Sunday, August 19, 2007 Lagura: The fire that burns and heals By Fr. Flor Lagura, SVD In the service of the Word
THE Larragas, a prominent family from the east coast of Bohol, were for years a picture of a happy, close-knit Catholic family. The patriarch was very active as a member of the Knights of Columbus. Besides, he was an extremely generous benefactor of the province’s seminary to which, when the seminarians and priests were low in their food supply, he donated jeeploads of rice, ubi, eggs and fish.
The matriarch, a devout lady, made it a point to send all her children to Catholic schools to supplement the solid upbringing in the faith. In the evenings, laughter and songs, beautifully accompanied on the piano by one of the children, filled the house.
Times have changed, however, for now politics, and more so, religion have caused a major rift in the once happy and closely united family. While many of the members remain steadfast Catholics, other members have abandoned the Church and turned to “born-again Christianity.”
While it is true that religion, in its essence, should bring us together in thanking and praising God who lavished His gifts so generously on us so that with one faith and in the one Lord we come together as brothers and sisters, with our parents, other relatives and friends in the true worship, the real picture can be sadly different.
Many times religion can be the dominant cause of unhappiness in the family introducing division, such that, as the gospel relates, “a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son, and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter, and a daughter against her mother..”
What happens to a family is also true to our nation, and - on an even wider scale - the family of nations where in places like Baghdad and Islamabad, Bali and Londonderry, Basilan and Afghanistan atrocities are committed in the name of religion. At fault is not religion itself but religion which is falsely understood. By this we refer to religious fanaticism which shelves faith and brazenly substitutes self-righteousness to moral correctness.
This fanaticism rears its head when sectarianism pushes aside ecclesial loyalty. In this sad state of affairs religion is no longer that intimate relationship between God and man in love and friendship but a degenerate form which enslaves others denying them their freedom as sons and daughters of the one Father we have.
In the midst of this painful division there remains the hope that the divided Larragas will one day remember and heed the truths they learned from their devout parents to go back to the person of Christ. It also is our hope that this divided world will one day fix its eyes on Christ who, as the Letter to the Hebrews says, “inspires and perfects our faith” (Hebrews 12:2)
Then and only then the world will be rid of the destructive hatred spawned by religious fanaticism that will burn out and die down. Hopefully our world will be filled one day with the fire of His life-giving divine love. “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”
