Films and Love I decided to show films to the class as a means of illustrating the previous lessons on the unexpected, love, and union. I insisted on showing five different films—films I thought would be quite appropriate for each section. Here are the films in order of screening:


Taegon: Everybody's Famous (Iedereen beroemd!)


Plot Summary
by Sujit R. Varma

Jean is a family man and factory worker who dreams of becoming a songwriter. Pinning his hopes on his teenage daughter, Marva, he takes her to singing contests in which the awkward and overweight girl struggles to belt out a tune. When Jean is suddenly fired because of cut backs, he is ashamed and even more desperate to have his daughter succeed. In a chance meeting Jean kidnaps the most famous pop star in the country and holds her hostage. Catching the attention of the media and the eyes of the nation, Jean and Marva realize that the show must go on until everybody is famous.


Ogilvie: Samurai Fiction


Plot Summary
by Jean-Marc Rocher

Feudal lord Kanzen Inukai receives a precious sword from the Shogun, but it is stolen by the samurai Kazamatsuri. Kanzen's young son, Heishiro, insists on retrieving the sword himself to protect the family from the shame of losing such a precious gift. Heishiro's two friends, Shintaro and Tadasuke, accompany him, ostensibly to assist him, but in reality to compete for the glory that will go to the one who defeats Kazamatsuri. After Kazamatsuri wounds Heishiro and kills one of his friends, however, the young lord no longer cares about the sword, only revenge. He recovers from his wounds in the small forest house of a rogue samurai and his daughter. The older swordsman tries to dissuade the youth from fighting, but is himself drawn into the conflict.


Mayer: Shower (Xizao)


Plot Summary
by J. Hailey

Shenzhen businessman, Da Ming, goes home to Beijing when he thinks his father has died. He finds his father hard at work at the family's bathhouse (the false message was a ruse of Da's mentally-handicapped, exuberant brother, Er Ming, to get Da home). Da stays a couple days, observing his father being social director, marriage counselor, and dispute mediator for his customers and a boon companion to Er. Da is caught between worlds: the decaying district of his childhood and the booming south where he now lives with a wife who's not met his family. When Da realizes his father's health is failing and the district is slated for razing, he must take stock of family and future.


Jogues: Remember Me, My Love (Ricordati di Me)


Plot Summary
by imdb.com

The story of a normal Italian family in which come out the dreams of those who have lost their possibilities and of those who want to realize them. Carlo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) and Giulia (Laura Morante) are a married couple who have each given up their aspirations in order to live an average life. Their 19-year-old son, Paolo (Silvio Muccino), is having trouble finding an identity, while their 18-year-old daughter, Valentina (Nicoletta Romanoff), has already figured out how to use sex to her advantage. The family goes through a crisis when Carlo begins having an affair, Giulia attempt to seduce the director of a local stage production she is in, and Valentina does what she does best to land an audition for a TV show.



Regis: Howl's Moving Castle


Plot Summary
by Luisa Varela

Young Sophie Hatter is cursed by the Witch of the Waste, and turns into an old hag. Ashamed of how she looks, she flees into the hills where a moving castle roams the hills. It is said to belong to the young and handsome wizard Howl, who has a bad reputation. Within the castle, Sophie befriends the fire demon Calcifer, who promises to help her become young again. One catch: she must help Calcifer to be free of Howl, and Calcifer cannot tell her how. However, Sophie agrees to stay and try to find out about the contract through other ways. Still, Howl can see that Sophie is under a spell like Calcifer can, and he falls in love with her for who she is and not for what she looks like. Sophie manages to bring life to the moving castle, and she helps Howl to face his former tutor, Madam Suliman.  ¶ 6:21 pm 2 comments

  Love, The Unexpected and Union In reading letters, analysing them, and then somehow trying to give advice, one might ask how we can actually be able to give advice to cases that are seemingly different from our own context. Yet we are able to put ourselves into the shoes of another.

The Unexpected

According to Aristotle, the unexpected reveals the true person. In the letters that we have read, we realise that when confornted with such surprising events—whether it be Kirina's response Carl's smile, the fight of Marco's parents, Melissa's dilemma—these events reveal one aspect of a human being: he seeks for the other. A human being is relational.

Fr. James Keenan, S.J. cites the September 11 WTC attacks to further illustrate this point. When the terrorists were busy manning the cockpit of the attacking plane, the passengers contacted their loved ones via mobile phone. The passengers updated their relatives about the situation but for the most part, the passengers took the opportunity to say "I love you." (Read more about these stories)

The September 11 calls clearly illustrate the unexpected: in the direst of circumstances, people were unembarassed to say "I love you."


Defning Love

St. Thomas Aquinas defines charity. Fr. Keenan adds that charity is none other than union, and union is what we feel when we love. How can we understand this further?

We have heard the story of Jomari Fajardo in class. Jomari may have been afraid of the operation, he may have found it difficult to bear the pain without general anesthesia but the mere presence of his mom was able to assuage him. This is love as union.

Keenan continues and notes that this call to union is both instinctive and existential. I cited the example of watching horror movies with friends people: that in being together, we feel safer. Likewise, when we hold hands when we are anticipating something: turbulence in a plane, the announcement of winners—we see how the call to union is truly part of being human.  ¶ 11:36 pm 0 comments

  A Child for a Symbol by Bishop Ted Bacani Jr., DD
(from Today, 20 December 2001)

As we journey through life, we need symbols that will inspire us. We need such symbols especially in times of crisis. Father Burgos, Gomez and Zamora were such symbols for Rizal. Churchill was also a symbol for wartime England. Ninoy Aquino served as a powerful symbol for all who were oppressed by the Marcos regime. And, of course, Jesus Christ is the great and unequalled symbol for all Christians.

For our post-September 11, 2001, world, I, personally, have a symbol who lifts me up. I want to share him with you. His name is Jomari Fajardo, a five-year old boy. I met him in one of my suppers with the poor, in the convento of San Antonio parish, Tonsuya, Malabon. Fr. Raul Salgado, the parish priest, was our host for the supper where three poor families of the parish were invited. Among the guests was a woman who brought her four children. Her husband could not come because he had to go to work.

One of her children, Jomari, easily caught my attention because he was lying on a baby carriage. His thigh and legs were in cast, and both his legs were joined at the knees by a piece of wood which made his legs look like a slingshot. I asked his mother what happened to him, and she told me his story.

The baby carriage, which belonged to a younger sibling, had fallen on Jomari and broke his thigh and leg bones. He needed to be operated on. But there was a big obstacle to the operation: Jomari had a heart problem, and he could not be given general anesthesia. The kind doctors of the National Orthopedic Hospital told the mother to ask Jomari whether he could bear the pain. And he answered, “Opo, Nanay, basta huwag ka lang lalayo. At sabihin mo sa mga doctor na mag-iingat sila” [“Yes, mother, just don’t go away, and tell the doctors to be careful”]

He survived the operation!

I learned from the mother that they were squatting near a bridge and they have been given final choice of demolition. A parish worker volunteered to me that all they had was a small hut. Since they would have to bring Jomari to the hospital once in a while, I thought it necessary for them to move to a nearby place. We were eventually able to buy another privately owned hut for them, measuring no more than 3x3 meters, at the cost of P12,000.

Less than three weeks after our supper in Father Salgado’s rectory, Jomari came to visit me in my home in Caloocan. Jomari was already walking! He showed off how he could walk, even though there was still a detectable limp. There was pride and joy in his eyes. His mother was very profuse in her gratitude not only because of his recovery, bit also because they had now a better home! (“Mas maganda na po ngayon ang aming bahay.”) I was so happy with these developments that I promised to supply Jomari with milk to make him healthier.

On Tuesday I met Father Salgado. He told me about Jomari and his continuing improvement and growth. He added that the whole family now comes to Mass.

Jomari for me is a symbol not only of Filipinos in a moment of crisis, but also of our wounded humanity which longs not only for healing but for the nearness of someone who loves us. God, who loves us, and knows the longings of our hearts, did not wait for us to say to Him, “Huwag kang lalayo” [Just do not go away]. On his own, God has drawn near to us in his Son, who is named Emmanuel, “God with us.” The one who has become flesh and blood and dwelt among us (Jn 1:14), is no less than God’s only begotten Son.

Christmas reminds us that the Son of God has come to our side, so that there is no way we could lose the battle for fullness of life anymore, unless we ourselves decide to throw away our lives. With God at our side, we will walk tall again like Jomari, as God wants us to.

  ¶ 5:30 am 1 comments

  Alfredo   ¶ 5:56 pm 0 comments

  Marco   ¶ 5:55 pm 0 comments

  Marissa   ¶ 5:54 pm 1 comments

  Fermin

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  Tanya   ¶ 5:52 pm 0 comments

  Philip   ¶ 5:51 pm 2 comments

  Kirina   ¶ 5:48 pm 1 comments

  Stories of Love In the previous post we read that "All human acts are moral acts", and "if we want to be better people, we must make the most of the moral opportunities before us."

I suppose, then in many stories of love, we will be able to see moral opportunities. I decided to design an activity that would answer that.

The activity involved a particular Ate Faith (a name which I based on the actual name of the fourth year guidance counselor, Faith) who supposedly has a TV show that reads letters and gives advice. I then tasked each group to read the letter then to (1) identify the moral dilemma and (2) give sound moral advice: that is, what the loving response is to such a dilemma and lastly (3) to present them in class.

Let me emphasise that these letters are fictional. Any similarities to real life situations are merely coincidental.

Hmmm. Do you have any favourite letters? What's on your mind? The next seven posts will be on the letters themselves to give opportunity to people to voice their opinions in each case.  ¶ 5:38 pm 0 comments

  The Buzz About Love I asked the following question in class: Have you ever fallen in love?

A sizable number skirted the issue: what do you mean by love? Hmmm what else would I mean by it? "No," they would justify, "you may mean parental love, or fraternal love, or philial love." True, these are loves but romantic love is juicier. :P

Many were honest and frankly gave their yes's and no's. Some would blush, and flutter their eyelashes and say, "hee hee, yes." There was one who vehemently declared, "no, sir, errr father, no, no no!"

I laud the couples in class who openly admitted their relationships: to the extent of sharing how they fight, how they patch up, their terms of endearment. It's great to hear from real-life couples and see what actually happens in a committed relationship. Thank you very much for sharing your loving relationship with us.

My point is this: before we could talk about love we have first to experience it. As one student wrote, "can love ever be defined?" I agree with her. This brings me to the next question: But why begin with love in the first place? Why so in a class of Morality?

What do you think?  ¶ 11:32 pm 0 comments

  What Ought We to Do to Engage in Our Own Ordinary Issues? So what now? If morality is not just about sin, how do we actually become better people? St. Thomas Aquinas wrote:

1. All human acts are moral acts.
2. What we do affects us: if it is done well, it betters us; if done poorly it worsens us
3. In order to become better people we need to recognize and then take advantage of the many moral opportunities before us.

  ¶ 11:27 pm 0 comments

  A Brief History of Moral Theology John Mahoney in “The Making of Moral Theology” argues that since the 6th century Christians have associated moral theology with sin.

13th Century

• Pope Innocent III, requires annual confession
• Dominicans were to hear confessions as their mission
• Dominicans were thus required to attend lectures on confessions
• Output: Summaries of confessional manuals
• "Penitentials"

16th Century

• Age characterised by Expansionism
• Moralists concerned with what is sin, what is not.
  
• Particular issues related to the age: lending practices, investments
• These judgments were collated into textbooks: the textbooks have lasted until Vatican II
• Sin-centred
  

17th Century

• No major changes: moralists were convinced that the task of moral theology was solely to teach the priest how to determine in confession what was sin and its due penance
• This cuts the first principle of natural law in half: instead of "avoid evil and do good" the bias focused on avoiding evil
  

Early 20th Century

• Manuals of moral theology appear in the vernacular
• Aside: material on the 6th commandment in Latin so as not be an occasion for sin for the reader.
  

  ¶ 10:42 pm 2 comments

  Morality and the Ordinary As an introduction, I asked my classes to identify important moral issues and then present them using a 5-10 minute mini play. Many groups took on the following: abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, racial discrimination, prostitution.

Following the train of thought of Jim Keenan's Virtues for Ordinary Christians, I then proceeded to ask the students this: If you were to ask yourself now, "What are the things that I truly have to work on as a person?" Aren't these issues moral issues as well?

And since they are about things that I myself need to work on, isn't it more important than those aforementioned issues?  ¶ 12:05 am 0 comments

  Welcome to Christian Humanism 4 Hi! My name is Bro. Jody Magtoto, S.J. and I welcome you to the blog dedicated to the Christian Humanism IV course in Xavier University High School Ateneo de Cagayan.

Christian Humanism (some of you may know it as Religion Class) should not be boring. It is a subject about life—about the peaks and valleys of life. It is about the little things that make us happy, it is about the big things that make us forlorn. It is about goodness and mistakes, it is about tears and guffaws.

CH is personal: it is about my relationship with my God, and my relationship with fellow seekers. CH thus only becomes boring if it is irrelevant and abstract. And it is a great disservice to box CH in the purely theological plane.

It is my great hope that through this blog our study of morality becomes more real, more about the ordinary, or the extraordinary working in the ordinary. It is my desire that through this blog we get to talk about real issues, about real life.  ¶ 11:52 pm 0 comments