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Sun-Star Cebu  "Redefining holiness" UP until now fasting and abstinence have been the faithful’s favored penitential practices on Holy Week. An esoteric few continue to engage in self-flagellation and  nailing oneself to a cross. The idea is to suffer with Christ by reining in a person’s over-the-top attachment to worldly pleasures with acts of painful self-denial  and mortification.  Sin, in this view, is conceived as synonymous with giving in to the natural propensities of the flesh, man’s profane part where the soul or spirit is the sacred  part. Hence, we punish the flesh to keep it from seriously tempting our spirit with sinful pleasures. We mortify the body to strengthen our spirit against  temptations of the flesh. This betrays an introverted and self-centered concept of holiness.  [full text] Manila Bulletin  "Our agony and shame" As Maundy Thursday and Good Friday come, I realize that the greatest story of more than 2,000 years ago...

Being struck and overcome by the beauty of Christ is a more real, more profound knowledge than mere rational deduction. [...] Of course, this is not just, or principally, a theological problem, but a problem of pastoral life, that has to foster the human person's encounter with the beauty of faith. All too often arguments fall on deaf ears because in our world too many contradictory arguments compete with one another, so much so that we are spontaneously reminded of the medieval theologians' description of reason, that it "has a wax nose': in other words, it can be pointed in any direction, if one is clever enough. Everything makes sense, is so convincing, whom should we trust? The encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes... — Joseph Ratzinger Paintings for Holy Week Christ Washing the Apostle's Feet (Dirck van Baburen)   Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci)   The Last S...