It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen
Some of us at the department had a conversation a few days ago about being "ministers, not messiahs."
(1) Our housekeeper is still in the hospital. As soon as two additional blood donors show up, she will be allowed to go home to rest for a week, before she goes back to the hospital for her operation.
(2) My sister-in-law gave birth yesterday morning. It's a girl!
(3) Advanced happy birthday to solace, erik, and valkyrie! :) Birthday week next week ....
(4) Interesting set of discussions last week in class. I had to introduce the Thomistic understanding of Being, Good/Evil, etc.... and it really caught their attention. The older I get, the more I see how essential a knowledge of Thomas' framework is for dealing with a variety of everyday moral and metaphysical questions.
Update on our housekeeper: she's still awaiting her second blood transfusion. After her blood has normalized, a D & C (is that right?) will be performed on her, and then after a week or so of rest, she will undergo an operation. (I think it's going to be a hysterectomy, but I'm not sure.)
This has been a very frustrating week. The sheer difficulty of finding willing potential blood donors ... much less willing QUALIFIED donors .... There've been moments when I've been utterly frustrated by what seems to be the indifference of some of my friends (even what seemed to be annoyance on their part that I was asking them if they could help) ... but then again, that's probably an unfair judgment. Ako na nga rito ang humihingi ng tulong. But still .... :(
On the other hand, I've been amazed at the extent of the generosity that some people can have towards someone they don't even know! One of my friends commuted in the middle of the night in the pouring rain to get to the hospital as fast as he could, as soon as he heard that my housekeeper needed blood. Another of my friends who isn't very well off immediately offered a gift of cash to my housekeeper. Another of my friends spent a whole day making phone calls and sending text messages to everyone she knew, and did not stop until she found a handful of potential donors. And then of course, there's M who has patiently been driving me to the hospital and back home every night, and willingly shuttling potential donors back and forth as well.
And then there is the generosity of complete strangers .... People who don't just not know Emilie, but who don't know me either, texting: "Hi! Your message was forwarded to me. Do you still need blood donors?" A girl who came all the way from the Laguna to donate blood, and when she was disqualified, decided to visit Emilie and stay with her awhile. A young man who promised to bring as many friends as he could to the hospital, so they could all donate blood. Another girl who, when she found out that she was too young to donate blood, tried to get parental consent so she could help.
Some people have been just amazing.
=====
In the meantime, there are other issues on my mind. Sir E spoke to me yesterday, advising me to start thinking of my long-term career plans: about whether or not I'm going for a Ph.D., and if I am, when and where. That's been at the back of my mind for the past twenty-four hours ....
=====
And then I've also been bothered by more mundane issues, like the fact that our roof is leaking despite the fact that I hired people to fix it last summer. I spoke to the guy who "fixed" it last summer, and I nearly bit his head off! (He actually didn't deserve the extent of my tirade, and I am truly sorry.) I've been crunching numbers in my head thinking of the amounts of money I'm going to need to come up with to have it fixed (again!), especially with Emilie's operation coming up .... AARGH! Headache, headache, headache ....
=====
I just need a one-week vacation from all the stressful aspects of my life. One week; please God; just one week!
As of ten-fifteen this morning, four people have shown up at the hospital to donate blood. However, two of them were disqualified from donating blood because of medical conditions. The other two are still at the hospital right now, awaiting the results of their blood screening.
We are therefore still in desperate need of blood donations. Please call or text me if you are willing and able to donate. Thanks.
To my friends in Manila: Manang Emilie, our housekeeper of fifteen years, was admitted to the hospital yesterday. Her hemoglobin level is dangerously low (50; the normal level is 120) and she needs a blood transfusion TODAY (Sunday). There is a hospital policy in the Philippines that requires patients to secure an equivalent amount of blood donations for each bag of blood that they receive from the blood transfusion. We are thus desperately seeking donors of any blood type. If you are willing, please go to the hospital today (Sunday) and donate blood in the name of EMILIE ALIBO (if you are asked, you may mention that she is confined in the Gyne ward). The hospital is Quirino Memorial Medical Center (formerly Labor Hospital) on Katipunan Ext., Quezon City. (Coming from Ateneo going towards White Plains, it is after the fly-over, right after the P. Tuazon intersection, on the right side of the road.) If you are going to donate blood, please send me a message via text or through my office e-mail account so I can keep track of donations.
Emilie has also been diagnosed with a myoma (a muscle tumor) in the uterus, and there is a possibility that she will need to undergo a hysterectomy. Please include her, as well as her daughter Ella, in your prayers.
This is the first time I've heard of Maynard. I've been to Disneyland a few times before, but I never knew there was such a cast member. Hmmm ... something to keep in mind the next time I go to Disneyland (which will probably be several years from now).
Well, the rain was practically non-stop this weekend, from Friday to Monday. The worst I can remember, actually. The floods have been horrible; a few people have died, tens of thousands are in evacuation centers. :( Prayers, please.
Falling in love with Mr./Ms. Wrong, by Brother Void
"Let our scars fall in love." -- Galway Kinnell
We're all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you've been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there's no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this?
Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way.
But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. It isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems -- the ones that make you truly who you are -- that you're ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you're looking for.
You're looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person; it has got to be the right wrong person -- someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, "This is the problem I want to have."
I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.
From "Daily Afflictions" by Andrew Boyd, published by W.W. Norton
Ganns wrote a very nice post on his blog in reply to my post about marriage (which was in reply to his post about divorce--hehe!). He had a few questions that I said I would reply to here ... hence, this post. :)
Before anything, I have to say, I'm no expert at all on this subject, so I might make a mistake when I try to describe Catholic doctrine here; nevertheless, I will do my best, to the best of my limited knowledge. :D
=====
His first question was about annulment. He asked: Does a Catholic annulment transform a Catholic marriage (sacramental and sacred in the eyes of God, as ascertained by the Catholic Church) into a secular marriage (a sharing of property)? My answer: no, it doesn't. The act of annulment doesn't transform the sacramental marriage into a secular one; rather, it simply declares that the marriage was never sacramental to begin with. Catholic doctrine is firm in the principle that: "What God has put together, let no man tear asunder." The act of annulment itself has no transformative power regarding the status of marriage.
For a marriage to be considered sacramental in the Catholic Church, one of the prerequisites is that each partner is able to commit him or herself freely and completely at the time of the wedding. The annulment process is an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the wedding (which may have taken places years ago) to investigate whether this prerequisite was met. If it is found that the marriage was not sacramental, the "act of annulment" merely declares it, makes it public, saying: "This marriage was never at all a validly sacramental one." In other words: In the eyes of the Church, the annulment simply declares that the couple was never married (sacramentally) at all to begin with.
This paragraph from this page on annulment might help: An annulment says that a previous marriage did not fulfill all the requirements for a valid marriage in ecclesiastical law. It does not say that the relationship was good for nothing; it might have been a good one for some time, and we are all affected by the people we meet and know. There is no way one can commit sin if she/he is unaware of the invalidity of the marriage. A sacramental marriage presupposes that each partner is able to commit him or herself at the time of the wedding and therefore make that commitment at the time of the vows, to encourage a "community of life and love" with each other. BTW, in case you're curious, even though the marriage itself is considered an invalid one after an annulment, the couple's children are still considered legitimate.
The annulment itself is rather difficult to get; certainly not as easy as a divorce. And yes, as far as I know, if a couple seeks an annulment, the couple is required to talk first to a priest about their problems to explore the possibility of finding ways to work them out.
=====
Ganns' second question was: Do priests (and I will also include parishes and Church groups) publicize the services (or ministries) that have to do with healing marriages? My response: I do think it is relatively publicized. First of all, as Ganns mentioned, one cannot have a Catholic marriage without the prerequisite preparation (which usually consists of a seminar and several counseling sessions with a parish priest, or with an agency affiliated with the Church that specializes in marriage preparation). Secondly, with regard to marriages that are in need of healing, all the Parishes that I've been a member of offer such "services." Priests themselves spend a lot of pastoral time counseling and talking to parishioners who have marital problems. Also, as you mentioned, there are numerous Catholic lay associations that have seminars, retreats, counseling services, etc. that try to help hurting couples put the pieces of their marriage back together. I know a lot of people, for example, who will say that their marriage was "saved" by the Marriage Encounter, by the Retrouvaille seminars, or simply by pastoral counseling with their priest. Other Catholics choose to be part of lay groups that specifically focus on living out one's Christianity within the context of marriage and family--such as Couples for Christ. But these same ministries can also be found in many other Catholic communities--whether or not these are parish-based, whether in the formal structure of a retreat or institutionalized counseling, or in the more informal spiritual shepherding and sharing that such communities give.
=====
Nevertheless, I also agree with Ganns that there might be room for improvement in the Catholic Church, with regard to publicizing these services, though I think that it is part of a much larger challenge. In the Catholic Church in the Philippines, I think one of the main problems today is the large sizes of the parishes, which make it very difficult for the parish priest to perform his pastoral duties on a more personal basis (i.e., getting to know all of his parishioners, building a more tightly-knit parish of believers, etc.) In other countries I've lived where Catholics are a minority, the parishes are much smaller and more tightly-knit; hence, pastoral care is more palpable: the parish priest often knows most of his parishioners on a much deeper, more personal basis, parishioners themselves know one another, and most of the parishioners are very involved with pastoral concerns (i.e., membership in different pastoral committees, involvement in different ministries, etc.). In these small parishes, I think that parishioners are both more aware of the pastoral ministries that their parish offers, and also more inclined to participate in such programs.
Here in the Philippines, the situation is quite different. I remember when I was a child on holiday here in the Philippines, I used to marvel at the enormity of the parishes, and I also was rather surprised that probably half or even more of the people who attended Mass at any particular parish weren't involved in any parish activities apart from liturgical worship. It's a problem that stems from a lot of factors: the population of our country, the sheer size of the Catholic Church here, the small number of priests and religious in proportion to the size of the Church, and finally, the fact that given our nation's poverty and social problems, priests' apostolic concerns are often spread so wide because of the sheer amount of work they feel compelled to do. All of the priests and religious whom I know personally are really laden with so much work: apart from the regular ministries that they have to attend to (daily Masses, performing other sacraments), they each have several apostolates (working in urban poor communities, working in schools, working with the youth ... not to mention their own theological studies).
The worldwide Catholic Church has sought to address this problem in the last decade by encouraging more lay participation in fulfilling Church ministries: meaning, it is being emphasized more now that pastoral care and other apostolates shouldn't be the work of priests and religious alone, and that everyone who considers himself/herself a Catholic should take a much more active role in the Church's apostolates. I think that in our country, to a certain extent, a lot of progress has been made there. Many lay groups have sprouted up all over the country, actively participating in the ministries which people once thought were "the priests' jobs": like offering spiritual guidance to other people (e.g., CLC, NVD), working with the poor (CFC, SFC, YFC), helping in family ministries (CEFAM, CFC, YFC), preparing retreats (Antioch, DWTL, PREX, etc.) .... Yet at the same time, I do agree that much still has to be done at the parish level in terms of involving even more lay people in the Church's mission of Kingdom-building.
=====
Anyway, Ganns, hope this post helped to answer the questions you had. :)
I love the start of the rainy season at school. Everyone seems relieved, after the hot, sticky summer. Barkadas of students splash through the rain, laughing, trying to get to class on time. The air is more dense, so sounds ring more clearly. Gives me a hummy feeling. :) :) :)
Meanwhile, I'm having an interesting discussion with some of my students about whether there is a place to discuss religion in philosophy. For most of them, this class is their first taste of philosophy, and it's always interesting when I start a new class to see their presuppositions about learning and knowledge. It's interesting how shocked some students are to hear that the scientific standards of what constitutes "truth" aren't the only lens with which we can look at the world.
My left ankle is bandaged today, because I'm having a case of tendinitis (something that happens relatively frequently to me). I noticed that the bandage I'm using--which I bought in the U.S.--is a much paler color than the bandages that I buy here.
Then I realized ... it's probably because they make bandages to approximate people's skin tones. In the U.S., majority of the people are Caucasian, so the bandages they make there are a pale shade of beige. Here, where majority of the population is Malay, the bandages are a slightly darker brown.
So my question is ... do bandages around the world differ in color, according to the ethnicity of the people in each region? Hmmm ....
Comments by YACCS.
