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...
---<--@

Afire in the Darkness

Self-immolation
as a form of self-protestation
(particularly in the Buddhist tradition)
seemed a futile exercise to me
- until yesterday morning -
when I understood what it was saying
and what it was condemning
by the sheer power
of its sacrifice.

"I love...
yet I am part of you
no more."

"Awaken,
that you may live!"

- selah -

When a creature of living compassion
withdraws its noble spirit from our midst

our poverty is multiplied a hundred
and even a thousand-fold!

   For every
   human promise
   (in every lifetime)
   once it is left unsung
   is left forever unspoken.

   Therefore,
   a completeness of life
   is the strength of nations!

Life is grieved - as we must -
because we have come
to understand it.

BUT
we should shed more tears
for our not understanding
for it is this ignorance,

this reluctance to affirm,

this remaining act of denial...

which the action itself
seeks to enkindle
and burn away...

...that in the darkness,
we may - as nations - 
find the light.
---<--@

Salutation #79

The freedom of Man

and the freedom of Angels

are not unlike each other!

Therefore,

Let us always remember that the liberty

of all the nations of the children of Mankind

is established not for the taking but for the giving -

for it is in giving that we receive;

it is in giving that all Men are set free.

- selah -

(Religion in the Public Domain)

Don't be a hypocrite.

Don't be afraid to say it - "Merry Christmas!"

How can we respect other religions if we can not respect our own?

Remember,

a genuine respect for the power of faith - in any person -

only comes from a genuine experience of religion.

So if you are afraid to practice your own - for any reason,

how can you hope to understand

what substance of truth there is to be had

in the exercise of your own faith?

If you do not understand

- with a knowledge of the truth -

the blessings bestowed upon you by your own religion,

how can you understand the hope

that other people must invest

in the free exercise of theirs

however different they may be to you?

There is a place for religion in the public domain -

for so long as (1) it does compete,

one against the other - to the confusion of many,

for a position of dominance in the civic sphere;

for so long as (2) the Spirit of God is given a free hand

to work the work of completion He intends in all human hearts ;

for so long as (3) the spirit of War is denied entry into the heart of our nations;

for it shall be natural for all truth to come together -

not so that all things may be the same - conformity without diversity,

but so that the purpose of God in all things may be fulfilled.

Merry Christmas!

---<--@

Can you see through the cartoon -

If you love humanity, say to thy own soul:

Drink deeply, O my heart, we have much to do...

---<--@

Think about it -

"People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things." (Anne Frank, July 6, 1944)

Take note of how my Anne described the activity of faith in religion - a gift.

---<--@

Shalom, Salaam, Peace - Maligayang Pasko!

Mabuhay po tayong lahat ngayong Pasko at kapayapaan sa darating na taon.

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!