Does anyone really have his own money?

Jesus Christ is known to have only held money once in the whole Gospel and it wasn't his own, it was from one of the crowd who was trying to frame him! The coin had the Image of Caesar and Jesus said it belonged to the Emperor and not to him!

In contrast, Judas held the Apostles moneybags and probably held money every day. In the end it is the money that did him in!

And so do we really have our own money? The Catholic Catechism says that money is for the universal destination of human goods (and that means for the good of all as God willed it to be). This is my take on the President's defenders when they say that if he used his own money to buy a Porsche then that is his own business.

I believe that many people who share that view are Catholics who go to Mass. Well I have to say that your money is like your life, it isn't yours to keep forever.

The reason why God allowed cash to be is that it should be for God's purpose just like your life. The only difference is that if you keep money and hold on to it, you will lose it. With life once it is freely given and lost, only then it is gained.

And that is the gist of the Gospel. Every transaction we make has a social dimension. We have to order these according to the will of the Creator. Your life belongs to God and your Money to the BSP. But as Dorothy Day once said if we realize that, the truth is everything belongs to God, there is nothing left for Caesar or the BSP!

Comments

How should we remember General Antonio Luna?

Well it seems with that proposal to rename Camp Aguinaldo to Camp Antonio Luna in time for National Heroes Day has generated a lot of social media buzz. We really have to really understand our national heroes. Antonio Luna was a remarkable personality but like all of us was flawed. He likely would be an academic had the revolution not intervened. He would have been the first Dean of a College of Science of the Philippine University had the nation made the transition to indepe ndence in a peaceful manner. That was recognized by the American College of Pharmacy when they feted Dr Luna on what would have been his 60th birthday noting his work in combating malaria. But that was not to be. He became a soldier. General Luna was for a professional military within the bounds of the constitution. Perhaps that is the biggest sign of contradiction for today. Please answer the question: Would President Duterte (or a President Aquino, Marcos, Arroyo, Quezon etc) have a General Luna as his c...

Simoun's lamp has been lit, finally.. not by one but by the many!

"So often have we been haunted by the spectre of subversion which, with some fostering, has come to be a positive and real being, whose very name steals our serenity and makes us commit the greatest blunders... If before the reality, instead of changing the fear of one is increased, and the confusion of the other is exacerbated, then they must be left in the hands of time..." Dr Jose Rizal "To the Filipino People and their Government" Jose Rizal dominates the Luneta, which is sacred to the Philippine nation as a place of martyrdom. And many perhaps all of those executed in the Luneta, with the exception of the three Filipino secular priests martyred in 1872, have read Rizal's El Filibusterismo . Dr Rizal's second novel is a darker and more sinister one that its prequel but has much significance across the century and more after it was published for it preaches the need for revolution with caveats, which are when the time is right and who will in...

Marikina River and the "janitor" fish

My newest environmental science research project is to determine the evolutionary biology of invasion by the "janitor fish" in Marikina River. Today we made our first survey and collections. Marikina River is the"greenest"in Metro Manila but that is just on the surface. One master's student is doing her thesis on biotic integrity and a volunteer MD is working on the project too. The "janitor fish (Pterygoplichthys sp) is the dominant fish now in the river,displacing traditional Marikina food fishes such as dalag and hito. The fish are collected and left to rot on the riverbanks. Despite this, there is still some subsistence fishing on the river. The highest densities of the fish are observed near sewage outfalls where they find food to eat. It is likely that the fish can be controlled if we can clean up the river! BTW the name "janitor fish" insults janitors. The fish thrive in dirty rivers and don't clean them up. Janitors on the other hand, ...

blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

Search This Blog