Sunday, January 06, 2013

Christmas 1981

When I was 15 I believed in God, punishment, reward, and guilt. I spent time attempting to figure out at precisely what point, $30, $50, was stealing a sum of money a mortal sin beyond the venial one of appropriating one cent from a little old lady. I knew that as a Roman Catholic I had the obligation of defending my faith. I had received the Holy Sacrament called Confirmation. Confirmation made me a soldier of Christ, defending my faith involved explaining it to those who might want to know. My teacher Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C explained the logic of my religion. In spite of the Holy Trinity (the Mystery of the Holy Trinity) which was unknowable through logic, there was indeed logic in some matters of faith. Indeed while Christmas was an important feast as there would be no Christianity without the birth of Christ, that birth would have been meaningless if the man who preached that he would rise from the dead on the third day had not indeed risen. This made Easter a more important feast. Brother Edwin explained that God had made an exclusive contract with the Israelites through His messenger Moses. In that contract, if the Israelites followed those 10 Commandments they would gain the exclusive opportunity to face God in paradise while other heathens would not. God made another contract, a far more generous one, with all of mankind. This contract was called the New Testament. In this new contract if we all followed those 10 Commandments we might be saved and sit by the side of God, Christ and that mysterious entity called the Holy Ghost. We would have that opportunity even if we were unclean. This meant that those uncircumcised (all Israelites males had to be circumcised) males had a fighting chance. My Philippine nick name is suput which means uncircumcised. The Muslim population of the southern island of Mindanao considers those male Christians in the other islands, especially unclean if like me they are suput. January 6, today, is the feast of the Epiphany. This day symbolized by the appearance of the three wise men at the manger is the day that represents that contract, not that exclusive one with the Israelites, but a contract with all of us even those of us poor suput. The Epiphany, January 6 is thus most important. And there is a comfortable logic in that.

Most logical, as logic says that Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar were all suput. Which was the black one? Google that.