Playing with Fire
Holy Week – a time for soul searching
By Gonzalo Duque
WITH the advent of Lent – or Holy Week – we call upon our brothers and sisters to pause, re-examine themselves and re-chart their lives’ journey.
Where are we going? How have we been dealing fairly with our life, this most precious gift from the Lord, of course, with His earthly instruments, our parents?
We’ve been writing for years now – and we haven’t changed our frame of mind or frame of heart, for that matter, that our lives on earth are temporary in nature.
Sooner or later, we leave this “mortal coil” to join those who have gone ahead of us to the after-life which, if we have made our lives meaningful devoting our time, our thoughts and energies to improve the temporal place we live in and give love to those we have had contact with – family, neighbor, country and humankind, then we retire in the joy-filled Home of God in the After-Life.
It’s a matter of choice, you see? The Lord – even the atheists and agnostics – seem to agree that we will be judged on the manner we lived our lives in the temporary world.
If we nurtured an other-centered life, we are confident of God’s reward of everlasting life.
If we, however, lived to gratify our bestial instincts making us a little better than the animals, we know what to expect.
Saan kaya natin ilalagay ang mga mapang-abusong pulitiko, na talamak na sa ating kapaligiran?
Lucky are those who have been given the opportunities to get closer to the Lord!
How pleased we’ve been to be so gifted with a son who you’d think is free-wheeling, fun-loving, happy-go-lucky.
But Nanoy, the manager of Aksyon Radyo and our university’s North-Central Luzon Basketball games championship recently, has shown what it is to be a real Christian leader.
His superiors in the Christian community told us how fortunate we are to have a God-centered son who would have gone the way of thrill-seeking youngsters his age. We have moist eyes when they’d tell us these quiet impressions about Nanoy.
His mother, the former Ruth Espenilla, is so joyous and proud of our children. Nanoy’s older brod Pacoy is now a Makati executive having acquired his training from Brod Cezar, the tycoon in the family.
When he was alive and practically lived like the alter ego of then President Marcos, our marital godfather Atty. Jake Clave, told us about the secret of happiness and lasting pleasure: Direct all your cares and labors in helping others, most especially in glorifying the Lord.
Manong or Ninong Jake was described by his confreres as the most workaholic executive in Malacanang during his hey days. He retired when President Marcos fled to Hawaii.
His retirement, he told us, cost his health because he was used to his role as Man of Action, always helping hundreds of people everyday on a 24-hour basis.
Hindi nagtagal, he died. We believe it was the absence of his other-directed energies that abbreviated his earthly existence. But to us who know him, Jake Clave (he was a saint, super bait, matulungin sa kapwa).
In this season of Lent, it may be opportune to tune in to God’s instruction to all of us.
Be a servant of your fellowmen and please Him.
Happy Holy days!
(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)
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