A Prayer for the Victims of Terrorism

Almighty and Ever-Merciful Lord, I praise You for providing mankind with a beautiful home and the capacity to make it a better place than before. I praise You for giving us faculties for reason and religion; and with them, the pursuit for truth and justice. It is with great sorrow, that this wonderful world and its prosperous people have been corrupted with evil. As it was at the birth of Your Church, Lord, those who do not know of Your love are persecuting those whom You have called to your service. Innocent Christians of all ages are having their bodies desecrated in the name of power, disguised as religious motivation. Innocent, peaceful Muslims are also being attacked by heartbroken Christians who lack the wisdom to discern that Muslim extremists are people corrupted by sin, not motivated by faith.

Lord, please, welcome into Your House the people who have died at the hands of so-called jihadists. As you have done for St. Sebastian, St. Agnes, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Stephen, St. Lorenzo Ruiz, St. Pedro Calungsod, and the newly canonized martyrs of Korea, please, welcome the fallen victims of terrorism into your arms and let them sing of Your glory with your angels and saints forever. Let them enjoy Your everlasting grace in Your presence where there is no more pain or hunger or sickness or hatred; where they only cry for joy.

For us who seek peace in the land of the living, let us be governed by Your wisdom and love. Let us not be swayed by vengeful anger but be driven by the pursuit of justice and mercy.

And for those who continue to challenge You by slaying Christians, Lord, it is clear that in creating them in their mothers’ wombs, You have kindled in them the burning desire for worship. The Evil One has replaced their fire with the poisonous smoke of violence. Touch them, O Lord. Do not forsake them. Save them from the fires of Hell. Born from the seed of Ishmael whom You have delivered from the desert, deliver them from the Evil One that pollutes their hearts. Born of Ishmael who was born from Abraham, they are Your children, Lord.

Restore us into unity. We are united in You. Let us all be an instrument of Your peace. Amen.

A Glimpse of Pope Francis

When the Lipa City Chapter of the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals announced earlier this week that they would volunteer in the SM Mall of Asia to be a level of the human barricade along the path of the Papal motorcade, my family immediately jumped at the chance. My parents and older sister are members of the steadily growing community of businessmen and professionals who strive to “change the face of business” by putting God in the center of their career and use their hard-earned wealth to help the less fortunate. Until this announcement, we had been discussing where we might see the Pope best.

Pope Francis’ acts of humility and words of wisdom are reminiscent of Pope John Paul II’s similarly radical actions. Just as Saint John Paul II encouraged interreligious dialogue and the Second Vatican Council opened the doors of the Church to the laity and women and the youth, Pope Francis’ gestures of love and openness has inspired us all that as he is human like all of us, we are all invited to follow in his footsteps. Just as Jesus Himself washed the feet of his disciples, we are all invited to lead by service.

To see Pope Francis and hear him speak while he is in the country is something I was not about to miss. Volunteering to be part of the human barricade was an opportunity. We would be up front, just behind the policemen and the army appointed to stand along the SM Mall of Asia to keep the crowd from getting overexcited and getting hurt. The BCBP was to serve on SM Mall of Asia prior to the Pope’s Meeting with Families in the MOA Arena.

My family met with the other BCBP volunteers at 4:30 A.M. outside the Blue Sapphire Hotel where the West Lipa Chapter held their Saturday breakfast meetings. We boarded our rental bus and traveled to the empty lot along Seaside Boulevard, about three blocks away from the mall. When we arrived, the police from the Pasay City and Makati City Police Departments were already in uniform and having their breakfast out of Styrofoam containers. A small group of young cops were even musing to themselves, “Yeah, this is how cops have breakfast: On the floor!” They were sitting on the floor with their backs against a tall metallic electrical tower. Even at 7:30 in the morning, I could feel the joy bubbling in the air. The cops were undoubtedly exhausted from doing the same job the night before, but they cheerfully babbled among themselves and warmly welcomed us civilian volunteers as they gave us a rundown of our tasks and theirs and how we may call them for help should we need it.

Due to the approaching typhoon, the weather in Metro Manila was unusually chilly and windy. The sky was partly cloudy. The sun peeked through the clouds from time to time, but it didn’t roast us too long. Even if it did, our spirits were never dampened. We waited at our spot near the main entrance of the mall where the Pope was to pass, on his way to the Arena. We waited for ten hours. During which, the screen outside the Arena showed a live broadcast of the Pope’s activities: From his Welcome Address in Malacañang Palace to his Papal Mass in the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros.

Because the Manila Cathedral was mainly attended with the clergy, Pope Francis’ Homily was primarily an appeal to the local clergy to serve their respective congregations with love and service and humility. He encouraged the clergy to practice what they preach.

Somehow, that stirred something in me. It got me wondering what God was trying to tell me. How can I be a better member of the Catholic Church than by just singing in the church choir every Sunday? God was asking something more of me, and I wondered what is it about me that I have to change. God was making me look inward and reflect upon my weaknesses and know how many there are. These reflections continued as I waited five more hours after the Papal Mass.

As soon as the Mass was over, the people began to gather toward the steel barricades separating the walkway from the driveway. The police took their positions outside the barricade and the army took theirs on the other side of the barricade. We in the BCBP stood behind them. My father was worried that the crowd will push forward and squeeze us against the army guys and hurt all of us. I wasn’t afraid. The people who frequent the SM Mall of Asia were typically upper-middle and high class people who were educated and don’t need to be told what to do twice.

With two rows of people in front of me, I would still be too short to see the Pope clearly when his ride drives by, so the army guys offered to let me squeeze between them. Meanwhile, a policeman asked my younger sister to record a video of the Pope with his Samsung Galaxy because their orders were to face the crowd in case anybody does something stupid like climb over the barricade. Touched by the cop’s dedication for his job, my sister gladly obliged.

The crowd became thicker and we at the barricade were forced to stay on our feet for five hours lest we lose our spot. The energy went high up when the last hour passed and we eagerly waited for the screen to show the Pope coming our way. People began to scream with glee as the Pope’s entourage passed along the Nagtahan Bridge, then Taft Avenue, and finally EDSA. We watched him keep standing on his open-air Popemobile, fearless and joyful as he waved to the crowd.

The army and police officers were just as excited as we were. They weren’t fazed by fatigue. “Once I see him, it would be as if the sleepless nights were nothing,” they said.

The screaming became louder as the motorcade reached the end of EDSA and circled the rotunda to turn south toward the MOA Arena. “Hurry!” the army guys called to me and made room for me at the barricade. I wanted to scream along, but I was overwhelmed. He was coming. And soon, the white Ford truck with the simple fiberglass shield passed, carrying the Pope, clad in white, smiling and waving at us. He was in front of my eyes for exactly one second.

It was the most amazing experience. That one second was worth the ten hours of waiting outside the Mall of Asia. It didn’t even matter that I wasn’t able to attend the Meeting with the Families in the MOA Arena because tickets weren’t readily available to volunteers. What really mattered was that I got to see the Pope, and he was only ten feet away from me.

In the days that followed, I was left wondering what God was trying to tell me through Pope Francis. The Sunday Mass coincided perfectly with the Feast of the Santo Niño; the Gospel retold the narrative of Jesus rebuking his disciples for trying to send the children away. “Let the children come to me,” He said, “and do not prevent them. The Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

The Command Chaplain Father Rene told us about how he went with his family to Villamor Air Base to see the Pope as he traveled from the airport to the Papal Nunciature. “I went there neither in my military uniform nor in my clerical garments but as a civilian,” he said. “And just as I experienced my hairs standing on end when I saw Pope John Paul II in 1995 when I was a seminarian, I experienced the same with Pope Francis.” I was stunned when Father Rene mused about how, upon seeing Pope Francis, he’d wondered how he can change for the better.

As I pondered upon the Papal Visit’s slogan “We are all God’s children,” it came to me: I must cast aside the hardness in my heart and be less judgmental. I must come to God like a child and look upon my neighbor with trust and and not let my pride get in the way of my capacity for mercy and compassion. More importantly, I must refrain from my classist attitude. It’s making me a hypocrite and a slacktivist.

I’m not going to enumerate any more of my shortcomings; those are mine to identify and correct. But certainly, the Papal Visit has left a mark upon my heart. I hope the same is true for all.

My Deepest Regret

Have you ever had a memory that haunts you to this day? I have.

First, I’d like to say that I’ve been a great admirer of world literature since high school. I’ve learned by then that good literature is not limited to “canonical” works and that even some works considered “obscene” by the conservative community is worth some literary merit. Among these are the stories of D.H. Lawrence and the poems of Sappho, a Lesbian poet. Whether or not Sappho was a lesbian is a subject of debate; she was, however, a Lesbian, a native of the island of Lesbos. And if you’re wondering, yes, that’s where we get the word “lesbian”. And believe it or not, our Bible has its own share of erotic verses, and there’s nothing dirty about it. The way I see it, sex is wonderful, it’s beautiful, and if it feels so nice, God must have made it that way.

I remember learning the value of happiness in Philosophy and how that applies to ethics. Apparently, we human beings do things to make ourselves happy, right? We buy stuff because the happiness that certain objects—books, CDs, iPods, cellphones, laptops, or elaborate home theater systems—satisfy us. But according to St. Thomas Aquinas’s writings, which are derived from Aristotle, the ultimate happiness is achieved from Union with God and our good deeds on earth eventually lead us there. In that ultimate happiness, we would want nothing else. The way I understand it, sex is an imitation of that Union. Get it? Union?—sex?—pure joy?

But I am not going to argue about the value of sex; being inexperienced in the matter, I feel it is not my place to discuss it in depth. Instead, I am going to discuss the value of erotic literature—religious erotic literature. And I’m not talking about King Solomon’s surprisingly graphic Song of Songs.

When I was 16, a high school senior, a visiting professor arrived in the school to give an anti-pornography lecture. I had absolutely no interest in pornography at the time. And having almost absolutely no knowledge about sex (except having learned only as recently as the previous year how it was actually done), I wasn’t able to evaluate all the visiting professor’s ranting properly. In the six years that followed, I learned that she was a self-righteous fundamentalist who doesn’t know what she’s talking about and has never even seen actual pornography. She thinks online games that bear images of scantily clad, unrealistically big-breasted warrior women are examples. If she knew what she was talking about at all, she would have brought up fetishes like rape fantasies and such, and pornographic films that cater to such fetishes.

I say this because near the end of her lecture, she summoned audience participation and asked us to give examples of pornography. This memory makes me cry. The second person to give an example was a 15-year-old boy who gave the Kama Sutra as an example. And the idiot professor, unwittingly proving that she is an inept lecturer, didn’t know what the Kama Sutra was. The equally stupid boy explained that the Kama Sutra is a manual of sex positions. The professor was scandalized, and exclaimed that she had never tried out different sex positions. Alas, a majority of us didn’t know any better either.

Although I had already known at the time that the Kama Sutra is one of the most important pieces of Hindu literature, I had no idea how to explain that sex has its spiritual value. I kept quiet, more out of shock that the Kama Sutra is seen by these morons as pornographic. My deepest regret is that I didn’t bother to at least raise my voice and fist in protest.

For those who don’t know anything about Hinduism, let me explain their spirituality. Similar to the Five Pillars of Islam, the Hindus have what they call the Four Main Goals of Life or Purusarthas. Those are dharma, artha, kama and moksha, essential values that a person must fulfill in life as he goes through the four ashramas or stages of life, namely Brahmacharya (student or scholar), Grihastha (householder), Vaanprastha (hermit), and Sanyaasa (ascetic).

Kama refers to one’s pursuit of happiness by means of sensual pleasure. Although their highest spiritual goal is beyond this world, Hindus understand that it’s also important to make their earthly lives enjoyable. It makes life more meaningful. Sex is regarded as the height of all earthly pleasure. So Hindus take care to make sexual intimacy special.

That’s where the Kama Sutra is involved. Sex positions are not the only contents of the book, although they comprise the bulk of it. The book also contains advice for touching, kissing and relationships with concubines and courtesans. I’ve heard (or read) that the Kama Sutra is essential for a Hindu bride, indicating that this book is considered the key to a successful marriage.

The emphasis on sex positions has its own spiritual value. Given that each position is named after a body of nature (like a flower, a tree, or a celestial object) brings the human person back to his origin in nature. So sharing that with a beloved brings intimacy to a whole new level, doesn’t it? And I’m aware that this might not apply, but given that sex is an imitation of the Ultimate Happiness (i.e. Union with God), would it also echo the Hindu belief that each soul is to someday unite with Brahma?

It is important to understand that although the Christian doctrines tend to be rigid, it’s wise to avoid looking at other religions as subordinate. Hinduism values sex differently from the way Christianity does. For Christians, it’s a bit of a taboo topic, but not for the Hindus. For them, it’s so wonderful that it is meant to be upheld, a treasure to be cherished. There is nothing obscene about that. So when they read the Kama Sutra and practice its contents, it is not to indulge their lust, the way people subscribe to porn sites just to see naked people getting busy; on the contrary, it is to enjoy life while it last, and at the same time conforming to their spiritual obligations.

Pity I learned all of this too late. I can never forgive that stupid woman for misleading a room full of impressionable minds, and I find it hard to forgive myself for letting her do it. Pornography serves only to serve people’s lust; the Kama Sutra does not. End of discussion.

Fundamentalists and Hypocrites

In my teens, I was under a struggle with my faith. Then, when I was 19, upon learning that God can help those who have been seriously hurt, like ex-atheist-turned-Christian-rock-star Lacey Mosley, who has been outspoken about her faith since she was rescued from suicide at 16 years old, I thought, How could I doubt He can rescue me, too, when she got bigger problems than I?

I was raised a Catholic, and I loved to read Bible stories. My favorite parable was the one about the Parable of the Talents, but the one that struck me the most was the Parable of the Unforgiving Slave. From that, I learned to take Jesus's two powerful commandments seriously: 37Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” In relation with the Parable of the Unforgiving Slave, I'm going to focus on the second commandment.

I've been a YouTube user since 2007, I think, and I've come upon many atheists, who, despite their blatant refusal to understand how faith works, have earned my respect because of their intelligence that I could only wish that they find find God and accept that He loves them. Sadly, most of the rest of these internet atheists are trolls who bash Christians and Christianity for the sake of proving the invalidity of the Christian faith and religion in general. But what breaks my heart even more are the Christians who shove their religion in people's faces and pretend to know so much about their faith but totally behave the opposite way of how they're supposed to.

God gave us free will so we would love and serve Him with all our heart. Even if we turn away from Him, we are free to go back. We are made in His image and likeness, so we are expected to act by our divine nature and let others think and act on their own. We are not to impose our faith on anyone; the most we can do is encourage them.

Just last night, I came upon an arrogant Christian in the comments section under a video with a Nine Inch Nails song called "Heresy". He (or she) was arguing with an atheist, trying to prove the existence of God by explaining the "order of the universe". I knew he was trying to do what St. Thomas Aquinas did in Summa Theologia, where Aquinas strained his reason to explain how there is a God, and with that, he filled out a big, fat book. Thomas Aquinas was a brilliant man; even so, I don't believe that explaining God with all his human reason was a piece of cake. That the Christian on YouTube attempted that in a single comment seemed to me so arrogant to the point of being ludicrous. I genuinely felt very bad for him and the person he is arguing with because the Christian guy won't get respect, and the atheist would not understand where the discussion is going. I gave him a piece of my mind: "It's people like you and your 'just because' arguments that make Christianity look bad. You're not making any sense. You don't give out such broad points and expect people to understand you. If you want to prove God is real, you show it, not shove it." That was fair, wasn't it? But he lashed out at me with "its people like you who should EAT A DICK lololol".

An earlier comment controlled my urge to lash back, and it made me feel heaps better. "... In case you read this, I believe in God as well but I don't shove it in people's faces and talking down to people because they don't. You should try it, stop being close minded. ..." I guess it wasn't worth it to fight back. I already did my part on showing him how to defend his faith; if he doesn't listen, let him face the consequences. For someone who believes in God, he surely has no idea how to show it. Christians are supposed to show love and kindness, even to those who spite them, for 'tis in this way that others would learn how it is to love the way that God taught us.

Arguing with a Non-Catholic

Just a few years ago, I reaffirmed my faith in God. My participation in the church choir helped better my understanding of my faith. As a Catholic, I also believe in the intercession of Mary and the saints. Non-Catholic sects perceive it as worshipping Mary and the saints instead of God; I would like to point out that it doesn’t work that way.

I’ve had at least one encounter with atheists challenging Christians to debates. At first, I thought it was difficult, but I spoke too soon. It’s a little more challenging when a fellow Christian—non-Catholic—criticizes Catholicism and brands it as a phony. There’s one Christian YouTuber than outright bashed Catholicism on his MySpace blog. I was so not pleased. Since I don’t have a MySpace account, I commented him on his YouTube profile. I was relatively calm, but I can not stand that he accused Catholics of worshipping Mary or the Pope, and also said that the Catholic Church is a phony Church made by man, which is ridiculous.

“Don’t bash something you don’t understand,” I told him. He apologized right away, and pointed out his views according to the Scriptures, which is perfectly fine. But I noticed through the Biblical quotes that he posted that he has a rather fundamentalist perception of Christianity and the Church. He showed me that the True Church is the one that will come on the Apocalypse, the New Jerusalem, according to the Book of Revelation.

I understand his views. But I think he missed out on a few basic facts:

Christianity as an established religion began with the Roman Catholic Church in Rome, when Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and made it the official religion in Rome. The Greek Orthodox Church kinda made a big deal about it, but since Rome was the one in power at the time, the Roman Catholic Church was recognized as the origin of Christianity as we know it today.

But that’s not saying that St. Peter (who is widely recognized as the first Pope because Jesus appointed him as the Rock or cornerstone) or Constantine established the Church. Jesus is the true Founder of the Church; He is the Head, and the Church His Body; the children of God, the “Beautiful Bride [and] Body of Christ; one flesh abiding, strong and unifying.” (From “Beautiful Bride” by Flyleaf) St. Peter and the succeeding Popes are just His earthly representatives.

The YouTuber did not argue further; neither did I. As far as I’m concerned, (and I’m sure he feels the same way, too) we shouldn’t even be arguing in the first place because we worship the same God; we are both His children. Although his insinuations still gets my blood boiling, I am willing to keep my cool. “Peace be with you, my brother in Christ,” I told him on my last PM. To my surprise, he was just as willing to make peace with me; he added me as a friend on YouTube. I accepted.

I hope that’s that.