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Whit Monday recalls Ascension in Calgary


 
Am not interested inacquainting readers to old English, nor running a catechetical lesson onPentecost Monday, fifty days after Easter and ten days after Ascension Sunday,but Lola Andang still beads her rosary in earnest and in case the renegadeChristians in our readership wonder, this is the first day the mighty friendlyghost Casper appears solo in the liturgical calendar!
 
Christian traditionsobserve the day of the a sanctified Casper(the Holy Spirit in the old lingo)being given to the followers of Jesus at Pentecost.   If Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, thethird party in the triune godhead descended on Pentecost.  Whit Monday is the day after, usually a timeto baptize new congregants to a Christian covenant.
 
OK.  To the infidel unschooled in the finer pointsof the triune godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not three separatepersons.  “Persona” is “face” in Chinese,“mask” in Greek, so all three are the same dynamic, process, and substance,though experienced differently.  Thus, inreligious parlance, it is not the godheads’ nature that is at stake but ratherthe story of our experience.  Father ascreator is affirmed to be trustworthy. The Way-Life-Is, all of it, is good. Son is the acceptance of one’s uniqueness and unrepeatability, bestlived not in the anxiety of being saved but by being expended to the hilt, evenunto death.  Holy Spirit is the futurewidely open and free.  One only has todecide.  Alleluia!
 
We will leave LolaAndang with her beads and her devotion to Mary full of grace.  Our concern is the experience of awe and theawesome, enough to join a covenant of the awed ones.   This is the instinct, intuition, intellectand intention of the ones who don the “white” (thus, the “whit”) shirt orblouse at Pentecost to fellowship under the aegis of the Son (ze child, male orfemale, capable of playing the Christ-role), the one who confronts us with ourpropensity to wait for a Messiah to extricate us from any predicament we areafraid to be in – whether it be a broken heart or an empty pocket book – anddeclares that no Messiah is coming.  Zebrings that as good news now and evermore!
 
When I wrote that 2031is my metaphor of “completed life”, one of our readers replied that she did notworry about her death since God will take her away when he (sic) pleases, and Ishould not worry about mine, either.  Weobviously did not make our point clear. The issue is the living of one’s life, not having a “bahala na/bathala na” stance favored by many of my Malaycompatriots who would rather leave the deciding to the fickle finger of fate.  
 
Aye, there’s therub.  My Bathala says, “Yo, why don’t you just take that life of yours, andwalk!  You are free!”  Some calling themselves disciples, decide tokeep a wake, a solemn but despair laden one, on the waiting.  Sometimes, some walk their glory into theannals of human history!
 
My 2031-year metaphoris a statistical probability number.  Itdoes not mean that by 12.15.2031, the aorta will cease supplying oxygenatedblood into my circulatory system.  Itcould very well do that before then.  Or,still do a few laps on the left ventricle of the heart down to the backbonepast the appointed hour.  
 
To be a white shirt onWhit Monday is to understand that life as it is given can be received in itsentirety as trustworthy and know so it in one’s bones!  The self we see reflected in the mirror isexactly the significant person sufficient to intrude on others who have yet tofind courage to be, and just keep doing it! And the unknown tomorrow, often the cause of foreboding and fear, isactually open, neither determined nor encumbered.  One can decide to just be exactly the way oneis, just be it!
 
I attended amulticultural party at the Ascension parish in Calgary, Canada the day beforeAscension Sunday.  Fr. Abbie from Goa inIndia (tried my Portuguese “tudo bem” Ipicked up in Brazil after the Mass but it did not register) was a live wirefrom the opening of the program until he had to leave for a funeral, and then,to the 5 pm Mass.  He acknowledged thepresence of a Methodist and Presbyterian in his audience, and we cruised alongas he webbed his way from Christian metaphors to the reality of his diverselymulticultural audience.
 
Whit Monday celebrantsknow the covenant group they joined.  Majorancient religions have so many splinter groups but the Sunni/Shia divide inIslam is a walk in the park compared to the various combatants in Christianity’sinterior castle.  My point ofaccountability is in the metaphor of the “Holy Spirit”.  Does my covenant group see life as open andfree, urging us to be innovative and creative all we want in the expenditure ofour lives?
 
The voices thatsurround us are many, and the lifestyles they recommend are varied.  To be pentecostal is more than being tongue-quickwith “Praise the Lord”, or sincere in raising one’s arms upward to urge theHoly Spirit to come.  To be pentecostalis to be fearless and free.  Period.  One already has cosmic permission from theHoliest of Holy TO BE.  
 
For the new whiteshirts of Whit Monday, live well!


j'aime la vie
pinoypanda2031 at aol.com

yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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