St Elmo's Fire Station

CORRUPTION IN THE GOVERNMENT
The issue of corruption is as old as man.
The bible attests to the veracity of this statement. Corruption starts with deception. Deception is the devil’s magical wand. The serpent deceived Eve into eating the forbidden fruit telling her not to die, contrary to what was told by God. Not knowing, that the death being reffered to or meant by the uncreated Creator was the termination (mortality) of man’a spirit. Man was deceived by Satan. The end result is man’s corruption. Man is rendered weak and vulnerable. He becomes corrupted. The reality of corruption thence becomes intertwined with humanity.

Today, the issue of corruption is getting the spotlight of the societal stage. The setting though is not Eden but the vast and open forum of governance. Satan is not employing Apple in his effort to seduce man this time but bundles of money. It is not so much about the fruit any longer as the tree itself, made into pecuniary currencies. Man is again deceived by the serpent. In exchange of money, he forgets about the common good and the interest of the community. He thinks only of filling up his bellies, not minding the needs and struggles of his fellows. He is now obsessed with gloating in his own riches (what he has) at the expense of humanity’s extinction. Corruption takes the course of its vicious path again because he forgets that the Man (Jesus) already ended such cycle long ago when humanity nailed His hands and feet on the wooden cross. Jesus cut the tree and made it His throne so Satan would have no platform for his cunning tricks.

But what is man doing now? I think, religion today has to help debrief man again about his own origin and story, his narrative and purpose. Or else, the Hegelian pendulum of history will not stop from swinging back and forth.

THE ADVANTAGE OF A TRAVELER
There are more advantages than disadvantages to traveling. One gets to see, discover and experience more novelties and stuffs than staying home. It can be safely presumed that when a person travels, if he or she is just sane and keen, a plethora of learnings and inputs spanning and scaling from cultural to historical, social to ethical, economic to political, religious to behavioral, demographic to geographical, will be unfolded before his very eyes. All these give the person new perspectives and worldviews and therefore, make him a page ahead of the home buddies. That is why, no less than the illustrious saint, Augustine of Hippo, asserted long ago that “those who travel once, read only a page” in the narrative of life’s possibilities.

LONG LAY OVERS ARE REAL
Thrice going to Croatia.
Twice coming home.
We just have to face these occurences. Especially nowadays that travels become synonymous already with human existence. Planes are crisscrossing the planet like bees swarming across the world. Airports are getting busier than ever. Sometimes, airline companies, for security, economic and other legitimate reasons, they cancel or make adjustments with their flight schedules at the disadvantage of their clients. That’s why, in an effort to appease the situation, they compromise, and most of the time those bargaining strategies offer the travelers a much better benefit, of course in exchange for the wasted time. For those travelers who care less on the materiality of time, such incidents become opportunities. On the one hand, for those who are constrained by time, or rushing themselves to catch an important schedule, such may be an unwanted nightmare.

PRAYER BEFORE THE HOLY EUCHARIST
(to be prayed starting Ash Wednesday until the conduct of the Congress)
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LIFE IS LIKE CRUISIN’
Most of the beauteous realities —
The changing hues and textures
Of places and people as well as
The pungent and sweet memories
They touched and tickled —
While on board a ship or shuttle
All run fastest when they are seen
Through a thick glass panel
Or a window pane.

THE CATHEDRAL OF PALO

My life is God's first choicest gift to me.

The second is the confirmation of my membership to His Church and of my citizenship in His Kingdom in baptism. With it, my life assumes an impersonal dimension because by then I am ushered to the community. I live not anymore for my own sake. I learn to groupie and not just to selfie.

The third is my priesthood. I am able to actualize to the full the germinating giftedness of my life through the ministerial priesthood. Life's meaning becomes more vivid and conspicuous because I am able to serve others and offer to them the gifts God has entrusted me. In this humble way, I claim in my heart to have hallowed His Name.

Today as always, I break my song of thanksgiving to Him for such a tremendously priceless gift of the priesthood. As I celebrate with the Archdiocese the anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral of Palo, I clasp my hands nearer to my heart as a sign of my renewed dedication to the ministry which I so received through the imposition of hands by the Archbishop then, the Most Rev Pedro R Dean, DD way back almost fifteen years ago at the sanctuary of this Cathedral.

ECONOMY OF THE THREE-IN-ONE

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, the community of the three divine Persons sharing the same majesty and glory --the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. After the celebration of Pentecost Sunday, the Church gathers again to celebate "in spirit and truth" the mystery of the God whom she recognizes as the object of her faith, hope and love.

We may have different notions who God is, depending on how we experienced Him personally in our lives or how we have been taught by someone who encountered Him in their experiences. But of course, objectively speaking, the reality of God, His Being, can only be grasped and apprehended by man for as long as He revealed himself. His reality cannot be a subject to our individual opinions. To know Him, even on a partial note only, is to pay critical attention to His gradual revelations.

IF ONLY

I just finished baptizing three children this morning after my 6am Mass. After reading the Gospel, I gave a very short reflection on the mandate of Jesus to make disciples (Mt 28:18ff). The mandate has twofold plan of actions to do, namely, baptizing people in the name of the Holy Trinity (RITUALIZATION) and teaching them to fulfill the teachings of Jesus (EVANGELIZATION). These two are inclusive and complimentary of each other. Each course of action is ordained to perfect the other. Perhaps within the cadence of Hiawatha's poetic simile, "As unto the bow, the arrow... Useless each without the other".

Today, after years of implementing these two reciprocating courses of actions, we can qualify perhaps our observations from the optics of an evaluative retina. There are already remarkable results to these apostolic efforts as verified in the valuation of the Christian life of the faithful. But there are also challenging results as greater percentages of those claiming to be Christians still belong to the "ritualized".

If only those entrusted with the apostolic mission (the hierarchy) care enough...

If only Christian parents, who equally share this mission by virtue of their own baptism, care enough...

If only every baptized care enough to fulfill the Master's mandate to fulfill all His teachings...

If only... We care enough to understand the mandate of Jesus and consider it as our own crusade and mission in life...

We could have been spared from having and imposing upon ourselves such inhuman measures as killing if only to wash the dirty linens of our society...

We could have been more free to walk our alleys and streets at night without being threatened and suspected as criminals...

We could have been happier and not living like paranoids who can't breathe normally without the fear of being mistaken ...

ST. ANDREW CATHEDRAL

Last February, I joined my brother priests on a group tour to Singapore. The first day of that short respite was somehow tiresome. When we arrived at the hotel from the airport, I literally dropped dead on my bed. Not able to wake up on the agreed wake up time, I was left alone in the hotel. So I decided to go around the city on my own. It was a bit awkward and scary as the place was still foreign to me even if it was not my first time to be around.

In my wanton wandering, I got curious on a unique structure. From a distance I know it was a Church. But I wasn't pretty sure if it was Catholic. My pristine curiousity thence brought me to the entrance of the Church. I daringly went around and finally got into its sanctuary. Through the inscriptions and some postages hanging around some portions of the Church's wall, I realized it was the Cathedral of the City dedicated to St. Andrew, the Apostle.

That was the very moment I told myself, indeed nothing is without sufficient reason. My being left behind by the group was not wastage at all. In fact, it was providential as it gave me the opportunity to get a pinch of the mysterious and the religious in a supposedly mundane routine. The tour was tranformed to a pilgrimage.

GOODBYES ARE THE SADDEST

I am now about to leave the confines of my rectory for a Home Mass in Ormoc. But before finally doing so, let me post first this caption I was able to save in my cam roll a few months ago. It touches me again today as my blended family --OCCCI -- bereaves over the sudden demise of a good fitness comrade, a workaholic employee and a loving family man.

Nobody entertained the thought Rolando "Jhun" Doyon is leaving the rows soon. He was just appointed a week ago as the new cashier of the central office. But time has cut short the present. He is now going home to heaven! Everyone in OCCCI will surely miss him, his happy and serene dispositions!

Now everyone will start to understand the lyrics of the favorite songs Jhun used to sing erstwhile. My condolences to his closest in the workplace and beyond!

FIRE AND PENTECOST

It is interesting that when the Spirit descended on the first Christian community, tongues of fire were seen alighting on the disciples' heads. Why fire?

Just thinking loud on some corelations:

1) Fire destroys. It reduces everything to dust save the spiritual dimensions of a given enraged reality that cannot in any way be subjected to destruction. When the Spirit hovers upon the disciples, quite surely, their human frailties and individual unworthiness must have been burned and reduced to ashes. The destructive elements in them were surely brought to an end making them less unworthy to carry the demanding mission laid on their shoulders on the birth of a new Church.

2) Fire occasions newness. When old houses get burned, their owners are forced to put up a new home. When the disciples received the Spirit in forms of fire, new perpectives and a fresh sense of dedication started to sprout in their hearts. Interest and passion to charter new phases and travel new places to fulfill the mission work occupy the largest portion of their conscious volition. An unusual level of confidence creeps surreptitiously the interiority of their apostolic nerve. A stable and distinct sense of security possesses every artery of their fetal conviction of the resurrection.

3) Fire provides warmth. In olden times when heaters were not yet a fad in places where winter is felt, houses usually have their own hearth or fireplace where members of the family gather around to warm themselves from the chilling night. In tropical countries like the Philippines, we don't probably have the same understanding and appreciation of fire as those in the Antarctic and Arctic territories. The Spirit of God has to descend like fire because He knew, human as they were, the disciples at times are not exempted from becoming frigid. They need therefore a warmer, a Paraclete, that would motivate and cause sincere fellowship among themselves. They need a real inspirer that would push them to put into flesh the tenets and teachings they heard from their Master. They need a trailblazer that would assure them always that they are following the Way, preaching the Truth and living the Life of Christ, the Risen Lord.

Of course, more can be added as there are indeed many and various correlations one can think of to dovetail what I have initially articulated. But let mine be limited to three only as a way of paying honor to the Triune God who has completed deifying the whole galactic milieu with the descent of the third Person.