For Always: January 4-10, 2009 issue of DCHerald

In the Year of Our Lord

by
Erwin Joey E. Cabilan

Monkey. Rooster. Dog. Boar. Rat. Ox. Tiger. Rabbit. Dragon. Snake. Horse. Sheep.
These are the animal signs that try to describe the whole 365 days in a year according to Chinese
Lunar Calendar.

Earth. Fire. Water. Wood. Metal. These are the elements that give many people some clues
on fame and fortune, on what can prevent and on what should be avoided.

Capricorn. Aquarius. Pisces. Aries. Taurus. Gemini. Cancer. Leo. Virgo. Libra. Scorpio.
Sagittarius. These are zodiac signs that predict the possible things to happen and explain why they
happened by looking at “one’s personal constellation” either in a 30-day period or within 24 hours a
day.

What year were you born? What element do you have? What luck can you possibly have as
indicated by your zodiac sign? These are just few among the many questions that we ask as we
embrace another year 2009, which, according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, it is known as the Year
of the Ox. Why do many of us, even Catholics, pay much attention on these things? According to
the Catechism for Filipino Catholics, Filipinos, even before Christianity came to this archipelago, are
naturally “spirit-oriented”. It is an attempt to help us understand why we exist in relation to all of the
things around us. As they say, the elements around us give us clues on the “who, what, when, where,
why and how” of living.

If we find ourselves being too dependent on these practices, what would happen to us? There
are two possibilities that would happen if we are enslaved by these practices. We might end up being
syncretic and fatalistic. The whole world is finite. It has its own limits even our existence. If we are
not prudent in combining our Christian Faith with other systems of belief and practices, how clear
and stable is our identity as persons and as Christians? If we rely on these celestial and terrestrial
forces, what definitive meaning can we gain in order to reach the ultimate end of life? It is in this
particular situation that even our very own culture needs the Gospel. Our finite culture must know
and love God in order to appropriate its essence and eventually be guided toward its goal who is God
alone. Our world view becomes more and more authentic if it is driven not only by what is
normatively human but above all by the values of Jesus, the God with a human face.

This Christmas Season in which we also welcome 2009, let God be our companion in our
journey. The “Star of Bethlehem” that guided the magi neither reveals to us about fame or fortune.
The stars that twinkle in the vast night sky shine brightly not because of its own capacity but because
it received light from the sun. Using this analogy we can say that as a celestial body the “Star of
Bethlehem” was simply pointing to Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Mary. The men from the
east are wise not because they tried to decipher the meaning of “the Star” by using their own
intelligence. They are wise because of their willingness to give themselves to Jesus and their
openness to accept Jesus as God’s gift to them. They were seeking the Lord. Their struggles of
seeking the Lord were consoled when they saw Him in the manger who must have spoken to them
these words, “I have found you in your seeking.”

Our quest for meaning must not only be a quest for fame and fortune, of power, of peso and of
prestige. As Christians, it should be an Act of Faith, Hope and Love. Karl Rahner, s.j. once said that
the Christian of the future is a mystic. A mystic is not defined by supernatural experiences that
he/she has received from God. He/She is a person who has “a sense of God”. Relying on
clairvoyants and soothsayers is never an assurance of living a life of integrity before God and others.
We all have to be mystics who journey in this life not as problem to be solved but as a mystery to be
lived.

The sign? My being a Christian. The element? Faith. The year that I was born. I was
born in the year of Our Lord.