Salutation #189

God replied, "I am who am." 
Then He added, "This is what you shall tell the Israelites:
I AM sent me to you."

God spoke further to Moses,
"Thus shall you say to the Israelites: The LORD,
the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,
has sent me to you. "

This is my Name forever; 
this is my Title for all generations.

Exodus 3: 14-15


Pursue peace and pursue it absolutely.

In commemoration of the outpouring of humanitarian aid and assistance to my Nation by the many Nations in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) - "Salamat po at mabuhay po tayong lahat nang mga Bansa ng mga Anak ng Sangkatauhan!" 

(God is, and that is all!)

God is, and that is all!
The LORD is His Name.
And this is the Truth -
He is God forever!

God is, as He is!
And all creation bears witness to God,
the LORD Who is - Creator to all that is,
was, and ever will be, worlds upon worlds
without end, and glorious for God forever.

The LORD is One
and jealous is God for His Name's sake.
He is, alone among the Heavens and upon the Earth,
and in all souls and in all hearts, God without compare!

Above all things, beyond all things,
with all things, and in all things,
the LORD waits. God waits on those
who wait on Him. And confess that He is One!

God is to be feared.
For a mighty God is the LORD!
He is God and kind to all His creatures,
merciful to all poor souls in need, and able to save all
who come to know Him and fear Him and say,
"Amen to God, Amen."

God is Spirit Unseen 
and He goes where He goes;
here, there, and everywhere God is.

He comes without knowledge,
and speaks without words,
yet all hearts know the LORD is
and make Peace with His Name
singing, "Alleluia to God, 
Alleluia to God,
Amen."

For God is forever
and none has seen the Truth
of the God Who is
Who is not of the LORD forever
and prevaileth without death
for God is - all are not.

What creature can say this or that 
of the LORD?

What mouth speaketh
of God of the knowledge of God
knoweth not the LORD whose heart
repenteth not in tears and ashes.

It is terrible to Man 
to be caught up in the LORD.
For God is - where Man is not.

In the realization of God,
Man awakens to fear
for Man fears God
because God is -
and Man is not
and comes
to a knowledge of fear
in the reality of his separation
from God and from other Men.

And in the fear
of not being asleep to God,
Man finds in the reality of God,
in His faithfulness and loving kindness,
the fear of not being awake in Him.

And in humility
he overcomes his fear
by subjecting it to the LORD,
the God Whom he wisely fears,
with trembling adoration.

The image of the LORD is 
the Sound of His Name!

All that is - hears the call of their God
and arises from the face of the deep.

All that is - rejoices in the Name of the LORD
for all that is, was, and shall ever be.

None has seen, none has heard, yet all is
and all that is - rejoices - for God is
and God in all - is.

God is the likeness of life;
all that live know of life through God
and all of the living who seek God
came to know of the life in Him.

For He is in all living souls
the Being of our being and the Life in our life,
in the breath that imparts, in the breathing that becomes, God is -
ever like life - longing for the perfection of happiness forever.

The Wisdom of God is in all His works.
And it is wondrous to behold!

The glory of God rests
upon all things like the morning dew
and it refreshes the poor of heart.

For Wisdom makes poor as God makes rich
that the humble rejoice and the haughty flee in shame.

God is God in perfect contemplation of Himself;
Truth realizing Love - and Freedom proclaiming itself to the captives,
Love realizing Truth - and Justice and Mercy blessing all the Earth
with loving kindness, compassion, mercy, gentleness, and peace.
Beauty beholding Beauty. God beholding God.
---<--@

Salutation #187

The War in heaven is in the heart.

(Maturity of Remembrance)

God seeks to be near to all His Children!

In their Exile,
He has clothed them with Justice.

Justice
through each Nation
the LORD hath - together appointed -
at the autumnal Dusk of our Faded and Fallen Eden
to shelter with Peace the remnant peoples of all Mankind,

and who at the East Gate stands faithful guard to the Memory
that the lineages of Adam and Eve may hope to prevail - in time,
according to the great and mysterious designs of His Wisdom,

over the lands of an Unknown Earth, far away from familiar Sky,

cast adrift in the unyielding Darkness, across the Veil of Exile Time. 

And in despair of death, 

offered them Love and Mercy.

Love
in the one Redeemer
He hath appointed to save our souls,
- ever before any of our souls needed saving -
long before we were even souls - alive to the Alive -
deep in the waters of the Firmament, before the Earth.

And Mercy
through the Most Holy Incarnation
of that same timeless and ageless Redeemer,
in Our Emmanuel - Who is Jesus Christ the Lord -
Who through His Sacred Humanity, came upon our Earth
- to be with us - the God with us - in our poverty and suffering.

Christ 
Who as Word of the Father spake to all hearts of - the Truth -

that God is - across all realms of Earth - and unto all Ages of time,
one and for always - for Christ did love - the each of us, in each of us
- ever in spite of our smallness and despite the greatness of our sins,
with a Love that is forever - and did reveal to our needful world
the deepest and most profound expression of this Divine Love
in the Christian Mysteries - for the Salvation of all human Nations -
so that in Spirit and Truth, the LORD is, in all living hearts - as God is -
to be sought, loved, served, understood, praised, revered, and worshiped
without division - as one ascendant motion in time - for God is Love unyielding,
and in all things professed in honor of this Blessed and Eternal Unity
He dwells forever - as Father, Son, and Spirit.

- selah -

As Father to each orphaned human heart,
and the one Sovereign of all the Nations of Mankind
God seeks us - in the Peace we profess in our human communities;
in the National Belongings that are the direct expression
of His unyielding will of Unity, of Peace over War.

As Redeemer of all Mankind,
the Son comes to us - as a Servant of our common humanity -
to share in our littleness, and to drink of our bitterness,
and to join in our common human hopes.

Indeed,
Jesus came to call sinners to life,
and to gather all the lost to Himself.

And lived to serve and not to be served,
in a posture of offering, and laid down His life
through an act of His own Freedom - giving all -

- that the poor and the needy 

may receive sustenance and strength,

- the stranger and the outcast
may find the good will of Godly friends,
- the orphan and the widow
may come to the solace of a faithful Nation,
- and the weak of the Unknown Earth
may discover again the preserving salt of our tears
through Him Who wept for all our weeping
upon that lonely Cross on Calvary

for the Salvation of our common Humanity 

and the Redemption of our Mankind

with tears born of human compassion 

that flowed with the Blood of His Passion

and cleansed the Darkness of our Exile 

sealing forever the one Everlasting Covenant

that consummates the Promises of the Old 

of deeds by written word spoken in Scriptures 

by Prophets and Patriarchs of those times before

Passing them Over from weakness to strength

that Scripture may be professed as Light,

through Word of the Incarnate Truth, 

made Ageless and ever New. 

For Christ is our Prince, 

and everlasting above everlasting,

- the Defender of our Eternal Remembrances - 

mighty and able to save us - through height or depth,

in good times and in evil times, through illness and in health,

from weakness into strength, from grief to joy, despair to hope

across the desolation of the human soul and the troubles of this life,

Jesus is Emmanuel - in life and in death, forever - He is God with us.

And He seeks us - in the Good Will we must profess as a love of the Peace
He has entrusted to all those whose hearts have come to know the Truth, 

that God is, the LORD - one God alone.

- selah -

Yea, in the Spirit of the Father and the Son, we are sent - 

to be seekers of the Peace and witnesses in the Good Will of God thereof.

For as the Father sends the Son to call the Nations to Remembrance

and even as the Son speaks to each and every Nation about the Father 

- calling all human hearts unto an everlasting witness of the Truth -

the Spirit of the Truth rejoices in - the one Truth - that God is, 

and that He is God forever!

Alleluia to God, 

O Children of Mankind, 

alleluia to God, all ye Nations!

For thou wert a people saved - before thou needed saving -

and a Nation - gathered and justified - before God and each other,
long before thou wert ever alone and in need of His constant Peace.

Alleluia to God, 

O Angels of the LORD, 

alleluia to God, all ye Heavens!

For the LORD purposed - through time and all its Ages -
to bring unto all living hearts, a new rebirth of Freedom and Truth -

that the Original Glory of the Heavens and the Earths shine again forever;

in a time made new, of worlds made whole again, lit in golden glory.

Peace is over War.

---<--@

We are by each unique person 
Redeemed by our Holy Redeemer.

But the fullness of our Salvation comes 
through the strength of our common 
human communities.

In Peace we are purposed
and through it, we are obtained.

The LORD God therefore 

banished him from the garden of Eden, 

to till the ground from which he had been taken.

When He expelled the man, 

He settled him east of the garden of Eden; 

and He stationed the cherubim 

and the fiery revolving sword, 

to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3: 23-24

The Intimate

Look at the heavens above thee, our precious Starshine; perceive and understand...



...that the LORD God hath made the realm of the visible Universe so unimaginably vast so that He may stay unimaginably near to thee in each our hearts: He, the LORD, is the Intimate.

Let us seek to know Him and be in love with His Love.

Salutation #155

(Master of the Harvest)

God
asks us
for a harvest of virtue

Then
we blame each other

Then
we ask God why 
our world is so troublesome...

When
God asks
- our nations -
for a harvest of virtue,
we should work together
to produce the appropriate yield...

Only then
shall our troubles wane.
---<--@

Love is a Healer of Wounds

Unless the heart of Man is made whole -
it remains in darkness, divided against itself.

It shall see not. 

Neither shall it be seen.


(Our Blessed Lord and Bartimaeus)

Love is a Healer of Wounds!

And -
the deepest wound
in the life of our Mankind
and that which causes Man to suffer
- the pain of death -
is the wounding in our spirit
that have divided us
(against God, against each other)
in our soul.

Now,
the deepest of wounds
- require -
the deepest of love
and this wonderful, healing Love
is given to each of us
here and now
- to freely accept -
by the Father
through Jesus Christ
the Lord -

the one Redeemer

of all Mankind!

- selah -

May our Lenten Journey be
a healing experience.
---<--@



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. (John 3: 16)

Our Exemplar

JESUS CHRIST is our Exemplar:
Our Path and our Destiny.
He is the Second Person
of the one Triune Perfection -
The true and everliving God -
Most to be adored
Yet so little known
By needful men.

He is the Eternal Word of God,
Beloved Son of the Father,
Eternally begotten, not made;
True God from True God,
Infinite Truth from Infinite Truth -
One with the Father and the Holy Spirit -
Through Him all things came to be,
The Splendor of all living creation,
The Light of the human race.

And this Light shines in the darkness
and the darkness has not overcome it.

Though immortal and invulnerable
out of love for suffering mankind
He went down from heaven
through the obedience of our Lady
and the love in her Immaculate Heart.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and was born of the Virgin Mary.
He is True God and True Man.
In His Sacred Humanity,
He is True Man,
like us in every manner
save for sin.
In His Eternal Divinity,
He is True God,
unlike us in all truth
save for grace.

He constantly yearned over us
living in solidarity with sinners.
He lived to serve the least of men
desiring that all men be saved.
He lived and walked among us
examining our hearts and our ways.
He called each of us by our name
and made Himself available to all.
He called us to live a life of repentance,
to worship God in spirit and in truth;
and he gave our hearts, our hope -
and he gave our hopes, His Heart -
with the courage to overcome
the darkness within ourselves.

By our common Christian baptism:
He rekindled in our hearts
The sanctifying fire of Divine Love.
And called us out of this world
to belong forever with Him
as one Covenant family of God.

He illumined the darkness of our minds
by the Light of His own perfect human life.
And taught us His timeless counsels -
to be meek, humble, and contrite,
to be chaste, holy and upright,
to be like God, our Father in heaven,
giving us His new commandment of love
by which heaven and earth shall know
that we are His disciples.

He grieved much for our sakes
and prayed assiduously for us.
He lovingly offered for us
His own Body and Blood
and instituted for us
Our common Eucharistic meal
that would feed our souls,
as our new manna from heaven,
and sustain us for the journey
across the void of exile time
through the bitter portal of our death
into the promised Kingdom of God,
Our one, true Country.

His Peace is a promise
that He will be with us for always -
His Light will see us through this darkness,
His Truth being both our Path and our Destiny,
and His Love will not let us perish in the end.
For His Peace is a promise indeed -
that He will see us through to better days -
into a place without war and tears,
into a better world without sin and suffering,
into a time of everlasting life and of joyous peace
lived in the timeless embrace of the vision of our God.

He sent us His Holy Spirit
to guide and to fortify,
to serve and to strengthen,
to shape and to sanctify,
and protect from the gates of hell
His Militant Church on earth.
And illumine for all of us the way
along the hard and narrow road,
up the difficult, high mountain path
of universal truth and Christian virtue.

He lived for the truth,
He spoke nothing but the truth,
He is nothing but the truth,
and died instead of mouthing the lie
that would deny Him His Divinity.

He became vulnerable
to suffer with our suffering
and embrace our human condition
giving true meaning to our living.
He became mortal
to die with our death
and transform our fallen nature
giving true meaning to our dying.
He was betrayed and abandoned by His friends,
and suffered under Pontius Pilate.
He was rejected, slapped, spat at, mocked and scourged,
punched, tortured, crowned with thorns and beaten with reeds.
He was made an object of contempt
and though innocent
was treated more guilty than a murderer.
He was unjustly condemned to die
a horrible and ignominious,
slow and lingering death by crucifixion.
He was made to carry His heavy, wooden Cross
and amidst a jeering, shouting crowd
was dragged violently through the streets of Jerusalem.
He was stripped naked and was nailed to the wood of His Cross.
He was raised up and made to hang in unthinkable agony,
upon that lonely mount of Calvary;
an object of scorn and ridicule to His own creatures,
suspended between heaven and earth
like a bridge between the world of God and the world of men.
His Sacred Humanity, bloodied and bruised beyond recognition,
He did reveal to us the depth of his hunger for us.
He did thirst for our love.
He wept out of sheer loneliness
and looked down in sorrow
upon the grieving faces of His Mother, Mary,
and his beloved disciple, Saint John.
Out of love for His Mother
and out of mercy for us,
He entrusted us to Mary
and Mary to us through Saint John
at the foot of His Cross.

His most loving and Sacred Heart,
a most loving Heart that has loved us so much
yet in return is loved so little,
was emptied out for us.
He bore for all mankind the terrible wrath
gathered up for all our sins past, present and future.
He bled His Sacred Blood in profuse torrents
to wash away all our iniquities
until finally
He cried out in abject grief
and utter desolation
to His Father in Heaven,
commended to God, His Spirit
and died of a broken Heart.

His broken Heart was then pierced
with a lance
and It flowed with the water and the blood
that sealed forever the new and everlasting Covenant
between God and man.
It is said that our Holy Mother Church,
as Christ's new Covenant people,
sprang from His wounded side.

Alleluia, O my soul, Christ our Savior
Has paid the ransom
For the sins of all mankind!

Our Blessed Lord gave to us the gift of Himself
out of His perfect obedience
to the tender mercies
of the Father of all mercy
and His infinite love for us,
miserable and wretched sinners that we are,
until He was so completely
and utterly spent
that even though He was God
and He is God
and God being infinitely rich
and powerful beyond measure,
as Saint Augustine said -
He gave until He had nothing left to give.

Indeed, He loved us all without exception
and cherished us each without measure
right to the bitter end.
He forgave His tormentors
for He loved both His enemies
as well as His friends.

In so doing, our Blessed Lord
and Holy Redeemer
completely transformed
our common heritage
by His life, Passion, death and Resurrection
from one of everlasting death
into one of resurrection unto everlasting life.

Glory to God in the highest!
Peace to all men of goodwill -
Adoration to Jesus Christ -
Our Beloved Lord and Omnipotent God;
Our Blessed Savior and Loyal Friend;
Our Divine Master and Celestial King;
Our Eldest Brother and Faithful Helper;
Our Light and our Truth;
Our Resurrection and Life;
Our one true Shepherd,
Our Pledge of Victory;
Our Prince of Peace;
Our Hope Everlasting;
Our Eternal Daystar;
The True Morning Star;
The First of our First Magnitudes
Our Everything and our All.

He is Jesus Christ, our Exemplar:
Our Path and our Destiny -
True God and True Man,
Son of God and Son of Mary.

(And this I most solemnly confess
as most sincerely mine own,
with all the Christian truths
of my Roman Catholic Faith,
in silence and in words,
alone or with others,
in thought and in deed,
in time and in eternity
by the blessed
and thrice-holy Name
of the one, great Triune Perfection:
The Father,
The Son,
and the Holy Spirit -
One God and LORD forever!)
---<--@

(Produced 20080309)


"Man is the Way of the Church and Christ is the Way of Man."

- Blessed John Paul II

Salutation #96

But rather, let him who glories, glory in this,

that in his prudence he knows me, knows that I, the LORD,

bring about kindness, justice and uprightness on the earth;

For with such am I pleased, says the LORD.

(Jeremiah 9: 23)

(The Glory is the LORD's)

When God delivers us, we are all delivered.

Therefore,

does it matter who gets the credit

when it is God Himself Who wills it?

The LORD Himself

calls out to our nation,

"become thee restored

to thy one, true self!"

Indeed,

as God will's it, my people,

the soul of our nation cries out for peace

- we all know it by heart.

Shall we not labor and pray

for what God wants to give us?

When God delivers us, we are all delivered.

Therefore,

does it matter who gets the credit

when it is God Himself Who wills it?

---<--@

God love us all.

God Encompassing God

PREAMBLE of the 1987 Constitution -

"We, the sovereign Filipino people,

imploring the aid of Almighty God,

in order to build a just and humane society,

and establish a Government

that shall embody our ideals and aspirations,

promote the common good,

conserve and develop our patrimony,

and secure to ourselves and our posterity,

the blessings of independence and democracy

- under the rule of law -

and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace,

do ordain and promulgate this Constitution."

- selah -

O LORD,

God encompassing God,

God encompassing All in Thyself!

O LORD,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -

Blessed Unity,

Holy Trinity,

Perfect Company!

O LORD,

there is none but Thee,

there is none like Thee!

O LORD,

Thou art from everlasting to everlasting -

in Thee All draw their being,

in Thee All draw their living life,

in Thee there is no shadow of turning,

in Thee there is neither darkness nor Night,

in Thee there is joy, abundance and peace,

in Thee there is only love and the Light!

O LORD,

Thou desire salvation for all beings

to Whom shall all needful souls turn to,

my God, but to Thee?

O LORD,

Thou art the one Sovereign of all nations

unto Whom shall Thy exile peoples return to,

my God, but unto Thee?

Abide in us, O LORD, be with us!

Be the God of our lives, our families,

and our national communities!

O Goal of all my goals,

I love, I trust, and I adore Thee!

---<--@

For God is a God of relationships;

the singular Source of all true belonging -

seen and unseen, all of Sacred Life come together in Him.

He is the LORD, He Who is, and there is none but Him;

the one Sovereign of all the nations of the children of Mankind.

---<--@

ADDED: 20130526Sun

We enter into the mystery of the Divine Unity to be alone with the Alone.
We enter into the mystery of the Holy Trinity to be intimate with the Intimate.

And we who are called to be witnesses of the Redeeming Love of Christ 

are called to be alone with the Alone AND intimate with the Intimate.

Let us reflect on the number 1 as the number for perfection: with the Father, Son, and Spirit as the perfect unity of order, purpose and relation - the God Who is, the LORD Who Loves us all - one God, in Persons three. Happy Holy Trinity Sunday 2013.
---<--@

Peerless

O LORD!

Thou art One -
Peerless and Inaccessible.

Thou art Being -

Infinite in Perfection.

Thou art Beauty -

Unsurpassed in Wisdom.

Thou art Good -

Wondrous in Power and Might.

Thou art Strength -

Ready and Able to Save.

Thou art Will -

The Fullness of Compassion.

Thou art the Truth -

Thou art God,

Thou art God,

Thou art God,

Irresistible is the Sound of Thy Name

who can withstand Thee?
---<--@

"This is my Name forever

the Name you shall call Me

from generation to generation."

An Accounting of Time

Our dearest Starshine -

Let me teach you
the way in which thy heart
does perceive the idea of numbers
and the concept of its operation
in those realms where
the mathematics of physicality
and the limits of its reality
in terms temporal
and in measures finite
does never and shall never agree
with the reality of things within.

Because the substance of thy soul

is the abode of the timeless
that in terms eternal
and in measures infinite
are an accounting of thy heart
that amidst thy comings and goings
perceive things as they are
like a vision of love forever
in moments standing still
and not as they seem to be
amidst the darkness of things
that appear and disappear
with the rise and fall
of the tides of exile time.

One is not the beginning

for one is time neither begun
nor is one perceived to have an end
because one is an infinity
and two is not two things together
but two things that become one
for three are not three things apart
but two things made one whole one
by the Love that visits
each our longing for itself.

And so when you shall perceive

each of thy friendships, dear Starshine,

(e.g. family and friends, above all conjugal love,

as well as all natures of relationships.)

among all truly human relationships
you shall think only of one.

And when you shall seek to perceive
each our own expressions of hope
in the sharing and the bearing of Sacred Life
(e.g. complementarity of the sexes, the freedom of thy gifts, etc.)

you shall think only of two.

And when you shall seek to perceive
those things born to thy own heart's longing
and felt through the beauty of remembrances

(e.g. the creative ideal - cooperation with the Creator,

Peace and the labors of peace, etc.)
awakening to thy slow awakening dream
you shall think only of three.

And ever be aware that the medium

of thy constant reality from within
is an emerging continuum of gratitude
spread as luminous stars upon thy spirit
bursting with the joy of living life
born from things that cleave as truth
unto that vast universe in thy soul
that make you think of the many
but return you always to one -

the One, O my Starshine,

the LORD!

The one Giver above His gifts.

---<--@

O Unspeakable Beauty

O UNSPEAKABLE BEAUTY that surrounds, penetrates and transcends into Eternity, O Beauty that shines forever brightly, ever here and ever there, ever always present in places sacred to Thy holy remembrance, in places found within the soul of every creature in need of Thee.

Arise in me and cure me of my deformity, my perversity, my ugliness, my constant rebellion.

Though I weep with guilt and shame at every thought of Thee, though I should recede back into the darkness where I truly belong, Thou has seen into my soul and my soul has caught a glimpse of Thee!

O what can a mere creature do at the hint of Thee, O unspeakable Beauty?

By Thy own Truth, Thou hast enraptured my heart and now I am madly in love with Thee.

I reject all that is not Thee!

Ever in spite of me, I constantly long for Thee, I thirst and I hunger for Thee.

O Beauty, Thou art Beautiful for Thy being Beautiful, who can resist Thee?

Bless me, convince me, lead me on and fulfill what Thou sees as Thy reflection in me. Become the fullness of Thy own image and likeness that Thou has imparted in me, and lose me forever into the depths of Thy Being.

Make use of me and recreate me into an instrument of Thy holy creation and a servant to all Thy beautiful works of divine artistry.

O wonderful God, O wonderful God! O what majesty! O what glory! O what Beauty! Thou art truly Beautiful for Thy being Beautiful. Arise in the hearts of all Thy servants, arise in our poor world, that we may learn to see what is beautiful for being beheld by Thee.

Abide in us, O dearest LORD and Love of my love, spread upon our souls Thine infinite horizons and become for each one of us as the breaking of the new dawn from on high.

AMEN.

I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine.

20110710

Some people can afford to squander the memory of our heroes...

But I can neither hate nor ignore them for I can not afford to be like them. What they do only strengthens my own remembrance.

In some way, I pity them. May God quicken their souls...

---<--@

On Remembrance

Remembrance is a commandment of God of all human nations.

Hence, a lack of remembrance breeds a certain contempt of the sacred.

Either one draws away from the sacred, placing it in a place out of reach of the heart. Or one becomes enraged by it, making of it an enemy of the heart.

A person who looks for God who has not the remembrance of God in the heart looks for Him in vain.

He or she may seek God in the heavens or on the earth and God shall nowhere be found for that person.

The great scandal of this is that this person may claim that God is not - where in fact, he or she has closed the eye of the heart to the Presence of the LORD in all things, seen and unseen.

The remembrance of the war dead belong to the realm of the sacred.

In an ever increasingly materialistic society, where God is being everywhere forgot, a healthy regard for the sacred soon becomes an uncommon virtue.

What lies beyond the veil of time, where all unity must proceed, in unseen realms beyond the nature and scope of the physical and the temporal, is where a healthy sense of sacred remembrance grounds the human heart.

Where remembrance is increasingly becoming scarce, there shall in its place be a growing lack of a sense of connection with history and with each other.

For all truly human relationships are spiritual connections.

---<--@

Salutation #34

(A Vision of the Desolation)

I saw in a dream

- a few days before the Easter Triduum of 2009 -

a prominent list of atrocities

listed according to their heinousness.

Their frequency was from the most heinous to the least inhuman act

with the most heinous one to be committed against the people twice a year.

There was a camp

much like Bergen-Belsen.

But it was not a dream about the Holocaust.

It was a dream about another Holocaust.

There were people (of every nation)

in the middle of the night,

civilians - men, women, children -

being thrown whole

(to be consumed body and soul)

by faceless men in uniform

into a smoking pit in the ground

and from out of this pit was thick smoke -

the smoke of poison gas.

There was no sound to the dream

only this terrible feeling of growing horror

at this appalling vision in greyscale

unfolding before the eye of my heart.

I felt powerless.

An increasing sense of panic overtook me,

wanting for the dream to end.

(And then the vision was replaced

by my Miyang Marie,

smiling like a star in the night -

a safe harbor for my heart

amidst all that darkness;

beautiful life amidst all this death.)

---<--@

Mabuahy ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Madness

20110703

A New Dream

If there is anything I'd like to see, America - it is your own faith restored - the faith you forgot.

A world without you is an unfamiliar world indeed.

There is no perfect undertaking of Country upon the earth - which is why we are all called to be one family of nations.

The last great age of War has exacted from all our nations a great and terrible toll indeed. You have stagnated. And now you are in danger of retrograding in your ages in time.

But sufficient for our day is the evil that we all must face - as nations dreaming together this time - so this is for you a test of your own commitment to God and Country as well, America.

Remember, you are still a young nation but as a Republic - in this present time, upon our needful world, under this season of heaven - you are the eldest of all.

Therefore, you must always take care in your youth that you may advance safely in age and maturity but as a particular undertaking of Country, you must also dare to dream and dream greatest of all.

So let us dream again today, America, a new dream of peace.

Happy Birthday, Old Glory.

---<--@

Salutation #27

(A Prayer for America)

For sundry times -

O LORD GOD and Creator of us all,
look with kindness on the one people
of the United States of America,
and remember that orphaned nation,
O LORD, and Father of the fatherless,
and the one Republic that You raised
to stand forever in her defense.

Favor her, O God,
abide with her,
be both her strength
and her stronghold;
a refuge from the darkness;
a sword against deception;
and a shield against War.

Bless all her servants, civil and religious -
Strengthen them, O LORD,
and share with them Thy special grace,
to enable them to serve - freely and with joy -

Thy noble cause of Country.

Reawaken in her Thy Spirit, O LORD
and the remembrance of Thy peace.

AMEN.
---<--@

During election seasons -

O LORD GOD and Creator of us all,

look with kindness on the one people
of the United States of America,
and remember that orphaned nation,
O LORD, and Father of the fatherless,
and the one Republic that You raised
to stand forever in her defense.

Favor her, O God,
abide with her

and watch over her,
most especially during
these elections.

Be both her strength
and her stronghold;
a refuge from the darkness;
a sword against deception;
and a shield against War.

Bless all her servants, civil and religious -
most especially those candidates You picked out
and have placed in the forum of the people.
Strengthen them, O LORD,
and share with them Thy special grace,
to enable them be humble in victory
and magnanimous in defeat.

Reawaken in her Thy Spirit, O LORD
and the remembrance of Thy peace.

AMEN.

---<--@

Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee. (Psalm 33: 22)

---<--@

If you feel a certain kinship with the generation who won for us the peace we have kept since WWII - that is because that peace is at stake again in our times.

---<--@

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! God bless you, America, and God bless all His nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

The Eagle in the Night

20110619

PEACE be with you, Starshine -

Words are but empty vessels if they are to remain without meaning for you.

Just the same, in everything you say or do, Beloved of God, do not remain hollow - because you must practice, you must pray.

Now then, didn't you know the best prayer of all is Holy Mass?

To learn the heart of this most important of all Christian prayers ask your local parish priest for a Catechesis of the Holy Mass today - and then pray...

For prayer is an attitude of the heart present to the Presence of the LORD of all hearts - it is a sense of connectedness (unity) we must fight to always maintain in ourselves, Starshine.

In this sense, prayer is battle (2725, Catechism of the Catholic Church).

And it must naturally lead our heart of prayer toward a deepening sense of inter-connectedness (community) with each other as human beings and as citizens of all creation.

For in prayer is Peace because its results are the works of peace.

Pray, pray, pray therefore - pray for all Mankind, my most precious Starshine - pray for all our poor, broken nations, know of their needs intimately in thyself, tolerate no division, no chaos, no enmity in thy heart of hearts and let us storm the one God of all heaven and earth with our common human hopes -

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday.

On Prayer

AS A RULE, my precious Starshine,

prayer is always more

than the sum of all that we can see

with our unseeing eyes.

A soul in prayer is a heart present to its thought;

a walk across the vast, empty deserts within;

a reaching out to places beyond self;

a looking above from within.

It is silence contemplating Silence -

alone with the Alone.

It is a growing, persevering,

often times frustrating work

born of great necessity,

out of thy love of God.

Prayer is an ascent to the timeless,

anchored upon ageless truth,

of all the things we love

and of the Love that all created things hope for,

most especially by the truth of thy heart of love,

and of thy faith yearning to God in prayer.

The way to God is a crooked line,

for we are all but human.

But the way of prayer

makes this way certain.

For the soul that perseveres in prayer

shall indeed profit

from the LORD Who rewards all things,

great and small, known and known to God alone,

when done out of love and fear

of the one common Creator

of all common creation, seen and unseen.

It is not only important that we pray,

and persevere in this way, my precious friend,

in private, above all in community with each other,

it is simply necessary for human happiness

and the well-being of the still small truth that lives,

like a mustard seed,

inside of every self

for all things true and everlasting

depend on a heart of prayer.

Prayer is spiritual.

Therefore,

there are seasons within the soul that range

from sweet to dry or empty

but never must thy heart stay still,

you must gather when it needs gathering

and to know also when to look beyond these seasons;

you must be vigilant,

pressing on till you reach the heart of God

to lay your hopes in the LORD.

So prayer may be long

or it may be short

but it must always be timeless,

its substance is the motion

that lives like a love longing for Itself.

And when the Silence shall to your bowed heart speak,

It shall do so swift as light,

being Spoken without words

and instantly manifest to your soul as winged truth -

then you shall seek to forget all other things

but God and God alone.

And in God you shall range far,

self cognizant of self,

intimate with the Intimate,

to dwell in holy remembrance of all things.

For far may your wandering heart be

but to love and in Love

you shall forever remain

when you shall in prayer persevere.

So do so, dearest Starshine,

and say AMEN:

Know for thy own self

why the heart that believes

believes only because it prays.
---<--@

(produced 20090223)

Salutation #16

(Salutation to all Christian minorities among the nations)

To all our Christian communities, Peace.

Take courage,
my beloved brothers and sisters,

peace be with you!

Let us remember each other

as we heed the call of Christ

Who upon the mount of Tabor
was Transfigured into glory
that we may see beyond time
into the timeless brilliance
of our great Home in eternity.

Let us be meek like our Savior
and seek shelter in His humility
Who upon the mount of Tabor
by our witness of a living faith
was Transfigured into glory
to unveil for us,

our Christian hope
and give courage in adversity -
"Arise, be not afraid." (Mat 17: 7)

God is our surest Refuge!

We include you in our hearts,

my beloved brothers and sisters,

our prayers constantly reach out to you
asking the LORD for His mercy
that we may always together endure

for God alone provides

and His grace alone is sufficient.

Though you may feel alone

at times, O Beloved of Christ,

surely, you must know

in your heart of hearts

our baptism is for always.

Ever in God then,

my beloved brothers and sisters,
in time and in eternity

we are but

one Communion of Saints.

Ever to God then,

my beloved brothers and sisters,

toward peace and brotherhood

and the unity of God's Perfection

where your hope becomes our hope

your virtue becomes our virtue

your sin becomes our penance
whatever helps you helps us
whatever hurts you hurts us
your gladness being our gladness
your sorrow being our sorrow
for we are but one bread,
one Love, broken for others.

Hold fast to the peace of Jesus
for His peace is our abundance
and the abundance of Christ is life
being the promise of eternal bliss
revealed in the Most Holy Trinity
as the truth of the most high God
unveiled in the Father and the Son
and in the unity of the Holy Spirit -
one God that transcends all time
one Truth that illumine all truth
one Will that fulfills all our being
one Being that sustains all of life
one Love that gathers us together
like a love ever longing for Itself:
one blessed, triune Perfection!

Alleluia, my brothers and sisters,
distance is no longer a tyranny
nor separation bear it's sting
to every Christian who trusts
in the Name of Jesus Christ
Who is Emmanuel, God with us.

Alleluia, Amen to Christ, Alleluia.

---<--@

Let us pray especially for our brethren and sister Christians in the Holy Land. For the Holy Land is a special place. And the Christians in the Holy Land are a special people.

Let us therefore, extend to them willingly our hearts and hands.

Let us bear in mind and heart this day, all human minorities of whatever distinction from among all our nations, peace - mabuhay!

And also let us pray for Dondon Celestino Lanuza, an OFW on death row in KSA.

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! God bless all His Christian communities.

God Encompassing God

O LORD,

God encompassing God,

God encompassing All in Thyself!

O LORD,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -

Blessed Unity,

Holy Trinity,

Perfect Company!

O LORD,

there is none but Thee,

there is none like Thee!

O LORD,

Thou art from everlasting to everlasting -

in Thee All draw their being,

in Thee All draw their living life,

in Thee there is no shadow of turning,

in Thee there is neither darkness nor Night,

in Thee there is joy, abundance and peace,

in Thee there is only love and the Light!

O LORD,

Thou desire salvation for all beings

to Whom shall all needful souls turn to,

my God, but to Thee?

O LORD,

Thou art the one Sovereign of all nations

unto Whom shall Thy exile peoples return to,

my God, but unto Thee?

Abide in us, O LORD, be with us!

Be the God of our lives, our families,

and our national communities!

O Goal of all my goals,

I love, I trust, and I adore Thee!

---<--@

Our God, O my beloved of my heart, is a God of relationships - One, Triune Perfection!

20110604

Salutation #11

(On Honorable Religion, Religious Harmony and Pluralism)

Peace, I salute you.

Religious wars are a perplexing feature of the last great age of war

and one that we ought to guard against in this new age of peace.

Alone or with others,

our nations stand to gain much through honorable religion

but only if we succeed in exorcising the past

and healing the present from the contagion of War.

Alone or with others,

the fruit of all honorable religion is peace

not because they are the same but because they are different.

For despite the unrelenting tide of the darkness of exile time

and the half-forgotten specters that haunt our history,

honorable religion is ever the engine that inspire

the ennobling light of human civilization,

advancing the Causes that like sheltering wings defend

from the relentless gravity of War's final defeat

the heart of every nation of our one family of nations

gathering together the generations of the children of Mankind

ever toward greater peace, true belonging

and universal brotherhood.

As a shelter against War, therefore,

the peace of our Republic undertaking must prove proof

against the spirit of division.

As citizens to each other,

we can no longer dare to extend safe harbor,

in our hearts and in our times,

to the debilitating rot

of religious divisions, misconceptions, prejudices,

than accept the eternal loss of our peace.

If we love as we ought, then we will see -

that fear and ignorance breeds intolerance

and intolerance destroys human community.

Thou must ever so beware, O Man,

guard thee never to behold the LORD, thy God,

as an image of thyself - a limited, mutable, ephemeral, unfinished work.

For the LORD, our God, is not the invention of any human religion.

The LORD, our God, dearest Starshine, is an infinite Reality.

Compared to the LORD,

all of time and all of the timeless,

all of creation whether seen or unseen,

everything that was, is, and shall ever be,

are all but a particle - incomprehensibly tiny.

Remember thee always, Starshine,

only through God's wisdom,

only through His benevolence,

and through His generosity,

may thy little soul attain

to the incomprehensible vastness of Eternity.

Notwithstanding religious distinctions -

You will know the LORD, thy God,

only inasmuch as you allow thyself to love Him.

And even then, O Man,

you yourself know in your heart of hearts

that you can never love thy God

in the way that God ought to be loved.

Because you heart may never behold the infinite -

no creature may do so, my beloved, and hope to live.

The Divine Reality

when one may think it is understood

is understood only because the One and infinite God

is pleased to reveal Himself to thy understanding.

All creatures are limited

but the LORD is neither finite

nor lacking in anything.

We know Him only by the tiniest of degrees

and even then, always indirectly.

For no creature

may truly know God, dear Starshine,

and hope to survive.

What thou understand therefore

is never God Himself as Himself

but God as He is pleased

to become so intimately related to thy soul

through the freedom of thy faith.

God pours into thee like a tiny vessel

an essence thou can never hope to contain

without His Face beholding thee always

and so only with love, mercy and compassion,

from the LORD and His instruments -

the Angels and the Prophets,

the Incarnate Word of God - Christ the Lord,

Our Emmanuel through His Sacred Humanity,

may you attain to the object of thy faith -

The God Who is, the LORD.

Be this way unto all beings, therefore,

thou who have attained to God in truth and Spirit -

loving, merciful, and compassionate.

Worship none but the LORD - God and God alone!

Honor and respect all of God's instruments

all the Angels and the Prophets,

the Incarnate Word through His Sacred Humanity

Who is Christ the Lord and Savior of All

without any confusion or division of heart -

let there be no cause in thee for War in the heart

and say thee truthfully thy peace to All of creation.

Be thankful always and be glad, being humble in heart,

tremble and work out thy salvation in virtue and good works

for the Reality of the LORD has become a reality to thee!

So let thy faith bid thee

seek, serve and love God

and in thy heart, be at peace.

Our dearest Starshine,

what all creatures will to safely and meaningfully comprehend

whether great or small, seen or unseen,

from the noblest of Angels to the least responsible of Man,

are our distinctly individual relationships to the One.

The LORD's unchanging will for all of Sacred Life is Our business:

How this will of salvation is revealed to all creation

is the universal labor of all faiths.

Now, a faith that is universal is one that must also become particular.

For no one faith may truly hope to represent the totality of the LORD.

Religion is the structure that makes a particular faith present.

And the fruit of all honorable religion is peace.

- selah -

As a Roman Catholic Christian, most especially,

I do not consider myself at odds with any honorable religion

most especially with Judaism and Islam.

For I must practice my peace to keep it - not to lose it.

For I shall be held to account by my Lord Christ for this grace;

the grace of belonging to God and to my Country

and of prospering in the faith and obedience of my Holy Mother Church

helping to add to the life of my own nation,

and hoping to grow into a peace this world can neither provide

nor truly ever understand without God

and God in Christ Jesus the Lord -

the one Redeemer of All.

---<--@

On Religious Harmony

Religious toleration seems to me, an oxymoron - what is there to tolerate?

It implies a sort of truce. But what if there really was no conflict to begin with...

To build harmony among our religions, there must be interdependence - a common ground.

This common ground is the labor of peace-building - primarily, the work of its inspiration within as well as between our nations.

It is the work of fostering hope in the people and also of realizing these hopes for the benefit of the greater good, competing in good works.

This is religious harmony.

---<--@

Moving Forward...

Congratulations to our President Noy on the success of his recent trips to Brunei and Thailand.

Peace be to Brunei Darussalam and to the Kingdom of Thailand - It is always a very good thing indeed to foster relations with our friends in ASEAN.

What is good for one in ASEAN is good for all in ASEAN.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

God Encompassing God

O LORD,

God encompassing God,

God encompassing All in Thyself!

O LORD,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -

Blessed Unity,

Holy Trinity,

Perfect Company!

O LORD,

there is none but Thee,

there is none like Thee!

O LORD,

Thou art from everlasting to everlasting -

in Thee All draw their being,

in Thee All draw their living life,

in Thee there is no shadow of turning,

in Thee there is neither darkness nor Night,

in Thee there is joy, abundance and peace,

in Thee there is only love and the Light!

O LORD,

Thou desire salvation for all beings

to Whom shall all needful souls turn to,

my God, but to Thee?

O LORD,

Thou art the one Sovereign of all nations

unto Whom shall Thy exile peoples return to,

my God, but unto Thee?

Abide in us, O LORD, be with us!

Be the God of our lives, our families,

and our national communities!

O Goal of all my goals,

I love, I trust, and I adore Thee!

---<--@

Our God, O my beloved of my heart, is a God of relationships - One, Triune Perfection!