Salutation #112

"If the veil of time were withdrawn

and the Kingdom of God stretched forth

- in plain view before thy sight -

if the LORD does not incline thy heart unto Him,

O Man, thou still would not be able to believe."

(The Story of Being Special)

The LORD God

created all living beings to be unique

- Angels and Men -

the LORD created them,

seen as well as unseen, We became.

And All of us are made to be special.

But the Devil and his angels, they said,

"since the LORD God willed

that all living beings are special - then -

I must be special".

And so was division in heaven sown.

For the Devil and his angels

- undid in themselves -

the life that the LORD God

- in each of us -

did bestow in abundance.

They cast themselves into the void.

But the Holy Angels of the LORD said,

"as the LORD God willed

that all living beings are special, then you,

O my beloved, must be special".

And so they were in God gathered.

For the spirit of the world is a scattering spirit.

But the Spirit of God gathers together.

- selah -

You make me special, beloved of God,

and so I am. And so you are, alleluia.

---<--@

An Appeal for Dondon Celestino Lanuza

My national interest can be summed up in one word - you.

When the Providence of the LORD singles out one of our compatriots as in the case of Dondon Celestino Lanuza, our national leaders should listen, in fact, we should all listen.

Because these are the times when our sense of unity is tested not through the threats arrayed against it but through an opportunity to actually benefit from its merits.

For our sense of unity is further strengthened not only by our sense of repulsion from the things of War but also by our sense of attraction to the things of the Light.

To respond to this invitation to assist in obtaining the freedom of one of our own is an exercise of unity. And if we are successful in giving this needful brother of ours his life back, we are indeed further strengthened.

Let us now bear this first principle in mind - we are to love our own - in a hundred thousand ways, direct and indirect, if we become to each other, a keeper and a friend, a citizen though and through, we shall only heap blessings upon our nation.

Justice is not upheld through vengeance, my fellow Filipinos, nor is Justice served by anger.

Justice animated by Justice shall always be solicitous of our individual potential to bring in more good into this world despite the sins one is oft inclined to humanly commit, however grievous they may be.

In the case of the criminal, once the sanction of Law is applied, it is still the domain of Justice to restore the peace of the community and to the individuals concerned - repair and restitution.

With this in mind, I am now formally appealing to each one of you, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, the case of Dondon Celestino Lanuza.

Dondon was convicted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the murder of one of their citizens in 2000 and condemned to die by beheading.

He has always maintained that the act of killing of which he is convicted is an act of self-defense.

Forgiven by the kin of the victim in February of 2011, Dondon is now in need of the customary "blood money" to be paid to the aggrieved family to obtain his freedom and the relief of his own family.

Dondon is a father of two and has been supporting his family in jail through alms given to him by his friends. He has been awaiting execution for the past 11 years.

We need to help him raise the 35 million pesos (USD 800,000) required by the victim's family to secure his freedom. Through each our own gifts, in each our own ways, I want us to contribute toward the welfare of one of our own in the person of Dondon.

This is my formal appeal to you.

I especially would like to see prominent people in our society - politicians, movers and shakers, industry leaders - become more and more interested in the plight of this littlest Filipino. Citizens of other nations with a heart of common humanity are also welcome to help.

Please, I shall leave it to you to find out more about it. The same with everything I post on this blog, I shall likewise be following this issue.

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen.

Mabuhay po tayong lahat!

---<--@

Think about it -

They say, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, famously - that a team only goes as fast as its slowest member.

This is not true. (Imagine if it were...)

A team only goes as fast as its willingness to act as a team.

Unit efficiency not individual weaknesses is the constant:

This shall be our mindset as well.

---<--@

NOTE: I usually do not openly disclose my humble material offerings to the LORD (my prayer life is not unlike my almsgiving - a deeply personal and private affair) but in this case, I shall have to make an exception. (20120123)

I am going start with a donation of P500.00 which I shall deposit to -

Account Name: Letty Lanuza

Bank: Metrobank Malolos McArthur Hi-Way Branch

Savings Account No.: 575-3-57501112-9

Bank Swift Code: MBTCPHMM

(20120124) Important: One has to bring up the fact that all Metrobank related fees are to be waived when donating through this channel (per the information on the helpdondon.com website).

The teller system does not automatically bring it up. I deposited my donation today and was asked to pay a fee of P50.00 (as the account opening branch is outside Metro Manila) to the Metrobank branch near SM Southmall - gladly.

I might come back another day to get my P50.00 back though. P50.00 is still P50.00, right? I'll just put it through to the account also and make sure it does not go to the bank.

(20120127) I went back to the branch to inform them of the fee waiver but was - in no uncertain terms - asked to "coordinate" it with the account opening branch. In other words, despite my explanations, the supervisor on duty decided in advance not to help me.

I can see through his poker face as he blew me off and as I am not ignorant of bank procedures this was doubly upsetting to me... so there. No matter, this is not about him. I pray for your freedom, Dondon!

(20121122) Responding to the call to be one of 1,500 donor, I deposited another 1000 today for Dondon's freedom account at the Metrobank near Starmall Las Pinas. I wasn't asked the P50.00 fee this time which was cool. Everything went smoothly. Inshalla, Dondon, God be with you to be your comfort and strength.

Salutation #85

Lead us back to you, O LORD, that we may be restored:

give us anew such days as we had of old.

For now you have indeed rejected us,

and in full measure turned your wrath against us.

Lamentations 5: 21-22

(Law and Justice)

The practice of law is the practice of justice.

It is one act of charity.

Law is the breadth

and justice is the depth,

mercy is the awesome completeness

of its embrace in Man.

The depths of Man knows justice

- where and when it is present -

but more acutely

when and where it is absent.

The breadth of law

is the force that shapes

the destiny of nations

and guides each the order of it - across time,

keeping its necessary discipline

and exact form distinct

from the chaos

and the emptiness of the void.

Both law and justice is completed in mercy

and mercy perfected in charity,

even the charity of God.

For as long the soul of Man pines for God,

the heart of Man longs for justice;

for as long the heart of Man longs for justice,

the Law of the LORD exists!

And the laws of the nations derive their authority from it.

---<--@

For further reflection -



If law is a container,
then justice is the water.

How full it is depends on the water.
How satisfying it is depends on the container.
One can not be without the other. 

For a container without water
brings no comfort to the thirsty
and water without a container
sinks afoul into corruption.
---<--@

A Meditation on Hope

FAITH is the life of Christian community.

LOVE is the heart of Christian community.

HOPE is the atmosphere of Christian community.
It is both our breath and our breathing together.

Hope is the eternal spaces between our souls
that distinguish us from love to Love.

It is our faith reversed from the view of the Divine
and our faith received into the welcome hearts of others.

It is a thing that awaits our embrace
existing not in the past nor the future
but always in the present moment.

Hope floats from the deep of God's mystery -
Those timeless little white flowers that grow
upon those wide, open plains and rolling hills,
those evergreen valleys and high mountaintops
of the Eternal Kingdom of our Lord Christ
born from seasons of life's comings and goings
anchored firmly upon the Rock of Ages.

Hope is a promise of something good
and a reality that awaits unredeemed
to be perceived by the eyes of our faith
and received by arms of our souls
into the embrace of the love of Jesus Christ
living by the grace of God in our heart of hearts.

It is the unseen substance of the faith
of individuals and families, tribes and nations,
the vital heritage of entire civilizations -
the numberless promises of lives left behind,
suspended in time between heaven and earth,
living in the ether of a sacred silence
as something for our hearts to embrace...
hopes awaiting the community of other hopes
like the past awaiting the quickening of the present
within the eternal remembrance of God.

My precious friend,
from always to always.
Our faith is ever always our own.
It is something we allow.
It is something we nourish.
Like a sacred union professed,
one love alone with the One Love alone,
ever longing profoundly for Itself.
It is something personal and private
and bears its fruits for the Beloved.

But our hope for it to become
is always the promise of something received,
of a good that we can share with another.
It is something that awaits us
like a herald of the benevolent Prince
that bid us to come into His Eternal Kingdom.
Hope is something to be fulfilled
not by the bearer to whom it is promised
but by the beneficent reality of its Provider
and bears its fruits for the one possessed.
For how can one hope in one's own self
without killing the faith that enable us to see?

Indeed, our hope is in Jesus Christ!
It is our LORD's peace that we share.
It is God's promise for you and me
that matters very, very much!

It is His promise that we must hold on to
through our love and faith in Him
for it is to our God that we must trust.

Hope is what keeps us together.
It is our quite common longing as human beings.
It is always something to be shared
and lends warmth to our being human.
It feeds our hearts with goodwill
and keeps our souls good company.

It is the rarefied space where mercy acts
in the timeless moment of the now
to redeem from despair the truth
that live in other peoples lives.

It fills the sails that advance our common humanity.
It is the unselfish pride and excitement we feel
when we honor something true and worthy of praise
in the excellence within the person of another.

It feeds the fire that keeps us Christian
keeping us ever ready and agile
to serve all souls without distinction.

Glory to the God of heaven and earth,

Adoration to Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Peace and Godspeed to our Holy Father,

Pope Benedict XVI,

and all Bishops in communion
with the successor of Saint Peter.

Peace and Godspeed to our Holy Mother Church!
With much prayers for our Church Suffering -
all our beloved Holy Souls
of family and friends
forever transformed

by their final encounter with God.
All who lived so bravely
and loved us so tenderly,
all whose final hopes on earth
they have now lovingly entrusted to us.

Much prayers and loving support
to all our clergy, our religious and
to each other as Christian laity -
all who live to serve the one God of life
in spirit and in truth.

Peace and Godspeed to all of blessed Christendom
and to all the just who walk this world with us -

may we all work together towards a better world

for all men, women and children of all nations

of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

God be with all of us - now and forever.



So lets pick those little white flowers for Jesus,
and give each day our Savior a lovely bouquet -
joyously extend the Love of God to those in need
these make our Savior's Heart very glad, indeed!

---<--@

Hope Taking Wing

Salutation #46

(The Wisdom of Learning)

We are - because -

we have come to know who we are not.

This is why we must ask our questions

sincerely seeking for answers.

For when we learn any truth,

we do not learn to use it - unless -

we are led by an understanding

of our need of it.

We become wise

not by the conception of what we know how to do

- but by the sheer weight -

of what we know we ought not to do.

Wisdom never applies where danger is absent.

We become wise - only -

when we become broken enough

by the wrong things to ask ourselves why.

Fear of the LORD must lead to a reverence of Him.

For the safety of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Or we could learn to listen, to ponder and to observe -

To be able to surrender a measure

of our own freedom to the ennobling of others,

submit our independence to their discipline

and strive to remain in the humility of our youth

- the agelessness of little children -

to be able to absorb their constant teaching.

Fear of the instruments of the LORD

must also lead to a reverence of Him.

For wisdom that is learned

and wisdom that is transmitted

are one and the same thing.

In the former,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to never trust.

And in the latter,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to trust.

Both of these - being those things -

that we should never expose ourselves to in the first place.

Such is the condition of our exile!

For if our bliss is to never know danger,

to never know wisdom, makes it perfect.

The safety of God is the beginning of all learning.

And a knowledge of the truth is its own lineage.

For all true things ascend to God - just as surely -

as all our learning must eventually disappear

from the confines of both mind and heart

to return again to the infinite depths of the Divine.

All knowledge is a giving that begins with God

and a receiving that must end forever in God.

All our learning is nothing we can possess.

All our knowledge may only be kept in trust.

We possess it for a while as a means to find our way

and then we must return it - again and again -

to the LORD Who possesses all means.

Indeed,

learning that does not lead to wisdom

is like water that never flows - without purpose -

and like a river with neither beginning nor end - meaningless.

All learning that is kept like a treasure rots.

For every knowledge that must remain - as truth in the heart -

must be something we forever give away.

---<--@

20110401

April 1

I am not one to say that April 1 is a day for fools. I think it would be a reckless thing to say so. I understand this day to be a day of humor - it is a time to smile.

I once had to answer a question, "what makes you laugh"?

Practical jokes!

What makes me laugh is the unconscious realization that I (and my friends) instantly have when something really unpredictably and harmlessly silly has just happened to someone who does not expect it.

In retrospect, I guess that's just one of the many facets of humor. Because there are many kinds of humor. Some of them are not to my liking. Some are downright crass and repulsive.

There is a limit to what is funny.

They say laughter is the best medicine. But laughter may only be considered medicinal if it does no one any harm. If the humanity of either the source of the humor or its intended recipients is left distorted or embittered, that is not humor.

I think humor is a form of communication. It is either written, spoken or expressed wholly in bodily gestures. But it goes deeper than that. What it conveys is essentially a return to innocence - the original essence of play. We are all creatures of play. Deep within ourselves, we all have a profound desire to return to a child-like state. It is an innocence we can never really outgrow; a certain sense of agelessness we receive from Beauty.

When God smiles and we are able to smile (or even laugh) with God (and with each other), that to me is humor. Therefore, humor is an art. It adds to the color and the wonder of living.

A wholesome sense of humor imparts in us a refreshing lightness that allows us to smile and to laugh from a heart that cares; a heart that is able to smile and to laugh with us - even at us, at me.

Like all of Sacred Life this humor is perennial. It is the spark from which arise all hearts of good cheer. It is like love, patient as well as constant. Its laughter is like a break in the storm; a pause of quiet realization in the silence of our unconscious skies, a moment's respite from the heaviness of this weary earth - echoes of a promised return into the realm of an everlasting happiness.

As an aid to our common human hopes a wholesome sense of humor is meant to help wear down animosities, grind against divisions, melt away discord and renew the perseverance of the human spirit.

---<--@

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! God love all nations.

"From somber, solemn, serious saints, deliver us o, Lord."

Saint Teresa of Avila

Smile.