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It's a monday afternoon, another holiday declared by Ate Glo. Things are a bit slow. Can't seem to open my email. This has been happening quite frequently during the past few days. Wonder if it has anything to do with Yahoo rejecting Microsoft's bid. At any rate, it may be a good time as any to try to publish some little thoughts which I have always wanted to share but was too shy to do so in the past.
This business of blogging, for all of its virtues, can be a dangerous thing. Be careful what you post, I have told myself. By their blogs you shall know them.
Here's one on "Forgiveness" which I wrote around Christmastime, which I want to share with the XVDs who are scheduled to take another recollection on June 14-15, 2008.
Hi, MERRY CHRISTMAS! There is a nice little ritual at funerals these days that's fast becoming common practice. The officiating priest will come around with his perfume bottle and start blessing the deceased with holy water. Then he would invite close friends and relatives to come forward and do the same. Some priests (Fr. Aldo Yap did this at his mother's wake in Tagaytay) have added a nice little gesture to this rather quaint ceremony by suggesting to the bereaved something to this effect: "O, SIGE, NA, MGA KAPATID, HALINA AT BENDISYONAN NA NINYO ANG YUMAO NATING KAPATID. KUN ANUMAN ANG INYONG NAGING KASALANAN O PAGKUKULANG SA KANYA, HUMINGI NA KAYO NG KAPATAWARAN. GAYUN DIN, KUN ANUMAN ANG NAGING SAMA NG LOOB NYO SA KANYA, KASALANAN O PAGKUKULANG, BENDISYONAN NYO SYA AT SABIHING PINATATAWAD NYO NA SIYA!"
This business of blogging, for all of its virtues, can be a dangerous thing. Be careful what you post, I have told myself. By their blogs you shall know them.
Here's one on "Forgiveness" which I wrote around Christmastime, which I want to share with the XVDs who are scheduled to take another recollection on June 14-15, 2008.
I was just thinking (warning: i can be dangerous when i'm thinking), why do we have to wait until death for us to engage in this most Christian act - forgiveness. You know, although it's been said that blood is thicker than ... human relationships are so delicate and fragile that one miscue, one little slip of the tongue, one gossip, or thoughtless remark, a fault here, a failure (pagkukulang) there, can smash a friendship to smithereens... and all the king's horses, all the king's men cannot put humpty dumpty together again.
This Christmas, toward the end of another year, together with our usual xmas greetings, why don't we add an element of forgiveness, even as we keep praying almost daily "forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us?" A dear cousin, Coyang Resting (now Resting in Peace), would add this in his morning and evening prayer: "Lord, whatever things I did or failed to do today, I ask for your forgiveness." This Christmas, before it's too late, go ahead, tell somebody, "KAPATID, KAIBIGAN, BAGO AKO MAMATAY, BAGO KA MAMATAY, KUN ANO MAN ANG AKING NAGING KASALANAN O PAGKUKULANG SAYO, PATAWARIN MO NA SANA AKO. GAYUN DIN KUN ANO MAN ANG NAGING KASALANAN O PAGKUKULANG MO SA AKIN, PINATATAWAD NA KITA. I FORGIVE YOU. PLS FORGIVE ME! MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Don't send me flowers when I'm dead. Do it now. Before it’s too late, let's have a Christmas party of forgiveness. JAMES L
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