Human love is one of the
most difficult matters for human intellect to understand. I believe that no human word can give perfect
meaning of human love without any action. We all know that different languages
have their own terms of love, but those terms may connote different meanings
and interpretations. I am sure that love
is real; it is present among us. We feel it and we see it through the fruits of
its expression. The question is: Do we
really know when human love begin and visibly expresses among the human beings?
My simple answer to the
question would be: Human love begins when the human heart starts feeling
and the intellect begins having consciousness of God’s love. It becomes visible
when we start sharing it to other human beings. The expression of human love,
charity, compassion, kindness and care among the Filipino people is more
visible when there are victims of natural calamities in the country. I know it
because I have been witnessing it many times with my own naked eyes for the
last 11 years. My fresh experience of
natural calamity in the country was the heavy flood caused by monsoon rains
last August 7 to 9, 2012, in Metro Manila. I can still clearly recall that in
the evening of August 7, 2012, there were some evacuees who came to the Sto.
Domingo Church (where our apostolatic group, KADAUPAN, members volunteered) for
refuge because their houses were flooded and they had nowhere to stay. Soon,
the number of evacuees swelled and Sto. Domingo Church was converted into a
temporary evacuation center for around 4,000 evacuees. The brothers and
volunteers were tireless in helping the victims. They served foods, drinks,
gave them dried clothes, blankets, mattresses and materials which the evacuees
badly needed. How wonderful God’s love
was! When the sustenance from our convent was about to run out, God sent a lot
of generous donors to help the victims. There were many volunteers from the
parish, the different universities like FEU, UE, UP, although the majority were
from UST. What inspired me more was that some of the evacuees rose to the
occasion by volunteering to help fellow victims. I heard a youth volunteer said
that even if he had been a victim of the recent calamity, he still opted to
help his fellow victims. He said that as a Catholic, to keep his spirituality
better, it is good to help others in a simple way such as volunteering because this
way, he could help many people who were like him, victims of flood. If these
were not the expressions of human love among the Filipino people, then what
could it be?
And
if human love
is visibly expressed among the Filipino people during natural calamities, like typhoons,
earthquake and heavy flood, how about among the Myanmar people? I hardly think about it. But finally I
thought that civil war can be the most visible expression of human love in our
country. This civil war started from the love of freedom for their ethno-linguistic
groups, their peoples, their families, their lands and to protect their full
autonomies in internal and external administration by their own leaders. They
sacrificed their lives for their peoples.
I had experienced
nonstop civil wars between the government’s forces and Kachin Independent Armies
in our country for many years while I was in Myanmar. I saw the Burmese
Military has left innocent people brutally tortured, abused, raped and killed.
The people most affected, were the largest of the ethno-linguistic minority
groups living in the States. They were really helpless. It has
been 58 years that the people of Myanmar
or Burma
have suffered under military rule.
The root causes of the civil war in our country
principally are: first, the failed historic Panglong agreement masterminded by
the General Aung San, the father of Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi; the second, the
Burmese government has historically treated the minority ethno-linguistic
groups and their land as a colony that must be subdued and exploited.
Concurrently to promote such a colonial enterprise, Burmese colonizing project
entails systematic creation of obstacles to deter intellectual progress of the
people, repress their identity as a people by marginalizing their cultural and
religious traditions, and well-planned racial project to enhance divisions
among the ethnic groups while promoting systemic ideology of superior Bamar in
the population-- in reality the inordinate human love of power, money and lack
of educations among the leaders of the country.
Are
those the expressions of human love? Maybe, but it is not a favourable one
because a true expression of human love must not be about power over others but
helping the unfortunate people. We need more leaders who know how to express
human love rightly and justly not to focus on power, money and their comforts
but the common good of the country, society and our people particularly to the
poor.
by Br. Stephen Mari La Ja, OP
***Disclaimer: Pictures in this blog are from the world wide web. No copyright infringement.
