LOGARTA
Last Saturday evening in her reflection on the Gospel on the Magi, the Scalabrini nun, Sr. Maru, reminded the DZMM listeners that she hoped that the zeal of the people over the Nazarene would not be a one-shot deal; rather our spiritual life should be journey like that of the Magi.
As we approach the fiesta days of our Santo Niño, let me bring in here the very beautiful and helpful book, Our Mother of Perpetual Help Icon and the Filipinos Multi-disciplinary Perspectives to a Perpetual Help Spirituality.
Although it is mainly about the devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, we can relate its significant points to our devotion of the Santo Niño.
Let’s start with the ending of the essay of Fr. Victorino A. Cueto, CSsR.: “DEBO (Mi)syon: Devotion as Mission-al and Mission as Devotion-al is a dis/position that is akin to a journey a search that lies between devotion and mission.
It is highly devotional as it is filled with zeal and love. The devout is intensely touched by his/her experience glimpsed through the Icon of God. S/he encounters in his/her narrations of prayerful pleas and heartfelt gratitude.
In the same regard, it is mission-al in its practiced desire to reach-out and serve others, not in his/her own terms alone but in the service of God’s mission and His/Her reign.
Put differently, devotion without mission is empty self-referential monologue cloaked in a spiritualizing anesthetization (and many times, aesthetization) of the pains and sufferings in the world. In turn, mission not fired–up by devotion becomes a cold and distant following of the God of the philosophers and scholars, not the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob.”
“In another vein, the dialogue between devotion and mission contributes to “abolishing (of) the division of human beings into makers and dreamers, activists and introverts, and the differentiation between productivity of action and the receptivity of piety.”
In traditional language, it is the meeting of two paths, via contemplativa and via activa, in a mutual yet at times tensive relation of creativity and freedom.”
He gives a personal example of this in his closing. “A couple of Christmases ago, I sent a greeting card saying, ‘…and defiant Hope is born.’
As I encounter Mavic, Nanay Eden, Jasmin and Jun, Mang Fidel and the everyday devotees in Baclaran Shrine, I want to believe that in navigating our present ‘troubled’ and ‘troubling’ world, nothing is more urgently needed than ‘expressing a disquiet, a hope…(in) seeking to invent for itself a ‘a way of being and believing.’”
In this journey, we join other nameless exiles-“the pauper, the idiotus, the illiterate, the woman, or the affectus…” and may we add the undocumented people, the so-called collateral victims of unjust wars, the street children, the hungry, the persecuted and Paglaom- those that the world has not considered its own.
This presentation is but a modest attempt at theological tinkering to heed the murmurings of the common tao in their struggle to survive and live in the ‘oceanic rumble’ of everyday faith-witness and marginality. In this exploration there is no conclusion.
In its stead will be fear and gratitude, pain and joy, and a heightened passion for life in the double sense of the word, knowing that the journey will always involve manoeuvres in the most delinquent forms of communities enacting the life of that man-God from Nazareth who continuously ignites the flame of hope…defiant as ever!”
Thanks a zillion Fr. Ino, we hope to keep this spirit not only as we immerse ourselves in the Fiesta sa Señor and Sinulog festivities but also as we live through our spiritual journeys.
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