Charity A Nonconditional Issue

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Charity A Nonconditional Issue

Is it wrong to give? Negative. I think the basic premise of the idea of giving does not stem from any condition that one attaches to it. Charity is intrinsically bound up in the command of Christ for gospel proclamation. Just as he was healing the wounded physically, emotionally, and spiritually, he did not restrict himself in any way to conditions imposed by circumstances and situations. Just when I give something to beggars does not in any way violate the rules of responsibility. The Savior did not choose the ones he healed, the ones he had given time with, and the ones he rose from death. The command to give is not something accidental where Christians find inadvertently in his following in the footsteps of the Master, but in itself is essentially a part of one’s conviction of following so.

We cannot relegate the concept of giving to the realm of the abstract. However, our faith should dictate our mind to do it concretely even in our midst. Jesus Christ did not remain as a hidden God, but He manifested Himself to the Jews as to be perceived in their senses and absorb in their cognition. We find Him at the epicenter of the life of Israel, working in their midst by liberating them physically from the binds of their disease and circumstances. Heretofore, we who call ourselves Christians should do likewise. We cannot remain consigned on a spot of just looking at our crosses at a distance, but must we take it upon ourselves and follow Him wherever He may lead us.

Therefore, our action of charity is an act of Christ wherever we choose to do it especially to the least of our brethren. A Christian who opts charity among other things does not acclaim himself for doing so, but by being called a Christian, he just follows the commands of the One whom he identifies himself with. "Whatever you do to the least of your brothers, you do it to me." How else can one interpret this except by doing it.

However, the one who gives may be accused of irresponsibility. But I think here we should find my disagreement. Firstly, the command of Christ is non-negotiable. The Gospel addresses these commands specifically without referring to any conditions of giving. The Lord did not state that we should give only until we find it abusive already. He did not put limitations in quantity and quality. Secondly, the admonition is an invitation in the one who receives the grace of faith. Now, the grace moves the man in his subjective capacity to extend help whoever is in need. The response of a Christian is the stimulus of the grace in the heart of the believer. Whoever, whatever, and whenever is the concerned, it does not take into account as to who receives the help.

The help one can give may not always be monetary. It may be in helping someone getting a job or illuminating someone in one’s prudential capacity as to the choices to be taken in a difficulty.

Many times we also fail to take note that giving something is a step to freedom. The liberating force of giving from the oppression of hunger and thirst is just a material example of a higher and spiritual battle each man strives to conquer. The emancipation from sin is both a temporal and spiritual warfare. That is why the Church has preferential option to caridad because giving is an act of love of God and neighbor which is antithetical to sin, the progenitor of slavery, of greed, and of hate.

So the next time you give, always think that you are conquering something which always invites us to act and think opposite to our true vocation as Christian.

November 3rd, 2006 in Religion | Edit |

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Another Quagmire: A Response

← One of Days in Quagmire

Charity A Nonconditional Issue →

Another Quagmire: A Response

As I was reaching for comments with regards to what I have written in my "One of Days in Quagmire", I have found that most did not understand what I have written. At most, a colleague of mine says that it was complicated as a reading. Another had commented that I should be more to the point.

Firstly, as a writer of a topic one has to establish a "helipad" so to speak to make a point. A sentence topic if anyone is keen enough is the statement I made that there is in existence a uniqueness of every individual, and this is being implied by my statement, "You cannot suppress other people’s uniqueness, nor can you forego their similarities." This uniqueness can create tension because of the uniqueness itself. And, I have stated later in the same stanza that conflicts are not preventable and are bound to happen because of, well, uniqueness. And I suppose that everyone should have taken notice of the words thesis and anti-thesis, which are themselves philosophically meaningfull since we are beings that have differences, let alone similarities.

In the second stanza, I have underlined the inherent problem with everyone of us. What then is the problem? It is that anyone may tend to forget that what we hear, see, and feel can have objective reality (that such a thing exists outside yourself and in my example, gossiping) and subjective reality (our own interpretation of the thing that exits and in my example again, gossiping). Taking these NOT into account (the subjective and objective), one can have the tendency to oversimplify things: like making conclusions quickly that so and so has insulted me and judge the situation against your favor. Or, again to oversimplify things by interpreting other people’s minds (like so and so is guilty of insulting me because he is a friend of this). One becomes guilty because of association.

Now in the third stanza, I tried to explain that this is in no way simple since making sure everything is perfect in any interaction is an ideal thing. You cannot expect everyone to interpret a certain thing the same at all times, and our reactions vary from one to another based on our psychology or other factors at that point in time. However, consciously acknowledging this problem (tension in every interaction) may be of great help to construct for us a balanced view of life — that is why I said integrate.

I also point an important factor, which can be a helping hand for everyone who has the same problem: the religious beliefs. At times, our religious beliefs would help us to explain things and overcome by some sort of explanation. One such thing is that my religious belief teaches me to love my neighbor. This is a Christian commandment that is emphasized by Christ. By so doing, I am challenged to give my foe or otherwise a chance to explain herself or himself. But if things will turn out sour, I may likely say that this is some sort of test for my faith on how God will manifest His grace on me by stretching my patience in such unhappy encounter.

This and all is what I would have entailed everyone to understand. I can understand that I might be misreading my readers by thinking that they know the background knowledge that I have. I hope they will put some extra-time to read again and again. I do believe that words carry something that it represents. I do not want to delve this thing in this write-up, or else I will again be accused of being a complicated writer and incoherent at worse. No offense intended to anyone. I am open to suggestions and critiques from critics anyway.

October 18th, 2006 in Friendship | Edit |

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One of Days in Quagmire

Years Have Been

Another Quagmire: A Response →

One of Days in Quagmire

You cannot suppress other people’s uniqueness, nor can you forego their similarities. The tension that exists in the dynamics between the two is one of the learning experiences one can use to ratiocinate developing relationships. For almost two years, I have had quite a lot of these things before my eyes. Though the currents of emotion can carry you down the deluge of conflicts, I can hope for no better way than to exist seeing these things to happen as they should. I believe that there are things unpreventable to happen. Everyday people engage in intrapersonal and interpersonal communication, and it is inevitable that clashes would erupt anytime. The inherent uniqueness of every individual sets in itself a pylon of difference that is in principle a mark of peculiarity. So it raises questions of antithesis if thesis is there in the beginning. What could be an antithesis, but those whose existence itself is marked of his own peculiarity as an individual.

The danger of some individuals these days is to submerge this fact, which is in itself objective, into the domain of their own subjectivity without taking into account the subjectivity of other subjects surrounding them. Like for example, if I am presented with a problem of let us say gossiping, it is quite seldom for some to critically analyze and appraise the problem in question. We tend to subordinate the problem itself under our own subjective interpretation without assessing what could be other factors, which are variables of the problem in itself. The gossiping could after all be another opinion of someone else. Or, the gossiping could just be another emotional let up of someone, whose channeling of a burden inside is one’s way of ego protection.

However, this sort of practical example is an ideal in itself which hopes to be integrated by every individual. We do not make heroes in just twenty four hours. If need be, even a lifetime does.

Another thing that is far important for me is one’s religious beliefs. Somehow, when one is grounded with the positive tenets of one’s religion, it can mitigate potential disastrous effects of temper. More often, it palliates the ill consequence of a bad experience since the ego is open to a supernatural subsidy, which is in itself acquired by faith working through charity with hope.

Nobody ever says it is easy in any way, but how can one see this if this is not made in time and space.

October 14th, 2006 in Current Affairs | Edit |

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1. # 1 Lorvie Says:
   October 16th, 2006 at 5:42 am e

   what is in the sentence up above the moon? can we see any capital letters there? in short, what’s the blah blah all about… coherence and more to the point please. a good writer gives life to the reader and language is not substance nor substance is language.

   in short, what is in the “story”? all that was said can be written in just one short paragraph.

   page 2 please…

Years Have Been

One of the things I liked most during my childhood years were my vacation days in Bohol. It looked for me like an expectation, a joyous expectation of meeting. I cannot reiterate it more than my solid identification of my place of origin. I do not particularly set off this tenth largest island of Philippines, but it seems to me that Bohol has given me something more to differentiate me. How do I say differentiation? It is in the sense that I have an origin that is rooted realistically which can be greatly constitutive of my becoming. Not on something borne out of imagination by someone who knows not their place of "coming from". It is for me of great importance that one has to look at the past, through the present, and project for the future and see how you as an individual has become as part of a larger "seeing". It is as if like the City of God of St. Augustine who sees history: past and present, and constructs the future. A future that is what you want to become, but only in Augustine’s case, a spiritual journey to the future where man meets God. This is where my wanderings in Bohol have been a great solace of memories for me. I have seen the people who themselves were characters of constant stories of my grandmother. She sees with her eyes the way the world unfolds before her. The poignant narratives of people’s idiosyncrasies, practices, habits, religious fervor, folkloric accounts, and many others seem like mythical of those accounts as they were run by incising recollection. She recounts them with levity in most and seriousness at some at times. The way I had absorbed them have kept them in my memories. So much so that the places that they were recounted hold as much vivid recollections as I would actually see them.

The peculiarities of those personages who, and most of them, have gone to their rests have remained in my consciousness, but only so few have taken them by recounts already. If I were to recall them in my memory, they become so magical, as if I am not here but in another place and time. My mind would recreate a world in which I participated in the events that were once part of those characters’ lives. As if reliving them is a reminder of once glorious days devoid of modern guttering.

The world that we have now has reached limitless possibilities, new currents of thought, new ways of doing things, and innovations that were previously hindered by time and space. Yet, adjunct with these revolutionary ideas and technologicaly advantage, the mere man on a corner has been continuously isolated from those pasts where communion with nature and people were a common theme governing life and living. Living in these memories of mine, I could walk hours and hours over hills and valleys; I could sweep across small glades and meadows while walking toward someone else’s abodes for chores and doing the usual errands. While my grandmother could not leave the house just easily as she would want to, we would just wait for someone to walk by peddling for some fishes or what-not’s. Salt and some "kakanin" would just come by anytime of the day. In one of these cyclic occurrences, we could engage in talks idly for a minute or two befor these peddlers depart for some other houses. Most of these talks would dwindle to certain common friends, or in a happenstance, it would turn out providential of meeting two relations whom each has not come to know until then. These sellers of sorts were from the lowlands usually, and it is common that they would usually retrace those familiar households they have been into in the past. It was as if life in the upland was not constructed to suit the demands of a structured society. It was as if man has to live by the power of his own demands, however, within the scope of limitations as specified implicity in the values of the community of which he is a great participant. No wonder, life in the hinterlands develops a more spontaneous activity. But on the other hand, one could sense, indeed, that events and life of the urban society would tend to trickle in these tranquil, rural lands. The encroachment of these influences upset these usual things.

But by the time I had come of age, things grew worse for me. Realities were coming on as if by piecemeal but largely. I had only a few times of these yearly sojourns to this beloved mountain-areas. Much more so when I had to study in college. The grave reality now came right just before my eyes, greedily invoking for challenge.

Times have tempered me. But not my memories of these things would I have bargained just as easily for the world that we are constantly encountering. The de-mystifying effects of this postmodern world render man in deficiency of sorts. A deficiency that falls back on nothing because it has been built on sand and dunes. A child growing on this age knows only a few of the world outside of his own. The computer age has turned man into himself, enclosing one to his own. Man now becomes prisoner of a tube where it has been synthetically constructed and structured for only an appeal for comfort but lifeless in itself. Indeed, I can say that I am fortunate that I have seen some of the best things that life that is more than the human innovations can ever offer.

Life keeps on going on and on, but as a Christian existentialist, I would say that one must appreciate the beautiful things that happened in your life. An appreciation of the memories of once that glorious past of yours can help you move forward in this world full of emptiness and meaninglessness save from the point of faith.

September 30th, 2006 in Current Affairs | Edit |

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The recent ire that the Muslim world has exhibited in these past few days since the address of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, to the academics at the University of Regensburg only exhibited a grave response of a deep problem inherent within the divide between our brother Muslims’ faith and the Christians view of his religion. I think what is the most fundamental relevance and difference between these two monotheistic religions is in its own concept of God. For our Muslim brothers, God is completely transcendent. A being absolutely incompatible with our own categories. What do I mean by this? God for an Islam believer cannot be in any way characterized by any of man’s conception of God. He cannot explain God’s being by his own terms and language. God is so separated from His creation that even His own prescriptions, he is not bound to follow. Contrast this one with the concept of God among Christians in which a Christian believer believes of the Logus, who has perfectly personified Himself in Jesus Christ through Incarnation. Through HIs birth and presence temporally, perfect revelation of the unseen God becomes manifested. That is why in Christian theology, Christianity has employed the agency of reason, which is in itself a gift of God too, to explain through the best of man’s finite ability this God who has become Man. Why? This is because the Logus is reason in Himself. Jesus Christ gaps the wide breach between Creator and creature that only a God-incarnate can undo, thereby revealing not only God-made-man but reason Himself. Seemingly, this difference indeed becomes more evident in the speech of the Holy Father who underscored the relevance and compatibility of faith and reason and how faith devoid of reason can be a justification for violence.

Just to make an appropriate fixed point to begin his discussion of the natural cohabitation of faith and reason and how illumination of reason with faith creates a profound culture that is inherently Western, the Pope posits an example of a dialogue between Michael Paleologus, a 15th century Byzantine emperor and a Persian scholar. Though the conversation was long as transcribed by a scholar, Prof. Khoury, the pope picked up the central theme of the interlocution that has become the source of incendiary reaction of the Muslim world: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman”. Though the Pope puts these words inside his speech, it does not mean that, one, this is his opinion, and two, that this should be interpreted outside from the text of the speech. Clearly, he set examples of why reason without faith is disastrous as exemplified by Europe and the West, and on the other hand, an equally nefarious effect of faith without reason can lead to blind profession of religion and confusion of interpretation.

But the majority of the media agencies have failed to note that the greater part of the speech is mostly directed to the schism of faith and reason in the contemporarry Western civilization of which the Chuch itself is suffering from within and without. That the separation of faith and reason has bred severally antagonistic approaches — a kind of nihilism against anything pertainig to faith. It should be noted that this has indeed weakened current European and Western societies where relativism is palpable from all phases of life, and where a shared common values that has been manifested, inculcated, and inculturated among Western and western-oriented nations like the Philippines has come close to extinction.

What sort of relevance does it make with us Filipinos?

The answer to that is on what influences the Filipinos have most. The grip of American and Western culture among us comes as no surprise considering our history. Sooner or later the redefinition of our values which have been cherished to some degree by our age and the generations before us may come as no later in a generation or two, taking always into account the prevalent effects of cyberspace into our homes and communities.

Thus, the address of the Holy Father shows a timely wisdom at this precise moment of this age and a diagnosis of insidious symptoms that have been formenting for years. What he is concretely talking about is his own insistence of returning to our roots and discover the richness of our heritage that formed us as a nation and as a Church. This is truly indispensable in a world where currents of thought comes coupling with the zeal of change. We cannot dialogue with the world if we fail to instill that which has formed and breathed our being. We cannot bridge authentic relationships of things foreign to our own if we do not know ourselves. Though the Pope has spoken in the name of his faith to redirect Europe in particular, we too as Filipinos may transpose the idea of the pope to ourselves to help us form our identity and consciousness, which we badly are in need of.

September 26, 2006

An Existentialist Community

We cannot often times demand that we have our views being acceded to. However, sometimes things have to be said to infuse it in the consciousness of everyone. I think we do not even have to shout it loud for others to hear. I believe that every Filipino has in him what I think is a grave reality. Probably, the most devastating that we are experiencing in this postmodern age is the apparent indifference that runs across the country. What compounds the problem is the seeming dilution of those values that have been cherished and that have become themselves symbols of our identity. Have you experienced even in our simple day to day activities that we have become reluctant to be forceful to what we usually believe as essentials of our singularity as people. We don’t seem to stop by and open up a little to some unexpected conversations that might come our way every now and then. People have become grumpy themselves when stopped to be asked how they are. It seems that talking with someone we know is a grave violation to some social conventions. Though, this is not a sufficient reason enough to justify that erosion of our values, but they signify something more serious. I can only wish there are Filipinos who can be nationally conscious. Because of some of the unholy things we usually get from televisions these days, Filipinos tend to refocus their minds to something else — entertainment. It is not that this is entirely wrong, but it might be something that we call symptoms and signs that we deny the reality by deviating into that which can occupy our minds and numb our consciousness to stop it from absorbing. Blaise Pascal call it deviation: to flee from something inherently unacceptable because it is absurd. By seeing this, we would hinder from approaching something that we do not like, thereby rendering us anxious of our embracing that thing. So we move away from it by shelling oneself to cover that absurdity. I think we as one nation at one time have experienced existentialist crisis. Filipinos have seen that something that absence of essence in our living. The alienation that Filipinos feel in this existence is what keeps us from doing the things that we do most. We have become busy nationally, but we end up aimlessly. We have not embraced that thing that divides us from accepting a fact and to move on with that fact under our consciousness. The death-consciousness does not mean that our finitude blocks our existence and to accept that hard fact. Though no fault of our own, people begin to see this death-consciousness around them by repeatedly seeing this around: the utter chaotic web of national events, scandals, shameful eventualities, horrendous cataclysmic situations, murders in large scale, and others. The perplexity of these circumstances have rendered us mortal to acknowledge the fact that we know no way out.

September 16, 2006

The Return of a Friend

………Have you had been feeling great anxieties in life? It truly is like being to wait for someone like a medical technologist to take some blood samples from you. You don’t seem to know where the butterflies come from; but you indeed feel it flying around your insides, flapping to escape if chance there is. The days were numbered but saved me from counting it. That day approached as if from nowhere when serendipity only lies some moments away, never nearer but always closer. What an amazing thing it happened; while you were on your own thoughts, a friend but not so a friend until then came with a game card to fill some numbers, and on goes the saying "all’s well that ends well". Heaven knows not of losing someone whom one is a given friend to one. Take it amazingly — who would have thought it possible for humans anyway; such is possible only when it is made possible by Someone who indeed can do that to particular beings like Wilson and Chito………..

September 13, 2006.

The Reason of Which Mine

Oft we seem to undergo some conversational crises. What one speaks has not but all many shades of differing perception on one who hears them. If need be, one has to spend time to delicately weave each stories as to cast them properly. It’d be too unfortunate to fall into a mire of misunderstandings, whence time and effort are to be grabbed because it is necessity itself which forces them be employed. That is in itself harder than one thinks if missed interpretations have set in. So what one does has to be what he thinks can be proper at any time given situation. If silence is a must, then it must be a given and that somehow it is best to suit it as long as it can. One must then try to accept that keeping yourself to yourself is more than what one can imagine — nevertheless it has in itself some benefit. As I often think: "Silence is of benefit," must have some goodwill over matters more rough around the edges.

August 15, 2006

The Day That Ends

Ends do not delay; they come at an instant’s request. If it be known in advance, how happy would one be. But, it seems that man’s lot is lost of much of knowing when. We forlornly are sure that we do not. How bad indeed if we are without hope… it is vain in fleeting times when harrowing descent of recollection of our finitude is at our doorsteps…knocking everytime when attention does not pay a heed….thus, man is like me and man is me….pay not and I am ceased….

June 6th, 2006.

The Day I Was Shouted

Nothing seems to be so fearsome as being unguarded at all at an event. Unfortunate it is when you are left with you beastly id. Even how much you conceal it, it will surface and resurface at the most peak of weakness. Though time and age will temper it, it will die down not so easily. However, if you believe in Christian virtue, things might be not as desperate as it might seem to suggest. Grace is essentially existent. I could be as much barbaric as I was before. Things like when you were insulted face-blank might have turned me into another Atilla the Hun at any minute; however, as much as I would think it otherwise, it was not other than gracious gift of God to sustain amidst insurmountable ego-killing scene. I could only wonder why I was at peace.

I can only rely on one thing to "throw back at" if something hard hits me at the head — prayer! For me and for someone…….

August 2nd, 2006

Trilogy Relationship of 1Kings 21 and Matthew 5

The two chapter verses are parallel in substance owing to the fact that both are planar contrariety. The first taken from the reading of First Kings is read as injustice on the part of a lowly personage whose circumstance happens him to conflict with a ruling King. Now, the reading today appose this account during the time of the prophet Elijah with the radical commandment of the Christ in the new covenant. The juxtaposition becomes contrasting giving the narrative of the Old Testament a concrete example with that of the call of Christ for total self-dying, whereby self-sacrifice in a total adherence to Christ’s invitation for His Kingdom. Now the Psalm, which was taken from the fifth chapter, gives divine attribute-characteristics of the nature of a God who does not turn a blind eye. The just One whose essence is justice personified. Then the trio begins to map a theological mosaic of God who invites everyone regardless of accidence and person to follow Himself, though how much difficult it is, in His Kingdom and progress in the virtues in this temporal sphere, always seeking that which is not for the world and in the world, forsaking it in the hope that salvation comes to those who have conquered the race and accomplished it. In the end, whose injustice has been done shall come to him salvation.

The Hour I Lost It

I cannot even begin asking a question if ever you have experienced losing something that is almost close to water or air, something that is dear to your heart. The pain is almost insurmountable. What is paradoxical and ironic is that it is only a thing. A thing! If you tend to look back before placing yourself after you got that thing, it would look as though it is stupendously ridiculous. Nothing could be more stupid than to think that you are plagued by a thought of a thing. But, it happened; it occurred. I cannot shake it off, it ailed me.

Oftentimes, we become wounded with the thought of a material poverty. That is the physicality of an object, which other people would find it helplessly nonsensical. However, we failed to grasp that there is a reality that lies behind the materiality, the corporeality of an object. There is a meaning behind what we usually see as such. This is what happened when I lost my USB, a universal serial bus. I left it. It pained me.

Here, the pain does not arise from the fact that the objectivity of that thing matters. However, what gives it more definition is the fact that it has something that is more precious than the copper and steel in itself. I grieved when I lost my files. The files that I had been looking forward to possessing. The words I longed to read and learn. The literature that my gaze had been directed for so long now. How did I lose it; how did I allow it to happen. Constantly, I blame myself. I have always blamed myself because of my inability to be conscious at all times and at all costs! Why did I forget it dangling on the USB port?

Have you found it silly that I had been always happy because I possessed it? My mind was feeling the security of having these things in a handy gadget. I had that almost-like contented attitude and confidence of owning things I have always wanted to hold. I felt bold enough knowing that I know I had already it!

In this time of Lent, I have realized that God somehow used that event to let me come to terms, to hand me over to my folly. I had to learn a hard fact: nothing in the world can man hold that is more dear to him than God himself. Nothing can close in the horizon of seeing beyond what you can know - to know that the place of God comes where the knowledge of man attenuates. God lurks in the fringes of man’s unknowingness.

Sundays at Work

When I started to work in a call center, Sundays have become ordinary to me. This means that the ordinary is defined by what we consider as usual and casual. Usual and casual further mean that there are days which we do not consider as common. The commonality here is when what we usually does and think is repeated for a number of days, and a stop is imposed to "breathe" and respite is given. The ordinary is featured by things we regularly do and think and that society is featured sometimes to give condition to this reality. There might be different shades of the way we consider things as usual and casual, but as we approach the generality of things, we find that there are common elements we are under with. One such thing is the number of days in the calendar and regularity of seasons and holidays. It seems to me that the invention of the calendar is an importance that regulated man, and in so doing, in a certain sense, has dictated man. In the ancient civilizations, like Egypt, the patterns of life is governed by the rise and fall of bodies of water, i.e. the Nile River, and in China, the celestial arrangement of stars, planets, comets, and phenomena. The Magis were foremost biblical examples of star-gazers, who took the appearances of stars as signs.

The number of days in a week is divided by what we have usually called the work days and weekends. What comes to mind in the former is a grueling day of toil, and the latter, a cessation and relaxation - a period in a long sentence. There is a stop, which upsets as the continuation begun. This stoppage is a necessary condition toward the word health. The progression in the realm of reality, in the area of the noumena, is a recapitulation of the condition of man's being. The reality of man is a reality of the universe. The universe seeks a balance in its various unstable processes, while man seeks to pacify his burdened heart, in his unceasing quest toward what we call equilibrium. In the vast reality of the universe, what upsets a stable noumenon demands neither gain nor loss (a condition of self-sufficiency). In man, this constant seeking is manifested in the exertion of effort in the days he gives himself to, while in the two days that follows the five, it gives man time to breathe, to cancel out the energy.

But, the feeling of working on a Sunday has left me feeling peaceful.

The Royal Wedding of a Prince and a Commoner

I have had the time of watching the Royal Wedding on the 29th of April from the time that Prince William departed from Clarence House until the second kiss they made on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. I could not help noticing the kind of elements that the watchers had commented on with the event: the most part of it concerns only these - the mysterious gown, which was concealed from the public eyes, and the tiara. The ring did not take that much airtime and much less the readings and the homily given by the Bishop of London. No word was given about the significance of the wedding register being kept in the sanctuary of William the Confessor. No historical background as to why. If there might have been some explanation this was done so, it might have been said by a different anchor or guest from another network or so.

The lens of the cameras zeroed in on Catherine "Kate" Middleton. This concept that the wedding happened for the bride is somewhat misplaced. I would say that this wedding happened because both persons in their freedom had decided to declare this public within the precinct of the sacred; it is not the Church (in this case the Anglican Church) which created the marriage but a man and a woman who bring this to the ear of the Church to be validly acknowledged. The requirement of both declarations is needed to satisfy the legitimacy and validity of marriage. Nowhere did this become a unilateral act.

It is so sorry to think that the concept of marriage has shifted much nowadays from -transcendental-social-sacramental in nature to a more utilitarian-commercial-secularistic experiment. No wonder that the dissolution of any marriages and the rise of divorce appear as something common and regular among the public ear. It is just so hard to combine what appears to be the accepted reality of some that, on one hand, royal marriages only reflects the general fact about marriages of the general population and, on the other, the symbol of stability of British Monarchy in the passage of time. Who could not help wondering that in the Victorian Era, the enduring reality of normative traditional family life was all over the House of Hanover in the 18the century, and in our time, the House of Windsor, though divorces became common only later. In one way, the British Monarchy can reflect the general realities of regular families and individuals, but at the same time, it should reflect the highest nobles, the highest aspirations of not just the British, but any persons at large. The political institution of the British Monarchy did not just happen yesterday, but it came down to us in changing worlds. It speaks of an enduring reality that helps us understand that there are some things that will remain.

The latest showcase of this marriage is always a window into the future for the Prince just marrying is a successor of the present Queen. Though he will be a mere symbolic monarchy (if things will remain as is), he will still represent the institution, the British "ancien regime", which always arrests our attention as we are enticed into living only in the present without any point of reference of the past. We do not pray and hope in an unhappy ending of the couple; we rejoice in their perpetual vow as they continue to hold on to those words spoken once and for all in Westminster. The bad thing, though, is that the church they belong had long ago condoned divorce and remarriages, which fly before the face of Jesus' very command. They have to go back to the time before Henry VIII singularly annulled his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, during which time he was still the Defensores Fidei. They have to go back listening to the teaching of marriage of the ancient Church handed to the Catholic Church of today. If they had chosen to bind themselves in the precinct of their religion, then it is but correct to say that they had relinquished their own freedom to the freedom of the one which acknowledges what they had declared. This other freedom does not judge from the arbitrariness of the same kind who wished to relinquished their freedom, but of a different kind, a kind that comes from without - a without that may bring something new, something different from what we have commonly accepted. This something from outside should be harbored through a means that channels this something new and something different. It is only but logical that we should listen to this channel through which we listen this news that comes from outside, an extraneous reality that demands and coerces us and imposes grievous ends. However, we have come to know that this extra gives love, hope, and faith. It is consoling to know that what this extra is does not leave us to our own, to the caprice of our wills, but journeys with us, walks with us, and talks with us. It dialogues with our weakness and with our strengths. Who knows us from the beginning and pulls us always and always from the pit of darkness.

There is one thing that we know: the secularists cannot claim a total victory; they have yet to undergo the corrosive test of time. They have yet to verify their experiment and conclude from the premises. Until then, we have to hold on to what we have held so far, to the tradition that we have been handed with. In these times that our dearest beliefs have been assaulted, when we are closed in from all directions, there is only thing to do, though it is hard, very hard to follow through, but to stand as witness, to act as that news that brings gladness to others who have started to accept the ideas of the enemies. Nowhere this is more felt than in the events that we have just seen lately, the wedding of two promising individuals.

It is our prayer; it is hope.

Annunziata

"Et ingressus angelus ad eam dixit : Ave gratia plena : Dominus tecum : benedicta tu in mulieribus. Quæ cum audisset, turbata est in sermone ejus, et cogitabat qualis esset ista salutatio."

So says the Gospel of St. Luke. The text was taken from its first Chapter after the account of Zachary's encounter of the same Archangel Gabriel. The contrast of the two encounters is evident: the unbelief of the priest of Aaron to the belief of the Virgin, the young woman in the prophecy of Isaiah to King Hezekiah in his stubborness. We could ask what could possibly be in the mind of the author when he recounts these events? That the disbelief of Zachary has been arrested by the consent of the woman to and through whom salvation comes; that movement from the downhill of one's disobedience is uplifted by the simple words of the seemingly naive and ignorant country girl: "And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to your word." This striking difference is held by one denominator - the common will of God - He pushes the hour actively into the history of man in that historical moment of His salvific plan: the rise of the precursor of the Gospel to give voice to that prophetic signal of Isaiah (The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord has spoken. The voice of one, saying: Cry. Isaiah 40: 3-6) and the Word: "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth" (John 1: 14). The noticeable dissonance of the two texts finds its synthesis in the acknowledgment of the Baptist as he on the riverbed of the Jordan in Bethania pointed his finger to the One who came for baptism saying: "Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said: After me there comes a man, who is preferred before me: because he was before me. And I knew him not: but that he may be made manifest in Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water. (John 1: 29-31)"

What can we make of this Zachary in the temple? Of his situation and person, what can we gleam from him?

My thoughts do not pretend of a biblical scholar's, and I am simply sharing my own simple meditation from the point of a faithful. The biblical texts come to us not as a subordinate under the whim of anyone who dissects it nor an imposing master that enslaves and coerces us at the cost and expense of our freedom. The scriptures arrives as a gift and offering of God to share in His life - His triuned life. Through the Holy Writ, we are given a window into the eternal life of the three persons in one.

The person of Zachary finds its different expressions and forms in the movement of man in his endless search of explanation to the reality of his history. And, not just to explicate reality but toward the vestibule of understanding - the understanding of what comes to us from without; the understanding of what imposes upon us. Man is circumscribed by his own limitations, in his own limited capacities. Therefore, it is for this reason, of man's search of comprehension of things that surround him, that Kant explains that the subject is not in himself passive before the thing-in-itself but actively constructs in his mind the elements to explain the things before him, we find that Zachary could not simply connect and assimilate the outside and revealing reality of God and what was before him with the algorithm of reality he has simply come to accept and subjectively constructed: "And Zachary said to the angel: Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. (Luke 1:18)"

Our knowing of things comes in direct contact to a thing not from our own. The mind that seeks rational explanation is in itself good, our constant and ceaseless restlessness to grasp the highest and the most elusive of things square with the sublime nobility of our being created by God and bearing His own imprint. This unremitting aspirant to the truth seeks to know that who is truth Himself, the logos in His countenance: "And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moves upon the earth. (Genesis 1: 26-27)".

Where did Zachary fail?

There is always this danger of man to surround himself with what he considers the given. The natural rhythm of life radically imposes in Zachary the limits of his view of reality. With this kind of supposition is dogmatically asserted and taken to the extreme, man encloses himself, walls himself up, which ends up limiting his horizon and his aspirations. He delimits himself to the exclusion of anything that might contradict his paradigm. Zachary which in his heart does not open himself up to that transcendent activity of the intervenor of his reality risks a fall of his own. He is a priest the dispenser and mediator of man to God, who should have better known this mystery, but could not accept that his God could work even within his own world. This was his sin, and this will be ours too.

This an error of our time, which Christians can easily be swayed. This positivism of our culture that accepts only the scientific method of testing and experimentation as reality and given, then we, too, are on the slippery slope of muteness. When we become dumb, we are in a state of division with our relations and with our surroundings. We are in a failure to be known, heard, and understood. Like the Tower of Babel, this points to the effects of personal sin or the sins of history.

To be saved, we have to let God puncture this enclosure, this hardening of our minds and our hearts to let this revelation penetrate our understanding. In the process of subordinating ourselves (shift of our common view at sometimes a great loss and pain of those things we accrue to enhance our ego) to the will of God, we surrender to Him those things that inhibit us from "going into the House of the Lord (Psalm 121)", to the joy of meeting with the Lord.

The all-holy Virgin.

Mary was kneeling when the angel visited her; she in prayer was humble before the Lord. Mary lives near the boundary of the geographical area which Israel has considered the gift of their election. She lives under the threat of the influence of the gentiles and unbelievers - Romans, Greeks, and Persians. The odds were not on her side. The circumstances and the repercussions of her Yes would have run her into the Mosaic Law, whose rigid interpretation of the local Rabbi, could get her stoned to death. While Zachary lived within the shadow of the temple, closer to the epicenter of the Jewish life, the blessed Virgin only knew too well the life of rabbinic faith in the inconsequent Nazareth; while the office of the priesthood of Zachary symbolized in its liturgical act the prayer of the nation of Israel, Mary was in her tiny room down on her knees for her personal devotion. Zachary had all the privileges attached to his being a priest, father, and man, Mary was to the eyes of all a woman, weak, and insignificant.

In the life of faith, salvation is seen in the eyes of the anawim, the poor of hearts, which was concretized in the remnants of Israel during the time of the Babylonian captivity of Israel. These were stripped of their political rights under the guardian of a vicar of the king of Chaldea. To these remnants, the vision of recapturing Jerusalem and their lands - thus salvation and redemption from sin in the new dispensation - was most clear and strong. Thus, the expectation of the messiah is harbored in the hearts of those who are awake - in the constant conversation day and night of the One who comes without news, in those who kept their lamps burning as they await their bridegroom. At the time of Jesus' coming, all Israel was on expectation of the rise of the messiah, but only the rarest of the few had heard it clearly. Whereas the enclosure of Zechariah of his own world isolates him of this expectation, Mary in her heart had heard it audibly. Thus, when the angel spoke to her, she knew in her heart that it has come - the way to Calvary has begun in her little village, the sign of contradiction is clearly initiated in her own space, time, and flesh.

The texts of the Annunciation finds its most credible witness and authentic interpretation in the life of the saints, in whose lives God is borne again and again, in whose lives incarnated the word addressed by the angel. The constant danger of a society that functions only by its own knowing, doing, and acting is undoubtedly on the road to its own demise and perdition. Only in the constant listening to the word of God, thus, man is able to reorient its path to the way to God, to a new of way of seeing and knowing things not from our hands but from the might hand of the Lord.

Habbakuk-Psalm.95-2.Timothy-Luke

On this Sunday's readings, faith is subserved by the dimension of time; the immanence into which faith bears itself up requires the aspect of waiting, of anticipating, of expecting, and of suspending. Habbakuk at which time he has found himself amidst the destruction, violence, contention, and strife in the land so dear to him shows us our impatience to grasp what we long though it be noble and essential. In the quickness of our asking things to come in our own way is the inability of ourselves to stay on a specific part of history, to bridge the gap from what we do not wish to look and gaze to that of the vision of peace, prosperity, and goodness.

In the life of faith, in the midst of God amidst the vicissitudes of change, of time and space in its shifting phenomena, the Psalmist commended us the joy of living in our journey in the dusty road of the "desert". We are invited to the "joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!" Within the accidental nature of living is the essential nucleus of faith, which this singularity is a radiating source of happiness. Thus, today does not pull us down to its ugly realities but that the belief which finds its completion in the tomorrow to come has come to the today and energizes us. The painful experience of the Prophet does not tarry our movement to the Lord, does not suspend us from kneeling and bowing to the Lord.

The question then arises as to why does one find still that unbreakable thread of joy within the seemingly pointless and endless doom and failures and frustrations? The answer is found in 95th song of the Psalm: "harden not your hearts". Essentially, in this "softening" of heart to the Lord we find that ubiquitously wondrous life that sustains us. This mildening if you were harks us back to the listening to the Word - to the kneeling to hear: "O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!" The confidence one feels under the truthful Word is summed up in the words of the Prophet upon receiving the response of God: "For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end -- it will not lie. If it seem slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay."In our attitude toward that which we focus our ears now gives us the strength to live that belief of which we bear. Thus, it does not matter to the person who has the eyes of faith if time and space and history plunge us into the darkest hours and vileful situations. For the Lord does not push us away, but toils with us in seemingly human way of waiting and anticipating.

If in the point of view of the Prophet, one is justified in his act of faith, in the consistency and perseverance of his heart, the community receives this individuality and particularity of a personal conviction of that belief now that is shared in common in the Ekklesia, the Church. It is within the Church that the Apostle to the Gentiles in his admonition to Timothy in his second letter. In so much that the Church is large enough to include all races, nationalities, political affiliations, and gender, it finds its definite and concrete unity in the Episkopoi, the Bishop, who presides within the differences and persuasions inherent in the realities of the community. In this cathedra, the seat of the overseer's teaching, the bishop exercises his ministry in the "today" of the Church but listening to the "before" of the tradition. This traditio of the Church is summed up in the Pauline words: "Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus".

It is then in the Church, in the most particular way, in the office of the Bishop, that the content of the Gospel is most heard and is shared by the faithful surrounding him. Just as Paul had instructed Timothy to "guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us", so too the common faithful should stand firm of the evangelio that has been given and heard in an act of that unitas.

It is this faith that is objective in one way and subjective in the other that finds its expression in the Gospel of Luke. Is it not our longing itself, in the deepest part of our hearts that we vocalize what the Apostles have found in their beings: "Increase our faith!"? Amidst the uncertainties of life, we do not hinge ourselves in the prevalent dictum of a society in change. The rapidity of life's successive events and circumstances will find man confused; oftentimes we are tossed in the ravages of conflicting ideas and thoughts that challenge our cherished values. It is in only in that mustard seed of faith which gives us impulse to bring about the grand works of the Lord, the saving power of God in the world gone awry. This attitude of faith is given life in the words of the Lord: "We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty". It is this profound conviction in our hearts nurtured by that truth, which sustains us and to which our will has been anchored and our intellect is focused that we travail in the valley of tears, in the world we oftentimes desolates and is desolate. In that faith spoken as words of necessity of the Prophet to bring about the Kingdom, which finds true manifestation and image of the Church in sojourn on earth, in the unique sacramental way professed in the office of the Bishop, and in that mustard seed which is determinate beginning and source of that which gives rise to wonderful things of the Lord, that the three readings radiate from a sole source in the Triune God. Thus, we can say "Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!"