Is Christ in my city? Is Christ in my country?

Following up after the last post, I realized this Christmas, while spent also in the heat of Jakarta, is unique, like it has always been. My sister and I took the afternoon flight on Christmas Day and arrived before 3 o'clock in Jakarta. Apart from the usual spartan decoration of the airport and the occasional Christmas-themed advertisement billboards, there was little else to indicate that it was Christmas.

My dad was waiting for us with a huge smile on his face. My mom, as usual, was supervising wholesale distribution of all kinds of beverage at her 'shop' - come rain or shine, Christmas or no. So we spent Christmas at the 'shop', waiting for her business to conclude for the day and had a quiet dinner.

Grace awaited us
My confessor had reminded me to remember to pray while 'on vacation', so I went home with a little apprehension lest the laxity of being on vacation at home makes us forget Him. This year though, Grace came in a form of a person :) It was a friend studying in the university in Singapore, who also spent her Christmas with her family, in another city in Indonesia.

Daily she would text me with a short snippet of what is happening to her and around her. Inevitably it would contain a prayer request, a concrete reminder for me to not forget to say my prayers. Her first text message echoed my silent lament: In Singapore we were positively inundated with Christmas decoration at every corner of every shopping mall, albeit for commercial purposes. For a self-proclaimed secular country with a Muslim majority like Indonesia, Christmas atmosphere was strikingly absent.

A few years ago, I would have "complained" and told myself that it is not my fault if I can't "feel" Christmas back at home. If I did not feel particularly charitable nor joyful during these diebus nativitatis, I would have attributed it to the lack of Christmas atmosphere. I was naive and silly, indeed, for wasn't Christ born for all of us in the whole world? Not only for those who were fortunate enough to live in countries that celebrate Christmas properly.

Looking back at the story of my own conversion, I realize that Indonesia and Indonesian Christians have the missionaries to thank. It is these silent martyrs and heroes who, perhaps inspired to bring the joy of Christmas to the pagan East, brought the Good News to my country. The joy of Christ was not meant to stay only in Bethlehem, nor in Palestine, nor in Europe. In the stifling heat of Indonesia, Christ is proclaimed.

Soon night fell and my sister & I found myself waiting in darkness in the car with the radio singing quiet tunes. My parents were out buying the next day's supplies for their 'shop'. I could hear my sister's thoughts echoing my own and my friend's: what a way to spend Christmas day! Suddenly, as if upon a cue, the radio played a most beautiful rendition of Ave Verum Corpus! I didn't cry, but I must confess I leapt with joy upon hearing that hymn, for it was balm to a drooping spirit.

No matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, I know that Christ is in Indonesia, Christ is in my city, and Christ is in my family!

'Twas the night before Christmas...

Here's wishing everyone a very joyful Christmas! And a happy New Year!

This post comes really, really late. I had been wanting to write before Christmas; but the days before Christmas were really busy and before we know it, the Christmas season is coming to an end this Sunday.

Every year Christmas brings a new wonder in my life. I don't ever recall spending two Christmases alike!

The Saturday before Christmas, my housemates and I threw a party. It was a pleasant surprise when I 'met' an old friend of mine online, and she agreed to come. While inviting your friends to a party through an IM client is not unusual, it is still a pleasant surprise to chat with her at last, because I haven't logged on to any IM in half a year, and I haven't seen this friend in at least 8 years! We hit it off as if we were never apart.

This year, I was asked to play the organ for the Christmas Midnight Mass. Since the usual musician was away, I had to agree and because it has been many years since I last played the keyboard, I was unquestionably apprehensive. To play for an audience was bad enough, but to play for Jesus in the Mass, and a solemn Latin mass at that, is even worse. So for a week before Christmas, we scrambled to put together the repertoire of songs appropriate for the occasion.

Soon the Christmas eve was here! Since our singing voices refuse to align to our ears, we had to transpose some of the songs so as to avoid breaking any glasses in the chapel. I discovered that music softwares are amazing! (I used Notation Composer) All I need to do was to load a MIDI file, and lo and behold, the score is nicely written out. A few more clicks and it is magically transposed to whichever chord you desire! Another click allowed me to annotate the score with the right chords. It really saved the day.

As for the Mass itself, I looked back to it with awe. We sang Puer Natus, Adeste Fideles, and all the sung parts in the style of Missa de Angelis. I personally spent two days practising those songs and 'finding' the right chords, and four weeks of Advent to welcome the Child who is our savior. Although my ears are better than my fingers and suffered much listening to my own crude playing, I must say I am very happy to be able to play for Him that night ;)

Break from 'serious' blogging

Taking a break from Advent solemnity, this blog decides to publish something light & 'unserious' as my writing apparently is 'complex'!

INTP - The Thinkers

The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

Yeah right, short for: people don't really understand what you're writing about. So we'll call it complex!

Here's another snapshot of what the author's brain supposedly looks like when she's writing here:

Three more days to Christmas, people! Rejoice!

Adult stem cells for animals?

No, no, not adult human stem cells for animals, but homologous adult stem cells for the animal itself. So says this article, about an elderly dog with arthritis in his leg.

According to the website of the firm that extracted the multipotent 'stem cells' from the fats tissue of the dog cured, adipose-derived 'regenerative cells' are more readily available than those taken from the bone marrow, and seem to be effective in repairing muscle and cartilage damages in those animals treated. Also, it seems like the application of the treatment is fairly straightforward: simple injection of the stem cells harvested, directly to the site of injury.

So one wonders again, why is there so much emphasis given to embryonic stem cells research when we could focus our attention to what has been proven to work?

The Immaculate Conception: our bearer of hope!

Today we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. It is a feast that some have anticipated for the last nine days in a novena; but its primary theme is thanksgiving, thanksgiving to the Trinitarian God. Every year it is celebrated during Advent, which gives this celebration a solemn flavor.

Someone once said that hell trembles at Mary's fiat. I'd add that "something flashed in the air" when the Immaculate Conception took place. For it is a divine move, in response to man's fallen state, and is something totally unmerited. Like all occasions of grace, it is first initiated by God.

Mary, bearer of our hope, is also the throne of grace, the star of the sea. Our pope Benedict XVI wrote a beautiful prayer to Mary, in the closing of his 2nd encyclical Spe Salvi:

"Ave maris stella. Human life is a journey. Towards what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are the lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ if the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by — people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us?"

Afterwards, our Pope reiterated that Mary, of all people, suffered what seemed like a betrayal of promises made to her by the prophecies, but her faith was one that shone even in the darkest moments below the Cross of her son.

In this solemn season of Advent, let us enkindle our hope for salvation looking to Mary, the first fruits of grace, who trusted Him, cuius regni non erit finis.

The Pope's Message for Advent

We have a very good teacher in our Papa Benedict XVI. This is what he says about Advent and time:

Today, with the First Sunday of Advent, we begin a new liturgical year. This fact invites us to reflect on the dimension of time, which has always greatly fascinated us. Following the example of what Jesus liked to do, I would like to start from a very concrete experience: We all say "I don't have time" because the rhythm of daily life has become too frenetic for everyone. The Church has "good news" to announce about this too: God gives us his time. We always have little time. Especially in regard to the Lord, we do not know how to find him, or, sometimes, we do not want to find him. And yet God has time for us!

This is the first thing that the beginning of a liturgical year makes us rediscover with an ever new wonder. Yes: God gives us his time, because he has entered into history, with his Word and his works of salvation, to open it to eternity, to make it into a covenant history. From this perspective time is already, in itself, a basic sign of God's love. It is a gift that man can, like everything else, appreciate or, on the contrary, squander; he can grasp its meaning, or neglect it with obtuse superficiality.

Read his Angelus message for the First Sunday of Advent here

Read his homily here.

Review: Victory Over Vice

A little over a week over reading this book, I am convinced of the need of doing deeper examination of conscience, and how many ordinary situations we find ourselves in, can be occasions of sins—out of either malice or weaknesses.

To kick off Advent, here are the seven vices he mentioned, and what to keep in mind in our fight to prevail over them:

1. Anger
   

   Here, as I wrote earlier, he mentioned that anger is not strictly a sin, and that rightly, it is a response to injustice. But it becomes a sin of lacking in charity, especially when we overlook the quality of mercy in dealing with the weaknesses of others.
   

   Point to remember: that we are ignorant, hence there is room for mercy. If we have perfect knowledge, we have no excuse for our faults, thus we'd be condemned.
   



2. Envy
   

   Here, he gave the example of an extreme case of envy—where our lack of charity once again may raise indignance instead of joy upon the eleventh hour salvation of a sinner, such as that of the good thief crucified next to Jesus.
   

   To remember: mercy, once more!
   



3. Pride
   

   Surely anyone who has had experience with the proud will bear witness to the truth of this statement: if my own eternal salvation were conditioned upon saving the soul of one self-wise man who prided himself on his learning, or one hundred of the most morally corrupt men and women of the streets, I'd choose the easier task of converting the hundred. Nothing is more difficult to conquer in all the world than intellectual pride. If battleships could be lined with it instead of with armor, no shell could ever pierce it.

   And a strong poignant warning:

   Self-praise devours merit; and those who have done good things to be seen by men, and who trumpet their philanthropies in the marketplaces, will one day hear the saddest words of tongue or pen: "Thou hast already had thy reward." (Matthew 6:2)



4. Sloth
   

   Heaven is a city on a hill. Hence, we cannot coast into it; we have to climb. Those who are too lazy to mount can miss its capture as well as the evil who refuse to seek it. Let no one think he can be totally indifferent to God in this life and suddenly develop a capacity for Him at the moment of death.

   'Nuff said.
   



5. Lust

   Here the bishop invited us to look at Christ broken on the cross. There is a higher Love there that demands the surrender of the lower. He portrayed Mary, refugium peccatorum, as a mother whom all of us should contemplate before we do anything that can make our mothers ashamed.
   



6. Gluttony

   Labor for things that endure. He showed the distinction between the fasting and dieting:

   The Church fasts; the world diets. The Christian fasts not for the sake of the body, but for the sake of the soul; the pagan fasts not for the sake of the soul, but for the sake of the body.
   ...
   Darwin tells us in his autobiography that, in his love for the biological, he lost all the taste he once had for poetry and music, and he regretted the loss all the days of his life. Nothing so much dulls the capacity for the spiritual as excessive dedication to the material.

   
   


7. Covetousness
   

   On this matter, he had something to say to both the rich and the poor:
   

   To the poor:

   [Covetousness] once was monopolized by the avaricious rich; now it is shared by the envious poor. Because a man has no money in his pockets is no proof that he is not covetous; he may be involuntarily poor with a passion for wealth far in excess of those who possess.
   ...
   There are very few disinterested lovers of the poor today; most of their so-called champions do not love the poor as much as they hate the rich. They hate all the rich, but they love only those poor who will help them attain their wicked ends.
   

   
   

   To the rich:

   [He] is a fallen man, because of a bad exchange; he might have had Heaven through his generosity but he has only the earth. He could have kept his soul but he sold it for material things.
   ...
   When a man loves wealth inordinately, he and it grow together like a tree pushing itself in growth through the crevices of a rock. Death to such a man is a painful wrench, because of his cose identification with the material. He has everything to live for, nothing to die for. He becomes at death the most destitute and despoiled beggar in the universe, for he has nothing he can take with him.
   

   And these, about eternity:

   That disproportion between the infinite and the finite is the cause of disappointment. We have eternity in our heart, but time on our hands. The soul demands a heaven, and we get only an earth. Our eyes look up to the mountains, but they rest only on the plains.
   ...
   Everything is disappointing except the redemptive love of our Lord. You can go on acquiring things, but you will be poor until your soul is filled with the love of Him who died on the cross for you.

   
   

I found so many insights to the human heart that it is impossible to leave this book! I think I'll make it a point to read this book again and again, especially during Advent and Lenten seasons. It'd also make a good gift for anyone this Advent.

Happy Advent to all!

Novena to the Immaculate Conception

This coming December 8th, the Catholic Church celebrates one of the major feasts of Our Lady: her Immaculate Conception. I won't dwell much on it here; a prudent Google search would tell you what you need to know about this Dogma pronounced by the Church and the reasons behind it.

There are some people in the Church who anticipate this feast (like many other major feasts) by holding a Novena (which means a 9-day anticipation). This Novena traditionally means participating in the Holy Mass for 9 days until the feast day itself.

But there are many other ways to prepare ourselves for this feast. For those who find it difficult to convince their friends (or themselves!) of the good of taking the trouble of going to Mass EVERY DAY for 9 long days, there are other ways to honor our Lady. For some, it could be 9 simple Hail Marys or Memorares. For others, perhaps 9 decades of rosary. Or 9 whole rosaries. Or fixed prayers like these.

Our Lady is not known to do 'big' things in her life; only simple things done with much love. So start today!

BBC puzzles over why "many" are "keeping babies with Down's"

At a glance this article is short and innocuous. The writer reports that the number of babies born with Down's Syndrome has increased between 1989 and 2006. And then it went on to puzzle over this fact, since methods used to detect Down's have improved, and the writer makes an implicit conclusion that people, conceivably and sensibly, should not "press ahead with a pregnancy" despite a positive test result.

The reasons cited for "pressing ahead" were mentioned: 20% cited that they had known somebody with Down's, 33% cited religious or anti-abortion beliefs, 30% felt life had improved for people with Down's, and almost 20% said they simply did not believe the results of the test. It was as if the article was trying to explain an inexplicable phenomenon. Not once they mentioned the fact that it is human life at stake.

It's amazing how this article managed to be callous without realizing it. "Pressing ahead", indeed!

Link here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7741411.stm

UPDATE: Check out the comments left by readers on the article.

Most are parents with a child or children with Down's Syndrome, and none of the mothers ever regret "pressing ahead" with the pregnancy! I wonder, then, just why it is those who favor eugenic abortion that seem most vocal in defense of the woman's "right". There was only one (thus far) anonymous commenter wrote that she chose to abort a baby detected with Down's out of misplaced sense of compassion—thinking that such a child would be a 'burden' to its older sibling, totally missing the point that in the families who chose to welcome the special child, life did not become burdensome but blessed and enriched instead!

Pride & Sloth

Continuing with Fulton Sheen's Victory over Vice, the good archbishop has this to say about Pride:

Surely anyone who has had experience with the proud will bear witness to the truth of this statement: if my own eternal salvation were conditioned upon saving the soul of one self-wise man who prided himself on his learning, or one hundred of the most morally corrupt men and women of the streets, I'd choose the easier task of converting the hundred. Nothing is more difficult to conquer in all the world than intellectual pride. If battleships could be lined with it instead of with armor, no shell could ever pierce it.

-- Victory over Vice, Fulton J Sheen.

On a related note, pride is sometimes manifest in refusal to serve; thinking that the one asking that service of us is not 'worthy' or 'beneath us'. "If God Himself, or the President, or the Pope asks me, then and only then I would do it." From another chapter ("Sloth"), this time about our laziness to work for Heaven, he wrote this:

Heaven is a city on a hill. Hence, we cannot coast into it; we have to climb. Those who are too lazy to mount can miss its capture as well as the evil who refuse to seek it. Let no one think he can be totally indifferent to God in this life and suddenly develop a capacity for Him at the moment of death.

Where will the capacity for Him come from if we have neglected it on earth? A man cannot suddenly walk into a lecture room on higher mathematics and be thrilled with equations if all during life he neglected to develop a taste for mathematics. And a heaven of divine truth, righteousness and justice would be a hell to those who never studiously cultivated those virtues here below. Heaven is only for those who work for Heaven.

Similarly, if we have refused to serve our brothers and sisters throughout our life, it will be inconceivable that we suddenly develop a capacity to serve God in Heaven...