The Philippine Society of Jesus in cooperation with John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues, Loyola School of Theology and Jesuit Communications Foundation, Inc. invites you to Veritas in Caritate: A Symposium on the Social Encyclical of Benedict XVI, on December 2, 2009, Wednesday, 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Leong Hall Auditorium, Ateneo de Manila University.

Main speaker is Reverend Father Jose Cecilio Magadia, SJ,  Provincial Superior of the Society of Jesus.

The panel of reactors include Cielito Habito, Ph. D.  (Academe), Guillermo Luz (Business), Ma. Antonia Loyzaga (Environment), and Bp. Luis Antonio Tagle, D.D. (Church).

Middle of this year, Pope Benedict XVI issued out his third encyclical since coming to office in 2005. In Veritas in Caritate or, roughly, “truth in charity,” the Pope, widely known for his scholarship and erudition, confronts the urgent social issues of our time, including the roots of this year’s global economic meltdown. The current symposium aims to lead discussions on the important insights of the Pope especially as these relate to Philippine socio-economic realities.

Admission is free.

For early registration, please email esablan@admu.edu.ph.  For more information, please call Malou at 4266001 loc 4666 or Dit at 426-5971 loc 112



I.  Comelec, CHR, and LADLAD

A group of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBT), led by Danton Remoto, an English professor in Ateneo de Manila University, asked the Commission on Elections to approve as a Party List their group named LADLAD, a Filipino word which means “public display of homosexuality”.  The Comelec, led by the presiding commissioner Nicodemo C. Ferrer, dismissed the petition on moral grounds:

Petitioner should be denied accreditation not only for advocating immoral doctrines but likewise for not being truthful when it is said that “it or any of its party list representatives have not violated or failed to comply with laws rules and regulations relating to the elections.”

Furthermore, should this Commission grant the petition, we will be exposing our youth to an environment that does not conform to the teachings of our faith.  Lehman Strauss, a famous bible preacher and writer in the U.S.A., said in one article that “older practicing homosexuals are a threat to the youth.”  As an agency of the government, ours too is the State’s avowed duty in Sec. 13, Article II of the Constitution to protect our youth from moral and spiritual degradation.

We are not condemning the LGBT, but we cannot compromise the greater number of our people, especially the youth.

(Scrbd article.  Note page 6 is missing.  This page contains I think the Oct. 2, 2008 detailed comment of the Comelec).

The LADLAD complained that this is gender discrimination.  And the Commission on Human Rights supports their claim:

CHR said however that the poll body’s decision “smacks of prejudice and discrimination.”  “There is or can be no basis in law to deny the registration of the party, directly or indirectly, on the grounds of homosexuality, much less on homosexuality equated to immorality. To make assertions based on their homosexuality is patently discriminatory,” she said.  “Homosexuality is not a counterculture. It is part of the diversity of Philippine culture. Homosexuals are part of the Filipino family and unavoidably must be part of our politics,” CHR chair Leila De Lima was quoted in the statement as saying.  “There is no governmental policy which characterizes homosexuality as illegal nor immoral,” De Lima said. (ABS-CBN)

II.  Discrimination in Scriptures: Clean and Unclean, Holy and Profane, Good and Evil

Discrimination has been defined as something bad, so that we have now invented phrases like racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and age discrimination.  These things should not happen, modern society says.  We must not discriminate.

But let us consider the etymology of discriminate and discrimination:

Discriminate.1620s, from L. discriminare “to divide,” from discrimen, derived n. from discernere (see discern). The adverse (usually racial) sense is first recorded 1866, Amer.Eng. Positive sense remains in discriminating (adj.) “possessing discernment” (1792).

Discrimination. 1640s, “the making of distinctions,” from L. discriminationem, noun of action from discriminare (see discriminate). Especially in a prejudicial way, based on race, 1866, Amer.Eng. Meaning “discernment” is from 1814.

To discriminate is to divide, to make distinctions, to discern.  If you read the book of Genesis, you will see that God is discriminating: God placed order in chaos by separating light from darkness, day and night, heaven and sea, sea and land, animals and fishes, plants and birds, male and female.  Creation can never be accomplished without discrimination.  And God said that it is good.

If you read the book of Exodus and Leviticus, you will see that God gave a precise rules for determining whether something is clean or unclean.  Thus Israelites have all these rules regarding water potability (don’t drink a cup of water if an insect falls on it), food (carnivores and and non-fishes cannot be eaten), leprosy (suspected lepers are quarantined), etc.

Why all these rules for clean and unclean?  Moses said to Aaron:

You must be able to distinguish between what is sacred and what is profane, between what is clean and what is unclean; you must teach the Israelites all the laws that the LORD has given them through Moses. (Lv 10:10-11)

Thus, the laws to distinguish clean and clean are laid out as a pedagogical tool to help the Israelites to know what is sacred and profane.  If you are a teacher, you will first teach students the arithmetic rules like 2 apples + 3 apples = 5 apples before you teach them the algebraic rules of 2x + 3x = 5x.  You first start with something concrete, then you go to something abstract.  Since God is a good teacher, he first teaches Israelites clean and unclean things and actions, then He teaches them why Israel is a holy nation and not like the other nations, why the priest is holier than the levites, why the Bread of the Presence and the Ark of the Covenant are holy, etc.  Material to Spiritual.  This is the divine pedagogy.

After teaching the distinction between clean and unclean, holy and profane, Moses commanded Aaron to teach all the laws that God has given them through Moses.  This is the third step: moral.  What is good?  What is evil?  These questions are answered by the Ten Commandments.

The sixth and ninth commandments are “Though shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”  On these two laws we can group all the sexual sins and among them are on homosexuality:

You shall not have carnal relations with your neighbor’s wife, defiling yourself with her. You shall not offer any of your offspring to be immolated to Molech, thus profaning the name of your God. I am the LORD. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such a thing is an abomination. You shall not have carnal relations with an animal, defiling yourself with it; nor shall a woman set herself in front of an animal to mate with it; such things are abhorrent. (Lv 18:20-23)

Notice that adultery, abortion, homosexuality, and bestiality are enumerated together. Adultery and abortion are the ones that will result if the Reproductive Health Bill pushes through; homosexuality if LADLAD becomes a Party List; and bestiality will not be far behind.

And God said:

Do not defile yourselves by any of these things by which the nations whom I am driving out of your way have defiled themselves. Because their land has become defiled, I am punishing it for its wickedness, by making it vomit out its inhabitants. You, however, whether natives or resident aliens, must keep my statutes and decrees forbidding all such abominations by which the previous inhabitants defiled the land; otherwise the land will vomit you out also for having defiled it, just as it vomited out the nations before you. Everyone who does any of these abominations shall be cut off from among his people. Heed my charge, then, not to defile yourselves by observing the abominable customs that have been observed before you. I, the LORD, am your God. (Lv 18:24-30)

If Filipinos do not wish to vomited out of the land called the Philippines, God says that we must never do these abominations.  God is faithful to his promises.  Let us reject the Reproductive Health Bill and not allow LADLAD as a Party List.

So is the Comelec discriminating towards lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders (LGBT) in LADLAD?  Yes, Comelec is indeed discriminating, because God Himself is discriminating.  We must purge the evil in our midst.

My brother’s family adopted two delegates for the Asian Youth Day: Jay-R from Tarlac and Chao-Hua from mainland China.  Both are still in their early twenties.  Jay-R finished Psychology while Chao-Hua is still studying for her Business English course (major she calls it).  The chinese girl intrigued me.  It is difficult to converse with her because you have to speak very slowly in simple English matched with hand gestures.  But I learned some things about her from my conversations with her and with others.

Chao-Hua means “young and happy”.  But her English name is Cherry.  Cherry said that they lived in a town in China in the Hepei (Hebei) province.  Her family lives in a forest.  They eat fish seldom, because they are far from the river or sea.  The Catholics there are not as free to express their Faith than here in the Philippines.  They are allowed to go to mass in the government-approved chapels, but they can’t go to procesions in the streets and public squares.  The religious there don’t wear habits; the nuns who went to the Philippines as delegates wear only jeans and t-shirts.  I really wish to talk to her more: the state of the Latin Mass, the missing bishops, the relationship of the underground and above ground churches, etc.  But talking to her is really difficult.

She taught us some Chinese words.  But since I am not a linguist, everything just passed my head.  But one thing I remember though is that Chinese has four ways to pronounce a syllable: straight horizontal, going up, going down, or going down then up.  My friend told me this before, because her mother was Chinese.  I like the sound of spoken Chinese.  I have an ear for its melody.  But maybe I’ll start with calligraphy first: it is pictorial and they just look like math.  I asked Cherry if she knows how to translate the following words: Inibong chuayla a bochikek kirikek.  That’s garbled Chinese from Yoyoy Villame: he went to China before and stringed all the words in the stores that he saw.  Cherry said some of the words means “lucky”.  My nephew asked her what is “Kung Hei Fat Choi”.  She said it is not Happy New Year but something like “May you have a good time” or “May you be merry”.

Jay-R and Cherry stayed in my brother’s house for three days.  They left for Cavite today for the continuation of the Asian Youth Day.

Lord God,

Look down upon us, this day, this hour.

Regardless of what has gone before,

or what will come after,

give us the grace to consecrate this time entirely to You —

all the actions of our body and soul.

May all the thoughts that come to us

be true.

May all the things to which our hearts go out

be beautiful, with the beauty of God.

May all the things we want be good.

Give us the light to see Your Will,

the grace to love it

and the courage and strength

to do it.

We ask you this through Christ Our Lord.

Amen.

Source: Defensores Fidei blog

Yesterday I visited Fr. Badillo in the Jesuit Residence.  He stays at the infirmary there.  The porter already knows my name and the nurses’ faces are becoming familiar.  I usually visit him every Thursday, between 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.  I don’t know if there is a significance to this.  But Thursday is the day for priests and 2:00-3:00 is the last hour of Jesus’s agony on the cross.  I was not able to visit him for two weeks because of it was the first weeks of the semester: i have to prepare for my classes among other things.  I tried to visit him last Thursday, but the porter said he is asleep.

I dragged a chair from the nurses’ station and walked towards Fr. Badillo’s room.  The comfort room is immediately at the right side of the door.  Straight ahead is Fr. Badillo sitting on a chair.  He wears a white T-shirt and pajamas.

“You’re done with your snacks, Father?” I asked.

“Yes, I idid,” he said.  “I did not left anything for you.”  And he laughed.  His usual snacks are two slices of wheat bread and one glass of milk.

“My condolence, Father, for your sister.”

“Yes, please pray for her.  She passed at the age of 86.”  Fr. Badillo is 79 years old.

. . .

“I don’t know why is my computer slow.  Do I need more RAM?   Can you check my computer?”

I looked at the computer and paused.  I am not a computer geek.  Where do I find the RAM?  The ram caught its horns among the thorns and Abraham sacrificed it in place of his son Isaac.

“Turn the little switch on,”  Fr. Badillo said.

It was a little metal stick shaped like an exclamation mark.  It was hidden at the back part of one the computer table posts.  I turned it on.  The computer is still black.

“Turn the other switch on,” he said.  It was the power supply.  I turned it on and and the computer.

I do not anymore remember what I did.  I think I looked at the properties of his computer.

“The RAM is 240 MB, Father.”  I said.

“That is weird,” Fr. Badillo said.   “The number should be 64 MB, 128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB.  The 512 MB is now the standard.”

When I was still teach back in Bacolod about seven years ago, the RAM in our computer was 16 MB.

…

“Do you have a Facebook account?” Fr. Badillo asked.

“Yes, Father.”

“There is something there that says ‘What’s on your mind?’  What do I do with it?”

“I think you just type whatever you feel like writing and all your friends can read it, Father.”

“I don’t know why I don’t receive anything.  I have all these questions: Please confirm if you and such and such are friends.  What do I do with it?”

“Just click confirm, Father.  And you will receive news about them.”

. . ..

“Genie said that she wants to visit you, Father.”

“Genie who?”

“Genie Lorenzo.  She wants to come with me today but no one responded in her room when I phoned there.”  Genie is a friend of mine at the Observatory.  She works on Air Quality.  She worked at the Observatory longer than I.  She knows Fr. Badillo.

“Ah, Genie,” he said.  “Please tell Genie that I will have a cyst operation next Wednesday.”

“You have a cyst, Father?”

” I have a cyst here,” Fr. Badillo said and pointed to his left abdomen.  “If Genie comes, it must be on the day before that.”

. . .

“I am sorry, Father.  I think I shall cough.”

“You have cold?”

“Yes, Father.”

“You have to stay awy,” he said.

“I’ll go now, Father.”

“Ok.   Thank you for praying for my sister.”

The MRT Purple is getting terrible.  Not the trains; they are excellent.  Rather, the stations are becoming stiffling for the soul.  They promote promiscuity.  In the Araneta Center Cubao station where I go in the morning, there is a stand for the TRUST condoms.     When I got off the Katipunan station, all the hallway pillars are covered with larger-than-life upper body pictures of Angelica Panganiban in bra.  She is holding a green apple which the advertisers want to subliminally instill the temptation of Eve: the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.  This Bar commercial should be barred.  It is time to pass the Anti-Obscenity and Pornography Act of 2008.

I admire Angelica Panganiban as an actress.  I saw her before playing Becky in Princess Sarah.   But as the years went I saw movie posters of her playing “adult” roles as an another woman, for example.  Princess Sarah, Camille Pratts, I heard also tried to recast herself as a sexy star.  Too sad.  Two wholesome faces turned sexy starlets.  O how have you fallen from the heavens o morning stars, daughters of the dawn!  I wish they will play more wholesome roles.  Banana Split is not wholesome; it has many sexual undertones.  NNNN (Ntertainment News Na Naman) is better: Angelica spoofs Kris Aquino so well that I am now beginning to think that Kris is spoofing Angelica so well.  Oh, well.

Let us pray for our movie stars that they may truly be stars who lead edifying lives.  Is there a patron saint for movie stars?  Pope John Paul II was once a stage actor in Poland.  If he becomes a saint, then we can call him the patron saint of actors and actresses.

BATANGAS CITY — Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles confirmed that he had lifted the 1951 ban on the public veneration of Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Grace.

In a phone interview Tuesday night, Arguelles said he lifted the ban on Nov. 12 as “there was nothing wrong in praising apparitions” as he was well-aware of “the love of the people for the Blessed Mother.”

“The Blessed Mother has [protected] the country from calamities,” he said.

….

When Arguelles declared the official lifting of the 1951 ban on Nov. 12, it was the 61st anniversary of the last of the series of apparitions to Castillo which occurred from September to November in 1948.

Arguelles stressed: “My order on Nov. 12 was merely a ‘relifting’ of Gaviola’s order.”

He also said that last month, he went to Rome to ask permission to search the archives for documents pertaining to the controversial apparitions but no such documents were found.

The Lipa Archbishop said that at 3 p.m. every 12th day of the month, the rosary is prayed by devotees from different towns in Batangas and from all over the country.

Source: Marrah Erika Lesaba, Philippine Daily Inquirer (11/18/2009)

Monk’s Hobbit’s Notes:

I have heard Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, D.D. say mass a few times.  Unbelievable.  This bishop is a real preacher and catechist.  His homilies are long and steeped in church doctrine.  In a Holy Triduum years ago, he explained, for example, that the vestments are red because of the festive nature of the celebration.  And he explained many other things.  You would think that he is already giving a homily.  But the mass has not yet begun!  Unbelievable.  If he comes to say mass in a church near you, don’t miss him.

When the Pacific War began, President Quezon disbanded all the ROTC units in Manila. The Ateneo ROTC cadets disobeyed the order and volunteered to fight as one unit in Bataan. At sundown they came together to pray the Rosary, which initially earned them snickers from the”hardened” soldiers. In time they won respect for their behavior.

One time, at a lull during the fight, an Atenean heard a soldier desperately calling for water to quench his thirst. Without hesitation, the Ateneo cadet gave him his last supply of drinking water from his canteen.

There are many other heroic tales, but there will be another time for them. This year, the Jesuits are celebrating 150 years of priestly ministry in the country. The Ateneo de Manila, now 150 years in existence, is trying its best not to let the event pass in silence. As the Latin poet, Virgil, wrote, “Forsitan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit” (Perhaps someday, it will be a delight to recall even these things).

Fr. Jose S. Arcilla, S.J., “150 Years of Jesuit Presence” (Business World Online, 16 Nov 2009)

Declaration of Saragossa

Sunday, 08 November 2009
Declaration of Saragossa

Source: ProLife World Congress

We, the representatives of national and international organizations from different parts of the world, advocates of life, the family and the dignity of the human person assembled in Saragossa, Spain, between 6th and 8th November, 2009, in the IV Prolife World Congress, in continuity with those held in Madrid (2003), Lima (2005) and Mexico (2007), address:

All governments, legislators, judges, doctors and medical personnel; political and religious leaders; intellectuals, educators and social communicators; societal organizations; parents and families; and all persons of good will, as custodians of the promotion of the Human rights.

CONVINCED THAT:

1. It has been verified by science that human life begins with the fertilization of the oocyte. In this first human cell (zygote), we find not only the whole genetic program for the development of the new human being, but also the ability to develop and progress by itself, as it is shown experimentally in extracorporeal fertilization.

2. It is said that the worst thing that can happen to a mother is the death of her child. It is worse still to accept the voluntarily killing of her baby. Even if some may deny this at the moment the abortion is performed, to decide the death one’s own baby provokes a feeling of guilt that it is impossible to erase.

3. Six million “legal” deaths in the Nazi concentration camps, constitute the international crime of genocide. It has been seen as the most flagrant violation of human rights recorded in history.

4. Nevertheless, the more than eight hundred million deaths, provoked, up to the moment, by “legal” abortions, in the countries of the world that have authorized it, constitute a crime against humanity that, because of its size and extension, we propose should be called from now on mega-genocide.

5. In addition to being “legalized” in many States, mega-genocide is encouraged – sometimes in a direct way and sometimes using euphemisms-, by the United Nations Organization (UN) and its agencies; the multilateral organisms of credit; certain international organisms, such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), IPAS, the Rockefeller, Ford, Bill and Melinda Gates, Soros and other Foundations, the current president of the United States of America and the bureaucracy of the European Union; among other global power groups.

6. In addition, diverse contraceptive devices capable of killing human beings in the first days of life – for example, preventing nesting in the womb-, like intrauterine devices, the morning-after pill, contraceptive pills of systemic use, injectable or subdermal implants, all operate “invisibly” and increase the number of victims of mega-genocide. Also, in the last few years, abortion is promoted by the use of the drug misoprostol, especially in countries where abortion is illegal. All this occurs with the connivance of the health authorities. Finally, diverse practices of artificial fertilization, in which, according to the most trustworthy statistics, only 4 % of embryos reach birth, provoke a number number of victims which it is impossible to calculate.

7. A society that tolerates with indifference the mega-genocide of abortion – be it surgical or chemical – has lost the most elementary vestiges of humanity, and sooner or later it will be inclined to violate other human rights of its citizens.

TO ALL WE DEMAND THAT THEY SHOULD PUT UNDER AN OBLIGATION TO:

1. To always promote rational solutions for human needs which are respectful of life, such as:

• To foster qualified access and attention during pregnancy, childbirth, and the post-natal period.
• To articulate civil institutions that care for pregnant women in situations of conflict, to help them to overcome their difficulties and problems and, in this way, to protect maternity.
• To promote and finance programs that encourage chastity before and fidelity in marriage.
• To execute programs to strengthen the family based on heterosexual marriage, and to educate young people in virtue and in the authentic meaning of femininity and masculinity.
• Pregnancy is not an illness; therefore birth-control should never be understood as part of a health policy.

2. To enforce respect for life, from conception / fertilization to natural death. To recognize the legal personality of any human being, from the initial moment of his existence; and always to act in consequence.

3. To penalize abortion, euthanasia, eugenic practices and the manipulation of human life.

4. Even assuming that abortion is not punishable in some countries and for as long as this legislation is not reformed, abortion can never be considered to be a “ right “, nor can it be included in public health systems. No doctor or medical personnel can be forced, under any circumstances, to take part in an abortion . In any case, the practice of abortion – although it may not be punishable – will always imply a violation of the most elementary premises of professional ethics.

5. To remove legal recognition of any entity which – direct or indirectly-, promotes mega-genocide.

WE UNDERTAKE:

1. To promote all the organizations of civil society, whose purpose is:

▪ To increase awareness of and attention to the post-abortion syndrome.
▪ To create centres to help pregnant women.
▪ To promote family orientation centres.
▪ To extend education in natural methods human fertility management.
▪ To promote a humanist approach to sexuality, based on an education in virtues and love.
▪ To promote adoption as a viable option for mothers in situations of unexpected pregnancies and for newborn children without parents

2. To establish a permanent observatory on the right to life. To publicly denounce those who violate this fundamental right, especially if they are public or political figures during in electoral campaign.

3. To articulate activities with the “ World Action of Parliamentarians for Life and the Family ”, constituted in Santiago of Chile, which took up the Declaration of Lima of our II Prolife World Congress.

4. To promote the revocation of capital punishment for abortion within the UN and regional organisms. To promote an International Convention to ensure the protection of the life of every human being, from the moment of conception to that of natural death.

5. To create and promote political parties that foster human life from conception to natural death.

6. To revoke those civil servants those civil servants, who directly or indirectly take part in the mega-genocide of abortion, eugenics or euthanasia; and to make them answerable in the courts for such acts.

7. To seek compensation for the women who have been victims of the mega-genocide of abortion, so that they obtain equitable damages from the State and other organizations and persons responsible for their suffering.

The participants in this Congress, who adhere to this Declaration, come from the following Nations:

Argentina, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, México, Nicaragua, Norway, Peru, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, USA, and Venezuela.

Saragossa, November 8, 2.009.

I.  God’s Chosen Doormat

I read an article in the Manila Standard Today (3 Nov 2009) written by Antonio C. Abaya entitled “God’s Chosen Doormat” (This is also available in his blog):

At the risk of being stripped of my citizenship, I suggest that far from being God’s Chosen People, Filipinos inhabit what could be God’s Chosen Doormat.

We have, for example, more than our fair share of natural calamities. We are visited by more typhoons than any other country in this part of the world: an average of 19.1 every year, some of which are killer typhoons that kill dozens, even hundreds, of people and destroy billions of pesos worth of property and crops. A situation compounded by a weather bureau that could not tell 140 kph from 140 mph, as when Milenyo scored a direct hit on Metro Manila last year.

Killer typhoons often result in killer floods and killer mudslides in which uncounted thousands disappear in a few seconds of biblical catastrophe. Has the Philippine government or anyone else ever come up with a definitive casualty count in Ormoc or in Real and Infanta, or in St.Bernard Guinsaugon?

As if killer typhoons, killer floods and killer mudslides were not punishment enough, we are also on the seismic belt known as the Pacific Rim of Fire and experience killer earthquakes.

Vietnam has typhoons but virtually no earthquakes. Indonesia has earthquakes, but virtually no typhoons. Only the Philippines, Taiwan, China and Japan are regularly visited by the Four Horsemen of the East Asian Apocalypse, and we, being by far the poorest of the four, experience the worst suffering. If we are indeed God’s Chosen People, we have been chosen to suffer the most.

But it is the man-made disasters that, unique in this part of the world, have devastated this country physically, socially, economically, politically and morally.  And these include a run-away population growth rate; a judicial system that takes years, even decades, to render judgment; an American-style liberalism that allows the Communist movement to simultaneously wage both an armed revolution and a “legal” struggle against the government; consistently poor choices in economic strategies for the past 40 years; rampant lawlessness despite – or because of – the presence of 40,000 lawyers; institutionalized fraud in its electoral process; the most corrupt government in East Asia; and a political and media culture that breeds Idiot Candidates and Idiot Voters, and now, Idiot Prophets as well.

This surprising essay comes from a fellow alumnus of Ateneo de Manila University.  If my English teachers would ask me to deconstruct the essay, I would say that Abaya, like Rizal, has drifted far from the Catholic Faith.  I can sense a distaste, a repugnance to the Catholic religion.  He sees things not in the light of Faith but of the world, not of the afterlife but of the here and now.  For how would you explain his scorn for Christianization of the Philippines by Spain and the immigration of the Filipinos to other countries, making them the modern missionaries of the world, filling up once again Europe’s emptied cathedrals?  To these, he just say, “So what?” and “Big Deal!”.   These words cannot come from a faithful son of the Church.

II.  Suffering Servant

Abaya also wrote:

Besides, how many indios in the 1900s could read anything in any language, much less the Bible in English? I spent nine years under the Jesuits in the Ateneo de Manila from 1947 to 1956, and I do not recall ever being made to read the entire Bible, only selected parts thereof, as the Japanese and Chinese Christians must have in the 16th century.

Now, I understand.  Abaya may not have read the entire Bible.  If he did, he would have read about Isaiah’s “Suffering Servant”:

Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?  He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him.  He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed….  (But the LORD was pleased to crush him in infirmity.)

If he gives his life as an offering for sin, he shall see his descendants in a long life, and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.  Because of his affliction he shall see the light in fullness of days; Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.  Therefore I will give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty, Because he surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked; And he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses. (Is 53:1-12)

Suffering, which is offered to God, has a redemptive value.

Is Philippines not God’s Chosen People or His chosen doormat?  I say both.  God chose us to be his people and allow us to suffer like his Son.  In fact, great saints like St. Francis of Assisi and St. Padre Pio are given the grace to suffer the stigmata.  What greater honor then is there for a Christian than to be like Christ in His affliction.  We are not alone.  God suffers with us, for Christ is “Immanuel”, God-with-us.  It is by his suffering, death, and resurrection that Christ redeemed us.  For our part, Christ commanded us not to spurn suffering, but to take up our cross and follow him (c.f. Mt 16:24).  As St. Paul said:

If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us. If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. (2 Tim 2:11-13)

 

III.  The Greatest Calamity

It is sad that many perished in typhoons, earthquakes, and floods.  As our corporal work of mercy, we can help our brothers and sisters in need, for whatever we did to the least of our brethren we did it to Christ.  But natural calamities are not the greatest calamities that can befall on us.  Christ said:

Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! (Lk 13:2-5)

The greatest calamity that can befall on a Christian nation is not flood or famine or nuclear war but the loss of Faith, the quenching of the light of Gospel, as what happens now in Europe. And if we do not repent, we in the Philippines shall perish as they did.  The greatest calamity that can befall on a man is not the loss of his possessions or family or himself but the loss of his soul in the fires of Hell.  And if we do not repent, we, too,  shall perish in the same way.

What is the flood of filth from Typhoon Ondoy compared to the flood of filth from the blasphemous press that promotes pornography, contraception, abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, fornication, adultery, scandal, falsehood, violence, and murder?  The pollution of our environment is only a reflection of our country’s moral pollution. As Prophet Isaiah said, “The earth is polluted because of its inhabitants, who have transgressed laws, violated statutes, broken the ancient covenant” (Is 24:5).  So woe to those who promote these things.    Christ said:

Whoever causes one of these little ones 5 who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.  Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come!  (Mt 18:6-7)

Is run-away population growth a man-made disaster?  How can this be, when God himself commanded us and blessed us to do so:

Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth. (Gen 1:22)

Rather it is the difficult-to-reverse population aging which is a man-made disaster. Many Western countries are now feeling the crunch: they have more elderly to support than young workers to tax.  Women marry late and even if they do so, they refuse to have more children.  The country’s economy shall collapse.  Roman empire fell not because there are too many barbarians but because there are too few Romans to defend the gates.

Natural disasters come and go.  Even righteous men like Job are not spared: a gale destroyed his house, killing his children while they were feasting.  In His infinite wisdom, God allows these things to happen for his greater glory. One reason is to test our faith, as gold is tested in fire.  Aren’t we more prayerful in suffering than in prosperity? Like Christ, we pray, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  And like Job, we say, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Jb 1:21).