Kumpisalang... Kalye

Kakaiba, di ba? Pero sa tingin ko kakaiba rin ang kailangan nang Simbahan natin sa mga araw na ito.

Itong larawan na ito ay nakita ko sa Facebook wall ko kahapon. Bilang isang Katolikong Kristyano, agad kong napansin ang "instant appeal" niya sa akin. Malago na rin po kasi siguro ang sarili kong karanasan sa pangangailangan nang ating kaluluwa nang pangangalaga ng Sakramento nang Kumpisal.

Kudos po sa inyo, Father. Hayaan niyo pong ipamahagi ko ang inspirasyon ninyo kahit man lang dito sa blog ko. Salamat po nang marami. Ang galing!

(Ang Facebook page po nila Father ay ang Resurrection of our Lord Parish.)

May every Christian soul experience the blessings of peace and renewal that this year's Lenten Season promises to bring... through repentance and faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
---<--@

Thoughts on Religion and Political Moderation

I am a Catholic. Not a moderate Catholic. For there can never be a moderate expression of the faith I hold dear and holds me dear as well. I am simply a Catholic (though not always good at it).

What we love that is for always can never be served by moderation. Religion and its virtues may only truly prosper in ourselves only by full spiritual expression. And this democratic expression of freedom in religion and of religions may only be accommodated in an atmosphere of national peace.

It is an atmosphere long denied to our world. This brokenness has left the house of humanity broken and bleeding. We are today a world of broken nations; a broken peace prevails among the order of our unity as a family. Thus, the human family is scattered. 

This dysfunction at the heart of our nations serves not a single soul. It is unconscionable to the listening heart to allow the nations of the children of Mankind to tarry in the darkness in this way.

And so I say, I am a Catholic. Proud to be one. Properly proud to be in the service of the Peace of Jesus Christ. Ever may it prevail!

In the same way, I understand there are no moderate Muslims or Jews or Buddhists or Sikhs or Hindus, etc. when it comes to the religious profession of the faiths we all hold dear and holds us all dear as well.

What I shall ask is for us to be moderate in the duty and practice of our politics. 

What does divide religion are not the truths and the virtues of its revelations but the politics of which we, through right remembrance of a long history of suffering and loss, may now at present discern separately and distinctly from the lives of faith we each must live, according to our freedoms, with truth in the heart.

The world has not become smaller. What our world at present has really become is wider. It has become more not less. Its horizons more expansive than ever. We have to have the heart to be able to embrace it as a human family. Lest the immediacy of the spirit of present tidings remain to many of us strange.

We perceive a landscape of things that may be in our common tomorrow as nations so open and so wide, we discern a darkness foreboding. And instead of going boldly forth to conquer together with cultures of light, retreat into the comfort of past molds.

The can be no living the past. What it is when we choose to so commonly retreat from the face of our right remembrances is a denial of the present. Where there is no peace in the now, there is no now. 

We can not be like this, in particular as children of our Father Abraham; we can not deny the present (and be absent from the now) while holding true to the true living that ours, along with all religious wisdom prescribes to our common humanity.


Peace to us is a time. That time is now.

If we can not make the moment ours, together this time and with all people of good will - as one human family - this world, our world, might so remain where it was, so receded into the spirit past things, so absent from the present, so much obscured from the view of Heaven, it falls again and again into the embrace of the defeated Enemy.

We must not allow this vicious cycle to continue...
---<--@

Oratio Imperata for Peace

Let's do this...


































February 23, 2015

Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Reverend Administrators:

The situation of the country and the world right now calls on all of us to turn to the Lord in humble supplication and gather our people to pray. As the nation continues to grieve over the tragedy in Mamasapano and the family of nations is threatened by war and terror from extremist groups, our best contribution to the nation and to the world is to encourage people to pray.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14).

I respectfully propose that we the bishops of the Philippines encourage our people to pray the following Oratio Imperata for Peace. Hopefully this prayer can calm the anxieties of our long suffering people and touch the hearts of the enemies of peace.

The authority to declare an Oratio Imperata for the various dioceses is the sole prerogative of the Local Ordinaries. If this proposal will merit your pastoral approval, I humbly request that you issue a circular to the clergy and Catholic faithful in your jurisdiction to make this prayer for peace mandatory.

I submit this proposal to your better judgment and pastoral wisdom.

Sincerely yours,

+SOCRATES B. VILLEGAS
Archbishop of Lingayen Dagupan
CBCP President
---<--@

Ash Wednesday 2015

Today after a few months off, I went back to serve as an EMHC at our local shrine. I participated in two Ash Wednesday masses; one at a local high school, one at our Shrine.

There were a lot of people indeed...

After service, I felt that good kind of tired... not the tired of being tired kind of tired but the kind that says, "yes, I am happy i did it!"
---<--@

The Queen of Broken Bread

I once was a sower. Sowing seeds.
I planted in heaven. My own needs.
There once was a Lady. She came to see.
From a Kingdom of Sowers. Who were we.

My name is happiness. I said to her.
I carry a yoke. Too heavy to bear.
The land is barren. The water is poor.
The harvest is thin. The weather unsure.

I am a Woman of such those things. Said she.
From a Kingdom of Seeds. Came her to me.
Do you know me? This Woman asked of me.
A kindly dressed maiden from across the sea...

Saint Maximilian taught me my Marian spirituality.

Honestly though, I am far from being the Marian Knight that my Patron Saint is - in service to the Queen of Heaven and Earth. So very far...

Our Lady filled the skies above my soul with stars.
She is the Queen of Broken Bread.
She magnifies Christian joy.

Knowing her is to understand an easy kind of splendor unmatched by any Saint...

A magnificence so pure and awesome yet sweet, 
kindly relenting to souls of much lesser brightness.

God broke me before I came to know religion. Religion was for me, an mere extension of myself - a way to project ego. It was a kind of power that made me feel good about myself.

All of this happened mostly unnoticed by my mind numbed and distorted by sin and vice. It was a fearful thing when I think about it now. Terrible. It exposed me to dangers everywhere, seen and unseen.

I was a self-righteous ass. Stubborn as a mule. This was the me deep inside of me - and above my soul was nothing. My soul was dead to itself, it saw not, it heard not, and it lived for nothing.

I wasn't all that bad. All that time, I strived to be good. I tried my best to be better. But always fell short. I was never truly happy about anything I did. Nothing seemed to stay on.

I think as human beings we instinctively understand that doing good is good for us. Animals instinctively understand it too. But to us humans, there is a bit more - for we seek a happiness animals shall never either understand or desire.

In all ages, all our attempts at society everywhere have ebbed and flowed with this same basic human desire for happiness in mind.

Animals are content to be content. But human beings wish for the power to dictate how it is that we shall be content - we desire a freedom which is simultaneously a happiness and we desire it in perfection. 

This perfection to us is blessed felicity. At the same time, it is a time honored impossibility.

Neither Man nor his society alone may satisfy what we all ultimately want. Thus, we warred and fought and died in droves through the ages. Terrible.

Now, this need to be happy and this want for a perfect happiness is also in me.

But as I was yet unbroken, I received a lot of pounding from Providence indeed. And it was Mama Mary who gave for me that one final blow that broke my ego.

She made me realize she was a reality apart from my own reality. That she was separate...

It might sound simplistic right now. But at the onset of it all, it was terrifying to me... Many of my old selfish notions were overturned - much like the tables of the sellers in the Temple.

I had our Lady's support though. And she made it so that I also had the support of more than a few good friends, seen and unseen, who helped keep me sane though it all.

In letting go of old molds, I understood the character of lasting friendships - that connection that in the Gospel our Savior mentioned is as brother, sister, and mother all in one - the friendships of angels.

That we are like a sky, night and day, full of multitudes - shining for God.

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, through those years it had pleased our Lady to teach me to see each my relationships and their connections in a wholly different light. Suddenly, the skies above my soul were not so empty after all.

It was this one whole sky that led me to Jesus and to God.

After all, can one navigate the night of the soul without light or sight of any kind?

One can pretend as I did. Or one can know. We can pray.

I am not perfect still. I don't think I ever will in this life. The difference now is I know joy. I am no orphan to joy. At the core of me, there is joy. Amidst my problems and my struggles, there is joy.

And it all began with the Queen of Broken Bread.

It is just like Pope Francis said, those of us who neglect loving and knowing Mary are like orphans...

God never intends for any of us to be orphans though - in more ways than we may know. Isn't this joyful in itself? The embodiment of all of that reflecting in our humanity - is Mary, our Mother.

I think that is what Marian spirituality is really all about - being joyful.

And of finding ways to share Christian joy through works our faith teaches us, that our Savior taught us.

Not being dour and overly solicitous about the complexities of life and of being trustful as a child, even in the midst of the roaring lions of everyday problems that seek to devour our little hopes.

So today is Mama Mary's birthday. Let us be joyful for her that we may in ourselves discover how simple it is not to be complicated in a complicated time.
---<--@

St. John Paul II, 
Pope of my heart, my Holy Father most memorable.

You were to the Church in the world, our Good Shepherd during the formative years of my life.

And saw my generation through those tumultuous years.

Help us build a better, brighter, safer world.

Lead us on today...

Help us to know Mary. Help us comprehend Christian joy and see in loving others as Christ did the wealth neither tyrant nor thief may remove from our souls.
---<--@ 

Sunday Evenings

I haven't really watched much TV for about two months in a row now. I don't like ingesting too much news. I'm neurotic enough as it is. What I've been watching is House and some good Anime (like SAO). Perhaps, a documentary or two once in a while.

Other times, I either read a good book or play puzzle games on iPad. I still manage to keep abreast though. I think well of our free press. One or two headlines a day however, seems enough for me at the moment.

Notwithstanding my personal idiosyncrasy, there are issues that needs to be looked into with more width and breadth though. Those issues seem to jump at you I have found. You can not not notice them. 

Today though, we will rest. 

We will find ourselves a nice enough far away place with family and friends. Be close to nature. Be near to God. We shall find the time to smile, to pray and be still. To ponder in the calm, the challenges of the week that lies ahead of us.  

Together let us recharge our spiritual batteries.

While we let time in the world play itself out from a distance.

---<--@

Brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,

Let us revere the LORD because it is right. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: Let us love God because He is God.

Let us come to Him. To the Son of Man as Lord of the Sabbath. To Jesus Christ our Savior Who is to us, our most efficacious rest.
---<--@

Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Acts of Citizenship
serve the cause of Justice in the Nation.

But if you want to be more perfect, our beloved Starshine,
exercise Christian Charity and transform these praiseworthy civic works
into Catholic Action.

Justice alone can not make one richer than one already is -
Justice can most certainly remove those impediments
to the obtaining of wealth and happiness
but Love alone always increases,
always multiplies.

We help the poor
as citizens to each other -
by building up the Inhabited Earth.

Or we as Christians address
the roots of poverty itself in Man
by building up the Kingdom of God:

In each ourselves.

- selah -

All of us, brothers and sisters,
who are fostered in our Churches
and the parish communities She shelters
from within our Nation are capable of doing both.

Therefore,
let us labor to make
His Divine Governance
in each ourselves - sovereign:

Christ in us, the hope of glory.
---<--@

Be mighty in the Peace of thy Prince.

Like Selling the Vatican

I recently finished reading "The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee". It's Sarah Silverman's book about her life and comedy career.

Personally, I think it is a nice read.



In the book, she wrote about a video she produced, "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World". It's on YouTube. I haven't really seen it myself. I don't think I really need to. If I get around to it, I'll see it. But I do not have an overarching need to see it. Sarah's art is way too graphic for me sometimes. But Sarah herself to me is cool.

Anyway, she immediately got Internet-whooped about "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World". Most netizens launched relentless tirades against her Jewishness, a fact that, she confided in her book, confounds her.

None of those aforementioned comments that she included in her book recognized what question she was actually posing and the fact that it was all being done in the name of comedy.

Why so serious, people?

Anyway, I wrote Sarah my own reply:

Sarah, speaking to you as your fellow human being, it's not as easy as it looks!

You know, there are also people within the Catholic Church and within Christendom in general who voice the same opinion - why don't we sell the Vatican and feed the world? 

Most of the treasures over there possess a profoundly religious and cultural value such as priceless works of art, ancient books, rare manuscripts and Christian artifacts. There are also many items used in our rites and have resonance in our history and our memory. All of them the Vatican keeps in behalf of the whole Church. All of them have the weight of sacred tradition.

If they didn't we'd have auctioned them off ages ago, I think.

Plus, the Vatican is the seat of our Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome.

It's a fine thing, your sentiment. And in essence I feel you, I see what you're saying. I also see in the humanity of others, the urgency of the need to raise many of us who are trapped in poverty to the dignity proper to the human person. But we should be wary of simple solutions to complex social problems, I think.

Perhaps you too have become quite frustrated about the widespread hunger problem we face as a planet, because truly, it can be very daunting. Here in the Philippines, religion is a reliable ally against it, and rallied properly, is a powerful force for positive change.

Losing the Vatican would be devastating to us Catholics, Sarah. The local effects here in the Philippines of selling the Vatican would be very sad and very real.

Our Church is not perfect, I admit. Even some priests these days find themselves losing their own faith. They fall (as we do in the Laity) and at times they fail, some priests as you know, fail so terribly that it scandalizes the whole Church. But of the bad ones, we also have good priests - and one good priest in a parish is worth a dozen rotten ones, maybe even more. I know this. I thank God each day I remember how blessed we are by the good and faithful priest who serve in our parish.

It's a nice thought to sell the Vatican and immediately get the funds to alleviate the hunger over here - but it's an escapism. You made it funny, even crass to the point its funny. You're you, what can I do - I take you as you are. No two persons are ever the same. We're like cats that way.

Your point is not a moot one though. It has resonance. We're looking at the same point in the horizon but our compass bearings just don't match. You you. Me me, Sarah. No two cats are ever the same.

I hate and regret it that religions have had to trade blows over a problem so universal that it is obviously best approached in an attitude of humanity and togetherness. I respect that you are an agnostic. I also understand your Jewishness.

My bestest girl-friend is Jewish. My Savior chose to come to our hearts through your nation and my religion is descended from its faith. How some of my co-religionists so easily forget is beyond me. I can only speak for myself, Sarah.

I guess some cats like to run around in circles. I apologize for their dizziness.

They say most of the Nazi leadership corps are Catholic or had Catholic roots. So too did Judas follow Jesus before he turned against Him. I would never leave Peter or Paul for Judas. I will not become evil-inspired by the lingering malaise of Nazi thought and deal a double blow against our memory.

I just want to add that thought above because some Christians become bitter or jaded by the myth of bad Christianity. Many of us throw it all away without even trying to discover its true gift. I do not think there is any such thing as bad Christianity. Bad Christians, yes.

Evil cloaks itself in light all the time - in all religions.

I love the Church from whose bosom I have in God been nurtured and brought up, Sarah. I may not always agree with the particulars but the greater truths we hold to are one; and they all ascend to the One. We are one Church after all, made up of people - of living stones. Church with a big "C".

I am not referring here to our church buildings whose bricks are incapable of intelligent thought or any form of human sympathy. That would be spelled with a small "c".

I think the cause of world hunger will be better served by small kindnesses. I am sure you along with many other good people around our world do this everyday, some without even thinking about it. I don't want to say I know you, Sarah, but from what I can gather from your book, I think you're a really decent person up close. And cute.

If we can inspire people from the many nations who do small acts of goodness everyday, and raise their awareness about the pressing need to defend our communities from hunger, it would add up to a big, big thing, don't you think?

It would be like selling the Vatican.
---<--@

=^.^=

The Patron Saint of Addicts and Prisoners

August 14 is the Feast Day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe.

Saint Maximilian, Patron Saint of addicts and prisoners, we confidently implore you -
lead us out of unhappy vices, and deliver us from evil places.

Through thy victorious love -

- of the Father, God of our hearts,
help us who have become too hard of heart.

- of the Son, God in our hearts,
hear us who have become too afraid to pray.

- of the Spirit, God through our hearts,
heal us who have become too weary of life.

- of the Father, Son, and Spirit,
make haste to help us.

- of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.

- of our suffering humanity, pray for us.

- of God and Country, pray for us.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, help of addicts and release of prisoners,
I love you and I trust in you.

Amen.
---<--@



Auschwitz was not a Polish concentration camp. It was a Nazi concentration camp on Polish soil; a wound in the spirit of our common humanity.

Saint Maximilian preceded my Anne in Auschwitz - but in my heart, in the hidden places in every human soul where time as we know it does not apply - they led me to each other.

And believed in me long before I believed in myself.

The Little Treasure Box of Baptism

Peace be with you! 

I beheld in my heart this battered, little box. It was like a jewelry box, extremely worn. The wood of the box might have been polished once long ago. And it may have been quite ornate.

But now, it was just a plain old, little wooden box.

My Parents and my Godparents must have given this box to me after my Confirmation; the day when I was supposed to have come of age in the Faith of our Mother Church.

They had received it for me in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit - in my stead - during my Baptism. That was, I was told, when I was still very little - a babe in their arms.

Which must be true because I couldn't remember much of it. I even had to decide for myself to give myself my own Confirmation name because no one could tell me what it was.

Maximilian Mary.

So all I know to tell you, Beloved of God in Jesus Christ, is that I have it - my worn, old, little, treasure box of Baptism. And it was given to me because it was mine to have.

All my life, I assumed it was just one of those little souvenirs one usually get at parties and the like. So I tucked it away somewhere in a corner of my soul.

At times I hid it when it suited me. After all, I might get embarrassed by it. Friends might disapprove, I feared. And I want to be accepted.

Then one day I noticed it has a keyhole.

I've never in my life even thought about opening it. And to be honest, I did not know whether I had a key for it or not. I wasn't at all interested in it, you seen... until now. What was inside it?

With so much things going on in my heart and in my mind, never until now did it occur to me - once upon a calm and quiet moment - in the Stillness in the stillness - that this battered, old box is actually mine. It's mine, yes! But what was inside it?

Many times I seem to have either lost or traded away this hardy, little box. Now, I realize it is still with me. For there were other, newer boxes, you see. Seemingly better ones, more expensive looking. Not that one should compare, mind you. Covetousness leads to certain grief. Besides, the human soul may only accommodate one box, just one box each after all. I respect that.

We can not all be the same. But the fruits that all of us must bear must be edible and good - yes, just the same. Freedom in plurality, flourishes in unity: I respect that, too.

Why did this particular box doggedly resolved to stay with me - all this time, or maybe I with it? I wondered and so I wondered, and the mystery grew. Maybe it was meant to be opened after all...

What was inside it?

So I resolved to learn all about it. And I did. And in my seeking, I also did happen upon the key. It was with me all the time. It was my faith seeking understanding. So I gave the box a chance and it opened itself to my heart - and out poured the treasury of the Church and out came a vision of me.

The me my Jesus had intended for me to be - forever. The new me. Old looks but a new heart. Common outside extraordinary inside.

And with this new me came new relationships - precious as the proven, older ones.

In the one, great family of the Catholic Church, I discovered a new sense of bravery and friendship. I love the new me. And I knew this is my peace. It's true and it's mine.

More and more these days, I find myself no longer living in fear. I know my Jesus. He knows me. That little box set my spirit free.

If you're a cradle Catholic. You are like me. And most probably, no - most certainly, you have heard of the little treasure box of Baptism. Open it.

Yeah, our interior life too - is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you get... till you...

Amen to God, adoration to Jesus Christ.
---<--@