Playing with Fire
The Lessons of Lent
By Gonzalo Duque
WE saw the graphic face of man’s (and woman’s) suffering when we served during the Ramos presidency as Deputy Administrator of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) in the early 90’s. It was quite an experience.
Yes, the tragic face of poverty is all over the land nowadays. How do we know that God loves the poor? Answer: because they are more, the poor, comprising 85 percent of humanity. Majority rules. Marami sila, di sila ang minamahal ng Maykapal.
You say, there is a grand conspiracy in our worldly planet by the few but powerful rich who keep the majority of people poor. Whoever said that it was God’s design that our society is capitalist could be right. God desires that man is able to learn to act with love and compassion for his poor brethren. It’s a purgatorial process.
But sad for the rich man to enter heaven because it is as rare as a crow changing its black feathers to white.
Because of that grand conspiracy by the rich, poverty is here to stay.
But first, before our pessimism gets out of hand, congratulate the government for not taking the poverty syndrome lying down. Fact is, it is taking it by the horns. You have seen more intimately the plight and saga of our overseas workers, especially the Filipina maids, and oh, yes, the Japayukis in Japan.
The government is doing all it can to upgrade the OCWs’ work. Masakit man na isipin, there’s very little we can do about not being able to professionalize them. Lets just do the best we can to lessen the pangs of our poor’s fates. How? By helping them, yes, literally.
That’s why on the occasion of Lent (ambelat agew), we opted to reflect on this phenomenon, this socio economic tragedy that has gripped our country and many others in the Third World. We’ve pined and bemoaned the luckless, how they go through daily existence. Our hope should lie in showing love and compassion for them, the less fortunate. Better still, for us to go out of our way to alleviate human suffering.
You have heard such humiliating remarks, “kapit sa patalim,” and the sad tales of Mrs. Pinas working in Arab lands and in Hongkong. Once, some naughty wags addressed our office “Pimping Overseas Employment Agency.”
Even in the Bible, we hear about those close to Jesus who would beseech Him for a glorious life in heaven. Like what the mother of James and John importuning Jesus to remember her two sons, to seat them on his left and right hands when the time comes words to that effect.
But the ever all-knowing Christ answered, “If you want to be viewed with favor by my Father, I say this: who is the greatest among you must be the servant of all.”
Most of us, alleged or nominal Christians, are only so in name. We don’t follow His teachings, especially the materially gifted who were warned about the hardship to enter the gate of heaven, as the Holy Book warns, “it’s easier for a camel to enter a needle than a rich man entering the gate of heaven.”
How sad naman pala ang maging mayaman? We have read countless stories and accounts about people who during their lifetime would indulge in bachallian feasts unmindful of the later life. You have heard of God’s lament on pseudo Christians such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They are the last that Christ would consider in heaven.
To cleanse and chastise our temporal lives, we go back to His Commandments. Have we been faithful? Have we done something for the poor? Have we really considered, thought of and helped them? There are millions of them, but we need only serve a few, a hundred may be, so long, we do it in all sincerity and in His Name. We suffer with them because they will inherit heaven. If you have been living your life like you were one of them, then assuredly, you, too, will be blessed.
Happy Easter to you all!
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