Change from within

If the bishops really want to make a difference and effect "character change" in this predominantly Catholic country, they should go back to the basics of spreading the faith.

What are the basics?

From my elementary and high school Catechism classes, I still remember the one thing we were told not to forget, even if we could not memorize the Ten Commandments: Jesus Christ telling his disciples, "Love one another as I have loved you."

Taking off from there, we were taught the Golden Rule, which you all know.

We were taught that people are born in sin that is washed away by baptism, that life is a struggle against all the sins. Those sins include the seven deadly ones, venial sins that include missing Sunday Mass or deliberately omitting mention of a sin during confession, and violations of the Commandments.

Growing up we learned to laugh about those sins. The standing joke in this land of sinners is that Heaven must be a lonely place because everyone is doomed to be roasted in the fires of Hell.

But beyond the laughter, you have to admit it will be a great day if people can be free of the Seven Deadly Sins (we had to capitalize the phrase): anger, avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, pride and sloth.

Without threatening eternal damnation, shepherds of the faith can remind their flock about the consequences of the deadly sins. If the faithful will take those teachings to heart, that will be a major character change, and many things that are good for the nation will take off from there: no more corruption or cheating of any kind, no more crab mentality, and no resorting to murder to settle scores. We might even be spared from political grandstanding.

If the faithful can be persuaded that sloth is a vice, it may even be easier for the bishops to end the typical Pinoy’s get-rich-quick mentality that has made jueteng so popular despite constant condemnation by the Church.

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From avoiding the deadly sins, those who want to lead a virtuous life can proceed to another level of obedience to divine will, by following the Ten Commandments.

Obeying the admonition against killing is easy for most people, but taking God’s name in vain or bearing false witness against one’s neighbor can be tricky.

Merely "coveting" the neighbor’s goods (or his wife) cannot possibly be a sin; who would know?

When we were kids, of course we were taught that Santa Claus and our guardian angel would know. Guilt is inculcated early in people who are taught that they are born with Original Sin, carried over from the failure of Adam and Eve to resist the Devil’s temptation in the Garden of Eden.

Now this is sounding too much like a children’s movie. But shorn of the mystical aspects, explained in practical terms to people who don’t relish the idea of having androgynous winged creatures knowing even their most secret thoughts, shepherds of the faith can persuade their flock that goodness reaps great dividends.

The promise of Heaven after a life of virtue could seem like a hard sell in the age of instant gratification. But even as we refuse to believe anything that cannot be quantified, felt by the physical senses, or recorded or captured in a machine, we also realize that life still holds many mysteries.

We don’t even know yet what happens when we sleep. We know absolutely nothing about what comes after death.

At a certain point in life we yearn for a peace that no amount of money can buy or human companionship can provide. It is a kind of peace that banishes hatred and fear, or at least gives us the courage to face anything that can elicit fear.

We call it spiritual fulfillment, even if we are not sure exactly what the spirit is. We prefer to believe that we will live forever, that the essence of our being is a soul, even if it can’t be captured on videocam.

That soul has needs that we want our spiritual advisers to fulfill. In this country, I am not sure the Catholic faithful is getting much of that fulfillment.

This is too bad, because religion can play a role in creating a great nation, even if religious leaders refrain from meddling in political affairs. Change the person from within and everything else falls into place: honesty, diligence, humility, refusal to give in to despair.

Our neighbors are disciplined by the Confucian ethic, Zen and Bushido; we are supposed to be disciplined by our faith. But this isn’t happening here. Both the shepherd and his flock must share the blame.

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In grade school, nuns were among our role models. When adults asked my female classmates and I what we wanted to be when we grew up, the most popular answers were nuns, nurses and teachers.

These days girls want to become fashion models, movie stars, news anchors, even fighter jet pilots and, why not, president of the republic. There’s a scramble to work as nurses, but for different reasons.

This isn’t too bad, but what happened to the nun as role model? She has fallen by the wayside, like the lovely lace veils that we used to wear to Mass.

Many shepherds of the faith have wandered far from their mission, unable to explain the significance of religious doctrine to Christian life.

The other weekend I stood as godmother in a baptism and was struck by how little the liturgy of the Catholic Mass had remained unchanged.

I followed the prayers by rote, wondering how much of the words sink into the consciousness of the faithful. How many of us really understand the nature of the Holy Spirit, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting?

And yet no matter how abstract the doctrine, people embrace religion in search of spiritual nourishment.

If the shepherds of the faith can provide that nourishment, they will wield real power over their flock — the type that requires no validation through a head count at a Mass in Rizal Park.

They will become messengers of peace and goodwill, and every day will be Christmas for those whose lives they touch.