Homily by Fr.  Jojo Magadia, SJ, 22 Dec 2006, Church of the Gesù, Ateneo de Manila

… for Misa de Gallo Mass of 23 December 2006

A good definition is a statement that tells us the meaning of some thing. It gives us its essential nature. It tells us how it relates to the world and to people. It sets boundaries and points out the extent which it covers. A good definition must be scientifically precise. But often, the more effective and memorable definitions are more simple and yet direct to the point.

For example, what is a smile? A smile is a curve that can set a lot of things straight. Or what is a committee?   A committee is a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary. Or what is a lecture? A lecture is the confusion of one man multiplied by the number of listeners. Or what is a miser? A miser is person who lives poor so that he can die rich. Or what is a diplomat? A diplomat is a person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. Or what is a bad politician? A bad politician is someone with two sides of the brain, a left side with nothing right and a right side with nothing left.

Some years ago, there was this listing of pithy definitions of winners and losers. Winners seek answers to problems, losers see problems in every answer. Winners are people who have plans,   losers are people who have excuses. Winners are those who see the difficult as possible, losers are those who see the possible as too difficult. Winners tend to say: "What can I do for you?," losers tend to say: "That is not my job." Winners make mistakes and say: "I was wrong," losers make mistakes and say, "It's not my fault." Winners say "This is good, but there must be something better"; losers say, "This is good because it's the way it's always been done." No single one of the definitions is really a good one, but there is a common theme that runs through them. I suggest that at the heart of all of this, a loser is someone who is stuck, and a winner is someone who is free.

In today's Gospel, we encounter Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, one of the secondary and supporting cast in the drama of the nativity. And the story of Zechariah is the story of a loser, someone who gets stuck. For so long, he and his wife Elizabeth pray and pray for a child. But no child comes, until eventually old age catches up with them, and they give up hope, and they dig into the reality that they would remain childless – a reality that is the source of great shame in the Jewish culture of that time. So when God intervenes in Zechariah's life, and sends the angel Gabriel to announce the birth of a son, Zechariah could not believe it. He doubts in his heart of hearts. He could not shake off the skepticism. He puts to question the will of God, and brushes aside the promise of the very gift, he and Elizabeth have been longing for all along. Zechariah is stuck because he puts God in a box. He has so gotten used to God turning him down, that when God becomes ready to grant him his prayer, he could not believe, he could not absorb, he could not accept.

Zechariah is like most of us. We work and we do our thing and we push ourselves. We take stock of what we can and cannot do. With regularity, we find the various formulae for success – on how to deal with our families, and how to work with our bosses, and how to take things in stride. We develop our habits and routines. Yes, we do make room for God in all this, but in a subtle way, we tend to push God to a little corner of our lives, a corner which we can identify, a corner we run to when we have to, a corner we get comfortable with, a corner where we can read the signs in our lives, and plan out our futures, and carry out our tasks, and it is nice and cozy and familiar. Before we know it, we will already have boxed God in, and we are, in reality, stuck, as Zechariah is stuck – so that when God, with unfathomable and unpredictable goodness moves away from that corner and brings us new gifts and new promises in ways we would never have been able to imagine, we are unable to recognize Him, and it becomes difficult to believe and accept.

We are scared because these unpredictable ways bring us face to face with a God that has a plan, yes, but a plan that we can only know of as it gradually unfolds. And we are asked to take risks, and to have faith. And each step, there always seems to be more challenges. The announcement of the birth of John the Baptist becomes a challenge to Zechariah, and the child born to Zechariah likewise becomes a challenge to the people of Israel, constantly provoking, inciting, prodding, pushing, taunting – precisely because he is missioned to prepare the way for the Son of God who, like his Father, is also always challenging and prodding and pushing.

And that's the way God moves in our lives, isn't it? Just when you think you're done, something else comes up. Just when you feel life is so beautiful, you find out you are dying. Just when everything seems to fall into place, that wild card is thrown in, and your family life is thrown into disarray, or a good friend betrays us, or a relationship turns sour, or our anger gets the better of us, or we find ourselves without a job. Just when you feel that you have found all the answers, the questions are changed. One moment, you feel good; the next moment, you feel a strange emptiness. One moment, you feel relieved that something is over; the next moment, you are back in hot water. There always seems to be something up the road. God constantly challenges and pushes, and tells us that we cannot always stash things away in a neat pile. God reminds us that Christmas is not just about the warm and cozy Belen, but also about the birth of a Messiah that takes on all of the human experience upon himself – a birth that is messy and painful and bloody and discomforting, a birth that is steeped in uncertainty and insecurity.

The reason that John provokes is that he is preparing the way for a Messiah who is likewise provocative, who challenges, who pushes – daring people, testing the limits of what they can do, driving them to the edge of possibilities. I read a comment made by a contemporary writer [ Commonweal magazine, Paul Baumann] who says: "Jesus is a compelling figure to the extent that he is a discomforting figure.... The minute you are comfortable with him, he demands something else, something more, something impossible." One instant you are relieved to be able to give Caesar what is Caesar's, the next moment, you are told to give up everything else that is of the world. One minute, you are told to honor your mother and father, then the next, you are invited to leave them behind. One moment, you are reminded that in the end, the judgment will come unrelentingly, but the next moment, you are also told that God forgives, not seven times, but seventy times seven times. And he says: "It is this prickliness, this demanding, almost imperious solicitude that makes Jesus such an inexhaustible presence."

Yet, even as Zechariah begins as a loser, he is shown in today's Gospel as a winner, one who is "unstucked," one who is freed from his imprisonment, one who is at first struck mute and speechless but now is able to speak and sing God's praises. Zechariah ends up as a winner when he realizes once more that ours is a God of surprises, that ours is a God of the unexpected, whom we can never put in a box and wrap up so neatly with fancy paper and ribbons, and Christmas is precisely the time when this comes across so clearly, when we see the almighty God lying so peacefully in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes and so vulnerable. Father Horacio de la Costa once said it so eloquently, that "Christmas is when we celebrate the unexpected; it is the festival of surprise," when "down is up and up is down", when suddenly, "in the very heart of earth, is heaven," and "the stars and the angels look down on the God who made them and God looks up at the things He made." Zechariah becomes a winner, when he allows himself to be awed by the unfathomable will of God, and to believe once more that through all the good times and bad, there is a loving plan for him and for all the world, and how he must simply allow himself to be molded through all the twists and turns of life.

This Christmas season, we are invited to do just that – to sit back and be awed once more by this God of surprises, and let ourselves take part in his loving plan

A friend of mine asked me the question - If a tree falls, does it fall exist even nobody perceived it?

I answered yes, because sa question na nga nanggaling na the tree fell. The tree fell, its fall existed. Its just that nobody perceived it, it only means nobody perceived its existence. I dont agree with Berkleys maxim of - To be perceived is to exist. A being exists even if no one perceives its existence. If I live in a cave all my life, I exist, even if nobody saw me live.

Then I told him about the Spiderman arguement. Peter Parker is Spiderman, he exists as Spiderman at some point in time. Nobody knows about that. Does it mean he is not Spiderman, he does not exist as Spiderman? No, he is still Spiderman, its just that nobody knows it.

Another Spiderman arguement. Mary Jane is sometimes angry at Peter Parker for not always being there. Hence, sometimes she thinks of Peter in a bad light. But she does not know that Peter is not always there for her because he has to save the world. She thinks Peter is bad because he is not always there for her. But in truth, Peter is good because he is saving others and fighting for the greater good. She just does not know it.

That is similar to God. We are like Mary Jane, we are sometimes frustrated, sad, disappointed, and even angry at God for not always answering our prayers or for misfortunes and sufferings comming our wy. But we dont know that there is a greater reason for this that we can't understand. We dont know why it is happening to us, or why it has happened to us. But the truth is, God made those things happen for a great reason and for greater good. God is good, His works are good in nature, but we just dont see the good in all those works and we dont know why He did those works because we cannot grasp His infinite wisdom using our finite reason and senses.

Whatever position we are now in ourlives, be it successful or not, winning or losing, happy or sad, always remember that the position we are in is the best position possible, otherwise God would not put us there. We dont understand, we will understand it later perhaps. But what is important is that we believe Him, we believe in Him, we trust him, and we keep and share the faith, that this is the best position in our lives right now and that better and greater things will happen if we pray and work for it. Lets focus on achieving our goals, and God's Will and Glory, and not be worried by problems and negatives, instead we should overcome problems and turn the negatives into positives.

We should believe, even if we dont understand it at all, we should believe even if we dont understand it first, and eventually we will understand.

As St. Augustine said, "Seek not to understand so that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand."  In life, you dont need to know it all, you dont need to understand it all. Sometimes that belief is the key to knowledge and wisdom. How do we achieve our dreams? It all starts with a belief that it will happen, then comes the vision that you see yourself with your dreams. Then that is where you set your goals in achieving your dreams and make an action plan. But you will never set the goals that you never believed in, and you will never make an action plan of something you dont believe you cant achieve.

When You FALL IN LOVE
(Debunking the Myths That Are Driving You Crazy) By: Bo Sanchez

This article isn't for teenagers only.

Falling in love happens to the young and the not-so-young. (Did you see
42-year-old Tom Cruise jump up and down Oprah's couch because of Katie?)
I t happens to everyone. Fat, thin, tall, short, intelligent, uneducated,
holy, not so holy, dark, white, yellow, green... it doesn't really matter.

All of us fall in love.
And we get stuck in myths that drive us absolutely crazy.
My goal is to debunk these myths and convince you not to believe in them.
Let's begin....... ...


MYTH 1:           LOVE WILL CONQUER ALL

Let me qualify.
This is such a tricky myth. Because love ----- as defined by the Bible
------ will conquer all. But love ------ as defined by glazed-eyed lovers
----- will not.

If you believe in this myth, you might do the following:

You overlook major obstacles in your relationship.

Everyone you know is wondering why you chose that creature from outer
space as your boyfriend. Your bestfriends are telling you to get rid of
him. Your family is telling you to throw him out of a running vehicle.
Aling Rosa of the sari-sari store across the street is telling you to lace
his drink with poison.
But you won't --------- because you're in love. That's why there are songs
entitled, "you and me against the world"
Your bestbuds comment, 'but he's been jobless for the past three years!"
And you say, "He's free-spirited. He feels boxed in when he's in the
office. '(in other words, he's undisciplined, lazy bum.)
Your officemates say, 'He flirts with other women constantly!' and you
say, 'No, he's just friendly.' (in other words, he's a pervert)
Your cousins say, 'He's taking drugs, He's got needle marks all over his
arm. And you say, 'No, he's into cross stitching.'

You overstay in toxic relationships, believing that your love will change
him.

The wedding doesn't transform anyone.
Even if three Popes officiate the wedding.
The person you'll march with into the church will be the same person
you'll march with out of the church. He doesn't change one bit.
In fact, the marriage makes the hidden more obvious.
If he was selfish before he got married, he will be even more selfish
after the wedding. If he was hypercritical before he got married, he'll
even be more vile and prolific with his criticisms after wedding.
Here's the truth : You need more than feelings of love to make a
relationship work. You need mature character, total commitment and a
minimum level of compatibility.
Especially compatibility in the area of values and mission in life. I hear
people say, 'We're compatible. Our names begin with the same letter J. My
name is Julie and his name is Julio. We're both born in July."
Wow. That's so deep, I want to cry.

MYTH 2 :  WHEN IT"S TRUE LOVE YOU WILL KNOW THE MOMENT YOU MEET   THE
OTHER PERSON

I'm sure you've had this experience before.
You are in a crowded room. You're surrounded by boring, noisy chatter
when, suddenly, this gorgeous guy enters the door.
Your eyes meet.
Instantly, time stands still. The universe grinds to a halt. Except for
this attractive man in front of you, everything in your vision becomes a
giant blur. The hubbub of the crowd becomes a soft muffle and, from out of
nowhere, you here gentle violin music from the background.
One week later, he's your boyfriend.
A few weeks later, you discover that your boyfriend's a pathological liar,
buried in credit card debt, borrows money from all his girlfriends (you're
his eight in six months).
Your mind says, 'Dump him'
Your heart says, 'But it was love at first sight!'
Here are the consequences ...

You become so focused on the magical first moment, you become blind to the
dark side of the relationship.
Six out of seven days, you're fighting with your boyfriend.
But you can't give him up because you met each other in such a magical
moment. Your car keys fell and he picked it up, and then your eyes met,
you smelled his deodorant, and you dropped your keys again ......How can
you not be meant for each other?

You become a love-at-first- sight junkie that you could miss out on the
'real thing'.
One intelligent woman told me, 'Bo, there's this guy who's courting me.
He's okay. He's kind, he's responsible, he has a good job.......'
"I could hear a 'but' coming ," I said.
'but there are no sparks!" she bit her lip.
"No violin music playing in the background huh"
"none. When I see him, the background music I hear is
lululalu-lalulalula lei..."
"listen. You don't need a magical first moment to meet our potential
husband. The important things are mature character, financial
responsibility, ability for commitment, compatible mission and values..."
I actually met this girl again on her wedding, and before she marched down
the aisle, she whispered to me, "Do you hear the violin music, Bo? It's
loud and clear."
It doesn't have to be love at first sight.
In fact, marriages with the least adjustments are those between friends
who've known each other for years before they realize that they're good
marriage material.
What is love at first sight?
Many times, it's lust at first sight. Or infatuation at first sight.
Don't give it too much weight.
Here's the truth: it takes a moment to experience infatuation but true
love takes a lifetime.

MYTH 3 : IF IT IS TRUE LOVE YOU WILL FEEL THIS WAY FOR EACH OTHER FOREVER

No, you won't. Here are the consequences for believing this myth :

You panic when the feelings wane, and wonder whether the marriage is over
and whether you really loved one another in the first place.
Imagine the night of your honeymoon.
Your new bride is sleeping. The cotton curtains are gently swaying in the
cool breeze. You gaze at her lovely face. You study her soft cheeks. Her
long eyelashes. Her beautiful nose, her parted red lips.
And all of a sudden, she snores.
"Ngggggggooork"
How do you react? Because it's your honeymoon, you say, 'How cute.'
Six months down the road, the same scene transpires. Your wife is
sleeping. And the same cotton curtains are gently swaying in the cool
breeze.
And you hear her snore.
"Ngggggoork. "
What do you say?
"Ssssssheeeesh, Honey! You sound like a boat!'
What has happened? The feelings have gone. Let me say this: 'That's
normal. It happens to everyone. But it doesn't mean your love is gone so
don't panic!
You can make a decision to love the snoring boat.

You start blaming your partner for the loss of love
This is nutty.
But many people do it: when we don't feel in love, we think it's the fault
of the other person. And so we fight him.
Again, we fall out of love because we're human beings.
It's nobody's fault.
The moment you fall out of love , the real work begins .
Let me explain.
This is the most important point I'm going to make. (I got this from Scott
Peck in his bestseller book, The Road Less traveled)

Falling in love isn't love
Here's why. When you fall in love.....
a.       No decision is required. Falling in love just happens.
b.      No effort is required. Falling in love is like.... Well, falling.
c.       No hard work is required. Falling in love is being bitten by the
love bug.

On the other hand, true love requires all three : Decision, effort and
lots of hard work. In the Bible, love is a command. You make it happen.
Sure true love can only happen after you've fallen out of love.
When you begin choosing to love, even if you don't feel like doing it ----
that's true love. And that's the foundation of a lasting marriage.


MYTH 4: YOUR PARTNER WILL FULFILL YOU COMPLETELY

Again because falling in love satisfied you completely ----- you want the
same satisfaction to last. No it won't.
Consequence? You might fail to recognize a good relationship because your
partner isn't fulfilling the needs you should be fulfilling yourself.
Here's the truth: the right partner will fulfill many of your needs but
not all of them . There are just some things your husband can't give you:
you're self-worth. Your spirituality. Your inner happiness. These are
things you have to work on your own.
I've met lots of people who think they're dissatisfied with their
marriage. In reality, they're dissatisfied with themselves.
I've met lots of people who think they're bored with their marriages. And
they complain to the high heavens how boring their husband or wife is ----
when in truth, they're really bored with life.
Meet your own needs. Find your happiness in God. Find your niche, your
calling, your destiny. And then share your joy with your spouse.

MYTH 5 : IF IT'S TRUE LOVE YOU WON"T BE ATTRACTED TO ANYONE ELSE

If you believe in this myth, you panic when you get attracted to someone
else, questioning the authenticity of your love for your spouse.
One man told me, 'Bo, I love my wife. Or I thought I did. But then I met
this woman at work. She has nice make-up. She smells nice. She wears a
pencil-cut skirt. When I go home, my wife is wearing a drab rag. Her hair
is undone. She smells of vinegar. Gosh I am attracted to this girl at
work."
Being attracted to someone is normal ----- even if you have a happy
marriage. But being attracted doesn't mean falling into adultery.
Every time you think of the other woman, discipline your heart and say,
'Home, boy, Home!' and escort your heart back to your wife. Because if you
feed your attraction with fantasies and constantly think about the other
woman, it grows. But if you starve your attraction, it dies a natural
death.

FAITH

When you come to the end
of all the light you know,
and it's time to step into the darkness
of the unknown,
faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen:
Either you will be given something solid to stand on
or you will be taught to fly.

- Edward Teller

got this from an email... here  it is.

Message: Take time to read this article, it's an eye-opener and very
inspiring. I'm sure you can relate your own personal
experience in one of the paragraphs and you will find yourself
smiling while affirming the statements

Advice for the married, planning to get married, single but not
available, single and available, no love life...

Eduardo Calasanz was a student at the Ateneo Manila
University, Philippines, where he had Father Ferriols as
professor. Father Ferriols, at that time, was the Philosophy
department head. Currently he still teaches Philosophy for
graduating college students in Ateneo.

Father Ferriols has been very popular for his mind opening and
enriching classes but was also notorious for the grades he
gives. Still people took his classes for the learning and deep
insight they take home with them every day (if only they could
do something about the grades...)

Anyway, come grade giving time, (Ateneo has letter grading
systems, the highest being an A, lowest at D, with F for
flunk), Fr Ferriols had this long discussion with the registrar
people because he wanted to give Calasanz an A+. Either that
or he doesn't teach at all...Calasanz got his
A+. Read the paper below to find out why.

--------------------

PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE
By Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz

I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I
have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something
about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage
seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives
than for what it makes possible within our lives.

When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want
to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons
of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they
thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they
and their partners became embittered and petty in their
dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at
best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of
loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting
myself or someone else to such a fate.

And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who
somehow seemed to glow in each other's presence. They
seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and
tolerant of each other's foibles. It was an astounding sight,
and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they
have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation
at the other's habits? What keeps love alive in them, when
most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less
love each other?

The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is
something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good
people can create a bad relationship, even though they both
dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find
someone with whom you can create a good relationship from
the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early
stages.

Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way
you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of
little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail.
You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming
sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve
themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of
sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side.

This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts.
Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to
know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot
see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire
looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal
perception of what life would be like together.

The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become
long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each
other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions,
sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at
their best. They share time together before they get swept into
the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.

This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the
spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look
beyond it for other keys to compatibility. One of these is
laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each
other's company over the long term.

If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the
expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the
world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each
other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you
can always surprise each other, you can always keep the
world around you new.

Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even
the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness
have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common
serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those
who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship
can become based on being critical together.

After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a
way you respect. When two people first get together, they
tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space
between the two of them. They find each other endlessly
fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they
are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship
ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again.
If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you
can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way
she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If
that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does
not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal
with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not
respect each other.

Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life.
We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life
of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply
affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships,
while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical,
you must take care that the distance doesn't become an
unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and
misunderstood.

There are many other keys, but you must find them by
yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we
will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that
we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot
nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish
them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until
you live in separate worlds where you share the business of
life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and
dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of
petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples
bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.

So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen
a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle
of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words
carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too
strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called
transformation. Transformation is one of the most common
events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon
becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love
becomes a child. We never question these, because we see
them around us every day. To us they are not miracles,
though if we did not know them they would be impossible to
believe.

Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is
planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot
know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a
bloom will come.

If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be
good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the
bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality
of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative
transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter
marriages that I feared when I was younger.

It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that
transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was
unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could
be transformed into something positive that was actually
deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion.
All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the
fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser
and bitter.

But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative
transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things.
But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a
thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two
separate beings, two separate presence, two separate
consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that
passes before them. They remain separate, but they also
become one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a
closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to
say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension
and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to
monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains
within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow
more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the
richness that it alone contains.

But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be
leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all
odds, to become one. Those who live together without
marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there
is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens
that experience into something richer and more complex.

So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for
the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it
the power of transformation. If you believe in your heart that
you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if
you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless
attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if
you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and
seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready
to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The
easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience.
When the time comes, a thousand flowers will
bloom...endlessly.

Ive always been contemplating  about everything I can contemplate of. Be it in my career, in my goals, dreams, school, what I want in life, what I need in life, philosophy, faith, and love. I think my contemplation is the reason for my being stressed out recently and for my long time insomia.

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a pastor, because I wanted to serve God by spreading his word, the good news, as well as helping other people. I was inspired by the pastors during sunday services at Westminster. Even when I went to Manila Science High School where I was supposed to be focusing on the technicalities as well as the empiricism of life and career, the pastor in me is still very strong.

When I was introduced to the Synergy1 Business, I declined the opportunity first, because I thought that it was not for me, after all I dont think money is equal to success and happiness, for me I want to be fulfilled being a great pastor. But I guess, it seemed to be destiny, the opportunity knocked on my doors again. This time I gave it a good thinking. Is it worth it? Why will I do it? Should I do it? At the end of the day, it is Yes, Yes, and Yes.

I realize that being a pastor is not the end, but rather the means to achieve my end - which is to achieve fulfillment by serving God by spreading His word, the good news and  helping other people achieve better lives. I also realized that the business will give me freedom (both money and time) to do my passions of spreading His word and helping people achieve better lives. Thats the reason why I decided to do the business. Other reasons of course are some of my other personal goals, which is to have my dream house, my dream car, and a stable and great future for me and my future family. These goals drive me to do the business and go the distance. Im determined to go the distance and achieve my goals --- I will do whatever it takes to achieve them.

Being a philosophy major it is only reasonable that I contemplate about philosophy and my topic of interest - faith. I have always believed that there is a universal truth, the whole truth. Then there are several truths, particular truths. The whole truth, universal truth is the big picture. The several truths, particular truths are the details that make up the big picture. We acquire this particular truths from knowledge and experience, and we use wisdom to combine them and form the big picture.

As for faith, while I believe we have a fairly good reason, I dont think it is good enough to grasp everything such as God and other supernatural and divine truths. Our reason is finite, and can only grasp what is finite and natural. It cannot grasp God who is infinite, who is supernatural, and divine. That is where reason falls short. And that is the point where reason ends, and faith begins. Faith fills in the shortcomings of reason. Faith enables us to receive Divine Light from God. Faith enables us to receive and understand His revelations of divine truths to us.

I got this quote from a certain philosopher, but I forgot the name. It goes on like this:

When you are at the end of the light of the knowns, when your reason cannot see the light anymore. When it is time to venture into the darkness of the unknowns. Faith will either give you something solid to step on, or it will teach you how to fly...

Have a great one, I will be posting the next part of my contemplations when my mind is clear.

Understand so that you may believe, believe so that you may understand - St. Augustine

First, I believe that everyone asks philosophical questions. Maybe its because they want to know the answer for their existence, their purpose, why they are they, on why the live and several other questions. I think that in one stage of people's lives, there came a time on which they ask this questions.

             This leads me to the question of " Is it worth answering these philosophical questions?" We could rephrase that question and instead of using worth, we use the words "useful" and "useless". So the question is "Are philosophical questions useful or useless?"

             If it comes to making financial profit out of answering these questions, then they must be useless. After all, answering them wont double the money in our pockets. Even quiz shows such as "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" don't ask questions like "what is being?" or " what is the essence of a human being?"

             If it comes to making a career out of answering these questions, I am not sure whether there is a professional philosopher and an amateur philosopher. Maybe one could teach philosophy, then that might help. But being a philosophy teacher is beyond answering these questions.

             I think answering these questions is useful when it comes to satisfying one's curiosity and endeavor. It is really hard when you cannot find the answer to your philosophical question, and when you find the answer you are enlightened and happy as your curiosity and endeavor had been satisfied.

             I also think that it is useful if an individual wants to understand life and everything. These could help in knowing one's essence and purpose in life as well as in his society. Maybe this could even be useful to help determine what is right and what is wrong, on which Ethics comes to play. Perhaps metaphysical questions might have helped in understanding the human being. And perhaps cosmological questions have helped man to search for the truth regarding the universe.

             In a way, philosophical questions are useful because they help man understand life, his being, his existence, and many other things. These philosophical questions might have been useful when it comes to motivating man to search for the truth to answer these questions. Maybe these are useful since science came from these philosophical questions. And we all know what science have contributed in our lives. However they are useless if one intends to make financial profit on it, and be practical with it.