I am not a Warrior of the Light

Yes. I now admit.

What really hurts isn’t the things that we have done. It’s the things that we have not done.

There are a lot of it in my life. Some of them I just decided not to. Some, others decided for me not to but I badly wanted to.

-Not going to de Manila.

-Not going to Korea.

-Not going to Xiamen, China.

-Going to priesthood.

-Being a grumpy old man when time wants me to be jubilant.

-Not taking the scariest ride in Ocean Park.

-Not saying yes to things I said no to.

-Not being on the track I wanted to be in.

-Being in the path I am into right now.

-Supressing my love for somebody because I was afraid that I derail on my path to priesthood. [Yet seminary life never came.]

-Thinking that all of this has a purpose and that it was better that I let go of my desires to be able to satisfy what others wanted me to be.

-Regretting all my life for not going for the girl I love all because I thought I will be allowed to go for seminary life.

-Knowing that this list never ends.

How ironic. My mom taught me to go and say YES! for the experience. She pushed me to go and get in an underground cave in Bohol I was afraid of getting into. I did. And I did not regret. I learned to be brave.

But she was also the one who told me not to take what I have desired my life to be.

Life is so tragic to me. It is crooked. It is never straight. My life is a life of SAYANGS and SANAS. My life is also good as it is right now, I suppose. I am grateful. But I am regretful. I have let go of so many chances and opportunities in life.

I always sleep at night with these thoughts in mind.

What if…

What have I eaten to sacrifice my future just like that?

Why did I let go of that golden opportunity?

I guess it’s better this way because…

Just be grateful for the diversion of paths you have undergone because…

It is a never-ending nostalgia of the life that must have been.

The Warrior of the Light knows that he is free to choose his desires, and he makes these decisions with courage, detachment and -sometimes- with just a touch of madness. - Paulo Coelho

I guess I am not one.

CFD vs. INC Street Debate: Is Jesus Really God?

I was silently hearing a Sunday night mass. The priest gave us final blessings.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One God, forever and ever. Amen.

“Dili Ginoo si Hesu Kristo! Mga igsoon ko, ginabinuangan lang mo sa mga tawo! Si Kristo kay tawo lamang, dili Ginoo!”

It was a faint scream. But by the hearing of it, it was something seemed to be uttered as nothing but the truth. I can’t find where it came from. Apparently not from the Church I am standing in. Definitely not!

As I was trying to reach the loud sermon, I found myself in an ocean of faceless strangers. The atmosphere was filled with a peculiar taint of stench. It was a concoction of sweat and an unknown aroma. The latter I found out upon strolling further more was the street foods lined up along the street.

I remembered. I was standing in San Pedro. Unarguably the center of Davao’s government and of the Old City.

As I followed the same loud sermon, I saw a welcome arch. It says Osmena park. I was somewhat intrigued so I had a sit on one of the park benches. I wasn’t aware of the crowd that gathered there, it was a great multitude. All so eager to hear the boisterous shouts and ranting.

It was an informal street debate. And I found out it was between the Catholic Faith Defenders and the Iglesia ni Cristo sect.

As I hear both hot sides on the issue “Patinud-an nga matood nga Diyos si Hesu Kristo base sa Bibliya.”, I was like warped back in time. I was like standing on a Jewish temple, with Jesus Christ preaching about his nature with the hypocritical High Priest insulting him and calling him a bogus liar.

And unconsciously I found myself not in silence. I shouted with the crowd.

“Hesus! Hesus! Hesu Kristo! Matuod nga Tawo matuod nga Diyos!”

The side of INC was all about this seemingly clownish point of a passage in their own version of the Bible. All I know was that it was about God being the chair or throne of Jesus or Jesus being God and being the chair.” He said that proved Jesus wasn’t God, he was the chair of God.

He was making all of us crazy. It was simply pointless. I tried my best to be unbiased. But it seemed like they were founded on a seemingly foundationless doctrine.

The Catholic asked. Was there a verse in your Bible that said about Jesus being not a God and only a man? The INC didn’t answer as if evading something. Stuttering and desperately skimming his own concoction of a ‘bible’.

The Catholic asked again. Who do you think does Isaiah prophesize as the child to be born and named Emmanuel, Prince of Peace and Father All-merciful? The INC never sounded. “If he wasn’t God, then why does the prophet of God call this child Father All-merciful?, was the prophet a fool in speaking for God in his words?” “Yes or no?”

All of us shouted. “Demonio! Diakono Diablo! Si Hesus ay purong Diyos at purong Tao! Uli na didto paglast-two na lang! Ang imong ginoo si Manalo!”

The INC tried to desperately take himself out of the woods. He quoted a Catholic publication. He jumped to where the  whole sense of the statement was no where to be found. He was trying a technique called misquoting. The Catholic questioned it. “Why skip to 101? Why not read it from 100?”

The INC still went on. And from how it sounded, the Catholic Church said Jesus wasn’t God. “Hindi nagbabalat-kayo si Hesus na Diyos.”

By the hearing of it, you will think the Church actually says Jesus wasn’t God at all. 

But when the Catholic read the whole passage. “Ito po ang kanyang tinatago.”, referring to the INC debater.

“Si Hesus ay Purong Diyos at Purong Tao. Siya ay hindi nagbabalat-kayo na Tao. Hindi nagbabalat-kayo na Diyos.”

The Diakono was red-faced. All of us who were trying to decipher his seemingly crooked doctrines was all sure of a conclusion now. He was trying to let us in to his fraudulent and futile attempt to misquote the Bible and Catholic publications to suit his business. [INC is registered in the government as a Business establishment.]

Now we are all sure.

Jesus was the God who became man to save us. There is none in the Bible that stated He is only a man. But there is a statement that this man is God.

Jesus Christ is pure Man Pure God.

Silver Screen: Do you Know what I Know?

What if all you thought you know isn’t enough to save you? What if all you thought you know would vanish because it was meant to be useless when the time comes?

What if someone knew exactly when and where that very knowing would end?

Knowing will answer all of that.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about exhausting your every brain cells to try to decipher this complex and enigmatic predicament.

I’m talking about the movie Knowing, starred by Nicolas Cage.

The movie is about a little girl who somewhat acts as a prophet of some divine or supernatural, even an extraterrestrial being. Nameless voices whisper to her in a chorus with one point to make.

To tell her every major tragedy on planet earth.

And it does not end there.

It comes with the exact date and exact GPS location. Latitude and longitude. And what’s more bizarre to that is that it also comes with the precise figure of casualties in those disasters.

She tries to list them all in a paper and just as she was about to finish listing, the teacher grabs it from her and puts it in the school’s time capsule, only to be opened after five long decades on the school’s anniversary.

She grew old watching the world crumble to what seemed like a worthless roster of numerical lunacy.  

After 50 long years, the time has come. The moment has finally come to unearth the mystery that toyed with the earth. For fifty years, this buried piece of paper played puppet master to the unfortunate humans-made-puppets. With tragedies ranging from plane crashes, boat wrecks, gut-flying car collisions and the likes.

And Nicolas Cage’s son is the one who gets the paper written by Lucinda Embry [Lara Robinson] half a century ago. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was pre-determined.

Nicolas Cage is skeptical at first. But out of nothing, he tries to decipher what this insane roster of useless numerals meant. And he found out just what he wanted to find out.

Nicolas Cage plays with each excruciating truth the number conceals within its numerology. And as he tries to save people from the seemingly concluded, sealed and sold-out heartrending front seat ticket to Hades, he tries to break the limit.

Save the world from its end.

But how about the last numbers unwritten on the paper? Those indicated where the end of the world would occur? And what about the last EE written on the part where the number of people who will die?

Who will be saved? Who are the chosen ones?

The end of the world as the piece of paper indicated: 10/19/09.

Would you believe it just like Nicolas Cage? Or are you to be categorized to those who did not believe the Old Prophets like Ezekiel? [Included in the movie. Read the Scriptures regarding this point.]

I was silenced by the movie.

Hint: The world, according to the movie would end by means of burning. A solar explosion wiped out humans from the face of the world. Does that make sense? Reading the apocalypse can be of great help.

Are the current signs a silent witness to the impending doom the earth is going to suffer? Is it too end to change God’s mind? Or is it already written in God’s mind?

But my stand remains. I am silenced. Both in mind and spirit. And I am petrified. 

Moral Lessons: Repentance. Global Warming Awareness. Preparing for the End of the World.

Now, Do you know?

[See YouTube for comments of the movie.]

Free

Free
By Jomari Manzano, SJ
Easter Sunday 2008
Dedicated to Ateneo de Manila High School Graduating Batch 2008

I. It’s difficult to live the ordinary
The routinary time spent by the minute
It’s difficult to stand alone on stage
And have as our audience just our self

It’s difficult, yes it’s difficult
‘Coz often times we think
We’re alone
We live on our own.

Refrain:

Break free from yourself
You are not made ordinary
Set free your own ways
And live up to your destiny
Stand up and learn to walk
Take that road
That’s made for you (Repeat last two lines)

II. It’s difficult to spend our longest hours
Perform our tasks and roles unnoticed by others
It’s difficult to face our limitations
Life’s ups and downs that look without direction

It’s difficult, yes it’s difficult
‘Coz often times we think
We can’t change
Can choose no more. (REF.)

It’s difficult, yes it’s difficult
‘Coz often times we think.

Controversial: AIDS not wholly a Scientific Problem, also a Morality Problem

Re: The Pope in Africa [post #26501979 is a reply to post #26266214 ]

IN addition to that. I guess the Pope did not mean it to be scientifically futile to use condoms against the spread of AIDS. Of course it is proven to be effective.

HIS point is that[in my view], the main root of AIDS is sexual irresponsibility. And condoms somewhat elevates the risk of it.

THE knowledge that you can just have sex or rape because there’s a condom or whatever, that makes you think that you can go on with your whim and have sex or rape even when you are AIDS positive.

And we all know that not all condoms can be successful in blocking spermatozoa from penetrating the genitalia.

CONDOMS AREN’T REALLY THE SOLUTION..

In my own reckoning, the solution should be radically [from the roots]attacked.

I mean, the root of all of this is the sexual megalomaniac mentality of some demonic people out in the African wilds having some mentality of doing some BORN TO BE WILD, WILD WILD WEST and MOULIN ROUGE type of sex to his GF or even to just a passerby.

WORSE, AN INNOCENT LAUGHING HYENA OR ONE HOT MAMA HIPPO.

A wide campaign should be launched. Something that can kill the grass from the roots. We all know that weeds aren’t killed by cutting off a segment of it. Cutting off the roots WILL!

Go Pope Benedict! SIS BOOM BAH! We are right behind you. NEXT TIME, learn how to play showbiz. Like no comment? Ha ha Kidding.

Made the right move. But made the WRONG approach.

You should learn from Bebe Gandanghari. Be a little showbiz.

Bottomline is: For the Current AIDS-stricken Africa who still failed to eradicate it, it is a SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM. For the Catholic Church who wants to help in alleviating it, it is a MORALITY PROBLEM.

[Updated on: , 03/30/09 02:06 AM ]