Where faith and piety start to trickle
In a way, the world is getting more polarized these days. That’s actually an understatement. Let’s never forget that the world will always be an arena for the continuing battle of good and evil. Polarization is a dynamic thing. It has its ebb and flow.
But this conflict can have its sharpest moment during Holy Week. That’s the high point of the Christian world. And thus the enemies of Christ and of the Church can view it also as their lowest moment, a time to fight for survival.
That’s one angle. On the other hand, we cannot discount the possibility that all this fuss has been whipped more to generate readership and lucre in a media dead season than to give objective news. Sorry for this cynical impression, but I think it has good basis. We were not born yesterday.
The past weeks leading to Holy Week have seen some parts of the mainstream Western media hitting rock bottom in vile and malice. Stretching their arguments and evidence out of proportion, they attacked the Pope and the Church in general for past misconduct of some clerics.
For sure, there were serious errors, grave sins and screaming scandals involving some members of the clergy. Church authorities have admitted these anomalies, have profusely apologized, and where required, have paid the price, both in money and in other more serious intangible penalties.
But while we all try to avoid these, neither should we be surprised by them. This is part of our human condition. And the Church, in its human aspect, is not exempt from it.
As the Catechism says: “The Church, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal.” (CCC 827) Only fools don’t realize this.
The recent spate of media accusations against the Church have been reviewed and probed, and they were found to be simply exaggerated given the hue and cry Western media gave them.
It seems to me that they were made just to bash Christ, slam the Church, embarrass the clergy, put the whole world of faith and religion in ridicule.
Anyway, during this Holy Week, amid all the retreats, recollections, confessions and liturgical activities, I tried to take a break from these media-generated controversies mainly in the virtual world of the internet by going to small town churches and to observe the real pulse of the people.
It was a very rewarding plan, as I derived ample impulses of faith and hope by just looking at the simple people doing their prayers and other forms of atonement. There I saw what I consider to be the wellspring of faith and piety.
Simple people always attract the grace and mercy of God, and it’s gratifying, not to mention, purifying, to see this phenomenon in action, in real life. The city, of course, can have its share of God’s grace and mercy, but I believe it’s in the small towns where you these more clearly.
In these simple people, you see embedded in their raw and rough ways, a certain purity of heart and pristinity of character very rare to find in big, bustling places. I saw how they prayed and expressed their faith in God, and could not help but feel some holy envy for them.
I imagined that their faith was largely unsupported by academic philosophy and theology, and thus, purer, more spiritual and supernatural.
Not that philosophy, theology and other human sciences undermine faith. No. They are not supposed to have that effect. They are supposed to strengthen one’s faith. But in the real world, many times, for one reason or another, they do in fact weaken one’s faith and dampen one’s piety.
That’s because we tend, often without realizing it, to ground this knowledge improperly, mixing it with pride, vanity and self-interest, such that instead of enhancing our love for God and others, it intensifies our self-love and self-absorption.
And from there, all sorts of graver anomalies can grow, until faith and piety are practically muted and killed. This is what we are seeing in this world today. Parts of it are now openly against God, faith and religion, and are building up their own new morality.
We need to recover our proper bearings. Aside from prayer, recourse to the sacraments and a continuing formation and ascetical struggle, let’s look at where popular piety starts to trickle in the small places and among simple folks, to get our spiritual moorings right and to sustain our efforts.
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City. Email: roycimagala@gmail.com)
