"In pursuit of Redemption"
(or the Filipino's yearning and attempt for redemption
through the Christian faith with its socio-spiritual liberative character)
At first, this person started writing this writeup this Holy Thursday. Due to an excess of thoughts this person initially gathered for his earlier “Holy week”-related writeup, the idea of having another socially-related “Holy Week”-relevant post seemed to be appropriate and an easy way to let those thoughts flow the way thinking being an easiest way to fill many days and nights, enough to consider “impossible” to avoid.
However, this person seemed worried about this work be left undone due to other tasks such as painting, drawing, reading various reports, and other related stuff including those of taking part at later’s “Maundy Thursday mass” with this person taking part as an “Apostle”. The afternoon heat hath also seemed to create a hindrance in making this writeup as well, as it entices one to “rest” with the whirring fan enough for some ventilation if not an aesthetic of noise in the middle of this silent afternoon.
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| "Looking back, all in pursuit of Redemption" |
“Why do we strive for redemption in this hell of a kind world?
Amidst enjoying the good life, why there are those who are seeking liberation from the cycle humanity has been chained over from the cradle to the grave? For sure everyone prays, does charity, enough to seek relevance and to redeem one’s self.
But despite all their actions, God has come down amongst the people; and he has become man in Christ. Hence, through Christ, everyone is trying to approach God directly besides those of good works. The way everyone cries for liberation from harsh caste-bondage and thus been heard by God, who came to us in Jesus Christ who live and save all people from their sins."
Amidst enjoying the good life, why there are those who are seeking liberation from the cycle humanity has been chained over from the cradle to the grave? For sure everyone prays, does charity, enough to seek relevance and to redeem one’s self.
But despite all their actions, God has come down amongst the people; and he has become man in Christ. Hence, through Christ, everyone is trying to approach God directly besides those of good works. The way everyone cries for liberation from harsh caste-bondage and thus been heard by God, who came to us in Jesus Christ who live and save all people from their sins."
These are the words this person has been thinking of these days, that amidst experiencing everyday good life as a Bourgeois, has been a witness in seeing everyday poverty, of usual suffering particularly those of a struggling common man in what activists called as a “semifeudal, semicolonial” society. Sorry if these words has becoming political, but to think that Christ’s work has been political- especially when he healed the sick, fed the poor, been praised by the people, mocked by the system, crucified, died, and resurrected with his followers preaching the good news of his salvation.
And perhaps, through his example, people should stand up and struggle against the flow, against an unjust order, the way it applies God’s word though advocating a revisit of almost forgotten morals and a reinstitution of genuine justice. Why the contentment in seeing social suffering, what more of mocking them from time to time till aggravate old tensions and problems, if instead must act both for self-cultivation and service to others particularly to the less fortunate? And worse, assuming to be self-righteous yet treating its own righteousness as "holy water" for their almost incurable sins. Such actions done by those truly committed is driven by the idea of redemption, both in the individual and in the society. That in this era of fabricated crisis and centuries-old repression, the drive for redemption has been rampant, what more of its actions be it as pious as the prayer vigil at the churches or as bloody as the armed struggle at the countryside.
Strange isn’t it at first, but to think that the society is in its continuing past of repression and injustice, people will always clamour for a future based from a cherished principle with others willing to participate in case of the enlightened. Why was the peasant and the worker joined the Katipunan? They were not just motivated by National Liberation, but also a social one such as those of land. But they were also motivated by faith, given that most of them were Roman Catholics whose interpretation of Christ as a redeemer from repression different from what the friars commonly stated; after all, De Los Reyes, Aglipay, the makers of “Si Cristo Socialist Ya”, and Benjamin Alforque expressed the statement of Christ as a socio-spiritual liberator whose justice is distributive with the idea of "love God and love one another". And since some people has greatly understood the Christian faith as liberative in its character than those of its colonisers and the system despite all its antics, it shows how indigenisation has changed Filipino Christianity given that it was originally came to the Philippines by a foreign force and not by native acceptance.
Also to think that Christ has been served the people faithfully, of listening and responding to their plight, isn’t it that obvious that Christianity’s character is enough to deem radical than conservative as insisted by those whose motive is repression if not interest by the system and its apologetics? Radical in a sense that it tries to empower the people, communities, the way it asserts reinstitution of justice in pursuit of redeeming souls for kingdom come.
Anyways, no wonder why the quote "Follow Christ, Serve the People" has been the tagline for the socially-aware Christians whose desire is redemption both in its own character and those of its own society amidst socio-spiritual crisis.
Also to think that Christ has been served the people faithfully, of listening and responding to their plight, isn’t it that obvious that Christianity’s character is enough to deem radical than conservative as insisted by those whose motive is repression if not interest by the system and its apologetics? Radical in a sense that it tries to empower the people, communities, the way it asserts reinstitution of justice in pursuit of redeeming souls for kingdom come.
Anyways, no wonder why the quote "Follow Christ, Serve the People" has been the tagline for the socially-aware Christians whose desire is redemption both in its own character and those of its own society amidst socio-spiritual crisis.