On the Footsteps of San Lorenzo Ruiz

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About a year ago I wrote the following piece, for our small “chatgroup” of U.P. College of Engineering co-alumni and other mutual septuagenarian friends of ours. Here are a few of its excerpts:

“I have just read a friend’s E-mailed transmittal of a very well-written graduation speech to the U.P. School of Economics Class of 2006. The guest speaker is a well-known pioneer and stalwart, a U.P. alumna too and of world-class standard, in the field of investigative journalism.

Had I been given the same “April preaching” privilege some thirty years ago, which was a few years before I had my own Philippine gulag version of Saul’s conversion on his way to Damascus, I would probably have written and delivered basically the same speech. And perhaps with a lot more of anger bordering on libel against my old U.P. contemporaries and other U.P. alumni from the faculties and Colleges of Law, Political Science, Economics and Engineering too!

For it should have been obvious ever since our adulthood, that other than a few idealists and revolutionaries, such as some of us who at one time or another, naively promised or briefly played with or simulated such roles in our youth, we the well-educated or the rich and powerful who have been in the forefront of government, academe or commerce, will never graciously nor substantially divest ourselves en masse off our enormous advantages and privileges! UNLESS – unless an apocalyptic and worldwide social, economic, environmental and spiritual CATHARSIS intervenes.

The Great Flood during Noah’s time, the Black Plague during the Dark Ages, the Hundred Years War in Europe of the Middle Ages, and its enlarged later versions now referred to as the First and Second World Wars – none of these previous worldwide upheavals have succeeded in motivating mankind particularly the rich and powerful, into widespread moral conversion. In fact, more evil with much worse injustices on a global scale have since developed in geometric intensity and scale.

And so if you have not yet already acquainted yourselves with the signs of the times and prophetic announcements contained in www.directionforourtimes.com, take it on faith from yours truly, please to do so ASAP! The compelling yet consoling aspects of this website’s revelations or messages from heaven, are nothing less than profound and earthshaking! For there you will know where to see and read that God Himself is announcing His direct divine intervention, so that His brand of universal justice and love will be reinstated soon, and worldwide! I reckon that www.directionforourtimes.com is the equivalent of the Book of Revelations, for this specific period of history!

I know I may have just sounded like I’ve gone wild and crazy. But I also BELIEVE even more so that I am more realistic NOW, in believing it is God Himself speaking out there in that website; that I was STUPID in my earlier belief in the SUFFICIENCY and efficacy of strictly secular solutions to the world’s problems, despite being prescribed by the best and brightest of our journalists, lawyers, economists and politicians. For they have repeatedly misled us and themselves too, in preaching that alone by ourselves, strictly on the merits of our self-proclaimed wisdom, science, technology, good intentions and self-serving promises of self-martyrdom, the world would solve any and all its problems, WITHOUT any significant assistance from God and His Word incarnate. Thus for generations, we stupidly and ARROGANTLY thought that God and His Word could never be a necessary part of any solution to man’s social and existential problems. Even sincere Christians have often failed to realize that their unqualified acceptance of strictly secular man-made solutions, would mean that there was no need nor any truth to God becoming man in order to redeem mankind by suffering and dying on the Cross.”

I have been reflecting constantly these last few weeks on the outrageous news about the syndicated swindle-and-plunder scheme surrounding a proposed “National Broadband Network”, involving the highest echelons of Philippine officialdom.

In comparison with the already bleak picture of our nation’s future which was implicit in the preceding article, the conclusions arising from these last few weeks’ revelations appear to be far more frightening.

For last year’s article of mine centered on our Catholic nation’s neglect of God’s readily available assistance that would have brought His blessings on our people’s efforts to redeem ourselves from the cumulative ill effects from our past sins and continuing human weaknesses.

These past weeks’ sordid finger-pointing recriminations point to a much worse and truly frightening crime-and-punishment scenario. For our nation’s leadership is apparently and repeatedly mocking God through their seemingly prayerful poses and religious antics, yet so obvious in their utter hypocrisy and mendacity, especially to those knowledgeable about broadband technology and its economics.

Yes, weep Philippines, weep! For except for a few brave and knowledgeable journalists, militant activists, professors, retired government technocrats and a few others, the silence from our pastors and shepherds is deafening. And so I believe that like our first martyr, Lorenzo Ruiz whose memorial is today, I am afraid that we too as a nation will have to go through a similar catharsis. Like Lorenzo Ruiz, our liberation will entail having to witness heroically to our Faith, before we can emerge from this darkest period of our nation’s very soul.