Salutation #192

All human labor (and its rewards)

profitable to Man is intended by God 

as a just means to obtain our better means. 

This means we all work for a living, 

my brothers and sisters of the Promise. 

We all work for a living - in that - 

we all live and breathe - for the becoming. 

(The Labor of the Truth)

Happiness is the object of our work.

For happiness - in each - 

   shining like a precious and unique jewel 

   held so intimately and lovingly close 

   to each our heart of hearts

which is the perfection of the Beauty - in All - 

   glorious like the crown of the Nations

   ablaze with the gold of a million shining Suns

   reflecting the glory of God in All Creation

is the object of all human labor. 

- selah -

In simpler times, before the Fall of our First Parents, 

the LORD commanded that the work of perfecting the Earth 

be the common mission of the lineages of Mankind.

This building up of the Peace of the Earth - is -

still our mission these days as individual Nations,

still our commission these days as the one Family 

of the Nations of the Children of Mankind.

None has changed save each our natural vision 

of what "this human happiness" must truly consist of.

   For what is happiness?

For our hearts - after the Fall of our First Parents -

may no longer see into the Truth - to find itself -

without the assistance of God and Heaven.

   For what is Truth?

- selah -

Starshine,

the wages of an honest life 

shall always outlast the riches 

of a corrupt one.

Never look down
upon the laborer on the Earth, 

for we are all such as these,
under God and Heaven.

From the lowliest of human labors to the labors of the Angels,

there exists a universal kind of equal dignity - in that - 

we are All - in this Work - of building up the New
- together - or not at all.

Work is for Man. Not Man for the Work.
Resist modern forms of slavery. Uphold the dignity of human work.

Let us look after one another

as fellow human workers and human citizens,

among our Nations - dreaming together this time.

---<--@

51st State of the Union?

With all due respect, America had had to go through some harrowing times before her Republic got to where they are right now... And is still beset with problems comparably as tough as the problems we are now being faced with.

These are a Country's defining moments, my brothers and sisters of the Promise... when the ice sure seems thin and the breaking point is near - if we so choose to honor ourselves and our friends, and place our duty to Country firmly in the right... (so remember, no peace without adversity.)

Indeed, we share some of those defining moments with the US - especially during WWII in Bataan, upon Corregidor, along the infamous death march from Marivelles to San Fernando, the fight back from Leyte, from Lingayen, and into Manila -

BUT we do have defining moments of our own that are all our own - the spirit of EDSA '86 (politics aside, one of the great triumphs of the nobility of the Filipino spirit - think about it), the gallant Ayungin 9, the humble but resounding victories of our ongoing Internal Peace Process are but some examples.

My fellow Filipinos, we shouldn't be comparing what we have with what they have AND expect greatness from ourselves at the same time. For all great moments arise from the same (human) spirit - are of the same seed, same soil, same sky, same soul... our human habitation after all is but one realm in Creation.

But we can not have our cake and eat it too.

What this Country of ours need is sharper focus and deeper love.

AND what the US - and - this Republic of ours need is a greater and more profound understanding of the friendship that we already share,

THAT, God-helping, we shall 'ere and Now, ever always share.

For no one Nation is perfect, and that's why we have each other - that's why we are created, called, and commissioned as one Family under one God.
---<--@

We can not have our cake and eat it too.

Merry Easter 2014

I kept a running journal of my Lenten 2014 experience. Let me tell you, it had its ups and downs. There was a low like a valley, sunk in the shadow. 

And there was a point in that valley where I had to actively deny feelings of creeping despair an entrance into my soul. For I was a despair-er once in my life, my beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus.

My soul drank of the foul bilge water of that sunken kind of unbelief; that secret sense of doubt, in the glorious Redeeming power of Almighty God truly - present and active and alive - in all living souls.

But like the Apostle Paul and Silas in prison, the Spirit of God made a way out for me. 

In no uncertain terms can I be that way again. Yea, a sinner I shall always be but some sins whose taint the Father through the Son have deigned to remove from me, I can not somehow bear to allow my Jesus to bear again for me. They are my Quo Vadis, Domine! (At the forefront of these is my Recovery - which will not only profit me but many others like me).

Truly, our God is a mighty and amazing God! A God of Mercy and Justice and Love is He - the LORD, our Peace. In the pits and in the heights, the song I shall sing for Him is - Alleluia to God in the highest, Thou art mine, and I am Yours! 

So you see, I had to slog through some slow, uncertain days. Some days, I had to tell my impassioned spirit - be calm, and to sit still. Everything led me up - led us all up - to this Easter mountain high.

The Lord is Risen! He is truly Risen! 

If I am to summarize my experience of Lent 2014, I would encapsulate it in this way -

Good Friday - I am sorry, my Lord Jesus;
Holy Saturday - I love You, my Lord Jesus;
and Easter Sunday - Thank You, my Lord Jesus.

The 3 days correspond also to the 3 stages of the spiritual life - the Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive.

One is redeemed by the Blood on the Cross of Christ, then justified by grace through faith in the Love of the Father in the Son, then through the Spirit of Truth united in Joy to the Joy of Christ and our Father. This Joy unites us to Jesus. So Christians must profess in Faith, witness in Love and justify it all - in Joy. No Lent can ever be without an Easter!

The Wounds our Savior retained in His Glorified Body - calls, leads, and then completes the Way of the Church. How awesome a God is our God!

sweet

Our Easter Vigil Mass at our Parish and Shrine was utterly magnificent. I hope yours was too.

God love our priests! God bless His faithful priests. God bless His faithful priests in our Parish. O what a blessing it is to be in the presence of His good and humble priests!

His good and humble deacons, priests, and bishops from all the Earth who along with Laity from every Nation - keep us truly Catholic.


Merry Easter greetings of Peace and the Goodwill of God to all Mankind!
---<--@

Salutation #191

Beloved of Country,
give thy heart ear, and listen -
let us come away from the noise of this world,
and in the calm, and in the quiet - let our thoughts be,
let it be a free flowing river, gently leading out,
to a calm, quiet sea... selah. 

(Keep ye first, Beloved)

Keep your people virtuous and good,
and thy Nation shall never be hungry.

Instill in them neighborliness,
give them order - a human accord,
allow them time - to unravel its quality,
sharing with them their own seasons,
living in the life of their community,
and remove them from uncertainty,
and your Country will never be poor.

What can be counted can be lost!

What things can be measured on earth
can all be undone...

Grow and nurture those riches
that spring from out of the love of thy people,
and with them build up wealth that will outlast the ages.

Wealth is a people satisfied.
Happiness is a Nation content.

Money and material goods are its residue:
Wealth and Posterity for thy people.
---<--@

Possession of material wealth alone 
is not the fullest measure of every life's pursuit 
in Liberty.

No Remembrance

Let our Banner be unto thyself a symbol of unity, my people,

and let it fly in thy heart out of love of God and Country.

Yea, let this Banner fly in thy heart of hearts or not at all!

For if this one kind of love is absent in the absent heart of Man,

there shall our Country be found nowhere in creation.

Excerpt from Salutation #10

No remembrance, no timeless being, 

nor knowledge past nor present knowing, 

nor love, nor truth, nor freedom a space - 

to plant and stay, and to grow always; 

no primacy of persons nor significance of place, 

no sense of limitlessness, no sense of spirit, 

no timeless vision nor heavenly season, 

no sacredness, no sentience, no abiding grace, 

no reason, no rhyme, 

no trace...

---<--@

To bury the past is to (1) separate from it and (2) apart from it, (3) move on. 

To our Nation, this is a labor the LORD commanded - it is a particular Burden we bear in Liberty, which we will soon expound upon as well. In the meantime, please feel free to reflect on it.

Here is the Biblical Reference: (Genesis 9: 1-17, with particular attention to verse 5): 

1 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Breed, multiply and fill the earth.

2 Be the terror and the dread of all the animals on land and all the birds of heaven, of everything that moves on land and all the fish of the sea; they are placed in your hands.

3 Every living thing that moves will be yours to eat, no less than the foliage of the plants. I give you everything,

4 with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say blood, in it.

5 And I shall demand account of your life-blood, too. I shall demand it of every animal, and of man. Of man as regards his fellow-man, I shall demand account for human life.

6 He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God was man created. (Here is another Scriptural admonition against the Despoliation of the Sword, that the Duty of the Common Defense is a National Burden, and that the murder of Innocents - in any circumstance - to all faithful Nations of the Children is never permissible - that it does happen in warfare does not alter the spirit of this admonition. War is to be withstood, and battle overcome - even before taking the field.)

7 Be fruitful then and multiply, teem over the earth and subdue it!' (Reiteration of the original commission to build up the Inhabited Earth and make it all to the LORD, "very good".)

8 God spoke as follows to Noah and his sons,

9 'I am now establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants to come,

10 and with every living creature that was with you: birds, cattle and every wild animal with you; everything that came out of the ark, every living thing on earth.

11 And I shall maintain my covenant with you: that never again shall all living things be destroyed by the waters of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to devastate the earth.'

12 'And this', God said, 'is the sign of the covenant which I now make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all ages to come:

13 I now set my bow in the clouds and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

14 When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds,

15 I shall recall the covenant between myself and you and every living creature, in a word all living things, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all living things.

16 When the bow is in the clouds I shall see it and call to mind the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth, that is, all living things.'

17 'That', God told Noah, 'is the sign of the covenant I have established between myself and all living things on earth.' (emphasis on the totality of scared life through Man - and in time, as we know whom God hath called to live in witness of these present days - Man through Christ.)

"To the heart of a man without remembrance, there is no difference between one human life and a thousand. But to such a one who among the Nations labors to keep for God, a present and living account of his fellow human beings - to save one life is to save the world entire."

Palm Sunday 2014

Good evening, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus the Lord:

I hope everybody had a blessed Palm Sunday! I know I certainly did.

I and my family have decided to make the most of Holy Week 2014. Indeed, I pray we all will.

As a matter of fact, my family and I have already worked out a daily schedule of activities. This is apart from my official schedule with my brother EMHCs at our Shrine.

It is a joy to discover what one can do with Jesus. Let me witness to each of you that in spite of my sins and despite of my weaknesses, our blessed Savior has never once failed me nor my family. Nada. Not a one.

Trouble with me always begins 100% - when I fail in my duties - communal or personal - to our God.

The health of my spiritual life is always a good indicator of the well being of my whole soul - this means my prayer life is always where I draw the line. And as regards my prayer life, my Queen is our Lady.

If prayer to a Catholic is battle, our Lady is warrior-in-chief. And Mary always leads to The Victory so we have to be sharp.

So there - most of our Holy Week activities are designed to sharpen our attitudes toward prayer. We have to be in love with the act of praying. Because prayer is an attitude of the heart. This is #1.

Because we seek God in prayer - if we are to know how to deepen our prayer life, we should learn to relate with God on a more intimate basis. We have to know the Father and there is no better way of knowing the Father than through the Son.

And so this is the reason for the season - everything that leads up to Easter, Jesus the Lord, designed for us, even here - in our own times, so we could maximize on knowing Who it is we have come to see, and Whose voice it is that constantly calls out to us, "Come and see".

That we may together discover that as Christians, our Lent is truly never without an Easter. And that this Longest Night shall not be without a Morning.
---<--@

We, of the Laity, have a duty to initiate in ourselves the Spirit of the New Evangelization.

We, of the Laity, who Jesus Christ sent forth into deep water have a duty to honor and to make His peace more and more known in our present time, that His Kingdom may be in us and His good will among the Nations prevail for all Mankind.

We have something to give to our world. It is Love - the perfecting Covenant.

We are the children because we are the most vulnerable.
We are the children because we are also the most precious.

Palm Sunday 2014 in Pakistan. You are such a beautiful people, don't you know? May Peace be in Pakistan, India, and throughout South Asia. God bless us all.

The Nine Common Human Needs: Shelter in the Nation

Of the 9 common human needs, persistent deficiency - in the first three (hunger, thirst, and clothing) indicate material poverty, in the next three (shelter, human security [i.e. security of person and property], and functional literacy) - spiritual poverty, and in the last three (just society, authentic human freedom, and meaningful existence) - an unspecified immature form of tyranny.

Now let us move on to the next three, beginning with Shelter...

Tacloban is a community whose soul is a soul of sheltering. As such, the City itself bears the very name that dedicates her life - to the life of her people. Let us always remember what she teaches. Let us - just for a moment, stand apart from the politics of it. And see it straightforwardly.

After our First Parents were exiled out of our Eden. Shelter for Mankind became a necessity. And this is a reflection of our spiritual state: We all needed a "Tacloban", so to speak.

So Man sought first the natural shelter of caves. And this gradually developed - after the first human implementation of farming - to huts, houses, towns, cities, among the nations - into civilizations entire, across horizons and hemispheres, east, west, north, and south.

Everything that sheltered the soul of our human communities grew - only - because Man had Woman and Woman had Man. We must remember that the First Human Community is the First Family which is the nuclear Community of our First Parents - Man and Woman.

Exile and the conditions it produced in Man and upon our world - produced a very real need to shelter this precious Institution, completely human in nature but completely Divine of origin.

Adam and Eve needed a Tacloban.

And so when we shall speak of Shelter in the Nation - let us understand the fruit of this vision that it may be edible and good to the whole of our being human - that while we do need good, strong, secure houses and the modern benefits of hearth and home - a house shall always be a house - if the Filipino Family is left out.

And we, among the people of our world, have one of the strongest familial ties - our tribal essence is virile, and this makes our blood ties quite enduring. This of course, may go both ways. (For it may also be an evil visited upon our generations) Which is why we have to understand in Shelter - that -

a true Filipino - in his heart of sheltering - would desire for all Filipino families the best Tacloban there is - because - the beginning and the end of it - is - that we are all citizens of our Republic which is only one House.

And only one Peace maketh this House, our home away from Home.



The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation is 
National Housing, Home and Family Life Services.
---<--@

God bless the Visayas, thou art of the three Foundation Stars of this Republic most patient of all, none may ever forget thee. 


The Nine Common Human Needs

Salutation #190

Of the elements of Country, there are three -
the Nation, the Responsible State, and the Common Market.

(On the Country of the Philippines)

The Nation that we are, my people,
is founded on a Covenantal obligation
between God and the Children of Mankind
which is the Covenant that the LORD made forever
with all of the Nations of the Children of Mankind
that our God inaugurated in time
through Noah and his sons.

The Noahide Covenant
binds our generations to the freedoms
that ensure the preservation of sacred life
- the whole spectrum of it - that upon "our world"
   (as a realm apart from "the world" of the fallen Nations of old),
water shall never again consume the life of the Earth -
but shall through the life of our Nations
be nourished and sustained by it.

For we are through bonds of water and blood established.

Sacred Life is our sacred obligation -
and its preservation in ourselves and therefore,
throughout all of lower creation - is -
the fire that animates our spirits.

This "world - as our world"
that we are each as Nations is commissioned
to build together for all of the Children of Mankind
   (as God's own human peoples - arising from lineages apart -
   from the inhuman and irreparably corrupt spiritual lineages
   of the fallen Nations of old who sinned with the pride of Satan)
upon the Unknown Earth - which is likewise -
God's primary command to all the Nations of Mankind
   (including those fallen Nations of old
   whose life He utterly destroyed during the Great Flood,
   whose spiritual lineages the LORD disowned,
   and irrevocably unseeded in them)
is what we call the Inhabited Earth
that Crystal Blue Sphere that
   (it is blue because it is immersed in water)
from the spiritual realm
is a wonder for all
to behold.

This is our Covenant
- the Covenant of the Children -
and we are never free to break it.

To preserve the dignity and promise of Man - in all our Nations - is -
to do Justice to the image and likeness of Man - reflected upon the life of the world
and make it, "our world". Thus, making the Earth to the LORD, "very good".
Because to do Justice to the sacred life of this world - from the person of Man
right down to the very least of all of Man's animals and Man's plants
is the fundamental reason we are called to exist as Nations.

The existence of life in our world
- is - the soul that gives our Nation breath,
and the living up to the very wonder of this life,
along with the most profound existential questions
that specifically pertains to the mystery of life
and to the living of this life in this world,
- is - the spirit that is our breathing -
the truths of life's Salvation and its Redemption
is the fire that animates both our water and our blood.

The preservation of "the all" of sacred life
in this way - is the mission and the commission -
entrusted to all National communities of the Earth.
It is our Peace and the Goodwill of our Peace.

For the Universe
is not created for Man
Man is created for the Universe.

We as the Children exist for the labor.
Everything else exists for the glory of God.

- selah -

As a National community -
we are called of spirit and of blood born.
However, it is from water that our lineages upon the Earth are established.
For it is from the formless - that - the form of our citizenship
constantly renew itself and arise: Our truest citizenship is in our soul.

And from it proceeds the spiritual truths
where from we derive the first principles
that shape and define our Social Contract.

This Social Contract establishes - our labors as truth -
and - our truth upon the Earth - as a Sovereign Presence
before the LORD and the Assembly of the Nations before God
both in Eternity - and also upon the Earth.

This Social Contract is known as Democracy.

- selah -

We - as human beings -
do not practice our freedoms in a vacuum.

Freedom is a profoundly spiritual reality in Man.

Where in the life of lower creation, freedom is but a physical act,
completely reliant upon the nurture of freedoms ever greater than theirs,
our freedom is beholden to a spiritual dimension - because as human beings,
we implicitly know in our hearts that we must reach out to the only other freedom
reaching out to us, the freedom of God - in much the same way
that the life of the Earth reaches out to us.

The universe was not created for Man.
Man is created for the universe:
We belong to its labor
   (as common laborers upon the Master's field)
and only to its labor we belong -
particularly as Nations of the Children.

For example,
a dog whom we love or the plant that we nurture
- in the most immediate and real sense -
belong not to us.

For is it not also true
that it is Providence that speaks for its life?

We belong to it - or more specifically speaking,
to the labor of making it ours again.

And so inasmuch as we quicken our souls
to the work that we owe to the life in ourselves and to the life of all of lower creation -
in God and with each other, they become ours and they awaken again and learn our voice.

Else, this world - above the din of all other things that seek to confuse us -
will roar in silence deafening: For this world will never speak its secrets to our hearts.

And we will never know of it as our First Parents did intimately know of it
and so remain - very uncomfortably - strangers to the wonders of our own living Earth,
- trespassers and invaders to the varied realms that lay within our own Human Habitation.

If we love anything in lower creation - in the Truth,
they - like the Truth - become our possession forever. 

This is a freedom no animal or plant possess.

And it is never practiced like animals and plants practice their freedom.

It is never practiced in a vacuum.

And so
from Covenant proceeds Social Contract
and for us, my brothers and sisters of the Promise,
this is simply all about - Life and Liberty -
and so specifically - we are - as a Nation among Nations -
a participatory, constitutional Democracy;
a people brave, and free, and fair.

- selah - 

Why participatory?

Stronger freedoms require Liberty that we may exercise rights that exist to make our personal freedoms strong and also guarantee those same rights commonly preserved for other citizens not unlike ourselves.

Weak freedoms fall prey to any number of dangers and calamities, and the labor that we must fulfill is not easy.

If we do not hold on to our Nationhood, or worse - if we do not know how - it becomes impossible for any of us to build up the Earth.

Everything that in exile time progresses in Time without the Truth shall appear as an unremitting retreat into a devouring darkness - as the world gets darker and darker - meaninglessness becomes bitterness, bitterness turns into despair of self, despair of self becomes despair of others not unlike the self, and so - as the years become empty of their substance - Country will seem as nothing else but a madness that devours, and what once was in our common humanity precious as our hopes for all sacred life become abased into a sheer tyranny of beliefs founded in falsities and illusions.

The gravity of these things we must fight against - it is not our way of return: Ours is an Ascent in Time and unto the Truth.

We were never free to not fly upon Eagle Wings. For the LORD God saith that saying of the Nations, not of individuals. So when you shall sing to thy soul the popular song, "On Eagle Wings", make an effort to see that song as dedicated to Nations entire and not merely to individuals.

Our Nation, my beloved people, is one of those Nations. In this Nationhood, we are impelled to participate. We are therefore, we must.

But we can not build the right world with the wrong values.

- selah -

Why constitutional?

The Nations of the Children of Mankind is one great Peerage before the LORD.

And indeed, we are each - as human individuals, a peer to one another - through our personal and individual distinctions, equally - a keeper and a friend to our common humanity.

We all have - and have forever possessed - a basic, human citizenship.

Our communities too, are such as we - a Peerage of the Nations, for unequal each Nation may be in spiritual maturity and material strength, but as a Plenary Global Community - being as one Family of Nations - we are each enabled to equally overcome that we may together prevail against this world, and make of the Earth, our home away from Home.

For we are all here for a reason exclusive only to the fulfillment of a dream of happiness, and it is not even our dream, it is God's dream for us, and it is wonderful beyond wonderful indeed!

The authority to govern our peers whether from within the Nation or from among the Nations themselves is not a human authority, but a Divine authority.

And this authority is vested in a Responsible State and the structure of this State, as it applies to our Nation, is established in our prevailing Constitution - this binds us - in spirit - to a particular undertaking of Country that is in form - a Republic - and which therefore possess in itself - a very specific spirit.

We move like a Republic moves.

However, it is our personal freedoms that determine its Ascent - into its ages in Time - from emerging, developing, developed, and mature - and our Right of Ascent is likewise determined by the rightness of these freedoms.

Each Nation only has one Right of Ascent, each Country only has one freedom or Way of Ascent - all else falls into the gravity of the unveiling of the darkness of the desolation - and Democracy as a whole - is the Social Contract we specifically have - with each other, that we owe - for each other, and that our generations owe - to each other - that we will secure for ourselves and our Posterity this Republic, and it's Liberty.

It imposes a Burden
   (which we shall also expound upon very soon),
because our freedoms are neither cheap -
nor are they ever free.

- selah (pause and think) -

Now we come to review the Engine of our Economic Progression.

For to liberate our souls to pursue those spiritual freedoms that is our happiness,
we must first liberate our minds and our bodies from the physicality that in material weakness
mires us individually and prevents our communities from securing for themselves within the Nation,
our Republic Vision (as it arises from the Maturity of our Love and Remembrances together).

This engine is human enterprise Capitalism,
and it establishes upon our Common Market within the Nation,
a Free Enterprise Market structure.

It is the Engine naturally compatible with our Democracy and its sheltering Republic,
driving its Progress forward, against the flow of exile time, that we may secure - at the helm -
for all our generations to the last, through an Economy of matter and grace,
the wealth of our Nation - which is wealth already established in us
being in everything already dedicated as our possession forever.

The full breadth of the Vision of human enterprise Capitalism is to perfect the drive of human enterprise and liberate Man from the poverty and the humiliation of the human condition.

It creates material wealth as a means to secure and obtain - in the Nation - for each and every individual, the freedom to individually pursue a happiness that is fully and completely human - so each Man may know to be free - to learn to be happy, even in this world - securing and obtaining for himself or herself true riches - from perishable means to imperishable ends.

The full breadth of this Vision does not create more poverty. It makes the poor wealthy and the wealthy truly wealthy and leads all and involves all in the Real Economy of the Nation.

Furthermore, Capitalism is - a National proposition - and therefore, may not exist to serve only the interests of a few citizens, particularly in a Democracy. Else it should falter and fail - to the everlasting regret of all.

Also, as it serves a primordial need in Man's own being - to be truly free and truly happy, Capitalism - as an Engine of Economic Progress - must naturally possess a spiritual dimension. It's promise of happiness never was a material dream, for its dream of happiness is an invincible one.

People drown in riches because their souls can not be filled by gold alone.

Greed has no part nor place in a free enterprise Market.

And as ours is such a one - our free Market structure must naturally react to expel greediness - as tares are beaten from the wheat.

Indeed, it must be intrinsic to our Economic structures and strictures that inordinate wants and the many lusts that support them are not only counterproductive but also counter-intuitive to our National Economy and run counter to our economic good as citizens - being usually not only corrupted but criminal.

Truly, truly, virtue is currency.

Greed in our Economy is like having termites in the wood of our tree.

All of that which places the value of Man's things over the things of Man give nor possess no value and only exists to take from Country; it shortens the length of our days (making it appear to our hearts we're getting nowhere fast), is useless to the fostering of our sovereign freedoms, and is quite destructive to the labor of securing the National wealth.

We can be as rich as we want to be in our Economy, provided it does not make any of us filthy - but only truly happy.

In fact, in the most ideal sense - everyone should own capital, multiply it, and have a successful business so that we should all be billionaires, rich with good things besides, and wealthy at the same time.

A Capitalist does not value imprudence in the use of material resources and despises greed because greed is reckless. Greed is narrow and selfish and suffocates both human creativity and personal initiative. It is the saw that ultimately saws off the branch it is sitting on - calamitous to the Market it preys upon.

Capitalism values not how much money is in the bank but on how much capital enterprise is in the works, it values chutzpah, and rewards honest, dedicated and inspired work, no matter how small it may be, seeking to succeed not on how well and how bravely one runs from business - but on how well and how bravely a business is run.

The capital in capitalization, and the exclusive proprietary rights of those who own the means of work is only the result and not the source of the capital in capitalism. It is a myth that Capitalism is prejudicial to workers' rights; a legend propagated by the greediness of a few.

The human capital is crucial to the success of Capitalism, so that it's betterment - both in the labor force and in the management corps that serve each proprietary trust - in business and other market venture entities - that comprise our Free Market is vital to the success of our Economy.

But the value of the human element may only be as valuable as we recognize it. Fairness is what makes our Markets free. Therefore, a degraded economic identity in our citizenry will - and shall - imperil our Market Freedoms. When honesty in the small seem to count for nothing when the truth is that honesty can never be measured by any material dimension. Honesty is honesty in all persons.

And this in turn shall slow or even stop the many human gears that drive forward the popular engine of our Economic Progress. It will produce disparities in the way we view wealth and poverty, polarize it into an unnatural state of division - so that wealth and poverty are no longer connected - in both our minds and our hearts.

(That wealth and poverty as they exist - exists not harmoniously but are inimical to each other - like hydrogen refusing to bind with oxygen to make water.)

Indeed, there is now in our Nation, and perhaps also in other Nations not unlike ours, that selfsame unfamiliarity; a sense of unbalanced imbalances that seems so unnatural to the Economic evolution of any free, fair, and brave enterprising people - and one that prevents each our Country from taking wing, leaving us all earth-bound - below the clouds, under the darkness, out of sight of the stars and the skies.

This is not a deficiency in our people's virtue and good. There is so much bravery in a magbabalut or a fish ball vendor, or an honest taxi driver or airport porter - or any enterprising Pinoy who invests in the smallest of seeds - his or her citizenry - to dream of a better life - in this Nation - it is this spark that we should be looking for... 

(The author also has a specific proposal to make common for all Filipinos - the practical means to enter into our National Economy and strengthen our City's common ability to build up the National wealth which shall also be posted in this blog at a later time.)

For it is this spark that we may use it to jump start our Engine back to life - it is found in the here, there, and everywhere, just raring to go - in each of us, because all of this is - in the heart of the Filipino - and - in the soul of our Nation.

And Now is our Time.
---<--@

We awaken to a calling

Change, they say, is the only constant in this life. This is true for me. Life is a constant change. As in the beautiful song by Jose Marie Chan.

But within all that change, I have found, lies a common thread hidden in the everyday lives of all people. It pulls us invisibly towards something. And it pulls at us at different times of our life.

We do not end up all the same in life.

But all the same, the experience of life in this world leaves us all changed. The seasons themselves say it by their cycles. The Liturgy of Mother Church also, as the seasons of Earth and Sky, speak of change in their great and mysterious rounds. Life is a constant change.

And it pulls us all towards a spiritual transformation.

The ends by which we live our lives as a means is this change.

The presence of death in this world not only prepares us for the crossing of a Greater Sea but is the Angel that is to also guide us through and comfort us when the time comes for us to "pass over" from temporality into immortality.

For death is but a passage by which we are come to another experience of change. Yea, in this life - before the hour of our passing away - we die a little each moment, each day.

It pulls at us to remind us to be watchful of the living moment. Not to be afraid of it. But to learn from it. And to learn from the living of this life. And to start thinking about the deeper questions of life. Not to fear the changing. But to live as we must. To gather up those changes into a bouquet that we may offer up to our Lord and Lady each day. To love.

And to realize in the end that it is but our Lord Jesus pulling at the thread of our lives, that it is but He Who is with us and Who loves us so much Who is tugging at our weary, wandering hearts - "come to Me, and I will give you rest".

And that that is the answer we've been looking for - the Change to master change!

When we come awake to our calling, we soon realize the Voice Who calls us to our greatest freedoms - and to the Christian, as it is for me - Jesus Christ is the Change to master change...

Only Him can set me free.
---<--@

 

Today we had our EMHC Lenten Recollection.

I am proud to be with my brother lay ministers from our Shrine. Apart from preparing my soul for the last stretch of our Easter journey this year, I also learned so much today.

We tackled core concepts from  the Exhortation of Pope Francis, "Evangelii Gaudium", about the New Evangelization. It is a very relevant theme in today's world indeed. And many are the things the Laity may expound from it.

But the central spirit, in my own opinion, is that the Church needs to transform - not with the world - but against it. That we may as Nations be helped to persevere, overcome and together prevail against the challenges of this new age. And the joy of knowing we have...

Finally, let me share here what a brother EMHC today shared: To be a Christian without "Christ" is to be just an "ian"; an "i am nothing".

True indeed, Christ is the Vine and we are from among all the Nations, the branches - intended by God the Father to bear for each other, human fruit - edible and good everlasting.

Let us know that this world is diverse and that our Catholicity understands implicitly that the world is such a place - that we may not all be Catholics or Christians in our own places in time - but the most important thing these days is not that we are all the same - but that we flourish in our distinctions!

So let the past be the past.

Mabuhay, I love you all.