So much drama

After the Holy Week and Easter, our country was greeted with the happy news about OMG (Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez) voluntarily resigning from her post.

 Thanksgiving prayers came to mind. First, to the Lord for enlightening OMG about her decision, next, for our nation. Our country has to move on in terms of the real campaign vs. abuse and corruption and so many unresolved cases, especially the major major ones at the Ombudsman. Her resignation alone will not solve corruption and abuse overnight. We all still need to pray harder for God to touch more, especially those needing to be touched, so that this country can move on towards a better, blessed society for all.

 Then, millions all over the world were glued to the news, first, about the Kate-William wedding! From various parts of the world, visitors flocked to London to view the Queen and all other royal guests and other celebrities invited for the unforgettable wedding of the year, the decade, or century?

 Many of the viewers of the April 29th wedding this year had also been viewers of the Princess Di-Prince Charles wedding decades ago. Princess Di was so present throughout the whole event – in the happy faces of her two handsome sons, among her close friends who also attended her son’s wedding celebration, Princess Di was “present” throughout the whole wedding ceremony all the way to the balcony kiss!

 The world was literally thrilled to see a real fairy tale, of a prince marrying a commoner, in such grand virtual fashion. To see royalty as well before one’s eyes was a great treat since royalty is heavily guarded, with guards and high walls shielding their very private lives from the ordinary masses. Whether the viewer used the internet or cable TV or personally lined up among the millions that cheered the couple through the whole event, the cyberspace or virtual or actual experience would be a topic that will be discussed over and over, until the next “rare” spectacle takes over.

 Which for million others took place two days after, in another setting, in Rome, last May 1, on the Feast of the Divine Mercy, when another beloved global figure, Pope John Paul II was beatified. From the secular wedding celebration in London to the sacred beatification rites at the Vatican, the whole world was again treated to another inside view of the mighty Roman Catholic Church and of the “rare” ceremony of beatification of a future Saint but of one known to millions as a living saint long before his death, of one who lived like a saint, one who brought to millions all over the world, the real face of love, the human image of our divine God the Father.

 Many of the millions who celebrated the beatification of Pope John Paul II have followed him and his global journey of peace and love for the Lord while he was still Pope. Who could forget how active Pope John Paul II was in traveling to so many parts of the world, even to places that out rightly rejected him and the Catholic Church? Who could forget the bullets he suffered from the hands of an assassin that he quickly forgave? Despite physical pain and threats, nothing stopped this loving Pope from reaching out to as many as he could, endearing the youth to love this PAPA and this PAPA’s PAPA who clearly had so much love for them and for all in the world?

 Two dramatic events, one celebrating a royal wedding, the other honoring a loyal servant of the Lord, reminding the world about the significance people attach to both the secular and the sacred, to the royalty and to the Papacy, to monarchy and religion even in these modern times.

 Cynics have tried to grimly remind the millions about the reality of daily lives, about the genuineness of stark inequality, of so much unresolved and continuing poverty as closely linked to royalty and to religion.

 After those two grand events witnessed by the world last April 29 and May 1, for sure, the millions have returned to their ordinary lives, with the “magical dust” of the royal wedding and the sacred beatification blown by the stronger winds of the ever-continuing reality of the present, of the now.

 The following Monday, May 2, the news of bin Laden’s death was announced by US President Obama himself, and the world was again reminded about 9/11, about global terrorism, about ongoing unresolved conflicts and wars all throughout the world.

 So much drama continuing to grip the attention and lives of all in today’s world…

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