Brake vs break

“Take a pause,” the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines has advised candidates in this year’s midterm elections. This Holy Week, a quiet hum has settled over Metro Manila, the yearly exodus to the provinces clearing the streets of the usual traffic.

Still, the recent rash of accidents — plane and helicopter crashes, jeepneys turning turtle, motorcycle riders getting crushed — is a stark reminder of our mortality, with thoughts of heaven and hell uppermost in our minds.

These accidents have frankly been jarring. They have come alongside great economic disruptions and destructive earthquakes with high death tolls — as if the collective consciousness is exhibiting the chaos within.

During these rare times of reflection, however, we hardly spend enough hours just quietly meditating on the esoteric; instead we jump into vacation mode, grabbing the rare opportunity to get away from it all.

More than ever, the world needs to reconnect with its soul. The sense of careening into undesirable outcomes is far too strong to ignore these days.

“Take a pause.” It is a simple directive to stop the noise and nonsense and clear our thoughts. This is the true luxury in this age of transformation.

This 2025, a Jubilee Year, the Catholic Church asks: how do you live your faith in a globalized world?

Really, who even knows how the Bible-based homilies translate to daily life when it’s easier to “hate on” others through cruel, malicious comments on social media; or twist the truth to push one’s agenda?

What is sacrifice beyond abstaining from meat? Does it mean refusing to take the easy way or the safe way even if it means some things will never change?

What did Jesus’s sacrifice of his pride and eventually his life, his suffering on the cross, his humiliation and pain mean? Are they just words we chant every Pabasa, if at all, and do we think about the various ways we have inflicted the same sorrow on others?

With social media free to all to flex all one wants to, do we actually have the nerve to say we are humble servants of the Lord, kneeling in church with eyes tightly shut and hands clasped, asking for salvation from public censure and criticism?

What keeps us humble? Why is humility a value most treasured?

Humility allows us to forgive transgressions like a true Christian, but where do we draw the line for forgiveness? Or do we draw the line at all? For the families of those who died during Duterte’s crusade against drugs, do they muster compassion for the 80-year-old man now detained in a foreign land awaiting his trial? For the family and supporters of the former leader, do they exercise restraint from righteousness?

Living our faith is not as easy as it sounds. When a pastor is caught abusing his flock, when public officials are blatantly corrupt and inept, when families break up and children are left to fend for themselves, the values our religion teaches us are forgotten.

Yet we are given every chance every year to change — to start by reflecting upon our souls during Holy Week. Perhaps this year we will all do it.