast array of cultures has taken its place. Christianity, that used to be seen as “countercultural” is now seen as just one of the many possible cultures that compete with each other for attention.

But the most important is what the media has become for all of us. The media moment has impinged on time, space, and culture of the contemporary world. “The speed, immediacy, closeness, vastness, diversity, and fluidity of our lives are driven and amplified by what we might refer to as the ‘media moment’” (p. 103). “Time, space, and culture, as accelerated by the media moment, converge to burden and weigh us down like leg irons, dragging us in the direction of hopelessness. It seems that God is not solving the problems of this world, and our human attempts to do so, time and again, prove to be futile” (p. 108).

I am sure you can relate to what I am trying to say. One of the things that I find frustrating is to see otherwise academically brilliant students who can rattle off the subject matter with ease, but who find nothing wrong or reprehensible with the popular lunchtime show “Wowowee.” The media moment has for all intents and purposes, co-opted them, and “media mediated” values have taken over virtue in some way. In the same vein, I am sometimes at a loss for what to say when fellow priests, and fellow educators, who can be outspoken against corrupt political figures in general, behave differently with regard to certain individual politicians, who, while remaining patently corrupt to everyone’s common knowledge, have been helpful in some way to them, or who have supported their charitable or apostolic activities in some tangible way. Their capacity for moral discernment, obviously, has been subverted or at least influenced, by matters that have to do more with heart, than with reason.

ACT:

THE NEED FOR CONVICTION AND PASSIONATE INTENSITY

At this juncture, I would like to quote the rest of Yeat’s poem:

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The second coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with a lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze bland and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Yeats penned the poem in 1920, in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. He probably honestly believed the Second Coming was at hand. But that is not the point why I quoted this poem. I did so, because it epitomizes at least for me what I want to share with you today. The first part dealt with the reading of the signs of the times – the SEEING part – that made us catch a glimpse of what is going on at least as far as we who teach Moral Theology are concerned. It is filled with the equivalent of Robinson’s “contours of hopelessness,” a situation filled with shadows. According to commentators, Yeats was referring to the status of young people then, for whom “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

But he waxes prophetic and hopeful in the second part. He sees more than just a vision of the Sphinx arising from the ashes of reality as he perceived it. He sees new life, new hope, and a new beginning. He sees hope in the image of the “rough beast” with the head-intellect of a man, and the fierce emotions and body intelligence of a beast.

This gives me then, a perfect image of what we as Moral Theology teachers are perhaps called to in these times of confusion and controversy – called to integration, called to put together seemingly opposite poles that pose as some kind of impasse in our times. The siren songs of two seemingly irreconcilable poles beckon us one way or the other. The Scylla of extreme conservatism and the Charybdis of extreme liberalism lead many of us to espouse a bland and noncommittal stance of what appears as harmless moderation. But as I have been trying to suggest above, following the authors I have followed of late, such soul-less and spine-less straddling of the middle ground may be dangerous at worst, and useless at best.

1. The Need for Conviction

My first proposal therefore has to do with conviction. Cardinal George of Chicago lays it down for us – “a clear sense of Catholic identity.” That clear sense of Catholic identity, mind you, comes before “openness to the world.” I believe this is a call to integrate solid doctrine from the received catholic tradition with a scientific approach that takes into consideration the need to dialogue with the world, with culture, and with human sciences. Any semblance of dabbling with what Neuhaus calls the “protestant principle” – what Cozzens (2000) refers to as “soft liberalism” – does not seem to serve the best interests of a “theology that is meant to be at the service of the Magisterium.” But such conviction precludes mere moderation. Navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis of controversy, without such conviction and sure solid standpoint, will only increase the risk of the rudderless and direction-less fragile boat of our theologizing floundering on the shoals of irrelevance and lack of character.

Barron (2004) is even more specific when he refers to the “modern ethos” – the “secular religion” when he writes: “What does affect our bodies, what does mark the way we move and sleep and do business, what has profoundly written itself into our muscles and bones, is the modern ethos, the secular religion. And a beige, bland, attenuated Christianity is no match for such a powerful and focused counterculture” (p. 27).

2. A Lion Body with the Head of a Man: The Call to Work for Integration

We alluded briefly above to Newman’s real versus mere notional assent. I also referred above to the state our candidates for the seminary are in, and the approach that more often than not, the teaching of theology takes – more of a “sitting theology” rather than a “kneeling theology,” to use the famous words of Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Optatam Totius’ call for a “scientific presentation” for the most part, has been taken too seriously by many of us. In many theological institutes, the academic, scholarly approach to moral theological reflection has captured the limelight. But in the process, the “obligation to bring forth fruit in charity for the life of the world” has taken a back seat. We Moral Theology professors forgot that, like everyone else, our paramount goal is holiness as we seek to respond to the grace of God offered in the life of Christ, and that the topic of being good is related to being holy in the context of pastoral life.

I refer, of course, to the need for us to integrate moral theology with spirituality – the need for us to present the close connection between “becoming good and becoming holy” (O’Keefe, 1995). Very few of us would deny that close connection, but it is a fact that “very few of the introductions provide any sustained discussion of the link with spirituality” (p.2).

In concrete, this integration translates into giving a different focus to our teaching of morality, not anymore so much about the normative, principles, and duty – what Pinckaers (1995) calls a “morality of obligation,” as about character and virtue, or a “morality-of-happiness” approach (p.14-22). I am, therefore, making a pitch for virtue ethics. This is not to downplay the need for the normative morality of duties and principles, for virtue, duty, and principles are complementary aspects of the same morality. This is simply all about acknowledging that virtue ethics, following the tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas, is a “comprehensive approach to all of Christian life, not simply an exercise in character formation divorced from Christian faith and life” (Harrington & Keenan, 2002, p. xiv). This is also an acknowledgment of the recent resurgence of interest on virtue theory in the last three decades, owing to three factors: (1) the widespread perception that our society is in moral crisis, (2) the rise of historical consciousness, and (3) the failure of modern ethical theories to provide a complete picture of human moral experience, as Kotva (1996) discusses convincingly.

But my proposal and call to integration goes beyond the subject that we teach. It also seeks to address whom we teach – the need for us to foster personal integration on the part of the students we teach. And this is where my being a counselor-therapist comes in handy. Barron (2004) quotes William James, a philosopher and psychologist all rolled into one. One of his key insights, according to Barron, is that the knowing mind is not to be isolated from the will, the passions, the desires, and the movements of the body. Sometimes, knowledge comes in a flash of insight, but more usually it arrives as the result of a long and complex process involving attention, feeling, and above all, action (p.27). We are back to Newman’s concept of real assent. Psychologists have long maintained that there is a strong relationship between emotion and cognition. “Emotion is intimately connected with meaning, and no emotional change takes place without producing cognitive change” (Greenberg & Paivio, 1997, p.1). The famous religious educator Thomas Groome (2002) speaks of Christian faith in terms of doing, trusting, and knowing. He describes Christian life as following the way of the hands, the way of the heart, and the way of the mind. “Heart,” he says, “reminds us that Christian faith engages the human emotions; it has a deep feeling aspect to it. In everyday life, there are many issues and commitments about which Jesus would expect apprentices to be passionate. And don’t we know lots of Christians who seem a bit short on beliefs but are long on the right passions and actions, and vice versa” (p. 184).

Given the oftentimes too academic and too scholarly an approach to the teaching of moral theology in our seminaries, one wonders whether there is sufficient room given to the role of feelings in our classroom teaching. Principles, rules, duties and imperatives that are studied much like specimens on a Petri dish with a whole lot of objective and detached distance, can hardly arouse appropriate emotions that are needed to do a valid moral discernment on any given issue.

Neuhaus (2006) makes a case in point for that good, old principle called “sentire cum ecclesia.” You and I both know that this is as much about heart as mind. At bottom, this is all about love for Mother Church, before it is love for what she teaches.

“Faithful assent is not a matter of standing to attention, clicking one’s heels, and saluting at the appearance of every document from Rome. Rather, it is a matter of thinking for myself so that I can think with the Church, the prior assumption being that the Church possesses a teaching charism and authority that warrants my assent. I think for myself not to come up with my own teaching but to make the Church’s teaching my own” (p.13).

The word sentire as you all know, has to do with its cognate English word “sentiment.” Cut and dried rules and prescriptions do not captivate the heart, but values perceived as such by persons of flesh and blood and feelings, pave the way for virtue, and virtue, done often and consistently enough, translates into character. Pastors who preach and teach in syntony with the Church which is what sentire cum ecclesia essentially is, are not just people who can rattle off said rules and prescriptions, but who are in love with the Church that upholds the values behind those same rules and prescriptions. If morality has to do more with being rather than with doing, with the focus on the person rather than the act, then character and virtue that make for a greater focus on the morality of happiness – teleological rather than deontological, if you will – ought to be given preference in our call to do moral theology.

The Need to Rethink Scientific Research Papers

I am sure that as teachers, many of you use the tradition, time-tested methods to foster learning. That invariably includes the so-called scientific research paper, or what we have always referred to as “term papers.” I don’t intend to denigrate nor do away with something that admittedly, really helps students synthesize, organize, and expound their newly acquired learning. But in my experience – my own and that of my students for these many years – term papers may not be all that helpful. For one, students everywhere are very creative in keeping a file of old term papers that they can recycle and rehash when needed. Second, term papers make the exercise exclusively focused on the academic, scholarly pole. The primary consideration is given to form, style, and content, but precious little room is left for the affective component of the personality.

And here is where my formation as a counselor-therapist kicks in. I bat for the institutionalization of what is referred to as “integration paper.” An integration paper is called as such, because it is meant to help students integrate the subject matter discussed in a term, via a research-based, scientific paper that synthesizes in a meaningful way, the subject matter, or a particular facet of the subject matter for the whole term. In this sense, then the integration paper is just like a term paper. But there is something more to the integration paper that is not a feature of the ordinary term paper. And this is where the word “integration” comes in as more important. It seeks to integrate one’s personal experience, aspects of one’s personal history, and the personal world of feelings, personal preferences and everything is related to the inner workings of the writer’s inner world vis-à-vis a particular aspect, topic, or area of the course.

In other words, it is called an “integration paper” because it seeks to incorporate in the paper a certain personal investment to the topic at hand. It challenges the writer to weave into the study, and include as essential part of the whole paper, snippets and clues and a close look into his own personal spirituality. Whilst the term paper almost exclusively capitalizes on form, content, and standard style, the integration paper opens itself to discussing how a particular academic topic impinges upon and challenges his own spirituality, his life of prayer, and his feelings for or against what he is writing about, including his own personal difficulties in understanding, accepting, or internalizing issues of doctrine and Church teachings.

The Need to Rethink the Concept of Teaching Moral Theology

The lectura or professorial reading of one’s subject is a traditional and time-tested method of teaching theology. I have no problems about the lecture per se. But I do consider the scholarly, classroom based lecture, as sorely inadequate, even if you add to the mix all the other classical approaches like the seminar, symposium, or congress. Here is where my training as counselor-therapist once more kicks in. In the world of pastoral counseling or clinical pastoral education, the concept of “supervision” is something that cannot be done away with. Call it mentoring, call it coaching, or call it clinical supervision, they all point to one and the same thing – the need for the fledgling and beginning counselor to process himself or be processed by someone else. Nowhere is this need for processing more needed as in the field of moral theology, where so many thorny and controversial issues are raging.

Whilst I submit that the generic pastoral exposure that is meant to complement the subject called pastoral theology is done in all of our theological faculties, what may be sorely lacking is that institutionalized, systematic, and organized mechanism for supervision, coaching, mentoring, or processing. Unfortunately, in many cases, even the field of pastoral theology is treated exactly the same way as the more academic and scholarly subject areas or treatises, and it is not uncommon for students to be asked a scientific paper at the end of the term. Something so eminently practical and something that is meant to be an experience of applied theology, becomes just one more academic and scholarly exercise. In the end, the original purpose for which pastoral theology subjects are offered, is defeated, and the same academic rigmarole falls into place.

Theology and ministry ought to have some common meeting point, and to my mind, the theology pole, given the training that most teachers received, leaves relatively little to be desired. But on the ministry pole, where theory and practice needs to be integrated, the CPE model of pastoral reflection on the so-called “critical incident” can give us a clue on how to proceed. There, a student explores his own emotional and cognitive response to a “critical incident” and then considers possibilities for pastoral response (Whitehead & Whitehead, 1995, p. xi).

But all this cannot take place if a mechanism for group or personal processing is not in place. Years ago, group sessions gathered to discuss on certain casus conscientiae were held religiously in seminary settings. Whilst I do not bat for the return of a basically casuistic approach to moral reflection, the equivalent idea might need to be set-up, precisely to give the possibility for students of moral theology to experience supervision, processing, or more specifically, for our purposes – Christian coaching. Collins (2001) offers us a glimpse as to what coaching might mean for us:

“Coaching is not counseling. It is not for those who need therapy to overcome disruptive painful influences from the past; coaches help people build vision and move toward the future. Coaching is not reactive looking back; it’s proactive looking ahead. It is not healing; it’s about growing. It focuses less on overcoming weaknesses and more on building skills and strengths. Usually coaching is less formal than the therapist-patient relationship and more of a partnership between two equals, one of whom has experiences, perspectives, or knowledge than can be useful to the other” (p.16).

Coaching, processing, supervision … “whatever term you prefer, all involve a relationship in which at least one person is further along in the journey of life and willing to guide others – often as a trusted role model” (p.17).

CONCLUSION:

INTO ANOTHER INTENSITY

I would like to end as I began – with a quote from some favorite poetic lines.

Old men ought to be explorers

Here and there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and empty desolation,

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise.

In my end is my beginning.

(T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”)

I will be honest with you. There is real confusion and controversy in the Church that we love. In my daily Masses everywhere, I meet up with vociferous and hard-headed conservatives and battle-ready progressives who would blame you for not being faithful enough to Mother Church, or for being too caught up with stale and stagnant tradition. There are those who insist on kneeling during communion, and those who think that a good Mass ought to be something like Beyonce’s gig at the Fort. My recent personal experience where I am currently assigned, with both sides of the moral spectrum fighting tooth and nail for a hearing, is a case in point. As a human being, I grow weary. I grow faint. To say, with Ruddy (2006) that priests like us are tested in every way, is to resort to an understatement.

In the lowest moment of my life when I hit the dark and dreary basement of disappointment and some level of despair, a portion of which story I recount in one of my blogs, I quoted the same lines of T.S. Eliot above. It summarized for me, what in tears – alone in a big and lonely Rectory at Dundalk, Baltimore, MD, I had to grapple with – hope that I thought then, was “growing grey hairs” - to use the famous words of Manley-Hopkins (1986, p. 110) the Jesuit priest and poet.

When I was younger and idealistic, I entertained ambitious dreams. I dreamt of being sent for biblical studies, or liturgy, or something related to culture or literature. I never dreamt nor imagined myself teaching moral theology. But God who has been playing little jokes with me decided better. And now I think I know why.

I don’t envy those of my colleagues who teach dogma – cold, abstruse, convoluted, and a little too detached from daily life for me. But teaching Moral Theology I learned later, brought me face to face with the human nature that I thought I understood – the very same human nature prone to sin but open to grace that I possess, but still so poorly tame at least in a way that I expect for myself.

The contours of hopelessness are all around us … the utter failure of our Church in the Philippines to guide our people – the leaders and the led alike – towards a liberating type of governance and polity that safeguard the common good – the dismal record of our Church educated literati who have become vultures rather than eagles, and even a church that is rife with petty politics and intrigues with a very well-oiled machinery that fosters good old ambition even among ecclesiastics. Nine years ago, Cozzens (2000) shocked us with what I thought was a very dour and sour prognostication about us priests. Five years hence, his book that spoke about the changing face of the priesthood, happily, was balanced more than sufficiently by Acklin (2005) who spoke about the “unchanging heart of the priesthood.”

But still, we know deep inside our hearts, that we are tested in every way, as Ruddy (2006) puts it. But hope springs eternal. And we moral theology professors are in the front lines of this drive to instill hope to our people, not the dogmatists, not the liturgists, not the biblical scholars, and least of all the canonists. If there is anything that the rise in interest for virtue ethics tells us in these last two or three decades, it is this. Classical and traditionalist deontological approaches do not capture the postmodern imagination. We need to be dreamers who look at the telos, the end, the ultimate end for which God has created us. Call it eudaemonia, call it fullness of human flourishing, call it happiness, call it what you might … it all boils down to a call that we need to respond to. Barron (2004) bats for us priests becoming that which we already are: mystagogues, world transformers, and interpreters of tongues. We are called to be poets imbued with a lot of Christian imagination, not just bland and harmless moderates, but people fired with a lot of zeal to be “simply Catholics.”

Eliot is right on the need for us to be still. This is what you are doing these days. But Eliot is right on target, too, when tells that old men like us, meant to be explorers, are called to be still moving … through the dark cold and empty desolation – yes, but into another intensity, a deeper communion!

There are no better words to express that intensity and communion than those used by Barron:

“Therefore, let us leave liberal-conservative behind us. And let us leave behind us too that Catholicism which had allowed its distinctive colors to bleed into beige. And let us embrace the spicy, troublesome, fascinating, and culture-transforming person of Jesus Christ. And let the Church of Christ thereby shape the world” (2004, p.21).

REFERENCES:

Acklin, T. (2005). The unchanging heart of the priesthood: A faith perspective on the mystery and the reality of priesthood in the church. Steubenville: Emmaus Road.

Allen, J. (2009). Cardinal George’s plan to evangelize America. In National Catholic Reporter, http://ncronline.org/news/people/cardinal-georges-plan-evangelize-america. accessed October 19, 2009, 11:16AM.

Barron, R. (2002). The strangest way: Walking the Christian path. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.

Barron, R. (2004). Bridging the great divide: Musings of a post-liberal, post-conservative evangelical catholic. Lanham: Sheed and Ward.

Collins, G.R. (2001). Christian coaching: Helping others turn potential into reality. Colorado Springs: Navpress.

Congregation for Catholic Education. (1988). Guidelines for the study and teaching of the church’s social doctrine in the formation of priests. Vatican City: Vatican Polyglot Press.

Cozzens, D. (2000). The changing face of the priesthood. Collegeville: Liturgical Press.

Eliot, T.S. (1971). Four quartets. New York: Harcourt Publishers.

George, F. (2009). The difference God makes: A catholic vision of faith, communion, and culture. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Greenberg, L. & Paivio, S. (1997). Working with emotions in psychotherapy. New York: The Guilford Press.

Groome, T.H. (2002). What makes us catholic: Eight gifts for life. San Francisco: Harper Collins.

Haring, B. (1966). The law of Christ: Moral theology for priests and laity (3 Volumes). London: Newman Press.

Harrington, D. & Keenan, J. (2002). Jesus and virtue ethics: Building bridges between new testament studies and moral theology. Lanham: Sheed and Ward.

Hollinger, D.P. (2002). Choosing the good: Christian ethics in a complex world. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.

Hopkins, G.M. (edited by Catherine Phillips) (1986). Gerard Manley Hopkins: The major works. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Van Hooft, S. (2006). Understanding virtue ethics: Eudaemonia. Stocksfield: Acumen Publishing Limited.

Keating, J. (Ed) (2000). Spirituality and moral theology: Essays from a pastoral perspective. New York: Paulist Press.

Kotva, J.J. (1996). The Christian case for virtue ethics. Washington, DC: The Georgetown University Press.

Mattison, W.C. (2008). Introducing moral theology: True happiness and the virtues. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press.

McCoy, A. (2004). An intelligent person’s guide to Christian ethics. London: Continuum.

National Conference of Catholic Bishops. (1982). Norms for priestly formation: A compendium of official documents on training candidates for the priesthood. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference.

Neuhaus, R.J. (2006). Catholic matters: Confusion, controversy, and the splendor of truth. New York: Basic Books.

Newman, J.H. (1870). An essay in aid of a grammar of assent. London: Burns and Oates.

O’Keefe, M. (1995). Becoming good, becoming holy: On the relationship of a christian ethics and spirituality. New York: Paulist Press.

Pickaers, Servais (1995). The sources of Christian ethics. Translated by Mary Thomas Noble. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.

Rieff, P. (1987). The triumph of the therapeutic: Uses of faith after freud. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Robinson, E.A. (2004). These three: The theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press.

Ruddy, C. (2006). Tested in every way: The catholic priesthood in today’s church. New York:
The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Weigel, G. (2001). The truth of Catholicism: Inside essential teachings and controversies of the church today. New York: HarperCollins.

Weigel, G. (2002). The courage to be catholic: Crisis, reform, and the future of the church. New York: Basic Books.

Whitehead, J.D. & Whitehead. E.E. (1995). Method in ministry: Theological reflection and Christian ministry. Lanham: Sheed & Ward.

Fr. Vitaliano “Chito” Dimaranan, SDB, CAS, MTL, PhD

Father Duenas Memorial School

PO Box FD. Hagatna, Guam 96932

+1.671.482 8807

THE ROLE OF THE PASTOR ON THE FAITH FORMATION OF THE PARISH

2009-09-26T18:38:00.004+08:00

N.B. What follows is a talk I gave to clergy and catechists on the occasion of the Annual Catechetical Conference of Archdiocese of Guam on September 26, 2009

First and foremost, I would like to thank Reverend Larry Claros for the gracious invitation for me to give a talk in this catechetical conference. Back home in Manila, this is my bread and butter. I teach, preach, talk, write, and do a whole lot with anything that involves words, that is, educate, and otherwise, move, push, cajole, inspire, enable, empower, and energize - and, disturb – people with the power inherent in something we all take for granted – the power of words – and, let me add very quickly, the power of the Word with a capital W.

I have been teaching for the past 32 years – and counting!

At the very outset, let me be honest with you. I do not mean to take potshots at the organizers, but let me tell you that I do not like the title of my talk. I was asked to talk about “the role” of the pastor on the faith formation of the parish.

Before you bowl me out of this hall as persona non grata, let me explain.

Role denotes and connotes function. It refers, as we all know, to something we need to fulfill, a slot that needs filling in, a space that needs to be occupied. It refers also to something that needs to be done, a responsibility that, in the event the one originally deputed to do it cannot or is unable to fulfill it, can be substituted for, by someone else, by anyone, for that matter, who has the qualifications and all the titles necessary for him to do it.

The secular world is all too familiar with this. One goes through a certain number of years of studies to qualify oneself; one goes through a series of qualifying or board exams, and after all the efforts expended and the appropriate degrees or academic titles are earned, one goes through a ritual that puts one in the same league as those who have previously earned their laurels.

The title, degree, or academic achievement puts you in the same level of the literati, the periti – if if you will – or resident experts on just about any topic under the sun, including the sun itself. The three or more letters after your name, qualifies you then to stand in for another who holds an equivalent or similar degree, and automatically makes you qualified to substitute for, to stand in place of, and to represent somebody of the same caliber as you are.

Such is the way of the secular world.

But such is not the way the ordained pastor, priest, preacher, and presider in the Roman Catholic tradition follows.

If we are to speak of the former, then all one needs to do to be qualified on something is to measure up to standards and submit oneself to a formal ritual, say the commencement ceremonies, or graduation rites.

If we are to speak of the latter, however, the ordination rites go far beyond what civil rituals in the secular world can offer. We speak of something that only those who understand sacramental theology can fully fathom. We speak of something that has no parallels in secular culture, for sacramental culture, in the Catholic tradition, as we catechists know only too well, refers to signs that effect what they signify, not just on the superficial plane of diplomas and certificates that are good only for hanging on walls, but they are signs that point to a very deep change in the person who receives that sign. There is a 64 dollar word for it … we refer to such a deep inner change as ontological, not merely existential, change. I don’t mean to bore you, but it only means something that changes from deep, deep down the person, not just external, superficial, and cosmetic change that the postmodern world, unfortunately, is so well-versed in.

But I sound like I don’t address the topic at hand. I was asked to speak about the role of the pastor on the faith formation of the parish. So far, I have only succeeded in registering my dislike for the word “role.”

Let me tell you now what I like with regards to the title, before I speak more of what I don’t like.

I like the fact that “pastor” and “faith formation” are placed side by side, almost like as if to say the two are intricately related. I like this, not just owing to a mere personal preference, but because the Church that I love likes it that way. Yes … priest – and you may call him any which way you like, like ordained minister, pastor, father, etc – and faith formation are inseparable concepts. If they are inseparable, when we say priest, we just don’t refer to a role, a function, or an office. The priest is no bit player in the drama called life. The priest is not one who “struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” Whilst I submit there is an element of drama in the Roman Catholic liturgy, the liturgy itself is never just drama. The priest is not part of the “dramatis personae,” with a role to play in a mere performance that we refer to as liturgy. He does not fill-in for anyone. He does not substitute for anyone. He does not take the place of anyone. He is no mere stand-in, like a proxy at a board meeting. Yes … despite the fact that some priests behave like Messiahs, I am sorry, but the world happens to already have one … only one, and that is Jesus Christ the one Lord and Savior!

What then am I talking about?

Simply this … priest and proclamation go hand in hand. Martin Luther, who did some right things, but didn’t do them rightly, hit the nail right on the head when he insisted on preaching as the main task of the priest. But this is where his teachings get really really off the mark when he insisted that a priest who never preaches the Word of God has stopped functioning and thereby ceases to be a priest.

So let’s get things straight from here onwards.

And this for good reason ... If we claim, as indeed, we have claimed just now, that priest and proclamation go hand in hand, that pastor and evangelization are inseparable entities, then in order for us to talk about faith formation, we can neither prescind from, nor can we ignore talking about the identity of this priest-proclaimer, this priest-prophet, this priest who also acts as pastor in your respective parishes.

And I said I didn’t like the word “role.”

It’s been several years since I did a careful reading of Fr. Donald Cozzen’s book “The Changing Face of the Priesthood.” If I remember well, part of what he is saying is that the priesthood has been steadily evolving from a mere “cultic model” of priesthood that is more at home to being in the sacristy and engaging in sacred rituals, to an image of “servant-leader” who is engaged in service to the world and to society.

I don’t know about you, and what sort of theology was drummed into you, but I just don’t like the word “role.” From where I come, playing a mere “role” in the liturgy, no matter how solemn, is not my theological cup of tea. But neither does playing the role of a social worker fit my understanding of a priest exactly to a T.

The priest maybe that at times. As pastor, he may be engaged day-in and day-out in presiding over the liturgy. The priest may be servant-leader, too. He may be manning soup kitchens even on a regular basis, and doing community-organizing week-in and week-out, but the priest is more than just a cultic leader and definitely more than a community-organizer.

And although this may not be too much to people’s liking, I need to do theology with you, here and now. And mind you, theology is meant to be, and has always been, at the service of the Magisterium. I would sincerely hope that as catechists and evangelizers yourselves, I would not have a repeat of what in at least one theological center in Manila, certain students do every time a document from the Vatican is read in class … hoot, howl, heckle , and – pardon the pun – raise hell, against anything that comes from anywhere near Rome, the Vatican, the Holy Office, and the Pope!

You see, when we speak of priest, we need to speak of proclamation. For I have it on the authority of long-standing Church teaching and tradition that as ordained ministers, all priests – and, a fortiori – all Pastors, are changed men from deep inside. Yes, you guessed it right. Like all of you who received Baptism and Confirmation, priests received an indelible sacramental character that changed them – here comes again that 64 dollar word – ontologically. And if they are changed men, from deep within their person, the soul receiving a seal – a sphragys in Greek – then we cannot speak of mere roles. We cannot speak of mere function, like being a servant-leader, a coordinator, or part of a team of rah-rah boys to goad us on, and give superficial encouragement to the weak of heart.

When we speak of priest-proclaimers, priest-preachers, and priest-celebrants of the Liturgy, we speak not of someone who fits a social-functional model of leadership and whose essence of priesthood is thus reduced to service. We need no rites of ordination for social workers, house-builders, and community organizers. But in the Roman Catholic tradition, priests are ordained for ministry, and ministry, for the less Latin-challenged amongst us, as you well know, comes from the word “munus” which means task or office. From a sacramental-ontological point of view, therefore, we speak – nay, the Holy Father, following Church tradition, speaks of the TRIA MUNERA given as gifts, to men ordained as priests.

This tria munera, more properly understood not in terms of three distinct tasks, but in terms of three aspects of the same priestly office, thus points to someone who is configured unto Christ, priest, prophet, and king. Apropos this, John Paul II, of happy memory, wrote:

“If we analyze carefully the conciliar texts, it is obvious that one should speak of a triple dimension of Christ’s service and mission, rather than of three different functions. In fact, these functions are closely linked to one another, explain one another, condition one another, and clarify one another. Consequently, it is from this threefold unity that our sharing in Christ’s mission and office takes its origin.”

I understand that today’s postmodern sensibilities are loathe to accepting the concept of “power.” Whilst preconciliar theology often tended to emphasize the powers of the priesthood, in its attempt to explain the tria munera, it will be worth our while to get to the bottom of what those “powers” really were meant to convey. Maybe the word is not too pleasant to our postmodern ears, but, on the basis of our sacramental-ontological model of priesthood, the tria munera, is first understood as gift, and only then, as an office. It is also first understood as participation, before it is seen as potestas or power.

And this is where, again, we need to dig a little deeper theologically. Presbyterorum Ordinis says that “priests are signed with a special character and so are configured to Christ the priest in such a way that they are able to act in the person of Christ the Head.”

In persona Christi capitis … Writing in connection with this, Jean Galot says: “the priestly character is not added to the other two (Baptism and Confirmation). It deepens the mark already there by imprinting upon the self the project of a priestly life that is to come to fruition with the help of graces conferred during the exercise of ministry.” And this is the important point: “What distinguishes the priestly character from the character impressed by baptism and confirmation is that of a man’s being is conformed to Christ the Shepherd. The image of the good shepherd is impressed on the soul of the ordained person as a principle and basic blueprint of the ministry to be carried out … The priestly character is character in the highest degree, in its most complete realization, the most intense participation in the priesthood of Christ.” Participation comes first, as gift, not as merited, earned, and claimed. This participation stands at the basis of the priest’s power. That power is not for oneself, but for the community, for others, for the people of God. The priest acts in persona Christi, and in persona ecclesiae – a man for others.

Where, then, does all this deep theologizing lead to? Where do we go from here, then? This is the juicy part, but the juice does not come from the skin. It comes from the pulp, the center, from deep down. Getting to the core, then, lends us the luxury to go into the details with serenity, surety, and certainty. Understanding the deep theology of the priesthood allows us sufficient latitude to go into far-ranging consequences that would not hold water if they did not get down to, and spring from, the core. These consequences might sound simple but never simplistic.

Let me go to some of them …

1. A priest is a pastor and proclaimer. He cannot just be a pastor and sit idly by watching evangelization happen – or not happen, as is often the case. He has to make it happen, for, apart from the Bishop, he is the one who participates most (essentially, not just in degree) in the tria munera of Christ the Supreme High Priest. Benedict XVI speaks of the primacy of proclamation thus:

“Jesus speaks of the proclamation of the Kingdom of God as the true purpose of his coming into the world and his proclamation is not only a discourse. At the same time, it includes his action: the signs and miracles that he works show that the Kingdom comes into the world as a present reality which ultimately coincides with Jesus Himself … Word and sign are indivisible. Christian preaching does not proclaim “words,” but the Word, and the proclamation coincides with the very person of Christ, ontologically open to the relationship with the Father and obedient to His will … For the priest then, being the “voice” of the Word is not merely a functional aspect. On the contrary it implies a substantial “losing of himself” in Christ, participating with his whole being in the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection: his understanding, his freedom, his will and the offering of His body as a living sacrifice.” (Address to the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation of the Clergy).

2. Evangelization is not an adjunct, not a value-added feature to the work of education that we do. Evangelization cannot be relegated to a department or subject-area that needs to be entrusted only to a department head or subject area coordinator. We are called to be evangelizers, and not just to give quality education. We educate by evangelizing, and we evangelize by educating.

3. The third flows from this second statement. Religion ought not to be considered a mere subject to teach but a way of life to share. For this to happen, an appropriate culture needs to be established in school and that culture needs to be a patently Christian, Catholic culture. If it is a way of life that needs to be inculcated, part of our responsibility as evangelizers is to see to it that that culture becomes the dominant culture, and not as a mere sub-culture as happens in many so-called catholic universities in the mainland. Evangelii Nuntiandi, number 20 speaks of the need to evangelize culture or cultures. But it insists that it should go beyond putting on a thin veneer on the surface. For this to happen, we perhaps may need to put a cap on the number (relative to the total number of students, of course), of non-christians admitted to our schools, especially if their aim is only to get a good education. Our goal is to guarantee that our students get to breathe and live daily an experience of Church, of getting to know first hand that it is possible to live an experience of Church even in an educational setting, where integration of faith and life happens on a day-to-day basis.

If you notice, I have been a little biased in my talk. I have to be. The topic given to me was the role of the pastor on the faith formation of the parish. This I did, by first dismantling and doing away with the word “role.” We spoke of munus, of participation that translates into potestas, and not the other way around. We spoke of integration, of faith and life, of the fact that being gifted, one is sent. We spoke of the fact, too, that being consecrated (ordained) we as priests are also by that very fact, commissioned. Our consecration leads us to mission. This simply put is what that means … We cannot just be cultic, without being catechetic in outlook and action. We are priests, pastors, preachers, managers, administrators, social workers, community organizers. But we cannot be all this alone and still think we do justice to our priesthood. We ought to be all this and evangelizers all at once.

A tall order, you say? You bet!

And this is why I would like, at this juncture, to quote Vicki Thorn, the founder of Project Rachel:

“A priest is a man clothed in tenderness, who speaks God’s mercy, who prophetically pronounces the truth, unpleasant though it might be, and who reflects God’s love to a hurting world. Sometimes he is shoring up souls and sometimes he is breaking up concrete. He’s comforting the grieving and challenging the young. He’s soothing the dying and blessing the newborn.”

And this leads me to something that up till now, you may be thinking I might have forgotten. Where does all this talk about priest, prophet, and king lead all the lay people here in this hall to? Where does all this leave you, my dear lay friends? If the priest is proclaimer par excellence, what are we to make you? What are you to make of yourselves?

Before you consider yourselves off the hook, hold your peace. Before you decide that the first speaker this morning is guilty not only of male chauvinism but also of clericalism, lend me your ears a short while more.

Your pastor needs you. The Church needs you. And you are not just needed in a selfish and manipulative way by your pastors, for want of work horses to do the dirty work for them, or battering rams to forge their way toward hostile territory (read: non catholic grounds). No … evangelization is as much your mission as ours. By virtue of the royal priesthood of the laity, to which we as baptized and confirmed individuals, prior even to our ordination, were also called to, consecrated for, and sent. We are all in it together. This is the basic and common Christian mission – the great commission, as sometimes it is referred to.

Pope Paul VI already made that clear long ago … “the primary and immediate task of the laity is to bring the gospel to bear on the affairs of the world.” Lumen Gentium teaches us that lay faithful participate in Christ’s prophetic mission when “the power of the gospel … shines out in daily family and social life” (LG 35). The laity also share in Christ’s priestly mission when they unite themselves to him and to his sacrifice in the offering they make of themselves and their daily activities (34). And they participate in Christ’s royal mission when by serving others in Jesus’ name, they spread his kingdom.

Although it sounds like a truism and a triviality, I would like to say, that it does not do much good to have a leader in the parish if there is not many willing to be led. It does not make us get too far if we have a shepherd’s voice booming out and no sheep to hear his voice. It takes two to tango. One of the big problems of postmodernity is the so-called crisis of leadership. But I would like to venture out and add, that it is as much a crisis of leadership, as a crisis of the led. We priests and laity are all called to the same goal and mission. It is no accident that the word “parish” in English, really came from a Greek word paroikos which tells us everything about the relationship between pastor and laity. Paroikos means a house beside mine. It means “dwelling beside.” I don’t know about Chamorro culture, but back home, neighbors do not just dwell beside one another. In Hebrew mentality, neighbors just don’t give a “hello and good-bye” greeting day-in and day-out. They were experts on hospitality, on walking together, on doing things together, living as they were in the midst of so much natural and man-made hostile elements, as nomads.

Vicki Thorn understood it. Mother Teresa understood it too. And so did great women luminaries and saints of the stature of St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena and many others. They took priests to task. They even pointed a menacing scolding finger at the Holy Father and the anti-Pope, as Catherine did. But their prophecy of denunciation eventually led them to annunciation. They did not just tear down walls. They built a Church. Together, they chose to gather and build community. They took to their roles as priest, prophet and king themselves like unto Christ the Supreme Shepherd. But without in any way insisting to become what the Lord did not call them to be, they did what they were called to, like all priests are called to prior to their being ordained for ministry – be evangelizers and disciples of the Lord. Like Mary, his mother, the first disciple, the first among the redeemed, blessed among all women, who conceived and brought forth the Word become flesh.

And if we insist on speaking about roles, this is it … all of us, whether ordained or lay, are called to conceive and nurture the word, until we reach the fullness of stature of Christ, the Word eternal!

MORE THAN JUST MERE BREAD!

2009-07-27T18:39:00.001+08:00

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
August 2, 2009

The Israelites who wandered in the desert did not just have wants. They whined, wailed and grumbled against Moses and Aaron, even as they pined for what they sorely missed back “home” in Egypt – decent food, real food … along with familiar relative creature comforts. Never mind that they were slaves … put aside the fact that they were not free … forever doing work that bore no lasting fruit for them and the whole community then in bitter exile.

But today’s liturgy seals for posterity the truth about God and His loving intervention on His people’s welfare: “The Lord gave them bread from heaven,” (Psalm 78:24) as our enthusiastic response to the first reading puts it… not just material bread, assuredly … not just “food that perishes,” but “food that endures for eternal life.” (cf Jn 6:27)

How myopic and shallow we modern “Israelites” could be! We are being led by the Lord towards fullness of life and here we are complaining about what we think is a raw deal we are getting! Like the Israelites of old, we cannot stand being out there in the desert of long-haul commitment of hope and self-denial, and we pine for the short-term, though illusory, solutions provided by a world mired in a culture of instant, easy, but shallow answers to the deepest questions and desires that go beyond our want for mere material bread.

We all, young and old alike, are now captivated by the “ningning” (glitter) of superficial solutions to our wants and problems that come from a seeping culture of shallow consumerism, espoused by the rapidly shrinking globalized and media-controlled world of malls, “eatertainment” and “retailtainment” centers, awash in escapist telenovelas, chinovelas and anime presentations.

The world offers us bread – and not much else besides and beyond!

But the world – and that means each one of us – wants and needs more than just bread. We are in search for something more, something deeper, something nobler and greater – an authentic and all encompassing desire that stands behind all our little wants and needs. This is something which the world and all it offers, cannot give, notwithstanding its “ningning” and, at times, even overwhelming power to attract us.

For deep beneath the surface reality of our inauthentic desires, lie our deepest wantings and yearnings for God, for fullness of life, for meaning and for union and oneness with our Creator. We long for bread. But we want more than just manna. And the Lord gives us more than just bread. “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread fro heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (Jn 6:32-33)

It is time we acknowledged to ourselves and to God the reality of our deepest wanting. God is never far from our deepest desires. God can never be far from what He Himself has implanted deep in our nature as relational beings. God is there, where all the action in our life is – in the source of our deepest wanting. It is time we set aside the inauthentic, “deceitful desires” (Eph 4:22) that have corrupted us, and get to the task at hand: to “be renewed in the spirit of [our] minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way of righteousness and holiness of truth.” (Eph 4:24)

HOPE IN THE MIDST OF DISUNITY

2009-07-23T14:41:00.003+08:00

Sunday Morning Worship Guide & Reflection 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B July 26, 2009

Sin has caused so much alienation, division and disunity. Since Adam and Eve began hiding from the Lord in the garden after the first fall, humankind has gone a long way toward deepening and widening that primordial rift between and among peoples and nations. The last century that saw two great world wars, not to mention the so many little wars of attrition waged in so many places, and the coming into vogue of violent terroristic acts all over the world are a collective testament to the crying need for oneness. This utter lack of unity does not spare the world’s great religions, Christianity included, now divided into so many different denominations and aggrupations – and still counting!

Humanly speaking, there is no solution to this impasse! There is very little that humankind can do to make that elusive dream of generations become a reality. Kipling’s inspired aphorism seems to express this best: “East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet!” Even within our home shores, our tiny nation of 7,100 islands is continually buffetted by the raging storms of ethnic and political strife, not to mention the sad fact that the Philippines, as one author describes it, is nothing more, nothing less than “an anarchy of families.” The past, present, and future of the Philippines, its welfare and well-being (or the gross lack of it), depend a whole lot on just a few family economic and political dynasties. The official mainstream economy, moreover, pales in comparison to the magnitude of the unofficial, so-called “underground” economy, that has remained the blight – and the single most important obstacle – to economic and social growth that would benefit the masses. Humanly speaking, there is no hope for such a sad state of affairs.

There was no hope either, from the purely human viewpoint, when the Lord asked Philip: “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” This, Philip knew as much, for in his quick mental math, he reckoned quite accurately: “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” But hope is not human. It is divine. It comes from above. Our catechism teaches us that hope, along with faith and love, are so-called “theological” virtues, which have been infused in us in our baptism. Hope, like faith and love, is a gift from God, grace from above, beyond the mere mortal power of any human. This divine hope shines out well in Andrew’s well-meaning offer – the boy’s offering of five barley loaves and two fish, an offering reminiscent of the Old Testament’s offerings of first fruits, reminiscent, too, of the poor offering of two turtledoves of Mary and Joseph during the presentation at the Temple! Nothing is too insignificant for God when freely offered to Him! No offering ever is poor and worthless offering for God when it is given willingly and without reserve! The humanly impossible became possible on account of the “hopeful offering” of Andrew and the boy who gave his all. Bread was multiplied in order to be shared: “Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them … When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.’”

Unity is God’s dream, before it was ours! Unity is God’s work prior to its becoming our own work. God Himself does the wonders, the miraculous multiplication in view of the sharing, along with the “gathering,” the unifying, the making of all of us caught in this sinful mess into one, single mass – the Church! Today, in this Mass, he gives us bread to share. And He gives us hope to spare! Truly, “the hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs!”

SERENITY IN THE MIDST OF COMPLEXITY

2009-07-16T19:31:00.001+08:00

Sunday Morning Worship Guide / Reflection
16th Sunday, Year B July 19, 2009

We live in a complex world … a world of contrasts, filled with contested and contesting values with each one vying for everyone’s attention. Jeremiah’s world was a contrasting one made up of shepherds who led righteously, and shepherds who not only misled, but scattered the flock. St. Paul candidly refers to a “dividing wall of enmity,” and to the reality that at some point in our lives, we “were far off” from God, but that thankfully, we “have become near by the blood of Christ,” he, who “is our peace,” and “through [whom] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” The Gospel of Mark alludes to a busy band of twelve, who, along with their Master, “had no opportunity even to eat,” caught up by the motley demands of people who “were coming and going in great numbers.” No less than Christ, “was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.”

There is more than just “pity” from Christ, the Good Shepherd for us all who live and move in this world of stark contrasts.

First of all, he shows himself as the fulfillment of the promise given through Jeremiah the prophet: “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock … and bring them back to their meadow … I will appoint shepherds for them so that they need no longer fear and tremble…” Secondly, as our peace, he “broke down the dividing wall of enmity … thus establishing peace …he came and preached peace to [those] who were far off and peace to those who were near …” Thirdly, he invites us today and every busy day to “come away by [ourselves] to a deserted place and rest a while.”

Pity alone is not what the Lord gives us today and everyday of our busy lives. Like a true shepherd he shows us the way and guides us. “So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place,” to have some time for rest and reflection, and presumably, for prayer. Jesus’ thoughtfulness, attentiveness, and concern for his apostles’ welfare shine out remarkably clear in this short vignette reported by Mark. Such personal solicitude for the good of his followers is eloquent sign, among others, of Jesus’ intention to live in concrete what he has declared in word: “I am the Good Shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (Jn 10:11)

Sunday, like today, is the Good Shepherd’s offering for us to have some quiet, rest, reflection and prayer. Sunday is as much the “day of the Lord,” (Dies Domini), as the “day of and for man,” (Dies hominis). Sunday is also the day for God’s assembly, the Church (Dies Ecclesiae), where together God’s people, like the Jews in Christ’s times did, saw the Lord as he “began to teach them many things.” (Mk 6:34)

Today, the Liturgy invites us to re-appropriate Sunday for what it really was meant to be: a day for the Lord, as much as a day for ourselves. Rather than seeing Sunday as a day for self-absorption and self-preoccupation, it is to be seen as a day for legitimate rest and solitude, not for one’s selfish motives, but eventually to get closer to God and Christ through prayer and reflection, so that through intimate communion with the Lord, we may rise victorious amidst the contrasting and conflicting complexities of life in this globalized, consumerist, mass media-dominated world. Such intimacy with God, in and through this Eucharistic celebration, ought then to make us capable of proclaiming sincerely and more effectively: ‘The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.”

ACCEPTING OR REJECTING PROPHETS

2009-07-07T13:05:00.001+08:00

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
July 12, 2009

The readings of today revolve around the basic idea of mission. Amos, although, by his own admission, not originally belonging to “a company of prophets,” but a “shepherd and a dresser of sycamores,” was chosen by God, taken “from following the flock,” and told to “go, and prophesy to [the] people [of] Israel.” St. Paul, for his part, thanks and glorifies God, “who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world.” In the Gospel, we hear Jesus sending out his disciples two by two who “went off and preached repentance.”

“In him we were also chosen,” St. Paul goes on to say. We are called. We are sent. Like the original twelve around Jesus. We are chosen and called to proclaim and prophesy in God’s behalf. The choosing, the calling and the sending, however, were not without challenges, difficulties and problems!

Amos, for one, drew the ire of the priest Amaziah. The envious and insecure Amaziah told Amos to go right back to where he came from – Judah -- and limit his prophesying there. Not satisfied with that form of spiteful verbal abuse, Amaziah even made use of his connections and denounced him before King Jeroboam II, warning the king that Amos had conspired against him. (cf. Amos 7:10-11) The twelve, sent two by two, were told by Jesus to go and preach, taking with them only the barest minimum, and forewarned them of the possibility of being rejected by the very people they would be ministering to.

Modern-day prophets who are no less chosen, called and sent by God fare no better than those referred to in today’s readings. Let us look at a few concrete examples … The Holy Father’s perceived “hard” teachings on matters of morals and discipline meet with not just a little opposition from many quarters in and out of the Church. The Mass Media, by and large, show a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle opposition, by watering down the teachings, at times reducing them to absurdity, by resorting to subtle innuendoes and to half-truths, giving unwary readers a lopsided – if, biased – version of the teachings. Legislators and people in the executive branches of government, ever cautious and conscious of the rise or fall of their popularity, simply ignore what is described by popular mass media as “outdated, conservative and hopelessly anachronistic, mediavalist” teachings from a Church further described as meddlesome and as against freedom, progress and development. Like Amos, modern-day prophets sent by God are told to preach elsewhere, but should have nothing to do with whatever people do in the privacy of their bedrooms and homes! Pastors, who happen not to fit the frames of “ideal pastors” in the minds of moneyed and powerful blocks in and out of the parish pastoral councils, are either “silenced” or “co-opted” by people in high places into executing their own plans and expectations. How many pastors have been unceremoniously removed from office on account of some of these so-called petitions from “power-brokers” from within our communities? How often have our pastors, including bishops, been crucified on account of their standing steadfast with the official teachings of the Church as articulated by the Holy Father? Today is a good opportunity for us to reflect on acceptance of the God-sent prophets in our midst. The choosing, the calling, and the sending – as we have seen – belong to God and God alone. Our response of acceptance? “I will hear what God proclaims” … Our prayer? “Lord, let us see your kindness and grant us your salvation!”

STRENGTH IN THE FACE OF REJECTION

2009-07-02T18:38:00.002+08:00

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
July 5, 2009

There is a strong feel of futility running like a thread in the fabric of today’s readings. Seemingly, that is… Ezekiel being forewarned about the rebellious Israelites to whom he is being sent to prophesy… described as “hard of face and obstinate of heart” … St. Paul finding himself face to face with real suffering… “a thorn in the flesh,” about which he beseeched the Lord “three times,” to no avail … Jesus being confronted by his fellow townmates with doubting and belittling questions, all pointing toward rejection and unbelief, from the very people who should have been the first to support him!

Futility! This seems to characterize the efforts of so many well-meaning people in our society! Despite heroic efforts at fostering the common good, despite the energies expended at making government really deliver the goods to the people that need them most, despite the repeated teachings of the Church on important matters of faith and morals, all we seem to see is the progressive degradation of societal norms, structures and values. The traffic situation hardly improves in our cities and congested towns where creative traffic schemes, no matter how brilliant, are no match for ill-educated and selfish drivers who insist on behaving like as if traffic rules were meant for others, but not for themselves. Values taught in schools and proclaimed in pulpits do not stand a chance in the classroom of daily life where just about the only real and substantial education that the young receive comes from the TV and the internet. The dreams for a “strong republic” do not even see the light of day, nipped in the bud, as it were, by a bureaucracy that has taken pride of place as the 11th most corrupt one in the whole world. Prophets who risk rejection, continue to fight for the rights of the unborn, waging a seemingly lost battle for what is morally upright, whose light is now fast fading compared to the luster and glitter of a consumerist, individualistic, hedonistic and throw-away culture of personal convenience and personal gain.

The list could go on. Shakespeare’s words sound true enough for us: “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” We see weakness and helplessness before the might of a culture of sin and death, that masquerades under the guise of self-fulfillment, self-actualization and enlightened social development. Our hearts thus find sympathetic resonance in the psalmist’s prayer that we now make our very own: “Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.” (Responsorial Psalm)

“Sated with the contempt of the proud and the mockery of the arrogant,” we plead pity from the Lord. The Lord hears our prayer. Today, we see ourselves blessed to be counted among the ranks of Ezekiel who remained unfazed by the obduracy and hard-heartedness of the people he was sent to. We consider ourselves favored by the Lord who found us worthy enough to be in league with St. Paul who knew first hand what it meant to be weak, to be insulted, persecuted and to be subjected to all forms of hardships and constraints. Most of all, we see ourselves privileged to follow the footsteps of Christ himself, who found no honor and faith from among the people of his native place. We are fortunate to be afforded the singular opportunity to respond in faith to him “for whose sake [we] are content with weaknesses… for when [we are] weak, then [we are] strong.”

CELEBRATING CHRIST’S BODY & BLOOD

2009-06-10T20:34:00.002+08:00

The focus of today’s solemnity is life. All three readings speak of blood poured in sacrifice – blood which for the Jews stood for the principle of life itself, blood which also stood as symbol of the covenant between God and His people, purifying blood that symbolized cleansing from iniquities that makes one worthy “to worship the living God.” In the Gospel account, the same symbolism comes out strong: “This is the blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” (Mk 14:24)

Mark’s gospel tells us that after the passover meal, “they went out to the mount of olives.” It was there that later in the night, the Lord “sweated blood” (Lk 22:44) in the moment of extreme agony, at a moment when he was fully aware of what his self-offering would cost him – no less than his own life.

This is the life that we celebrate and extol in today’s solemn feast.

Undeniably, it has become difficult, if not close to impossible, nowadays to fully celebrate the feast in the traditional manner. It has become difficult, in fact inadvisable now, to make splendid processions and construct huge altars from which to expose the Blessed Sacrament and then to bless devotees with, after rituals of veneration right in the main thorougfares. Globalization, abetted by a strong current of secularism and pluralism even in matters of faith, have conspired in the recent decades to make such triumphalistic and ritualistic manifestations of devotion look a little too medieval in approach and style. In this fast-paced and result-oriented society, the traditional “pious stare” accorded the mystery of the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament through the practice of the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, has taken a back seat to that which rightfully ought to be given more importance – the lively, active and “live” event of salvation that takes place in the celebration of the Eucharist.

This celebration of the Eucharist, therefore, taking place in “real time,” here and now, ought to be given due priority and attention by us who have chosen to take part in it. True to its primary symbolism of LIFE, the Eucharist taking place now, the making-present once again of the sacrifice of Christ’s outpouring of blood and the sharing of his body to us all, is more important than merely exposing the Blessed Sacrament for adoration of the faithful.

All this is to say something very important. What counts as most important is the full, conscious, lively and active participation in the unfolding sacrifice that is now being celebrated by God’s people at the MENSA VERBI (the table of the Word) and the MENSA EUCHARISTIAE (the table of the Eucharist). Without in any way denigrating and downgrading the laudable practice of the adoration given to the Blessed Sacrament, the Church, through today’s solemnity, merely teaches us that the celebration itself of the Eucharist, is a unique and special presence of Jesus in his body, the Church now gathered as one family in worship. His blood now unites us all into one body despite our differences. His blood now purifies this same body and nourishes each and every single member. And since the outpouring of blood leads to death, Jesus’ death now becomes our passport to the celebration of life and unity that is what this Eucharistic celebration is all about – a celebration of Christ’s body and blood!

ALL GOD HAS COMMANDED

2009-06-01T14:56:00.001+08:00

Oneness…fullness…completeness…totality…wholeness…The Solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity today seems to remind us of all the foregoing concepts – and more! The readings today were all from books written well before the term “Trinity” was introduced in theological discourse. But Scripture that has come down to us through the centuries reflects the “lived theology” of the community of believers. Obviously, the reality of the Trinity preceded the terminology. The faith in the Trinity antedated the invention of a term (or a symbol) to stand for the truth held in faith in people’s minds and hearts, long before the word was uttered in their mouths.

All God has taught… all God has uttered… and all God has commanded! This represents the body of truths celebrated by the early Church in the liturgy. An ancient dictum says it all: Lex orandi, lex credendi. As the Church prays, so does the Church believe. What the Church holds in faith is what the Liturgy celebrates and proclaims.

Very early on, faith in the Triune God has been part of the whole structure, content and practice of prayer and worship of the incipient Church. Thus could St. Paul confidently teach: “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God…heirs with Christ.” (Rm 8:14-17)

The word “Trinity” is not found anywhere in Scripture. But the truth about this essential nature of the God who revealed Himself ever so gradually through history and, most especially in Christ, His Son is an incontrovertible fact that is clear in the same Scripture. The “lived theology” of Paul, the evangelists and the early Christians is a clear manifestation of the fullness, completeness and wholeness of their faith in the “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and the one God and Father of all.” (Eph 4:5) “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with all of you.” (2Cor 13:13) No less than Jesus himself, after convoking his disciples for the last time, reveals yet another facet in the nature of God again on a mountain, like he did during the Transfiguration, like he did when he started proclaiming the Kingdom. It was on the mountain that he gave them final instructions: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:18)

Today, the Liturgical celebration forms part of a series of Solemnities called solemnities of the Lord in which we are invited to reflect on some aspects of our “one faith” in the “one God and Father of all.” That faith, we would do well to remind ourselves today, is one, whole, and entire, with nothing added, and nothing subtracted from what has been revealed to us in Christ. Today, we claim and proclaim, by way of a fitting celebration of worship, our faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, as part of all God has taught and commanded… nothing more, nothing less, nothing else! “Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; to God who is, who was, and who is to come.” (cf Rev. 1:8)

GIFT, GIFTED, & GIVEN

2009-05-26T22:12:00.001+08:00

Pentecost Sunday
May 31, 2009

Pentecost Sunday liturgy revolves around the idea of gift. We are told about an entire house “being filled with a driving wind,” “toungues of fire” “parting and resting on each one,” and each one “being filled with the Holy Spirit.” St. Paul speaks of “different kinds of spiritual gifts,” and some “manifestation of the Spirit given for some benefit.” The alternative second reading says more. It enumerates the “fruits of the Spirit,” namely: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Gospel, for its part, confronts us with a double gift from the Risen Christ – two gifts that are intimately linked to each other: peace from the Lord, and the Spirit who is to be behind a bigger gift - the power to forgive sins.

Gifts galore, these all are! Gifts to acknowledge, cherish and nurture by a people deemed worthy enough to be gifted by this world’s tremendous lover! This, at least partly, is what Pentecost is all about – a day of giftedness, a day of filled-ness, a time and season “to rejoice at seeing the [Risen] Lord” in our midst once again.

The world could use a little more genuine and honest-to-goodness appreciation for the gifts that it receives on a continual, daily basis. This consumerist world that is now awash in material goods, now so plentiful that most people do not even know how to appreciate them, can tend to be biased in favor of what is quantifiable, palpable, usable – everything that caters to our innate desire to possess and fulfill our longing for the more! Many of us, ever hungry for the greater, the better, the ultimate in everything, may be compared to that little boy, who after opening all the beautifully wrapped gifts given to him on his birthday, could only mutter to the utter disappointment of his parents and relatives: “Is this all I’m getting?”

That boy who stands for most of us could not fully appreciate what he got. Like him, we cannot appreciate what we are getting for one simple reason: we remain and get bogged down only on the level of the gifts received. We fail to transcend the gifts and lose sight of an important truth – the truth of our giftedness. Merely counting gifts can make one satiated, but not satisfied. Merely having gifts can make one feel filled for a while, but never fulfilled. The former has to do with having more; the latter has to do with being more. This comes from the deep realization that one is gifted, enriched, blessed, and loved by history’s greatest lover of all. This means being “filled with grace,” because one is filled, not just with “presents”from the Lord, but with His “presence” in our lives.

But there is still a third level of transcendence that Pentecost reminds us of. We have not only received gifts from above. We are not merely gifted beings who are loved by God with a love of predilection that has no parallel on earth. We are meant also to be “given” like Jesus and the Spirit were. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” After breathing on them, the Risen Lord said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” The Spirit’s gift of truth, his guidance to all the truth given to the Church, is meant to be, in turn, a gift to others, a mission, even as Christ and the Spirit are in a “joint mission” from the Father. As we prayed at the start of this Mass, “let the Spirit you sent…continue to work in the world through the hearts of all who believe.” For we all have received gifts. We are gifted. And we are meant to be given in mission to the world.

ELOQUENT SILENCE OF CHRIST

2009-04-01T19:53:00.002+08:00

Liturgical Reflection on Passion Sunday / Catholic Sunday Worship Guide
Palm Sunday opens the unfolding drama of the mystery of salvation that we Filipinos seem very much at home in. In today’s telenovela-crazed culture, we find sympathetic resonance in our hearts as we accompany the Lord in his journey of triumph on entering Jerusalem, only to move towards seeming defeat at Calvary. Ever attracted by the plight of the proverbial underdog, we see pathos, we feel pity, and we feel one with the suffering Christ even as we join the crowds in initially singing hosannas to the King of Kings!

Two seemingly conflicting images pierce our consciousness in today’s colorful but sedate liturgy: the triumphant entry of Jesus to Jerusalem, evoking Christ’s triumph as King, on the one hand, and the circumstances, conditions and the means Christ had to pass through to gain that eventual definitive victory – the Passion!

Palm Sunday is all about this seeming contradiction. Palm Sunday is all about apparent utter failure and defeat. It is all about a God condescending totally towards weak, sinful and frail humanity, becoming one with us in all things, but sin, even joining us for a while in savoring the triumph that awaits us all – the already and the not yet of our salvation-participation in the victory of God who will have the final word in the end. Palm Sunday is about us people who, one moment can sing hosannas, and at another, cry out lustily “crucify him!” Palm Sunday is about us sinful humanity, struggling between acceptance of a God who gives life, and the refusal of a God who indeed gives it while killing, while himself passing through the path of passion and death!

We do not easily understand it all! Come to think about it, if it were a mere telenovela, we would rally behind a pitiful figure of one subjected as Isaiah reports to us, to all sorts of ignominies, a suffering servant, alone and silent as we will see and hear in Mark’s account of the Passion, “who humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross” (Phil 2:8).

The response of Jesus to the shouts of triumphant hosannas was silence. It was the silence of a humble man who came, not astride a horse like mighty and powerful men would do, but on a lowly colt, whose owner was not even significant enough to be named for posterity. The response of Jesus to the untold suffering in his Passion was silence too. Mark reports that Jesus spoke only three times after his arrest. In the face of so many questions, Mark tells us: “But he was silent and answered nothing” (Mk 14:61). Before the High Priest, he declared himself the Messiah and the Son of Man. Before Pilate, he says he is King of the Jews. And on the cross, all he cried out was the lament of the suffering servant: Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani!

This is the impressive and eloquent silence of one who speaks, who represents, and who IS truth! This is the eloquence of one who would go through the most impressive silence and at the same time the most powerful statement from the God of the living and the dead – the silence of the tomb and the deafening roar of victory in the Resurrection! In this noise-filled world, one does well today to remember that genuine eloquence comes not from empty words, but from the power of liberating truth.

A LAW WRITTEN IN THE HEART

2009-03-25T07:33:00.002+08:00

Lenten Reflection / Sunday Worship Guide

I would like to think that today’s liturgy may be understood as a call to reflect on three basic themes: renewal, authenticity, and interiority. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of the new covenant that will be forged between Yahweh and the house of Israel.That new covenant, we are told, is connected with Yahweh’s overriding mercy and forgiveness. The New Law, we are told further, is to be written not in stone, but is meant to be placed within us and written upon[our] hearts (Jer 31:33).

The letter to the Hebrews, along with the second part of John’s gospel passage, both allude unmistakably to the agony of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemani, and his subsequent suffering “in the flesh,” a very real and authentic journey of suffering and death that is at the root of the eternal salvation that awaits all believers.

The same Gospel passage from John gives us a glimpse of the interior struggle experienced by Jesus as he agonized in the garden, and the subsequent triumph of obedience to the Father’s will that ensued from that intense interior communing with the Father, when “he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death” (Heb 5:7).

We are all partakers now of this new covenant. We are sons and daughters of this renewal that has become a reality in the coming of Christ in our lives. But what was prophesied of old still has to unfold and become a reality in our individual and communal lives. We are all called to constant renewal, to constant purification, to continuing conversion. But for renewal to take place, there has to be a counterpart from our side of the covenant. We need to make the Law our own. We need to allow it to be written in our hearts. This is a call to authenticity and interiority. This is a call to act like Christ who “son though he was, learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb 5:8). This is a call to be like Christ in his total acceptance of and resignation to his Father’s will: “But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name” (Jn 12:27).

How many times have we been told about our tendency as Filipinos to settle for mere externals, our penchant for form and image rather than substance? How many times have we been reminded about our propensity to be good debaters and glib talkers, but after all the sound and fury of our rhetoric, there is little in terms of action that we can show? The Philippines have produced among the best laws all over the world in terms of ecology and other relevant issues, but problems on those issues continue to plague us. Surely, there is something disturbing at the dawning realization we are having, that Asia’s only Christian nation, also happens to be among the most corrupt and graft-ridden. The last two national youth surveys confirm each other in this disturbing trend: the famed religiosity of the Filipino as we know it is fast disappearing. And in its place, we see a lot of media-mediated values like consumerism, hedonism and relativism, as shown for example by the tenuous appreciation for, if not downright refusal from an increasing number of Filipinos of the Church’s official moral teachings.Seventeen years after the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines, we can only beat our breast at the painful realization that evangelization has failed miserably in many senses! All this just shows that renewal, authenticity and interiority are things we cannot take lightly in our journey of faith as Christians and Catholics.

LIFTED HIGH ON ACCOUNT OF LOVE

2009-03-17T20:36:00.004+08:00

Thoughts on Lent / Sunday Worship Guide

There is more than enough reason why this 4th Sunday of Lent is called Laetare Sunday, as can be gleaned from the tone of the entrance antiphon: “Rejoice Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her…” Midway through our Lenten journey toward Easter, the liturgy offers us some kind of a reality check. The first reading reminds us how we, very much like the Israelites of old, have “added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord’s temple…” The same reading, however, shows God’s compassion on his people in concrete. He inspired Cyrus to issue an edict which released the Israelite people from exile and bondage in Babylon. St. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians corroborates this saving mercy of “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life in Christ – by grace [we] have been saved” (Eph 2:4). The Gospel provides the clincher to this overwhelming source of rejoicing: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:15).

There, too, is more than enough personal reason why we ought to rejoice. We have it all deep in the inner recesses of our remote and recent memories. We all have sinned. We all have veered away from the paths set by the Lord for us. “All men have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). The memory of the sins we have committed, and still perhaps continue to commit is not easy to shoo away and difficult to deny, that, together with the psalmist, we declare today, “Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!”

Gratitude, they say, is the remembrance of the heart. What else should the human heart remember but that which the heart knows best about? The heart best remembers mercy, compassion, and love – the very same characteristics of a saving God who showed “the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:7).

It is this grateful remembrance that lifts our spirits up today. It is this great love that exalts us, that buoys us up, that gives us fresh hopes despite the repetitiveness of our human folly.

Today’s gospel, in allusion to the Old Testament, speaks about the Son of Man being lifted up for everyone to behold and thus find salvation. This refers to Jesus, lifted high on the wood of the cross, “so everyone who believes in him might have eternal life” (Jn 3:15). He was lifted high on account of love.

As we journey on through Lent, we are exhorted once more to “think of what is above, not of what is on earth” (Col 3:2). Lifted high on account of love ourselves, we set our sights on what is above, and not on what is below. We thus have more than just an equivalent of what the ancient Romans got their strength from: ROBUR AB ASTRIS! (Strength from the stars!). Lifted high for love of us sinners, Christ and his cross count, not only for our strength, but also, - and more importantly - for our salvation, our hope, and our victory!

BEING FREE FOR, NOT BEING FREE FROM

2009-03-09T08:38:00.001+08:00

This third Sunday of Lent offers us a glimpse about who God is for us. The first reading shows us a God uttering important words as guideposts for our conduct and behavior. It is unfortunate that the English rendition of Decalogue (ten words) came down to us as ten commandments. For freedom-loving people of today, immersed in a world of a multiplicity of choices on all fronts, the word commandment sounds too negative, too limiting, too constricting.

Such a narrow understanding of the broader biblical context of God’s self-revelation through Moses may not sit well with many of us. We all love autonomy. We do not want to be hemmed in. We abhor being controlled like puppets on a string. It does not sit well too with the real nature of God who shows himself to Moses and the chosen people as liberator, as deliverer who “brought [them] out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery” (Ex 20:1). This God who liberates is also a God who gives the needed tools to secure that freedom, the very means by which men and women could grow even more in freedom. These are the “ten important words” of today’s liturgy, the Decalogue.

That broader understanding of God as liberator rather than legislator is aptly expressed in our response to the first reading: “Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.” Psalm 19 extols the beauty of the law of the Lord. “The precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart; the command of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eye.”

We have a rare chance today to disabuse the notion of the law as constricting and prohibitive. At the same time, we see here a subtle invitation for us to reflect more on the role of these ten words in our personal lives. We all can get a clue from Thomas Merton who wrote: “The important question in life is not ‘Am I happy?’ but ‘Am I free?’” Perhaps doing away with the ten words would make us think we would be happy because we are not shackled by any rules. But the absence of such guideposts would not make for freedom. Happiness alone does not make us good people. It does only make us “feel good.” But to be really good and do good, one needs freedom. Such freedom is not freedom from bonds, but freedom for. And this genuine freedom makes us capable of letting all the goodness out of our personhood; it makes us capable of love, the greatest act of freedom. Michel Quoist, a writer who was famous back in my college days, wrote: “Freedom doesn’t mean being free for nothing. It means being free to love.”

This then leads us to look at what constricts freedom in the long run. It is, to use a 64 dollar word, anomie, the state of lawlessness. Think about driving down a highway on a dark night and there are no white guide lines on your left and on your right. Think about a little town of several thousand people where there are no rules and restrictions to guide people’s conduct and behavior. Think about every single one doing what he or she pleases, at any given time. Think about unbridled behavior from everyone. Think about sin and sinful acts galore! What do you see? Bondage, slavery, disorder, chaos. Such was the state the Israelites were in over at Egypt. Then God decided to liberate them through the leadership of Moses. Keeping us all in freedom…making us truly and fully liberated…this is what those ten words are all about!

LIGHT AND DARKNESS DOWN FAITH ROAD

2009-03-03T20:52:00.003+08:00

A Lenten Reflection

The 2nd Sunday of Lent puts us in difficult treading ground. The journey towards Easter glory does not seem to be all rosy and bright after all! There goes the promise to Abraham! He who was called to be a father to a multitude of nations is now called to do a very difficult sacrificial offering. “Take your son, Isaac, your only one, whom you love…”

Sometimes in life, we may feel like facing a blank wall. Trials come our way and, for all intents and purposes, it feels like the end of the road for us. Darkness sets in… appalling darkness… and the light of faith that we held onto and stood steadfast in for some time may become no more than a flicker. This seems to be the backdrop created by the story recounted in the first reading.

Just a little before Christmas some six years ago, the tragic story of a mother who spent several years abroad and left her only son to secure a brighter future for him, decided to come home for good. She did. And she came excitedly home only to see her only son run over by a speeding car! This story touches us to very core of our being. We share not only the hapless mother’s grief, but we find ourselves also sharing in what most likely filled her heart…questions, a lot of questions…with no easy answers!

Our journey of faith is very much like our journey down the road toward Easter. There are bumps along the way. There are unexpected twists and turns, and there may not be easy answers all the time, even as there is no explanation as to why that tragedy had to happen to such a good, very provident youngish mother and her beloved only son. Why did he have to meet such an untimely death, just when she had decided to stay home for good?

Yes, there may not be easy explanations and answers, but our faith does give signposts along the way! Today’s liturgy counts among them. In the height of a perceived temporary situation of darkness for Abraham, God reveals Himself as one who considers “the death of his faithful ones” “precious in the eyes of the Lord” (Ps 116:10). Abraham’s faithfulness to God despite the difficult trial he faced proved to be his most shining and brilliant moment. Aptly does the responsory express such conviction of faith when we proclaim with the psalmist: “I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.” But the most brilliant signpost is that of God’s own beloved Son. Jesus led his disciples “up a high mountain apart by themselves” (Mk 9:2) where he was transfigured.

Take heart, fellow believer! In the dark and difficult journey down faith road, God Himself shines out for us in ways we may not fully fathom all the time. In the road of faith, no longer is it a matter of knowing why but just a matter of living it despite the lack of easy answers. St. Paul clinches it for us today: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not give us everything else along with him?” (Rom 8:31b) Light and darkness down the road of faith, they are nothing else but two sides of the same coin. For the man or woman of faith, they both lead to Easter glory!

STEADFAST IN CONFLICT, LIKE CHRIST

2009-02-26T15:08:00.002+08:00

The First Sunday of Lent presents us with a promise, a sign of that promise, and their fulfillment. Speaking to Noah about a new covenant, Yahweh promises no more destruction by flood. A sign of this covenant, Yahweh adds, is the rainbow, and the sign simply put, states: water shall no longer be a sign of destruction. Peter’s letter in the second reading takes up what the waters point to positively. Instead of destruction as in the flood, the waters shall connote salvation. The Gospel presents fulfillment, very literally. Jesus himself declares openly: “This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

A common thread unites all three readings today – the thread of conflict, hostility and destruction, symbolized apparently by the destructive floods, and the wild beasts with whom Jesus was for forty days and nights in the hostile desert. Despite the hostility and the conflict and the destruction, Yahweh promised the binding symbol of the bow that covered the firmament. It shall be seen as a symbol of the covenant between God and humanity and the world of nature.

We live in a hostile world. Marred by sin and the ever present tendency to sin, the world is witness to so much conflict, destructiveness, and all sorts of hostility. There is conflict in our political lives. There is a lot of hostility and potential escalation of conflict between and among civilizations all over the world.

Today’s Gospel shows us that Jesus was no stranger to conflict and hostility. Mark the evangelist tells us that “he was among wild beasts,” and that he was “tempted by Satan” all through those forty days of fasting, prayer and repentance. In the face of conflict, in the midst of wild beasts, he showed in his person and behavior the faithfulness of God. Steadfast in his resolve, Jesus did not just act like a rainbow that stood for the covenant between God and humanity and nature. He fulfilled in his person the demands of the new covenant promised to Noah.

We Christians are called to the same steadfastness and resoluteness. And the season of Lent is a perfect opportunity for us to become the bow that binds all the conflicting elements surrounding our personhood into oneness. By our own fasting, penance and prayerfulness, in imitation of Jesus meek and humble of heart, we pacify not only the external wild beasts that roam around us, but also – and, more importantly - the interior wild beasts in our hearts that stand at the root of our factionalism, divisiveness and sinfulness.

There is a whole lot of fragmentation and selfishness in our society today. There is too much of potentially explosive sources of conflict between ethnic groups, between nations and between whole civilizations. Mere symbolic, token gestures to patch up said conflicts will not do. We need the discipline of Lent in order to become binding rather than dissipating factors in our society. We all need to resort to that which Lent has for so long been asking all believers to intensify: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

THE WORST OF TIMES AND THE BEST OF TIMES FOR HOPE: PART TWO

2009-02-10T21:14:00.003+08:00

TRIED, TESTED, AND TRUE

Our first reflection might have sounded like a lot of bad news. I ally myself with Peter Berger, who in his book “Invitation to Sociology” (1963) speaks of sociological principles and concepts as some kind of “bad news” to the uninitiated. But then awareness of what’s really going on is liberating. It gives us a perspective in which to discern, to understand things a little more, to see the bigger picture in which are framed deeper issues that are not obvious from the superficial plane. In preaching, as you all know, telling people the good news oftentimes necessitates our giving them first the bad news. It is called contextualizing. In biblical hermeneutics, we were told to look at the sitz im leben, the situation in life, for us to be able to make heads or tails of some obscure passage at hand.

It is enlightening to give a close look at where we are. But salvation, the concept that we started out with in the first talk, the grand narrative that is the product we are pushing as priests, preachers, and teachers, does not have to do with where we are. On the contrary, it has to do with where we are called, or more precisely, what we are all created for, invited to, and called to by God.

PCP-II beautifully puts it in the first opening paragraph. The terminus a quo, and the terminus ad quem that we work for is the call for us to turn “crisis” into “kairos.” It is a call to transform a culture of death into a culture of life. It is a call to revival, to a resurrection, a call from wallowing in shallow informative mode towards morphing into a deeper and committed performative mode.

About a year ago, I was having lunch with a former middle executive working for a big mass media broadcast outfit. The conversation turned to job backgrounds and experience and when I asked him where he was formerly connected with, he said: “I was with this media outfit, but I resigned.” I asked him why, and he said: “You probably won’t understand the reason why I did so.” I said, “try me … for all you know I might agree with you.” And he then told me resigned because he could no longer take it. That media outfit was, he said, the single biggest factor that contributed to the progressive dehumanization of the Filipino people. I told him, I could not agree with him more. That was what I had been saying since 1986, when I was principal in a big school right after the peaceful People Power revolution of 1986.

I speak about a main feature in Robinson’s “landscape of our lives” filled with the “contours of hopelessness” – the catalyzing force of the “media moment” that drives, hastens, and amplifies what time, space, and culture do to influence the postmodern consciousness. It is no secret that our collective psyche is “scripted in significant ways by the media,” as Robinson says (p. 103). With the fall of a dictatorship in 1986, came a rise in a very lively, excessively democratized world of mass media, which has since then, been busy “reorienting our lives” in ways we do not even notice. Reality TV, which really is a parody of reality, has invaded our private inner sanctums, and the world of entertainment has redefined values and put the “get-rich-quick-by-any-means-possible” mentality to the fore like never before, as shown by how hordes risk life and limb just to get a shot at instant stardom and instant cash by making a fool of themselves on primetime or lunchtime TV. The bottom line, for Robinson, is simply this, and I quote:

“The media moment with its emphasis on the brutality of life on earth and its sound-bite projections continues to shape the rational, thinking person in a manner that displaces the reality of God and the nature of hope. The media moment distorts our view of the created world, assigning values that often do not accord with the life of faith in God, in Christ in the Holy Spirit and offering such values as ‘reality’” (p. 106).

I think that the opening paragraph of PCP-II puts us right at the heart of what it means to offer hope to a world filled with these contours of hopelessness, and that is engaging in a progressive journey, and not just working for a finished product that is essentially what the postmodern world offers everyday. The world offers palliatives. For headaches, all one needs to do is to pop pills and presto, the headache is gone! For grief, all one needs to do is to create fun, to produce noise, to celebrate so as to quell the pain of loss or whatever kind of loss there is in our lives. The world offers a destination. Our Christian faith offers a journey, and in this journey, we are surrounded by fellow pilgrims, fellow travelers, spoken of by the letter to the Hebrews as “a cloud of witnesses.”

Josef Pieper (1963, pp. 89ss), following St. Thomas, offers an insightful glimpse into the hope that should be in us, despite the contours of hopelessness around us, in terms of two opposing concepts: viator as opposed to comprehensor. The man of hope, despite the erosion of faith, continues to be, and to embrace his status viatoris, his state of life as traveler. His stance is the exact antithesis of status comprehensoris, which is that of one who already has grasped what he is looking for. One who has in hand something he so pines for is already filled, already done. He is not a man in search. He is a man in possession. He doesn’t see himself anymore as one in process, but as one who possesses. And one who possesses does not anymore work for something. He is in a state of fullness and a full glass, as everybody knows, cannot contain more, cannot receive more.

I would like to speak from experience. I am nature lover. I am most happy when I am on a mountain trail, admiring the foliage, the gulleys and valleys, the heights, the nippy cold wind that slaps me gently in the face, the bitter cold that petrifies my joints at night, and the tingling icicles on grass that one treads on at early dawn. But whilst there is an indescribable sensation associated with being atop Mt. Pulag, for instance, there is nothing quite compared to the feeling of working one’s way toward the summit. The summit is there to behold at many spots along the way. One sees it constantly, but one constantly pines to reach it, to conquer the summit. The most exciting segment of any climb is the so-called “final assault” towards the peak. One is in a status viatoris … a state of moving on, of getting there, of attaining something that just days or hours before seemed like an impossible feat.

I remember climbing with a small group from Ayala Mountaineering Club back in 1990. I was out of shape then, having come from so many rapid changes in my life and from a short bout with fever and other health problems. I could not say no to the invitation. I joined because they expected me to say Mass atop Mt. Ugu, where three years earlier, an airplane had crashed against the mountain wall, as it approached to land in thick fog at Loakan airport. I was in utter misery as I climbed. Out of shape, out of the loop for some time before that, I felt like a burden to the group. And to top it all, I had butterflies in my stomach that necessitated my getting off the beaten track time and again, to relieve myself in the bushes. I probably was dehydrated. But the feeling of moving on, of forging ahead, of following the trail blazed by my companions on the way, was encouraging in itself. I was carried by the wings of hope, borne by the winds of longing for the heights, for completion, for fulfillment. I made it, but the best I knew was not in being up there looking with utter awe at the native edelweiss-looking flowers that dotted the exact point of impact where the plane all but disintegrated, the front part, instantly getting pulverized to oblivion. The best was in the struggle, the gradual step-by-step trek toward a point filled with promise and fulfillment. It was hope at its best. Not sure whether I could sustain it due to my slightly debilitated condition, I held on to something I did not know was certain.

The very interest in trekking was born out of an experience of darkness. At some point in my earlier life as a priest, I was bored and felt life was nothing but a routine. I did pretty much the same day in and day out. At that point, I found solace in early morning brisk walks in the darkness, while the rest of the world slept. As I walked, I sorted out things. As I walked, I conversed, bargained, and pleaded with God. As I walked, I realized that I came out with insights I usually didn’t get when I was in the office, buried in concerns that crowded out my ability to think things through in the spirit of serenity and calm objectivity.

I learned then what the wisdom of St. Augustine already offered the Christian world for centuries: SOLVITUR AMBULANDO … things are solved while walking. Things are solved in process, while one is in a journey, not when one is at his destination. The destination is the fruition of a process, and everyone who has gone for an extensive trip or international travel knows that the best part is not in the arriving, but in the process of getting there. The fruition cannot be actualized if the process is not dealt with.

I think that this is an important lesson for us on hope. We priests and religious are an impatient lot. We are also very result oriented. We want instant fruits. When we teach, we expect students to master everything we say. When we lead, we members of the clergy expect absolute obedience and compliance. It might interest us to note, that, speaking as a therapist, the rule of thirds applies to us too – that at least about a third of us are narcissists – self-centered and spoiled brats who would brook no opposition and who cherish being in power and wielding control over others.

Many of us want the glorious destination minus the grueling journey. We want the result, but make short-cuts on the process. We preach hope, but we cannot afford to be waiting upon the Lord to act in His own good time. We admire Job, but no … thanks, but no thanks. We would rather be a Moses forging trails across the desert and hitting rocks and finding sweet flowing waters, and lifting up a staff and greater bodies of water divide and separate.

We are sorely tested now in these postmodern times. In this age of skepticism, people mistrust us, for we stand as personifications of authority. Gone are the days when people considered us as the resident expert on just about anything under the sun, including the sun itself, when people ran to the clergy for anything, for advice, for solace, for guidance, and for everything else.

Given the fact that the product we are pushing has to do with the grand narrative of salvation, a narrative that still unfolds up till now, we priests almost appear to the postmodern youth as irrelevant if not outdated.

We are, again to repeat the words of Ruddy, “tested in every way.”

But the worst of times, is just one side of the story. Even Dickens knew that. The other side of this ongoing narrative is that these are the best of times for us to really be counter cultural, to jut out even like a sore thumb amidst a sea filled with the contours of hopelessness, and become collectively an oasis in a desert of hopelessness, indifference, and resignation.

My economist friends are unanimous in saying that the economic meltdown is not all bad. I believe them. Back in 1983, when the killing of Ninoy Aquino plunged this country into the dark ages of massive poverty and the disappearance of the middle class, our resiliency as Filipinos came to the fore. The best of us shone, and, in the midst of decay, new life thrived. Lugawans and a variety of street food were invented by enterprising Filipinos. Unable to afford more expensive fare, the Filipino palate adapted to things like “isaw,” “proben,” “day-old chicks” and the like. Tokwa’t baboy became a national dish, and lechon manok became party fare de riguer, spearheaded by the enterprising Mang Andok, now a household name all over.

We took everything in stride. We hit the ground running, not stalling in the mire of hopelessness and despondency. And despite the dark ages brought about by wrong and misguided decisions of the people then in power, we survived the six hour daily brownouts, and we came out to party in 1998 when APEC leaders came to give us one brief shining moment under the sun of golden opportunity.

We in the religious orders and congregations are a little despondent in many ways. Not too many are banging at our doors asking to be admitted. And those who do, pardon me, mostly need to be lifted up from some dark depths so that the famous scholastic line that says “gratia supponit naturam” can take effect in many of our candidates. Many of those who come to us, lack the basic skills and the foundational self-knowledge in order to make free choices after a few years of search. The families that produce them are for the most part, dysfunctional, and a variety of issues need to be dealt with before they can make mature and valid choices in life.

We are, indeed, tested in every way. We live in the worst of times. We live in the best of times.

I, therefore, suggest, that taking our cue from no less than Benedict XVI, who most recently wrote about being “saved in hope” (spe salvi), foremost among our tasks, (our munus, as pastors, priests, and preachers, is to be living examples of how hope is lived in our own personal and communal lives.

Our theological training and basic catechism have both taught us that hope is a theological virtue. There is no way, according to Pieper, that a philosopher can adequately speak about hope from the mere philosophical viewpoint. There can never be anything like a philosophy of hope, for hope by its nature is something given, something offered us. It is a gift from no less than God. And this gift has no less than God for its object. At the risk of trivializing Augustine, we can very well say this of hope, as Augustine does for faith: sperare Deum, sperare in Deum, et sperare Deo. The object, end, and witness of hope is God Himself. God and only God. Isn’t this what Benedict XVI so passionately reminds us:

“Man’s great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God – God who has loved us and who continues to love us ‘to the end,’ until all ‘is accomplished’” (#27). “This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain” (# 31).

But all this is informative. Benedict XVI invites us to transcend this and move on to the level of the performative. But make no mistake about it. The performative trait does not mean activism, political or otherwise. In the “settings” for learning and practicing hope, the first in the list is what we all should be at home with: prayer, as a school of hope. He says: “When no one listens to me anymore, God still listens to me.” (#32) But neither does it mean withdrawing into a hard shell of indifference. He continues:

“To pray is not to step outside of history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness. When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well. In prayer we must learn what we can truly ask of God – what is worthy of God. We must learn that we cannot pray against others. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment – that meager, misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves” (#33).

But the real clincher to this performative hope is when the Pope speaks about action and suffering, action and passion. “Hope in a Christian sense,” he writes, “is always hope for others as well. It is an active hope, in which we struggle to prevent things moving towards the perverse end” (#34).

And the second aspect, suffering, is where our liturgy tomorrow comes in handy. “Like action,” the Pope says, “suffering is part of our human existence.” We all know that he does not speak about “neurotic pain” which is mostly in a sense, self-inflicted. He speaks of redemptive suffering. And when we suffer, not on account of self-inflicted wounds or man-made situations, even as we try to banish it from out midst, when we sort of “ride the dragons” and “roll with the punches,” as it were in faith, “it is, however, hope – not yet fulfillment; hope that gives us the courage to place ourselves on the side of good even in seemingly hopeless situations, aware that, as far as the external course of history is concerned, the power of sin will continue to be a terrible presence” (# 36).

This is the hope of one who is in a “status viatoris,” not one in “status comprehensoris.” This is the hope of people on pilgrimage, people on a journey. And St. Augustine’s sentence rings loud and clear for all of us: “solvitur ambulando.”

I end with a prayer from a favorite biblical scholar, Walter Brueggemann. Using Psalm 54 as inspiration, he makes a prayer in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 WTC bombing. It is prayer worth our while to listen to and make our own. Even as we claim we hope, our very hope may be paralyzed by fear and our God is larger than fear.

We do not really know about running and hiding.
We do not have real sense, ourselves, of being under assault,
For we live privileged, safe lives.
Learning in a garden near paradise.
Nonetheless the fear and the prayer
Live close beneath the surface …
Enemies we cannot see,
Old threats lingering unresolved from childhood,
Wild stirrings in the night that we cannot control.
And then we line out our imperative petitions,
Frantic … at least anxious;
Fearful … at least bewildered;
Turning to you, only you, you … nowhere else.
In the midst of anxiety, confidence wells up,
In our present stress, old well-being echoes.
We speak and the world turns confident and grateful,
Not because we believe our own words,
But because of your presence,
Your powerful, bold, reliable presence
Looms large,
Larger than fear,
Larger than anxiety,
Large enough … and in our own small vulnerability,
We give thanks.
Amen.

References:

Benedict XVI (2007). Spe salvi: Encyclical Letter of His Holiness PP Benedict XVI.

Berger, P. L. (1963). Invitation to sociology: A humanistic perspective. New York: Random Books.

Brueggemann, W. (2003). Awed to heaven, rooted in earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

CBCP (1991). Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines. Manila: PCP-II Secretariat.

Dietrich, D. (Ed.) (2006). Priests for the 21st Century. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Grassi, D. (2003). Still called by name: Why I love being a priest. Chicago: Loyola University Press.

Pieper, J. (1963). Faith, hope, love. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

Radcliffe, T. (2005). What is the point of being a christian? New York: Burns and Oates.

Robinson, E.A.(2004). These three: The theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press.

Rosetti, S. (2005). The joy of priesthood. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.

Ruddy, C. (2006). Tested in every way: The catholic priesthood in today’s church. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday.

THE WORST OF TIMES AND THE BEST OF TIMES FOR HOPE: A RECOLLECTION FOR PRIESTS

2009-02-08T22:13:00.003+08:00

MARIA, MATER SPEI, STELLA MARIS

N.B. I am posting the first part of a talk I gave to a group of monastic religious and priests on February 7, 2009. The second part will follow soon.

1st Part:
WHAT IS GOING ON?

I would like to take my cue for this talk from what tomorrow’s liturgy (5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B) would have us reflect on a whole lot. At the risk of being facetious and simplistic, I would like to suggest that our recollection can be helped in no small measure by being attuned to what liturgy offers us as cause for genuine celebration. We know that liturgy is basically a celebration in sign, song, symbol, word and gesture of THE event that mattered most for us, and that is the event called salvation.

Salvation … a word that we bandy about so freely, a word that has, over the recent past, lost both its power and its punch, its push and pull, and its promise, on the one hand, and its call to endless possibilities, on the other. If we go by what economists tell us, what with their sour and dour prognostications, then all our financial power has suddenly vanished like the thin dew in the early morning sun of economic meltdown. In what Christopher Ruddy (2006) refers to as a growing phenomenon of “distance and distrust” that seem to characterize so many of our institutions all over the shrinking globalized world, our concept of stability, solidity, and surety have all but vanished with Maddoff’s billions of dollars that evaporated into the thin air of hopelessness, now hovering all over the world, now reeling under the onslaught of receding prices, receding productivity, receding demand, and receding trust for one another. Why, even the glaciers that took millions of years for nature to build, are now receding themselves, and cracking dangerously, sending alarum bells of concern to environmentalists and ethicists alike. The world is busy trying to breed pandas and polar bears, but the same world is busy pandering to its desires for the more, the better, the higher in every way, thus effectively destroying the poor bears’ natural habitat. As we speak of salvation, more than just polar bears and panda bears are in danger of perdition – the opposite of salvation!

Salvation is now most difficult to define, digest, and much less, deliver to people. Where surety and certitude have gone out the window, what enters in through the wide, gaping door of disappointment is the shake-up ultimately of our spiritual moorings, once solid and stolid in our collective psyche, propped up by a premodern society that reveled in. and was at home with, the uncertainty of the seasons, the unpredictability of the weather, the total mystery attached to most everything people do, from planting to harvesting, to drying their produce in the sun, all the way up to storing them and taking them to market, oftentimes, falling victim to the rise and fall of prices subject to the mysterious law of supply and demand.

Everything was unpredictable, and what does one do to save oneself from losing it all and becoming a nervous wreck? We charge it all to faith. We dump it all on hope, and we refuse to even think that all of it happens as the workings of an unloving God, who is not concerned a wee bit about the welfare of His people. We still love Him. We still believe in him. Believing and belonging were all part of the package of our Christian faith. And when people believed and belonged, no matter what the trials might have been, we were assured of salvation. We rested assured that, despite all, God is close to the broken hearted.

Or is He?

The books I have recently come across with that speak about the priesthood, are somewhat, to put it mildly, a little schizophrenic (pardon the term). One book of Rosetti (2005) is entitled “The Joy of Priesthood.” Without in any way intending to sound like I am against the grain, I do give him credit for making much of the incontrovertible statistical data that say over 90 % per cent of clergy in America report themselves as “happy.” And then he devotes 13 chapters to giving tips on how this data can become truly a reality for all priests. But some titles seem to go to the opposite pole, like Ruddy’s (2006) “Tested in Every Way.” Dominic Grassi’s (2003) homely, engaging, and expansive style, focuses on concrete events in his many years of service as a priest, more often than not, characterized by intense moments of genuine inner joy and deep personal satisfaction, peppered though his life was, with things that don’t go anywhere near “joyful” and “satisfactory.” The books on priesthood written after what Fr. Richard Neuhaus referred to wryly as “the long Lent of 2002” immediately following the sexual abuse crisis in the United States, appeared to me to see-saw between being utter “praise releases” and a courageous facing up to the real issues at stake.

My approach to today’s reflection is more like in the persuasion of Timothy Radcliffe (2005), the former Master General of the Order of Preachers, who wrote a book, with a big, bold title emblazoned next to his awe-filled, and faith-filled – if, plaintive – countenance: “What is the Point of Being a Christian?”

I don’t pretend nor intend to make a summary of what he writes so eruditely in his valuable theological and literary gem. I would simply like to take my cue for the rest of my reflection today with you from that question (THE TITLE) which to my mind sounds as poignant as it is perspicacious and piercing …

What is the point of being a Christian when all of Europe is getting to become what the late atheist Italian writer Orianna Fallaci many years ago prophetically referred to as “Eurabia?” What is the point of being a Christian when we are surrounded, if not inundated, by and with, a vast ocean of humanity and society filled with what E. Robinson (2004) refers to as “contours of hopelessness?” What is the point of being a Christian when the so-called “media moment” has, for decades, especially in Philippine context, effectively taken the place of both school and church in shaping values and influencing societal morals and standards of what is legitimate and illegitimate behavior? What is the point of being a Christian when, despite the painstaking – and, I presume – objective reports by the World Bank on shady deals done by government people, all their conclusions and warnings can be swept away with the wave of a hand at a hasty, emotion-filled, and drama-rich telenovela-like congressional investigation?

What is the point? I would like to raise the issue that as Christian believers and as priests and religious, there is something eminently valid in our question today.

I would like to suggest that this question stands at the core of our capacity to engage in the act of meaning-making that is the hallmark of our being pastors, educators, and educational leaders. Our ability to articulate an answer to this basic question stands at the basis of all we do, all we are, and all we stand for as priests, as monastic and active religious, and as pastoral leaders in a nation that is fast drifting into a collective state of semi paralysis, and, if we let go of our guard, seems to be bent on becoming, not only among the most corrupt nations, but also a budding narco-state, run by a coterie of so-called public servants whose sole and only preoccupation is to safeguard their hold on power, privilege, prestige and position till the next sham elections come around.

But it is no rocket science that before we can attempt at giving an answer to this question, we first need to see exactly what the context in which the question is put forward. This first part of my talk, therefore, focuses on the “what” … What is going on? What exactly are we referring to? I believe that it is only when we understand what is going on, can we rightly and legitimately ask the question we started out with? What, then, is the point in being what we are, and what is the point in doing what we have been doing, and will continue to be doing down the road?

Let me begin by borrowing rather heavily from Ruddy (2006, pp. 18ss). He reports on the study done by the Canadian historian Scott Appleby who suggests that there are three challenges and three tasks facing the Church and its priests. The first is what Appleby calls the “challenge of skepticism.” At its core is the raging doubt about reason’s ability to come to reliable conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality. Basically a reaction to the Enlightenment, which enshrined reason as the ultimate answer to the riddle of existence, this trend of skepticism is behind the postmodern crisis of reason and the rise of moral relativism. Reason has been applied to every perceived or real problem in the past. For many it took the form of technologism, that reduced every problem and its solution to finding the right technological tool to banish it. But it did not take the world long to know that as Peter Senge said, “the solution of today is the problem of tomorrow” (1990). Plastics poised decades ago as the perfect solution to the problem of packaging. Now, the world does not know what to do with the plastic bags that are produced by the world to the whopping tune of 3,000,000 a minute, every single one of them needing about a thousand years to degrade!

The second challenge is the “erosion of biblical and theological literacy.” A certain “hermeneutic of suspicion,” is applied before authority and their tendency to weave grand narratives like “progress” or “redemption.” Postmodern people are averse to metanarratives, and any grand institution espousing such far-ranging and grand designs are met with indifference at best, and hostility, at worst. We do not have to go too far to see its effects in our culture. The western solar new year and the Chinese lunar new year, were both met with a bang and an unprecedented flair in Philippine setting of late. Hordes of “experts” in feng shui flew in from Hong Kong, paid for by the two giant warring media networks. In the run-up towards the celebration of Chinese New Year, the Filipino people were barraged with everything Chinese, like as if, all of a sudden, we were like Vietnam, which happens to have been under Chinese hegemony for 1,000 years! The receding images of biblical figures that used to dominate our collective consciousness have now been effectively replaced by crystals, by aromatic candles, all sorts of aromatherapy techniques and products, and a whole lot of hullabaloo attached to animal figures like oxen, monkeys, dogs, goats and others in the Chinese horoscope.

But the same biblical and theological illiteracy offers what seem to be conflicting signs as our people navigate through the maze of uncertainty, lack of surety, and a whole lot of confusion in the arena of economics, politics, and other arenas. Whilst the theological foundation of our societal lives continues to recede, hordes of fanatic “devotees” to the Black Nazarene, and the Santo Nino increase almost exponentially every year. We happen to be the only country where the original image of the Christ Child has assumed a rapid evolution and what used to look like an exact replica of what is found in Prague, in Spain, or elsewhere, has become a cute, chubby little boy, dressed in all imaginable form, guise, and appearance.

What is going on exactly?

The first and the second challenges coalesce and combine to produce a third challenge: “a fractious pluralism that undermines the possibility of a genuinely diverse but unified moral and religious community.” Whilst diversity and pluralism, per se, are not bad, the trend seems to be pointing toward unhealthy new forms of tribalism in which one group’s identity is defined against the identity of the other group. Healthy self-differentiation is replaced by unhealthy opposition. The misplaced passion that we see in certain fundamentalist groups, whether Christian or otherwise, and their rabid dedication to their groups’ mindset are a frightening case in point. The currently increasing phenomenon of Catholics identifying with opposing sides of the religious spectrum that pits conservatives against progressives is another case in point.

I have been a priest for 26 years. Once, invited by friends in a parish in Northern VA, to celebrate my 24th year as a priest, I was getting ready for Mass in the sacristy. Two newly ordained priests attached to the parish obviously on one side of this spectrum literally ordered me to wear my stole inside the chasuble. Whilst personally I have always preferred to wear the stole inside the chasuble, that day, the one I brought that fitted me was the external one that we are more used to here in the Philippines. I didn’t take offense, but I felt a little turned off by what appears to be the air of intolerance for something that didn’t really matter a whole lot in terms of theological validity and liceity. Such cockiness and rabid attachment to one’s position is a clear case that illustrates the tendency to “shore up religious authority and truth” and facetious “appeals to inerrancy and infallibility” and the “demonization of one’s opponents as insufficiently pure or orthodox” (cf. Ruddy, pp.18ss).

I have been a teacher for 32 years. I began as an emaciated newly professed brother teaching catechism and a little of English and a smattering of other subjects. I taught High School and College, and for the past 17 years, post college, teaching theology students Moral Theology and Pastoral Psychology. Every year, I see additional challenges. Every year, I pine for times past when students were more ready to be students and more prepared to do normal student routines like writing scientific papers, and the like. Now, aside from the need to go back to English 101, one simply feels like making an uphill climb all the time, trying, first and foremost, to establish a common language in order to engage in meaningful discourse.

This is, to borrow the phraseology of Robinson (2004), the “landscape of our lives.” This terrain is characterized by what she calls “contours of hopelessness.” The elements that make up such contours are basically the same challenges that Appleby speaks about: the compression of time, the contraction and at the same time, expansion of space, the cultural landscape produced by the first two, and the phenomenon of the “media moment” as the catalyzing and hastening principle behind the rapidly changing signs of the times.

In plain language, our hope and the ability to set our sights on things that are above, are effectively compromised. Hope has become replaced by a shallow rationality, cynicism, and downright despair – the thought and attitude that there is not much we can do about it. Let me put it like no one else can better do. I quote Robinson:

“Time, space, and culture, as accelerated by the media moment, converge to burden and weigh us down like leg irons, dragging us in the direction of hopelessness. It seems that God is not solving the problems of this world, and our human attempts to do so, time and again, prove to be futile” (2004, p. 108).

I couldn’t find better words to wrap up this first part of my talk, other than quoting PCP-II, itself paraphrasing good old Charles Dickens: “We live in the worst of times. We live in the best of times. But only if crisis is made to become kairos. And we seize the grace of the moment and respond to its challenge. As we should, always, in faith.” (#1)

GOD IS CLOSE TO THE BROKENHEARTED

2009-02-03T02:22:00.001+08:00

As individuals and as families, we have our ups and downs. We pass through various “seasons of our lives.” Some days can be sunny and bright; others may be dark and dreary. Whatever type of day comes our way, whatever reaction one might have to sun or shade, there is one thing we can be sure of. Life goes on. And the coming of a new day and whatever surprises it brings, is never dependent on our expectations and wishes, our inner disposition, and our worthiness or unworthiness.

Into everyone’s life, some rain has to – and does – fall! This seems to be what Job is acknowledging matter-of-factly. He compares himself to “a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages” (Job 7:2). Never at a loss for words to describe his misery, Job more than aptly stands for a great many of us who may be undergoing their own share of “sweat and care and cumber; sorrows passing number.” Job tells a story that sounds all too familiar to many of us. They are stories that, as a priest, I have been privileged to listen to, and empathize with, over the many years I have been journeying with others in faith and life. The stories sound so alike and yet so different. They are so alike in the sense that all, bar none, are not immune to suffering and pain. They are so alike, too, in the sense that the pain each one feels is deeply personal and far-ranging in terms of consequences. They are so different in the sense that deep pain can be occasioned by a multiplicity of causes and surrounding circumstances, which are as many and as varied as there are people experiencing them.

There is something in the Liturgy of today for people deep in the throes of suffering. God does not take away the pain, it seems to me. God does not offer to make the pain go away. Not necessarily. But the readings tell us something for sure: God is close to the brokenhearted! God is on the side of those who suffer in any way. God offers a gentle reminder for those in pain: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds…the Lord sustains the lowly, the wicked he casts to the ground.” (Ps 147:3,6)

St. Paul stands for this God who is close to the suffering when he also alludes to himself as a slave, willing to go the extra mile and become like others are: “To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some” (1 Cor 9:22).

God is indeed close to the suffering. This, Jesus shows in concrete signs in today’s Gospel passage, alleviating the pain of those brought to him, including Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. God shows himself close to and on the side of those who suffer in any way.

But there is yet one thing we can safely deduce from today’s liturgy, which is no less true and no less important than the foregoing. This is the fact that there is something we who suffer can do despite the suffering and the pain: help others in their own pain, that is, become healers though wounded ourselves. This is what Paul did. “All this I do for the sake of the Gospel, so that I too may have a share in it” (1 Cor 9:23). For the sake of the Gospel, Paul became all things to all men, even to the point of calling himself a slave like Job did.

Jesus today even offers a heartwarming example of empathic and active concern for a particular family predicament. He healed Peter’s mother-in-law. In Jesus, God’s solicitude for the suffering took on concrete manifestation. In Paul, the same love for the suffering was shown in his willingness and readiness to walk in other people’s shoes, as it were. In Job, we see God’s long- suffering nature and patience. In him too we see a shining example of humble acceptance and resignation to whatever God allowed him to undergo. Job faced suffering without equal, with nary a passing thought to go against the God he believed in.

Among others, Filipinos still show a lot of this trait extolled by today’s readings. Filipinos are close to those who suffer, to the downtrodden, to those who are considered underdogs. How else explain the popularity of telenovelas, and the propensity of Filipinos to identify with those who suffer unjustly? How else explain the fact that for many families, the knowledge that another family is currently facing some difficult trial or at least needs help, would immediately send lola or nanay to that household to provide some help? In many cases, the person really does not need to do anything, nor give anything. In most cases, the poor who have nothing, are those who really help others just as materially needy as themselves. But they give what no money can really pay for: themselves. Their presence and obvious concern for the needy is more than money can buy. Pakikiramay is the untranslatable word for this Filipino trait that stands so close to the nature of God extolled in today’s liturgy: God is close to the brokenhearted. Wagas ang pakikiramay ng Diyos sa nagdurusa at nagdadalamhati! Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted!

FEARING NOT THE HEAT WHEN IT COMES

2008-08-28T18:37:00.002+08:00

FEARING NOT THE HEAT WHEN IT COMES:
An Experience of God through Lectio Divina

Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a barren bush in the desert that enjoys no change of season, But stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: It fears not the heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; In the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit.( Jeremiah 17:5-8)

Heart and Mind in Tandem

Lectio Divina suits my personality fine. I can bask under the warm glow of feelings for as long as I want. I can also bathe in the refreshing waters of novel insights born of a more mind-based reflection. There is abundance of the heart and free-flowing cooperation of the mind in this ancient process-prayer that puts the heart and mind in a dynamic mode of cooperation. As a basically heart person, trained, for the most part, to be a thinker, lectio divina is an experience that brings me more in touch with my strong feeling component.

A passage from Jeremiah quoted above, part of the responsory in the Office of Readings for one of the last weeks of ordinary time is what I base this reflection on.

Nature as Nurturing Mother

I love nature. I can spend hours gazing at a stream, and lolling on the grassy embankment. I am spiritually energized every time I go up mountains and trek by gorges and heights. In the countless foot journeys up mountains I have done in life, passing by refreshing rivers, gurgling and glinting under the sun, after a long, dry spell of seemingly endless, thirst-inducing trek, has always been a welcome treat. It has always led me to think about God as present in nature, a God who cares for weary trekkers like us, who could use a refreshing, reinvigorating time with mother nature.

Jeremiah’s image of a tree planted beside water is one that I found myself very much at home with, for actual and existential reasons.

Falling Leaves, Faltering Hopes

It is nearing autumn once again (even if I live in the torrid tropics!). Four years ago, when I was deep in further studies in Baltimore, Maryland, me and my siblings, along with a great many relatives and friends, buried an older sister, the second in our large family, taken away at a relatively young age at 56, by a cruel and unforgiving disease called cancer.

Not long after that, it was once more “autumn” in my life. Just when I thought we were just getting started on our downhill trek towards recovery, the shattering news came that another sister, younger this time, has a similar cancer … and then another, still more recently … third in a row!

To shift metaphors, I am once more on the uphill climb, up towards a barren, dry, and hot, lava-seared landscape that reminded me of a mountain I climbed 19 years ago. I am once more struggling and groveling up the lava waste of an experience that saps away hope, that dries up tender saplings of trust in God-nurturing-mother who seems to have walked out on us, on me, once again.

My sisters’ and the rest of my surviving siblings’ own “Goldengrove,” in allusion to Manley-Hopkins’ poignant poem addressed to the young Margaret, “grieving,” is now once more “unleaving.” The falling leaves speak not only of both actual and potential losses. They speak to me of unwanted endings. They remind me of “hope growing grey hairs,” of what the same Jesuit poet refers to as an experience in which “all I endeavor in disappointment end.”

What No Mind, Nor Thought Can Express

The prayer experience proved to be, as usual, an oasis for my thirsty soul. “As runs the thirsting deer to find where cooling waters flow, so rush the wishes of my heart to come before you Lord,” was a refrain of an old, old song back in seminary days that I kept on repeating. Jeremiah’s prophetic utterance could not have come at a better time. I dwelt on it. I mulled over it for a long while. I allowed images of me actually peering over the crater of a hot, smoking volcano (something I actually did in that climb 19 years ago), and then running down for dear life to the safety and refreshing coolness of regurgitating waters further down refreshing me. “What no mind, no, nor heart expressed, ghost guessed” … the possibility that I could actually be not that kind of tree Jeremiah may be speaking of.

Searing Pain, Healing Word

The rhythm of the prayer, with its four stages, that allowed me to rock back and forth lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio, brought up to me images of a nurturing mother lulling her child to safety and warmth. The pain I felt was real and deeply searing. But the prayer experience, based on the Word, came out as a healing experience. More than that, it offered me reassurance. And even more than that, it gave fresh insights. Hope falters when love’s conviction alters. When one is far from the life-giving waters; when one is not rightly planted near where grace flows, hope shrivels at the root.

Searching and Finding

I have always wondered at the internalized object I have been associating with God all this time. I have always wondered how best for me to think of God and how best to relate to this internalized object-image I learned from when I was a child. My search did not go in vain, at least as far as this prayer experience is concerned. The experience convinced me, more than ever, that my internalized object-image of God has always been that of a parent, a caring, nurturing mother, to be exact. Although thinking of God as father was not entirely distasteful to me, I realized I could “taste and see the goodness of God” more if I imagined Him as a provident parent. No wonder I always found it easier to commune with Him in and through nature. No wonder images of deer running to the water always strike me. No wonder, too, that Francis Thompson’s poems delight me, particularly his “God and the Child,” and “The Hound of Heaven.”

Fearing No the Heat When It Comes

I am afraid of the worst for my two other siblings just as I had been eight years ago. I am afraid of so many things, including what the future has in store for me and the rest of what used to be a big family. The realization that our genetic make-up is not that resilient to disease comes to me as one “long dry spell of searing heat,” placing me in a situation where I can “enjoy no change of season,” as Jeremiah wrote.

But it is precisely at times like these that prayer becomes more meaningful. It is only when one’s faith is sorely tested, when one’s love is forcibly “altered” by both pleasant and unpleasant circumstances, that one’s hope shines. Earth is, indeed, “crammed with heaven, and every bush is afire with God,” as Elizabeth Barrett-Browning so nicely puts it. But “only he who sees takes off his shoes and worships.” Only he who sees far beyond … Only he who sees can understand the meaning behind things and events, including a bush – nothing more and nothing else, but a manifestation of God.

I still do not understand the “heat” that has once too often come into my life. But prayer at least helps me to accept what is unfathomable and what is unacceptable. It, at least, helps me gain back precious perspective. Most importantly, it shows me who I basically am, someone who may need to draw closer to the stream, someone who may need to remain planted beside the waters, if I want to be, and remain a tree that “fears not when the heat comes, and whose leaves stay green.”

CON-SPIRING WITH THE SPIRIT: Grace and Nature at the Crossroads

2008-07-12T09:56:00.004+08:00

In-Spiration and Con-Spiration Right from the Start

The image of God breathing on “chaos” (“formless wasteland” in NAB), is seen as God creating human life and calling to existence all the rest of creation. The account makes use of a fundamental meaning-laden metaphor in biblical creation theology. This first account of creation refers to “a mighty wind [that] swept over the waters” (Gen 1:1-31). The second account, equally poetic and symbolic, refers more directly to this creative In-Spiration (breathing act) of God: “The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground, and blew his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7).

Divine In-Spiration, however, was not a one-sided event. Right from the start, God wanted his first living creatures to have a complementary role in the ongoing process: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28); “The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it” (Gen 2:15).

Borrowing Haughey’s terminology (Gillespie, 2000), this Divine-Human con-Spiracy can be said to have begun at creation, and is a process that goes on till now.

The Call to Life as Process and Partnership

Scripture is clear about the nature of human life vis-à-vis the rest of the created world. Life is a gift that needs to be unwrapped, a call that needs to be answered daily. For humans, the world remains a place to be taken care of. Countless mysteries about life in this world still have to be “named,” and solutions to the riddle of sustainable and ecologically sound development of the earth that is our only home still await discovery. Unfortunately, now as before, humans have often been less than responsible, creating a mess of what Messer (1992) refers to as “world-havoc” instead of putting into place a “world-house,” engaging in wanton disregard of the breath of God that still “in-Spires” life from chaos, both natural and man-made. The original call to caring was replaced by selfish “possession.” The invitation to “mastery” turned out to be, in many cases, “abuse.” Self-less cooperation and partnership turned out to be sinful collusion, instead.

Re-appropriating the Tradition

Despite this, however, God continues to in-Spire order, truth, and wholeness into everything that is broken, chaotic, and sinful in our human lives as individuals and society. In and through Christ, the call continues and gradually becomes reality in the new life his dying and rising have wrought in us. Re-appropriating this creation spirituality leads us once more to the path of cooperation, as against the path of collusion; to the way of social responsibility, as against the way of selfish gain; to the way of solidarity in the good, instead of solidarity in evil.

From Selfishness to Solidarity

This call to con-Spiracy, understood as engagement with the world and with others, and the Holy Spirit’s continually in-Spiring humanity to walk in solidarity with creation, with others, and with the Trinitarian God, leads to some disturbing realizations. For one, anyone deeply steeped in a spirituality characterized by cooperation, partnership, and solidarity, can never revert to a one based on personal, private, and selfish concerns. The Biblical injunction to “subdue the earth” no longer has connotations of wanton abuse of the earth’s resources without a corresponding sense of social responsibility. One realizes, furthermore, that everyone is called to cooperation. All are called to take part in this divine con-Spiracy toward personal and social transformation.

Beginning from the Home Front: Grace Building on Nature

In a very literal sense, the earth and the created world comprise a household given to our care. The same, however, is true with regard to my personal ongoing process of salvation in and through Christ. What is true for society is also true for me as an individual. For both, life is meant to be an on-going task-in-partnership. Christ’s call to “fullness of life” (Jn 10:10) is both a gift and a task to do in union with him. The grace of salvation needs to be met with human cooperation. This delicate interplay between God’s and man’s effort is partly what spirituality is all about.

This spirituality of partnership and collaboration leads me now to confront certain elements within me that stand in the way of full cooperation with God and with others. As an introverted personality with some narcissistic features (as do many of us clergy and religious), who still grapples with some self-esteem issues, collaborative ministry (Sofield & Juliano, 2000) is something I still need to develop. The grace that comes from ordination to ministry, understood as springing from, and flowing back to the community, finds a reluctant partner in me. Nature, thus, poses an obstacle to efficacy in ministry. The full flowering of the in-Spiration from the Holy Spirit cannot take place with said unredeemed parts of my nature still holding sway. Grace cannot build on a nature that continues to rebel, that continues to hold on to a misguided appropriation of a tradition that sees holiness and ministry as merely personal pursuits. Becoming a con-Spirator with the Spirit, and with other Spirit-led people, gets stalled, unless I allow grace and nature to come to a healthy interplay as they meet at the crossroads that is my life here and now, and in the days to come.

References:

Gillespie, C.K. (2000). Spiritual conversation groups: Con-Spiring with the Spirit. In Wicks, R. (Ed). Handbook of spirituality for ministers: Perspectives for the 21^st century. Volume 2. New York: Paulist Press.

Messer, D. (1992). A conspiracy of goodness: Contemporary images of Christian mission. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Sofield, L. & Juliano, C. (2000) Collaboration: Uniting our gifts in ministry. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press.

USCCB & NCCB (1987). The new American bible. South Bend, IN: The Green Lawn Press.

EGO SUM MERCES TUA MAGNA NIMIS

2008-03-28T07:42:00.005+08:00

N.B. I had the singular grace of being invited as guest of honor at the OSJ College of Philosophy Graduation Ceremonies yesterday, March 27, 2008 in Lipa City, Batangas. I thank my OSJ friends and former students who made the day for me. Below is the text of what I shared with the batch of 10 graduates.

“His itaque transactis factus est sermo Domini ad Abram per visionem dicens: ‘noli timere Abram. Ego protector tuus sum et merces tua magna nimis.” (Gen 15:1)

These are words that could not have been better chosen by the graduating class of this politically, socially, and morally tumultuous year 2008 … words that speak of hope, of confidence, and steadfast faith in the Lord for all of us, just as they did for Abraham of yore. Ego protector tuus sum … I am your protector, your shield … The images conjured by these words of assurance from the Lord is one that is more commonly associated with a struggle, with warfare, with persecution. These words connote care-giving concern for somebody considered the underdog, helpless, and powerless, at least compared to someone else seen as almighty and powerful. The picture presented is one that the whole of Scripture is replete with … God’s mighty hand coming to the rescue of the weak, the feeble, and the voiceless.

The Latin vulgate puts the tense in the present … it is not ero, but sum … “I am” instead of “I will be” … But I was told that in the Hebrew original, there was no verb used at all, which linguistically really means much more stronger than “I am.” From the original, therefore, what really comes out is that there is identity between God and being protector. It is important to note, at the outset, that the reassurance from the Lord is preceded by another, perhaps, more foundational exhortation: “noli timere” … do not fear, Abraham …

My talk, therefore, will revolve around three main ideas. First, I will have to deal with the Fear Factor ... nolite timere. Second, I will have to deal with the Big Brother aspect of our lives as believers … ego sum protector tuus. Big Brother is not only watching out for you. Father God cares for you and loves you, more than big brother can. Third, I will have to delve on the Wheel of Fortune element of our Christian lives. The reward that awaits us all is out of this world. For this is what “nimis” is all about in Latin – exceedingly great, great beyond expectations, great beyond dreams, far beyond Ramiele Malubay’s great dream of being proclaimed this year’s American Idol.

And now for the Fear Factor … As a priest over the past 25 years, I will have to tell you that life has not been exactly a bowl of cherries. Having been a teacher and educator since 1977, a total of 31 years, I will have to tell you that fear, along with discouragement, have figured in with varying shades of intensity in my life and work. I don’t have to recount to you the details, but fear took center stage in my life on two separate occasions: first, when I was given a death threat a few days after the 1986 snap elections, and, second, when I was held hostage by NPA rebels in the foothills of Mt. Apo in 1989. On those two occasions, I knew how it felt to suddenly realize in the prime of my life as a young priest, how easy it was to die, how my life suddenly hung by a flimsy thread that could easily have been snapped, or cut to oblivion, by people who seemed never to fear anything, nor anyone, not even the God whom I naively thought everybody would at least respect, if not me. I never prayed so much in my life. But fear is the close sister of discouragement and disappointment. I remember how on Dec. 1, 1989, as I feared the worst as the country was being battered by one of the worst, unlamented coup d’etats in our recent history, I was up in the antenna tower of Don Bosco Technical College in Mandaluyong City, observing the progress of the coup at Camp Aguinaldo General Headquarters. I remember how much I cried for my country, brought down almost to its knees, when the Tora-Tora planes started swooping down on the heart of the country’s last bastion of defense. I cried and I prayed … I don’t know at this point which came first, or which I did more of, but I know I was discouraged.

Allow me to share with you this discouragement that my favorite poet Gerard Manley-Hopkins expressed so movingly in words that I’d like to make my own:

Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen
justa loquar ad te: quare via impiorum prosperatur? (Jer 12:1)

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build -- but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

I quote this poem and prayer for the simple reason that the feelings espoused therein were feelings that I espoused time and time again. These days, even as I talk to you, fresh fears and new disappointments cloud the air. Robinson (2004) speaks about how our times are enveloped in “contours of hopelessness” all over. Hopelessness characterizes our days and times like the air we breathe. From the human point of view, when we see how the rest of our neighbors in Southeast Asia have overtaken us, and gone light years ahead of us economically and otherwise, there seems to be no escaping the possibility that, indeed, we are fast becoming, if we have not already become, an accident in the highway of history. With so much politics of the dysfunctional kind providing telenovela-like entertainment in our media-crazed culture, whose centerpiece seems to be “wowowee” of massive cheating notoriety, hope seems to “grow grey hairs” for us. We are filled with a lot of trepidation and fear for the future – fear that translates itself, among other things, into a massive migration mentality. As many as four thousand Filipinos a day vote with their feet, more than 59 per cent of them women, who seek for greener pastures in 95 out of 130 sovereign countries all over the world. Our fear, our disappointment, and our discouragement, along with our dreams for a better tomorrow, goad us on to become the new denizens of the world. But it is precisely in this context, that I would like to remind you … like unto Abraham, the Lord tells you and me today, “nolite timere.”

And now, let us move on to Big Brother. I am fortunate to have been ordained a priest under the watch of Pope John Paul II. When he was elected Pope, I was in my second official year of teaching, as a 22 year old wide-eyed and underweight cleric, teaching young seminarians college English and a smattering of basic Philosophical subjects. When he was installed and given the pallium as Bishop of Rome at the open-air solemn liturgical rites at the Piazza di San Pietro in 1978, his message that came from a solid, stentorian voice of a then very young Pope Wojtyla boomed and resonated for all the world to hear: “Do not be afraid … Be not afraid of God … Be not afraid of man … Be not afraid of yourself … Be not afraid of the Church.” Young as I was then, I thought that that message was prophetic. I held on to it. I treasured it in my heart. One year after, in a talk in Puebla, Mexico, before the Conference of Latin American Bishops, Pope John Paul II repeated basically the same message: “Do not be afraid.” Years later, in 1994, when he wrote “Crossing the Threshold of Hope,” the same Pope reiterated what appears to be one emerging leitmotif of his pontificate – hope and courage – twin virtues that he showed with remarkable heroism until the very end of his days, as the whole world now knows.

My dear graduates … you are young … you are idealistic … you are hopeful … you are full of dreams … but I know that you are also filled with not just a few traces of fear and uncertainty in your hearts. Take courage … It is the Lord … not Big Brother, but the greatest Father who is in heaven. In the name of the late Pope John Paul II, I tell you … “Do not be afraid.”

And now, for the third element in our to-do list for today … Wheel of Fortune! Yes … part of our fears and uncertainties really come from what the rest of the Filipino people really feel deep inside. I speak of the Filipino culture of insecurity. Deeply ingrained in our culture through no fault of our own is that nagging feeling that there might not be enough for all of us. Many of us are entertaining fears about the possible shortage of rice, for example, most of it fueled by irresponsible politicians to gain the usual media mileage. A country that used to export rice to all the world is now reduced to literally begging to be sold rice by countries that we trained, countries that we taught how to produce the best rice varieties on earth. You are afraid … you ask questions like “what will become of me? … Will philosophy put food on the table? Should I continue on in the congregation, will I really be fruitful and will I be able to help my family tide themselves over? Am I possibly wasting away my time and inner resources in this congregation?” Many of us long to have the gadgets and the lifestyle that now mark the lives of even the most impoverished among our people. Many of us entertain dreams of making it big somehow, or at least, rising higher than what our parents reached, hoping to become better copies of our own fathers, legitimate dreams undoubtedly. We dream of big and small things, and sometimes the fear that we will become unnamed, unheralded, uncelebrated heroes working ourselves to death in some forlorn parish, in our little corner of the world, can frighten us. At a time when heroes are created at will by the powerful mass media, when so-called “criminals” are tried and condemned by publicity, we feel frightened about being left on the sidelines, being unknown, and not being validated by fame, fortune, and power.

I know how it feels to be frightened of an uncertain future. I have been there. But as a priest and formator for so long, and an educator for much longer, I have something to tell you … By being a religious priest, by being a teacher, preacher, and pastor, the material reward is measly. Sometimes the congregation and the church that you love can make you even miserable – unfairly and unjustly treated by the very institution that you would like to call “mother.” There is not too much money to go around, nor too much fame to spare. There is not much in terms of human consolation, especially when, as you grow older, the individuals you grew up with, begin to follow separate ways, and chart separate destinies. One day, you wake up realizing that the people you laughed with, the individuals you thought were your friends, no longer think as you do, and no longer see things the way you do. You may feel alone, misunderstood, rash judged, and maybe even envied in some way. Most of my former students, including those whom I thought were the most promising ones, have gone their many different and separate ways. Formation work was, and is, a thankless job. At the end of the many years I spent training them, teaching them, and guiding them, they all end up thinking they did it themselves … that they pulled themselves from their own bootstraps … that they pulled it off all by themselves, with perhaps a few exceptions, who, like the ten lepers, can boast of only one grateful returnee. But I can tell you one thing as I look you straight in the eye … I have never regretted any single moment, day, week, month, or year. It was all worth all the effort. And after all those years, given the choice, I would do it all over again. And this for the simple reason that we live, not by sight, but by faith. And our faith tells us, that what we do for the kingdom, will all one day lead to reaping copious fruits that are beyond imagination. What no eye has seen, nor ear heard … The rewards are absolutely out of this world. This is the wheel of fortune I speak about … treasures that no moth can eat, nor rust can destroy.

As you can probably guess, I am trying to lead you towards something important. It is important enough for the present Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, to be writing the whole world about. Fear Factor, notwithstanding; Big Brother nevertheless; and Wheel of Fortune aside, the challenges of our lives boil down to three things: love, faith, and hope. Benedict’s first encyclical surprised us all. He spoke of something as basic and simple and foundational as love. We need to value our human loves, eros and philia. The former is what he calls “ascending love.” Through ascent and purification, we are called to transcend and reach the level of agape, “descending love” – love like unto God, love like that of God. But as the song that follows would remind us, there is something else we need to do; there is something we all need to know – and invest in:

We all say that love is a good thing
Something we’d all like to know
We don’t understand that it’s easy
To make friends wherever we go.

Tomorrow is something we dream of
But there’s something else we can do.
Let us live now, for tomorrow
Believing our dream has come true

For tomorrow belongs to the children
The children belong to us all
So let us bring love out of hiding
And live like tomorrow is now.

Children/ So let us be friends like the children
They know / there is something to learn from them all
They know the secret of living
They live like tomorrow is now.

For tomorrow belongs to the children
The children belong to us all
So let us bring love out of hiding
And live like tomorrow is now.

For tomorrow belongs to the children
The children belong to us all
So let us be friends like the children
And live tomorrow is now.

The second letter of Benedict XVI is another milestone that would merit our attention as you go forth to your own respective dream and meaning making. Just a day before Advent of Year A, he came out with Spe Salvi. I will have to tell you that I have read the encyclical three times and each time I read it, I cried. Call me a cry-baby, call me sentimental, but I cannot deny the fact that the letter touched me deeply. It gave meaning to all that I have been doing over the past 25 years as a priest, and 31 years as an educator. I would like you to be touched by it as I have been. And I have been touched on account of the riches of hope that the letter offers to a world enveloped, as we said, in the contours of hopelessness.

Among many other things, the Pope refers not only to informative, but to performative hope. It is hope that is active, hope that sets out to achieve what it longs for, a hope that makes real here and now, what we nevertheless await in its total fulfillment. This hope is not based on wishful thinking, but on the solid conviction of faith. This is the reason why he speaks about faith itself as hope. It is ultimately based on the foundation of our solid attachment to a personal God, not just any god, but the God who had a human face, a God who came – and stayed – with us.

The foundation of our hope is that which ought to be residing deeply inside us – our attachment to a personal God who showed His human face in Christ His Son. This is the merces magna whereof Scripture speaks. This is the pearl of great price, the treasure buried deep in the field of our Christian consciousness. This is what is exceedingly, wondrously abundant because it comes from the bosom of God. This is promise par excellence, and fulfillment to the hilt such as only a God of promises and a God of fulfillment can give us. And it is there inside of us in germ, in potentiality, waiting for us to unravel like a precious gift that needs to be unwrapped.

Abram, whose name God changed to Abraham as befits the dignity and utter magnanimity of the gifts that he received, now looms in the horizon of your personal and collective hope as an icon, a beacon, a lighthouse that shows us the way. And what is that way? You are all called to rise up to the challenge of these confusing times, and, claim the riches that are already within you – your faith, love, and hope in God. Like unto Abraham, our father in faith, God now tells you graduates the same thing: EGO SUM MERCES TUA MAGNA NIMIS!

EVERYTHING HAS ITS SEASON
EVERYTHING HAS ITS TIME
SHOW ME A REASON AND I'LL SOON SHOW YOU A RHYME
CATS FIT ON THE WINDOWSILL
CHILDREN FIT IN THE SNOW
WHY DO I FEEL I DON'T FIT IN ANYWHERE I GO?

RIVERS BELONG WHERE THEY CAN RAMBLE
EAGLES BELONG WHERE THEY CAN FLY
I'VE GOT TO BE WHERE MY SPIRITS CAN RUN FREE
GOT TO FIND MY CORNER OF THE SKY

EVERY MAN HAS HIS DAYDREAMS
EVERY MAN HAS HIS GOALS
PEOPLE LIKE THE WAY DREAMS HAVE OF STICKING TO THE SOUL
THUNDERCLOUDS HAVE THEIR LIGHTNING
NIGHTINGALES HAVE THEIR SONG
AND DON'T YOU SEE I WANT MY LIFE TO BE SOMETHING MORE THAN LONG

RIVERS BELONG WHERE THEY CAN RAMBLE
EAGLES BELONG WHERE THEY CAN FLY
I'VE GOT TO BE WHERE MY SPIRITS CAN RUN FREE
GOT TO FIND MY CORNER OF THE SKY

SO MANY MEN SEEM DESTINED
TO SETTLE FOR SOMETHING SMALL
BUT I WON'T REST UNTIL I KNOW I'LL HAVE IT ALL
SO DON'T ASK WHERE I'M GOING
JUST LISTEN WHEN I'M GONE
AND FAR AWAY YOU'LL HEAR ME SINGING SOFTLY TO THE DAWN:

RIVERS BELONG WHERE THEY CAN RAMBLE
EAGLES BELONG WHERE THEY CAN FLY
I'VE GOT TO BE WHERE MY SPIRITS CAN RUN FREE
GOT TO FIND MY CORNER OF THE SKY...

With riches so great as our God is, why settle for something small? Why call yourself a rivulet when you could be a mighty river? And why think of yourself as a chicken when you can really soar like an eagle? With God behind Abram, now called Abraham, who would choose to remain in Ur? Armed with the obedience of faith, along with the boldness of love, and the audacity of hope, Abraham went forth to forge God’s dream and turn it into reality. That dream spanned the skies, and went beyond merely numerous. No … they were uncountable, as many as the sands on the seashore. Such was the greatness of God’s dream for him and his descendants forever. Pippin, as the song we just heard, reminds us, was called to reach out for his corner of the sky. With riches such as God has given, and continues to give you, it is not just a mere corner of the sky that you are called to pursue. No … you are destined for greatness like Abraham was. And God now gives you His famous promise: “EGO PROTECTOR TUUS SUM ET MERCES TUA MAGNA NIMIS!”

LIVING BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT

2008-01-09T23:48:00.000+08:00

N.B. This article was originally written for the souvenir program of a concert by guest priests of the Diocese of Cubao, held in December 2007.

For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord--for we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:1-7).

Macintosh had for long expressed what people already knew by intuition and experience for far longer. In its revolutionary GUI (Graphic User Interface) technology of yore, now taken for granted by everyone all over the world, the once cryptic statement understandable only to the early generations of computer geeks of times past, has now become more than just a standard feature, but also almost a doctrine-like mantra that actually says more than it seems to suggest … WYSIWYG … What you see is what you get.

It turns out, on closer look, that more than just computer graphics is at stake here … “What you see is what you get” stands for more than just superficial representations of what is behind the shapes, sounds, colors, and shifting images that make up the actual cyber reality of our time and age.

What you see is what you get … I have it on the authority of cognitive therapists, especially schema therapists, that one’s vision shapes one’s reality. What one “sees” in the mind is starting point of what becomes, and what takes shape in the real world. An architect first has to “see” in his mind’s eye what eventually takes shape in a three-dimensional world of material reality. What one conjures up in the inner world of one’s thoughts, stands at the basis of what one tends to actualize and concretize in the external world marked by height, width, weight, and depth. What one convinces oneself of, tends to become some kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, known once-upon-a-time as the “Rosenthal effect.” Schemata – the type of thoughts that fill our mind – are the very realities that we tend to live out. What one can “see” is something that most likely one can also somehow “do.” What you see is what you get.

But I read more in this almost prophetic statement of Apple.

I would like to suggest that it stands for more than just what our “new age” crazed world of infotainment seems to suggest. I would like to suggest, too, that something more than just the superficial “law of attraction,” popularized by the equally popular book entitled “The Secret,” is being referred to here.

What you see is what you get … No, I don’t speak of ions that build up in the atmosphere, and which, eventually form an energy mass that “attracts” the reality that one’s mind is trying hard to think about. No, I don’t speak of the so-called alignment of planets that follow the much-vaunted laws of the “age of aquarius,” that represents and constitutes favorable conditions for harmony and understanding to reign in the world.

I speak of better things here. I speak of a deeper vision … I speak of seeing not with so-called “soft eyes” made popular by The Celestine Prophecy of more than 15 years ago.

Bishop Anthony Bloom can help us here. He wrote many years ago that too many people live in only two dimensions in a world where there are actually three. People live like reality has to do only with the “here” and with the “now.”
People who behave like reality is only the here and the now, to use St. Paul’s terms, live only by sight. They see only what is palpable, quantifiable, and measurable.

To see only rottenness and sordidness in this world of corruption is to live by sight. To see only the rapid degradation of our society in every aspect is to live only in two dimensions. It means to see with “soft” uncritical eyes. It means seeing the “right things” but not necessarily “seeing rightly.” It means seeing, and being numbed by what one sees … being co-opted by what seems normal, legal, moral, and convenient, like as if all the said terms were on equal footing.

To live by sight alone is to see reality as flat, as drab, as lacking in depth, as lacking in perspective. It actually means to see less, not more.

The conditions of our times are rife for us all to see less and less. We see less of what is right, and more of what is personally and materially convenient. We see less of what is moral, and more of what is legal and advisable, and materially rewarding. We see less possibilities to aim for the better and the nobler, and more of opportunities and potentialities to work for the higher, the greater, and the more. We see less and less of God-at-work in history, and more and more of man intervening in history.

To live by sight alone is to see less, not more.

You have in your hands a kind invitation to see more, not less. The mere fact that you are reading this is proof enough that, deep inside, there is a very deep and very real longing in you to see the right things, and to see them rightly.

In our faith tradition and history, there was a man named Paul who saw the right things and saw them rightly. He saw pain staring him in the face. He saw and felt unalloyed joy at the sight of his beloved people in the various “churches” that he personally formed and evangelized. Paul saw suffering, shipwrecks, hunger, cold, heat, lashings, and gashing wounds of all kinds. He saw the love and dedication of his followers. But he also saw divisions, disunity, squabbles, and disharmony among the people he so dearly loved. He saw all the “right” and “real” things – enough to make anyone dejected and depressed.

But Paul saw more, not less. He had perspective. He had vision. And what he saw was what he got. He lived by faith, not by sight.

The men who made it possible for you to be reading this here and now, I would like to assure you, are men with a vision. Having journeyed with them in a humbling experience of reflecting together with them about faith, life, and priestly ministry last August 2007, I can vouch not only for their worthy dream, but also of their lofty vision that is not far different from Paul’s great vision.

They live in three dimensions. Thinking of the “here” and the “now,” they have planned and worked hard to regale you with songs that speak of their dreams – dreams that have to do with very real earthly concerns – the same concerns that you and I, as human beings, have – and ought to worry about in some way. But thinking, too, of the “hereafter,” their performance aims at bringing you closer towards another dimension that we all too easily tend to forget – the dimension of eternity. They are, after all, priests of the Roman Catholic Church, serving now the needs of the Diocese of Cubao. They have gathered here this evening, not only to regale you, but to sing with you the “songs of Zion,” to sing for you songs that remind us all that, indeed, we live in a world that opens to “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined – what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).

There are times when we are tempted to do as the exiles in Babylon did … hang up our harps by the rivers and sit down and weep (cf. Psalm 137). Times there are, like now, when we’d rather see and focus solely on all the rottenness and the corruption around us, and then worry ourselves sick and wax angry at all that we see.

But these men that you have come to see perform tonight – in varying shapes, sizes, and ages – offer you an alternative vision. Allow them, I ask you, if only for a couple of hours, to remind you in less formal and less ecclesiastical circumstances, of the same old message that Paul spoke about two thousand years ago – that we are called to “live by faith, not by sight,” and that we are all called to “see more, not less.”

A LETTER OF LOVE ON MY 25th YEAR AS PRIEST

2007-12-05T23:01:00.000+08:00

Casetta di Antonio Foundation, Inc.

Mailing Address: Unit 706 Herrera Tower, Valero corner Rufino Sts. Salcedo Village, Makati City 1227
Telephone Nos. 845-0876 *8958847

Dear friend and benefactor,

I thank the good Lord who has allowed our paths to cross.

Over the past 25 years of my priesthood, He has so graciously favored me with the grace of having met and known so many people like you who support me, share my dreams, and actually help me realize them, or otherwise put faith and trust in whatever I say or do. Many have journeyed with me and worked with me in the vineyard of the Lord. A great many, who have since moved on and charted other pathways, helped me set up and keep afloat for almost 15 years now, the Cogliandro Memorial Foundation, now known as Bahaybusko Foundation. Still a greater number have been willing and cooperative recipients of – and collaborators in – my educational and formative ministry since I was ordained in 1982.

As I reach a major milestone in my priestly life this 25th year, I cannot but look back with gratitude to both God and individuals who have so graciously and generously allowed themselves to become instruments of His providential care on behalf of those whom Divine Providence has given to my direct and indirect charge. Of these 25 years, the many years spent in direct formation work for would-be priests and young priests take pride of place in my treasure house of memories. To be sure, trials and mistakes abounded. I look back to them now with a heart filled with a tinge of sadness, but never with regret. But I look back, too, to even more abounding instances of unparalleled joys and successes. They fill me with hope, and goad me on to dream some more in view of whatever is left of the time I still have on loan from the Creator.

As you have done in the past, I personally request you to please go on dreaming with me. Having been in direct formation work for would-be priests and young priests up till now, I have dreamed of setting up another foundation that would help make what I, and others, do, and what others also dream of doing with a semblance of solid and institutional grounding.

I ask you to support my cause by contributing in any way you can to the CASETTA DI ANTONIO FOUNDATION, INC. The dream has been percolating in my heart and mind for many years now, but I need help as it makes its first baby steps towards institutional realization. Lack of time and resources have prevented me from coming up with a formal brochure to give more details. For now, all I can tell you for sure is that, with my siblings’ go-signal, we have designated a portion of my late parents’ (Antonio & Remedios) very modest property as initial boost toward the realization of this dream.

I, therefore, personally knock at your door for help. Be an active contributing member of the CAFI and be part of the on-going formation of younger religious priests.

One with you and with my brother priests,

Fr, Chito Dimaranan, SDB
December 8, 2007

N.B. For my readers from North America, Australia, and Europe, you may send your donations care of J.D. De Leon, 27872 Pebble Court, Hayward, CA 94542-2502 USA. Please make checks payable to CASETTA DI ANTONIO FOUNDATION, INC. Readers from Asia & Australia may get in touch with us through the above Philippine mailing address, or you may want to wire your donations directly to Union Bank of the Philippines, Account # 202 02 0015303, Calamba, Laguna branch.

11. BELIEVING AND BELONGING

2007-11-28T21:50:00.000+08:00

BELIEVING AND BELONGING:
Religious Life as a Journey and a Message of Hope

We have come now to the final reflection of this mountain meeting with the Lord and with ourselves over the past five days. All good things must end. No, I am not referring to my talks. I am referring to my stay in this beautiful, quiet place, along with the solitude and silence, the prayerful examples of all of you, and the receptive attitude that you all have given me.

To every one who is called to speak in public, some authors would advise the following three rules. First, have something to say. Second is, “stand up and say it.” The third and most important of all is, “sit down.” In my experience of 24 years, I sometimes do not follow these rules strictly. I cut corners and stay on longer on the second rule when I see one important thing on the part of the audience. Public speakers call it “audience sympathy.” You have shown me more than just audience sympathy. I don’t know whether you are just being polite or compassionate and merciful as the Lord, but that is beside the point. But there is one more reason why I refuse to sit down. You have made me president of the liturgical assembly, and I hold the microphone, so I would like to make maximum use of my 15 minutes of fame.

I made reference to the story of Thomas the Doubter in one of my talks. I would like you to know that I am very sympathetic to Thomas and his honest doubts. The last ten talks I have given are proof positive of that. I am firmly convinced of the fact that the best believers are those who struggled a little with their belief, who have a lot of personal investment in what they hold dear, for whom faith went beyond merely tucking cold, abstract truths neatly in a hermetically sealed compartment of the mind. Thomas’ faith was precisely not that. It wanted corroboration. It looked for support. It was a case of what St. Anselm referred to as “fides quaerens intellectum”- faith seeking understanding.

In our human tendency to focus on the negative, we sometimes do not look too kindly at Thomas’ doubts. This may well be the reason why tradition has given him the undying epithet, “the doubting Thomas.”

But I see more, not less. True to the main motif of the past 10 reflections I have shared with you, I would like to focus more on Thomas’ dream, and not his doubt. I like to cast my attention on his eventual development, not on his temporary faltering. I see in Thomas the careful circumspection of faith, faith that questions, not faith that is blind; faith that looks for further support, and more strength, not less. It is faith that is, like ours, simply and plainly human, subject to the normal and ordinary challenges posed by events, and the vagaries of time and place.

In this sense, for me, Thomas the Doubter is no different from Peter the Betrayer. Both were recorded to have had their own moments of weakness. One denied the Lord. The other doubted the Lord. But I would like to hasten to add one important detail. Both may have temporarily ceased believing, but both never stopped belonging. Believing and belonging … these are two intertwined aspects of the same attachment to the Lord. One builds on the other. One strengthens the other, but the temporary absence of one does not spell the total collapse of adherence and attachment to Christ. Thomas, who ceased believing for a while, never stopped belonging. He came, despite his disbelief. He came, precisely because he was looking for support in his faith. Vidimus Dominum, the other disciples told him. Thomas might as well have answered them, Desidero videre Dominum… Veni ut viderim Dominum. I want to see the Lord. I want to see his wounds. I want to touch his hands and his side. I came that I might see.

Peter the Betrayer thought better of his denials, all of three times. The Church that we belong to, the Church that we claim we love, is a Church of compassion. It is a Church where – lest you all forget – both saints and sinners belong together.

Compassion, mind you, breeds communion. The Risen Lord was the first to show this. “Thomas, take your hands and put them on my side. Touch my wounds in my hands.” Because of Christ’s compassion, the great divide between believing and belongingness was joined. Love shown so concretely is love that needs no proofs, no litmus tests, no surveys and evidences. Presence is evidence enough. And Christ’s love rendered all proofs useless and unnecessary.

Small wonder the response of Thomas made no reference to the wounds. He did not say, “I believe for I have touched.” No … his words were all in reference to the presence of him to whom he now pledges total, complete, and unconditional surrender: “My Lord, and my God!” We know the rest of the story of Thomas the Doubter. In his turn, he spent his whole life becoming what Scriptures say of those who saw the Risen Lord – witnesses. It was in turn to tell others: “Vidi Dominum.” And we all know what his witnessing led him to – martyria.

Yesterday, I made reference to Rabbi Byron’s claim that we all need to re-appropriate our wonder-working tradition as leaders of the faith. You might be asking what I may be referring to mostly. If you have followed my thread of thought over the past ten reflections, I am not exactly referring to being the miracle workers that the apostles were, doing spectacular healings, and grandiose miracles. That type of wonder working was more proper of the early, incipient Church, during the vitality of the beginning.

I am referring to something more achievable, more realistic, more sedate, and ultimately, more necessary. I have made reference to the fact that religious life as we present it now to the postmodern world may appeal less and less to young people. If we present an anemic picture of religious life as a glorified, more intensive version of lay spirituality, then we are not doing wonders. Thousands and thousands of lay people already are living their own equally valid version of a lay spirituality that has helped and still helps the growth and fecundity of the Church. By far the greatest thing that happened in the aftermath of Vatican II is the rise of so many covenanted communities of lay people in the world, who, while living in the world, still attend to the affairs of the Kingdom. They evangelize with passion and dedication. They build houses for the poor and organize communities to help them become not only worthy dwellers, but capable builders of their own communities, and architects of their own future. In a world of cynicism, despair, despondency, growing and worsening poverty of all kinds, many lay people have, indeed, become the wonder-workers that we used to be, that we are called to be.

But I suggest that that is not primarily the type of wonder-working we are called to do now. Being social workers has never, and ought never to be the end-all and be-all of our religious life. We do not need to be priests and religious to be that. But being professional men and women living holy lives based on the evangelical counsels, while journeying with a world of poverty, ignorance, discouragement, and lack of hope is what our wonder-working ought to revolve around in.

I am referring to us being living signs and beacons of hope. Priesthood and religious life that is open to wonder-working is a life that is open to hope. It is a life that transcends the sordid reality of a sinful world. It is a life that is willing to guarantee through personal and collective witness that life could be better, that society could be better, that there is a finality to everything in this world, and that that final chapter has been written in blood by the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Years ago, the great preacher and writer Fulton Sheen expressed so well what I am referring to:

Human nature everywhere, whether in the priesthood or out of it, makes one set of plans, and either God or events or someone in authority negates them. Life it seems, is like Sisyphus who pushes a stone up the mountain only to it roll down again. If other persons do not contradict our hopes, some impersonal fate seems to do so.

Earlier, I have shared with you a little of my personal passion, how others, especially superiors, may have trampled on my dreams, and left me holding an empty bag. I was in the throes of my narcissistic rage for a long while. In retrospect, even that painful chapter in my life has been a blessing. But that blessing is something one would rather not have to undergo at all.

Moltmann speaks about the very same experience in the life of Christ. Christ, on the night before he suffered, had withdrawn in order to be united in prayer with his Father. He prayed. No … he pleaded … If it be possible… Moltman says that “Christ’s request was not granted." God, his Father, rejected it. Moltman speaks of the true passion of Jesus Christ which began with the prayer in Gethsemane which was not heard, which was rejected through the divine silence; for his true passion was the suffering from God.

As priests and religious, most of our suffering really in one sense comes from God. No … not that God is the author of our pain, but in the sense that most of our pain really happens because we care for God, we care for his kingdom, and we try do His will. In the long run, we really suffer for God. We suffer because we are driven to do things with the best interests of God in mind. And in the depths of our pain, we cannot but utter with and like Christ, “My God, my God, why? … Why? Why have you forsaken me?” Moltman sees in all this the beginning of true hope.

At the point where men and women lose hope, where they become powerless and can do nothing more, the lonely, assailed and forsaken Christ waits for them and gives them a share in his passion.

This is what faith really is: believing, not with the head or the lips or out of habit, but believing with one’s whole life. It means seeking community with the human Christ in every situation in life, and in every situation experiencing his own history. Good Friday is the most comprehensive and most profound expression of Christ’s fellowship with every human being.

Beneath the cross of Christ hope is born again out of the depths. The person who has once sensed this is never afraid of any depths again. His hope has become firm and unconquerable: “Lord, I am a prisoner – a prisoner of hope."

You all have come from the plains to do this mountain-meeting with the Lord. If you remember, when the Lord is hard pressed on all sides, when crowds are literally all over him, asking to be touched, to be healed, to be saved from all sorts of maladies, the Lord would invariably and periodically go up to the mountain or to a deserted place to pray. I would like to think that he applies what some authors now call “oscillation theory.” To avoid what some others call “compassion fatigue,” the only way is to find replenishment from the Lord in prayer. Donald Messer, apropos this writes:

The danger of compassion fatigue ever threatens. Difficulties occur because of the stubborn intransigence of the evils we deplore. We tire from the constant struggle against seemingly intractable forces. To use the words of St. Paul, ‘we grow weary from well-doing.’

But believing and belonging, holding on to what is good, keeping together despite the differences that separate us, is the primary wonder-working ability that attracts followers. This is the wonder-working capacity that we need to explore and glory in – the wonder of the grace of consecrated life, a life that may not be popular, but a life that will remain valid a symbol of what, ultimately, we all long to possess – God, and His promises.

I would like to sum up all that I have been trying to tell you over the past five days (plus one). I have been talking of transcendence. I have been leading you to hope. I have been exhorting you to go on, walk on, march on, never mind if what we are going to, sounds more like the Emmaus of disappointment and sadness of two disheartened disciples. I have been inviting you to become what St. Paul finally attained: “For I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance” (2 Tim 4:6-8).

Donald Messer reports about Loren Eiseley who talked about his own suffering from a dry emptiness, and a massive sense of futility, and a foretaste of annihilation. Despite this, he woke up each morning at dawn and observed shell hunters scavenge for treasures by the seaside. He spoke about “a vulturine kind of madness” which overcomes these collectors. They would scoop out living specimens, favoring starfish, and put bag loads of them in boiling cauldrons. But one morning, he saw an even more astounding sight. A man, framed by a huge rainbow at dawn, was picking up some things and then would toss them into the ocean. He was picking up hapless starfish, raised stiffly on their legs, caught out of water by the rapidly receding tide. As he picked one, Eiseley said, “It’s still alive.” “Yes,” the man said. “The stars throw well. One can help them.” Eiseley later wrote: “I nodded and walked away, leaving him there upon the dune with that great rainbow ranging up the sky behind him. I turned as I neared a bend in the coast and saw him toss another star … For a moment, in the changing light, the sower appeared magnified, as though casting larger stars upon some greater sea. He had … the posture of a god.”

Eiseley ends up “joining the star thrower on the beach, spinning living starfish beyond the danger points, beyond the ‘insatiable waters of death,” writes Messer.’ “He joins the company of the star thrower, not as a scientist but as a fellow sufferer. By loving life, even the lost ones, Eiseley points to a God who not only creates unfathomable worlds of nature but who is also the God of the lost ones.”

We are called to wonder-working. And we are called to do this by joining the company of the star thrower, who is Christ. Hope is what we specialize in. Hope is the arena we move in. We see stars, despite our scars. We proclaim new life, in the midst of death. We deliver good news, beyond the so many bad news.

I end with the few Latin phrases I have quoted for you. My own, first of all … per agrum, ad sacrum! And two more: Ad augusta, per angusta! Ad astra, per aspera. As one who has been journeying on in this adventure called priesthood and religious life, I have learned the wisdom behind the words of St. Augustine: SOLVITUR AMBULANDO … things are solved while walking.

10. WALKING ON WATER LIKE JESUS & PETER

2007-10-24T16:50:00.000+08:00

10. WALKING ON WATER LIKE JESUS & PETER:

Working Wonders Beyond our Fears

The priest as wonder worker is all but lost in our times. The priest, like our drugs, has become generic. For the most part, he is seen, not as a wonder-worker, but as a dispenser, like the ubiquitous water dispenser found in schools, canteens, hospitals, offices, and church meeting halls. He dispenses the sacraments week-in and week-out. He preaches – or so he imagines – while doing nothing more than repeat what the readings have said, first in English, then in Tagalog or Cebuano, or in any of our more than 77 dialects. The priest is so generic that, like the proverbial chameleon, he adopts to the environment. He changes color along with the leaves, the bark of trees, and the contour of the ground. First, golf became the game de rigueur for priests on furlough on a Monday. Then it became karaoke bars, with chaste singing accompanied by a few rounds of drinks, hard or mellow, who cares what? Now it is the burgeoning badminton courts, the tennis grounds, and the country clubs of varying levels of comfort and levels of company from the old rich to the nouveaux riches, truth to say, the power wielders or the power brokers of our times and days.

An important book by Rabbi Sherwin[1] argues that, by the tradition that grew from the OT all through the NT times, the religious leader is one who “works wonders.” He writes that “the authority of the religious leader in communicating a theological and moral message that shapes behavior, ultimately depends upon the belief of his or her constituency that he or she possesses powers not vouchsafed to others. These wonder-working abilities are the ‘medium’ that allows for the ‘message’ to be effectively conveyed. Consequently, for clergy to regain their currently eroded religious and moral authority and social status, they must reclaim their role as wonder workers. Only in that way will they be able to effectively lead their communities and convey the moral and theological message that is their mission to impart. Only in that manner can they effectively influence the moral and religious behavior of their constituencies.”[2]

That says a whole lot about the embarrassing “miracle” (at least to the institutional mainstream Church) that El Shaddai leader, Velarde, is. Let us not mince words about it. He is, to use Byron’s term, no less than a wonder-worker. Whilst this is not the time to psychoanalyze either Velarde or the hordes of largely simple folks who follow his doctrine, all I am saying is that one of the many possible reasons people flock to him, from a pastoral counselor’s viewpoint, is that he is perceived to be a “wonder-worker.” This is the reason why so many flock to the evangelical sects that abound all over the world, particularly in Brazil and many places in South America. The point of commonality in all of their leaders is the fact that they are, rightly or wrongly, perceived to be “wonder workers.”

As part of the crisis of priesthood, brought to the fore by the Long Lent of 2002, as Weigel[3] refers to the onset of the clergy scandal in Boston and elsewhere, the crisis of identity of the priest has been part of the erosion of the perception of the priest in times past as a wonder-worker. One recent author I’ve read reported how, when he was invited to say Mass in a particular parish in the US, the head lay minister told him bluntly as he was giving assignments for the distribution of communion: “You Father, you distribute communion in the choir loft. This is to tell people that you are just like everybody else.” I don’t know what sort of theology was drummed into you while in formation, but I have always been, and still remain, an “ontologist.” No, the priest is not like everybody else. He is equal in dignity with all men and women, that’s for sure, but his ordination has made him different, set apart, by virtue of the power vested on him. Different doesn’t mean superior. Being different doesn’t mean you are “more equal than others,” to use that famous phrase from George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” From the ashes of all this talk about equality and equal rights, and a misunderstood “lay centered” Church, we see rising an emasculated image of priest who is expected to preside but not to rock the boat too much, expected to do “wonders” but within strict bounds of democracy and fairness and equal opportunities. No wonder we are left only with so-called “sacramental ministers” who do their duties with dispatch, but not with panache, who preach but only about pious things and good things, politically-correct stuff that do not rock the boat too much. By trying to please everybody you please nobody. And you end up like a glorified altar boy, sashaying round the altar to fulfill a ritual, not a meaningful encounter.

But I am not about to get you off the hook just because you are different and called to do wonders. Now, I go to the most important idea that Sherwin shares with us. In many words, he simply tells us, that as clergymen, as religious leaders, we have to re-appropriate the wonder-working capabilities of the biblical religious leaders. I quote:

“For the religious teachings and the wonders of the religious leader to be considered credible and authentic, he or she must exhibit the sources of his or her authority as a religious leader, as a person of God in his or her daily lifestyle … Put another way, the mission of the religious leader is to convey a message. In order to effectively convey a message, he or she must enjoy a close relationship with the giver of the message, that is, God. He or she must have an intimate knowledge of the content of that message, that is, an in-depth religious learning. He or she must live the message, that is, he or she must live a life that embodies religious faith, spiritual development, personal piety, and moral rectitude.”[4]

This needs no further commentary. But there is more. Sherwin says that “a person with such characteristics can convey the message through the medium of various types of wonder working.” This wonder-working, according to Sherwin, quoting Jack Bloom[5] happens when the clergyperson is a “symbolic exemplar,” that is, when he “transforms a mundane moment into a sacred occasion, a routine place into a holy space.” By the power vested in him, his every word, gesture, blessing, healing, praying over people, preaching, counseling, or simply being with people, becomes his wonder working tools.

I would like to refer back to my title. Peter was walking on water[6] for a short while, on the strength of the Lord’s command. But he chickened out. He began sinking. He noticed the gales more than the guidance of the Lord. To me, this was a foreshadowing, a clue to the character of Peter, that will climax sadly with his denial of the Lord for three times. This may well be the image of many of us priests who may be losing our resolve to be the martyrs and witnesses we are called to be. I am fully one with Michael Heher[7] who in the last chapter of his outstanding book, refers to the lost art of walking on water, for the simple reason that we have lost the yen for martyrdom, for self-sacrifice, for apostolic generosity. I take this to mean we are no longer working wonders for we have decided to be comfortable. We have decided to follow the mainstream. We have become generic priests with generic jobs, delivering generic homilies, doing generic baptisms, and generic services. The other hurtful word for this is mediocrity. And mediocrity does not do wonders. Mediocrity does not rock the boat. Mediocrity does not save. Heroism does. Martyrdom does. Being up there on the cross with Christ does, or at least being down there with Mary and John, while all the rest have chickened out and went their own frightened ways.

The last time mediocrity struck me as a word was 1984. In the movie “Amadeus,” the character of the envious, scheming, and resentful Leopoldo Salieri struck me immensely. To me he is the perfect example of what not to be if we want to be wonder workers. A copy cat, and a poor one at that, he always defined himself in terms of what the boorish and upstart Mozart could do. He was always comparing himself with him. And every time, he became angrier, while Mozart rose higher in the estimation of the royal court. He was seething with inner rage at that upstart, at that impertinent and boorish young man, whom he was trying with might and main to outdo. He never succeeded, even when he stole the work of Mozart and made off with it like as if it were his own. At the end of his life, the old Salieri was pensive, repentant perhaps, but was clearly insightful when he said: “I am the patron saint of mediocrity.” Mediocrity obviously did not take very far.

I cannot but end this final reflection with a lengthy quote from Heher. I dare not “spoil no whisper, blur no expression” for I believe every word he writes:

To the extent that we are unwilling to join [Peter] there, unwilling to take the attendant risk that we could, like him, end up flailing about, looking silly and nearly drowning, we will look as cowardly and sound as whiny as we are. ‘Please, please, please, come to the seminary,’ we plead. But what do we teach them to do in the seminaries? To be as bright and creative as they can? To take chances? To be ready for a life of sacrifice? Do we train them for resilience and generosity? Do we insist they manifest a capacity to live intimately and maturely upon this planet? And why should we expect if of them if we don’t expect it of ourselves? This is my prediction: until we change our ways, the young will not see the excitement in our way of life. The dreamers, the talented ones, the visionaries and geniuses, the ones God may indeed be calling, they’ll go somewhere else with their enormous energy. Instead we will continue to attract men in early middle age, those, excuse me for saying this, ready to settle down.

‘Please, please, please, get involved in our parishes,’ we implore our parishioners. But what do we ask of them? To give out communion? To donate sacrificially? To attend one of our self-help seminars or Bible studies? To jump through the hoops of our sacramental preparation? Where is the excitement in that? Where is the call to real service, for trusting faith in troubling times? We have come to consider high attendance at anything as a sign of success; we have forgotten that, on Pentecost, the standard was a bit higher; people had to be on fire.[8]

Our normal tendency is to be rather blaming of Peter who didn’t trust the Lord’s hand. But as Heher says, we can also focus on the moments he in fact walked on water. It is possible. It is possible to regain our stature as wonder-workers. Heher asks, “Could it be that turbulent waters are in fact best suited for walking?”

Maybe we need to face our fears, our insecurities, and allow the people who journey with us a glimpse about our real selves, who, like Peter, may be struggling with our faith. Again I quote Heher:

As has often been the case in the history of the Church, the baptized trust more those leaders who let themselves be seen drowning and worse. I think our parishioners want fewer of our bright ideas and more of our empathy and honest response to life. In short, they are attracted to priests who know how to take chances – not just any chance and not simply for the sake of the thrill – but chances they perceive are prompted by the Holy Spirit; from such priests parishioners will find the guts to be courageous and docile disciples themselves.[9]

[1] Byron L. Sherwin. Workers of Wonders: A Model for Effective Religious Leadership from Scripture to Today. (Lanham,MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. c. 2004).

[2] Sherwin, op.cit., p. xiii

[3] George Weigel. The Courage to be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church. (New York: Basic Books, c. 2002). He attributes the phrase to Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

[4] Sherwin, op.cit., 0. 147

[5] Ibid., p. 141

[6] Matthew 14:22-33

[7] Michael Heher, op. cit.

[8] Heher, op.cit., pp. 172-173

[9] Ibid., pp. 174-175

9. I PLAYED BUT YOU WOULDN'T DANCE: Learning to Become Joyful Beyond our Loneliness

2007-09-24T22:12:00.000+08:00

Recent studies on priests, at least in America, show two seemingly contradicting truths. The first is that priests in their first five years after ordination appear to be “as happy and fulfilled as other American men their age.” This finding is corroborated by no less than Dolan, who, in his foreword to the book by Rosetti says the same, but goes right into the other side of this seemingly paradoxical reality. Dolan says that while “over 90 per cent report high satisfaction with their call and ministry, the public perception is that priests are not joyful, and that the priesthood is in a life-threatening crisis, and that many priest, while internally happy, come off as crabs and malcontents.”

I am not sure a similar study on priests in the Philippines would reveal exactly the same results. Given our proverbial natural propensity to be joyful and optimistic as a people, given the cultural positive attitudes by and large of our people to priests and religious, in general, I am not too sure that we are looked upon and perceived in general as sour and dour – at least as a general rule.

However, it wouldn’t be out of place in a forum such as this, to be speaking about joy. After all, we’ve heard it so often in the past, “a sad saint is a bad saint.” Consequently, if we look at our life and role and ministry as a way to sanctify ourselves and others, nothing stands in the way of this work of sanctification more than being crabby, being sore, being perpetually malcontent, like as if we have an axe to grind against the world, against everyone and everything.

The bad news is that in any given population, in any basket of apples picked at random, you have good apples and bad apples. We do a spontaneous, natural act of selection everyday at table. Although we say it’s the same banana, not all bananas are alike. We naturally pick the better one in the bunch, and the bad ones, generally remain in the bunch, till they become too ripe to eat and which will then be made into banana bread or given an extreme makeover and turned into pudding. You know that well enough.

Given our long training in the context of the seminary, serious pathology would most likely be screened out. There is a natural selection process that takes place in the wisdom of the seminary system introduced by Trent a long time ago. Rosetti, for one, claims that we have few cases of schizophrenia, psychosis, or seriously bipolar. Although it can, and, does arise, particularly from the ranks of those who more or less belong to my generation, priests are no more prone to such pathologies as the general population. As Rosetti says, priests are sick not because they are priests, but because they are human.

But I agree with Rosetti that we do need to talk a little about what we oftentimes pass off as garden-variety “sadness.” Whilst major depression is not part of the list of typical presenting problems of priests, a more subtle, low level, chronic, and milder specie called dysthymia is. This mild depression is something that few priests (and lay people) would even recognize, let alone, accept. But a trained observer just has the nose and the eye for it. Dysthymic people cannot remember the last time they were really happy. They shuffle around with a defeated look, downcast gaze (and some of them mistakenly define this as “profumo sanctitatis”). They shun the noise, the garrulity, and the legitimate joys afforded by everyday life, in the name of detachment and usually hie off to their rooms, or offices, and brood (which they call reflection).

On the opposite side of the spectrum are hypomanic individuals who seem unable to sit down for any length of time alone. They need something to perk them up all the time. They need to be at the center of the action. They need to be there where life happens. They have the chronic niceness syndrome, always available to help damsels in distress and anyone in real or imagined distress, for that matter. They are always huffing and puffing for the next sick call, the next talk, the next Mass, and the next “happening.” Take them away from that type of frenetic activity and they become sullen, withdrawn, or restless, and anxious. Whilst it is by no means pathological in the clinical sense, hypomanics may go through such a frenetic lifestyle, and can claim they do it because of their “apostolic zeal,” and “thirst for the kingdom,” but all they really do is meet an undefined need to be active, to be doing something, to be up and about, and to be saving the whole world. Cardinal Laghi’s famous quip comes in handy: “The Church already happens to have a savior.”

In my modest experience in leadership, and in my equally modest training over the recent past, and as a perpetual student of human behavior, particularly over the past 24 years of my priesthood, of which number more than half was spent in the context of formation, I cannot agree more with a recognized expert in the field all over the world – Rosetti – when he writes that the more common presenting problems of priests and religious are the following: narcissism, passive-aggression, and dependent personality problems.

I know I am treading on dangerous territory. I am walking on a mine-studded field that some of our dioceses and religious congregations in the Philippines are in. It is my educated opinion that of the three, narcissism seems to be the more prevalent in the Philippine setting. I have no hard data to present. My venturing into this field, along with the modest training I had in it, was really born more out of personal interest than on talent. But I see signs of it everywhere. The handwritings are on the wall, and all of us will be well advised to give a look, more at ourselves and less at others, and see just how much this moral and psychological evil has inflicted, and continues to inflict wounds on our communities, on our own personhood, and on the Church as a whole.

I start with the most difficult. Sadly, there is no known cure for them. These are the dashing debonairs of our society. They are talented and gifted. And they don’t just know it. They flaunt it. They make sure you know just what they are capable of, no matter if they are simply imagined. They are the narcissists in our midst. If we go by the rule of thirds that I quoted earlier on, then we should have reason to be worried, to be very worried. At least 33 per cent of clergy, not excluding us, may be in there. Narcissists are focused solely on themselves. They are the ultimate standard to anything. They are charismatic. They appear charming and kind. They know what they want. They know what to do. But you should never cross them. Once you do, you incur their wrath forever. Narcissists see the wrong thing in everybody else except in themselves. They cannot handle criticism. When crossed, their repressed anger is let loose like a dam. They burst like an over-inflated balloon and fly off the handle. They walk out of meetings in a huff, making sure that everybody gets indicted and figuratively sent to hell. They have no qualms about cursing others behaving like they are not capable of making mistakes too. They can even curse the Holy Father, the Superior General, and, if you’re just a local superior in a small community where he belongs, woe to you. You are just peanuts to this bulldozer who has no problems riding rough shod on anyone who stands in his way. All hell will break loose if you don’t do according to his plans. The narcissist’s tendencies, given enough time, is laid out in an intricate web of control, known to psychologists as “projective identification of control.” With enough time, and when (horror of all horrors), the non psychologically intuitive superior puts him in power, the narcissist will lay down a firm, and intractable mechanism of control, and everybody will have to toe the line, and literally kowtow to his every whim and wish, which usually is reinforced with a gruff, a grunt, and a growl. Weiser writes: “Narcissistic clergy operate on the force of personality, and they tolerate no real peers. They may court superiors in order to see themselves as peers of superiors, but they are not interested in genuine exchange. Narcissists are fickle in friendship, judge others in terms of usefulness, and reject people with bitter criticism, a criticism they always spare themselves. Idealization and devaluation is the technical term for their process of boom-and-bust courtship of others.”

The next in line makes a perfect fit for the narcissistic leader. The dependent personality is one whom the narcissist would simply love to have around. Such personalities form perfect part of the narcissist’s “groupie” or clique, individuals that are easily manipulated. Weiser describes them thus: “Depressed/dependent persons have no confidence in their own emotional strength or intellectual abilities. They feel powerless over events and relationships and are often willing to sacrifice anything, including their wants, needs, or themselves, for a sense of belonging equated with safety, security, and love.” Needless to say, such dependents would always love to belong to a small group because that group gives them a sense of security which they are looking for. If you are a small community and you have a clique like that, and you are the superior, you are in for a great deal of resistance. There is not much you can do unless of course you go down to their level and pander to their need for security and belongingness, in which case you would then be guilty of manipulation. Dependent personalities have difficulty asserting their own opinion. They don’t want to say their opinion because they fear being rejected or disliked. In the meantime, their resentment grows, especially if they already feel rejected or alone. Poorly differentiated since childhood, they always look for someone else to prop themselves up, someone else who could meet their nurturance and affiliation needs, someone else who could fill up what is lacking in their personality structure. These dependents are the perfect individuals to be looking for elderly matrons who can mother them, protect them, especially when, in their healthy imagination, they are not cared for in their communities. The bad side of it is, they tell sob stories to people around. The community is put in a bad light, and the hapless, unwary superior is condemned unjustly for being such an uncaring, unfeeling, and insensitive superior who does not act fatherly at all to his subjects (read: himself in particular).

The third most common malady is that of the passive-aggressive. They don’t fight openly against anyone. They just don’t do as agreed. They are not openly aggressive, but it doesn’t mean they are as meek and gentle like lambs. No… they hit you when they think it is most timely, where they think it would hurt you most. They appear to be obedient, nodding their heads in approval of what leaders tell them, but they show a pervasive pattern of passive resistance (low-key rebellion) and negativism. These individuals always feel cheated, unappreciated, and misunderstood. They are always complaining to others. The tragedy grows when they find dependent lay people, who also have very strong needs for succorrance, who literally come to their rescue supplying for what they think their poor priest or brother friend is unjustly deprived of. This includes food, gadgets, and if they are well-to-do, even cars at the poor priest’s disposal. Some even go to the ridiculous point of providing a room where they “are always at home and welcome at any time of day – or night.”

In such a setting, where “original sin” takes the upper hand in our selves, in our communities, in our congregations, religious houses, and dioceses, it becomes very hard for all to live in serenity and joy. It becomes a real challenge. Joy in the community is never to be achieved through short-cuts. Joy is never to be achieved by short-lived tactics like watching movies, and eating out, and finding time for some artificially contrived opportunity to do some backslapping camaraderie that masks an underlying river or resentment and dissatisfaction that is more intrapersonal than interpersonal. Joy, says, Kahlil Gibran, is but sorrow unmasked. Joy is something we ought to work for, sweat for, and sometimes, even cry for. Superiors are the first in the line of battle to assure that joy becomes real, genuine, and not based on flimsy props like food, parties, and gifts. Sometimes, the only way is to suffer through temporary anger misdirected at them by really helping the individuals to learn how to cope with their own issues. Sending them for processing and therapy may be painful, but mere paternalistic benevolence never resolved any big problem in the Church in history. Compassion alone will not clinch it. We also need clarity. And clarity means you have shoulders broad enough to suffer undeserved pain. I have climbed 13 Philippine mountains. I have even been held hostage in our highest peak down south for three days, together with seven others, half of whom were foreigners. You know what is the loneliest spot on earth when there is no one else to share it with? The mountain peak …

What is the use of being atop Mt. Everest if no one ever knew, if no one ever cared? What is the point in trekking alone to Mt. Pulog and then being overcome by the sheer awe and fascination of being higher than the clouds and there is no one else to hear your shouts of glee and triumph?

That is what superiors sometimes are … lonely on top. It is, indeed, lonely at the top. But you never know until it hits you in a moment of clarity that being lonely does have its joys. Joy is but sorrow unmasked. Here is a proof of a story recounted by Rosetti:

He was a seminarian during WW II. Thrown into a concentration camp, he survived. He came to America, was ordained a priest, and sent to a remote mission. He spent yeas building a church, building a community, praying and saying Mass every day. People never came. They ignored him. Years after, he resigned. The Bishop trekked all the way with him to inform people the parish would be closed. The people didn’t like the idea. When asked why despite the fact that they never attended anything, they answered: “You cannot take away the priest. If you take him away, you take away our only light.”

He was stunned. He stayed. And after that, the community began taking part.

No further commentary is needed. Joy is but sorrow unmasked. We priests and religious are supposed to be bearers of joy, gospel joy. And last thing I heard is, this joy can only happen if we take up his cross, and follow him. You better believe it.

The Gospel allusion in the title of this reflection illustrates the fact that also Jesus expressed some frustration. Referring to a game children played – some kind of “follow the leader,” Jesus complained, as children would: “I played but you wouldn’t dance.” We are called to learn how to grow beyond our loneliness, beyond our hopelessness. And this also applies to joy.

8. THAT THEY MAY BE ONE: Learning to Become Men of Communion Beyond our Social Fragmentation

2007-09-11T20:33:00.000+08:00

We live in a fragmented world. Society all over is disintegrating at least in some way. Civilizations are in conflict. If we are to believe what Samuel Huntington wrote, then we have reason to be afraid, mortally afraid, much more than we ought to be worried about the global warming phenomenon that threatens a great meltdown of our polar ice caps.

We do not even have to go too far down the road to see that our society is disintegrating. We do not even see eye to eye on who should be leading this country. We never liked any president. We are neatly divided between issues. Not even our Bishops present a united front. Some are dancing paltsy waltsy with questionable figures, and some are downright inimical to certain high profile political bigwigs. Such a state of affairs is not a monopoly of our political system. In our parishes, in our communities, in our schools and apostolic ventures, there is a whole lot of intrigue, of subtle alliances and groupings, of cliques that do more harm than good. We are back to the Filipino culture of insecurity that I was talking about in the first day.

And yet, we claim we are a Eucharistic breed of men, favored like no other with the grace of being able to confect ordinary bread and transubstantiate it into the Body and Blood of Christ our Lord. We preside at reconciliation liturgies. We mediate between warring families, siblings, and groupings in and out of our regular turf. We talk endlessly about unity. We pray even unceasingly about it. We minister, indeed, to a broken world. We minister to a society – and to ourselves – for whom unity is still a distant dream, perhaps a pie in the sky, a process that not even God, by his allowing us to chart our destinies in our freedom, can do with dispatch, and at a pace we all would like to have.

Our prayer, like that of Christ’s, is still “Lord, that they may be one.” But the good Lord had a second portion to that prayer which we cannot ever hope even to get anywhere near to …”even as you and I, Father, are one.”

And this is where our reflection would bring us to. It leads us to the absolute foundation and basis of the unity we pray for, and that foundation is nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else but the Trinitarian God.

We priests are a spoiled lot. We generally get what we want. We speak and the whole retinue of parish staff gets into action. We ask and we receive. We preach and we expect compliance. We expect no less than obedience. In our pride, there is a tendency to rely solely on procedures, techniques, and tactics to get things moving. We think we are the Savior, even if the Church already had one, as Pio Laghi wisely cracked. We think unity could be had if only we made the right moves, embraced the latest group process from Wharton school of business, or the Kennedy School of Public Service.

But unity is first of all God’s work because first of all it is what God is. It is what God wants and it is what God does, ever so subtly, ever so slowly. His pace does not get beyond our pace, even if he could. And the reason is simple. He wants unity not despite us. He wants unity because of us. He wants unity for us. And he wants it done with us, not without us. This means, to paraphrase Forrest Gump’s wise momma, “The pray-er is, as the pray-er does.” Handsome is as handsome does. Unity happens when we work for it together … each one of us … all of us all together now … to get there.

To get there, we must work together. But we need to define what this working together really is all about.

I call it doing Eucharist. Eucharist is something we do. It is a verb. It comes from a deep need to be grateful. For gratefulness is what being Christian at bottom is. Louis Evely, back in my College days, wrote in one of his popular books, “If you have nothing to thank God for, there is nothing Christian in you.” But Eucharist is not something we do alone. It is something we do together.

It almost sounds strange, but we priests and religious are called to be Eucharistic men and women. But before we can be Eucharistic, we first need to be grateful people. When we get what we want, when we can command and commandeer people and get them to be doing things at our beck and call, when we feel entitled to receive, we cease to be grateful. People who get and grab are never grateful. They think it is their right to have things. But people who receive, reply with gratitude. To get is too violent. To receive is to be gracious and magnanimous with praise and thanks. Just look at how Mary prayed. Magnificat anima mea Dominum! For a whole slew of reasons … for whatever reason … come what may, happen what might, everything is seen as gift … everything is seen as grace.

Allow me to call your attention to what robs us men of the innate and natural capacity to be gracious recipients of gifts. It is inner violence. It is anger. Surprised? Yes. Nothing blocks our capacity to be grateful more than anger that clouds our minds and psyches from the good that we ought to rejoice in. Remember what I told you in one of my first talks? In formation we first need to define our humours, our angers, our sympathies, and antipathies before we can define who we are. Rosetti puts it more clearly: “The journey of Christian human formation is a journey out of anger into gratitude and joy.” All too often we talk, and rightly so, about our need to turn away from disvalues like materialism, consumerism, and the culture of death, as Rosetti points out. But he goes on to say that all too often again, we fail to include that which destroys our humanity so surely and so subtly and that is what anger and inner rage does to us. The forces of evil and Satan, the father of lies have all conspired to lead otherwise good men towards dysfunctional and catastrophic behavior patterns that affect so many people. Satan is very much active in the sin and sickness of anger that is allowed to grow, to rise in power above the shadows and dark recesses of denial and secretiveness.

Satan, as we know, loves to work under the cloak of deceit, secrecy, and suspicious silence. This is how inner rage attacks otherwise good men in our midst. We allow anger to fester. We allow it to increase. We cover it up with a perpetual smile and apparent good-naturedness. We refuse no request. We are available for anything at any time of day or night. We drown ourselves in work, all spiritualized in the garb of apostolic zeal and cura animarum. But we don’t say is what harms us – the seething resentment, the scalding anger that builds up like a dormant volcano that all of a sudden erupts and manifesting itself in terms of subtle and not-so-subtle rebellion, nonconforming behavior, bitter and sarcastic remarks against others, especially superiors, reading too much from otherwise innocent behavior and remarks from them, and that all too common Filipino tactic – avoidance and evasion, the cold shoulder treatment, not going for prayers with others, not going for meals together with others, etc. Satan just loves to work in the shadows.

I have to tell those superiors who may be in this difficult situation. You need to differentiate yourself in a healthy way. You need not blame yourselves if one or two or more of your confreres seem to have it against you. On many occasions, whilst you may be the object of anyone’s anger, you ought to be mature and differentiated enough to know that you are not necessarily its cause.

We need to become Eucharistic men. What exactly does this mean? Does this mean being pious and giving that pitiful, wan look during Mass? No. I mean digging deeper into oneself to see what is there in us that is not very Eucharistic. Where does all that inner rage come from? What is really the root cause of that anger? Becoming Eucharistic persons is exactly being like the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. They were bitter, sad, angry and disappointed. The one they were relying on, left them in the lurch. He was crucified. They were now orphaned by a leader of their hopes who would have socked it to the Romans. But he was dead.

I would like to think that before they could be Eucharistic, they first had to let go of all that anger and disappointment, and self-pity. They were open about it. They talked among themselves about it. They even spoke of their disappointment to their unknown guest who at some point began journeying with them. They were processing themselves and allowed themselves to be processed. By the time they sat down to supper, they were ready to be Eucharistic. They were ready to give thanks, because they were already grateful and joyful. And their joy was made full … when they realized the gift of presence of him who offered, of him who gave away, gave thanks, broke, and shared.

Eucharist is all about brokenness shared and admitted and accepted. It is all about receiving and giving thanks for what one has received. When we, as priests and religious, as brothers in the Lord recognize our brokenness and our woundedness and confess it to one another, we are ready to do Eucharist. We are ready to be men and women of communion. And the only reason for this is simply this … we also have first become men and women of compassion … compassion for ourselves, others, and all who, like us, are journeying in pain.

I end with a beautiful one-liner from Catherine Dougherty … “Love and joy are fruit of faith, sacrifice, and pain.”