God in the ruins

LORD, WE are in great need.

Like infants we cry to you, do not abandon us in our distress. We kneel in disbelief! How could you, Lord, have allowed this to happen to us, who call on your holy name? Have you abandoned us, Lord? Are you punishing us for our sins against you?

We have been crying for days and our eyes have run dry. But, our grief is still very deep, our wounds keep bleeding and our hearts are confused and anxious. Our tears are not enough to wash away our sadness. Tama na po! Hindi na po namin kaya! (Enough, Lord! We cannot bear this anymore!)

Lord, we believe in You and trust in You…Winds have brought us havoc leaving many orphans, but we will stand from the rubbles, and change this nightmare into a new day of new hopes and new dreams and new visions…

Intense with Joban angst is the supplication of Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Soc Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

Unlike Job’s lamentation though, no accusatory finger was pointed at his God, much less any bill of indictment for schadenfreude served Him.

The prelate’s prayer closed with an affirmation of belief and investment of trust in the Almighty. A leap of faith, it was, stirred by the psalmist hymns of the “trueness” of God to his people, thus:

“The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.” (Psalm 34:17)

“The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.” (Psalm 145:18)

All too providentially given testimony to by Pope Francis himself only last Saturday during Mass at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, from www.news.va thus: “The Lord listens. His ‘all-powerful word from heaven’s royal throne bounded, a fierce warrior’. That’s what the Lord is like when He defends His people: He is a fierce warrior, He saves His people.”
Continued the Pope: “This is the strength of God, but what is our strength? Ours is the strength of the widow [referencing the parable where she insistently petitioned a dishonest judge for justice] to knock at the heart of God, to knock, to lament our many problems, many pains, to ask the Lord to free us from these pains, from these sins, from these problems. Our strength is prayer. And the prayer of a humble person is the weakness of God. The Lord is weak only in this one sense: He is weak before the prayers of His people.”
God’s “weakness” before His people’s “strength” very well makes the fountainhead of miracles.  

And lo and behold, as manna from heaven rained down on His chosen people in the desert, from all over the world came an outpouring of support to His people in this devastated piece of Earth.

Right is Lord Tennyson: More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.

Most assuredly then, God is not in ruins in this miserable, miserable land. Rather, God is right in the ruins here. Omnipresent. Omniscient. Omnipotent.

God most manifest in the constancy of the Filipino’s Faith, infusing in him the fortitude to survive, indeed, to triumph over, the vagaries of Fate.

Still, let it be granted: For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t, no proof is possible.

Credo.  I believe.