Love Tears Me Apart Again

Photo: (not sure what it's called) by Anton del Castillo

Apparently, Melmac, my mother, likes reading my blog for some reason. We've been going to mass for a month and a half now and it's sort of become a habit that I write something about the experience at some point. Last Saturday night (or was it Sunday), Melmac ordered me to post a summary of or a reflection on the homily, as I have been doing for a couple of weeks.

But the thing is, the past few days have come in a blur to me. I don't remember a lot of things. And that includes the stuff I heard at mass last Saturday.

The Gospel had something to do with Jesus feeding five thousand people. I remember that because I've heard the story many times. I remember when I was in high school, Mr. Barnachea, our CLED teacher, discussed a point-of-view that some scholars had about that incident. That, some of them believed that the “miracle” of that day wasn't as much as the bread and fish physically multiplying as if they were spelled. Rather, the miracle of that day had more to do with sharing— five thousand people who had little for themselves deciding to give bits to others, for the common good, and ending up having more than they needed.

Of course, that POV has a lot of opposition from the real hardcore believers. But I'm not so hardcore. And it is indeed easer to believe.

I remember the priest from last Saturday talk about something related to Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, which was celebrated earlier in the week. That psychologically, people really have one base desire: to love and to be loved. That it can be very difficult to express love in words because it is more of an emotion rather than an idea. That love is hard to rationalise because, most of the time, it is an irrational feeling.

The priest went on to talk about how much God loved us that he sent his Son to be with us so that we can see for ourselves how much we mean to Him. That love must be expressed through visible and tangible things. Things that we can see with our own eyes, touch with our own hands, sense with every other sense that we have. Otherwise, it's just words. It's just an idea.

Last Friday, I was asked what I am really feeling about certain things. And just as I was tongue-tied the previous Saturday when all I can say was “I need a drink”, I couldn't find the right words to answer Friday's question. For a person who can conjure up so many words from glimpses and whiffs of passing air, I had no words.

I have no more words— because this was never just an idea.

What I feel for you is not just an idea.