Happy New Year 2022!
As I compose now my first ATABAY blog article for the
New Year, the Catholic Church celebrates the Epiphany – the manifestation of
God represented by the Magi. Serendipitously, let me share with you my personal
rare experience that happened more than three decades ago – my epiphany.
Right after my routine annual medical check-up, I got
a call from our company clinic to go through another chest x-ray exam. Something
out of the ordinary, the call worried me a bit. After I had finished my x-ray
exam, our company doctor talked to me about the matter. Being my close peer, he
casually gave me a not-to-worry chat obviously to keep up my spirits. He told
me it would take a couple of months to get rid of the ugly spot on my lung. One
dreadful question preying then on my mind: What if the spot lingers after the
prescribed period of treatment? But I didn’t raise such a question. I was
scared of the implication our doctor would let out – the Big C – the likely
horrid outgrowth of my smoking vice.
In the months that followed, the What-If question
turned into a proverbial “Damocles’ Sword” hanging over my head, waiting to
drop at the end of the treatment period. The ominous mental picture
consequently stirred up inside me a Why-Me-Lord torment, living through, in
fear and trembling, the agonizing stages of a Personal Crisis: Shock. Denial.
Withdrawal. Resignation. Acceptance.
The impact of my initial shock hit me as hard as a heavy
vault containing my vain treasures: good curriculum vitae, thriving career,
stable job, fine family, beautiful wife, promising kids, decent community
standing, and rosy future. In contrast with such ocean-deep personal showpieces
stamped with p-r-i-d-e, my skin-deep intimacy with God then was a parachute
style of relationship stamped with a when-all-is-well-who-needs-God escape
clause. My torment in living through each stage of my crisis cast an image of the
proverbial grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying – dying to my
prideful self. What would I need the vault of treasures for when I was staring
eyeball-to-eyeball with death prospect?
I felt like falling into an abyss, groping for
anything I could get hold of. All of a sudden, a hand, seemingly dropped from
the clouds, reached out to me. It was a hand of a Born-Again Christian friend,
Louie. What followed was a seven-year spiritual journey with my friend and his
community abounding in spiritual growth and maturity: prayer, fellowship, worship,
discipleship, cover-to-cover Bible personal reading, quiet times, and spiritual
healing sessions, among others. Had not our leader Pastor Ernie and his wife Fe
taken a mission task in a foreign land, our spiritual journey could have
trodden a path, far and wide.
What happened then to the spot in my lung? Strange to say, in the course of my spiritual journey, I lost track of it. When I got to the Acceptance stage of my crisis, what I did accept was not the reality of cancer, but the Lordship of Jesus Christ that my friend instilled in me in the form of a question: "Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior!" After I answered "Yes," the spot was gradually banished, not from my lung, but in my thoughts. Praise the Lord! The x-ray exam after my treatment later indicated it was only a typical lung infection.
It is worthy to note that I am a Catholic and my friend and his community are Born-Again Christians. We kept off squabbles by setting aside doctrinal differences by our friendship -- we simply didn't want to hurt each other. In our group sharing, the power of kindness balanced out the impulse of being right. Turning into the heart of ecumenical thinking, Pope John XXIII said, "What separates us as believers in Christ is much less than what unites us." One adage calls to mind: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity."
Having "been there, done that" too, it won't astonish me today to come across Ninoy Aquino's conversion story in Charles Colson's book "Kingdoms in
"Prison had, for [Ninoy] Aquino, the same bewildering effect it has held for so many others. He lost all sense of direction and perspective. He became bitter not only at Marcos but at the world, even at God. He hated everyone and his prison guards goaded him on. They sometimes put his dinner plate on the ground and let a mongrel dog wolf part of it down; then, kicking the dog aside, they gave what was left to Aquino. He lost forty pounds. He suffered two heart attacks. When he was not longing for revenge, he wanted to die.
"His mother, deeply concerned, send him a book, the memoirs of another prisoner. It was my story – Born Again.
"At first Aquino looked at it with little appetite. Watergate was poorly understood outside America. Nonetheless, there were similarities in our careers. So Aquino read the book – and it touched him.
"He read how I too had lost everything and entered the disorienting, mocking maze of prison. But God had shown me that such losses were not in vain as I found my true life in Christ.
"Aquino began to search for the meaning I had found. A voracious reader, he poured over the Bible and other Christian books. He found great inspiration in a little classic, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. He was surprised to discover in reading the works of early Filipino hero, Jose Rizal, that the same book had motivated his life and struggle for his country.
"One night Aquino knelt in his jail cell and gave his life to Jesus Christ. Overcome with grief for his anger toward God, he begged forgiveness. His viewpoints, his life, most of all his bitterness – all changed. He had a sense that his life had suddenly moved into a different channel with another purpose.
"As Jaime Cardinal Sin of the Philippines has said, it is hard for our doubting hearts to believe that spiritual power – can change society. We know the gospel affects the lives of individuals, but can it make an impact on institutions and governments, where the heartless realities of power pierce like a knife? It is hard to fathom this.
"Nevertheless, it can happen. It does happen. One can never quite calculate how one conversion like Benigno Aquino's in a lowly prison cell may set in motion a train of events to shake a nation."
Points to Ponder: Did PH misread the EDSA Revolution as mere "People Power" not "God's Power"? As such, did PH turn the spotlight only on "People" leaving God out in the cold?
Just as God did not manifest Himself in the royal palace of Jerusalem but a lowly stable, so too, during the 1986 revolution, not in the royal palace of Malacanang, but EDSA – a place for everyone. Or, maybe, He resorted to EDSA, because of its name Epifanio De Los Santos – "epiphany of the saints" – an apparent sign of His presence.
Had PH turned the spotlight on God, Filipinos could have heeded Cardinal Sin's message of COR (heart) then: C for conversion -- changed life; O for obedience to God – changed behavior; and R for reparation – rectified wrong done.
Cardinal Sin's COR message has come with an admonition: "When God wants to punish people, He gives them unjust rulers. Like Marcos."
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