Local Practices, We are What We Eat, What is Love, Un-Christian, Jokes, My Confession

[sub-labels: Being Christian, Christian and Catholic Faith, Love]

I haven't missed the last two Sunday masses, but my schedule's been so hectic, I wasn't able to attend mass at the parish (Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Shrine) where I usually attend.

Two Sundays ago, I was in Cagayan de Oro, and attended mass at the "Xavier College" chapel, now I think the "Ateneo de Cagayan University" chapel. One new thing I re-discovered - and I make a lot of these "re-discoveries" or things I've learned long ago and starting to remember them or see them in actuality now - is that each locale could have slightly different practices even under the same mother organization, which is in this case the Holy Catholic Church.

In Metro Manila, we are all palms up or holding hands during the Our Father and during the Our Father alone. (We were not holding hands during the SARS or bird flu scare.) In Cagayan de Oro, being the Manila-grown kids we were (me and my friends/travel companions), we pulled our hands back down after the Our Father, and to our shock, everyone's hands were still palms up or still holding each other's through the "For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever..."

I remember in the US, specifically in California and Nevada (the only two states I've stayed at least one night in), they kneel there at a slightly different schedule within the mass compared to here in the Philippines, where we kneel during the Consecration, and just before Communion. If I remember correctly - it's been a while (6+ years) since I was last there - once we knelt during the mass, we didn't stand up anymore through Communion. Well, I've forgotten.

In Metro Manila, specifically in our locale in the University of the Philippines - Diliman and Katipunan Avenue / Loyola Heights (Quezon City) area of our lay Christian group for singles, the CFC Singles for Christ, we have slightly different practices than in Ortigas Center in Mandaluyong / Pasig, or in Cebu City (Visayas / Central Philippines) when we conduct our Christian Life Program (CLP).

The Gospel two Sundays ago was about the Multiplication (of the bread and fish). Two weeks is too long for remembering the whole homily of the priest. I do recall I learned at least a thing or two. I remember just one thing the priest said, and I do not remember how he related it to the Gospel: we are what we eat. The priest said, if we eat junk food - we are.. junk? (No, the priest didn't say that.) If we eat healthy food, then we become healthy. Then on the evening after that day (we attended the anticipated mass on Saturday), we ate Roasted Whole Pork (Lechon!). The usual things associated with "Lechon" came to mind: we are Fat, we are Pigs, we are Cholesterol, we are a Filipino delicacy, we are yummy and delicious, and so on. I suggested a more 'subtle' description of who we are based on what we were about to feast on: we are "to die for." Funny! ..in some way, but you could look at it more seriously and we could come up with a whole new blog post / essay about it.

Anyway, the Wednesday after that, was Talk 6 of the CLP we were conducting. The topic was Loving Your Neighbor. During my emceeing, I mentioned then that it was my favorite talk of the CLP. I don't think I mentioned though that it was because I grew up in a broken family, and that I have been searching for the answer to 'what is love?', and I was surprised then when I first listened to this talk that the answer came from the Bible itself: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Or really, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 is the whole text:

From the 1st Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 13:

¹ If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes:

1. 1 Corinthians 13:1 - Or languages
2. 1 Corinthians 13:3 - Some early manuscripts say "body that I may boast"

-- Taken from the New International Version, on BibleGateway.com

Beautiful. And how true. It's in the Bible. I just wonder how many more I can learn about life from the Bible.

Anyway, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday after that CLP Talk 6 on Wednesday, I was out of town again. Coming back to Manila, my flight was delayed and I was not able to attend a "party" I was supposed to attend on Saturday night. Instead, I went straight ahead to an after-party thing at a restaurant. And there I was, I found myself... saying things that, although unintentionally, hurt someone.

Fine, that someone has said one hurtful thing to me before, and I reacted a little bit too harshly, telling that person "I was hurt" in a raised voice. Which in turn, puzzled and perhaps hurt also that person. And on Saturday night, after my very tiring week, here again was that person, in that same 'mode' that that person was during our 'first encounter.' I wasn't trying to hurt that person or anything, but I was trying to suggest alternatives to the 'this is what I want to happen' statements of that person. And then, the person 'erupted' and said, "you always dis me and contradict what I have to say." Anyway, again that was not my intention. I think the person said "Don't talk to me anymore because you always dis me and contradict what I have to say," and I willingly obliged and did not talk to that person anymore. Apparently, I think that that may have confirmed in his mind that I was indeed dissing him and contradicting him. But again, no, that wasn't my intention.

Was I wrong? We could look at it from two different points of view: from the Christian point of view and the non-Christian point of view. To put it simply, I may have had my point from the non-Christian point of view. There was that person again, bringing about the personality that he has, that can be... domineering for some.

But from the Christian point of view, yes you guessed it right. :)

From the verse I quoted above, "Love is patient." In a sense, because I was not patient with that person, knowing very well that that was his personality, I was unloving, and therefore un-Christian. I could have reacted more lovingly. I could have just gone silent, or said "we'll see," instead of reacting with something like "that is not acceptable" that could hurt him (and did hurt him).

Anyway, that was not the whole story, and definitely there was something that I said that hurt him. It was supposedly a joke, but now I laugh at myself as I look back at the times when some group of people I know (say group A) made jokes at another group of people (say, group B), and I demanded that the group A people apologize to the group B people. The group A people said, "that was only a joke, and it's their problem they took it too seriously." I thought then that (and told the group A people) that the point is, you hurt other people (the group B people) with what you said, and joke or not, you have to apologize.

And as I said, I laugh at myself as I was in the same position as the group A people, making a joke that, well, hurt other people. But I did apologize for that joke I made, and I did not intend to hurt anyone with it or any "joke" I make.

Anyway, again the story is longer and much more complicated than that.

I listened to a talk given by Frank Padilla on that same CLP Talk 6 topic, loving your neighbor. He talked about the very situation I was in: what if there was someone you care about (say, a friend, a loved one, a relative, etc) who had an attitude that was not easy to handle? Frank Padilla's talk and another more mature friend told me: we tell them their wrong in the most loving manner (it's not what you say, it's how you say it), we pray for their 'conversion,' we also pray for more patience on our part, we pray that if it is in God's will we can become part of their 'conversion,' and then since we can't change others but only ourselves, we try to be more patient, and we try to forebear, to persevere through the times while our friends and loved ones are "difficult." "Love is patient... Love perserveres..."

Anyway, so there I was, I've spoken of love, I've spoken about God and Christianity and good deeds, I lead groups of people in prayer, but I was nothing but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. I failed to love. I have been un-Christian. I am nothing.

I am my own student. May the Father make me patient, and more loving as Jesus himself.