maam eda - 2013

Given the chance, and especially the courage, I would be handing a letter of protest to Matthew and Luke objecting to the manner they told the story of Christmas and the many seeming contradictions and inconsistencies their stories portrayed.

How could you say it’s all planned out from the neat arrangement of the ancestry of Jesus reaching as far as Abraham and even as far as Adam and Eve, how can you say it’s all planned out when on the night he was to be born they could not figure out where Mary would give birth because there was no vacancy in all the inns and lodging houses of Bethlehem.  How can they say God had it all figured out when in the middle of the night Joseph, Mary and the new born child had to flee to Egypt just in time when the soldiers of Herod began killing innocent children in the hope of killing the newborn king. Is this what you call all planned out, all foreseen as promised?  Then when the Holy family finally got the green light to go back to Israel they have to change plans again from the originally planned Judea to the hastily decided upon Galilee – these are miles apart.  In the logic of Joseph, just in case Archelaus became like his father Herod.  Just in case – I thought God had these all figured out beforehand - so why the no vacancies, why the running in the middle of the night, why the sudden change of plans in a not to be taken lightly decision as to where to live.  It was not as if Joseph was deciding what movie to watch - girl boy bakla tomboy or little bossing – my God, it was no supposedly an easy decision made by a father, it was a decision where to live, where to earn a living, what neighborhood your child would grow into, and God, it seemed, did not figure that out beforehand? 

Ano gid man bala ini – palagpat, patupa, pasuerte, coincidence, luck ukon ini nga mga kapalpakan bahin pa gid man sang ginplano sang Dios, are these missteps, these miscalculations, these seemingly unforeseen unfolding of events actually part of the script?

Matthew would seem to insist on this view.  When Joseph woke up in the middle of the night to escape the thugs of Herod, Matthew says no this was no accident, for it had been long prophesied, “Out of Egypt I have called my Son.” Then when Joseph made a decision to make a last minute change of address to Nazareth this seemingly random decision, this lack of foresight even, was, Matthew insisted, foretold long ago when the prophets said that “he shall be called a Nazorean.”

This flop, this and that missteps, this and that slip-ups, that blunder, this fault, that error, this oversight, that gaffe are all part of the grander scheme which is the plan of God.  It is not as we usually say there are no accidents, there are no coincidences.  No.  For Matthew it is different - the accidents and coincidences are part of the plan.  And when you trust God you know that everything will lead to the good.

When Eda got married to Pacifer 42 years ago at 6:30 in the evening at Sta. Maria, she was still finishing the exams she was giving her students at 4:30 in the afternoon, got home at 5:00 pm., dressed up in her wedding dress, put a little make-up on herself, presented herself to the groom at Sta. Maria at 6:15 and walked down the aisle at exactly 6:30pm.  When we heard this we were laughing and shaking our heads, but that was part of the plan probably, a plan that slowly unfolded in her dedication to her life-long vocation of teaching; probably the same plan now over-reaching the next generation when all became doctors except one who insisted in becoming and remaining a teacher after the mother?  Call it an accident, call it a coincidence, but it is a plan. 

When we were planning for the anniversary in Sta. Maria, sickness took over.  It was difficult to come to terms with it. I had difficult planning a liturgy which would require the participant to once more pronounce the vows they said 42 years ago without making it obvious that one of them, she, could no longer speak, she could no longer pronounce a word, much more a set of sentences that compose a vow.  And we came up with the idea that vows once made are never repeated and she did not just remain silent, she was silenced, and that made it all the more beautiful when one is allowed to teach no longer in words but in the beauty of one’s silence – and finally Pacifer had his day in the microphone.  Call it an accident, call it a coincidence, but it is a plan. 

Tina had to take leave and come home, Mark had come home from one end of the world to the other, Bisoy had to act as baby sitter for his mother, Frances had to delay for sometime some plans for her profession, plans have to be changed, things had to be adjusted, lives have to be rearranged etc, etc etc. Accident, coincidence, miscalculations, missteps, probably but it is a plan, God’s plan.

When Liz and lola whispered closely planning her birthday celebration which we celebrated with a cake last December 26, the planner just went ahead, not waiting for the date.  The birthday went on without her.  How would she grow up with that memory?  I do not know, but it would be part of a plan.

So what does Matthew intend to communicate by these seeming inconsistencies.  He wanted to highlight the contradictions of the crib.  Look at the crib.  It is not cute.  It is a contradiction to what you expected God to be, it is a contradiction to what we expect God is for us.  We can never really fathom everything – God is there and God is in control even when we never thought he would.  In the end we have to learn to trust on the planner and his plan.