Between faith and politics
The great Inter-faith rally will take place today. The question is: will today’s rally be a manifestation of faith in the much greater power of God to resolve or correct what we human beings erected or embarked on in our lack of wisdom?
Will today’s Inter faith rally be a penitent and humble surrender to the will and workings of God regardless of the outcome? Or will the title Inter-faith simply be a lame attempt at sanctifying and unifying different pious forces for a political reason?
Anyone planning to join today’s event at Ayala, specially the organizers, should be clear about their purpose and the name by which today’s event is called. Is today’s event going to be about prayer, recognizing God, and calling upon God’s help to give us wisdom and understanding?
Or are we once again going to take God’s name in vain, politicize our various religions, and use the scripture to justify our anger, our condemnation of the corrupt government we have?
Please don’t misunderstand my point.
The Difference between EDSA 1 and EDSA 2 is the fact that in EDSA 1 God heard the collective prayers of a long suffering and oppressed people, a people who for decades experienced oppression, violence and cruelty.
A people who in an act of faith and obedience to their spiritual leaders cast aside their hatred and suspicion for Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos and their rag tag army of men and shielded them with their bodies and their lives, forgiving and forgetting for the moment all imaginable abuse done to the Filipino people.
They were a people who sought the righteousness and justice of God so much that they were willing to die on EDSA without drama or heroism, Simply Faith in God.
In EDSA 2 there was hardly a period of long suffering as much as there was impatience on the part of politicians and businessmen who wanted their way. Prayer and seeking God’s will were hardly part of the process or the menu. It was not the pure righteousness of EDSA 1 but the judgmental indignation of a self righteous crowd. EDSA 2 was an act of Men not an act of God.
Faith, or our relationship with God, is on a much higher level than politics. In Faith God is the ultimate power and the singular decision maker. If we as a people believing our cause to be just and righteous choose to gather in prayer, then it would be correct and accurate to attend and call it an inter-faith rally.
More than anything let us all realize that the one powerful weapon, the one option we individually and collectively possess to turn heaven’s ear is the power of prayer. Twenty-two years after the fact, what we achieved in prayer thru EDSA1 is still a cause of pride and a cause for celebration. EDSA 2 which has not even reached a decade has now become our source for confession, shame and regret.
In between EDSA 1 and EDSA 2, I had the privilege of participating in a little known, hardly remembered march of faith. It was called “March for Jesus”. By faith we walked the length of
We prayed for our leaders, we prayed for media, we prayed for the entertainment industry, we prayed for business. We prayed for a shaking and a change.
To the uninitiated, to the unfamiliar, it was probably bizarre. A bunch of Bible waving fanatics screaming, shouting and singing, making strange utterances that made no sense.
Yet in the weeks if not months that followed so much “shaking “and “change” took place. That was when the Manila Film Festival scam was exposed. That was followed by an unrelenting battle against pornography, exposes of a major “brown bag” payola in Congress etc.
There were no civil societies to speak of, there were no corporate or business interests funding or spearheading the shaking and the change. None of us even knew what or when the next shaking would take place. There was certainly no political color back then.
We simply marched and “in faith” prayed for things we normally did not pray for. In essence we prayed for others and things other than our needs and personal interest.
I use to wonder why Cory the Consistent, consistently went to mass and led her People Power in Church and thru the Church. Having discovered the power and privilege that comes with and in prayer, I now understand that EDSA 1 was not just about Cory but our collective God.
Whether you go to the Inter Faith rally on Ayala or stay at home, what matters is that we all join in Faith and in Prayer that God as we know him to be would remove this darkness from our land and bring a moral, spiritual and even a physical revival upon ALL Filipinos and the entire Philippines. Pls.
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MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando has his hands full with the congestion and chaos of Metro Manila, but I wonder if anybody else is watching or better yet supervising the total urban development of the Metro.
At the moment most everyone I know is really very positive about the continuing real estate developments particularly inside the
Anyone not suffering from Alzheimer’s might recall a time during the Cory and Ramos administrations when all the boom went bust because we ran out of electricity and roads.
Unless government decides to organize, rationalize, and monitor our urban development all these zones of progress will become anthills of never ending cars and human traffic. It would be comforting to know that we actually have such a committee or government body doing so. If not see you guys in Batangas!
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