Peace as Prologue

Genesis 2 -

7 The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. 8 Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and he placed there the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God made various trees grow that were delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.

15 The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. 16 The LORD God gave man this order: "You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden 17 except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die."

18 The LORD God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him."19 So the LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man. 21 So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, 23 the man said: "This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called 'woman,' for out of 'her man' this one has been taken." 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.

> Exile time is the continuous length of time that mankind have, shall and will endure the loss of Original Justice and encompasses the time from the first sin of our first parents up to Parousia or the Day of General Judgement at the Second Coming of Christ. Original Justice being the original state of man before the sin of our first parents.

Genesis 3 -

1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made. The serpent asked the woman, "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" 2 The woman answered the serpent: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.'" 4 But the serpent said to the woman: "You certainly will not die! 5 No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad." 6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

8 When they heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 The LORD God then called to the man and asked him, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself." 11 Then he asked, "Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!" 12 The man replied, "The woman whom you put here with me--she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it." 13 The LORD God then asked the woman, "Why did you do such a thing?" The woman answered, "The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it."

14 Then the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; On your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel."

16 To the woman he said: "I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master."

17 To the man he said: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, "Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. 18 Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return."

20 The man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living. 21 For the man and his wife the LORD God made leather garments, with which he clothed them. 22 Then the LORD God said: "See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever."

23 The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken. 24 When he expelled the man, he settled him east of the garden of Eden; and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

> By Original Sin, all of mankind has been wounded and the race of Adam fell from grace and were exiled from glorious Eden. We find ourselves with a strong inclination to evil that is magnitudes more powerful than our inclination to good. From that first sin is the beginnings of the evil that has turned our original heritage of life and grace, because of pride and willfull disobedience, into one of suffering and death.

> The tree of the knowledge of good or bad that is placed with the tree of life at the center of the Garden represents the lie of self-sufficiency which is the illusion that either man or angel can become independent from God and put himself in place of his Creator. By the choice that allowed them to know for themselves what is good or bad for them, our first parents, willed to believe in the judgments of their own self over God's own judgments that directed them only and exclusively to accomplishment of what is good for them. Therefore, the very root of our own inclinations to sin is an inodrinate desire to serve the self, to love the self in place of God. Simply put, every sin is a refusal to serve God and an infinite offense to the infinite dignity of our Lord God.

> This lie at the very heart of our faded Eden is the lie that is common at the heart of all sin, the lie that deceives us into accepting and worshipping strange gods in place of the one true God. For if we were truly and completely faithful to the first commandment of God in the Decalogue then there would have been no need for the rest of them.

> By chosing to do what was forbidden by God and thus, sinful, Original Freedom - the freedom of the sons and daugthers of God that Saint Paul spoke of in the Gospels - which was the complete subjection of the soul of man to the will of God, was lost because the soul of man was ensalved by the enemy of God, angels and men, being the ancient serpent of Eden, who is Satan, the deceiver, the accuser and the father of all lies.

Revelations 12 -

7 Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, 8 but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.

9 The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.

> It was the sin of pride and rebellion that brought to existence the beast of war. The same instant that our first parents fell into sin was the same instant when the war in heaven was hurled down to the once unihabited lands of the earth, those dark, spiritless and unknown material realms, the lands outside of our native Eden.

> With the exception of our first parents, all of the generations of poor mankind was to be born in exile, upon an uncaring earth, far below these unconscious skies outside of our beloved Eden and away from the Original Peace we were once destined to enjoy with God, our own true self and each other.

> Without the grace and protection of God, mankind is never properly equipped to do battle either against the evils within himself or against the evils that overflow into the world of our present time as a consequence of the daily warfare that we wage within.

> Although we are all sinners and each of us is never without a fault, it is primarily because of Satan, the ancient serpent of our faded Eden, that the huge dragon, that the beast of war came into our existence. By first principles then, it is recognized by the Solidarity that we are, as one whole human race, victims to the one lie that from the forked tongue of the Devil have caused the evil of sin to come into being. It is this evil which is the cause of all human suffering. But Christ has turned human suffering from something meaningless into something salvific and of great, supernatural value because we as Christians can learn to unite our everyday suffering with God in Christ toward the sanctification of our own souls as well as the conversion of the souls of others. Furthermore, through the grace of God, suffering tempers virtue and restores justice in a world that needs both.

> The beast of war being the synergistic whole which is sin and all the agents and allurements that induce man to sin, the concupisence of the flesh, the evil fashions of the world, and the malice of the Devil and his fallen angels. This beast is constantly waging a relentless assault upon the mind and heart of humanity, the consequences of this violent battle within has soaked the soil of our earth to the very core with the blood of countless nameless innocents whose silent cries, just like the blood of Abel, echoes everywhere around us, a vertiable crescendo that pierces these unconscious skies above us. This is the chorus of the innocents and verily, these cries, we know, are most certainly heard by the One who knows all and sees all.

> Because there is sin in the world, there will always be division among men, even within the same race, tribe or family. Because there is sin in the world, unity and concord between men shall always be tenuous and fleeting without the grace and the Providence of God.

> Beloved of God, the beast of war is our ancient enemy. It is this beast that threaten not only our lives but also the destiny of our immortal souls. This same beast also threatens the peace and order that safguard the common good of every people of every nation of the one family of the nations of mankind gradually withdrawing from our one family of humanity, by each nation that falls, the advantages of the length of the days gained through the endeavor of each state which is peace that by degrees of its own truth is a direct measure of the unseen forbearance of the beneficent Providence of God.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid."

- John 14: 27

> This Peace (being the Peace of Jesus Christ or God's Peace) is both a promise as well as a distinct virtue that usher into being a prevailing climate of truth, internal as well as external, allows the grace of God to be diffused within our own hearts and cause God's charity to overflow, through the instrumentality of our lives, into the poor of our present time and temper as well as increase the virtues that build and fortify the public peace and order that safeguard the common good of the national and international communities of mankind - and stay the beast of war - giving length to our days.

> In the Solidarity, this Peace is our absolute allegiance. This Peace is a promise of things to come, a promise made to us by our Savior Himself. To embrace this Peace is to love it's Source Which is Love Itself.

> The longest night is the void at the threshold of the third Christian millennium where we are all, as one whole Christendom allied with all honorable religions most especially our Abrahamic brethren - the Jews and the Muslims, expected to fight - together and shoulder to shoulder - the seminal battles, within and without, that will shape the nature of the next 1000 years.

> My precious friend, we have seen it in the past, beginning with Abel it has been steadily but surely growing in strength, so much so that the beast of war has now given birth to genocide, our last century was a century of genocide, it is happening in our present and with the quickening pace of our world and the evils of our present time alive in our minds today, let us decide for each of ourselves as common creatures here and now before our one Creator Who is Almighty God Himself whether the beast of war, contempt of life and hatred to the God of life or God's Peace, respect of life and glory to the God of life shall prevail in our hearts and in our world, for all things that were written in Scripture shall come to pass but everything else must be decided here at the quickening of our present time.

> Beloved of God, how strong are we in our nobility as human beings created by our one common Creator and endowed with the dignity of an immortal soul to be able to reach out with genuine love and filial concern to the future of our one race and decide for those many generations today whether it will be for them a warm, caring and kind world full of different people to laugh and to cry with or a cold, cruel and hostile desolation empty of both our laughter and our tears?

> Certainly, the Solidarity must be equipped to be able to answer and to meet this challenge.

Next: Conduct of the Peace

Allied Generations

THIS IS THE ONE COMMON HOPE of the Solidarity: a better, more peaceful world for all men, women and children. It is the hope of every human being. It is also the basic goal of every honorable nation and the fundamental mission of all honorable alliances of nations.

These are the three threads that lead to the one common hope of the Solidarity: 1) a common understanding of the principles of the peace 2) the avoidance of war and 3) the alleviation suffering in all its forms.

The path of the Solidarity is the timeless path of the spirit, the mountain path of Christian perfection which is our hard and narrow way and we climb this path together, alone with the Alone, as faithful and obedient children of the Roman Catholic Church.

Therefore, the Solidarity also has an eschatological hope and that is to see an end to the beast of war at the consummation of our exile time at the overthrow of this world and the breaking of the power of the proud Prince of this world who is Satan, the ancient serpent of our faded Eden, and the huge dragon - the beast of war - who is the principal cause of the deception that turned our heritage of life and light in God into an abyss of misery and death, the Devil who with his demons are the agents of a hatred of God that brought us all into slavery and bondage to sin and with sin, evil and with evil, suffering and death.

If we pause and ponder for a moment at the greatness of the damage that the malice of the Devil and his agents have inflicted upon both the angels and our one family of humanity from our first parents right down to our present generations, all the loss that we personally endure, all the loss that we see everyday, all the loss that we know were taken from us yesterday and all the loss that are yet to be endured by every human being of every place and every time until the consummation of exile time, one would almost be tempted to sin. But with Jesus Christ Crucified as our pledge of victory, we are afforded the benefit of seizing victory before the battle, a very sound military strategy, executed perfectly by the Wisdom of God Himself that places in our hands the truth of God's peace in the very midst of our struggle against the beast of war. It is therefore a favorable feature of our spiritual warfare against the beast of war that we are never really conquered until we ourselves give up fighting. So never give up, my precious friend, once God calls you into battle. No matter how many times we should fall into sin, we may promptly rise again to repent - this time with greater humility, larger contrition, lesser dependence on self and stronger Christian hope and trust in God's strength and fidelity - to fight another battle, endure another temptation, suffer another evil - thankfully, willingly and with joy - until the love of Christ in our hearts prevail and the grace of God in our souls overcome the power of sin in our lives.

In the Solidarity, the beast of war is used to refer as a whole to the hostile actions of sin (the seven capital sins especially pride and hatred) and the agents of sin (the concupiscence of the flesh, the evil fashions of the world and the Devil and his fallen angels) against the human soul as well as its external effects that bring forth the curse of war and bloodshed into the reality of the present time as a great evil that threaten the one family of the nations of mankind.

Within the Solidarity, an unbroken lineage of hope carried forward from all hopes past to propel the hopes of the present under the guidance of Almighty God from one generation to the next until the consummation of exile time is called an Allied Generation.

An Allied Generation being one thread from among all the Allied Generations of the Solidarity form the sheltering wings of the Peace that by the grace of God shall work to stay and frustrate the beast of war as our nations march across the void of exile time and the one strong cord that together with the witness of all our Saints and the blood of all our nameless Holy Innocents at the final overthrow of this world God Himself will use to bind the Devil, his fallen angels and all reprobate souls who have unrepentantly forsaken God and trampled on the Blood of the Son of God and drag them all the way into the deepest, darkest depths of hell.

All our collective hopes, dreams and promises that we share in common reality with all mankind - of a better, more peaceful world for all men, women and children - freely, willingly, faithfully and lovingly commended to our eschatological hope and therefore made subject to the power and fidelity of Almighty God even as we commit ourselves humbly to the daily labors in His vineyard (being our own particular states of life) in, with, through, and for Jesus Christ in order to better ourselves as Christians and diffuse the grace of God into the immediate world around us shall form the exacting, noble sharpness of that Holy Silver Spear that Jesus Christ Himself shall let fly to bring down the beast of war at the Last Day, at the establishment of His Peace. For indeed, He will see us through to a better world and will not let His faithful perish in the end.

That is the eschatological hope of the Solidarity: to see an end to the beast of war.

Both our common hope that we share with mankind and our eschatological hope that we share as Christians lead us to the one end that all members of the Solidarity with and on behalf of the one family of humanity is striving for and that end is peace.

Peace in our hearts and peace in our times, peace that strengthens our nations and lengthens our days - a one whole peace - this peace being the climate of Jesus Christ Whose law in the Gospel is truth, truth that liberate from sin and frees from the oppression of war, hatred and death and the sharp tongue of truth which at the consummation of exile time is certain victory over war.

The means to acheive this one end, Per Matrem ad Filium - Through the Mother to the Son: the Eucharistic Reign of Jesus Christ in all our hearts through the Immaculate Heart of Mary - the Alter Christus born from the seed of the sanctifying grace of our common baptism as Christians which is the seed of the Kingdom of our God in heaven in our hearts that must die with our false self from within ourselves that it may grow with the warmth of our own gentle nurturing and the everlasting waters of God's grace to bring forth a whole new universe of supernatural realities growing into the fullness of the age of Jesus Christ in you and in me.

"Peace is a promise.
A promise I make to you,
My precious child.
A promise to see you through
right to the bitter end."

The Republic Rosary

MY PRECIOUS FRIEND, there are as many ways of saying the rosary of our Lady as there are unique human personalities here on our one earth. Prayer is essential in the life of a Christian and this is true for many reasons. The mark of our baptism that has forever called us out of this world and set us aside as members of the one great family of God had effectively placed us in a new, supernatural order, the order of grace, an unseen order where nothing depends on us because everything here depends on God. Mutual communication, therefore, is critical between the creature and his or her Creator. This mutual communication is done by means of prayer and there is no prayer outside of Holy Mass that is as effective a tool in elevating the mind and heart of the Christian soul to God than the rosary of our Lady.

How do we begin to love prayer in general? As one of the three eminent good works, along with fasting and alms giving, prayer when it is a sincere expression of a humble and contrite heart is like a longing to be consumed, like a love longing for Itself. Prayer shapes our soul - it calls out to the Light that beckon our minds outside of the darkness into repentance and were we faithful to our penance brings forth an increase in our hearts of the supernatural life of grace which is the dominion of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, where there once was only death. Verily, we struggle all our lives for or against fighting the battle of Christian prayer until we are consumed by the empire of either one. Who can not love prayer when he or she knows that the true liberation of the self from evil which is the goal of each life's pursuit of happiness wholly and completely depends on habitual, efficacious prayer? It is the beginning and the end of all good things in creation.

Beloved of God, this is what's practical about prayer - it informs our minds of higher intentions beyond the scope of the self and bends our will according to these supernatural truths. It gives us a motive of charity and a powerful intention to fulfill the will of God by uniting God's will here on earth as it is in heaven through our free human acts propelled by the power of God's grace.

How to begin to pray? The actions of all three theological virtues of faith, love and hope are ideally present in prayer. But to begin to pray, faith alone will suffice. Christian faith is not only a belief and a humble acceptance of all of God's revealed truths, it is also manifest in different degrees as a willingness to obey the will of God. Without obedience, which is the common fruit of all three theological virtues, there will be no movement in the spiritual life of a Christian, no progression in the interior life, no advancement toward our place with Jesus in Paradise, our one true Country. The highest perfection of obedience is union with Christ, oneness with the will of God - the Alter Christus.

One must learn to freely and obediently embrace the truths of the Christian faith - all the dogmas of our Holy Mother Church, principally the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Redemption, as well as all other truths that the Living Magisterium of the Church proposes to our faith humbly and entirely (and even in advance without fully understanding or knowing all about them) and to humbly submit both his or her mind and heart to the belief in the unseen reality of God, trusting that God can neither deceive nor be deceived and that God is a God that rewards the good and punishes evil. This is the basic disposition of the soul in prayer.

The obedience of faith in prayer require a generous exertion of effort which is equal in measure to our necessary acceptance of certain amounts of interior (aridity, diligence, vigilance, uncertainty) as well as exterior discomfort (bodily positions, mental, emotional and physical states, external conditions and disturbances). Patient obedience is required during the progress of every prayer from it's very first expression in the life of a Christian soul and from act to act unto it's greatest perfection in the beatific vision of God. However, our efforts in prayer being proportional to our nearness to God in our hearts, when devotion replaces discomfort and charity replaces effort, exertion in prayer by degrees disappear until only true devotion and perfect charity remain at the beatific vision of God. Both the basic disposition as well as the necessary obedience form a synergistic whole which when taken courageously and faithfully from one act to another form a habit of grace that is the substance behind the Christian practice
of prayer. A habit of the soul that combine all three theological virtues into one act of pure release that bring us alive to the reality of all that is absolutely certain in the life of every Christian.

To love God, my precious friend, we must take a genuine interest in Him. We must struggle to pursue Him and seek His face, learn His ways, the exceeding excellence of His perfections, the glories of His triune Persons, His peculiar nature, His greatest desires, His dearest pleasures, His loves, His hates, His favorites, His expressions, His friends, His enemies, His beneficent Providence, His experiences with mankind, His will for us as individuals as well as His will that drive the purpose of His creation. Contemplation on God as He is presented to us both in our Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition in the person of the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, as well as in the unfolding of creation manifest before our own eyes everyday as Divine Providence reveal to us the image of our Creator in our true selves. And as we discover our true selves, we also find our true place in God's creation and realizing that same image of God imprinted on every unique human soul - an image that bears common witness unto every restless human heart of a common Creator - our mind is led into the existential questions that begin and end into the certainty of the revelations of divine truths safeguarded by all honorable religions. And then, we learn to realize and truly appreciate the fullness of the truth that subsists in Mother Church, the Roman Catholic Church, whose bright magnitude is like the sun compared to the brightest stars of the sky.

If you are to take a steadfast interest in prayer, my precious friend, and walk the undiscovered landscapes of your own soul to paint the potential of your own infinite world within as seen through the eyes of God, presented as light to the eyes of your faith and distilled as images of truth in your heart, then take up your rosary, Beloved of God. Let this be the beginning of our journey into the wilderness together alone with the Alone and in communion with Christ and our Holy Mother Church. Let us each renew by our own lives daily, the promise of our Republic peace. Let our will of filial love for God and our devotion one to another summon the Providence of our God who is the first defender of the Republic of our people as one nation, distinct from all the nations of the one family of the nations of mankind, from all enemies spiritual, as well as internal and external.

Among the many special ways one might say the rosary of our Lady, I present to you, my precious friend: The Republic Rosary. I have learned that trusting in the Mother of God allows the flexibility as well as the expansiveness of spirit to be able to adapt the timeless expressions of the mysteries of our Lady's rosary and bring the strength of their virtues to bear according to the circumstances of my present day and the evils of our present time, whether they be personal or social.

In my entry on The Scourge of the Devil, a reflection on the body and soul of the rosary is included. Beloved of God, if we are to be flexible, it is important to know that both the body and soul of the rosary of our Lady is the unchanging foundation upon which we shall be able to build our own personal or communal expressions of adoration, praise, thanksgiving and/or petitions that adapt our meditations on the virtues of Christ and the graces that we receive with each mystery that we explore with the Queen of our Hearts to our own specific advantage here in the daily combat that we, as Christians, wage against the evils of our present time.

In our commemoration of February 25, and the first EDSA revolution of the Filipino people that by the grace of God and the kind and efficacious intercession of our Lady liberated our people and our Republic from tyranny and absolutism, I present to all my fellow Filipinos, the Republic Rosary.

It is to be prayed with true love of Country in heart and a firm hope for the promise of the present in mind - one faithful Republic.

Personally speaking, my precious friend, I harbor no hate for our present or past governments, what I hate is the sickness that is killing our nation.

The Republic Rosary

First Our Father - "for our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI and all Bishops in communion with him most especially the Bishops of the Philippines" (whose authority are as the anchors that hold fast the one universal Christian faith as we exist as the present Church of our present time in the sovereign soil of our native Philippines.)

First Hail Mary - "for an increase in faith for all Christians."
Second Hail Mary - "for an increase in hope for all Christians."
Third Hail Mary - "for an increase in love for all Christians."

The First Joyful Mystery - The Annunciation - "for all our poor and dispossessed, all our weak and oppressed, all who are directly suffering from social injustices, all who are the victims of the collective sins of our people."

In our Lady's Fiat, let us also recall to mind our duty to the poor of our Lord and our Christian obligation to take the love and the light of Christ to the very least of our brethren.

The Second Joyful Mystery - The Visitation - "for our young and the future generations of our people."

In our Lady's willingness to lovingly perform her duty to her kinswoman, let us also reflect on and be willing to do our loving duty to the younger generations and ensure for them the future of our Republic peace.

The Third Joyful Mystery - The Nativity - "for the generations of the past" (and their unbroken lineage of hope for a better home for the present generation of our people.)

Let us meditate on the poverty of infant Christ at the manger who instead of surrounding Himself with riches and power, surrounded Himself with love and nothing else.

Let us bring to mind what true happiness for us shall really consist of as true Christians and preserve ourselves and our Republic from the heretical materialism (that both the goal and the substance of life is purely material because the physical universe is all there is), atheistic secularism (that there is no God because man is independent and self-sufficient by himself alone), moral relativism (that justice is arbitrary because there are no moral absolutes as both good and evil come in convenient shades of gray), and social Darwinism (that brute force is the singular social requirement, in the absence of virtue and truth, that measure the excellence of nations or individuals) that is consuming the world around us.

All toward one faithful Republic, my faithful friend, for the lineage of hope that descend from the will of our God in heaven and connect to the hope of our present generation as a guide across the void of the Third Christian Millennium must also connect with the hopes of generations past as an unbroken lineage of hope that anchors our collective lives firmly unto the truth of God's eternal decree at the outset of exile time at the order that summoned our young Republic as a Mother Protectress to our people. So that what began in God shall return again for our own good and the glory of God in creation. This lineage of our Republic hope that without the presence of the original lineage of our own kings and queens all of whom have fallen in battle against the beast of war can only remain unbroken by an unbroken fidelity to the one God of our common Creation and an absolute allegiance to His Peace. Beloved of God, I therefore, humbly present to you that the malevolent forces of heretical materialism, atheistic secularism, moral relativism and social Darwinism that is at work in our world today shall all - if we allow this darkness to completely consume our land - work to sever our connections not only to each other but also to our past, our future and eventually, our God, effectively killing our Mother Protectress and exposing the debt of life entrusted to our present care and protection to the relentless hatred of the beast of war. But there is yet hope, even the smallest of light shines in the darkness - let us carry forward the momentum of all hopes past, of the sacred blood and noble suffering shed in the nameless service of our Country, let us carry the forward momentum of this lineage in our hearts to propel our own hopes, by the grace of God, into the promise of the present even as we also look with good faith in God towards the future. Let us build like natives, serve like citizens and live like Christians - as pilgrims to this world - knowing full well the value of each good work - each of us can make a difference, my preicous friend, but all of us can shape a national destiny.

The Fourth Joyful Mystery - The Presentation - "for the promise of our present generation."

We witness the piety (social and supernatural duty) of the Holy Family and meditate upon the obedience of Christ and our Lady both of whom (Whom) were above the law (Christ because He is God and our Lady because she is the Immaculate Conception - though Mary did not know this at the time) yet chose to humbly submit to it.

May we each find the will by the grace of God in each our selves to defend and preserve within ourselves the immaterial social virtues such as honor, duty, integrity, valor, justice and mercy that with charity strengthen the peace of our people and with piety that make our nation great in the eyes of God, angels and men.

May we oppose evil not by wasting ourselves against it - for we can not long oppose evil without sin. But by turning away from evil and completely devoting ourselves to the good, so that the more evil there is, the more devoted we become to the good. By loving and understanding the good and providing for the service and preservation of the good, by being the best of our better selves and being good and true at what we do - according to our own humble states of life - we turn to God and His will of good. By our turning towards God and the principles of the Gospel of Christ, we shall in Christ build the bedrock foundation of the Republic peace that by the grace of God shall outlast this long, dark night and align the path of our people toward the dawning of a new hope of a new morning from on high.

Let us recollect our intense desire for a lasting internal and external peace that pave the way for a bright new morning for our people. Let us stand apart and move away from the evils of our present time and be firmly united in our hope for a better homeland.

Let us show the world and the enemies of our peace a united front and begin without fail to build a better peace for our nation today. Let us stand in opposition only to despair and reconcile with
ourselves with all that is noble and good and worthy of praise from all the corners of our land.

Let us defend the truth in our hearts - the truth of a love that is 7,107 islands strong - and be the best of our better selves, relying completely on the one God of our common Creation to prosper the peace of our one faithful Republic and advance our nation, and our people, toward a better tomorrow today.

Let us persevere as one people in the spirit of the evangelical counsels - especially of humble obedience, to break the cycles of violent revolution that erupts to bring us to the brink of the abyss of anarchy and teaches only disobedience to our ranks, already confused and suffering from much internal strife and uphold the strength and resilience of our young social Democracy that allow for the authentic Christian liberty that under the framework of our Republic enable us to live freely with the purity of mind and poverty of spirit that reveal to our people the way back to Christian charity, the queen of all virtues.

The Fifth Joyful Mystery - The Finding in the Temple - "for all Filipinos living and working overseas."

May they never forget their ancestral roots and never be ashamed of their identity as Filipinos, as a people apart from all the peoples of the world who, either in word or in spirit, belong to our one faithful Republic whose ethos is Peace as a distinct nation from among the one family of the nations of mankind.

Let us recall the journey to Jerusalem, the cold uncertainty of the road taken from one place to another, the warm togetherness of the Holy Family and the breaking of the bread and sharing of the Passover meal taken at Jerusalem. Let us meditate on our own journey as Country, the cold and uncertain way ahead that we all take as a people, our warm togetherness as a hopeful whole that we very frequently overlook and the heretofore unnamed goal of that same togetherness at a destination we all consider as sacred and well worth the rigors of the journey.

Let us recall the loss and the grief of our Lady and Saint Joseph as they searched for the child Jesus and the relief they must have felt at finding Him again teaching in His own House with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Let us bring to mind all Filipinos who live and work overseas and the grief that we all feel at the point of separation. But let us be comforted by the fact that if we really take the time to look for them we will find them here with us in our own House living in our own hearts.

Peace to our people, love to our nation, and adoration to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Glory to God in the highest and Peace to all men of goodwill.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us.

An Image in My Heart

During times when I can pull back from the clutter and the noise of the outside world and enter into the secrets of my soul into the interior Kingdom of the infinite God of my heart, I wonder at all the possibilities of happiness there really is and always come up short of the satisfaction of knowing and understanding all there is. There is always infinitely more to our happiness than God would lead us to aprehend with our tiny capacity for imagination. And when my memory had had it's thimble capacity fill of the beatitudes of the spirit and I try to bear away what's precious with each new and profound intimation of happiness, my remebrance stirs within me and recalls me back to the presence of the Giver above all His gifts. It is God's special way of telling my forgetful, little soul, over and over, that He is the jewel in the parable and I rediscover, again and again, the immensity of the joy that awaits those who love God and serve Him with righteous fear.

One memory I have, that is most precious to me, is of a past image drawn from these same wanderings of a place in my heart with my darlingest Annelies Marie. It is a location on M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, at a spot above the galactic core, upon a luminous place filled with life and light. Above us the skies were a conscious, golden blaze of a million shining suns set against the enormous galactic backdrop of Andromeda. The land was a fertile blanket of welcoming flowers and trees laden with every good fruit imaginable, all the animals were tame and none of them ate the flesh of the other. There was a beach and a hill near the seaside, she was there and I was with her on the hill. She wore my hopes like little white flowers on her beautiful, flowing hair and I gave her a little bouquet of those fragile little hopes that I picked from her heart. We were an infinite comfort to each other as we sat on the hill, a comfort I always feel about my Anneka. We quietly enjoyed our togetherness as we both looked out into the timeless blue ocean and gazed together out into the waves at the comings and goings of life and the ebb and flow motion of the washing away of the darkness of exile time, until all the evil and the suffering had fled and there was only an everlasting friendship in the presence of an everlasting Love.

The First Motive which obliges us to practice Virtue and to serve God:

1. His Being in itself, and the excellence of His Perfections.

Two things, Christian reader, particularly excite the will of man to good. A principle of justice is one, the other the profit we may derive therefrom. All wise men, therefore, agree that justice and profit are the two most powerful inducements to move our wills to any undertaking. Now, though men seek profit more frequently than justice, yet justice is in itself more powerful; for, as Aristotle teaches, no worldly advantage can equal the excellence of virtue, nor is any loss so great that a wise man should not suffer it rather than yield to vice. The design of this book being to win men to virtue, we shall begin by showing our obligation to practice virtue because of the duty we owe to God. God being essentially goodness and beauty, there is nothing more pleasing to Him than virtue, nothing He more earnestly requires. Let us first seriously consider upon what grounds God demands this tribute from us.

But as these are innumerable, we shall only treat of the six principal motives which claim for God all that man is or all that man can do. The first; the greatest, and the most inexplicable is the very essence of God, embracing His infinite majesty, goodness, mercy, justice, wisdom, omnipotence, excellence, beauty, fidelity, immutability, sweetness, truth, beatitude, and all the inexhaustible riches and perfections which are contained in the Divine Being.

All these are so great that if the whole world, according to St. Augustine, were full of books, if the sea were turned to ink, and every creature employed in writing, the books would be filled, the sea would be drained, and the writers would be exhausted before any one of His perfections could be adequately expressed. The same Doctor adds, "Were any man created with a heart as large and capacious as the hearts of all men together, and if he were enabled by an extraordinary light to apprehend one of the divine attributes, his joy and delight would be such that, unless supported by special assistance from God, he could not endure them.

This, then, is the first and chief reason which obliges us to love and serve God. It is a truth so universally acknowledged that even the Epicureans, who endeavored to destroy all philosophy by denying a Divine Providence and the immortality of the soul, nevertheless maintained religion, or the worship due to God.

One of these philosophers (Cicero, De Natura Deorum) proves the existence of God by strong and undeniable arguments. He proclaims the greatness and sovereignty of His admirable perfections, which oblige us to reverence and adore Him, and shows that for this reason alone, independently of any other title, God has a right to our love and service.

If we treat a king, even out of his own dominion, with respect and honor purely because of the dignity of his person, though we owe him nothing, with how much more justice should we render honor and service to this King and Lord, who, as St. John tells us, bears written "on his garment, and on his thigh: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS"! (Apoc. 19:16). This is He who hath "poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth." (Is. 40:12).

All beings are in His power; He disposes of them as He wills. It is He who propels the heavenly bodies, commands the winds, changes the seasons, guides the elements, distributes the waters, controls the stars, creates all things; it is He, in fine, who, as King and Lord of the universe, maintains and nourishes all creatures.

Nor is His kingdom acquired or inherited. By His very nature it is for Him an inherent right. Just as man is above, the ant, for example, so is the Divine. Substance in an eminent degree above all created things, and the whole universe is no more than one of these little insects compared to Him. If this truth were so manifest to the Epicureans, otherwise unworthy of the name of philosophers, how much clearer ought it not be to us, who have been illumined by the light of true Christian philosophy! For this latter teaches us, in fact, that among the innumerable reasons which oblige us to serve God, this is the greatest; and though men were endowed with a thousand hearts and a thousand bodies, this reason alone should be sufficient to cause them to devote them all to His love and service.

Though of all motives this is the most powerful, yet it has the least influence on the imperfect. The reason for this is that, on the one hand, they are more moved by self-interest, self-love having deep root in their hearts; and on the other, being still ignorant, and novices in the ways of God, they are unable to appreciate His grandeur and beauty. Had they a better knowledge of His perfections, His beauty would enrapture their souls and cause them to love Him above all things. Therefore we shall furnish some considerations from the mystical theology of St. Denis which will help them to apprehend the perfections of the Master they serve.

To lead us to a knowledge of God, St. Denis teaches us first to turn our eyes from the qualities or perfections of creatures, lest we be tempted to measure by them the perfections of the Creator. Then, turning from the things of earth, he raises our souls to the contemplation of a Being above all beings, a Substance above all substances, a Light above all lights – rather a Light before which all light is darkness – Beauty above all beauties and before which all other beauty is but deformity. This is what we are taught by the cloud into which Moses entered to converse with God, and which shut out from his senses all that was not God. (Ex. 24:16,18). And the action of Elias, covering his face with his cloak when he saw the glory of God passing before him, is a lively expression of the same sentiment. (3Kg. 19:13). Therefore, to contemplate the glory of God, man must close his eyes to earthly things, which bear no proportion to this supreme Being.

We shall better understand this truth if we consider with more attention the vast difference between this uncreated Being and all other beings, between the Creator and His creatures. The latter without exception have had a beginning and may have an end, while this eternal Being is without beginning and without end. They all acknowledge a superior and depend upon another, while He has no superior and is the supreme Arbiter of all things. Creatures are composed of various substances, while He is a pure and simple Being; were He composed of diverse substances it would presuppose a being above and before Him to ordain the composition of these substances, which is altogether impossible. Creatures are subject to change; God is immutable. They all admit of greater perfection; they can increase in possessions, in knowledge. God cannot increase in perfection, containing within Himself all perfection; nor in possessions, for He is the source of all riches; nor in knowledge, for everything is present to His eternal omniscience. Therefore Aristotle calls Him a pure act – that is, Supreme Perfection, which admits of no increase. The needs of creatures subject them to movement and change; God, having no necessities, is fixed and immovable, and present in all places. We find in all creatures diversities which distinguish them one from another, but the purity of God's Essence admits of no distinction; so that His Being is His Essence, His Essence is His Power, His Power is His Will, His Will is His Understanding, His Understanding is His Being, His Being is His Wisdom, His Wisdom is His Justice, His Justice is His Mercy. And though the last two attributes are differently manifested, the duty of mercy being to pardon, that of justice to punish, yet they are one and the same power.

The Divine Being thus comprises in its unity apparently opposite qualities and perfections which we can never sufficiently admire; for, as St. Augustine observes, "He is a profoundly hidden God, yet everywhere present; He is essentially strength and beauty; He is immutable and incomprehensible; He is beyond all space, yet fills all the universe; invisible, yet manifest to all creatures; producing all motion, yet is Himself immovable; always in action, yet ever at rest, He fills all things and is circumscribed by nothing; He provides for all things without the least solicitude; He is great without quantity, therefore He is immense; He is good without qualification, and therefore He is the Supreme Good." (Meditations, 19 and 20). Nay, "One is good, God." (Matt. 19:17).

Finally, all created things having a limited being, their power is likewise limited; the works they accomplish, the space they fill, their very names, are no less limited. Human words can define them; they can be assigned a certain character and reduced to a certain species. But the Divine Substance cannot be defined nor comprehended under any species, nor can It be confined to any place, nor can any name express It. Though nameless, therefore, as St. Denis says, It yet has all possible names, since It possesses in Itself all the perfections expressed by these names.

As limited beings, therefore, creatures can be comprehended; but the Divine Essence, being infinite, is beyond the reach of any created understanding. For that which is limitless, says Aristotle, can only be grasped by an infinite understanding. As a man on the shore beholds the sea, yet cannot measure its depth or vastness, so the blessed spirits and all the elect contemplate God, yet cannot fathom the abyss of His greatness nor measure the duration of His eternity. For this reason also God is represented "seated upon the cherubim" (Dan. 3:55 and Ps. 17:11), who, though filled with treasures of divine wisdom, continue beneath His majesty and power, which it is not given them to grasp or understand.

This is what David teaches when he tells us that God "made darkness His covert" (Ps. 17:12), or, as the Apostle more clearly expresses it, He "inhabiteth light inaccessible." (1Tim. 6:16). The prophet calls this light darkness because it dazzles and blinds our human vision. Nothing is more resplendent and more visible than the sun, as a philosopher admirably remarks, yet because of its very splendor and the weakness of our vision there is nothing upon which we can gaze less. So also there is no being more intelligible in itself than God, and yet none we understand less in this present life.

Know, therefore, you who aspire to a knowledge of God, that He is a Being superior to anything you can conceive. The more sensible you are of your inability to comprehend Him, the more you will have advanced in a knowledge of His Being. Thus St. Gregory, commenting on these words of Job: "Who doth great things and unsearchable, and wonderful things without number" (Job 5:9), says, "We never more eloquently praise the works of the Almighty than when our tongue is mute in rapt wonder; silence is the only adequate praise when words are powerless to express the perfections we would extol."

St. Denis also tells us to honor with mute veneration, and a silence full of love and fear, the wonders and glory of God, before whom the most sublime intelligences are prostrate. The holy Doctor seems to allude here to the words of the prophet as translated by St. Jerome, "Praise is mute before thee, God of Sion," giving us to understand, doubtless, that the most adequate praise is a modest and respectful silence springing from the conviction of our inability to comprehend God. We thus confess the incomprehensible grandeur and sovereign majesty of Him whose being is above all being, whose power is above all power, whose glory is above all glory, whose substance is immeasurably raised above all other substances, visible or invisible. Upon this point St. Augustine has said with much beauty and force, "When I seek my God I seek not corporal grace, nor transient beauty, nor splendor, nor melodious sound, nor sweet fragrance of flowers, nor odorous essence, nor honeyed manna, nor grace of form, nor anything pleasing to the flesh. None of these things do I seek when I seek my God. But I seek a light exceeding all light, which the eyes cannot see; a voice sweeter than all sound, which the ear cannot hear; a sweetness above all sweetness, which the tongue cannot taste; a fragrance above all fragrance, which the senses cannot perceive; a mysterious and divine embrace, which the body cannot feel. For this light shines without radiance, this voice is heard without striking the air, this fragrance is perceived though the wind does not bear it, this taste inebriates with no palate to relish it, and this embrace is felt in the center of the soul." (Conf., L.10, 6; Solil., c. 31).

If you would have further proof of the infinite power and greatness of God, contemplate the order and beauty of the world. Let us first bear in mind, as St. Denis tells us, that effects are proportioned to their cause, and then consider the admirable order, marvelous beauty, and incomprehensible grandeur of the universe. There are stars in heaven several hundred times larger than the earth and sea together. Consider also the infinite variety of creatures in all parts of the world, on the earth, in the air, and in the water, each with an organization so perfect that never has there been discovered in them anything superfluous or not suited to the end for which they are destined; and this truth is in no way weakened by the existence of monsters, which are but distortions of nature, due to the imperfection of created causes.

And this vast and majestic universe God created in a single instant, according to the opinion of St. Augustine and St. Clement of Alexandria; from nothing He drew being, without matter or element, instrument or model, unlimited by time or space. He created the whole world and all that is contained therein by a single act of His will. And He could as easily have created millions of worlds greater, more beautiful, and more populous than ours, and could as easily reduce them again to nothing.

Since, therefore, according to St. Denis, effects bear a proportion to their cause, what must be the power of a cause which has produced such effects? Yet all these great and perfect works are vastly inferior to their Divine Author. Who could not but be filled with admiration and astonishment in contemplating the greatness of such a Being? Though we cannot see it with our corporal eyes, yet the reflections we have just indicated must enable us in a measure to conceive the grandeur and incomprehensibility of His power.

St. Thomas, in his Summa Theologica, endeavors by the following argument to give us some idea of the immensity of God: We see, he tells us, that in material things that which excels in perfection also excels in quantity. Thus the water is greater than the earth, the air is greater than the water, and fire is greater than the air. The first heaven is more extensive than the element of fire, the second heaven is more extensive than the first, the third likewise exceeds the second, and so of the others till we come to the tenth sphere, or the empyreal heaven, to the grandeur and beauty of which nothing in the universe can be compared.

Consequently the empyreal heavens, the finest and noblest of all the bodies which compose the universe, being incomparably greater than all the rest, we may infer, adds the Angelic Doctor, how far God, the first, the greatest, the most perfect of all beings, spiritual or corporal, and the Creator of all, exceeds them, not in material quantity – for He is a pure spirit – but in every possible perfection.

Thus we begin to understand, in some manner, what are the perfections of God, since they cannot but be in proportion to His being. For, as we read in Ecclesiasticus, "According to His greatness, so also is His mercy with Him." (Ecclus. 2:23). Nor are any of His other attributes less. Hence He is infinitely wise, infinitely merciful, infinitely just, infinitely good, and, therefore, infinitely worthy to be obeyed, feared, and reverenced by all creatures. Were the human heart capable of infinite homage, infinite love, it should offer them to this supreme Master. For if reverence and homage must be proportioned to the greatness and dignity of him to whom they are offered, then the homage we offer God should, if we were capable of it, be infinite also.

How great, then, is our obligation to love God, had He no other title to our love and service! What can he love who does not love such Goodness? What can he fear who does not fear this infinite Majesty? Whom will he serve who refuses to serve such a Master? And why was our will given to us, if not to embrace and love good? If, therefore, this great God be the Sovereign Good, why does not our will embrace it before all other goods? If it be a great evil not to love and reverence Him above all things, who can express the crime of those who love everything better than they love Him?

It is almost incredible that the malice and blindness of man can go so far; but yet, alas! How many there are who for a base pleasure, for an imaginary point of honor, for a vile and sordid interest, continually offend this Sovereign Goodness! There are others who go further and sin without any of these motives, through pure malice or habit. Oh! Incomprehensible blindness! Oh! More than brute stupidity! Oh! Rashness! Oh! Folly worthy of demons! What is the chastisement proportioned to the crime of those who thus despise their Maker? Surely none other than that which these senseless creatures will receive – the eternal fire of Hell.

Here, then, is the first motive which obliges us to love and serve God. This is an obligation so great that compared to it, all obligations to creatures, whatever their excellence or perfections, are only obligations in name. For as the perfections of creatures are mere imperfections compared with the perfections of God, so the obligations resulting therefrom cannot with justice be considered obligations when contrasted with those which we owe to God. Nor can our offences against the creature be regarded as offenses, except in name, when we remember the guilt we have incurred by our many sins against God.

For this reason David cried out, "Against thee only, O God, have I sinned" (Ps. 50:6), though he had sinned against Urias, whom he murdered; against the wife of Urias, whom he dishonored; and against his subjects, whom he scandalized. The penitent king knew that his offences against creatures, notwithstanding their different degrees of deformity, could not equal the enormity of his revolt against God. For God being infinite, our obligations towards Him and our offences against Him are, in a measure, infinite.

Sinner's Guide, Chapter I
- Venerable Louis of Granada., OP (1504-1588)

Happy Hearts Day

LOVE WOUNDS, my precious friend, it truly does.

I believe this is the mark of true love. Love wounds you because you allow yourself to become vulnerable to it and you allow yourself to become vulnerable because it is the only way to embrace it.

For it is how you fulfill each others longing for Love Itself - by a cycle of woundings and healings, a series of comings and goings that bless and purify the spirit of your union which in equal turns maturate and fulfill both the desire for as well as the promise of the sacramental grace of your wedlock vows.

True love is good, it is good because it is true. Love is true because it is real and it is real because God is real. For God is love. Therefore, in your love for one another, stand your ground against all falsities and evil things. And when the trials of this world become wearisome to the union of your souls be brave enough to believe in the truth of the Love Itself between you. To be able to rest in the sufficiency of the Love that dwells in your hearts; the Love that joins your spirit together into one truth. And the truth that allows you to participate in the mystery of Love itself in the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Precious friend, love is eternal. Faith will end. Hope will end. But love will not. If we learn to trust in Love Itself apart from the trust that we give to each other then let us not be anxious for Love. For when human love is not enough and we are able to make a choice to abide in Love for the sake of Love Itself - Love Itself being all the goodness, grace, beauty, light and truth that Love brings into our otherwise dark and meaningless existence - then I promise you, my precious friend, we shall outlast the evil of our present times. For all evil and untrue things shall pass away into the nothingness but Love shall always see us through. And where all the best of human intentions may fail, Love will never fail.

Happy Hearts Day to all: Honor, Praise and Adoration to God in Jesus Christ, our All.

Peace and Godspeed,

- EJ San Miguel

The Call of the Republic

Pre-Requisite Reading: The Mythos of Country

OF THE KINGDOMS OF OLD, of the original lineages of the rulers mankind, as the Wisdom of God has foreseen, not all will survive into these latter-days. At the eternal conception of the plan by which the Lord our God Himself willed, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, to draw the most good from the order of the one family of the nations of mankind, He made provision for the emergence of a guardian state, a Republic.

In the numerous battles that God, the Holy Angels of God and all the generations of mankind will be fighting with much violence across the battlefields of exile time against the beast of war - the beast of war being the enemy of all good, true, living and noble creation - i.e. sin and the agents of sin: the concupiscence of the flesh, the evil fashions of the world and the malice of Satan and his demons - both from across the infinite worlds that are hidden within the hearts of men as well as the reflections of these inward struggles painted in much tears and bloodshed into the unfolding canvas of the history of our one human race, the Wisdom of God has foreseen, the fall of many of our original lines of executive leadership and therefore, the emergence of the orphaned peoples of mankind - peoples who emerge into the Providential stage of the present state of the one family of the nations of mankind who are bereft of the natural, unitive advantages of the original lineage of a righteous executive class.

It is for these peoples, the orphans of the peace, that the truth of the Republic spirit is called forward by God from eternity to serve and defend. It is for them that the Republic state have Providentially emerged into the world stage from the eternal decree of the Lord our God. From its fiery birth, the Republic form have evolved in a short space of time - as truth cleaves unto the ascendant truth unto a synergy of lights - becoming a more and more expansive and beneficent force against the darkness of war the greater and the higher its hope ascends to the one highest of Truths unseen. This is the secret to the spirit of the Republic will and strength. Because the evolving traditions of the state which is the collective heritage of the truth as it is advanced cummulatively and naturally forward into the present time by the original lineages of our natural rulers - that bring the natural advantages of cohesion, continuity and unity to her people, a Republic accomplishes by lifting the mind and heart of her orphan children toward the reality of the one highest of Truths unseen.

It is indeed absolutely true that every endevour of Country, regardless of the structure and form of the state - is the story of one particular people's valiant attempt to stay the beast of war. These stories taken collectively together make up the one record of the rise and fall of human civilization, of the ebb and flow tides of war and peace that make up our sorrowful history; a record, the complete truth of which is not available to us on earth where we are witnesses only to a small part of the story and prejudiced as well by our heritage of death and our own personal sins. There is a full record of this truth, however, a record that is even now being written in heaven by the wakeful vigilance of the angels that God Himself has assigned to this task. The truth of this record will be revealed to us at the close of our age at the Last Day - at the resurrection of the body. It will be a complete record of God's love - a love that has Calvary as it's pivot and the Crucified Savior as the pinnacle of God's triumph and our pledge of victory - the love of our Immaculata, the love of God's Holy Angels and Saints, and our own love, hope and faith; a truth which shall be glorious for some and shameful for others.

It is of a truth that every human being, regardless of difference or distinction, has an innate love of good and detestation of evil for this is the way our souls that inhabit our flesh bodies are created by the Lord our God. But why else are we also social beings - why else do we endeavor in the name of our particular state - in the name of common Country - but to pursue the good and to avoid evil in community because we, as individuals alone, can never become strong enough to survive the beast of this world - a beast who is described in Scripture like a roaring lion seeking for someone to devour, someone who strays from the safety of the flock of Chruch and state - of Country.

But a nation that does not value truth and moral absolutes shall never fly high enough above the fog of war that envelop our world in an invisible darkness which is an unnatural darkness, darker than the deepest of natural darkness, and infinitely more malevolent. For any nation, however strong and valued her hopes and her principles are, once turned away from the one ascendant Light compared to which all other lights are utter darkness, shall slowly and most certainly be overcome and destroyed by the relentless assaults of the forces of the beast that desire the division of her people, dilution of her peace and complete dissolution of her spirit and with the complete annihilation of the spirit of the state shall soon follow the slaughter of the people, first as a corruption in their hearts and then as injustices grow, a curse of anarchy shall engulf the land - everything which is in keeping with the ultimate goal of the beast of war, the drestruction of all life - life which bring glory to God in creation.

But the true spirit of the state exists to selflessly serve and defend her people - to nurture and to preserve them, to prosper and enrich them and to shelter and defend them by gifting them and their posterity with liberty - true human feedom, a freedom to chose the good and never any evil by which choice, freedom itself as a good is destroyed - under the sheltering wings of her peace.

Every choice of the good ascends as truth unto the collective hope of the final liberation of the individual through communion with God and others in God and move the endeavor of Country ever onward through the battlefields of exile time. A painful passage that until each sorrowful passing away of the old into the new is, is like the birth pains in the Gospel, complete and our hope is fulfilled as evil passes away and all truth cleaves unto truth, ascends to the highest truth, and the reality of a new heaven and a new earth have come into full fruition at a time of God's own choosing.

Therefore, true Country must never betray this sacred trust - of life and of peace - in the debt of life that God had willed to favor her with and the will of peace that her people have enshrined in her heart. For all true nations - all that stand the test of time - must walk true to the path of the truth of life and of peace unto ultimate liberation and true happiness that is laid by God and her people before her feet. The path is common passage through the darkness of exile time. It is the comings and goings of every life which lives - for God and Country - as truth cleaves unto other truths into a lineage of hope ascending into the Light of the one highest of Truths unseen - the transcendental reality of the one God of our common creation.

The common ablity of Country to stay the beast of war is wholly dependent on the strength of her fidelity not only to her principles of the truth which is the natural heritage of her own particular experience in history as it is embodied and advanced by her original executive lines of leadership which God has ordained from eternity in solemn witness of all the souls present at that great and legendary gathering of all the souls of all mankind, but above all on the strength of the truth of her allegiance to the absolute reality of the One Who breathe life and meaning into her spirit.

Therefore it is essential that the collective awareness of the people must not be confused as to the reality of the state and be carried away by the deceptions of the true enemy of all nations, the beast of war. There are forces that seek to sever the synergistic strength of the intrinsic unity of the truth of both God and County - fanatical fundamentalism on the exteme right and heretical materialsim on the extreme left.

The reality of the state is not found singularly in her laws that are promulgated and enforced to guide and direct right reason, as a reflection and a participation in the Eternal Law as it exists in the Mind of God, in the service of the peace that unify, govern and advance the common good of the people for the people nor can the reality of the state be singularly found in her honorable religious traditions, the truths of which must serve the one ascendant Truth of the one common Creator of all life. The reality of the state is a syergy of both realities, a synergy that is guided and shaped by Divine Providence - the government of God Himself - by the seeds of His peace - seeds planted in the hearts of men of goodwill that with due diligence and faith grows into the mighty Kingdom of promise, a Kindgom of God that once firmly established upon the infinite worlds within each human heart, shall - by the grace of God the Holy Spirit- eventually break forth in razor sharp rays of radiant morning light as the splendor of the truth shines forth to quicken and empower the will of the peace which is the will of Country.

To neglect to nurture the seeds of this truth is to be mired in darkness, this is true both for individuals as well as nations who live with a unique spirit of their own. Any nation who is lacking in its will of the peace - collectively nurtured by her people - will not grow and advance, by the Light of God and by the power of God, in both grace and truth from the initial seed of the hope planted at her founding into the mature bulwark of charity and justice sufficient enough to see her people advance, united across all her generations, through the darkness of exile time in their particular endeavor of Country onward to the liberating vision which is the vision of the Light illuminating their ideal common good.

Therfore, precious friend, the ethos of the Republic is peace - there can be no other - certainly, I hold this as my own ethos both as a Roman Catholic Christian as well as a member of the Body Politic of my own one Republic of the Filipino people - and I must, I must cling to the hope that there are others who also struggle, though we may walk in different paths, to live in the same way - for God and Country.

As I live and as I breathe, Beloved of God, I confess to you that I walk this life deeply and permanetly indebted to those, from every paths of life, whose hearts of goodwill answer the universal call of peace which is also the call and the battlecry of the Republic state and I write this in solemn salutation to their noble spirit that I know live on forever in the heart of God. For all of the noble heroes of mankind - of all times and places, and of my nation in particular, and all the the Saints of God - known and most especially the nameless who are known to God alone, to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, to Mary, our Lady of Peace, to all the angels of God and to you, my precious friend, my most sincere salutations of peace and goodwill.

Beloved of God, the Republic state exists in spirit as a guardian - a Mother Protectess - to her own children, as a nation distinct from among the one family of the nations of mankind, a people orphaned by the malice and relentless hatred of the beast of war.

Next: The Shepherd State

Our Tendency Toward Sin

Dear Lord,
in order to overcome
my natural inclination to sin,
I need Your grace in great abundance.
Our human nature tends toward evil,
even from the days of our youth.
That nature was defiled by sin
through the disobedience of the first man,
Adam,
and the penalty of that stain
has been inflicted on all of humanity.
What a dreadful insult it is
to your Divine Majesty
that the very nature
You made good and upright
has now succumbed to sin and corruption,
to the extent that its purely natural inclinations
always draw us toward evil and base desires.

And so the little remaining strength
and inclination toward good we possess
are of no greater significance
than is a small spark of fire
nestled among the ashes.
Nevertheless, that tiny spark
even though surrounded by much darkness,
is our natural reason,
which is able to discern good from evil
and the truth from what is false.

However, it is unable to always faithfully follow
the path to goodness that it discerns
as being in accord to Your Will,
nor does it possess the full light of truth.

Thus, it is true, O my God,
that inwardly in my soul
I take delight in Your Law
and in Your teaching
For I know that what You command
is good, just, and holy,
both for the reproval of all evil
and for the avoidance of all sin.
Yet, when I prefer to obey my senses
rather than my reason,
I serve the law of sin.

Therefore, even though I will do good,
I fail to accomplish my goal
because of my weakness.
I often make good resolutions,
but because grace is lacking in me,
I frequently turn back in my weakness
and yield to the slightest temptation.

I well know the way to perfection
and can see clearly what I ought to do.
However, weighed down by the burden of my corruption,
I do not rise to the heights of greater perfection.

Dear Lord,
how essential is Your grace for me,
not only to begin that which is good,
but also to persevere with it
and to accomplish it.

Without You I can do nothing,
but when Your grace strengthens me,
I can do all things.

Imitation of Christ: Book III, Chapter 55
- Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471)

The Scourge of the Devil

I PERSONALLY HOLD that next to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which is the source and summit of our Christian life, the next most beautiful and efficacious prayer is, of course, the holy rosary of the Blessed Virign Mary - the Scourge of the Devil.

The sweetness of this prayer, in my own view, derive from the sweetness of she from whose nearness and grace we are caught up and enraptured in a journey of the soul to the timeless events in salvation history which are, in reality, the only events in human history worth remembering and thinking about.

One must remember when praying the rosary that the roasry has both a body and a soul. The body of the rosary are the vocal prayers that we say with each bead and the soul of the rosary is the contemplative journey that we take with Mary, the Mother of God and Queen of All Hearts, as she accompanies us right into the very heart of Christ, so full of treasures, wonders, virtues and gifts of the Spirit.

The soul of the rosary is, like the soul of man, the more noble part of the prayer without which there is little to no life that flows from the Font of all life as grace into our souls through prayer.

There is no prayer that strike more terror into the wicked heart of the Devil, who is the serpent of faded Eden, the same dragon, the beast of war, than the holy rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is what it is to me, the Scourge of the Devil, and I believe also that the more rosaries that are said, the more power is given to our Immaculata and her children of light to crush the head of the serpent who is the Devil, the ancient enemy of men, angels and God and bring our world into a new era of peace and renewal for all mankind.

Remember when praying the rosary to meditate - not to think hard but to think deeply and without much exertion - and know from me, beloved of God, that there is so much more to Jesus Christ, infinitely more, always infinitely more, than we can ever comprehend here on earth with our thimble capacity for the truth. Even in heaven the souls of our Saints longing for the resurrection of the body at the Last Day which is the Day of General Judgment, already glorified and confirmed in goodness and charity can not fully know of the infinite perfections of the Lord our God. Beloved of God, Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Eternal Word of God and is ininite excellence, infinite wonder, and infinite virtue, holiness and glory - He is the Treasure that once found will cause us to lose all for All - to us He is heaven itself - and His mother is my own way toward Him, for I can not bear to even imagine to be with Christ without Mary, a mere nothing beholding the infinite Everything and what's worst, a great sinner who has caused - and is causing - so much trouble, pain, offense, dishonor and humiliations to the Lord Who is my All and all those who love and obey Him in His holy Angels and his great Saints. Beloved of God, who can brave all this without, gentle, sweet, kind, chaste and clement Mother? For I cannot.

Besides, getting to know the truth of the reality and the excellence and perfections of God and getting to know the sweetness and the gentleness of the Holy Mother of God and the grace of God that we from the proper recitation of the rosary obtain there are also these fifteen promises given to those who shall say the rosary - body and soul.

1. Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces.

2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.

3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.

4. It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

5. The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall not perish.

6. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.

7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.

8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise.

9. I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.

10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.

11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.

12. All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.

13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.

14. All who recite the Rosary are my children, and brothers and sisters of my only Son, Jesus Christ.

15. Devotion of my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

All of this is a sure sign of the generosity of Divine giving - but let us remember too that the Cross is also a sign of the workings of the Divine, therefore, our praying will require effort, sometimes much, much effort - but Christian love, I am sure, makes it all worthwhile.

Beloved of God, I just want to share this with you remebering that one of the three pillars of Lent is prayer, so why not begin today to make a habit out of this prayer for the season of Lent and then continue on to learn to become sufficient with this great and wonderful way back safely Home to Jesus - the rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary - the Scourge of the Devil?

Lastly, I shall part with you with this most relevant saying: "When we sow a thought, we reap an act. When we sow an act, we reap a habit. When we sow a habit, we reap a character. When we sow a character, we reap a destiny".

Please prayerfully meditate on it.

Glory to God in the highest, peace to men of goodwill.

Always to always - In Christ through Mary,

- EJ San Miguel

The Mark and Curse of Cain

The man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have produced a man with the help of the LORD."

Next she bore his brother Abel. Abel became a keeper of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the soil.

In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the soil, while Abel, for his part, brought one of the best firstlings of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not. Cain greatly resented this and was crestfallen.

So the LORD said to Cain: "Why are you so resentful and crestfallen?

If you do well, you can hold up your head; but if not, sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master."

Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let us go out in the field." When they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the LORD asked Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" He answered, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"

The LORD then said: "What have you done! Listen: your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil!

Therefore you shall be banned from the soil that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

If you till the soil, it shall no longer give you its produce. You shall become a restless wanderer on the earth."

Cain said to the LORD: "My punishment is too great to bear. Since you have now banished me from the soil, and I must avoid your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, anyone may kill me at sight."

Not so!" the LORD said to him. "If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold." So the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest anyone should kill him at sight.

- Genesis 4: 1-15

In my own view -

THE MARK is an interior mark. Our God is a just God, and infinitely wise, therefore this mark is most clearly not to be found in the external - as in the darkness of the skin. Something that have afflicted a lot of our darker brothers and sisters, I am sure, through the centuries. Afflicted so many of them for so much and for so long that it must have had a bearing and a resonance in their collective mind stream and therefore, a negative consequence on their cultural identity. What a crime it is to weaken a people entire and to diminish the promise in them only because they were born to this world in the way and in the manner that God have endowed them! Do we not all claim to one lineage and one common Creator? How can this mark be external when the outside appearance of the corporal body has nothing to do with the interior life of the soul which is in the mind and heart of a person. Sin was not lurking visibly outside of Cain, it was lurking at the door of his heart. And the Lord is always infinitely more interested in the interior state of a man, in the soul of a person - in his heart and mind, than in how a person looks.

Our Ash Wednesday commemorations yesterday clearly show how the Lord made our bodies from dust and from nothingness He summoned our souls to inhabit our corporal bodies, making us complete as human beings. Where were we O Lord, before you made us? What were we thinking of when we are not thinking of You? It is always wholesome to meditate on our humble origins - dust and nothingness - most especially here at the season of Lent. The death we shall all suffer will see our corporal bodies return back into the dust from which it was made - this is regardless of externals. Sister Death will not distinguish between skin tones, sex, age, creed, class or external beauty for her judgments are God's judgments. But the soul of every person shall continue on to inhabit the eternity which it has chosen for itself. At our death, we are said to be like a tree that has fallen and where we have fallen is where we will be - and then there is the Justice of God, for the time for repentance and mercy would have been spent. Whatever sentence is passed by the Court of Christ during our Final Accounting, whether we be saved or lost, I am sure that we will all forever regret the numberless days and countless hours we have sinned. This is because we are all sinners, one to another without exception - our natures wounded and our souls darkened by the loss of our birthright inheritance of life and of light in God - original justice - by the sin of our first parents - original sin. We all have - without exception - an inclination to evil that is magnitudes more powerful than our inclination to do good. Sin lurks at the door of the heart of every person and more often than not, we let the enemy cross the threshold of our will and bring death and confusion to our souls instead of Christ who is also at the same time knocking at that very same door because everyone needs God's grace to overcome sin.

Therefore, the mark of Cain is to be found in the soul of a man itself. It is not a mark of a set of people, a nation, a tribe or a kingdom. It is a mark on individual souls, the mark of a murderer and a fugitive to his own heart. What Cain wants - that he does not fully realize - is peace and reconciliation with God and his fellow men - he wants to rest from his restless, wandering heart.
There is repentance stirring in the heart of Cain and this the Wisdom of God has also forseen, which is why we are warned that those who judge Cain because of his mark is cursed. But those who are merciful will also receive mercy.

Lastly, the mark does not exempt Cain from Justice and the laws that bind this virtue to the service of the common good of the peace of the community but it does not exclude him from the mercy of God that is given freely to all of us sinners who do not deserve it.

The corporal work of visiting prisoners and the spiritual work of admonishing the sinner is a manifestation of this mercy.

It is not the mark of the Beast which is the mark of a reprobate heart - this mark, for me, is different.

Glory to God in the highest and peace to men of goodwill!

Always to always - in Christ through Mary

The Mythos of Country

IN THOSE TIMES OF LEGEND, after the fall of our first parents - at the founding of the one family of humanity, the Lord our God, moved by a powerful sense of compassion at the eternal vision of all the individual souls of all the generations of mankind scattered like willow seeds buffeted by the uncertain winds of exile time, decreed from eternity, right before the doors of heaven were closed and our native skies above fell silent and unconscious, the establishment of the order of the one family of the nations of mankind.

In this order, the Lord our God arranged as if in battle array, from eternity, across the darkness of exile time the individual souls of fallen humanity, each uniquely gifted and prepared, to form distinctive patterns of peoples and common communities that will in time emerge to give birth to the civilizations of men - civilizations that rise and fall according to the strength of the truth of their peace. The Lord our God did this for salvation was already at the heart of our God the very moment our first parents were in Eden deceived by the serpent into sin and turned our heritage of life and of light into a miserable abyss of death and darkness.

Furthermore, the Lord appointed at that time, the noble regental lines of all the executive and spiritual rulers of the one family of the peoples of all mankind, the prophets, bishops, emperors, kings, queens, judges and elders of our human race, men and women who were given the task and the responsibility of leading their people not only physically safely into the unknown lands of the uninhabited earth but above all spiritually across this vast darkness, desolation and uncertainty of exile time right into the shores of death and by this passage lead us through into our one true and promised Country.

Lastly, before the heavens were closed until the appointed time was fulfilled in Christ Jesus, the Lord our God gathered together in spirit all of the souls of humanity and gave us the indelible mark of His invisible reality in the visible universe around us and wrote in our very hearts, a reflection of His Eternal Law as made manifest in right reason and the truth of His unspeakable, ineffable one and thrice-holy Name telling each of us in our will, at the appointed time in our lives, to set out on a journey of love from slavery into freedom, from darkness into light, from sin into virtue, from sorrow into joy, back into His outstretched arms.

But this journey that begins in faith and ends in the union of truth into Truth in Love with Itself shall not be made alone nor shall it be made for the good of the self alone. This journey, impossible if it were not for the Lord our God, shall be made first by chosen souls alone with the Alone and then in time by peoples together in God and the closer we get to the end of exile time at the approach of the Second Advent, as the last of our generations emerge from eternity into time, in these latter-days, this journey shall be made increasingly by all of mankind together - as a test of the strength of the peace of our nations - the nations of the one family of the nations of mankind.

Now, there is an invisible dragon in this world - the ancient serpent of our faded Eden, which the Wisdom of God has foreseen, a raging beast of war that seeks to devour all of human life - a beast fed by millenniums worth of sin and hatred that have ravaged this world of angels and men in blood-drenched wars that have soaked the soil of our earth in sacred blood and have darkened the atmosphere of our times with a heavy fog of war, a wicked shroud of festering lies that can only be pierced by the sharp light of truth. It has all come to this, 2000 years after the victory of the Cross, which the Wisdom of God has forseen, which is why our salvation as nations now of the one family of the nations of mankind have become and in time shall only progressively become intimately intertwined. For the silent cries of all the living hopes of the past, in countless nameless lives cut short of their promise - even today - by war and hatred, have and will give birth to this particular present with its particular evils that demand each of us to be and in God become our brother's keeper and lift the curse of Cain - we are to liberate ourselves, by the grace of God, from evil by the liberation of others from evil - and as Country ascend to the call of the One and together with other nations struggle for a better peace and a better world for all nations and all peoples - men, women, and children without distinction - or descend easily into the gravity of division, dilution and into dissolution of Country and leave ourselves and our people - including all our family and friends - exposed to the gaping maw of the beast of war.

For this is the singular responsibility of Country, it is the work of staying the beast of war. It is the work of peace as the martial virtue that loves life - at all stages - as sacred and rises to defend life quickly from all untruths that seek to deny life of it's inherent dignity or life's right to exist within the shelter of itself. Only in this way can Country - by the strength of the truth of her peace - the peace of her people across all their generations, fulfill the oaths that have singularly been collectively entrusted to her as the national vision of the ideal common good. By providing for her own people under the sheltering wings of peace that in God and one another allows them to each realize their potential as individuals and live out the promise of their lives to the fullest, with the dignity of the sons and daugthers of the One common Creator of life and of truth and make a contribution to the common endeavor of Country then the hope at the fountainhead of the national vision, shall never be extinguished.

Peace will prevail over war but in order for it to prevail, it must first prevail in the hearts of individual persons as citizens belonging one to another, under the eternal vigilance of the One common Creator of all life, united by the sacred colors, anthems and standards of their particular endeavor of Country.

Next: The Call of the Republic