Day 4: Love Does Not Boast Itself, It Is Not Proud

“The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.”

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uring my two-year teaching regency at the Ateneo de Manila High School, I got to live with one lovable senior Jesuit, Fr Luis Candelaria SJ or Lolo Candy, who in his late eighties became the source of joie de vivre for the whole community. Whenever he would catch me looking too serious or frantic with a lot of things in my mind or trying to be, he would blurt out with his signature hearty laughter, “Jomari you’re too serious again; don’t take things too seriously!” Looking back, I think I would not be where I am now if it were not for all of those down-to-earth and child-like wisdom that I learned from him. In 2012, when I was preparing for my ordination to the priesthood, I asked for his advice about priesthood and he told me just two words, “Be human.” He might be a man of few words but his one smile could already say it all. I told myself, old age is not a bad idea after all with the likes of Lolo Candy. “One Saturday morning, his next-door neighbor, Fr Lito Mangulabnan SJ, passed by his room to give him a banana. He took it not knowing that was to be his last banana. By the time Fr Lito arrived for work in his office, he received a phone call informing him that Lolo Cande had passed away. He said a prayer and he was thankful for having had the opportunity to elicit a smile from him with an ordinary banana” (Fr Joaquin Bernas SJ, Inquirer.net). He was 95.

Love does not boast itself; it is not proud. The original Greek words used by St Paul are περπερεύεται (perpereuetai) for “boast” and φυσιοῦται (physioutai) for “proud” or puffed up. When I reflect upon these lines, immediately, I would remember Lolo Candy. His love for people, for God and for life was very human in every sense of the word. I realized it was because of such a disposition that we loved him so much. Jesuit and non-Jesuit friends alike would always gravitate around him that at some point I said I wish when I grow old I would like to be a Lolo Candy, that is, to be human despite my own quirks and twists.

Love does not boast itself; it is not proud. If there is one thing to be proud of in loving, St Paul says, it is one’s own weaknesses. St Paul prays to the Lord to take away a particular weakness or imperfection which he describes simply as the “thorn in the flesh.” Not only once but three times he pleads with the Lord. But the Lord replies to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” After that Paul realizes, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong…” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).

Paul differentiates himself from typical speakers in Corinth who overly become content with their knowledge, rhetoric and many prized human abilities. Paul boasts of a different strength, that is, strength in weakness which led him always towards total reliance on God. He wanted to direct the Corinthians towards such reliance and not the shaky reliance on oneself which is the root of the first of seven capital or deadly sins–pride.

Thank you Lolo Candy, for impressing upon us how to grow old gracefully and tenderly human. He taught me how to approach God first like a human father which is the door to knowing who God truly is. CS Lewis is quoted as saying, “As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you." CS Lewis adds further that "Nothing you have not given away will ever really be yours.” Finding the true answers to life's questions only happens after one let go of finding it one's way. Love is a powerful act just by showing and receiving warmth, expressing affection, extending a listening ear to people and friends in need of companionship. Lolo Candy’s secret of love was a love that does not boast itself nor a love that is proud.

From Rumi: Selected Poems,

trans Coleman Barks with John Moynce,  AJ Arberry, Reynold Nicholson

(Penguin Books, 2004)

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

by Jalaluddin Rumi

Featured song for today's reflection:

"BOTH SIDES NOW" JONI MITCHEL 1969

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his song was performed as part of the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Canada Winter Olympics in 2010. God has always fallen in love from up and down, with us human beings and most of all He entered the mystery that is human life. For it is the crowning glory of His own masterpiece. One of the most famous quotes attributed to St Irenaeus is “the glory of God is man fully alive.” He said this to asseverate that it is the vision of God which gives life.

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od gives life, and He crowns His masterpiece with human life as its steward. For this reason God has accorded human beings with divine qualities and glory, which cannot be fully grasped just as God is beyond human grasp. But it does not mean we cannot see Him or understand what He is communicating. God reveals Himself in human mortal experience, in the clouds, in the rain, and in all of His creation for He is the author and source from which all life is born. Joni Mitchel's song is one of deep reverence towards life. Fast-track to point 2:01:00 of the following recording.

Explorer George Vancouver is quoted as saying "a lifetime is not enough to explore this country, a man is too small to fill its size, the poet hasn't been born to sing its song and the painter to picture it."

"I would walk to the end of the street and over the prairie with the clickety grasshoppers bunging in arcs ahead of me, and I could hear the hum and twang of wind in the great prairie harp of telephone wires. Standing there with the total thrust of prairie sun on my vulnerable head, I guess I learned — at a very young age—that I was mortal."—WO Mitchell

Fr JM Manzano SJ