We are Family

If we take this further, All Saints' and All Souls' Days are moments that remind us that our families extend to our community of faith that itself extends beyond the earthly and into the afterlife. We honour on All Saints' Day all the members of the Church Triumphant, all the souls enjoying the beatific vision of God in heaven, among who are the canonized souls we've been assured of and who are surely only a minority of them all! All Soul's Day remind us to pray for the souls of the Church Penitent, those departed faithful who may yet be in a state of purification in Purgatory: that sign of the loving patience of our infinitely Merciful God Who is also infallibly fair and rightfully just. Despite being in the afterlife, one set of souls enjoying their eternal reward and the other being prepared to receive it in sure hope, we remain connected with them by the power of prayers and we are united with them as members of the one, mystical, and undying body of Jesus Christ.

In our culture, All Saints' and All Souls' Days has traditionally been a time for family. Perhaps not in the celebratory manner that Christmas is, but a time for family nonetheless. Some lament that in fairly recent, pre-pandemic years, a growing irreverence have apparently started to creep into the annual remembrance of the departed; for so long before, Undas (or Undras, from the Spanish "honras" referring to the offering of honours or respect) had been a recollected time devoted to their memory. However, such recent shifts may have been signs of a growing and intuitive focus on the celebration of family ties among the living--themselves the legacy of the departed for whose memory they have gathered. In a way, don’t they actually give honour to the dead by the joy that marks the reunion of their enduring progeny?

Thus, All Saints' and All Souls' Days are really about family both by blood and by spirit! These are days we ought to spend by reaffirming and strengthening the bonds between us, be those among the earthly living or among those alive by baptism into the spirit of Christ. However, public safety protocols have shuttered many cemeteries and have halted our annual pilgrimage to those holy places ("campo santo", a now-rarely-used synonym for "sementeryo") where their relics lay buried. This time, we have none of vigils, of nostalgic chatter, of sometimes awkward encounters between much younger generations with elderly distant relatives who come to offer prayers. Then again, this should remind us of another important characteristic of our community of faith: that we remain united no matter where we may be. We may have been deprived of the sacrifice of enduring traffic jams in order to actually be close to where our beloved departed lay resting but we nonetheless may continue to recognize and celebrate our communion with them!

Here are some possible ways to spend All Saints' and All Souls' Days meaningfully, despite being sequestered inside our homes:

1. As a family, sit down together and write down all the deceased family you would have visited or you wish to pray for;
2. Take turns remembering stories about them; make a moment when the family shares and celebrates cherished memories of the departed;
3. Together, say a Rosary for all of them; as an act of loving penance for those who may be in Purgatory, you may wish to say the Rosary on your knees before the household altar;
4. Send in a donation to your parish church as a Mass offering for your beloved deceased, and together attend a Mass in their memory--whether online or, if possible, physically;
5. Voice call, text, chat, or video call other family members to say hello and have a "Kumustahan".

Our physical separation and home lockdowns need not, and truly cannot, hold down our spiritual communion. And in this age where means of communication are ubiquitous and generally affordable, staying out of touch can hardly ever be excused. And especially for our beloved who have gone ahead of us in the afterlife, they're only one prayer away. Saying hello and putting in a good word for them to God won't even cost a single peso!

Let All Saints' and All Souls' Days be truly about family: all of us, whether here on earth or in the hereafter, as God’s family.

The Love That Never Lets Go

where do broken hearts go?

...do they find their way home? 

Some Lenten Scribbles

1. the season

• Lent is properly the time for renewal. (to reset)
• Lent is properly the time for conversion. (to redirect)
• Lent is properly the time for transformation. (to be changed)

• We move from

sin to contrition (awareness of error and remorse for error)

contrition to reconciliation (remorse for error to experiencing forgiveness) reconciliation to mission (experiencing forgiveness to sharing/spreading the love)

• The season invites us to journey from slavery towards freedom—an exodus of the soul.

2. the exodus

• Moving from slavery to freedom is as much an interior journey as it is exterior. (it involves changing one's mentality & parameters)
• We move from slavery to sin towards the freedom of moral choice!
• Indulgence of sin is a “slavery” because, like a drug, it feeds on our compulsions. It distorts what may be natural into what isbase.

[Many mistake giving in to instincts or natural inclinations as freedom and not a slavery. They cannot understand how living according to what is seemingly innately pleasurable or naturally easy can be a slavery (and placing restraints upon them is actually freedom). Consider, though, a twig floating in a river. The twig may think it is free because, well, it naturally flows with the river. But in fact, it is unfree because it is the river that’s actually in control of its destiny—not itself! If the river plunges into a waterfall, the twig will plunge down with it.

Consider, though, if the twig decides it belongs to the riverbank. It discovers that its destiny, its tadhana, is to be planted on the soil—and it decides to swim! Haha. Yes, it decides to swim to the riverbank, contrary to what the river naturally wants. Now that is freedom!]

• The choice of the good is a “freedom” because it brings to fore our capacity for choice. It flexes the will and stimulates reason to aspire and grasp for things nobler than its own concerns.

[A twig, of course, cannot choose and much less cannot swim. But we are not twigs. We are given minds, hearts, and souls with which we can think, feel, and sense (intuit) what is our destiny. Freedom is to choose the good, and not the convenient; it is to choose the best, and not the most pleasurable; it is to choose to submit to God’s will, in freedom, generosity, and love—so that we may truly know how to be liberated! Consider this psalm… (cf. Ps119:30-32)]

“I bind myself to do your will,

            You give freedom to my heart.”

3. the freedom of love

• What is God’s will? That we learn love. (cf. Jn 13:34ff, 15:12ff)
• Thus, perhaps as a fitting commentary to the psalm, St. Augustine said, “Love, and do whatever you will.”

[Love is the precondition for human choice and action. Love is the liberating force, the (de)liberating ingredient, in human life. When love conditions our lives, then we are truly free.]

• God willed to teach us Love through His Son:

         - Love is generosity. He sent His Only-begotten Son… (cf. Jn. 3:17ff)
         - Love is aspiring for the good of the other. …So that we may be saved. (cf. Jn. 3:17ff)
         - Love communes. We are not slaves, but friends. (cf. Jn. 15:15ff)
         - Love is total. All our mind, strength, heart, & self. (cf. Mk. 12:30ff and parallels)

[To love God with all our mind, heart, and strength seems total enough… but to love others as we love ourselves is a reiteration of that: can we really love ourselves only partially? Someone who hates even the tiniest bit in himself is an unhappy person; that one is discontent. But true happiness and contentment lay in being able to love ourselves wholly—to accept our own wounds and imperfections, to forgive our frailties and inadequacies, and still see enough potential in ourselves so that we may not despair and still challenge ourselves to grow, be better, learn, and bloom! Love, therefore, is always TOTAL. Anything less is not love—perhaps, at best, merely affection but not love.]

4. what is love?

• St. Paul provides a lengthier exposition about what love is (1 Corithians 13:4ff):

Love is kind. Love is peaceable. Love is patient. Love does not envy. Love is not boastful. Love is not arrogant. Love is not rude. Love is not stubborn or forceful. Love is not resentful. Love is not irritable. Love does not rejoice in wrong, but in right. Love bears all things, believes, hopes, and endures. Love never ends…

[Consider the descriptive words--they are attitude words! Those are not romantic words… those are dispositional words. This is a checklist of how to answer, “Am I a loving person?”]

5. love hurts… or does it?

• Love. BIG word. It is able to make us whole. It is able to break us, too.
• But is it “love” itself that hurts and wounds us? Rather, it is our experience of being in love.

[When we fall in love, or when we love someone—anyone, even family and friends—we open ourselves up. When we are hurt, it is not so much that LOVE itself that had hurt us! People hurt us, when they do not reciprocate the love we so generously, totally offer… but we blame love.]

• We make ourselves vulnerable when in love. And because Love makes us lower our defenses—we tend to blame Love as if it was Love itself that had hurt us.

[Because we think, if Love did not lower our defenses, if Love didn’t attach our hearts to others, if Love did not make us seek to be loved back, then we wouldn’t have been hurt. Loving is too much a risk. Loving is not worth it. And it’s easier to blame Love, not the beloved. Actually, we blame ourselves for loving at all.]

• This is dangerous because it has a tendency to place limits around Love. Love, then, ceases to be free. It becomes bound by “self-interest”– the point just before it starts to hurt.

[Yes, it no longer becomes “Love until it hurts…” but its ugly counter-reality: “Love, but only just before it hurts.” Because when it threatens to break your heart, flee! Walang Forever!]

6. ever-loving broken hearts

• Our broken hearts are not unknown to God.

[He knows how to have a broken heart. Remember, it was He Who loved us first (cf. 1Jn 4:19)! When He fell in love, He poured out His creativity. And the pinnacle of His creative love is humanity—made in His own image! Meaning, a creature bestowed with His divine capacities—to know, to think, and most importantly, to love.]

• God Who Is Love, in love with unfaithful humanity, has made Himself vulnerable in His incarnation.

[But humanity was unfaithful, ungrateful, and unappreciative. We sinned, despite all the good things He has given us. We’d rather be slaves instead offree. But Love seeks for the good of the other! And so God chose to save us from our slavery (cf 1Jn 4:9). And Love makes the lover vulnerable: and what a great act of love it was that God chose to be vulnerable in the Incarnation!]

• We have hurt Him and broken His heart many times and, in a horrifying way, tortured and murdered Him despite being blameless in anything.

[He sought us. Sinuyo N’ya tayo. He called us back to Himself, through teaching and miracles and chastisements. Because Love is total, He enters into His Passion as an eternal sign of His love that will never give up on us!]

• And Great Lover says, I choose this. Freely. Generously. And, most importantly, lovingly.

[This is not “Love ‘til it hurts.” This is, “Love even if it hurts.” This is, “I will not give up on you.” For Love believes in the beloved, hopes in the beloved, and endures all things for the beloved. Martir ba ito? Yes. For what is martyrdom other than saying, Your good is more important than myself. Don’t think of romantic love only for this—such love is often manifested by fathers, mothers, breadwinners, teachers, health workers, priests, religious, and others who freely choose to put others before themselves.]

• Then He stretched out His arms and showed us the limit of Love—eternity: where broken hearts go.

[Broken heart? Look to the cross. ‘Nuff said.]

• Mero’ng Forever: God’s love never gives up.

[Jesus Christ rose again after the third day. The marks of His wounds were not erased in His glorified body—because Love is forever. What used to be marks of betrayal are now trophies of love; what seem as scars of rejection are now proofs that Love, mercy, and forgiveness conquers all. Jesus came back to His friends who had actually abandoned Him. Hindi ko kayo sinusukuan. He freely offered His remorseful friends His peace, His reconciliation. And it was this experience, clearly fulfilled on Pentecost, that pushed them out to preach the undying Love of the God Who Knows Broken Hearts: the Good News was indeed a Gospel of Love!]

• We must ground ourselves on His love first, and let that condition all our other “loves”…

[We are pushed to a mission as well. During Lent, or what remains of it, how is our love-relationship with God? Is our love-relationship with God the first and foremost relationship in our life? How have we broken His heart? How do we intend to stop breaking His heart?]

• When we stop breaking God’s heart, He’ll keep our hearts whole… being in-love with other people may hurt us, but they will no longer break us—because it is God’s love that sustains us. All are loved in God; God is our ultimate and only affirmation.
• Remember? Sinong makapaghihiwalay… We are no longer afraid. Nothing can touch us. We will love, and love fully, because we are faithfully loved.

[cf Rom 8:38-39. Lent is pointing us to the resurrection. Hopefully, we embrace the fruits of the resurrection in our lives. One of them is a Spirit-moved, faith-directed, Love-inspired lifestyle! When we realize we have been given AWESOME powers through the Holy Spirit! To Love is one of them. May we all be signs of Christ alive to all we meet.]

Some songs (covered wonderfully) that played while this was being developed:

Where do Broken Hearts Go (https://youtu.be/s2qBdL1em6I)

Lift Up Your Hands (https://youtu.be/GKxcvbuHre4)

Sinong Makapaghihiwalay (https://youtu.be/s2qBdL1em6I) *it's almost a sin no one's did a better cover of this beautiful song!

A Random Lenten Thought

i got to thinking about the Filipino word "bida." it refers to the hero or the protagonist in anything--usually, of a story, movie, or play. presumably, it comes from the Spanish word "vida" which, oddly, actually means "life". i'm guessing that the transliteration arose because people would refer to the hero or protagonist as "la vida de la historia"--the life of the story. a hero or protagonist is not merely a position one occupies (la protagonista, or, el heroe) but a function that one performs in the narrative: ser la vida, to be the life.

if i ask, therefore, "Sino ang bida sa buhay ko?", i do not merely ask who is the hero or protagonist or the biggest person in my life; rather, it is to ask, "Who gives life to my life?" who animates me? who infuses meaning and purpose and energy in me? who for me makes life worthwhile? the"bida" in one's life is not merely that person one is most proud of, or that person around whom one's activities revolve, but it is that person from whom one draws energy, joy, and the sense of being. in this light, it is very proper during Lent to ask, "Sino ang bida sa buhay ko?" is Jesus Christ and His Gospel really the "bida" of my life?

this is because it is so easy (or common) to have one or several "otra vida" in life: that other source of life... in Filipino, someone who is "otrabida" is actually someone unwanted who insists in inserting himself into the scene. he is not merely "pumapapel"--someone who makes or finds a role for himself where there is none; worse, an "otrabida" is, properly, a scene-stealer. he draws, or grabs, attention away from the true "bida". he usurps both position and function of the "bida."

if, therefore, i acknowledge that Jesus Christ and His Gospel should be my life's "bida", the vida of my life, then to ask "Sino ang otrabida sa buhay ko?" is actually to search out those things which seek to unseat the Lord in my life! what are those that provide me a false sense of life and joy? what are those things that insist that they are just as important, just as relevant, and just as powerful as Jesus Christ and His Gospel? those things are not supporting actors--they do not serve to lift up the main hero or the protagonist; rather, they ruin life because they make life incoherent, disconcerting, and distressing. no "otrabida" can be tolerated; the primacy of the "bida" must continously be affirmed and reaffirmed.

and then, of course, there is also the "contra vida"--the antagonist or villain of the narrative. but here, he is referred to literally as the "anti-life", the "counter-life", the very antithesis of the purpose of the bida/vida. they are those that just ruin everything, that seem only intent in disrupting whatever good one has set out to do, that put a damper on whatever joy or positivity one celebrates. the "kontrabida" is hell-bent on opposing and unraveling the "bida". there are no depths too deep for his evil, no plans too convoluted for his conspiracy or cunning. the downfall of the "bida" is his sole aim.

to ask, therefore, "Sino ang kontrabida sa buhay ko?" is to ask who or what sucks the life out of me. now, we should avoid the trap of quickly and conveniently naming The Evil One as the ultimate "kontrabida" (although indeed he is). our life's kontrabida can just as easily be someone who brings out the worst in a person, just as it could be any devil hot from hell. the "kontrabida" is anyone, or anything, or any situation that can surely make you forget all your blessings and goodness in a snap! the kontrabida/contra-vida can single-handedly poison one's worldview into something cynical, pessimistic, and desparate.

normally, the "kontrabida" does not win. sure, he may sometimes manage to crush the "bida"--maybe even to the point of seeming utter defeat! but the "bida" rises again to vanquish the even more utterly "kontrabida" anyway. life, though, is almost never as conveniently predictable as a script or a storyline. life's "contra vida" can be a formidable foe that requires years of struggle and patience to overcome--and only because one never lets go of the true "vida": Jesus Christ. He has already vanquished the worst possible human "kontrabida", death, and promises us in His Gospel that the day will come that all other "otrabida" and minor "kontrabida" will be crushed. unless we establish an unflinching loyalty to and hope in this true "bida" in one's life, whoever or whatever "kontrabida" we face will always find a way to pull us down...

our journey, it seems to me, is going to be like an over-extended soap opera lasting our whole liftime. despite the true bida/vida Lord's assurance of triumph, it is still an open-ended story for each one. because our life-story's final scenes will actually be defined by the choices we had made in much earlier episodes. or, if the world is a stage, then life is the play--but there are rehearsals and no reruns. and so, before that solitary and final curtain call, it is important to ask: 

is Jesus Christ and His Gospel really the bida/vida of my life? who or what are the otrabida/otra-vida that seduce me away from Jesus Christ and His Gospel? and who or what are the kontrabida/contra-vida that manage to distort, dishearten, and dissipate me despite the many graces i recieve?

with these three questions, i have a tough Lent ahead of me.

N.B.

"Sino ang 'ibinibida' ko sa buhay ko?" the word "ibinibida" refers to something or someone that i make bida/vida in my life. there are two ways to grapple with this question. firstly, it may refer to something that is not in fact the true bida/vida of my life, but it is something that i merely choose to show others as the apparent bida/vida of my life... or, secondly, it may refer to something that is in fact the true bida/vida of my life and i proactively choose to proclaim and share it with others. the first is a question of one's sincerity or hypocrisy, the second is a question of evangelization. perhaps i should reserve this for Easter. i have enough on my plate for Lent.

sign of contradiction

the house is not an eyesore; it is an eloquent reminder that any celebration should have restraint, that any consumption requires responsibility, and that austerity remains a viable and necessary prophetic tool.

Is Jesus just "one of the ways" to God?

Magisterium teaches that there is indeed some ray of truth in every faith; this does not mean, however, that it is possible that such truths found in others will not be found in ours! when Nostra Aetate stated that,

"The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men,"

it meant that while other faiths share in the Truth fully held by the Church, those the truths cannot contradict the truths already held by the Church.

although it cannot be denied that Truth can be perceived, understood, and articulated in different ways owing to different histories, cultures, and paradigms, essential to the nature of Truth are unity and immutability (that truth is one and unchanging). therefore, with proper discourse based on sound reason, such different understandings, perceptions, and articulations of truth are ultimately anchored on a single, pure Truth.

this becomes relevant when we consider that although most of humanity (atheists excepted) believe in *some* divine being, it does not follow that they worship the *same* divine being! the capacity for faith and belief is a human trait that is a gift of the One True God in order for humans to be able to seek and apprehend Him. unfortunately, the objects of this divine gift is not the same across time and cultures. and so, this makes the person of Jesus and His revelation of the Good News and of God all the more significant and indispensable as the articulation and incarnation of the single, pure Truth!

Jesus cannot, therefore, merely be "one of the ways" to God that is co-efficient and co-valid as others; Sacred Scripture has plenty attestations to this. i accept, though, the proposition that believers of other faiths are nonetheless able to receive salvation by the merit of Jesus' redemptive act--as long as they lived their lives according to the dictates of good conscience. it means that a Muslim of good will (or any non-Christian, for that matter) will be able to enter heaven but *not because* of Mohammed (or whoever they believe in) but because of Jesus (Whom, by faith to their good consciences, they actually followed unwittingly--hence, the term "anonymous Christians").

this second point is actually often my beef in conversations about ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. i have no quarrel with the concept and activity ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, per se. i believe it is a crucial part of Christian vocation to bridge gaps and establish human solidarity. but a Catholic must do it as a Catholic! although this seems to be so obvious, sadly it is not. there are times when the nuances i have pointed out are ignored for the sake of catchy, more readily understandable formulations which are, unfortunately, not always fully in keeping with Divine Revelation or Magisterium.

on a final note, though, i think it must be pointed out that charity must temper all forms of dialogue and speech--for, as St. Paul reminds us, to be love-filled is as much important and as much necessary as to be correct. no matter how right we are, we must all the more be unfailing examples of patience, kindness, and charity.

pax et bonum!