On the National Morale

"WE are a poor nation but we are not a poor people."
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WE ARE A RESILIENT PEOPLE. I am convinced we never would have made it this far as a nation were we not pliant like the bamboo.

We are at the threshold of a new age, O dear nation. The third Christian millennium was not begun by our Holy Father John Paul II with a Jubilee Year in 2000 by random chance. John Paul the Great did not open to us this new era without prior vision. In fact, our beloved Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory, had labored so hard to prepare this one whole world and our Christian people to be able to properly receive in spirit and in truth the ushering in of the new millennium.

You see, this third Christian millennium has it's own unique set of promises that I tell you, my fellow Filipino compatriots and beloved companions on the Way, we will not be able to share without our shedding away the dead colonial weight of our martyred past.

Now, one might be of the opposing conviction that we have already gotten over our colonial past but in terms of our national maturity, can we be confident enough to say as one people that we have learned enough from our collective experiences together to be able to make those necessary right choices today?

Our present situation is like an open book for all our people to read and I believe it will tell us a different story. The past is a barren womb, it is emptiness itself. There is really nothing in the past to cling to nor to visit as if one is looking for something or someone back into time. For all that is good is eternal and all that is evil is damned to hellfire forever. Where does that leave past time: Into the sink of oblivion. Time that has passed away and have already shed it's single purpose of transmitting the Divine will of life and the good of life that imparts spiritual motion in our hearts as well as the motions of dimensional space (spacetime) in the visible universe passes away in an instant, ceasing in existence entirely. There really is only eternity in absolute reality and all else is an illusion.

My honored and long-suffering nation, we have not yet learned from the past and therefore, what we see today is a Country mired in poverty and strife because we are yet unable to grasp at what limitless promise there is to be had where we to let go of the past entirely and begin to live in the present moment. We have not yet matured enough as a people enter into the promise of the new. Thus, when I say that we must shed the dead weight of our martyred colonial past, I mean to say, we must shed absolutely all of them. But not without faith in Almighty God can we do this, never without God's help may we even hope much less begin to build.

There is a pause in time, a void at the threshold of the third Christian millennium, a space where developing nations as ourselves and there are quite a few of us in our world, are allowed to re-consolidate their will and therefore make their choices known before we plunge entirely once more into the dizzying crash of the new realities that shall quickly erode away the last age and depending on our choices, will reshape for us the definitive nature that will underlie everything we and the appointed generations of our common humanity will be capable of achieving within this new millennium.

Of course, any left over weight we shall fail to shed will be transmitted to those generations and we shall all be long remembered for it. For who else shall bear the burden of human brokenness but we, human beings, God will not bear our crosses for us, He already has had His own to bear and that goes the same for God's angelic hosts, they have their own missions that are suited for each their own particular gifts. Satan would never even conceive of helping us nor the hosts of hell for they all burn with a relentless and immortal hatred of our one human race.

Now, if one were to be favored by Almighty God to attain to the eternal Beatific Vision of Him in Him, one would certainly not want to see that what one has failed to do had in due time directly contributed to the death and the suffering of many other lives or even the death of tens, hundreds, or even millions. In fact, I don't think one would even reach the highest heaven if that were the case. Perhaps, a term in the necessitate mercy of the Suffering Church in purgatory would be the best scenario but it is also not entirely probable that those who are careless enough about their choices to cause this kind of ripple effect in time and therefore, the generations of life would enter into final damnation.

For what else is future time if it is not pregnant with abundant life? And this kind of ripple effect can only be caused by appointed leaders of men, leaders of nations and heads of states, priests and bishops and spiritual leaders, not the common people. Perhaps, one should have had a more clearer appreciation of the almost infinite value of a single human life. Well, that is what the void at the threshold of this new millennium is for. So that those of us who believe in one common Creator of our common creation may be able to share - by our equal ordering - in the promise of the new. A promise I know in my heart is there for us but can not exactly perceive. In other words, it's like a surprise present. What should we do? We must close our eyes and believe again.

Our national attitude as one people is crucial to our success as a nation and as a citizen-state.

We have gone ten miles, let's go for another ten thousand - in fact, let's not stop believing until belief itself gets us to the convincing reality of it's own self. Remember what our Blessed Lord said, to believe what you ask for in prayer? This holds true across the board for all of those who has faith in their hearts, those human beings who know how to close their eyes to see less in order to open their hearts to God and see more.

I know it's hard, O my honored Filipino brethren and sisters, for these are indeed very difficult times. But at this time also, I believe it's even more difficult not to hope.

So let us all remember once more, we are a poor nation but we are not a poor people. And begin to believe again in what it means to be a Filipino.

Now, are going to take this Country of ours to the next planetary level? Are we going to take this Country of ours right on through the void at the threshold of the third Christian millennium or are we going to be left behind by allowing ourselves to be pulled down into the easy gravity of war and become a prey to war's ambition for the next 1000 years?

I pray thee, my honored Filipino nation, let us pull together now.

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Sancta Sanctis!

Glory to God in the highest
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to men of good will.