Starting over after the Resurrection

In her homily at the Church of the Risen Lord in UP Diliman last Sunday, Dr. Ledevina Carino recalled that in a Faith and Science Dialogue, the question of when life begins was raised. She was surprised that doctors, lawyers, Muslims, Protestants and Catholics had no definitive answer to that question. For instance, UP Manila Chancellor Marita Reyes said: "Medical science does not have a definition of life, only a definition of death. For a long time, that was simply the absence of respiration, but as medicine grew more sophisticated, it became the death of the brain stem."

So, with no definition of life, life for doctors is then simply the obverse of death, said Dr. Carino. "So life begins when we start breathing, or when our brain starts to function. And because physicians know birth to be a process, there are several candidates for when life begins – the moment of conception, implantation, and so on, until delivery. The US Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade recognized the point of viability as the crucial stage in the process. People for or against abortion choose a different stage as the beginning of life."

What Dr. Carino thought to be "the most Christian answer" was given by the Muslim representative, Mr. Taha Basman, who said that life begins at the point of ensoulment – "when a soul is breathed into the baby in the womb."

Dr. Carino asked: "Before a being has a soul, is it really human? While the creation of one zygote may signal existence, I submit that the process of ensoulment is the beginning of life. But when does that occur? And how can we connect that to Easter? Listen to the words of the Risen Lord in Acts 1:7 – ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses . . . up to the ends of the earth’."

We should not quibble, however, over when life begins in the womb, said Dr. Carino, "because for Christians, the important point is the second birth. This is what the Resurrection gained for us."

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Now, what did Jesus do with his new life (after the Resurrection)?

Dr. Carino noted that Jesus "reaffirmed to his disciples the messages he had been giving before his death. He reminded them of his prophecies. He repeated his ritual of communion with them. Jesus used this new life as a continuation, indeed, a deepening of his ministry. In his resurrection, Christ drew his disciples together again. It was a shining moment not of faith alone, but a call to action."

Jesus did not only go about preaching. The second lesson for us is that he continued to care for the life of each disciple, not just dealing with all of them in general, but caring for each of them in particular.

Jesus did not just minister to the heart, as he did to Mary (by appearing to her in her moment of grief), or the mind, as he did to Thomas. He also ministered to the body, appearing to Peter’s fishing team and giving them a miraculous catch of fish. When the group went ashore, they saw "a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread". There was Jesus, newly resurrected, now clearly, indisputably divine, and he went down to the level of building a fire and cooking for his friends.

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Then Dr. Carino recalled the three times Jesus asked three times if Peter really loved him. "I think what Jesus is saying is that we can only truly serve if we have love in our hearts," said Dr. Carino. She had seen this kind of love and service intertwined in the lives of pahinungods in the university. (Pahinungod is the Filipino equivalent of oblation, but more profound and stronger than oblation because it is the offering of self.) Such was the service rendered by Mimi Marcelo and Meg Leyeza, psychology graduates who served at the DSWD’s center for abused children because they "wanted to experience how it would feel to share part of our lives with others." Such was the volunteer work given by the team (which included Dr. Ben Carino and Dr. Art Corpus) of the UP School of Urban and Regional Planning when they drew up a comprehensive land-use plan for Miag-ao, Iloilo, a plan which would have cost a million pesos but which the team gave for free.

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Of course, service with love can be found even in paid work, said Dr. Carino. But how often do we miss the chance because we are so wrapped up in standard operating procedures? Then she recalled an incident in the municipal health officer’s office in a town in Central Luzon. While she and her companions were waiting to make a courtesy call on the officer, they saw a barefoot man walk in. He was crying, and the story that Ledy was told was that the man, father of five girls, had a sixth (and the last that his wife could bear him) who turned out to be a boy, but who was born dead. The Health office issued a certificate of fetal death, but the municipal and Catholic cemeteries would not bury the boy because he was only a fetus. Ledy said: "Imagine, the government and the church claim there is a human being at the point of conception, but in death, this child was only called a fetus."

Ledy recalled that when she was growing up, she was scared of seeing babies in big formalin jars in many rural homes. That was done because the cemeteries won’t accept their babies for some reason. "So here was the only son of a man who will never have a son, and all he was asking for was the privilege to give him that proper burial. All the medical professionals I have asked tell me that the nurse and the midwife were right "technically". But in the face of this family tragedy, most told me they would intentionally commit a professional error and issue the certificate the man wanted."

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Jesus, Ledy said, is not asking us necessarily to commit professional errors to serve lovingly. There are countless stories of people giving pad and volunteer service with both professional competence and true compassion.

After his Resurrection, Ledy said, "Jesus did not become the icon we see depicted in stampitas, suspended between sky and earth with light all about him. Beginning life again, he went direct to his ministry, caring for the needs of specific people in heart, mind and body, serving with love. Our task is to follow in his example."

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