Minggoy: From harsh to gentle transformation

Minggoy (Photo by fjacinto)

My nephew owned a black tomcat that he named "Minggoy" [pronounced Ming-goi], the most unfriendly black cat I ever met.

I often had scratches, cuts and wounds from being willfully attacked by its fangs and wolverine paws but I could hardly resist the temptation to caress the pet.

But something happened so that it changed behavior 360-degrees and I was treated like a bro.

Once I was home, it sprang up to run towards me and caress its head on my ankle.

One time, two of its front paws even stepped on a platform to be able to bump its head gently on my forehead as I bowed to untie my shoelaces.

The feline harsh-to-gentle transformation came after I saved it from strangulation.

It had a collar strapped on its neck that was entangled on to a window grill so that Minggoy was dangling, meowing and struggling for life.

Nobody in the family tried to help it out, lest it bit them.

Out of compassion but amid fear of being bitten, I rushed to rescue it by cutting the collar off.

Minggoy was so grateful after that; and I cannot fathom the thought that a savage cat was capable of returning goodness to whoever did it good.

Note: This was written years ago and Minggoy that died in its old age is one of the few memorable cats that I had ever encountered. -Author

Taking everything as a sign from God

Cat sisters, Greco and Gege. (Photo by FJ)

As I take shelter in the residence of a sibling who has a family of her own, I take everything that happens inside the house as a sign from God. When they hide the remote control so I'd be unable to operate the Smart-TV, I take it as a Divine will for me not to spend time watching YouTube and Netflix so I can have time for prayer, writing and siesta. The other day, I was able to pray, update a blog and have an afternoon nap because the remote control was nowhere to be found. "Losing" the remote control was a usual phenomenon before and I came to realize sis' partner had the penchant of hiding it but now it appears my sibling has joined in the hiding game. I'll do the best I can to not to touch and operate the device from now on, lest the Smart-TV, who knows, might break down in the coming days and God is just trying to get me out from the trouble of being blamed for the malfunction. I need divine strength to keep my promise as admittedly I'm a couch potato after all the chores are done. There were also times when they went out to eat in restaurants and not brought me anything so I took it as God never wanted me to eat those foods. So I was fine being uninvited and no food being brought home because of the realization it was not the will of God for me to eat those foods. One time, I understood my sibling and family for not inviting me to lunch out owing to that stream of, shall I say, divine thought or realization. What happened instead, they changed mind and told me to go with them so God wanted me to have those foods instead. I went with them. Those are now my attitude towards everything to keep me from pampering resentments in my heart. What about my family who devised the plan of ignoring me in their lives? Naturally, if we are aware of our actions against someone, surely there would be bad repercussions to our misdeeds. When menace takes place to my family, I would be affected still, being an immediate family. I hope and pray, my family would be responsible for their actions, especially towards their own kin so that nothing negative would boomerang and affect their lives. Anyhow, as trying to be a well-meaning Christian, I should never reciprocate the ill-mannered actions done towards me with retaliation but with love and extra understanding, particularly to a sibling who was attempted beforehand of being aborted when she was still a fetus inside mother's womb. I read a psychology stuff, saying that those who were planned or attempted of being aborted but had a strong hold on life will grow up to be a problem child or individual. True enough as she displays toxic qualities and bad habits past and present! That's why, I keep understanding this particular sibling of mine because of her past that was none of her doing and she doesn't know about. I am 15 years older than her and our parents already talked about the abortion attempt even she was still too young to understand the conversation. Time might come when I would not be able to take her attitudes anymore. Probably, I'd take it as God's way of telling me it's time to go homeless again.

The Eagle Eye: Captioned photographs

A plant breaks through concrete! Why so when a plant is soft and concrete is hard? Ah, one thing we, humans, take for granted — a plant is a Divine creation. So is the rest of its clan, Nature! Thus, man cannot outdo the Divine: either human works must blend with Nature or humans must leave it untouched. (Photo by FJ)

Out of place? Two buildings are closing in on a tree. Is progress shooing away nature from the city? (Photo by FJ)

Rise above mediocrity. See things from a higher point of view or from within you. Be different yet simple -- as a green, wide-winged butterfly in the photograph that rises above past self, the forever-crawling-caterpillar notion of life. (Photo by FJ)

The rainbow-winged

Photo by FJ

"What you are is God's gift to you..."

Before one enters a portal new to him, he finds himself at a loss, afraid, and apprehensive as to what is in store for him beyond that door. 

One thing is certain, however. By the time he decides to tread the path leading to that portal, what he has just made is the greatest decision he ever thought of -- the acceptance of self... the first step in achieving great goals.

Sure enough, if he did not take that first step, accepting himself as he really is, he would be an ugly green caterpillar, crawling on the branches of endless uncertainties.

But the caterpillar soon learns the golden message that the stepping stone to achieve great things lies in the threshold of accepting its real self.

That threshold alone spells nothing but courage.

And that same courage is put to real test -- the caterpillar has to lock itself behind the bars of cocoon for a long time... a dark, warm, painful, lonely battle to reach the unreachable.

We, humans, share the same experience... the same struggle. Now, they are brave people in our midst who accept themselves as they are.

And are determined enough to move on from there.

For a long while, the cocooned caterpillar has to end what it has started. And taste the ripe fruits of its toils.

Yes, if there is a beginning, there is an end. But for those who understand its real meaning, the struggle has not died yet.

It only opens a new chapter in life.

As it came out slowly from the cocoon's door, the different creature was greeted with the stillness of the darkness -- the same darkness when it entered that same world.

But the caterpillar -- now, a rainbow-winged butterfly! -- knows, for sure, that the night is different from the night it was once before.

A new horizon is taking shape in the distance.

One wondered, before, what lies beyond that horizon. But the butterfly is certain that ahead of those far-fetched mountains is a new day that is about to unfold before the eyes of the world.

There is a new hope, new life that promises a new beginning.

Now, the butterfly has to flap its wings and see and do new role, new responsibilities that await him.

For us, humans, whose struggle in life is patterned after the cocooned caterpillar's, what we have achieved of late is only a beginning of another higher level of achievement.

Ours is a lifetime quest.

As the sunflowers await the butterflies, the world awaits these promising men and women.

This is where the truth from the saying comes back to heart.

"...what you become is your gift to God!"

Note: I wrote the first half of this piece as prologue and the second half as epilogue for our batch '90 yearbook back in college. -Author

The Talisay tree of the Crucified Christ

Photo by fjacinto

"Talisay" (tuh-lee-sigh) is a tree common in the Philippines but the one in the photo is unique in that it is doubly-trunked and the upper part of the right trunk looks like a Crucified Christ. Amazing too because it grows and stands inside the compound of a particular Catholic church in southern Philippines. I first noticed the Crucified Christ resemblance when I was inside the church one afternoon and saw it from the viewpoint of the grille window of the church. Personally, I feel like the image is telling us the beauty and the value of suffering. Suffering is part and parcel of our day-to-day living whether we like it or not. The rich and the poor suffer. The beautiful and the not-so-beautiful. The learned and the unlearned. The fit and the fat. The abled and the disabled. The self-righteous and the righteous. All! We suffer simply because we fail to see and accept suffering as something beautiful and valuable to our growth as a human being. We can learn a lot from the caterpillar that has to wrap itself inside the cocoon, it endures and accepts much sufferings of loneliness, darkness and spiritual desert to achieve a higher level of existence. By its sufferings are birthed in its soul new gifts -- the gift of wings, the gift of colors, and the gift of flight! So it is in the life of a human being.

Photo by Justin Lauria

The white bridge and the new white city

Photo by Public Domain Pictures

I found myself, all of a sudden, surrounded by waters in mid-ocean so inky-dark, terrifying, and ominous that I could feel the depth beneath my feet roaring and satiating to gobble me up.

I was floating on a sea surface of the deepest trench of danger and death.

The land was nowhere in sight, not even an isle.

At the instant, a lone, dilapidated wooden launch appeared.

I climbed in to it and another launch appeared tied to the front of the first launch.

Another launch did appear, this time tied to the second launch and another launch to the third and another that they looked like a train on the sea.

I transferred from one launch to another to evade the Ire of the Ocean.

I had no way of knowing how many launches I passed through. 

It was like the Divine assisted me in fleeing from the enormous fury and the devilish wrath of the waters.

Gripped by passing through one launch to another, I realized I was nearing a mainland, about to enter the Gulf.

The towering arch of the white bridge connecting from one end to the other end of the Gulf was none of its kind ever built in the world.

The Divine Architect and Engineer must have designed and constructed the ivory arch-bridge of human impossibility. 

Caught up in a blink of an eye, I found myself on the roadside of the white bridge where the soil of the mainland was a few inches within reach.

The scenes in the dream were flashing swift, rapid, and hurried.

Once on the bridge, serenity, stillness, and safety permeated in the air.

On the bridge, a few strides away from the soil, I saw a table already prepared and the top covered with white linen.

A motherly figure, oh 'twas my mother, that sat opposite mine in the table was smiling at me.

Was the figure a soul since mother has been years away deceased? But why was the figure about to sip bubbling white wine from the crystal goblet with me?

And, behind mother, a hundred meters or less away from the bridge, I had a part view of a conglomeration of white buildings already divinely constructed and placed on the Earth soil -- the New White City.

Photo by Getty Images

The spiritual and environmental solutions to worsening climate crisis

The climate crisis our planet is suffering from is not due to physical causes alone but mostly of divine origins.

Reforestation and investment in renewable energy can hardly put a stop to the crisis when next to it the spiritual issue is not addressed upon -- the commitment to stop committing the Eucharistic sacrilege.

Even if the earth is replenished with forests and utilizes mostly nonfossilized resources of energy unless mankind stop committing at least the transgression of the first commandment such as eradication of the sacredness of the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament itself as a whole from the Roman Catholic Church, the earthly abode would still suffer the consequences of such transgression greater than the ill effects of deforestation and the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The activity of the sun alone is most fierce and intense bombarding geomagnetic storm on planet Earth. The sun is emitting its strongest deep-yellow light and rays as in the stove burner fire when the LPG is about to run out of gas. In my Science subject in the primary, I remember my teacher lecturing, our sun is a type of star and it's an old, dying star based on its deep-yellow or almost orange light rays emissions. But, she assured the class, it will take many years before the sun expires and is not in our generation. In the Book of Truth prophecy, however, it says that the sun will die in our own generation. It will stop giving out light and there will be the oft-repeated prophecy of "three days of darkness." After which will shine the light coming from Heaven.

The Earth is the center of Creation and if and when it becomes "uninhabitable," nowhere in the Universe is ever habitable for the physical man.

In a recent study, levels of "brain damage" are detected among astronauts because of weightlessness and absence of gravity in outer space. Man already has a physical issue in flight alone. How much more will the human physical conditions be once man sets foot in the so-called Planet B or Earth 2 space projects of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk? These billionaires do not consider the sun's imminent expiration. Where would they get solar in those planets? Those are lofty yet stupid projects.

Interest in space travels, incidentally, will lead one to interest in so-called extraterrestrials and their advanced technology in spacecrafts -- the "false miracles of the modern times." Extraterrestrials are non-existent. What we see on videos circulating in social media are not E.T.s but fallen angels, also known as demons, under the guise of E.T.s to make us humans think we are being deceived by the Creator for creating intelligent creatures other than human beings, thus, making us believe Earth is not the center of the Universe after all. Only the affluent could afford space travels to get to Planet B or Earth 2 so those who could not afford would opt for offer from fake E.T.s to take a ride on their spacecrafts making you believe your travels with them are Planet B- or Earth 2-bound -- but, nonetheless, to Hell!

(Note: Remember this when the time comes! Do not get fascinated by spacecrafts and hang out with demons that man those spacecrafts.)

Going back to space projects, all are experimental -- trial and error -- but the final say is the wisdom of the Creator.

The physical Earth is the natural habitat of the physical man.

If the physical Earth is deemed on the verge of being "uninhabitable," stop the habit of committing crimes, physical and spiritual; and draw yourself to the "secret dwelling place of the Most High," the Supreme Being, the Creator of mankind and the Universe.

There are parts of the Earth that will constitute the New Earth. Those are places where the Creator will hide and protect His faithful from the Great Tribulation aside from the Spiritual White Bridge I saw in the dream commonly called "The Rapture" in Christendom while awaiting the merger of the New Heaven and the New Earth -- our new home.

Appease the Divine Wrath by preparing spiritually alongside implementation of environmental protection groundwork to help address the Old Earth's worsening climate crisis.

Love is the essence of Christianity

Photo by Mayur Gala

Love is the essence of Christianity. God the Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die for and redeem the whole of mankind from the clutches of sins and Satan. Having obeyed till death, the oblation of the Son should be remembered so that the Holy Eucharist where the Son's Sacrifice is recalled and relived was instituted. The Holy Spirit assists in the Transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ during Consecration and the redeemed receive the actual Christ through Holy Communion to give us strength to live holily throughout this earth-life and on to the life beyond with the Blessed Trinity. Hence, the Love of God is defined through this very act of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Should we mention love everytime we talk or write about the things of God and holiness? If and when we fail to mention love, does it follow divine preachings or writings are devoid of this love as the ultimate goal of every Christian? If and when a husband keeps telling his wife he loves her many times in a day, does it follow he really loves her in the truest sense of the word? The wife must be wary and nervous of the husband's possible infidelity by hiding or covering it up through constant saying "I love you!" Love is expressed more in actions than in speech in order for it to be real. Too much PDAs, however, are expressions to show off to people rather than to the wife or husband. The Holy Eucharist is the ultimate expression of the Divine Love towards humanity. When one receives the Eucharist into his being and the realization he is loved divinely from his core, he is overwhelmed at this love divine and is lost for words to express it but in trembling, panting and sobbing. And yet, the congregation is scandalized by man's non-word expressions of love to the Holy Eucharist so that the clerics preach against man's love manifestations and the congregation picks up the sermon as a go-signal to persecute the man. Where is love there? One more thing, when prayers and sacrifices are being mentioned as the be-all and end-all to all spiritual concerns, it is first born out of love in action and the ultimate prayers and sacrifices boil down to the Holy Eucharist, the source and strength of other prayers and sacrifices. The Holy Eucharist is the way of perfection of man. But why are there mass-goers (Traditional Latin Mass-goers, at that!) who cannot control their "demons"? Because there is no intentional decision and will to level up spiritually for the love of God. The Holy Scriptures are not empty words but a record of love in action so thus Holy Traditions, love in action passed on down from generations to generations via word of mouth. If and when the absence of love being mentioned in the literary and oratorical expressions of the divine were due and lead to self-love, I beg to disagree. Love as the essence of Christianity is a given and an experience before it was ever written or spoken.