For tomorrow, we die

DID YOU notice all those ash-smeared foreheads rushing from church to the nearest Jollibee and McDonald’s? And did you also see all those Champs and Quarter Pounders voraciously chomped but hardly quartered?

Shocked, rather than awed are a number of cerrado Catolicos at these all-too patent transgressions of Church commandments.  

Yeah, it makes one wonder if the Catholic faithful at-large still know the significance of Ash Wednesday, indeed, of even just the dictionary definition of fasting and abstinence. Or, they just don’t care.   

“Remember man that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” So, we are reminded by the priest as we enter the season of prayer, penitence and sacrifices.

But for perfunctory rituals and prayers, what sincere penitence or true sacrifices do we engage ourselves in to partake of the great mysteries of our Faith?

Reminded of our mortality, we readily retreat to our humanity rather than repent, rise above our sinful selves and keep to the way of salvation.

Reminded of our mortality, pain or suffering is impacted upon us. And that is how we take of sacrifice, of fasting and abstinence. Hence, the deadening of its effect, if not its avoidance at all cost.

There, mayhaps, lies the instinctive rush to Jollibee and McDo right after the Mass of Miercoles ce Ceniza. And there too the fastfood outlets disserving as the last stops – for satisfying gratification, in effect obliterating whatever sanctifying grace obtained – in Maundy Thursday’s visita iglesia.

Thus, Boracay season cresting during the Holy Week.

The abhorrence of suffering most manifest in the satiation of the senses.

Hedonism

For sheer incongruity with the times, I cannot forget reading – of all things -- The Hedonism Handbook one Lenten season so many years ago. The author is one Michael Flocker, best known for his bestseller The Metrosexual Guide to Style.

Now, I beg your indulgence in my reprinting here reflections from those times.

Hedonism makes a moralist’s worst nightmare. Take the standard dictionary definition of the word: “pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to the pleasures of the senses.”

As a philosophy, hedonism is “the ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good.”

In psychology, it is “the doctrine holding that behavior is motivated by the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.”

“Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.” So said the Greek philosopher Epicurus, which may have formed the basis for his eponymous philosophy of “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die.” Which, rightly or wrongly – all the latter never the former the moralists would howl –  evolved as the hedonist’s article of faith.

So, a hedonist is one who seeks pleasure and avoids pain at all cost. But, ain’t all humans that way? Human, all too human, as Nietzsche put it. 

Argues Flocker: “But are the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain really such bad things? Don’t babies, universally considered to be the purest of all beings, gravitate to the warmth and satisfaction of the bosom? Don’t they wail at the discomfort of a full diaper and an itchy bunghole? Of course, they do. They haven’t been programmed to discipline themselves into a ridiculous, unnatural and miserable state of Spartan self-denial.”

Postulates Flocker: “Pleasure is good. Eden was fun. Excess may be bad, but self-deprivation is just stupid. To live a life consisting only of hard work, virtue, sacrifice and self-discipline is to be a martyr, and martyrs make lousy lovers, friends and party guests. Of course, any good thing taken to the extreme inevitably turns bad, but when the true principles of hedonism are employed on a daily basis, the result is a happy person. Granted that happy person will undoubtedly piss off the martyr next door…”

Irony of all ironies, amid these happy hedonistic thoughts came the call to martyrdom in the Passion Sunday sermon of my parish priest in St. Jude Village, the Rev. Fr. Raul de los Santos, better known as Padre Bayong.

The end of suffering

Suffering ennobles the man. On that basic Christian principle, the padre premised the definitive way of observing the Holy Week.

Ang paghihirap ay hindi tinatakasan. Suffering is not to be shunned. It is human nature to avoid pain. Even Christ in Gethsemane asked his Father “to let the cup pass.”  It is precisely pain that provides the crucible that cleanses the human character. So, we should indeed welcome suffering into our lives?

Ang paghihirap ay hindi ipinapasa. Suffering is not passed on to others. It is accepted, as Christ indeed accepted His cup thus, “Thy will be done.” A happy acceptance of suffering is a most Christian virtue.

Ang paghihirap ay iniaalay. Suffering is an offering. To the Almighty, in remorse, in penance for human failings; in prayerful thanksgiving for grace and blessings, in praise for His love of humankind. Suffering is an act of consecration – of oneself to Christ, mayhaps, even of oneness in Him in His very salvific act.

Thus, Luke 9:23: “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

I wonder how many of us in that congregation could ever live up to that sermon. Even if only in the Holy Week. As for so many of us, it is Christ – if only for snatches of Him – this time of the year, and all-Epicurus at all other times. 

Taking the best of both worlds, bipolarization in a sense. Cafeteria Catholicism, essentially.