There’s a rainbow after the rain. So we say along with the
poets. This poetic solace has done the
trick since the time of Noah’s covenant until the dawn of global warming when climate
change has apparently altered the rules: There are just more rain now after a downpour.
Luzon had Ondoy a few years ago; and a
couple of years later, Mindanao was caught asleep as Sendong’s downpour caused
a ravishing flash flood carrying along heavy logs from the mountains of
Bukidnon.
I had a chance to visit the “Tent City” in Cagayan de Oro
during the Diocesan Clergy of Mindanao Convention. Hundreds of families displaced by typhoon
Sendong were temporarily relocated at the site. The night before our visit, it rained. Once more, the families living in the tents
were flooded! When we arrived the
following day, some men were digging canals around the area as the clouds were
becoming dark again! Shouldn’t these people be given a rainbow to see instead
of another dark formation of clouds?
What happened to the covenant made by God with Noah and
those who were saved from the great flood?
The first reading today (Gn. 9: 8-15) reminds us of the establishment of
the covenant that never again shall a flood devastate the earth. The rainbow has been designated as the sign
of this covenant. Has God forgotten the covenant?
Some people attribute the calamities to the “act of God.” But biblical faith has proclaimed God’s
fidelity. God is a faithful God. He remembers and upholds the covenant. It is humanity, the other end of the covenant,
who easily forgets. We, the people of
God, have consistently been unfaithful to Him.
The floods and calamities they bring are not from God but are the direct
and inevitable consequences of our recklessness and mindless exploitation of
the abundance of God’s creation. We have
become the greedy destroyer of nature and have turned our back to God’s
invitation for us to be a responsible steward of the integrity and beauty of
creation.
I consider them today’s prophets who defend our environment
and call for a radical change in our lifestyle.
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth
is a prophet’s voice shouting in the wilderness. But like all other prophets, today’s prophets
continue to experience being brushed aside.
We hear the message and the warning but we don’t truly listen. This was the same dynamics as in the time of
Noah. People continue with their
business-as-usual attitudes. I’m truly
afraid that unless we listen, unless we learn our lessons, unless we change our
ways, unless we act collectively and with responsibility, there will no longer
be rainbows. There will be just rain. Heavy downpour. Calamities after calamities. As we are
beginning to see in fact.
Lent is a season of repentance. Once again we hear Jesus’ message in today’s
gospel (Mk. 1: 12-15), “Reform you lives and believe in the good news!” The season of Lent can be for us the time to
really examine our lives and to honestly see how we have allowed sin and evil
to dominate our decisions and activities. This is a season when we evaluate how
much of our ways have contributed to this impending destruction, how much of
our greed and our capricious demands have supported an obstinate drive to
exploit the earth’s natural resources to the point of destroying her
irreversibly.
It’s easier to see now that reform should be both in the
personal and social levels. The change
of heart necessarily begins with individual and personal lives. It cannot happen any other way. However, salvation involves not just
individuals but communities. We need to
reform as a people. We need to change
our ways as a society. That is why we
need to listen to prophets, to read the signs of the times, to discern God’s
direction towards salvation. We need
conscientious leaders to galvanize reformed and committed individuals toward
responsible change. And we badly need
this soon... before it’s too late.
Lest we lose hope, we are assured by our readings that God
has been and is always victorious against evil and sin in the world. The 40-day flood in Noah’s time was God’s act
of washing away sin and evil from the earth in order to forge a new beginning. In the second reading (1 Pt 3: 18-22), Peter
tells us that we are now saved by a baptismal bath which corresponds to the
great flood: the waters of baptism washed away all that is sinful in us and we
enter into a new life, a new covenant relationship with God. In the gospel, led
by the Spirit, Jesus is tested by Satan in the desert for forty days. And He is victorious over Satan.
We enter the season of Lent for forty days too. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into
this desert experience. Like Jesus at
the beginning of his messianic activity, let us be docile to the action of the
Holy Spirit who demands an interior preparation for us to enter into a truly life-changing
process of reform. It is the Spirit who
saw Jesus through his suffering, death, and resurrection. It is the same Spirit whom we ought to allow seeing
us through the challenging demands of this transforming desert experience.
The ultimate assurance of hope of course is when we look
ahead after everything has been said and done, we see the glorious victory of
Christ awaiting us and this cosmos. God
does not forget the covenant indeed. The Risen Lord and only He is the
definitive and unfading rainbow after the long and heavy rain.
