miniZibaldone

O blessed are those who fear the Lord.

“What I grasped most covetously in my clenched fist came apart like the rose under the vault of eternity. . .the more so for what I most treasured.” The more one loves, the more he needs Christ, because Christ saves what man loves, forever. At least from this point of view, we have to accept Him. Either we love nothing or, the more we love, the more Christ is necessary to safeguard what we love, to maintain what we love, otherwise we lose it. The day after tomorrow it’s gone. —Luigi Giussani

How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth!

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From a homily Pope Francis described hatred as “Satan’s breath”, saying it is very powerful, capable of doing everything excepting loving. “Life,” the Pope explained, “has value only in giving it, in giving it in love, in truth, in giving it to others, in daily life, in the family.” If someone preserves life for himself, guards it like the king in his corruption or the woman with her hatred, or the daughter with her vanity, a little like an adolescent, unknowingly, life dies and withers, becoming useless. The Pope concluded urging all to think about the 4 characters in the Gospel and to open our hearts so that the Lord may speak to us about this.   [link]

Nikkei Asian Review ,   "Election risks reigniting Philippines inflation: Failure to fix economic bottlenecks leaves country vulnerable to price pressure" What might Milton Friedman make of the Philippines today? The Nobel economist popularized the theory that inflation is "always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." Since the 1960s, his argument that demand for money controlled all prices won converts from London to Tokyo. Look no further than the Bank of Japan's deflation battle and you see the American's outsized influence 12 years after his death. But events in Manila show that even the great man was not always right. Last month, President Rodrigo Duterte's team demanded that the Manila central bank explain why the nation suffers the highest inflation in Southeast Asia. Though price pressures cooled in late 2018, the 5.2% annualized rate far exceeded the 2.9% gain in 2017. The response from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas was to say to Dutert...

May the Lord rejoice in his works!

From the possibility of doubting everything, it does not follow that it would be good to do that. The necessity of positing the reality of the living is not a theoretical compulsion but is itself a kind of moral evidence. Whoever loves a human, whoever has friends, cannot at the same time doubt the beloved's or the friend's existence. That person must hold the other's being alive as irreducible. And when I say one cannot doubt, I do not mean a physical or logical impossibility, but a moral and,  therefore,  absolute impossibility. Insofar as I doubt his reality, I do not merely bracket somewhat the reality of the friendship; rather, I destroy it. Friendship does not allow for an ontological abstinence, for an epoche . It implies an ontological affirmation. In the case of friendship, this affirmation is not a postulate but a necessary implication. But there, where the relationship to the other does not have the intensity of friendship but is defined by the claim of each to...

Philippine Daily Inquirer ,   "Learn from last year " Many experts agree: After suffering one of the most challenging years in recent memory, the Philippine economy is poised for a comeback this year. And this early into 2019, there are already several encouraging signs that give credence to this belief. For one, the local currency, a key barometer of foreign and local investors’ confidence in the local economy, has appreciated significantly since it hit multiyear lows last year. The equity market has also been on an upward trajectory in recent weeks, with the Philippine Stock Exchange Index no longer flirting with bear market levels as loss-weary investors had grown accustomed to just a few months ago, but with bull market territory that indicates the return of confidence in the country’s economic prospects. Then there is that issue of inflation — the main killer of confidence last year, which forced many consumers and business conglomerates to tighten their purse stri...

From a homily This then is the consecrated life: praise which gives joy to God’s people, a prophetic vision that reveals what counts. When it is like this, then it flowers and becomes a summons for all of us to counter mediocrity: to counter a devaluation of our spiritual life, to counter the temptation to reduce God’s importance, to counter an accommodation to a comfortable and worldly life, to counter complaints, dissatisfaction and self-pity, to counter a mentality of resignation and “we have always done it this way”. Consecrated life is not about survival, but new life. Everything, therefore, meets as Jesus arrives. What does this mean for us? Above all, that we too are called to welcome Jesus who comes to meet us. To encounter him: the God of life is to be encountered every day of our lives; not now and then, but every day. To follow Jesus is not a decision taken once and for all, it is a daily choice. And we do not meet the Lord virtually, but directly, we encounter hi...

Nikkei Asian Review ,   "Apple held hostage by its Chinese puzzle ": How iPhone maker's success manufactured the rise of Huawei TAIPEI/ HONG KONG -- Soon after Tim Cook was hired by Apple's founder Steve Jobs in 1998 to whip the company's U.S.-focused supply chain into shape, he made a bold decision. Within two years he began shutting Apple's U.S. factories and outsourcing production to China. His decision drove down costs and gave Apple the resources it needed to develop its next blockbuster products, the iPod and iPhone. It also created a competitive manufacturing base, capable of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of workers with just a phone call. But eight years after Cook became CEO, this strategy is being called into question. Not only has it left Apple dangerously exposed in the escalating trade war between Washington and Beijing, but the highly complex supply chain that Apple built in China over 20 years has given rise to one of its fiercest compe...