Lenten meditation

In the not too distant past, Holy Week was characterized by Holy Retreats, a time of meditation on the Passion of Christ, how He died in the Cross for our salvation.

The public officials would go to Baguio or very recently to Tagaytay to listen to the words of faith from well-known Retreat Masters.

We did have this too in the provinces. Political and business as well as civic leaders would be gathered for sometimes as long as three days for meditation: no talk, no laughter, in seriousness, each one searched his conscience of the sins one committed for the year or years before.

It was such an effective tool that some went out of the Retreat very well “sanctified,” that before the altar before or after the Mass, one would stand there with outstretched arms in supplication for the blessings of forgiveness from Heaven. Probably, some did it for  a show.

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I don’t know if I just don’t know. But Holy Retreats are rare now, if not completely lost.

Is it because many of our public officials as well as private individuals will find it very embarrassing if a Retreat Master challenges them on their moral lives?

Especially if you get a Redemptorist Retreat Master who, I recall in my college days, would always start the talk with “What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?”

Or Holy Retreats were not continued because of the rampant graft and corruption that such retreat would be only an exercise in futility?

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Somebody would have suggested to have all those involved in the ZTE-NBN deal as well as those involved in the Spratlys controversygo to a Holy Retreat.

I am sure no one would be willing to participate. And I am afraid too no Retreat Master would be brave enough to accept. If he is brave he might be like a priest in one of the states in the U.S. who, when invited to open the Senate session with a prayer, just in the middle of the prayer, many Senators walked out, feeling, they were insulted.

Or a Cardinal who, when invited to lead the invocation on the opening of Congress was asked later what did he pray. He answered, “I looked at the lawmakers and prayed for thecountry.”

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Holy Retreats? Will this now be a thing of the past? Will the Church study and address the problem of the ineffectiveness of Holy Retreats?

What a big scandal will it be if people involved in notorious corruption are seen fingering the beads of a rosary in a supposed fervent prayer, kneeling there for hours but the history of his life is that of one corruption after another?

And what a big scandal to see a notoriously corrupt official going to communion. No hipocracy can be worse than this.

We are happy the Church has been strong in this drive against corruption. Last Sunday, 16 Bishops of Metro Manila were reported to have read before their faithful a Pastoral Letter.

Timing it on Palm Sunday that ushered in the Holy Week, the theme revolved around the Seventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.”

The 16 Bishops said, the country today is in the “throes of a crisis” which is the crisis of truth. And they saw also the problem as going “beyond the question of truth to the search of probity.” Which means “The problem bedeviling the country is not an outbreak of lies but an epidemic of corruption.”

Corruption it said, is worse than lies because lies are just used to cover corruption.

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What we need is real meditation. I hope our media people, after the Holy Week, will try some mischief by asking politicians what they did during the Holy Week. Because there was no Holy Retreat to join, the next question should be, did you meditate? And what did you meditate on?

On his Palm Sunday statement, CBCP President and Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo challenged all to “rise above our sinfulness and mistake.”

We echo that challenge. Let everybody heed the call. Let there be patriotism too. Greed must have its end. Meditate on the Passion of Christ.

Let everybody be a Simon of Cyrene. Simon did the greatest help. He was just a bystander, yet he offered to carry the cross for Christ. Yet, he was not very well recognized. And it seems he did not complain.

Be a Simon of Cyrene. Help people carry the cross.  One caution, do not ask for payment from those whose cross you carry.

One wag said, Simon was not recognized because when he carried the cross of Christ, he asked for payment. Of course, this is not true. But, in an environment of corruption like ours, there are those who will believe that.*

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