And so, her coming and offering herself as a lamb should be a summons to all of us to help.Įvil triumphs when good men do nothing. But when VP Leni declared, it is as if the Lord has sent a new Moses to liberate the Israelites from the obnoxious and tyrannical rule of the pharaohs. When our life, liberty and freedom are in grave and imminent danger, is it not our moral duty to stand up in defense of our own rights as a people? Had VP Leni not entered the arena, my wife and I would have stayed away from the polls, because the choices would be limited to the trying-hard-to-look-good, the somehow good, the not-so-good, the one pretending to be good, and the last option who is downright bad. But what is spirituality? Pope Francis, would ask: Does it not include being at the frontline of battles, when our human rights, human dignity, our honor and decency as a people are being attacked with impunity? Should we choose not to help and take refuge under our comfort zones? It is very easy to argue that taking sides may divide our community and may distract us from our core purpose, which is spirituality. Our community is one of the inns and we, the members of the community, are the innkeepers and the helpers at the inns.
Here comes a Samaritan from Naga City, a widow at that, a solo parent, poorer than the priest and the Levite, who are her political opponents.īut, after a long and painstaking reflection, the lady, Leni Robredo, has made a choice to give up her comfort, risk her security and even her life, in order to save a nation in distress. Should we look the other way in the face of all the many chilling things happening today? Our nation is dying economically, socially, and politically. And if our church-based community will refuse to help, we shall be likened to the priest and a Levite who both went on the other way, and ignored the man who was about to die. Our freedom and democracy are being assaulted and attacked. Truly, our nation today is being robbed of its dignity and rights. By analogy, the current dispensation is not unlike the highway bad guys who stripped him and mauled him black and blue, and abandoned him half-dead. With the parable as a background, our nation today, based on our discernment as a couple, is like the traveller from Jericho to Jerusalem, who was ambushed and robbed. First, should our religious community remain silent, uninvolved, and stay apolitical, given the raging social, economic, and political issues confronting our nation? And second, should we stand up, and define our moral and ethical position, considering that our country is going to make a very crucial political decision that has very serious and far-reaching consequences and implications? We are supposed to go on individual discernment and then come together as small groups to jointly contemplate on the issue.Īs a marriage encounter couple, we are largely inspired by the Holy Father, Pope Francis in his encyclical letter, Fratelli Tutti, on the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi on October 3, 2020, where he retold the Parable of the Good Samaritan as written by the evangelist, St. This is the crucial question.Īnd in resolving it, we are torn between two options. My wife and I are members of a marriage encounter organization and I find our organization to be at a crossroads, facing a difficult moral question to be or not to be. Many church-based peoples' organizations are now trying to discern whether or not to be involved in the political debates concerning the choice of the next president.
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