Mercy is better than sacrifice

Jesus, on Easter morning when she appeared to Mary Magdalene and called her by name. Everything about her you forgot: her sins, her past. He, source of perfection and the perfect One called her the imperfect and miserable. Therefore, is this not so for each of us also this year?

For all that we considered negative 2011 could be transformed by the mercy and love of God into negative.

Even this year He is the savior, the healer who calls us by name.

Who are we then to judge? Mercy is better even than sacrifice.

New face of God: a God-Man crying why God has forsaken him

Post modernism is real. Rhbill, contraception, divorce bill, anti Church, anti clergy.  It appears that modern man, influenced by unbridled secularism is shouting: God leave us alone!.  On the other hand a modern philosopher, explained that modern man is like a man holding a torch in midday shouting, where is God? where is God?  God seems to be absent, more so secularist thinking pushes him aside, which I think, is unconsciously in as much as they presumed that God should not enter human, legal, and social affairs.

On the other hand, when reason becomes the rule of the day, and the more science, technology and rationality is developing fast the human spirit looks for something beyond and transcendent.  We cannot deny the inner yearning of man towards the absolute, transcendent being.  And the more God is being pushed aside the more that man seems to feel His absence.  Man is homesick of paradise, of communion with Him, of His loving presence. He shouts, where is God? where is God?

So the pendulum continues.  Secularism is a reaction of too much wrong notion of God and too much absence of  the old notion of God would bounce into a deeper yearning and union with the true God.  The man who cries “My God, why have you Forsaken me” is at the same time the source of the return of a more true and loving God.

Do I condemn secularist thinking to hell?  Do we need to shun the atheist?.  I would not dare to do so.  They open for the new dawn and springtime so that the true God of history, the God who made Himself man be more evident in its true face, which is the Resurrection, be more "known" once again in history.

But one needs to be patient, loving and merciful, like Him on the cross.  Post modern man is the new face of a God-man, who cries why did God forsake him, and the true face of God will be once again savoury experienced by him.

 

Morning Views from a room :)

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An old but new church

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We concelebrated mass in a church of the Sacred Heart whose parish priest fetched me kindly from Zurich airport. We did after our corone blue lunch was digested.

The drive to our final destination in Bex was about two hours with the beautiful swiss landscape. A stopover and sharing in car and a short rosary we then arrived.

Experience of church and love of those in center crowned our trip. Beautiful fraternal encounter which could only be explain not only by sacramental brotherhood but by the past years effort to be faithful by everybody. More has yet to come but I prefer not to write hem here but instead in my heart. I will be offering these following days to those of you who believe in Love.

Doha stopover, preparation for the unexpected

Now we are landing for Zurich. The pope in Spain ended the world youth day and announced it will be held for the nest time in Rio de Janiero Brazil. Two million evangelized evangelizers. Was happy to be updated while in Doha by radio vatican magnificent images from Rome reports.

A stopover in Doha was a place of preparing myself to be with Jesus aided by the events of WYD. A purification and a detachment of the graces received in this past spiritual hear to be able to welcome hopefully the graces reserved by God to His Church through this unworthy servant.

I could not but praise God and say the Magnificat in this day of the queenship of Mary. She has been always on the way. I hope that like her we were able to give Jesus, only Jesus to our seminarians, priests, and the local church. How could I thank more? With all participants in this meeting (150 I was told) I will contribute my part to make this presence more a reality as much as I could to make the church more beautiful. Amen.

Pics hastily taken from NAIA and Doha

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Jesus is our rest

The desk for the transient had a short line. It's four o'clock in the morning. Some minutes after entering the quite lounge someone stood up as if waiting for me to arrive. Another ushered her hand and there lying in a slightly hard coach the structure of which is not really for sleeping but for just sitting comfortably. All of us on the other hand would like to get some sleep. Even the mosque beside are occupied by men who lie down on the carpet which was supposed to be for prayer. Families singles and all kinds. But I am always struck by mothers taking care and giving preferences to their kids though sometimes they are quite mischievous. In that room to my wander and I do not know what sleeping position I did, sleep was granted. In waking up diabetis was high but I injected only the normal dosage. I do not want to have a hypo The meal ticked they gave me said "heavy" all beCy with carbo. So before boarding I figure out another dose of insulin. The airport in early morning is very peaceful. Morning prayers again is said through my faithful iPhone. So I decided to make a little walk. There were free duty shops and a kind of hotel inside. The one in the lobby is obviously a Filipino. Trying to make him feel at home I spoke also in Tagalog asking about the system of accommodation. Although a friend Carlo told me about this I bothered myself to ask how to avail of it. Answer it depends on your ticke and if you are a transient foe more that eight hours. I known ticket is the cheapest so I figure out there is no hotel. I did not need it anyway for I feel rested already. Rested with whom. "Come to me" Jesus said. More than anything else, from a person who does not even know where to lay his head would say "Come, and I will five you rest." How true it is!The desk for the transient had a short line. It's four o'clock in the morning. Some minutes after entering the quite lounge someone stood up as if waiting for me to arrive. Another ushered her hand and there lying in a slightly hard coach the structure of which is not really for sleeping but for just sitting comfortably. All of us on the other hand would like to get some sleep. Even the mosque beside are occupied by men who lie down on the carpet which was supposed to be for prayer. Families singles and all kinds. But I am always struck by mothers taking care and giving preferences to their kids though sometimes they are quite mischievous. In that room to my wander and I do not know what sleeping position I did, sleep was granted. In waking up diabetis was high but I injected only the normal dosage. I do not want to have a hypo The meal ticked they gave me said "heavy" all beCy with carbo. So before boarding I figure out another dose of insulin. The airport in early morning is very peaceful. Morning prayers again is said through my faithful iPhone. So I decided to make a little walk. There were free duty shops and a kind of hotel inside. The one in the lobby is obviously a Filipino. Trying to make him feel at home I spoke also in Tagalog asking about the system of accommodation. Although a friend Carlo told me about this I bothered myself to ask how to avail of it. Answer it depends on your ticke and if you are a transient foe more that eight hours. I known ticket is the cheapest so I figure out there is no hotel. I did not need it anyway for I feel rested already. Rested with whom. "Come to me" Jesus said. More than anything else, from a person who does not even know where to lay his head would say "Come, and I will five you rest." How true it is!

Am Mijares

God's time is distinct

In somewhat fleeting time the plane is arriving in Doha. Having prayed maybe three rosaries and listened to the breviary three timesnot mentioning a quite balanced but heated supper and midnight dinner which also served as my breakfast or was it supper? We are now landing. It's good I did not forget my medications insulin included. With a full stomach and perhaps with a high glucose level which I could feel on my eyes the instruction for mt connecting flight announcedseems non understandable. It is another station of a penitential life with it's own joys which grows from loving the cross. This might be a good preparation for our meeting. I do not know if there would be a place to rest for even it is past nine pm my biological time is actually two am. Just keeping myself awake by writing this on the convenient and portable I phone. But now I have to be ready for real landing thanking God for at least all are safe.
Am Mijares

A long and lonely Trip?

On the day when i have to check in for a long and lonely trip, the pope had celebrated the mass with he seminarians in the Almudena cathedral in Madrid. I hope that our here seminarians, our selected delegates to the 26th world day which is being held in Spain could attend. I know there is a simultaneous congress for and of seminarians in the outskirts of Madrid but our delegates have organized already before their iterinary together with the other Filipino youth delegates. Just concluded was the via crucis in which the artistic and antique statues from all over Spain were showed in front of the world as the world is present in Spain. The pope invited the youth to consider and take a look at all sufferings encountered as part of Christ's. Interesting was that they requested youth who have undergone real sufferings in life http://bit.ly/pgKIZb And here I am traveling alone to a meeting-retreat in Bex, Switzerland. I wish I could a priest companion with me like years before but . . .

Well in the stations of the cross Jesus was practically alone. It qas for gum intensely very long In part what would be a reason to complain? Not all could travel with all the expenses and requirements for a visa. More so everything is providence. And even a seat was offered to me with leg space unexpectedly. God's live has been always present. And God is everything. Why complain? With any trips
In our lives is never long, love has no bounds and it never lonely, God is always in our company.

Am Mijares

Why is God closest to us in moments when He seems to Abandon us?

Abraham, going up to the mountain of sacrifice, together with Isaac knew that he has to offer his son. It is what is called human sacrifice, sometimes practiced in early primitive religion. There was a need to establish the truth about God, Yahweh, in is life and therefore God himself put him to the test, an absurd test.

With the promise that God will make his descendants as many as the stars and having only one legitimate son, Isaac, this same God, asked him to offer his son as a living sacrifice. Abraham, deep in his heart feels the pain of loosing a son for the sake of this self-proclaimed God whom he did not even knew totally. It is only by faith that he follows this calling.

Isaac however, has no idea of what is going on till a certain point that he was looking for he victim. With all the evidence around him, he finally understood that he will be the victim. Surprisingly he succumb to the idea and, if I am not mistaken, offered no resistance. But deep inside, we could enter into the helplessness of Isaac, and even doubt that Yahweh is the true God. How would a God believed by his father Abraham be such a cruel one?

He could have felt a certain abandonment, especially that of his own father. He is being sacrificed like a pawn. The love of his father is lesser that the love to a Being whom he does not even know. Anger, frustration, mixed with blind trust could have been inside his heart. Certainly, we could ask: Was he not abandoned by his father?

Here we enter into a paradox. In as much as Isaac feels this abandonment by his father Abraham, the very same father feels at the same time the suffering of offering his son. In as much as Isaac feels that his father is not in his side and leaves him alone to the point of death, Abraham at the same time, who loves his son dearly, suffers pain in an even more degree. In as much as Isaac is in darkness, Abraham his father, knows perfectly well what his son is undergoing and is closest to him.

We could understand a little the similar experience when Jesus the only son of God, nailed of the cross, dying, cried out: "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" The father in heaven, in a certain sense is closest to His only son, when precisely His only Son feels the abandonment.

God is our loving Father. When we have to grow, and make decisions as if on our own, and we feel abandoned by our heavenly Father, like in the case of Isaac and Jesus, since we are all sons in the Son, Jesus, our Father in heaven, in those times and occasions, is precisely closest to us.

Where are all Aklan media persons gone?

The installation of the the new bishop of Kalibo last July twenty was not only cathedral filled but also graced filled. Men and women from all walks of life, ecclesiastics, tricycle drivers and professionals alike were moved by the vivacity, simplicity, genuineness, magnanimity and an obvious freshness of the new bishop. Those who attended the celebration could attest the emotions and the tears that flowed from all of their hearts, a certain outpouring of the spirit. Those who have seen and heard him over the radio surely, together the clergy who early waited for him for almost two years, could certify that finally God manifested His love for his people of the diocese of Kalibo.

Bishops are ultimately gifts for the people by God. God whose presence is constantly challenged by an on going secularized society continues to manifest His love for His people. For since the moment of creation God wished that His presence be felt as Someone who walks with His people. This was realized fully in Jesus Christ who lived with us in history and continuously through the Church becomes present in the here and now. Through the apostles with bishops as their successors as a group or as "college of bishops" who are also human, through the sacrament of ordination they are assured by Jesus Himself of his objective or sacramental presence. The belief of the incarnation affirms that Jesus is true God and true man. The church is therefore both human and divine; both are interpresed in one another, two natures but one person. What is important is to make both in motion. Grace works through nature though it does not destroy it. Having in mind these two aspects, we as human persons in the diocese of Kalibo especially the faithful who belong to the so called aecular world, have to be creative and are invited to give time so that through them the divine could work. We could ask why, after the grace of the installation we Aklanons seem to go back to our normal lives forgetting the grace of the installation aware that it could go down the drain. Certainly God needs time but God in a sense also needs us to work so that the divine be made more present. We believe that the Holy Spirit has beeb active since and has been working inspite the Bishop was absent. On the othet hand would it be good to do our part? God has given us the grace of a bishop. Certianly He does not any grace want it to be waisted. We are invited then to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit through the successor of the Apostles, the bishops. And for this listening is the key and should go beyond certain formalities or protocols which even our new bishop seems to ignore positively. Would it not be good that lay persons in mass media profession help us be acquainted more with the new bishop? Almost a month has passed since his installation. I have not heard of any media person from Aklan who has he courage to ask or interview him about his perceptions of Aklan and the church in particular. For many Aklanons except perhaps for those priests who know him and his parishioners the vast majority has to know more about his person his mind his plans etc. Would it be a big service not only to the church but to the whole people of Aklan? Perhaps through his human words the divine plan could be opened little by little. And the plan of God for humanity even for Aklan is always for the best for our beloved province.

New face of God: a God-Man crying why God has forsaken him

Post modernism is real. Rhbill, contraception, divorce bill, anti Church, anti clergy.  It appears that modern man, influenced by unbridled secularism is shouting: God leave us alone!.  On the other hand a modern philosopher, explained that modern man is like a man holding a torch in midday shouting, where is God? where is God?  God seems to be absent, more so secularist thinking pushes him aside, which I think, is unconsciously in as much as they presumed that God should not enter human, legal, and social affairs.

On the other hand, when reason becomes the rule of the day, and the more science, technology and rationality is developing fast the human spirit looks for something beyond and transcendent.  We cannot deny the inner yearning of man towards the absolute, transcendent being.  And the more God is being pushed aside the more that man seems to feel His absence.  Man is homesick of paradise, of communion with Him, of His loving presence. He shouts, where is God? where is God?

So the pendulum continues.  Secularism is a reaction of too much wrong notion of God and too much absence of  the old notion of God would bounce into a deeper yearning and union with the true God.  The man who cries “My God, why have you Forsaken me” is at the same time the source of the return of a more true and loving God.

Do I condemn secularist thinking to hell?  Do we need to shun the atheist?.  I would not dare to do so.  They open for the new dawn and springtime so that the true God of history, the God who made Himself man be more evident in its true face, which is the Resurrection, be more "known" once again in history.

But one needs to be patient, loving and merciful, like Him on the cross.  Post modern man is the new face of a God-man, who cries why did God forsake him, and the true face of God will be once again savoury experienced by him.

 

We need objective standards like we need grammar in a language RH BILL discussions

Varied opinions were put forward in the RH BILL discussion which was going on, if not this hot month of May, we could say that it was already been started many years ago.  Scientific arguments were given and presented, together with more pragmatic and moral ones.  Many times it went to the sphere of religion and faith which is undeniable and even was used by pros and anti RHBILL.  The reality of God, the former would say does not have a space in a secular society, while the later say it is indispensable to the argument. 

The existence of God is a must and in many ways, we could not deny the influence of religious beliefs in forming a nation or a society.  The fact is man is a religious animal and in one way or another considers his existence as something which is dependent of someone who is beyond and transcendent to himself.

Even the so called atheists who, I may say are really men of other convictions, are convinced of their belief on the non-existence of a God.  At least they are convinced of something and they are in fact doing a lot of good works for man.  However, the mode of acting then is influenced not so much by a belief on an absolute being but by a set of ideas, and claims that is should be basis of their mode of thinking.  On the one hand this denies the existence of the transcendent Being but on the other hand it opens to the belief of a secularist mentality and makes it a substitute for the former.  It denies one and affirms the other which substitutes it under the name of freedom of thought and freedom itself.

This is a line of thinking that starts with the Cartesian principle “I think therefore, I exist.”  “Cogito ergo sum.”   The basis of existence is not the “fact of existence” itself but on” thinking.”  Reason and subjective thinking becomes the standard.  Reason in itself is essential of our being human beings since it is the thing that makes us different form the animals.  It becomes dangerous which subjective thinking becomes the absolute standard.  If one  believes that his thinking is the standard then, he will also impose this thinking on the others who might think otherwise.  Or the other has the same principle then inevitable the one with “power” will win.  The “will to power” became in fact and existentialist principle of some philosophers.

But of course, existence is first to thinking.  I exist first then I could think.  “Thinking” then is not a principle of existence .  It should be other way around:  “I exist, therefore I think”

But for the Cartesians which is really the cause of many present global conflicts, thinking became the standard.  The problem with this is: everyone has his/her own mode of thinking.  Without any objective truths, then we are heading towards a world war; and we have learned enough from the past two world wars!

The process quite unnoticeable is:  When one removes and side tracts from the existence of God, then man and his thinking/reason becomes his substitute.  Since morality comes from an objective standard of right and wrong, under the banner of freedom, (which is really its abuse), subjective relativism, i.e.,  each according to his own thinking becomes the rule of the day.  When there is no objective standard of morality, man himself will become his own standard.  As is obvious in history, when man becomes his own standard, his will to power, will become his own self-destruction.

It is clear that when one takes away morality, they reason would have its own dynamics.  Inevitably, it is leading itself for other immoral conclusions.