The nation continues to thirst

There is a problem with water supply on top of impending food shortage, spiraling prices of prime commodities, rising inflation, worsening crimes and corruption. And our nation is poised to elect actors and boxers again to make national policies and craft laws to address the many "thirsts" our country is suffering from.

Last Good Friday, I was assigned by the San Agustin Church to deliver the fifth of the Seven Last Words: ""I Thirst". It went well with the country's oldest stone church full of Catholic faithful. I needed to read the Gospel of St. John again to have a feel of the situation when Jesus cried: "I thirst". And I shared with churchgoers the many "thirsts" our people are suffering from today.

Today's column is dedicated to the more than 80 million Filipinos who belong to the poor sector in a country with so many millionaires. There is a national thirst for social justice.

It was a very hot mid-summer afternoon. The fluid in the body of Jesus was reaching its minimum. According to John 19:28 Jesus pleaded: "I thirst". Jesus was in a pitiful condition, exactly the same conditions as the Philippines today.

His guards got a jar of vinegar, soaked a sponge in it on a stalk of the hyssop plant and lifted it to Jesus' lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said "It is finished." He commended his spirit to the Father, bowed his head and his spirit left his human body. Our trapos today aren’t unlike the guards. The trapos are forcing the people to drink poison with their unrelenting abuses and misdeeds.

So how could it be possible Jesus got thirsty? Jesus himself told the woman in Samaria that he is the living water. How can Jesus become thirsty when in the Wedding of Cana, he transforms jars of water into the finest wine? And so, how is it possible that a man of this power would now be crying "I am thirsty"?

In the last supper on the eve of his arrest, Jesus said to his disciples, John 6:53 to 58; "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall have life eternal." In Psalm 65: 9, it is written: "You care for the land and you water it. You enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for you have ordained it and blessed it with prosperity."

And in Revelation 22:1-2, it is written: "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river, stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, one fruit every month", That is why it is hard to comprehend how the creator of all things is crying :" I Thirst".

I figure the thirst Jesus was referring to was not so much of the body but of the spirit. He was thirsting for the company of the people he loved. He was looking for Simon Peter, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Zebedee, James the son of Alpaheus, and the rest. In his time of bidding goodbye, he was looking for the people that he loved.

He was looking for the men and women that he cured, the blind who were able to see again, the lame and the crippled who were able to walk again. Jesus was longing to see the deaf who were able to hear and the mute who were able to speak again. It was a thirst of loneliness, of sadness, of a longing for comfort and affection.

In our country today, there is an endemic thirst for unity, peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. We are a fragmented nation with a broken soul and wounded spirit. We are thirsting for healing. There’s an inner emptiness in each of our hearts and only the Holy Spirit can heal us and make us one nation again, strong and united under the fatherhood of God, with one vision and one goal.

Today we pray for the quenching of all our thirsts for justice, for peace and for compassion and mercy in such a cruel and inhumane world. And for the elections, we should thirst for wisdom to choose the truly competent, honest, and committed to the country, to the government, and to the people.