"Dating is Dating the Valentines"

Valentine's Day is celebrated on February 14. It is a festival of romantic love. Many people celebrate their love for their partner by sending cards or letters, giving gifts or flowers and arranging meals in restaurants or romantic nights in hotels. People who would like to have a romantic relationship with somebody may use the occasion to make this known.

The most common Valentine's Day symbols are the heart, particularly in reds and pinks, and pictures or models of Cupid. Cupid is usually portrayed as a small winged figure with a bow and arrow. In mythology, he uses his arrow to strike the hearts of people. People who have fallen in love are sometimes said to be 'struck by Cupid's arrow. Other symbols of Valentine's Day are couples in loving embraces and the gifts of flowers, chocolate, red roses and lingerie that couples often give each other.

However, we may ask what is really the story behind this date? The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. 

Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial–which probably occurred around A.D. 270–others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15. Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

                             

Mamasapano Clash: Justice is Where?

         The operation targeting two Jemaah Islamiyah-linked terror suspects, Malaysian bomb maker Marwan and Filipino bomber Basit Usman, resulted in the death of 44 SAF commandos who were attacked by members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in two separate locations.

The military was criticized for being slow in reinforcing the SAF men despite the longstanding ceasefire between the Armed Forces and the MILF. The SAF requested for back up units from their military counterparts around 5 a.m. Sunday, however, only arrived at Mamasapano at 8:20 a.m. and reached the positions of SAF units in the afternoon. We may consider it reasonable to think that it is because military units were clueless on the locations of the SAF members, who were scattered in neighboring villages; soldiers in the area were positioned also to secure main supply routes and could not easily leave their designations; and a minimum force would still be needed to protect the road nets from possible attacks, yet would it be absolute to disregard and be contented already to what happen to these victims? Why there is no action yet? Why such reinforcements acted so sluggish where in fact in the first place, cease fire has been declared and a peace agreement between the government and the rebel has been in progress. And to what extent doing this brutally? Now, where is the Commission on Human Rights? Is this lawful for you?  If so, then justice should be infuriatedly discussed.

Eudaimonia = Grace + God

          Inevitably, each human being has the inner dynamism to search for what makes him happy. Indeed according to a great ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, ‘the purpose of human life is to attain happiness.’ Be that as it may however, we crave to obtain such human thirst no matter what the means are. We forget that we are not the gauge for everything to exist but rather we just belong to the community of existents. We fail to realize that ‘Homo est non mensuram omnium’. 

            After a deep introspection in relation to the value of Grace ‘per se’, I reach to the point that we are indeed, pre-determined to be in union with God and that is only possible through grace. However, this idea of pre-determination must not be conceived akin to the Protestants conception about the term inasmuch as it would be an extreme approach to say ‘sola gratia’ is the only way for us to be saved. Nonetheless to add, we must also have good works because St. James once stated, “Faith without good work is dead”. 

        In connection to this, comprehending St Augustine’s conviction about ‘grace’ enables me to say that we human beings are not really having the absolute autonomy of ourselves although we still have our part – i.e. to do good. We truly tend to need God for in Him is the GRACE to will and accomplish actions for our eternal salvation. Thus, St. Augustine’s Doctrine of Grace is truly a magnanimous contribution to ponder upon as we continue to live in this ephemeral world.

Is Virtual Real?

      Since time immemorial, interaction between people in a community is already a part of existence. Indeed, one of the natures of a human being is to be social. One cannot define to be who and what he is unless he is in communion with a particular locus or situation he is with. However, the usual concept of the term ‘interaction’ has become deteriorated on this days. As the world has become so advanced in technology wherein the social media is one among the many discoveries, the new era of development invades the human minds leading to forfeit the essence of interaction ‘per se’. What we consider real has seemingly become those that exist mostly to our very own ideal image. The tendency of this is that those virtual facts which are supposed to be unreal in the ‘here and now’ have been perceived to be the reality. We tend to visualize things based on our own gauge while refracting such to the beauty of nature in reality.

       Now a lot of applications available in the internet are offering us a lot of virtual realties, the most recent ones are what most young generation of today had enjoyed: the internet games. Not only with games but also other stuffs, videos, images visual effects and many more. With all these technologies, these aid us to materialize all our ideal pictures including the kind of environment, persons and structures we desire to see in the reality. We forget that we become so selfish enough to think that we can be the ‘mensura omnium’ or the measure of everything that exists akin to the conviction of the sophist, Protagoras. Be that as it may however, these discoveries on virtuality is not to be conceived as objectively evil also inasmuch as it has good effects also. This can be an avenue for some to express their real feelings if they can’t express it face to face.

            

El Effecto Francisco: El Papa del Cambio

        Celebrating the liturgical year being the year of the poor, we, Christ’s Faithful have become privileged enough to have an exemplar icon of a leader of what it is to serve the poorest of the poor being a Servus Servorum Dei. Having a pope like Pope Francis is truly a blessing to the entire Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, Pope Francis has made a remarkable gesture when he was elevated to the papacy last March 13, 2013. The supreme pontiff who is known for his simplicity and humility, who constantly desire to embrace and share his faith to everyone keeps on urging us to recover the original freshness of the Gospel through comprehensive and effective renewal of the church structures and vision. Here in the Philippine Church setting, it would be an avenue to reflect upon as we continue to express our faith.

       As the Philippines has the opportunity to meet such one-of-a-kind celebrity, then beyond reasonable doubt, it is a privilege not to be neglected. Certainly, his visit to our country will result a big impact to believers and non-believers of Catholic faith alike. This is inasmuch as for the faithful it is a hustle-free anymore to meet the pope in person instead of going to Vatican while for non-believers, it is an opportunity for them to get acquainted of a down-to-earth person not as a leader but as a real man in words and actions while observing his legacy on the essence of mercy and compassion. As for me as a seminarian, if given a chance to be acquainted with him, then inevitably it would be a great opportunity for me to experience. I would feel gratuity so to think if this will happen. However, sad to say that as the pope visits here in our country on January 15-19, 2014, I will not be one of the persons who will have the chance to meet him in person. Be that as it may however, I will remain grateful because he does not forget his flock here in the Philippines who needs comfort being victims of the last calamities: viz. earthquake and typhoons. Hence, kudos to Pope Francis and mabuhay ang Pilipinas!

Valuing Freedom

            Often I ask, why I behave like this, why I decide to do things like that and how come I commit mistake? Am I obliged to commit such in order for me to know how to become right someday and eventually decipher that truly life is a union of opposites wherein we cannot know the reality of a something unless we experience the opposite? If so, how embarrassing life should be? In fact sometimes these experiences lead me to the point of blaming my Creator who is the Ultimate Source of my existence (i.e. The Supreme Being-God). If I were not given freedom as one of His greatest gifts to humankind, I may not act the way I act as I am today because ‘agere sequitor esse’ for action defines to be who and what I am.

            Martin Heidegger points it out that man is Dasein (i.e. being in the world) yet while fully immersed in the world, he is not fully ‘of the world’. He does not drift into the trivialities the world offers for such will just make him preoccupied with these things, but instead he keeps on withdrawing in order to reflect and remind himself of his ultimate purpose. However, it remains a challenge on how he becomes able to define his existence inasmuch as the circumstance he is to participate with is limited to the situation where he exists corporeally. Example if he lives in America, then subsequently he will have an orientation and life style akin to that of the Americans. If he were in the Philippines, then it will follow that he is immersed to the Filipino culture unlike to those of Chinese, Russians or Europeans leading to a subjective conviction if what we can define to be human ‘per se’. In addition, by the fact that we exist as finite, quantified, flawed and problematic beings, then it becomes inevitable to commit wrong acts.

            Yet after a deep introspection, I come to the point of comprehending that the option I can do is to accept these realities of being human while thinking that these are merely challenges to overcome. To expound, those are just spices for me whether I am already mature enough to face the reality of life ‘per se’. Besides freedom should not be cognised to be something negative but instead we take its implication as positive. Indeed, Richard Gula states that freedom denotes an obligation. It enables us to subordinate our self-interests in order to give a greater degree of preference to serving the needs of others over our own. This is the kind of freedom that makes our gifts as instruments of God’s love. In discerning, we have Jesus Christ, our Lord as a model of the free and faithful response to God, and we have the Holy Spirit to empower us to make such a response. Hence, I must accept that I am not totally dependent of my own free will however there is God who serves as an antecedent who influences me in every endeavour I may take.

Responding the Postmodern Challenges

          We cannot deny the fact that we are facing today the realm of the postmodern world. This is the world described by the ancient sophist, Protagoras wherein each person claims to be the ‘mensura omnium’ or the gauge of everything to exist. 

Lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise; deterioration of ethics becomes increasingly evident; relativism sets forth; rejection of the transcendent and even proliferation of new religious movements which propose a spirituality without God become inevitable. We are indeed apparently moving into a new cultural epoch when people are ignoring the call of the Church. As Christians present in the ‘here and now’, we are encouraged to face the challenge ardently. 
Nonetheless, thanks to the recent Pontiff, Pope Francis who is known for his simplicity and humility who keeps on encouraging the Christian faithful to embrace a new chapter of evangelization guided by the joy of the Gospel while undertaking a new path for the Church continuous journey. He urges us to immerse in the world with eyes open to its joys and sufferings and with hands calloused from sharing the everyday struggles of those around us. By so doing, sharing the three-fold mission of Christ and being eager to respond to the call to become a servant leader in the future, I am absolutely encouraged to be in communion with the very sentiments and behaviour of Christ, the Good Shepherd through a collaborative work with Christ’s Faithful in responding the postmodern challenges.