Salutation #66

How long before we can bring them relief?

To many it shall be too late...

How shall we stand accountable

- for our gift of belonging to each other -

to the God of all heaven and earth?

How shall we explain

our claim to rightful citizenship?

(Identifying with the Peace)

I am for Peace.

I am passionate for the peace.

I will always be for peace.

But I am not for endless talk without fruit.

And the fruit I am seeking

is every form of good

- both in heaven and on the earth -

which is edible to our people

and eternally pleasing to the God of all peoples:

the LORD - our King - and one Sovereign of all nations;

fruit which is especially wholesome - for the littlest Filipino -

on the ground of our Land of the Morning.

I am the same as War - in that -

I do not discriminate between distinctions

that make a Filipino into his or her own unique person.

A hungry Filipino is a hungry Filipino

- no matter the differences -

that make us into Christians, Muslims, or Lumads;

male or female, young or old, better or worse, richer or poorer -

for we are one nation, my beloved people!

All our generations is entrusted by the LORD to the care of each other

and our singular consecration before the God in Eternity is to life;

unto the life of our nation is invested the hope of Sacred Life

all plant and all animal life, both great and small,

especially those who are native to our lands

- above all human life!

Peace is our common salutation.

---<--@

Fly Old Defiant:

Defy War. Defy Darkness. Defy Evil. Defy Corruption. Defy Poverty.

Prosper the Peace! Prosper the People!

Nameless

We know we are Filipino because our nation knows us - equally, individually, each by our own true names written in heaven.

Nameless.

Known only to God.
And faithful to God alone.
Both men and angels together.
Friendships meant to last forever.



Nameless.
Unknown and invisible.
Ordinary in the eyes of men.
Extraordinary in the eyes of God alone.
Beautiful for being beheld by Beauty Itself.



Nameless.
Who live in the heart of Christ.
And walk this world together alone.
Who brave the hard and narrow Way:
The spiritual sons and daughters of the One.



Nameless.
Born of the one firmament of stars.
Numberless lights spread across the sky.
Shining with forbearance, twinkling with hope.
The common patrimony of our Father Abraham.

---<--@

"You shall love the LORD thy God as one LORD alone".

"Make peace with the all of creation. Divide it not. Say peace to the river, to the sky, to the earth, to the animals (and the trees) of the earth and the fishes of the seas, to thy nations good will and to all thy fellow human beings, life and abundance. Do this if you love me."

Go and be a good citizen!

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 #65

In a previous post on All to my All, I have attempted to write about the purgatorial state. I have returned to that post and have found it to be confusing. I apologize.

Today, I shall again attempt to describe it for us.

(The Pain of Purgatory)

You are invited to a banquet with the King.

And so you became consumed with anxiety as to what to do, where to begin...

You know you could not afford a gift fit for a Monarch.

For you are dirt poor and had no real money.

All you had were the rags on your back and a desire to respond to the invite.

How could a person like you respond to such an invitation?

You knew nothing of the ways of Royalty.

So the King sent to you His only-begotten Son

to teach you the Way and introduce you to the Person of the King.

And through His Crown Prince, the King sent you all the money you need.

For this Prince redeemed the earth and all its wealth for you

by inflicting upon the enemy prince a devastating blow!

All thy Holy Redeemer asked is for you to continue with your desire

and to come at the appointed hour in the Name of the King.

All that God asked is that you always for always remember.

That hour has come for the souls in Purgatory.

They have completed their own personal gifts for the King on earth

and have yet to complete their exquisite wedding clothes;

royal robes tailored from the necessary cloth of virtue

and sown with golden threads of charity and joy.

These Holy Souls are held in a state of indescribable expectation

as they send for our timely help to complete their final hopes on earth.

For they have kept their desire complete in the Name of the King

and have clung to the promise of His Crown Prince.

All we have to do - here on earth -

is to send to them the rest of their clothes

through acts of love made by us - for them - from earth.

And we are to send these up to them on the wings of prayer.

After all,

they are the souls of our loved ones

who loved us till the end on earth

and shall continue to love us

with no end in heaven.

Such is the pain of Purgatory a pain of certainty.

It is a sure and steady state between love and its longing for Love.

At the end of time as we know it, all the Holy Souls shall be victorious

and this necessitate Suffering Church shall be for us - no more -

but not because of our prayers on earth or their longing for God in heaven

but because the victory wrought for us by the Prince is one that is complete.

At the end of time as we know it,

we all shall be united once more - body and soul.

All that God asked is that we always for always remember.

For the Justice of God the Father is perfected

by the Love that He sent to us in Christ Jesus the Lord.

The ever living waters of the Spirit shall rise

to fill all things on earth and in heaven.

But the hopes of the damned in hell shall dry up

- into dust and ashes.

---<--@

Everybody have a safe and meaningful All Souls' Day 2011!

Glory to God the Father!

Adoration to Jesus Christ!

Alleluia, peace be unto our nation

and peace be unto all our nations;

good will to all men and women of Peace.

As Christians we do not celebrate death.

We celebrate the LORD's victory over death.

Salutation #64

The color black is the color of hope. Green is the color of the perennial nature of hope.

For hope is upon the earth, in a constant state of subtle transformation, rising and falling as all things ascend to God, in steady cycles of loss and fulfillment.

When black is used to remember death, it is not used to signal the finality of death, but to remind us of the hope that is invested in death - for black is also the color of the expectation of life.

(Death)

All the death that we see

upon this world of earth and fire

- with our physical sight -

is a temporal death.

But there is a hidden death

- the second death -

the death of the soul of Man.

Of this hidden death,

the soul of Man implicitly knows and naturally fears

for it is the death of his life.

And though reason might oftentimes confuse the two,

we human beings should truly fear the death of the soul.

For this is the true death!

But temporal death is a transformation -

for those who value life to the point of giving it - everlasting life.

for those who hate life to the point of taking it - everlasting death.

So today,

we honor our brethren and sisters

who have passed away from life into everlasting life -

all the official Saints of our Holy Mother Church

but especially those Saints of God who are known to God alone

each those Saints who are especially chosen by the LORD

to become known to each of us alone - as our special friends -

who are all those who are victorious against death.

So let us express our love for them today

all our victorious dead - let us remember them

- solemnly and meaningfully and sincerely -

every beloved one of ours - all our family and friends -

who has passed away from the sight of our eyes

into the quickening Light of the Vision of the LORD;

all those who loved us with the love of God till the end.

Let us rest assured

in the knowledge of the faith

that they are well and that we shall one day

be one with them in God and in all truth - forever.

For life is life and death is death.

- selah -

Glorified be God - forever -

in all His Angels and in all His Saints, alleluia.

---<--@

Everybody have a safe and meaningful All Saints' Day 2011.

Glory to God the Father!

Adoration to Jesus Christ!

Alleluia, peace be unto our nation

and peace be unto all our nations;

good will to all men and women of Peace.

To lose Love is to die.

My Annelies Marie's Legacy

OUR WORLD has not changed, my Anne.

It is still the same world that God has created.
The same sun, moon and order of the seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of the earth
under this same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.

My dear Anne, our world has not changed!

When I contemplate your life here on earth,

during those quiet nights, O beloved of my heart,
I often look up at these same starry night skies
and see those familiar patterns of stars
that I know in my heart looked quietly down on you
just one timeless instant away from me, my Anneka.

A moment seemingly so distant, it hurts me to miss you.
Yet an eternity so close, it fills me with all your love.

It is as if I have you and I don't have you...

And I realize this certain closeness between us:

We are separated only by spaces between our souls;
in what littleness of self that we may each obtain
by virtue of our unique and individual humanity
in the you being you and the me being me.

O my beloved friend, I know you suffered!

I know how much others like you suffered!
From the very beginnings of the nations of Mankind,
'tis the holy and nameless innocents that carry the burden
of the precarious and desperate state of our fallen nature!
The very soil of our earth is soaked in their blood
and the undying memory of their secret silence cries out
like a chorus rising all around us to pierce the heavens -
Almighty God Himself has heard and the season is late.

O my dearest Annelies Marie, I know you suffered!

I know how terribly you suffered but at the same time
I stand ignorant of your personal pain and suffering.
A sacred space exists

between yourself and God alone.

And God knows, I love you enough to want to know all of you -
but I love you enough also to let you be free to be yourself.

I am drawn near you by the lovableness within yourself.
I am drawn near you by the infinite promise love contains.
Of good things I know and good things I know not, that I desire:
All the virtues and the gifts that your friendship brings -
most especially your steadfast hope, cheerfulness and courage.

Today, my darlingest Annelies, here in my present time,

I look out into my own time, full of wars, death and suffering
and wonder at how some may say our world has changed.
I see the same evils and the same sufferings and the same sins.
I see the same terrible injustices that Man inflict upon Man;

nation against nation waste themselves in endless battle.
And I realize in myself that our world that has not changed.

Some may say that the times have changed.

Some may say the world is a different place.

Some may say that the world indeed has changed.

But this it is yet another illusion to lead astray!

For it attempts to run away from the awful truth

that this world is still the same world God created:
The same sun, moon and order of seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of earth
under these same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.
Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

It is the illusions that we human beings create in our hearts;
the gravity and the perversity of our own dark imaginings,
the ancient malice and diverse scope of our own willful rebellion -
those things that make of Man less than himself or herself
in the sins that brutalize the image of the Creator in each of us.
It is these that have changed in us and not the world around us!
It is not the world that must change, my darlingest Annelies,

Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

In order to better Mankind and advance the cause of humanity,
it is each ourselves that we must change for we are changeable.
Because it is through common witness of a good and well-lived life;
of a life lived in peace and friendship with God and others in God;
it is only when the Wars waged inside of ourselves have ceased;
when our minds have found the light beckoning outside of the dark
and the struggle for good will in our hearts have prevailed in us
that a true transformation of human society becomes possible.

So may your life, my love, be for others a simple remembrance.

May it inspire justice, responsibility and discipline in our world.

May it foster further understanding, freedom and community.

May your spirit inspire in us a sense of common humanity

that we may always remember our most basic of citizenships.

This is your legacy as I see it and as I live it, my Anne.

This is your love, my love, that

I now share with other hearts:

Imploring God to bless the seeds He shall plant in our souls today
that it may flower in full into the saints He shall raise tomorrow
for His glory, our good and the good of the one family of humanity.

Thank you, my dearest and most patient friend,
Annelies Marie Hollander Frank, my Miyang.
May God keep you now, may His Peace embrace you,
may His Light comfort you and may His Love surround you -
O forget me not, beloved of my heart, forget me not!
Pray for me, my darlingest, ever as I shall pray for you
until the glorious Day of the everlasting alleluias!

---<--@

I love my Miyang and my Miyang loves me. PERIOD. =^.^=

Laban ng Buhay

Laban ng buhay,

hamon ng panahon!

Gumising O puso,

tumugon sa hamon!

Lumaban sa agos,

pag-asa'y itaguyod.

Laban ng buhay,

iwaksi ang takot!

Manalig sa sarili.

Maging tapat sa Diyos.

Kapwa mo'y mahalin.

Katotohana'y intindihin.

Puso ng tao'y

parang tala sa langit

na sa gabi'y nangarap

at minsa'y nagising

sa dilim at liwanag

at sa umagang parating.

Ito ang kalayaang

hindi kayang alisin

kalayaang sa puso'y

kung bibigyang pansin

kapangyarihang tunay

na pumiling taglay.

O pusong natutulog

gumising sa dilim!

Dusa'y intindihin.

Imobt ay alisin.

Ningning mo'y patikasin,

liwanag mo'y palawakin.

Laban ng buhay

sa kadilima'y ipahiwatig

sa mga pusong nakikinig

lumaban sa agos

tumugon sa hamon

at lumaya ng lubos.

Laban ng buhay,

hamon ng panahon!

Puso ko ika'y tumugon.

Mamuhay ng may tapang,

problema'y harapin,

langit mo'y abutin.

Kung pangarap mo'y

malayang susundin,

kung liwanag mo'y

siyang pagtitibayin,

sa laban ng buhay

kamit mo'y tagumpay.

Laban ng buhay!

Puso ko sa dilim

sa Diyos ang tingin

pangako Niya'y dingin

manalig, maniwala

mangarap ng malaya.

---<--@

Ikaw at Ako

Pilipinas, ano ito?

Ito ang lupain ng pangarap,

Bayang hinirang ng araw

sa puso nating lahat -

isang bayan, isang diwa

isang layunin, isang puso

isang kapatiran, isang gawa

isang umagang pangako sa atin

nang Diyos nating Maykapal,

at nag-iisang Kapayapaang namumuno

sa lahat ng mga Pilipino.

Pilipinas, ano ito?

Atin ito: Ating lahat,

noon pa man, dito sa Ngayon,

at sa kalahatan nang panahon -

dito sa lupa, sa ating karagatan,

at sa lawak ng mga kalangitan,

atin ito, ating lahat,

mga kapwa ko Pilipino -

kapwa kapatid nang Pangako.

Pilipinas, ano ito?

Atin ito: Tayo ito - ikaw at ako,

ngayon at magpakailanman:

Bayang dakila, Inang kandungan,

Tahanan ng ating mga bayani -

punong puno nang kabutihang loob

at pananampalayaya sa Diyos.

Matamis ang magsilbi

sa malaya mong mga kalupunan.

---<--@

Filipino

Who is a Filipino?

But the heart that lives

to love the Filipino

and the one Republic

of the Filipino people.

How is the Filipino?

But through faith that seeks

to find itself alive

in the eternal remembrance

of God and our people.

Where is the Filipino?

But in the will that accepts

the trust that embrace

our lives and our fortunes

together as one nation.

Why is the Filipino?

But with every dream that begins

ever like a single breath

to become our breathing together

of the many into one hope.

When is the Filipino?

But at every present rising

from the deep of Eternity

in the every moment that breaks

upon the awakening reality

of the dawn of a new Philippines.

---<--@

Love our own and others like our own.

---<--@

Who is a Filipino?

Salutation #63

When you say "yes" to Peace you can not say "yes" to War as well.

(New, Old Philippines)

Tell them -

The LORD has heard thee crying out from thy heart

- O my one Filipino nation -

in the weeping of thy widows,

and in thy orphans,

in thy poor and the needy,

in all the travails of thy sons and daughters

and from out of the blood of all thy unforsaken dead

- all thy salty tears -

- all thy crying out to God -

- all thy mourning has not gone unnoticed -

for the one God of all heaven and earth has heard thee

- the LORD is His Name!

Therefore,

God desires a new, old civilization of peace for our people.

A national community such as this world has not yet seen

being cognizant of its own truth and certain of its own humanity.

It shall rise out of the ashes of the last great age of War

- an endeavor of Country, old as time itself, yet new to our exiled earth -

a Republic in His Majesty's Service!

Yea, my people -

that thou may know in thy one heart of hearts

that the LORD, thy God, is the God of all true belonging

and of the hosts that stand in defense of faithful community

- the LORD Himself shall be our King.

And all these things shall fall into their proper places and times

before the countenance of our God;

our original culture of life reconstituted,

the labor of these times re-dedicated

- to the fostering of justice, truth, and equality for all -

and the life of our common peoples safeguarded

by her one, faithful Republic.

It shall be the triumph of the one Filipino nation

who from least to greatest, bound by the freedom of our gifts,

shall cleave as citizens and human beings to each other

unto one ascent, one lineage of hope, 7,107 islands strong.

And Peace shall be our common salutation.

- selah -

How can we know the triumph of our nation

if we can not hear the song of our victory?

And how can we hear the song of our victory

if we can not say "yes" to God today?

---<--@

‎"The hottest places in Hell is reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." (Dante Alighieri)

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! Shalom. Salaam. Peace. God bless us all.

A Prayer to the King

Service is a calling (not an ambition)

The Circular Relationship of the Four Causes

Land of Promise

Glorious Motherland,

Pearl of the Orient Seas,

the fire of our love for thee

pines for thy proud embracing.

Land of Promise,

Cradle of the Brave,

from the tyranny of oppression

thou shalt never yield.

Across thy shining seas

and verdant mountain peaks,

fair winds and thy native blue skies,

the splendor of this hymn and song

speaks of thy vaunted liberty!

The brightness of thy Banner

undiminished in triumph waves,

the glory of thy stars and sun

are lights that shall ne'er fade.

Land of the Morning,

worthy of honor and of love -

our home away from Home -

what happiness it is

should the enemy draw near

to die for thy liberty.

---<--@

(My personal English translation

of "Lupang Hinirang",

the Philippine National Anthem.)

Citizen

My name is Filipino citizen.

The name of my nation is Peace.

Peace means, "we belong".

My work is Freedom.

My ambition is called Happiness.

My calling is known as Truth.

My name is Filipino citizen.

My family name is called Endless.

It means, "I love".

My Country is called Promise.

The land of my fathers is called Bountiful.

The name of my city is Friendship.

The name of my religion is Sacred Life.

My God is called Beautiful.

Beautiful means, "We are one".

My government is Service.

The name of our leader is Servant.

It means, "Great Soul".

---<--@

The Last Fading Away

Who can bear the loss of our soldiers? From all services, they are this Republic's most obedient sons and daughters... Never forget!

O Soul of Army!

Defender of our Peace -
when in battle we weep
for those whose time has come
weep not because of anguish,
our tears are meant not for grief.

Cry not because they have fallen,
those sons and daughters of Country;
valorous souls who gave to us their utmost
and have bled their everlasting witness
to the universal mission of the eternal Army
from which all honorable armed professions
draw their great lineages of victory
Here, at the last fading away -
the quest for that one final sacrifice
the very last soldier to fall

before the breaking of the Day
in the name of Peace and for Sacred Life
in a relentless war that have lasted
from the dawn of Our exile time.

O Soldier of the Peace!
Noble Defender of Country -
You are life preserving life itself
for what is Country but a work of life.
Know you not why you respond
when duty calls you to battle?
Vague at times may your reasons be
especially amidst the desolation of war
and the darkness of war's attendant evils
but forget not what you love
and love shall forget not why you live
and none shall forget you if you shall fall
for in thy Country is thy longevity
Life itself shall be your resting place
and God will forever remember you
His Peace shall forever honor you
for the time you have given others -
more time for building,
more time for sowing,
more time for loving,
more time for hoping,
for kinder days to come.

O when shall the wounding stop
and the healing begin!
O beloved Soul of Army -
when is our last fading away?

Until mankind learns
to be better builders in peace
more than wanton destroyers in war;
until humanity learns
to value Sacred Life
than to seek those paths of death
Heaven and earth shall weep
with thee, O Soul of Army,
but never for those whose time has come
for the lost are never lost
so we must seek them not in vain.
Seek not our fallen with the dead
for life is life and death is death
so let the dead bury the dead!
Let us look for those who are triumphant
not with the defeated enemies of the Peace
but with the living as well as the everliving
for God Himself has declared Peace is over War.

It is for the oppressors of Country
and the enemy of Peace and Sacred Life
for whom the bell tolls
as we sing the songs of our fallen heroes
and their potent remembrance stir
in the hearts of those who yet believe
in the victory of the eternal Army
and in the timeless vision of God
to bring to bear in the name of All that is life
the final wrath that is to come
and bring to pass
Our last fading away;
that one final hymn of taps
at the joyful dawn of the Everlasting Peace
and the breaking of this midnight world.

So cry not because of the passing away
weep for loneliness but never for sorrow
for life is life and death is death.
Let us save most of our tears for those
who yet stubbornly cling to the lie
and believe in the heart in everything that is false
giving rise to all things that inflict evil to our poor world
and bring war and death to our suffering humanity.

For it is always for the reprobate that the bell tolls
to remind to those who sow in War what they shall reap.

---<--@

On Being Strong

Love the LORD, thy God, in everything and with everything. This is the truth.

---<--@

Our precious Starshine -

STRIVE.

Strength is primarily expressed in the masculine.

Strength is fidelity to the truth; a measure of its brightness.

It is the noble glow of its own conviction;

the ascendant magnitude of our every embrace

- of all those living and everliving things -

that belong to the timelessness in our souls.

Strength is secure in its patience

being sure of the reality of itself;

born of the light that understands

the exactness of its own truth.

It is not harsh and uncertain of its own reality;

born not of the lie that in the darkness understands not itself.

Strength is certain in its meekness.

It is a temper of the will that neither rises nor falls

but is even and steadfast against the assault of false things.

It is not a hardness that hides its unfamiliarity to its own virtue;

being established not by ignorance of the value of the beautiful things

it exists to serve and to keep.

It is not coldness. It is not distance. It is not decrease.

It is warmth. It is presence. It is increase.
---<--@