THE GOOD LIFE

Life And Faith

by MEGS S. LUNN

The church is celebrating the Year of Faith launched last October 21, 2012. In the Catholic Church, it is the year of new evangelization for the transmission of faith. 

Last October 21-22, the Diocese of Kalibo hosted the 4th Diocesan Gathering of Family and Life at the Aklan Catholic College Gym, Kalibo, Aklan. The most eloquent speaker, Rt. Rev. Adolfo Perlas Depra, Ph.D., Former Director, Diocesan on Family and Life shared about The Human Person according to the Blessed John Paul II. 

Recently, the church’s focus was to the canonization of St. Pedro Calungsod, assumed the patron saint of the young people. St. Pedro Calungsod is now the second Filipino saint canonized after another Filipino saint, martyr of faith – St. Lorenzo Ruiz. All Filipinos must be proud for producing such models of our Christian faith.

RH Bill

The current situation of RH Bill among Christian Filipinos is de-humanizing the image of God. According to the U.N. survey, we have six (6) million Filipino children who are hungry and 16 million Filipinos are malnourished. Just imagine the government has budgeted three (3) billion pesos for the purchase of condoms and other contraceptives, when it has none of that amount to buy milk, food and the like for our 16 million malnourished Filipinos.

There is money for the RH Bill, however, giving condoms and contraceptives to our poor Filipinos will not solve poverty and hunger. There must be a better option and solutions to the poverty threshold rather than the RH Bill. It is difficult to understand the focus and the hidden agenda of RH Bill. And there are also far worst problems in the Philippines than her earring population. There is need to educate more people to understand, rather than push them more to illiteracy and ignorance. 

The Philippines is tagged as the most corrupt nation in the world. From St. Augustine, “A government that is run without justice is a government that is run by thieves.” It hurts, but it is the reality of our situation. Only the rich matters and the poor are ignored. They only need the poor people during election; especially the illiterate who must embrace what is given them – “pantawid gutom pa kasi, kinakailangang kumapit sa patalim, dahil kahit anong gawin namin, sila pa rin ang uupo, sa ayaw at sa gusto mo,” said one hopeless farmer. Is this the kind of mindset our leaders would like to plant and harvest? 

The absence of God in our life is due to the spiritual and moral deprivation. We are in this state of life with excessive secularism, the imbalance between moral life and technology, ignorance of the law, and the phenomenon of disconnections from our Christian faith. Young people have so much distraction and parents are almost always, not around with them. 

There is joy and splendor in people’s life if they practice their true faith and put it into action. It can be done. With the grace of God, Filipino can jump the hurdles. In the daily struggle, temptations are left and right. People needs strong faith to be able to endure and finally triumph. For the best place in the world is in the arms of someone who will not only hold us at our best, but will pick us up at our weakest. 

As St. Francis of Assisi said, “Go and repair my church.” It simply means to repair ourselves. /MP