Salutation #165

This picture unnerves me...

It is however, the unseen reality that lives underneath our visible, external reality... one that can bubble up any time, any where.

Let us think about this when we sit down to meditate about realistic disarmament for our nations...

A safer world (in our times) is not a world without weapons but a world with lesser fear of them. (Fear of weapons generate more weapons, while ignorance of them encourages more war.)

Therefore, disarmament - nuclear disarmament above all - is (ultimately) a Justice issue (as opposed to political) and one that is planetary in scope.



(Peace and Disarmament)

PEACE
is directly related to disarmament
only to the degree that the spirit of War is banished
from the souls of our nations (in plural form).

Disarmament leads to strength
but only to the degree that peace is understood
and accepted by the many, and therefore, by the all.

Disarmament by itself,
without a vision of a clear destiny
is - of itself - unsure.

   (Defense and disarmament
   are not opposed but are [qualitatively] consonant
   to each other.

   Therefore,
   a disarmament that is unsure
   is also consequently an action that is unsafe.)

It only seems to lead us to weakness,
and this weakness is a symptom of a sickness
that no nation wants but - in truth -
all nations need.
---<--@

Salutation #164

The real answer
to the question of poverty in our age
may not be more but BETTER forms of prosperity.



(The Question of Wealth)

Wealth,
darling Starshine -
what is it?

- selah -

"What is wealth?" -  beloved,
is a question we should each know
how to ask the citizen in each ourselves.

For the recognition of wealth -
its forms, orders of value, real purpose in time,
generation, preservation, conservation,
and ultimate possession -
is the central question being sought
(to be sufficiently grasped and understood)
by each our answering - in our own times and places -
the collective call of each our own undertaking of Country.

The answers - that each of us are -
whose completeness in the ascent - as a whole -
(like stars finding their way together
into every new morning of every new day
unto the completion of our Country)
drive forward the economy of our generations.

Indeed,
the singular - temporal - pre-occupation
of every nation (of the children of Mankind)
is how to adequately understand
the question of wealth.

Truly,
it is important to understand this question.

FOR
how one nation understands the Question
directs its timeless energies unto the answer...
even... precious starshine, all the way.
---<--@



Ask yourself:
is money - by itself -
wealth enough?

Money
can be good.

- BUT -

Money
can be bad.

Why?

Starshine,
what (or who) makes it so?
---<--@



Questions ask, answers answer.

Bangsamoro: A Dialogue of Unity

This does not mean the way ahead shall be easier for our nation, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, but it does mean we shall now have more of our own strength to overcome the difficulties that lie ahead of our peoples. Our unity does not make the straight path easier, it makes the journey safer... for all Filipinos.

For today we have resolved to walk the way of our nationhood - together this time - in the shelter of peace than in the shadow of war.



"Bangsamoro" shall be the dialogue of unity we shall now have with our Muslim brothers and sisters of the Promise within our one nation. It shall be a continuing dialogue - political, economic, cultural, and spiritual - but most of all, it shall be national. For within it we shall now endeavor to speak with one voice.

Within and between the nations there exists this vital dialogue (mostly invisible) composed of thought, time, discernment, and will - flowing like a river of whose tributaries lie at the heart of each of our citizens, a river that nourishes everything that is built and grows in our Republic. The freer the flow of this river, the mightier the reality of our peace together, the better our peace, the greater our prosperity - spiritual as well as material. 

(Material riches by themselves alone bring only misery and to claim to be spiritually rich without economic prosperity is a lie. To be truly rich, my nation, is to be rich indeed - in spirit and in time.)

Let us remember this, my brothers and sisters of the Promise - we who are raised from the diversity of the earth and joined by Providence Divine into one heart, one labor, one destiny:

We are a free people and so must continually exercise this liberty in order to temper it and make it strong, being very much aware of its costs and its inestimable value to the life of our Republic undertaking of Country.

Let us know that if we shall now choose to begin speaking with and to each other as citizens and human beings equally engaged in building a shelter of Country worthy of our common peace together as Filipinos...

If we shall now choose to become more than the words and become the essence of the nationhood inside of ourselves...

If we shall now choose to secede from the rule of War that have for so long denied from our generations (and from our world) the blessings of our own nationhood and enter into this new conversation of peace and national unity and human good will - together this time - we reclaim the hopes of the past...

And it shall serve us well, my people, for we too shall have been reclaimed by their memory. What we have lost in those terrible years of internecine conflict before this time would not have been in vain.

For we would have begun through this conversation to come alive to their enduring legacy.

No one falls back to the earth without uttering this one hope in the heart - a hope for better days, a hope for brighter times, a hope for kinder tomorrows... a hope for peace. Shall we, as a nation before God, abandon the remembrance of our dead to feed the hunger of War?

My people, my beloved people, the new age opens itself up only to those who are willing to enter into its embrace - my brothers and sisters of the Promise, and this - this seminal peace - is the way for our nation to enter into the new age.

Go and look at the darkness that we leave behind us - the depth and terribleness of it - and let us each ask ourselves today if there is any other way.

Let us reflect upon those tomorrows we, the people, commonly dream of - a future that is our right and our destiny - and let us seize the moment. Let us gather unto the gathering of our nation and heed the call of our peace - today is the day and now is the favorable season.

Let us allow ourselves to be joined together as one Country - being distinct in each person, family, and tribe, but never again distant in spirit - let us entrust ourselves to each other as citizens under the vigilance of Almighty God - let us work for this one outcome - that of unity - together this time

For our enduring compact is one of unity - in this compact we shall entrust to each other our everlasting good being called by Providence into one nation forever.

I have printed a copy of the Framework Agreement and shall be with you in prayer as well as in the labor to complete a comprehensive agreement by the end of this year, 2012.

Indeed, we have much work to do but I can see now that no longer - after this year - shall it be a labor of bitterest tears but a labor of hope.

My heartfelt thanks goes to the negotiating teams from the GPH and the MILF, the MNLF, and above all OPAPP and the Office of the President, as well as the tireless efforts of those nations - especially Malaysia - who have offered us the third element necessary in all peace processes - that of Peacemaker; a conqueror of heights.

May we all be blessed, may all be blessed by all - mabuhay po ang Bangsamoro at mabuhay po ang Pilipinas nating lahat: Shalom. Salaam. Peace - God bless us all.
---<--@

The brightness of thy Banner undiminished in triumph waves,

the glory of thy stars and sun are lights that shall never fade.

Ang kislap ng watawat mo'y tagumpay na nagniningning,
ang bituin at araw niya'y kailanpama'y di magdidilim.

Salutation #149

THERE IS a fundamental strength in the heart of our humanity. It is a strength often obscured by many divisions and many sins.

Yet it is still there... 

We may at times forget it but it may never forget us.

The Assumption of our Lady reveals to us this strength; the ultimate triumph of a fully human life.



(Assumption Day 2012)

The Blessed Virgin Mary
loves the Philippines!

But not by name alone,
she does not draw herself close
to the heart of our nation simply because
we choose to call ourselves
such and such.

Let us be proud to be Filipinos
and to call ourselves Filipinos!

Our heroes
and their noble lineages
were never shy of the name.

But let us never forget
the essential spiritual values
that create and re-create
in and through our generations,
the spirit of the nationhood
in each ourselves.

Let us not just be,
as if everything relied on externals,
let us become - and strive together
to always, always become.

For every appearance on the earth
draws its existence from the spiritual
to imbue it with virtue and purpose
and to give it motion and form.

So let us be a prayerful people,
a nation not unfamiliar with gifts of mystery -
pondering the invisible, indescribable, undeniable
things of God in our hearts.

Lest a false sense of ruinous pride
overtake our people and subvert our peace,

turning our Country into ashes from within.

- selah -

Our Lady is Queen.

And her sense of compassionate responsibility
is universal among the nations of the children of Mankind.

She loves the Filipino heart
because it is a heart of humanity.

Within the abode
of each our heart dwells a spirit
that is exuberant, patient, obedient and attentive,
willing to always listen and to learn.

It is much like her own heart.
For our nation's heart is child's heart.
It is ever youthful and brave.

It is a trustful heart
that naturally recognizes,
not in spite of all our diversity
but all throughout,
the Providential Hand of God,
our Father.

It is a heart
that is valued very, very much
by her Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.

The Gospel bears this witness
to our nationhood - unity is eternal.

The fruit of this unity is peace.

In every generation
to the last of our generations,
the residue of this nationhood is love;
a love reserved for all, and a love shared by all.
Its every action is a spiritual action
that ascends to glorify the God of Peace -
as our Lady did as we commemorate her this day,
her Assumption Day.

No matter
our distinctions, differences,
disagreements, or difficulties,
if we always remember
this most fundamental peace
we share amongst ourselves
and with other nations like ourselves,
we will never be far off
from the Kingdom of the LORD, our King -
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Our sense of maturity
as an undertaking of Country
relies not on its physical ages in time
but on a timeless remembrance of these!

When we are faithful to our remembrances,
this spirit of nationhood is revealed to us,
and we are able to shine 

as the stars.

Even as the stars of our Father Abraham!

Mabuhay!
---<--@



We are a human nation; a Country endowed by the LORD, our God and King, not just with a distinct Roman Catholic heritage, but with a rich Christian, Islamic, and Jewish heritage.

These as well as those other traditions of honorable religion, allied to each other in peace and good will, is a primary source of our unity.

All have contributed to the diverse and colorful fabric of Filipino culture and life.

If we sacrifice these in the name of War and in the spirit of division, what kind of a people are we?
---<--@

Here in the Philippines, the Feast Day of the Assumption of our Lady is August 15. Today is the Feast Day of Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe.