<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;">Whit Monday recalls Ascension in Calgary</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Am not interested in
acquainting readers to old English, nor running a catechetical lesson on
Pentecost Monday, fifty days after Easter and ten days after Ascension Sunday,
but Lola Andang still beads her rosary in earnest and in case the renegade
Christians in our readership wonder, this is the first day the mighty friendly
ghost Casper appears solo in the liturgical calendar!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Christian traditions
observe 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, the
third party in the triune godhead descended on Pentecost. Whit Monday is the day after, usually a time
to baptize new congregants to a Christian covenant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">OK. To the infidel unschooled in the finer points
of the triune godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not three separate
persons. “Persona” is “face” in Chinese,
“mask” in Greek, so all three are the same dynamic, process, and substance,
though experienced differently. Thus, in
religious parlance, it is not the godheads’ nature that is at stake but rather
the story of our experience. Father as
creator is affirmed to be trustworthy.
The Way-Life-Is, all of it, is good.
Son is the acceptance of one’s uniqueness and unrepeatability, best
lived not in the anxiety of being saved but by being expended to the hilt, even
unto death. Holy Spirit is the future
widely open and free. One only has to
decide. Alleluia!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">We will leave Lola
Andang with her beads and her devotion to Mary full of grace. Our concern is the experience of awe and the
awesome, enough to join a covenant of the awed ones. This is the instinct, intuition, intellect
and intention of the ones who don the “white” (thus, the “whit”) shirt or
blouse at Pentecost to fellowship under the aegis of the Son (ze child, male or
female, capable of playing the Christ-role), the one who confronts us with our
propensity to wait for a Messiah to extricate us from any predicament we are
afraid to be in – whether it be a broken heart or an empty pocket book – and
declares that no Messiah is coming. Ze
brings that as good news now and evermore!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">When I wrote that 2031
is my metaphor of “completed life”, one of our readers replied that she did not
worry about her death since God will take her away when he (sic) pleases, and I
should not worry about mine, either. We
obviously did not make our point clear.
The issue is the living of one’s life, not having a <i>“bahala na/bathala na” </i>stance favored by many of my Malay
compatriots who would rather leave the deciding to the fickle finger of fate. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Aye, there’s the
rub. My <i>Bathala </i>says, “Yo, why don’t you just take that life of yours, and
walk! You are free!” Some calling themselves disciples, decide to
keep a wake, a solemn but despair laden one, on the waiting. Sometimes, some walk their glory into the
annals of human history!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">My 2031-year metaphor
is a statistical probability number. It
does not mean that by 12.15.2031, the aorta will cease supplying oxygenated
blood into my circulatory system. It
could very well do that before then. Or,
still do a few laps on the left ventricle of the heart down to the backbone
past the appointed hour. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">To be a white shirt on
Whit Monday is to understand that life as it is given can be received in its
entirety as trustworthy and know so it in one’s bones! The self we see reflected in the mirror is
exactly the significant person sufficient to intrude on others who have yet to
find courage to be, and just keep doing it!
And the unknown tomorrow, often the cause of foreboding and fear, is
actually open, neither determined nor encumbered. One can decide to just be exactly the way one
is, just be it!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">I attended a
multicultural party at the Ascension parish in Calgary, Canada the day before
Ascension Sunday. Fr. Abbie from Goa in
India (tried my Portuguese <i>“tudo bem” </i>I
picked up in Brazil after the Mass but it did not register) was a live wire
from the opening of the program until he had to leave for a funeral, and then,
to the 5 pm Mass. He acknowledged the
presence of a Methodist and Presbyterian in his audience, and we cruised along
as he webbed his way from Christian metaphors to the reality of his diversely
multicultural audience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">Whit Monday celebrants
know the covenant group they joined. Major
ancient religions have so many splinter groups but the Sunni/Shia divide in
Islam is a walk in the park compared to the various combatants in Christianity’s
interior castle. My point of
accountability is in the metaphor of the “Holy Spirit”. Does my covenant group see life as open and
free, urging us to be innovative and creative all we want in the expenditure of
our lives?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">The voices that
surround us are many, and the lifestyles they recommend are varied. To be pentecostal is more than being tongue-quick
with “Praise the Lord”, or sincere in raising one’s arms upward to urge the
Holy Spirit to come. To be pentecostal
is to be fearless and free. Period. One already has cosmic permission from the
Holiest of Holy TO BE. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="vertical-align:baseline">For the new white
shirts of Whit Monday, live well!</span></div>
<br>
<div style="clear:both"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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