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LINK: ‘Note Verbale’, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Times) – 23 March 2008 Issue

Sins are acts or omissions regarded by institutions of faith as transgressions of their God’s will.

From the standpoint of the Roman Catholics, sins may be original, referring to the since of disobedience inherited by all the descendants of Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Following this biblical line, no one comes out of the mother’s womb sinless. Sins may also be personal, taking either the form of mortal or venial sins depending on their nature, gravity, and deliberateness.

In the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, they say that Saint Gregory I, The Great, who introduced the edict of celibacy, listed the original seven deadly sins during his papacy in the 6th century. And this list was made popular by a great Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, in his epic poem and literary masterpiece, “The Divine Comedy” in the 14th century.

The seven deadly sins include: Luxuria (extravagance or lust), Gula (gluttony), Avaritia (greed), Acedia (sloth), Ira (wrath), Invidia (envy), and Superbia (pride).

If there are seven deadly sins, there are also seven holy virtues. They say that the seven virtues were derived from an epic poem written by a Roman Christian Poet, Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, entitled “Psychomachia” or the “Contest of the Soul”, which was intensely popular in Europe during the Middle Ages. These seven virtues that include, Chastity, Abstinence, Temperance, Diligence, Patience, Kindness and Humility, are regarded as ‘contrary virtues’ because they are supposed to protect one against each of their counterpart in the order of the seven deadly sins.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, India’s great political and spiritual leader and one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, devised his own list of seven sins which he considered to be most spiritually damaging to modern-day humanity.  These include: Wealth without Work, Pleasure without Conscience, Science without Humanity, Knowledge without Character, Politics without Principle, Commerce without Morality, and Worship without Sacrifice.

A week ago, Vatican came up with a list of seven modern-day mortal sins for Roman Catholics, in addition to the traditional seven deadly sins, because of their prevalence in this era of ‘unstoppable globalisation’. Reports say that these new mortal sins were listed by Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti at the end of a week-long training seminar in Rome for priests, aimed at encouraging a revival of the practice of confession or the Sacrament of Penance in the Catholic faith.

The seven modern evils include: environmental pollution, genetic manipulation, accumulating excessive wealth, inflicting poverty, drug trafficking and consumption, morally debatable experiments, and violation of fundamental rights of human nature.

8ins are intrinsically evil because they deliberately offend the sensibilities of human nature. For this reasons, almost all sins, if not all, are also legislated and regarded as crimes against society in the modern world that deserve corporeal punishment. Although, it does not necessarily follow that all state-defined crimes are sins per se. 

The sins committed by human beings have no expiration date. Neither does their basic nature change with the changing world. Sins will be the same throughout the existence of humanity. What the human conscience perceives as evils before are the same evils today, only the form, manner, face or packaging of their commission will change.

As the Christian world celebrates and observes Easter Sunday, people should be reminded that still the best prescription to avoid the temptation and occasion of sins, modern or old, is to conscientiously observe the ethic or reciprocity in their human conduct as expressed in the Golden Rule of “doing unto others what you would like others do unto you”. And certainly, this is in keeping and in accord with God’s will even in today’s world.

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 8 April 2007 Issue

Today the Christian world is commemorating Easter Sunday.

At the center of the celebration is the resurrection of Jesus, three days following His death by crucifixion. After His resurrection, Jesus then bodily ascended to Heaven in the presence of His apostles according to biblical accounts.

The resurrection of Jesus is considered as the cornerstone of the Christian faith. No other leader of the faith since the beginning of man had risen from the dead.

Muhammad, the founder of Islam and considered by the Muslims as the prophet and last messenger of God, died on June 8, 632 following an illness. His body was buried in the City of Medina in Saudi Arabia. But he did not rise from the dead.

They say that Siddh?rtha Gautama, the spiritual teacher from ancient India and founder of Buddhism, fell ill and died at the age of 80. His body was cremated and the relics were placed in monuments.  But never did he resurrect.
 
The Bible says that Moses, the Hebrew religious leader to whom God supposedly gave the Ten Commandments in Mount Sinai and led the Israelites in the miraculous Passage of the Red Sea, was 120 years old when he died. But there was no account that Moses ever resurrected.

Consequently, those who doubt the divinity of Jesus focus on their arguments by debunking the story of Jesus’ resurrection.  

Some skeptics say that the cadaver of Jesus was stolen by His disciples from His tomb.  Others would say that His Body was moved by Jewish or Roman authorities at that time to another location. There is also this theory that the women who visited His remains, distraught and overcome by grief, missed their way in the dimness of the morning and went to the wrong tomb and thought that He resurrected.  Another hypothesis was Jesus was mistakenly reported to have died but in reality He just lost consciousness because of pain, fatigue and loss of blood and walked away from His tomb after regaining His consciousness and thereafter appeared before His disciples.

In his electronic article “Beyond Blind Faith” that was adapted from his book “Know Why You Believe”, author Paul E. Little said that given the biblical claims of Jesus there are only four possibilities, either He is a liar, a lunatic, a legend, or the Truth. Those who do not affirm that Jesus is the Truth automatically affirm that He could be one of the three other possibilities.

Little argued that even those who deny Jesus affirm that He was a great moral teacher. And it is illogical to assume that He is such a teacher if He is a deliberate liar. He further said that a person who thinks he is God is certainly lunatic but if one would closely examine the life of Christ, there is no sign imbalance and abnormalities befitting a deranged person; in fact, He displayed the greatest composure under pressure. Neither is the story of Jesus a mere legend as borne out by the many evidences found in discoveries of modern archaeology that supported His existence as a human being. And by the process of elimination, Jesus cannot be the other possibilities but the Truth.

As Jesus said after His resurrection: “Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

Indubitably, the Resurrection, and eventual Ascension, of Jesus is the greatest foundation of Christianity. But more than being the cornerstone of faith, His Resurrection is also the ultimate manifestation that there is Supreme Being, even if no one among the living has seen The Master face to face.

And verily it is only by seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness that human beings would be truly blessed. All things corporeal are secondary.

St. Mary is the Immaculate Mother of Jesus and revered by all faithful of the Christian world.  Wikipedia says that: “In the Qur’an, no other woman is given more attention than the Virgin Mary. In fact, the nineteenth chapter of the Qur’an is named after her and is about her life. Of the Qur’an’s 114 chapters, she is among only eight people who have a chapter named after them. Mary is also the only woman specifically named in the Qur’an. In Islam, she is generally referred to as Maryam, Umm Isa (Mary, the mother of Jesus). For Muslims, the Virgin Mary is viewed as both an example and a sign for all people. . . . Holy Virgin Mary is regarded as the best woman that ever came on the face of the Earth.”

Today is the Nativity of the Blessed Mother and as one of Her faithful, I offer the following prayers:

Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Jesus and of all creation,
You inspire us with the magnificence and nobility of Your maternal love,
You teach us to believe in miracles in the face of hopelessness and helplessness,
You uplift our spirit to keep faith in your Son and our Father in Heaven,
This world would not be any better if not for your majestic and imposing presence.

May Your Nativity always bring out the best in everyone of us according to our Father’s Will,
May Your Immaculate Conception keep us free from temptations amidst our human frailties,
May Your Apparitions be a constant reminder of the eternal life that we all long to fullfill,
And may our devotion to Your Holy Rosary finally put finis to our greed and all our difficulties.

Each day of our lives, we ask God and Your Son Jesus, through your powerful intercession:
For the wisdom to discern good from evil, with clarity of thought and purpose and a pure heart.
For the power to make a difference in the lives of others and all the creations around us,
For the strength to help the needy, the less-fortunate and those in pain among us,
For the will to forgive and forget those who offend, transgress and sin against us,
And for the resolve to confront and accept all the challenges and adversities that come before us.

Thank you Dearest Lord for giving us a Mother who lived as one of us and continue to live among us.

AMEN . . .

While shopping for some souvenir items at a Catholic store in Vatican City last May, a priest in black vest greeted me with a very warm smile and asked me: “Are you a Filipino?”.  After some exchange of pleasantries, I cannot help but ask him to pose for a souvenir photo because instantly I felt the presence of a great man.

It was only when I came back to the Philippines that I learned from the news that this unassuming Dominican priest by the name of Regino O. Cortes is a bibilical expert. At the height of the public debate over a film “The Da Vinci Code” based on Dan Brown’s novel of the same title, Fr. Cortes led in the defense of the Catholic faith and published his book entitled: “The Da Vinci Code: An Exegetical Review“,

The obituary of major newspapers today, August 29, 2006, announced that Rev. Fr. Regino O. Cortes, O.P., a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and Regent of the College of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Santo Tomas, peacefully joined his Creator on August 28, 2006.

The world has once again just lost a very good man of great faith. Our loss though of his earthly presence is surely heaven’s gain.

That few minutes of my meeting with Fr. Cortes will always linger in my mind.