On Religion

Mood: nothing much
Now Playing: stand by me, the brilliant green

*longoverduepost*
So mom woke me up today and asked me to hear mass at an SM. Half asleep, i tried to prod my brain awake to process what she was saying. Mass? At some mall? asjdhasjdasdjaskld. Don't get me wrong, im not one of thos conservatives or orthodox church-goer or whatever it is they call that nowadays that adhere to their religion rigidly. Truth be told, im more of the liberal kind of church guy - someone who believes in the whole Faith, not in the system. Call it liberal. Call it unorthodox. I basically don't care.

Aaaanyway, so aun. We were there at 9 in the morning, and i was against the whole idea, liberal as i was. I mean, hearing mass in a mall? That's like eating crucifx-shaped chocolates in the Sistine Chapel. Let's give the guy upstairs some credit, eh, and put Him in a place where he belonged - a solid, honest to goodness church.

But to my amazement, it turns out i was wrong about the whole thing and may have to revamp my religious thinkings. The priest was animated in his discussion, and lo and behold - the 2nd reading was one of my most favorite lines ever. It's 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, which is

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels,
but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.
And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.
And if I dole out all my goods, and if I deliver my body that I may boast
but have not love, nothing I am profited.
Love is long suffering, love is kind, it is not jealous,
love does not boast, it is not inflated. It is not discourteous, it is not selfish,
it is not irritable, it does not enumerate the evil.
It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth
It covers all things, it has faith for all things,
it hopes in all things,it endures in all things.
Love never falls in ruins; but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or
tongues, they will cease; or knowledge, it will be superseded.

For we know in part and we prophecy in part.
But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.
When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant,
I reckoned as an infant;when I became [an adult],
I abolished the things of the infant.
For now we see through a mirror in an enigma,
but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then
I shall know as also I was fully known.

But now remains faith, hope, love,
these three; but the greatest of these is love.

mygahd. It's amazing really. The priest was talking about how to hear the Word, and aklsjdlaks, he was right. He said that every minute of our lives, Someone speaks to us. All we have to do is listen hard enough, to sense hard enough.

He had a point, gais, and he defended it. He believed in it. He talked about how He talks to us in every minute of our lives, and all we have to do is to listen to it. We have a choice. We can either hear it or just bam, walk away from it.

aside story: I was constantly reminded of that book by Coelho, The Alchemist. In it, Santiago was given two stones - Urin and Thummim that would basically guide him in making decisions, as it speaks the languange of the world. Sa isip isip ko, baka lahat ng tao kelangan ng ganun sa pang araw-araw na pamumuhay. Then i realized the fallacy of my thoughts: we don't need two stones to guide us. We don't really need to stick to the basic rules of religion. What we really need is an open ear and a mind that accepts the things that we hear.

But what struck me more inside was the manner by which the priest connected to the people. I mean, it transcended the simple roles of sermoner and sermonee, it did. It felt like - if only for a minute or two - that we were in the presence of something remarkable and surreal, and it seemed to me that if i move even a muscle, i would lose the magic and would have to start again from scratch.

I'm in danger of ranting on and on in the wrong way here, so let me give it to you straight. I guess what i'm trying to say is that the place doesn't matter. There are lots of questions, but the most important ones aren't When or What or Who, but the How and the Why. It doesn't matter if you hear mass in some forsaken town in the middle of anywhere, or in with front row tickets at the sistine chapel. What matters is when after leaving the building, you take something along with you, and whether you use it or not. That's what i think.