The bishops

Bishops are one of the most misunderstood persons in the Catholic Church.  Add to “misunderstood”—maligned, hated, feared, abhorred, mistrusted, detested, dreaded, plus all the synonyms of those horrible adjectives.  They are loved, but they are seldom truly loved—loved for the person they really are minus the trappings, not loved for the favors they can grant as “princes of the Church”.

It’s a pity, because bishops can also be the most wonderful treasures an ordinary believer can encounter in the Church, if we but try to look at them through the eyes of compassion, the eyes of Jesus.  Beneath that formidable veneer of glory and power are persons both holy and human—vulnerable and persevering, struggling to forgive and to love all equally, battling temptations to vanity—totally dependent on God’s mercy to see them through all the demands imposed on their person by the miter and the staff.

They may not always look it, but bishops are down to earth beings who are aware that one day when all the pomp and circumstance have turned to thin air, nothing will be left of themselves but skeletons in their tombs.  From a distance, all skeletons look the same.  In essence, all skeletons are the same—reminders of a life once lived.  Thus, bishops stand naked and empty before God and strive to be filled with gratitude and grace to do what they have been called to do.

Media in general have not been empathetic to bishops, while enemies of the Church tend to judge the bishops’ pronouncements, actions, and even intentions with little or no regard for context.  Little do they know that many of the bishops’ acts of love are hidden from the public eye.  For instance, one bishop—who on the day of his episcopal ordination vowed to surrender all the money he would receive to the diocesan coffers—has kept his vow, turning over to the chancery all cash and checks, even those meant as “personal gifts.”  His reason is “Transparency—anyway I can always ask for any amount I need to do my job.  I need not keep anything for myself.  This way everybody knows where the money goes.”

Another bishop chooses to bear the contempt of his family and relatives who tend to see him as a stepping-stone to prestige and financial comfort.  Aware that his ordinary charity could be abused by relatives, he sets family aside in order to be fair to his flock.  It is quite a struggle he is at times tempted to give up because “Family is family whichever way you look at it, and when everybody has turned their back on you there’s your family who’ll be there for you, but no, I must tell myself that when I accepted my vocation I was aware that from then on I must not give blood relatives special treatment.”

Perhaps one of the hardest things for a bishop to fight is the temptation to pride engendered by being regarded like a king by his people.  In his diocese, a young bishop realized, he was expected to say the last word, to sit at the presidential table of any event, to be the guest whose presence was a blessing in any occasion.  He was always the center of attention, the most wanted person around (although not always by the priests); everybody (including the priests) laughed at his jokes even if he himself knew they were corny.  This bishop was well aware of it early on when he was practically smothered with gifts, attention, adulation, and praises unlimited from politicians and female fans.  He knew that if such an environment was allowed unchecked, the ego massage it offered could entrap him to the point of no return. 

This young bishop then took it upon himself to go incognito on occasion, to experience the anonymity of being a man on the street in Manila.  Putting away his Roman collar, his ring, pectoral cross, and expensive watch (a gift), he donned an ordinary polo shirt and nondescript pants and took the jeepney to Tondo, intending to “go on retreat” by serving the male wards at Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying Destitute.  Lunch found him eating with the tricycle drivers at a sidewalk “turo-turo”—fried hasa-hasa and rice with free sinigang soup, served in plastic dishes and with spoon and fork soaked in hot water. 

At the Home, where the nuns unwittingly took him in as a regular volunteer, he was asked what dialect he could speak as the male wards usually needed someone to talk to in their own dialects.  For quite some time he lent his ear to a man old enough to be his father and who spoke only Cebuano.  Then the man, perhaps feeling at home with a “kababayan” and noticing his clean cut head, asked if he was a soldier or a policeman.  The bishop said “No, I’m a teacher.”  The old man said he wanted to urinate, and told the bishop to get a portable urinal in the toilet.  After being assisted by “the teacher” to relieve himself, he nonchalantly told the bishop to empty the urinal and wash it.  On the bishop’s way back to the old man’s bedside, four other wards asked for the same assistance; the bishop helped them all, emptied and washed a total of five urinals—maybe the most humbling yet joyful 15 minutes of his life.

There are many more acts of faith, courage, love and humility that our bishops have done with God as their only witness.  In His own way and His own time, God allows His people a glimpse into the fruits of such acts.  Meanwhile, we continue to give our bishops due respect, to examine our own weaknesses that lead them to err in judgment, to trust in God’s mercy to set things aright.  Indeed, heavy is the head that wears a miter, and bound is the hand that holds the shepherd’s staff.  Always we pray that our bishops may never be too tired to pray, that after attending to a myriad concerns, they may see their private chapels as the arms of God waiting to embrace them in silence and solitude at the end of each day.  And that’s the truth.

Is this world on fire?

--> With the beheading of another American journalist, Steven Sotlof, allegedly by the ISIS, the extremist group sends a “second message” to the US—it’s their way of saying “back off or else!”  We wonder how many more journalists’ heads will roll in the name of Allah, and what our peace-loving, non-violent Moslem friends feel about it.

Christians met with sorrow and revulsion the news—and the accompanying video—of the beheading of US journalist James Foley, a devout Catholic who would find calm in prison praying the rosary with his knuckles.  If we were less naïve about the history of religions, would we still be surprised if the ISIS’ “second message” to the US were followed by a third, a fourth, and so on?

       The culture of beheading among extremist followers of Islam dates back to the days of the prophet Muhammad himself who, according to historians, took part in caravan raids and wars in order to finance the promotion of his new religion.  Authors Peter G. Riddell and Peter Cotterell in Islam in Context: Past, Present, and Future write that in the massacre of the Qurayza Jews, the prophet himself “had trenches dug, and the men were led out in batches and beheaded.”  The incident claimed victims by the hundreds, as recorded in the Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Prophet of Allah) by Ibn Ishaq, a Muslim historian who died in 768: “There were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900.”

       This issue of beheading reminds us of the first woman doctor of the Church, St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), who, at about seven years of age, persuaded her younger brother Rodrigo to run away from home and offer themselves to be beheaded in the land of the Moors.  She had heard about beheading from her father who would tell the children stories of saints and martyrs offering their lives to God.  The young Teresa perhaps thought nothing of the gore and the pain involved; for her, to be a martyr meant a shortcut to heaven, and because her little heart was most desirous (or curious) “to see God”, she thought the fastest way to get there was to be beheaded.  And she had the temerity to talk her kid brother into joining her martyrdom!  Their absence caused mild panic in the house, and a search party was deployed.  As Providence would have it, an uncle on horseback found the missing children, already outside the walls of Avila and, as they’d say, “the rest is history.”

       This recollection, however, is more than just a passing fancy, for a closer look into St. Teresa’s writings would reveal that essentially, the world hasn’t changed much in 500 years—people in the 21^st century are still being beheaded “by the Moors”—although nowadays, no mean thanks to tv and the internet, we do not just hear or read about it in history books, we see the atrocious deeds recorded on video, right in the comfort of our living rooms.

       If the sight of a headless doll is unsettling to some who associate dolls with real children, how would you react to a video clip of an extremist soldier laughing while shaking the headless body of a little girl as though it were a trophy won at a football game?  What do you think of when you see a whole city in upheaval over the shooting of a supposedly innocent black teenager?  What questions do you ask yourself when every so often the news explodes with the suicide of the rich and famous?  What do you feel like doing when you hear of a male nurse sexually molesting a two-month old infant in his care, or of children being used as informants and suicide bombers in an Islamic State?  Do you wonder why our government proudly claims the crime rate has dropped when robberies and riding-in-tandem murders continue to fill the nightly news? Whom do you blame when thousands turn homeless on account of landslides, flash floods, earthquakes, typhoons, and fires? What do you say when world records are used to measure a perceived religious superiority?  Can you feel the agony of the Christians who run for their lives in Syria, or do you simply thank God you are not among them?

       “The world is on fire,” St. Teresa would write almost 450 years ago in Way of Perfection of the difficult times they were in, “Men try to condemn Christ once again as it were, for they bring a thousand false witnesses against Him.  They would raze His Church to the ground… No… this is no time to treat with God for things of little importance.”  As in the 16^th century, humanity is beset with the same evils, and the only one institution that has remained unchanged in its mission to counteract evil with Love is the Church that Jesus Christ Himself founded. In this Church, as shown by the life of St. Teresa of Avila, lies the hope for the intimate friendship with Jesus that would lead to our renewal—if only we would trust it in spite of ourselves.

       Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI would say that in reforming the Carmelite Order, “St. Teresa of Jesus sought to create a form of life which favored a personal encounter with the Lord, finding ‘a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us. Nor need we feel strange in the presence of so kind a Guest’.”  St. Teresa loved the Church, trusted it, and wanted “to protect apostolic work with prayer, proposing a form of evangelical life that would act as a model for people seeking the path of perfection, on the basis of the conviction that all authentic personal and ecclesial reform involves an ever more faithful reproduction of the 'form' of Christ in our own selves…” 

       It is not true that with all the evils surrounding man today, we are left with no one to trust.  There is still the Church our Lord founded, and I’d dare say, it is the only institution left to trust.  As Benedict XVI emphasized, “Today, too, as in St. Teresa’s time, it is important that trusting prayer be the heart of the apostolate, so that the redeeming message of Jesus Christ may sound out clearly and dynamically… The example of St. Teresa is of great help to us in this exhilarating task…there is a pressing need for the baptized to renew their hearts through individual prayer in which, following the guidance of St. Teresa, they also focus on contemplation of Christ’s blessed humanity as the only way to reach the glory of God.  The power of Christ will lead to a redoubling of efforts to ensure that the people of God recover their vigor in the only way possible: by finding space within ourselves for the feelings of the Lord Jesus, and in all circumstances seeking to live His Gospel to the full. This means, above all, allowing the Holy Spirit to make us friends of the Master and to mould us to Him. It also means accepting all His mandates and adopting in ourselves criteria such as humility of conduct, renunciation of the superfluous, not harming others, and acting with simplicity and humbleness of heart. Thus, those around us will perceive the joy that arises from our adherence to the Lord; they will see that we put nothing before His love, and that we are always ready to give reasons for our hope.” 

       That is really setting the world on fire—with the love of God!  And that’s the truth.