Always: DCHerald Issue (October 26-Nov.

1, 2008)

CITIZENS OF GOD’S KINGDOM

by
Erwin Joey E. Cabilan

I am wondering how can we deeply understand and appreciate our annual celebration of the All
Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day if what prevails, as these days are approaching, is the atmosphere of fear.
Some people are dressed in scary costumes to impress those who are attending the Halloween Party.
Television shows entertain us with horror films. Stories about the mangkukulam, manananggal, aswang,
kikik, abat, etc. can be heard from people who are good storytellers. I don’t know why most of us find
these entertaining well in fact they are trying to catch us in a bait that says “The bloodier the merrier!”

On these two special occasions in our liturgical life, we are called by our Mother and Teacher, the
Church, to reflect on the following articles of our Faith: the communion of Saints, the resurrection of
the body and the everlasting life. These are symbolic expressions of what we, as Christians, must look
forward to when our earthly journeys comes to an end. They are powerful symbols of Christian hope. But
with the current mentality in which fear is somehow glorified, our life of faith is deconstructed. Our
metaphors of hope are gradually being shattered by fear. Our power to imagine about life and the things
beyond us is hampered by fear from the outside forces. How can we move from the house of fear to the
home of love?

It is a mistake if we reflect on these articles of our Faith without considering the reality of death.
We are frightened by horror films and stories not because of what they project to us. They just simply
evoke what we are really anxious about: death. In his encyclical Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI explains
the Christian notion on death by quoting the words of St. Ambrose, “Death was not part of nature; it
became part of nature. God did not decree death from the beginning; he prescribed it as a remedy.”
(Spe Salvi 10) Let’s put this catechetically by giving an example. I was told that when St. Therese of the
Child Jesus was still a child, she told her mother that she should rather die because she was a faithful
wife and loving mother. Neither the Pope nor St. Therese is telling us that it is better for us to die than to
live in this life for nothing. They are teaching us one important thing that can bring into reconstruction
what fear is trying to destroy; that we are all citizens of God’s Kingdom!

The phrase citizens of God’s Kingdom invites all men and women to see who we are not only in
the light of who we are as unique individuals but as persons whose origin and destiny is God. God’s
Kingdom does not refer to a celestial place. To be a citizen of God’s Kingdom means to experience God’s
graciousness in a concrete way. Being fed, healed, forgiven, accepted, loved are manifestations of God’s
Kingdom. In other words, we are blessed because of God. To allow God to reign in our lives is to
experience the values of the Kingdom which are more precious than the earth’s precious gems. If we
have God in our lives, we have more than enough! That is why, on the feast of the All Saints’ Day, we are
called to listen to Jesus who reveals what it means to be a citizen of God’s reign in the Beatitudes.

But, to be a citizen of God’s Kingdom is not just a given reality. It is a task. In the movie The
Last Samurai, the young emperor asked a warrior (Tom Cruise), “How did my teacher die?” In reply, he
said, “I will tell you how he lived.” We all die. But the goodness that we do is a revelation of the
giftedness of who we are. Yes, we are all transients in this world. But through this corporal reality, our
being Filipino, our talents and skills, our sexuality, our work, our emotions, our motivations, our
relationship, are ways that can enable us to express our being blessed to and with others. No wonder that
the Works of Mercy and Charity are corporal. It is through these that every person who is blessed allows
the hidden God to have a human face. In the musical Les Miserables, the lyricist puts these words in the
words of Jean Valjean, “To love another person is to see the face of God!” There is nothing to be
ashamed with our humanity. Even the Word of God became flesh in the person of Jesus to show us how
our humanity can serve the common good and give glory to God. Our being human is a way to fully
participate in allowing God’s reign to come in our very finite life.

If we live a meaningful life, we have a glance not of the future but of eternity in which all of us are
destined. After all, life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to live.