The Devil's Plans?

An anecdote that I read years ago in the Catholic Register goes like this: Satan was making a grand plan to deceive humanity so he gathered all his troops and asked them: What lie shall we tell the world to fall into our traps. One of the little devils came to him and said: Tell them there is no God! Satan thought and answered him: This is not hard - Every thoughtful person knows that there is God. Another devil came to him and said: Tell them there is no right or wrong! Satan thought a little and answered him: But everyone who goes back to his conscience knows that there is indeed right and wrong - It depends on what you make of it. A third devil jumped up and down and said: I found it - Tell them there is time! There is ample time to do as you please. And Satan praised this devil for he found the lie that people would fall for... This lie is particularly widespread in our world today. Let me count a few examples: 1. Advances in medicine have made it possible for humans to live longer than they lived 50 years ago. The average life expectancy is between 80 and 85 years, when 50 years ago it was 60! 2. Today's technology has allowed us to have fun all the time when we can have fun. If not TV, then internet. If not internet, then iphones. If not iphones then facebook. We do not need to bother with visiting friends if we can "text" them our messages or email them. In fact, our kids are more used now to playing electronic games individually rather than playing soccer in teams. Individualism is the rule of a digital society. In fact so pervasive digital technology is today that Alan Kirby of Oxford considers postmodernism to be already dead (Digimodernism, 2009). Digimodernism requires a lecture by itself to analyze the trend in "global" culture. 3. We have no time for each other, although the lie says that we have time! Parents know that it is very hard for them to be together more than one hour everyday, and probably not everyday. Both work and come home late. When parents come home they come to their chores whether cooking, doing laundry, or home-repairs. Meanwhile their children, if there is any, are left since the morning with strangers and are left at home with computers that run violent games. Everyone is busy. And funtime is being choked - If it exists, it is mainly using technological gadgets. 4. Our youth are the most vulnerable and confused. Running between school/university and a new job that has no permanent status, they are divided. In many cases they are suffering loneliness from divorced/estranged parents or carrying too much debt from loans. They hardly find time to have fun. And when they want to have it they end up in night clubs. Some are on drugs or in intimate premarital sex only to find that they wasted their youth. Some get married if they have been blessed and the rest stay unmarried until they eventually wither. In this drama it is important to realize that with no or little offspring, there will hardly be any future generation particularly in Europe and North America. It is called the fertility dilemma! This is our life - our lie! We live a lie that we have time. However life can be extended it will still come to an end! In spite of the goodness we carry, we live a lie that we can make our own life the way we want it, and we still do not understand that life is more than pleasure and more than survival. We live a lie that the most important person in my life is an individual, me. We live a lie that our children can be educated on their own through the new technology - the least calculation is done today by the calculator, handy on computer, rather than through human memory. With the availability of so many things today, we have come to be a bit lazy or probably too tired! Why cook if we can order food? Why sew if we can buy cloth? Why go to work if we can work from home? The digital technology has allowed us much material comfort. Yet we are psychologically too stressed. Although we have time, we are so busy that we feel we have no time. There is hardly time for the family together. There is hardly time for prayer. There is hardly time for God! On the subway, people are either talking on the cell, playing games by themselves, reading a newspaper, or asleep. The little time we have for ourselves is misused. Has Satan succeeded in seducing us, or some of us? Do we really have time? What kind of time? This is a phenomenon about how matter influences the mind and spirit. Eight centuries ago Thomas Aquinas wrote that the proper hierarchy follows from the spirit leading the mind and the mind leading the body senses. He did not know much medicine but his ideas opened the horizon for man to explore natural sciences, and discover the universe in his body and outside of his body. This Angelic Doctor of the Church developed the synthesis between nature and man. If man is to live, he needs to give priority to the spirit without abandoning the needs of the body. Time is not lost if we live it the way it should be lived - the way of true love in the spirit which is the Spirit of Christ. Long ago, our ancestors were wiser for they knew that life is meant to be eternal, and for it to be eternal they listened and clinged to the Master who said "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14: 6). The question to this generation is what John the Baptist put to the Jews of his time "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance" (Matthew 3: 7, 8). Will we heed the call?

Be moderate in everything except in love

I always think of St. Augustine's words "Be moderate in everything except in love." Being moderate has its consequences of not being too liberal nor too conservative - This is the middle road. I attempt to join in my thought the conservative outlook of Ratzinger and the liberal outlook of Rahner, so that in the end I can retrieve from both the truth in as much as it conforms to the Christian tradition as I see it. In the same way, I attempt to join the zeal of conservative Eastern Orthodox Churches (which are real Churches) and Evangelical Communions (who belong to Christ in their unflinching faith) with the more liberal approach of inculturation, openness to the human needs, and Biblical criticism recognized by the Catholic Church done without compromizing the essence of the Creed. This is partly only why I believe in the Catholic Church who alone enjoys the fullness of truth, and still recognizes the goodness found anywhere and in any tradition. Her openness is so great that it encompasses the universe of humanity. God is the source of everything. Since God is Love, the essence of everything is love. Even when I believe that the essence of everything is love, it does not blow me into a radical non-Christian belief because I believe too that non-Christian religions have a share in the ray that its fullness exists in Christ alone. The good elements in these religions belong to Christ and so every good there is in the end oriented towards Christ who alone saves - He is the mediator between God and man (every man). This flows in Christ through the Sanctifier agent - the Holy Spirit who sanctifies all in as much as they receive His urges and grace. As the Creed states, Christ is God from God. He is perfect in his divinity and in his humanity which remain united in his person. The sacrament of Christ on earth is manifested in the Catholic Church who, by God's grace, develops in the fullness of truth and grace (Development of doctrine as expounded by John Henry Newman). Development itself is part and parcel of how Christians perceive the truth - It is not corruption of dogma since it does not alter the organic unity of the sacred deposit of faith, only how it is perceived. This is also in accord with development in all branches of knowledge (natural, psychological, spiritual, philosophical and otherwise) both objective and subjective. In a way, we know more today than our ancestors. It also points to the fact that unity of knowledge has its source in the one God we worship. Knowledge includes experience - Knowledge in the ancient traditions meant subjective experience of the other. In this sense, it is written that Joseph did not know Mary since he did not know her in her inner depth which man and woman naturally communicate through intercourse. In this sense too we never encompass or comprehend God in his essence. The apophatic theology in the Eastern Christian tradition tells us that God is unknowable in his essence. Our knowlegde is limited to what we sense transmitted to us through the mind - which uses the brain as its physical channel. You see from the above the important movement - Rather than focusing on what divides, the focus is on what unites which is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. I think that prayer is that form of dialogue with God and his saints - never exhausted, through the Spirit. As God is a communion of three persons, so we too are created and exist as a communion. The Church, Catholic and one, embraces all people of good will. She is the guiding star par excellence who is always in need of renewal (Vatican II). In the end, the Alpha and Omega, Christ, will unite to his Father all who are saved in Him so God will be all in all (Revelation).

Who is Catholic?

To be Catholic is not synonym with being formally an adherent to the Catholic Church, for the Catholic Church is much more than how it is shown in the world. All people of good will, Christian and non-Christian, are related in a way unknown to us, to the Catholic Church. Even atheists who do good, belong to the Catholic Church. On the other hand, it is not enough to be formally attached to the Catholic Church. The Holy Spirit works in every human person open to His deep and incomprehensible love. Is not God free to give His love to everyone? Then why do we question Him? Even death cannot stand in God's utter pouring love. John Chrysostom the great Eastern saint of the 4th century said that God runs after everyone in order to only find a tear in his eyes so that He can save him. If a fallible man, however saintly he is, can describe God's love in this way, how beautiful is the ultimate reality in itself? And the Catholic Church who is the sign of God's salvific history with man, how can it not be the instrument through which everyone is invited in Christ to the eternal kingdom? Everyone means every human person on earth of any race, of any religion, of any faith and of any culture. "I knock on the door" says the saviour of all. Those who come to receive Him in their hearts and work with His grace are Catholic. This does not mean, however, that all non-Catholics are able to receive the same as Catholics who practice their faith for in the Catholic Church alone exist the dimensions of full unity through the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, all sacraments, Tradition from which the Bible was born, and Apostolic succession. Looking at the big picture, we recall that Christ said "Who is not against you is with you."

Hallowed be Thy Name

The Lord's prayer has this beautiful phrase "Hallowed be Thy Name" which traditionally has been interpreted as the Christian call for giving glory to God. But what is God's glory? In Christianity, it is understood that God is glorified in his creatures. If ancient religions understood glorifying God as an act of slave worship constantly fearful of a distant deity and always in need of the master's favour, the development of Christian tradition understands it as loving God with all our hearts, not out of fear but in awe of His presence. His ineffable love of creation cannot and can never be matched by any love, however deep, given to Him by any creature. And the base of this thought is that God loved us first. In fact, our existence is due to his free love. This is why saints are saints. It is not because they gave God anything he lacked. It is not because they performed great deeds. It is not because they contributed to the growth of justice and peace. It is only because in their humility they loved God as the moon reflects the light of the Sun. Saints realize that their love to God and everyone around them is only a reflection of God's first love. The words of Christ about the sinner who annointed his feet with ointment still ring in our ears today "Therefore I tell you her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much" (Luke 7: 47). What did this sinner give God? She was embroiled in adultery. But because she loved much , she is forgiven. Love is the language of God. He cares about every single creature but never imposes himself. His justice is mercy. And his mercy is love to the end. What the saints do is nothing but love. And, contrary to popular belief, they are not lacking today. Blessed Pope John XXIII (1958-1963) known for his big heart said that in our age there are as many saints as there ever was in any generation in history. The great John Paul II canonized as many saints as all his predecessors did in many centuries. His motto was "Do not be afraid. Open your doors to Christ." And in these days, when the entire Catholic Church celebrates All Saints, and All Souls, it is an opportunity for us to hope that many will be saints, including this generation. The Church always hopes against hope. Albert Camus wrote in his philosophy about the Absurd the myth of sisyphus who was sent to the underworld because he angered the Greek gods and challenged death. His fate was to push a stone up a mountain then watch it fall back to the bottom. His punishment was to go down everytime from the top of the mountain to its bottom to roll the stone back to the top. I see in sisyphus the sign of hope. Sisyphus will eventually overcome his fate - Even if he has to watch the stone falling back he will not yield! Saints are of the same perseverence. God only knows no limit to perseverence in his love that overflows in spite of a sinful world. He surely cares to give it to us. Hallowed be His Name.

The Language of Angels

Last night we had the privilege of listening to music performed by some professionals in the field. Amazingly the power of music has always been linked to angels who sing to the Lord God. Praising God through prayer is only another form of the angelic worship. Choirs and musicians enter, and with them the entire Church, into the heavenly thanksgiving that all creatures owe to the creator and sustainer of everything. We simply respond on behalf of all created things to this eternal Love, God, who created us out of love. How long can we sing to God? It would take us, I think, an eternity because, in singing from the heart, eternity becomes a second, a moment in time. Now I understand that eternity in heaven is not a boring act of mental contemplation but an experience of utter joy far beyond only the mental understanding, although it does not suppress it. In heaven, we enjoy God.

Music is a higher form of language. The language of angels.