Welcome to PINS OF LIGHT!

Today's Readings

I wasn't particularly crazy about the "Titanic," that 1997 movie directed by James Cameron, which, by the way, not only broke box office records but also won the Oscar for Best Picture that year.  But years after seeing it, I still remember its final scene.

The elderly Rose (played by Kate Winslet), who has just finished telling her story about Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the ill-fated maiden voyage of the ship, takes the "Heart of the Ocean," a necklace with a much sought-after blue diamond, and quietly tosses it into the ocean.  That night she dies in her sleep, and the camera pans to the frames of photographs beside her bed, symbolizing all the memories she has accumulated in her life, and dissolves into the wreckage of the Titanic and its interiors, now miraculously restored.  Rose, now also restored to her youth and beauty, is welcomed by all the passengers of the ship, their faces beaming, as she ascends the Grand Staircase towards a youthful Jack, who has been waiting for her.   As they are reunited, all those who have perished in the tragedy applaud in joy.

This moving scene could very well be a metaphor for what awaits us beyond this life.  The words of our Lord in today's gospel take on new meaning:

“Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,
and I will not reject anyone who comes to me..."

It's a beautiful promise that gives us hope--especially for those of us who have been heartbroken by the passing of people we love.  The Lord will reunite us to one another in that special place, where, as the lovely words of the liturgy put it, "every tear shall be wiped away."  It is truly something to look forward to.

But there is more.  Not only will we be reunited with one another, but also, just as in that final scene of the "Titanic," we shall all be restored and, as promised by the Lord, "made new."  The poet Rainer Maria Rilke has written a poem that I think captures this truth.  While he compares life in this world to a swan awkwardly waddling on the ground, he thinks dying is like the swan--finally--reaching the lake, and at first nervously, but finally--realizing it is home--confidently eases itself onto the waters.  And suddenly what was once an awkward bird is transformed into its loveliest self, an image of grace and beauty.

In the same way, death for us is reaching our home, Christ, and as we are united with him, his love transforms us into our best self:  our loveliest, most lovable, and most loving self!  This means that those who have gone ahead of us, who even now are awaiting our reunion with them, have already been transformed by the Lord into their loveliest, most lovable, and most loving selves!

So as we remember the people whom we love and who have passed on to the next life, we also need to exercise our imagination.  Let us not just remember them by gathering our memories of them. We need to do more:  We have to choose our best memories of them--the best moments in their lives and our best experiences of them, when they were at their most lovable and loving selves--and transform those memories by imagining them to be even infinitely better than their very best selves when they were alive. 

For that is how they are today, and how all of us shall be, when we are united completely with the Lord, and when the love of Christ transforms us completely into our best selves.

Here is a Quick Question for you:  "Is there anyone special that you are remembering--and praying for--today?  What do you consider your best memories of this person, when he or she was truly loveliest, most lovable and loving?"  Think about it, and if you feel up to it, you may want to share a thought, a feeling, or a question.   Who knows?  Your sharing might help another reader.

Note:  Below is the complete text of Rilke's "The Swan," as well as the final scene of James Cameron's "The Titanic."

THE SWAN
Rainer Maria Rilke

This laboring through what is still undone,
as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,
is like the awkward walking of the swan.

And dying-to let go, no longer feel
the solid ground we stand on every day-
is like anxious letting himself fall

into waters, which receive him gently
and which, as though with reverence and joy,
draw back past him in streams on either side;
while, infinitely silent and aware,
in his full majesty and ever more
indifferent, he condescends to glide.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Today's Readings

There’s a small ethnic tribe in the southern Sierra Madre on the east side of Luzon called the Ilongot tribe. The interesting thing about their language is that it has no word for “anger.”  The closest term they have for it is “liget”—which means “energy or passion,” not exactly anger.

The English language, on the other, has so many synonyms for “anger.”  Just for the fun of it, I googled to check out these synonyms, and found not just a lot of words, but also a lot of colorful expressions like “lose your cool,” “have a fit,” “be up in arms,” and “go on the warpath.”  My favorites are those that deal with what we do when we get angry, like “see red,” “gnash your teeth,” “hit the roof,” and especially “foam at the mouth.”

According to one sociologist, this tells us that we English speakers probably get angry a whole lot more than the Ilongots. (By the way, there are only 2,500 of them left today.)  Of course the article where I read this also casually mentions a study that the Ilongots go headhunting.  Okay, so I suppose this means that if an Ilongot headhunter chops off your head, at least  you can be sure it’s not because he’s angry!

Anyway, one thing I think our gospel talks about today is anger.  Our Gospel story, which is known as the “Cleansing of the Temple,” may as well be a crash course on anger management.  It tells us that what our Lord does when he sees the merchants and money changers conducting their business in the temple.  According to the Gospel: 

"He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers
and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said,
“Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”

His words and actions say it all.  Our Lord “saw red,” “hit the roof,” and was “up in arms.”  There’s no denying it:  Whether we like it or not, our Lord was pretty angry.  Some of us may find this a disturbing scene.  Many of us probably prefer the gentler Jesus:  Jesus as the Good Shepherd who cradles the beloved sheep in his arms--even if it's a black sheep!  We wince, listening to Jesus’ angry words, slightly worried that when we do finally come face-to-face with him, he might just say similarly angry words at us. 

Some of us may also wonder: Isn’t anger one of the seven deadly sins, by the way?  If that’s the case, what do we make of an angry Jesus?  Does this mean that the Lord committed a deadly sin?!  And also, what about our own anger—because we all experience anger even if we don't necessarily express it or do so in different ways? 

Is it wrong to be angry?

I think here we can turn to one of the wisest theologians of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas.  Basically, he teaches that anger is not necessarily sinful.  Just because we’re angry doesn’t mean we’re guilty of some deadly sin.  Anger, after all, is a human emotion, and there is nothing wrong about experiencing an emotion.  Experiencing anger is not a sin.  Anger is natural and, Aquinas tells us, can be a good thing.  When we think about it, feeling angry, in fact, shows that we care enough about something to be affected.

To find out if our anger is good or bad, we need to examine two things:  why we are angry in the first place, and what we do with our anger.

In the scene at the temple, our Lord got angry because he was against what the merchants and moneychangers were doing: They weren't just conducting business in the temple, but, biblical scholars tell us, the kind of business they were conducting was actually pretty corrupt.   So our Lord was angry at something wrong.  According to Aquinas, if we are angry at something wrong or evil, then our anger is actually good!  For example, we experience anger because we see someone oppressing and hurting another person.  In such a case, what we are feeling is holy and righteous anger.

Saint Thomas Aquinas even wrote that when anger is an attack against the evil, and one ignores this evil and does not get angry at it, the result is sadness.  Interesting...

But that’s not enough. We also need to look at what we do with our anger.  In the Gospel, our Lord didn’t just feel angry, then walked away to sulk by himself, all his emotion bottled up inside him.  He actually expressed his anger--and how!   I think what this tells us is that expressing our anger isn’t exactly wrong either.  There are certain occasions when it is actually healthy and even necessary to express our anger—not just for our own good, but especially for the good of others.  How we should express this anger varies from case to case.  Often it’s enough to tell the person concerned how what he or she does makes us feel.  On other occasions, however, as our Lord demonstrates for us, stronger words and actions are necessary just to get the message across. 

What is crucial is not the specific way in which we express anger since there is just no formula for this.  Rather, what is crucial is that like our Lord, we remain masters of ourselves even in anger; that we do not allow ourselves to become helpless to our anger, be enslaved by it, get carried away, and say or do things that we will regret later.  If there is one thing our Lord can teach us about expressing our anger, it is this:  That we must express our anger only out of love, only for the purpose of correcting the situation that has caused the anger, and only with the intention of helping the person concerned to improve himself or herself. 

I don't know about you, but when I look at those conditions, I immediately realize how tough the Lord's idea of anger management is!

And on the other hand, as we know, things can be very different if our motive for expressing our anger is to get back at others, to hurt the person who has hurt or offended us. In other words, a desire for revenge.  This kind of anger is far from holy and righteous. It is unholy and self-righteous anger, and that’s actually the kind of anger that qualifies as one of the seven deadly sins.  The problem, however, is that this kind of anger is so much fun.  Let me quote author Frederick Buechner when he describes it because he puts it so well:

"To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.  The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself.  The skeleton at the feast is you."

When what we want is revenge, when what we crave for is to get back at others, that’s not holy and righteous anger.  Rather, it is unholy and self-righteous anger.  And that’s the best formula for getting carried away, when we express our anger disproportionately—and in the process, hurt others unnecessarily.  Of course, as we know all too well, we end up regretting our words and actions afterwards.

This business of anger management is especially difficult when it comes to people who are closest to us, our families and our dearest friends, the ones we love the most because it is to they that we are, whether we like it or not, particularly vulnerable.  Precisely because of our vulnerability, we often end up becoming helpless to our anger and say very hurtful things.  But we must remember that unforgettable line that writer Robert Fulghum has written:  “Rocks and stones may hurt our bones; but words—they break our hearts.”

So here's a Quick Question for you:  "In what way do you need to work on your anger management?  It may help to think about the reasons or persons that usually cause you to 'see red' or 'hit your roof'."  Think about it, and if you feel up to it, share a thought, a feeling, or a question.  Who knows? It might help another reader.

Today's Readings

Today's Gospel reading is known as the "Parable of the Talents."  According to its usual interpretation, its moral lesson is:  "Don't just preserve your God-given talents.  Develop them!"  To that, we can even add that we should also share our talents with others, in contrast to "burying" them and keeping them to ourselves.  But what happens if we've been developing a talent, and then it turns out we don't have that talent, after all?

The other evening, I attended a reunion among my college classmates, and I can't help connecting today's parable to the experience of the reunion. During the reunion I met old college friends--many of whom I hadn't seen since our graduation 25 years ago--and saw how they, like myself, have in many ways changed--and yet in others remained the same.  As we table-hopped and updated one another about our lives, we celebrated the successes accomplished and patted one another on the shoulder for the setbacks encountered these past years.

And of course, as in all reunions, we engaged in a lot of reminiscing.  When we graduated 25 years ago, the no. 1 song in the Billboard Top 100 was "Every Breath You Take" by the Police and no. 2 was "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson.  Sting hadn’t yet gone solo, and Michael Jackson still looked black.  At the time we graduated, the top grossing movie in the world that year was George Lucas’ “Return of the Jedi.”  When we graduated, Ronald Reagan was the American President, and nobody then could ever imagine that someday someone other than a white guy could actually occupy the White House.  Back in 1983, when we graduated, Marcos was still President, and Imelda the governor of Metro Manila, and Ninoy was in Boston planning a homecoming in August.

When we graduated, we had such an assortment of dreams.  I certainly did.  Dreams for ourselves, dreams for the lives we were going to live, and even dreams for the world we were going to change.  We dreamed of the careers we were going to pursue and the millions of pesos we were going to make.  Some of us dreamed of that first bestseller we were going to write, or the hundreds of lives we were going to touch.  We dreamed of that one special soul mate “somewhere out there”--the one single person we were going to love and live with forever, not realizing then that loving and living together unfortunately didn’t always go together forever.  We dreamed of the happy family we were going to raise, and all those adorable children who were always going to be obedient and well-behaved—at least before puberty!  And of course, many of us, Martial Law Babies, also dreamed of the nation that we were all going to help transform.

It’s been a long time ago.  What has happened since then?

It turns out that reunions are not only for renewing acquaintances or for rebuilding long-lost friendships. Reunions also offer a good excuse to examine our lives and the decisions we have made--and yes, to check whether or not we have, as the parable prescribes, developed and made the most of our talents.  Reunions provide an occasion for reviewing our dreams and for asking:  "What has happened to those dreams of my youth?"

It's a helpful question to ask once in a while.  If your life has been anything like mine, you will probably agree that dreams basically end up having one of three fates:  First, some of our dreams do end up getting realized, and thank God, they do give us exactly the fulfillment they promise.  Other dreams also get fulfilled, but they don't give us the fulfillment we thought we would get from them.  They turn out to be some kind of fantasy or sham.  And finally, some dreams never get realized at all.  Maybe they've always been the wrong dreams for us: They've never been meant for us, and so they have just never fallen within our reach.  Or maybe they do get fulfilled, but for one reason or another, they don't last and as sometimes happens in this life of ours, eventually fall apart and die.

After the reunion, I got to thinking about the state of my dreams, especially the dreams of my youth upon college graduation.  After 25 years, here I am, a survivor of my broken dreams--but still dreaming.  I am grateful for the dreams that have been fulfilled.   Ironically, I am also thankful for the dreams that have been unrealized because they have led me to other dreams.  Some of them I've been able to revise--the broken, even shattered dreams that, thank God, I was able to abandon and replace with more feasible dreams, or sometimes higher dreams, but all of them more suitable to my talents.  Someone once said that the secret to surviving a midlife crisis is the art of revising dreams.   Believe me, it works.  It certainly helped me survive mine—all six of them!

God, too, has a dream for each one of us.  And his dream for us is, in reality--mystics and theologians agree--our deepest desire, the dream that we have been created for from all of eternity.  It's up to us to find out what his dream is for us because that's how we will find our deepest joy.

So here's a Quick Question for you:  "What is the state of your dreams?  It won't hurt to review them and to ask:  In my life here and now, is it the season for revising dreams?"  Think about it, and if you feel up to it, share a thought, a feeling, or even a question.  It might help another reader.

Today's Readings

Back in 2004, I accepted the invitation of some Jesuits to visit our school for the disabled.  From the moment I stepped out of the airport in Phnom Penh, I noticed that every major road and every other street corner displayed the picture of one man.  My companions informed me that a week before, Cambodia had just crowned a new king, Sihamoni, to succeed his father.  To celebrate the occasion and to show their acceptance of the new king, all of Cambodia put up his pictures everywhere, from medium-sized photographs to gigantic billboards.  As a result, no tourist—and certainly no Cambodian—had any excuse to claim that he does not recognize the new king.

As we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King, I can’t help but compare the way the Cambodians pulled all the plugs in giving importance to their new king, and the way we Christians treat our alleged king.  There are some differences, to say the least. 

If you look around the city, except for the crosses atop churches, you will hardly find any picture or symbols of our Lord—certainly not in gigantic billboards.  Driving down EDSA, you will see all sorts of giant colorful images—all sorts of models selling all sorts of products.  What about the face of Christ the King?  Nowhere to be found. 

So much for Christ the King.

A couple of years ago, I watched the award-winning documentary “Super Size Me,” where the filmmaker goes on a one-month McDonalds binge and monitors its effects on his health.  In one scene, he shows pictures of famous people to several American kids.  They clap and cheer when they see Ronald McDonald, but they don’t recognize George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and other American heroes.  Then they’re shown one last photo, but the kids simply shrug their shoulders.  The narrator turns around to show the photograph to the camera, and believe it or not, it’s the picture of Jesus Christ. 

So much for Christ the King.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to check out the Internet, the place to go to ifyou want to discover the common concerns of the world and especially its secret desires.  So I went to Google.com, typed out the words “king of the world” and hit Search.  Guess what I found?

I found dozens of sites about boxing champion Muhammed Ali—it turned out there’s a 1998 biography on him called King of the World:  Muhammed Ali and the Rise of an American Hero.   I also found numerous articles on Elvis Presley.  There were write-ups about reggae musician Bob Marley, a professional wrestler called Dominator, songs by bands with names like Disco Biscuits, and of course Leonardo di Caprio who, as we know, shouted “I’m the King of the World” atop the Titanic.

I had to go from site to site, going from one “king of the world” to another, before I finally stumbled over something that made any mention of Jesus Christ.  How telling.  And how sad that in the Internet, just as in the physical world, we have so much more space reserved for all sorts of other “kings of the world.”  

So much for Christ the King.

So if you think about it, judging from both physical space and virtual space, we have hardly reserved any room for Christ. He has become virtually homeless because we have driven him out of our public spaces, whether physical or virtual.  If you monitor the national and global stages, you will almost swear that Christ is one king who isn’t governing the events that transpire in the world.  For a king, he hardly seems to have any dominion over the world and what happens in it. 

So much for Christ the King.

Now, what will we find if we examine our own personal lives?  What will we see if we look into our inner, private spaces?  Do you think we will discern Christ’s kingship there?  Even in our personal lives, Christ seems to be more homeless than king.

So much for Christ the King.

We may call ourselves Christian.  Our words may profess that Christ is king, and we may pay lip service to him.  But neither our names nor our words will show whether or not Christ is really king.  If we want to know if Christ is truly king, we should examine our decisions and actions because these are what shape our lives and those of others.  It is really our decisions and actions that reveal whether he is truly a king whom we allow to shape our lives.  How many of our decisions do we allow him to govern, basing them on what he wants, and not just on what we ourselves want?  How many of our actions show that we obey the will of the king, not just our own will or whims?

So here's a Quick Question for you on this feast of Christ the King:  "Is Christ truly our king?  How much space and how much time do we reserve for him?  How big is the place that Christ occupies in our lives?   How much time, apart from the obligatory one hour every Sunday--if at all--do we devote to him?  If we performed a similar Google search in our life and among our concerns, what would we find?  How many other kings of our world would we have to go through before finally finding Christ?"