April 11, 2004
penitence
it seems i have done all these forms of penitensya at least once during this holy week, but not necessarily because i was motivated by spiritual or contritional reasons. in fact, some of them may have been done out of chance. you see, i am not a deeply devout catholic, so i am not keen on whipping myself or slashing my back with razors. neither am i too enthusiastic on sitting, kneeling and standing for a 2-hour mass.
i would have gone on with my life without having to engage with the less masochistic practices of the Christian faith (such as that 2-hour mass), but thankfully for parents, i was prompted at times to do so. last black friday, my father "prompted" me to accompany him and kenneth to join a penitence hike. it involved hiking up a known elevation here in davao (under the very searing heat of the sun), stopping at every Station of the Cross to pray (with a lot of other people), and finally meditating at the Shrine, which is at the top of the elevation. i guess that was my self-flagellation. the problem is, it seemed more of a hike than an act of repentance for me. i was thoroughly enjoying it, with me and kenneth bantering each other every step of the way.
fasting was another form of penitence which i did, i think, by chance. instead of eating fish, which was proper these days, we ate lucky me noodles, instead. again, this was not an act which i willfully engaged into. i was merely following the dictates of the refrigerator, and the refrigerator did not seem to have any supply of fish, which i would have preferred.
i don't know if it's part of my penitensya, but not blogging for two days also took a lot of resistance and effort from me. it just kept tugging my mind how pitiful my blog looked like now that it was not being updated. and being physically inactive was just an invitation to being more mentally active. oh well, i guess that doesn't count. besides, it's not like not being able to blog is too much of a torture (aggghhh...
sometimes, my father calls me an atheist (jokingly or seriously, depending on his mood) because of my lack of show of the Christian faith. i disagree. i believe in God. i don't, even for a moment, doubt His existence. i do realize, however, my why father thinks this is so. theology has taught me the three dimensions of the Christian faith (doctrine-moral-worship), and the failure to engage in all three implies a problem in one's faith. yes, i acknowledge that there is a problem, but i have yet to find the solution.
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