By: Msgr. Fernando Gutierrez
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana.
Post-Hispanic Years: The Transformative Phase
The Philippine Today
Transformation develops slowly, but surely. Transformation occurs at a slow pace now, but its full realization is “not-yet” achieved. This doesn’t happen too without man’s cooperation. Gratia supponit naturam. Grace presupposes nature. Grace is freely bestowed for us to claim. Grace is strength and courage. Grace makes us charter the ocean of darkness and helps us reach the harbor safely. It helps us achieve a “metanoia,” newness, and transformation for ourselves and the world. This grace comes to us in the form of God’s love, but is not attained without man’s cooperation. God is no gatecrasher.
Identity and transformation
One’s identity could be a matter of personal and individual decision, yet it involves also historical, socioeconomic, sociological and religious factors that can directly or indirectly influence that decision. In this regard, transformation is about one’s personal and communal life in its fullness and not compartmentalizing human life into spiritual and physical alone.
Jesus showed his total compassion by ministering to the physical and spiritual needs of the people. Transformation means that one’s faith sanctifies not only the few aspects of one’s being, but every fiber of life.
However, before the process of transformation could happen, it is of a paramount importance that transformation begins with self. Know thyself, Cognosce teipsum, the Latin phrase that originally was inscribed in Greek in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. To understand our need for transformation, we must understand who we are. We are having undoubtedly been shaped by history. Many of our values have developed from such influence as heritage, family background, culture and religion.
Philippines setting
There is a great divide within us and between our communities. We are torn between our faith and the socio-political views.
Every day we read in the newspapers and see on TV newscasts the corruption, political intrigues, civil wars and murders of innocent civilians. We are appalled upon hearing and reading the horrendous news. Did it ever occur to us that in a certain sense, our lives are the same scandalous stories, when we live in cynicism, bigotry, pretension, hatred and unjustified fear? We are the news ourselves!
The media are full of funny, profane and cursing words of politicians as well as fake news that the sole intent is to confuse and deceive.
Unfortunately, when lies and curses characterize our words, people become immune and hardened to truth. Most government officials from the barangay sectors up to the Philippine senate and congress, including members of the judiciary are addressed normally as “Your Excellency” and “Your Honor.” Teachers and certain civic members are addressed either as “sir” or “madam.” Titles connote functions. This is not true in the Philippines where corrupt and bribe-leaning politicians and members of some groups are unworthy of such titles, because they camouflage their corruptions with “nice” words and titles.
Words masquerade lies as truth. Broken promises and vows are disguised as honest words. In such a culture of lies and hypocrisy, can we still find men who are true to their word?
Gone are the days when men and women are true to their words. Their honesty and respectable characters match their words. They were not doble cara. The “yes” is “yes”. The “no” is “no”.
Adolf Hitler said,
“[T]he broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
Continuing effects of colonialism in the Philippines
There has been a struggle between the Catholic Church and the government to work for collaborative endeavor to serve the citizenry during the time of Hispanic conquistadores. It was noted earlier that Hispanic church hierarchy reached out a reconciliatory to the Hispanic government power wielders. Most of the times, there had been beneficial results in the performance of their obligations and responsibilities. Yet, the government’s efforts persisted to lessen the “power” of the church hierarchy over the faithful.
This scenario is still continuing today. There are relentless denunciations of Catholic Church over the Duterte’s war on drugs and extrajudicial killings. The church’s actions are primarily based on defense of human life and rights. As a rebuttal, the president said, “I challenge you now. I challenge the Catholic Church. You are full of shit. You all smell bad, corruption and all.” (cf. Duterte: Catholic Church ‘full of shit’. Leila B. Salaverria – Reporter / @LeilasINQPhilippine Daily Inquirer / 07:48 PM January 24, 2017.)
The Cs
A few salient points are needed why the church is embattled by inuendoes and conflicts. There are a number of Cs.
1. Cursing: The colonizers’ cuss word, “ninguna vergüenza” or sinvergüenza/sin vergüenza (shameless, impudent, pig) looks getting its vulgar equivalence in Tagalog.
“The current joke now is that the Philippines should also be known as the “Republic of P.I.” Not for Philippine Islands, as our country was called during the American colonial era, but for “p***** ina,” the favorite cuss words of President Duterte who cannot go without them in his rambling speeches. Translated into English, the phrase means “child of a whore” or “son of a b****.” If you add the word “mo,” it means you are one, but in English you don’t really add “You are a” to SOB. So, with or without mo, your mother is insulted just the same.
I don’t know how it is said in other Philippine languages and dialects but I know that in Iloilo, it is said in Spanish—that is, “hijo de p***” or “yudep***.” It has been further contracted or sanitized as “deputa” or “depuga,” the last one used as an expression of awe or amazement, as in “Depuga gid.” Another variation is “yude”-to praise or compliment. With this, the original meaning has been completely erased because it is not even a cuss word.” (Human Face. Cursing our mothers Ma. Ceres P. Doyo – @inquirerdotnetPhilippine Daily Inquirer / 12:16 AM October 13, 2016)
Why curse? Randy David in his Philippine Daily Inquirer column, Public Lives. Why we curse? cites Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker’s five reasons why people say vulgar and expletive words.
a) “Sometimes for the sake of narrative vividness, sometimes out of anger, we use taboo words to convey how vile something is.”
b) idiomatic. This function is related to the first—we sometimes use vulgar speech to communicate informality, familiarity, or coolness.
c) The third is the emphatic use. As in the first two functions, there are expletives and taboo words that are sometimes inserted in sentences, lending color and power to the rest of the statement, to intensify feelings. If something can be described as “awesomely” or “achingly” beautiful, one can imagine how a person with a more colorful vocabulary can express the same effusiveness with words like “fuckingly brilliant.”
d) the abusive function. This is where expletives and taboo words do much of the work for which they were cathartic life when one feels the urge to intimidate, punish or downgrade the reputational stock of some other person.”
e) cathartic. dirty words that may have been rendered dormant by the culture of correctness reside in an older and deeper part of the brain, the right hemisphere.
Confronted with pain, distress and physical illness, such as senility and aphasia, nothing but vulgarity comes out of the mouth. “It’s not that the right hemisphere contains a profanity module, but that its linguistic abilities are confined to memorized formulas rather than rule-governed combinations.”
Cursing could camouflage one’s inferiority complex. Scapegoating through cursing becomes a way to show artificial and pretentious “superiority, mastery, power control and hold on” the people that the scapegoater does not have. The camouflaged inferiority is evident in funny and stupid ways, such as a blasphemous pronouncement on God, scandalous criticism of the pope and virulent attack on the church and the clergy.
2. Criticism. It is difficult for most Filipinos to dissociate personal integrity from self- public image. Critique of government policies is equated to a personal insult and character assassination. This malaise can be traced back to feudal mentality.
Feudalism is the relationship between lord and vassal or master and slave Though a feudal holding is originally about land, yet any object of value might be taken into consideration, such as the right to own a business, to collect a toll/tax or to hold a public office. The whole system of public governance follows the pattern of land tenure. In this way, public office becomes akin to land. Political power or office becomes a personal holding and a “private” property of an aristocratic oligarchy.
Friedrich Hegel defined feudalism as a system in which public functions are treated as private sinecures to be bought or sold as if it were private property. Public governance is for the benefits and opens to the general citizenry. Yet, when government positions, whether elected or appointed, are considered “private properties,” political dynasties thrive to the detriment and loss of opportunities for the deserving and more qualified, but less well-known and middle-income individuals.
Feudal mentality is very much alive in the Philippines. Just consider how preferential treatment is expected when dealing with powerful elites, politicians, clergy, military, and policemen. The use of sirens and wangwang, except by ambulances, military and police legal operations and fire trucks has been banned by the Aquino administration. Yet, some Filipinos of feudal mentality shrewdly get around the ban and obtain preferential treatment on the highways by having motorcycle escorts (minus the sirens). This swerved maneuver stopped vehicles at various points so the hot shot’s SUV can zoom by, with no wailing siren but with flashing lights on the car’s roof.
The post-colonial Philippine society seems to be a “survival of the fittest.” It’s almost a dog-eat-dog society. The powerful and the wealthy are mindful only of their own welfare, the rest of the country are literally mendicant, the government and some in the church are more on the side of the élite of society.
The alternating, ambivalent, and wrong interactions between faith and cultural values, among other things, account for the destitute spiritual, economic, and political life of many Filipinos! The poverty in body and spirit is so deep in the Filipinos that very few strive to go beyond this impecunious life and to attain a more mature faith. It seems that Filipinos have nothing to offer God except their suffering-minded psyche and superstition-laden culture.
3. Cronyism
Padrino (benefactor) system plays a major role in Filipinos’ relationships. To appease a padrino, to gain his favor and preserve pakikisama (camaraderie) and pakikipagkapuwa- tao (SIR: smooth interpersonal relationship) or not to embarrass the patron, a Filipino would go head-over-heels.
Together with the mentality that might is right, “Filipinos have a need for a strong authority figure and feel safer and more secure in the presence of such an authority. One is generally submissive to those in authority, and is not likely to raise issues or to question decisions.” (cf. Licuanan, A Moral Recovery Program: Building a People–Building a …https://ourhappyschool.com/esp-values-education/…)
Abuses of authority figures, such as politicians, clergy, military, and hoodlums, would seldom see the light of the day or would be known. The perpetrators who are not in collaboration with authority get a public coverage.
Gregorio F. Zaide wrote that Christianization of the Philippines was due to the indigenous Filipinos’ fear of the Spanish Armada. The islanders were no match against the armed men from the West. Catholicism was completely forced on the natives through the use of the colonizers’ superior military, political and cultural force.
Spanish rule maybe seen and felt all over the place back then when the ‘guardia civil’ was all around with their guns that really scared the people.
The present Philippine life revolves around three Gs: goons, guns and gold. Anyone who has these at his disposal is a padrino that intimidates and creates fearful obedience from the powerless and the marginalized citizens.
Colonialism is premised on the prolong establishment and maintenance of rule over an alien or indigenous people racially, culturally and spiritually different from and subordinate. Colonial mentality is a concept that essentially refers to the acceptance by the colonized of the culture or doctrines of the colonizer as intrinsically more worthy of emulation for being superior.
“We are satisfied with superficial explanations for, and superficial solutions to, problems… The Filipino lack of self-analysis and our emphasis upon form is reinforced by an educational system that is often more form than substance and a legal system that tends to substitute law for reality. … While it is true that Filipinos can adjust to circumstances in a given environment and possess some creative talents; they are generally passive and lacking in initiative. One has to be told what has to be done. They can tolerate inefficiency, poor service, and even violation of human rights. In many ways, it can be said that Filipinos are too patient for long suffering (“matiisin, martyrdom”), easily resigned to one’s fate, even if they are oppressed or exploited.” Instead of constructive solutions to problems, some do an easy way out. These shortcuts or “palusot, excuse”) are expressed in such words as “nakaisa, double-crosser”) “nakalamang, confident trickster”), and “nakadaya, ahead pf the curve). (Patricia Licuanan. A Moral Recovery Program: Building a People–Building a Nation.)
4. Corruption. Unscrupulous Philippine military, goons and the rich could easily manipulate the powerless and make them cower in fear. This abnormal undue influence of superiors and power wielders is one of the reasons why bribery in the Philippines is so rampant. The powerless are at the mercy of the powerful. To have what the poor need, such as food, shelter, medicine, and clothing or to obtain the necessary documents, they have to bribe the corrupt public officials.
The lockdowns and community quarantine protocols, if the golden mean is followed, are good antidotes to lessen or prevent the pandemic transmission. Unfortunately, laws and regulations are circumvented for the benefits of unscrupulous public servants. There are traffic enforcers who strictly implement the no-tricycle ban. Allegedly, some of them allow the tricycles to take passengers, if they are family members, otherwise they ticketed and fined driver with a hefty amount. A worse scenario is that of enforcers queue tricycle drivers who give them half of the faire!
Hope
Many years ago, Trina Paulus wrote “Hope For The Flowers,” a short story of two caterpillars-turned butterflies, Stripe and Yellow.
Stripe saw a great column rising high into the air. To satisfy his curiosity he climbed this column. He discovered the column was a pile of squirming, pushing, caterpillars; it’s just a pillar of caterpillar. His experience was a complete shock. “Stripe was pushed and kicked and stepped on from every direction. It was climb or be climbed.” During this strenuous climb, Stripe met another caterpillar named, Yellow. They became lovers. They decided to go down together to live happily ever after. Later on, Stripe could not forget the column of caterpillars. So, he left the brokenhearted Yellow. When he got to the top of the column, with great disappointment he decided to go down, because as he told others, “I’ve been up. There’s nothing there.” All the time, Yellow turned into a butterfly did not leave Stripe. Later on, with Yellow’s assistance and wings of light, Stripe turned also into a butterfly, because as he had said, “I saw a butterfly—there can be more to life.”
There’s “hope for the flowers,” because there is more to life than the negativisms that colonization left in the Philippines and mar the present culture, civilization and religion. The Filipino as an individual, a community and a nation through the Philippines cultural values can genuinely step forward. Cultural values, aided by an enlightened faith and devoid of superstitious beliefs, can be the Filipinos assets and catalysts for a renewed hope and better future for themselves and the world. Cultural values, such as bahala na ang Diyos (deep faith in God), pagdadamayan (solidarity with others) can overcome barriers of kanya-kanya (refusal to share one’s resources) and tayu-tayo (great division between the “we” from the “they”) so that Filipinos can be more mature and humane. The Filipinos weakness in cultural values can surely be their tensile strength to be maka-Diyos (pro-God), maka-tao (pro-person), makakalikasan (pro-nature) and makabansa (pro-nation).
It is possible to see the Filipino face of God in the Philippines and the whole world, if God’s love dwells in us, with us and through us. When we sincerely help both the “haves” into transforming their apathy to empathy and the “have- nots into emerging from poverty to prosperity, God’s face becomes visible. Fear, remorse, superstitions in the Filipino culture and religious piety could be overcome only by the God of love.
Filipinos have long lived with the fear of God, while at the same time they clamor for struggle against political dynasty, nepotism, corruption, stark poverty, criminality and abuses against human rights, but very few among Philippine society’s pundits and theologians assure them that God passionately but compassionately loves them. Love of God, neither fear of him nor of punishment, should be the fundamental element in man’s relationship with God and with others. This quotation from St. John is very apropos,
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. (1 John 4:18) For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” (Timothy 1:7)
“The faithful know how much need they have of Jesus and Him crucified; but though they wonder and rejoice at the ineffable love made manifest in Him, they are not daunted at having no more than their own poor souls to give in return for such great and condescending charity. They love all the more, because they know themselves to be loved so exceedingly …” (St. Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 7, www.ccel.org.)
Aishite Imasu: Mahal Kita
Love not fear should captivate people’s hearts. When people of good will do this, they eventually liberate others from fear, and instill love in their hearts. Marianne Wilkinson remarked,
“We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
God’s veiled face
For centuries the face of God in Jesus remains veiled and hidden among Filipinos and other people of the world. Who and what will remove the veil? Will it be the oppressive colonial mentality, suffering-oriented piety, persecution complex, superstitions, fear, and hatred? None of these. Only the mystery of the love of God, YHWH or Allah that, for Christians revealed in the cross of Christ, can remove the veil, nothing else!
St. Paul enjoins all to see the face of God in Jesus by exposing the fears that lurk in the deep recesses of their being, in culture and in religion and letting the luminous and beaming light of God’s love dispel away the darkness and shadows.
“For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-37)
“What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily, I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.” (Saint Augustine)
Identity and religiosity
The formative life of the early Filipinos showed their relationships with their gods and goddesses. It has a semblance with the belief of the Greeks in their gods when St. Paul first got to Athens on his missionary journey. Acts 17: 22-23 narrates what happened when the apostle reached the region. “The apostle stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said:
“People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So, you are ignorant of the very thing you worship —and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”
According to one commentary, there were altars at Athens dedicated to the unknown gods. Philostratus says, (in Vita. Apollo. vi. 3,),
“And this at Athens, where there are even altars to the unknown gods,” Thus, Pausanina (in Attic. chap. 1) says, that at Athens there are altars of gods which are called the UNKNOWN ones.”
St. Jerome, in his commentary, (Epistle to Titus 1:12,) says that the whole inscription was, to the gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa; to the unknown and strange gods. (Acts 17:23)
There is no indication whether their gods are considered by the Filipinos “deus incertus” (uncertain, doubtful) or “deus remotus” (remote). However, we can ascertain that the early Filipinos conceived of their divine beings with natural reason alone.
Synchronization
To better understand the Filipinos religiosity before and during the Spanish Christianization is to see it through an orthodox and biblical lens of Christian faith. This is what the Apostle Paul did. He enlightened the Athenian’s mind by proclaiming the True God who became visible in Jesus.
Transformation of the imago Dei
The transformation involves the re-creation of God’s image. St. Paul saw this as the disappearance of the old man and its replacement with the new; the dissolution of the old wine skin and its replacement with the new.
“That you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4: 22-23)
There are at least three ways by which the world looks at man as the imago Dei. The first method is through rationalism, an emphasis given to the role of the “idea” at the expense of the image. The second is called empiricism and seeks to make experience the ultimate criterion of truth without reference to the role of the image. The third way considers the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, as the perfect image of God in man and the pattern for its transformation.
An authentic Christian humanism views man as created in the image of God and seriously takes Christology (one that speaks of Christ) into account and anthropology (Christ as the key to the mystery of man). Therefore, to have a thorough consideration of the imago Dei, it must value the two points,
“Christ as the eschatological Adam to whom the first Adam already pointed; as the true image of God which transforms man once more into likeness to God.” (1 Corinthians 15:45.)
The two aspects of the “imago Dei,” the human and the divine, become pivotal for man’s transformation.
The Trinity and Imago Dei
The Trinity’s purpose in creating man according to God’s image is for man to participate in the Trinitarian life and then to share that life with one another. This Trinitarian life is God’s love.
“The triune God has revealed his plan to share the communion of Trinitarian life with persons created in his image. Indeed, it is for the sake of this Trinitarian communion that human persons are created in the divine image.” (Human Persons Created in the Image of God. International Theological Commission Communion and Stewardship.)
Because human beings are created according to God’s image, they are made capable of re-creating that “imago Dei” with one another.
Means to Transformation
Hope comes with a new beginning, a reorientation through a theological analysis that is rooted in Scriptures, tradition and orthodoxy. It is hoped that the Filipinos would acquire a fresh outlook on their faith and culture through a deeper insight of the mystery of the Incarnation. Why the Incarnation? The reason: God is Love.
Korean Jaeyoun Kim said,
“Filipinos always complain about the corruption in the Philippines. Do you really think the corruption is the problem of the Philippines? I do not think so. I strongly believe that the problem is the lack of love for the Philippines.”
Love vs. Fear of God
We had been catechized that God created us to love, obey, and honor him (as the object of love). This answer is slightly off tangent, because the love of God, taken primarily as God loving us (he as the subject), is the main reason why we were created and why Christ became man.
We also have been taught that Christ became man, suffered, and died to ransom us from the clutch of the devil, to atone for our sins, to please or placate an angry God, and to pay the devil for the debts (sins) mankind has incurred. A religion filled with remorse and suffering thus developed. With that mentality, relationship with God is not motivated by love but by fear and a deep sense of guilt. Suffering, sacrifice, and atonement became imperative to avoid God’s punishment or to pacify an angry God.
There are various kinds of fear. One fear that is dysfunctional leads to hatred and destruction. It can be either acute fear that is caused by a one-time traumatic injury or chronic fear due to an ongoing trauma. Aristotle said, “Whatever we feel has great power of destroying us, or of harming us in ways that tend to cause us great pain.”
Fear has also its good results. When confronted with an imminent danger, we either defend ourselves or run away from it out of fear for our life: fight or flight response.
Fear is beneficial and promotes maturity of love. It is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom. (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10). This “holy fear” is the very opposite of fear as commonly understood.
Holy fear is real and motivated by love. It’s a healthy fear in the presence of a mysterium tremendum et fascinans, reverence and awe for someone or something loved.
“When we genuinely love another person, we will live inside of a healthy anxiety, a worry that our actions should never grossly disappoint, disrespect, or violate the other person. We live in holy fear when we are anxious not to betray a trust or disrespect someone. But this is very different from being afraid of somebody or being afraid of being punished.” (Holy Fear | HuffPost
The abuse of power and authority by Spanish colonizers intimidated and made the colonized fear them. God neither possesses nor exercises that kind of power or authority. In fact, the Scriptures are replete with examples of the healthy kind of fear of the Lord.
“Job 28:28: The fear of the Lord-that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding. Psalm 19:9: The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous. Proverbs 10:27: The fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short. Proverbs 14:27: The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death. Proverbs 15:16: Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.”
God is Love, a benevolent power, a gracious authority, not someone to be feared. Indeed, God is the last person we need to fear. Jesus came to rid us of fear. Virtually every theophany in scripture (an instance when God appears) begins with the words: ‘Do not be afraid!’” What terrified the colonized and the early Filipinos, such as punishment and unhealthy fear of God, did not originate from Him, they were man-made.
The Hebrew Scriptures present, among all the figures in the Old Testament, including Moses, the great prophets and King David as the best examples of what it means and how to live in the image and relate to God. Neither Moses nor any of the prophets that Jesus uses as one of his examples. David exemplified the Christ-figure that showed how to walk in holy fear and love of God.
Punishing God
The Catholic Church felt the brunt of the heresies and criticisms logged against it by Protestant Reformation. Understandably, these missionaries coming mostly from European countries and reeling from these doctrinal controversies wanted to preserve the Catholic faith. At the same time, their theology with heavy emphasis on suffering taught the Filipinos its medieval theories on atonement, retribution and sacrifice that greatly contributed to the previously discussed malaise of the Filipino culture and religious piety.
As previously remarked, according to this theological view, Jesus came to suffer and die to ransom mankind from the devil’s bondage. Jesus’ suffering explains the “why” of the Incarnation. Is this the only plausible answer? Is there no other analysis that is based on revelation and vision of Jesus?
An angry God
The face of God, angry, irksome, dishonored, is evident in popular pieties, with great emphasis on Jesus’ suffering. Most Filipinos grew up with this reflection of God Who retaliates suffering as a punishment for transgressions. This view is completely incompatible with Jesus’ attitude toward suffering.
John Paul II said,
“It is not true that suffering is a consequence of a fault and has the nature of a punishment. And if the Lord consents to test Job with suffering, he does it to demonstrate the latter’s righteousness.”
Suffering is for correction
Suffering as punishment for sin is derived from the Hebrew tradition, the Law of Retribution. The Babylonian exile wrongly believed that God’s punishment was due to Israel’s infidelity to the covenant. The Israelites’ suffering is not meant to punish, but to correct their sinful ways.
Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel describes God is not all that: God makes the sun rise on both the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. (Mt 5:45). In John’s Gospel, Jesus denies that suffering is punishment for sin. “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.” (John 9:2-5). In Luke 13:4-5, Jesus specified that the victims in the tragic collapse of the tower of Siloam were killed neither due their sin nor guilt but rather for their repentance.
Loving God
Human beings mostly want to assume control of things and unfortunately of fellow human beings; even God could be under dominion and control. Though it might appear at first glance to be alright to imagine God that manner, yet it has disastrous effect, such as atheism and agnosticism.
Martin Cothran observes:
“But in the modern era, we are not supposed to admire great men, largely because we are uncomfortable with the whole idea of greatness. So today we must relegate our heroes to the realm of the fantastic. They are now figures who could never really be, doing things that can never really be done.”
There are fictional superheroes that are idolized by both young and old, but their authenticity is suppressed. To name a few, there is Superman and Batman. Psychology portrays the new Superman who is far different from the one we grew up with: one who fights for justice and the powerless. Now, psychology questions his original intention from the very beginning of his adventures. Foremost in Superman’s mind is his doubt whether humanity is worth saving. He is driven by severe emotions, like anger and desperation. He seems also overwhelmingly reckless, destructive, and violent.
What about Batman whom we knew as an American billionaire, a philanthropist and an industrialist who have put his life on the line in a number of occasions as a crime fighter? Batman suffers from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Bruce Wayne has not completely made a closure as far as the death of his parents is concerned. Instead of reconciling himself positively with his parents’ demise, he used as his scapegoat Robin whom he has rescued from criminal activity.
He has a dual personality. He seems confused with his real life as Bruce and as the caped fighter, Batman. Bruce is intrigued and his adrenalin gets high whenever he becomes Batman. The psychological result: he often forgets his real personality as Bruce Wayne. These are the gods of our own making and choosing, because of fear and difficulty to imitate them.
Similarly, it becomes more difficult to worship and obey the true God, The True and Just Hero.
Simply stated, a God whose thinking conforms to human’s and whose ways are man’s ways is eventually not worthy of awe and adoration. We categorize God in similar fearful way to understand ourselves. In doing so, we fit God into our dread-stricken image. It eventually leads to atheism, because such a “God” is too low, enfeebled and not real.
We should stop imagining God according to our finite concepts. When suffering, fearful obedience and abuses occur (as what had happened during the Pre-Hispanic and Post-Hispanic Philippines), God uses them as catalysts for a transformation toward His’s true image and love beyond our imagining.
“Likewise, such a God can neither be fully Creator nor Redeemer and will be seen as an opium for those who lack real intellectual courage. If God is no holier than the way he or she is thought by many people today, then Karl Marx is right. God is a projection of the human mind and mystery is simply another word for ignorance.” (Our Limited Agnosticism | Ron Rolheiser.https://www.wcr.ab.ca/Columns/Columns/entryid/559ronrolheiser.com/our-limited-agnosticism.)
Thus, we are confronted to make a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea: adherence to the false cruel and fear-causing gods or allegiance to the true God. We either remain steadfast with faith in the One God in three Divine Persons or we stop believing in Him altogether and spiral down to gods of dehumanizing power, fleshly pleasure, evil rooted in wealth, fleeting addictions, and timidity.
Like the ancient Israelites, our enemies are the pagan gods of our own making. Worshiping the true God is to know him primarily as a loving God who gave us his Son in loving response to man’s sinfulness.
We should break off living in unholy fear. Life should proceed with love. Henri Nouwen asked this question: “How can we live inside a world marked by fear, hatred, and violence and not be destroyed by it?”
Unholy fear creates havocs, dissensions, intrigues, cynicism, anger, anxiety and anger in places we are in: family, church and community.
Answer: to be a child again of a loving God
A child always catches everyone’s attention. It is because a child exhibits unpretentiousness, innocence and playfulness that adults seldom possess. Someone said that he would give every drop of his blood to bring back his childhood.
Happy days of childhood remain embedded in our memory. We long for those memorable childhood days when as adults we swim on the sea of adversities and trials. Dan Simmons remarked, “When we are old and failing, it is the memories of childhood which can be summoned most clearly.” A child is carefree, worries don’t linger in his mind for so long and troubles don’t bother him.
Sometimes to get an adult’s attention, a child can come up with a slight injury or a faint cry. These are all due to the child’s playfulness and fantasy. It is the child’s concept of heaven. William Wordsworth said, “Heaven lies about us in our infancy.” (William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (1802-04).
Pablo Neruda wrote, “Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood.” (Winter Garden). softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again. “There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air” (Elizabeth Lawrence)
By pushing toward hard work (Luther and Marx’s influence) and rationalization (through Aquinas and Descartes), man loses playfulness, festivity and phantasy. (Harvey Cox, The Feast Of Fools. p. 12. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 53rd East Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. 1969) The garden where childhood used to play is gone at mid-life.
We can live in the house of love, as God’s children again through an intimate, contemplative and trusting communion with God.
A Biblical, theological and traditional interpretation of the Incarnation
Another explanation of the life and sacrifice of Jesus based on Scriptures and Christian tradition gives us joy and encouragement instead of fear and remorse. This view is not a modern-day fad, for it is completely rooted on the teachings of Jesus. This analysis is ancient, because it is based on tradition and orthodoxy. It is “new,” in contrast with the past views on the life and sacrifice of Jesus that were mostly concerned with deliverance from sin and cunning of the devil. Though the devil is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, yet spirituality has something better to offer every believer – the love of God.
This love is at the heart of (1) the Trinity (2) the Incarnate Son, and (3) the Sanctifying Spirit. This love revitalizes our relationship with God and fellow human beings and transforms us for better worldview! Love, not suffering and sacrifice, comprises the nucleus of authentic Christian spirituality and morality and not, at all times, remorse, guilt, and superstitions.
Love and Incarnation
The Catholic Church teaches that God’s sharing of love with us in an exclusive and perfect manner is the sole purpose of the Incarnation. God assuming humanity is not meant for damage control caused by original sin. Incarnation is God’s fundamental design for all creation. The Incarnation is the realization of God’s love as it diffuses itself into creation. Bonum diffusivum est sui.
Can a loving and just God, the origin of life, demand the offering of life? Can he be pacified by the death of his only-begotten Son? Why did he spare Isaac’s life and not that of Jesus? Is God really that blood-thirsty? All these misconceptions about a loving and just God are due in part to theological affirmations about the notion of atonement that make us feel guilty or remorseful. God is not an unkind or cruel God to be placated by the suffering and death of Jesus as a ransom. God is perfectly cordial in sharing his life and love in creation and in the Incarnation. Writing about God’s love, Ovenberg cited theologian Catherine LaCugna’s book, God For Us.
“She uses and expands the Cappadocians’ wonderful image of the Trinity as divine dance to include all persons. Borrowing themes of intimacy and communion from John’s Gospel and Ephesians, she affirms that humanity has been made a partner in the divine dance not through our own merit but through God’s election from all eternity. She writes: ‘The God who does not need nor care for the creature, or who is immune to our suffering, does not exist … The God who keeps a ledger of our sins and failings, the divine policeman, does not exist. These are all false gods … What we believe about God must match what is revealed of God in Scripture: God watches over the widow and the poor, God makes the rains fall on just and unjust alike, God welcomes the stranger and embraces the enemy.”
The images of a punishing, legalistic, vindictive, and arbitrary God, who records every sin and who applies the lex talionis, an ounce of suffering for an ounce of sin, must be put aside once and for all. However, there are some who still suffer from this equally unhealthy and unrealistic fear of God. Today we should realize that God is no longer the great watchdog in the sky.
Love, neither fear of God nor atonement, punishment, sacrifice, retribution and damnation, is the right motive “for having offended Him who is so good and deserving” of all our love. (Act of Contrition.)
“The basic and fundamental truth about God’s love is that primarily God loves mankind and secondarily man loves God: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us. (1 John 4:10). Because God loves us, everything else follows, especially man’s gift of loving him: We love, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19).
Biblical revelation gives precedence to the first meaning: to the love “of” God, and secondarily to the love “for” God. Aristotle said that God moves the world “in so far as he is loved,” that is, in so far as he is the object of love. In his view, God’s actions are motivated by the effect (our love) not by the cause itself (God’s love). But revelation says exactly the contrary, that is, God creates and moves the world (the effect) in as much as primarily he (the cause) loves the world.
Conclusion
And that’s true too in the world at large. In the arts, politics, and academia, we’ve become masters at everything, except actually creating new beauty and actually bettering community. We’re brilliant at showing what’s wrong, but far less effective in actually improving the situation. If we’re honest, we can all truthfully speak these words (which John Shea puts into the John the Baptist’s mouth): “I can denounce a king, but I cannot enthrone one. I can strip an idol of its power, but I cannot reveal the true God. I can wash the soul in sand, but I cannot dress it in white. I can devour the word of the Lord like wild honey, but I cannot lace his sandal. I can condemn the sin, but I cannot bear it away.”
Why? Why is our power to love less than our knowledge? Why, when we know so much, are we so powerless to change things?
In the gospels, we see an instance where Jesus’ disciples are perplexed because they’re powerless to cast out a demon. When they ask Jesus about it, he says: “This kind is cast out only by prayer and fasting.” That mystifying phrase contains more than we suspect.
The power to baptize with fire and spirit, that is, the power to actually change someone’s life for the better, unlike the power to simply enlighten, issues forth only from a heart that is essentially pure, moral, and integral because only that kind of heart can cast out the real demons.
Leo Tolstoy tells this story in What Men Live By: “Simon is a kind and poor shoemaker. Disappointed for having collected a few kopeks from his customer he started going home. As he nears home, he sees a naked man by the roadside. He passes, but feeling ashamed for his action, he goes back to help the man.
Simon asks the man, who barely speaks to come home with him. When Simon asks why he was in that situation the only answers the man would give are: “I cannot tell you, I am Michael and God has punished me.”
When his wife, Matrena, saw Simon with the man, she is furious. Michael lived with Simon’s family and became an excellent apprentice in Simon’s shop. His expertise became famous. Throughout the six years Michael stayed with Simon, he noticed lights beam from him when he smiled. He smiled only three times.
Michael explained that he is an angel of God and was punished for his disobedience and commanded that he must go down to earth to look for the answers to the following questions in order to be an angel again: What dwells in man? What is not given to man? What do men live by?
He learned the answer to the first question when Matrena felt pity for him. He smiled and came to know that what dwells in man is “love”. The answer to the second question came to him when he realized that the angel of death was looming over a nobleman who was making preparations for a year though he did not know he would not live till sunset; Michael smiled again and knew that what is not given to man is “to know his own needs.” Lastly, he grasped the answer to the final question when he saw the woman with the orphaned two girls, “all men live not by care for themselves but by love (highlighted added).”
Michael concluded, “I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live. He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love (highlighted added).” When Michael finished, he praised God as he got back his wings and returned to heaven.”
Commenting on a rabbinic theology in his book, Jesus of Nazareth Part II, Pope Benedict XVI wrote,
“The cosmos was created, not that there might be manifold things in heaven and earth, but that there might be a space for the ‘covenant,’ for the loving ‘yes’ between God and his human respondent.”
Creation is meant to initiate this communication of the love of God between him and his creatures and to have a divine and human partner in “the divine dance” or a community of “dancers” in love. Thus, the person’s calling is communication with the Absolute Other and others in love.
Thomas Merton said.
“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated meditations. The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love … We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love – either with another human person or with God.”
POSTSCRIPT: This wholeness of life is firstly shown to man in creation and secondly through the mystery of the Incarnation. This fullness in creation continues when one professes that God is love, God loves him and man in turn loves God and others, including the whole universe.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his Mon Univers (Hymn of the Universe, March 1924) wrote,
“Host of bread, I mean, is continually being encircled more closely by another, infinitely larger, Host, which is nothing but the universe itself — the universe gradually being absorbed by the universal element. The matter of the sacrament is the world, through which there spreads, so to complete itself, the superhuman presence of the universal Christ.”
The love that emanates from the Holy Eucharist is powerful enough to miraculously transform the Filipinos’ past, present, and future as well as the whole of creation.
