At this juncture of our cosmic history, change appears to be a constant. There is nothing static or changeless from the microscopic to the macroscopic fields of what we now see as our reality. A pattern of birth, death and rebirth, creation and annihilation has become apparent from studies of fossils by paleoanthropologists. Nuclear biologists write of subatomic particles or energy constantly undulating and vibrating in a cosmic dance that appear and disappear, forming attachments and detachments in the process.
Change occurs not only in the cosmic, geographical and biological but in the social, cultural, and psychological fields as well. Change is crucial for survival.
The ecclesiastics cannot be spared the evolutionary tendency of the cosmos. They should be sensitized to the need for a positive response to the call for change. The Church insists on concretizing dogmas and rituals, beliefs and teachings that have somehow lost their meanings. The world is in turmoil as differences in culture and beliefs have become instruments for negative aggressions, resulting in senseless deaths and sufferings.
Our sense of right and wrong, our priorities and values have become distorted, so that a new norm is emerging that is in collision with the need for unity, cooperation and love.
The Church refers to testimonies from the Scripture, the word of God that it claims can never be altered. But these were scripted by men of an earlier era when intelligence was still at its initial stage of ripening to full maturity. Perhaps they were imperatives as spiritual guidelines needed at the time to steer humans’ development toward a life of morality and goodness. Modern humans are infants estimated to be about 200,000 years old—newborns indeed if compared to the cosmos’ age, which is claimed to be 14 billion years.
Christianity has been around for 2,000 years, yet it appears that the human species is still the most flawed creation in the cosmos. It is the only species that kills its own kind for greed, ambition and vengeance, and the only species that ruins the environment that provides sustenance to all planetary life. The way we have evolved makes us likely candidates for the next epoch of annihilation.
One solution could be a change in our understanding of who or what god is. We have invented a god in our own image. Don’t you ever wonder why many inadvertently refer to someone in power who displays unusual greed and hubris as acting like a god? (Who does he think he is, God?) Is this the kind of god we believe in? Where is the god of love, grace, beauty, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding and tolerance? These are qualities imperative to a life of benevolence, unity, congeniality, oneness and cooperation.
Pope Francis in his “Amoris Lætitia” (The Joy of Love) urges Christians not to be judgmental but to accept people considered untraditional, like gays, lesbians and divorcees, and not to be obsessed with practices like abortion and contraception to the detriment of more important issues. Asked about his stand on gay priests, he replied: “Who am I to judge?” He said “the Church has locked itself in small things, in small-minded rules.”
You can imagine the flak the Pope is getting from the fundamentalists because of his pronouncements.
When I watch the millions who flock to Quiapo, practically killing each other for a chance to touch or wipe a handkerchief on the heel of the Black Nazarene, or the hordes jostling against one another to celebrate the feast of the Santo Niño in a fanatical display of religiosity, I am disheartened, for it seems the great majority of our people are millennia away from believing in a god they truly deserve and, much more, truly deserving of them.
* * *
Carmelita Roxas Natividad describes herself as a retired mother and active grandmother who likes to write, garden and bake, in that order.