Of God, Angels, and the Journey Called Life

When I was young, what I hold on to in my nights of melancholic madness is the idea that somehow, riding my nighttime star is an angel ready to go down and embrace me when everything seemed to be so messed up. I even thought of becoming an astronaut so I could at least plan my first space launch towards that star. But as I grew up, I started to neglect the idea, not just because I learned from school lectures that somehow, it is impossible, but because I am afraid. I am frightened by the idea that if ever I will be able to reach that star, my dear angel would not be there, that everything was part of a mythical world told by my mother to appease my childhood tantrums, and that the very idea is the incarnation of my immature foolishness.

Blind that I am, I never realized that part of the story is the going down of the angel in times that I have deep concerns --- concerns that seem to ruin or make my life in their own unique, tragic, comic or even kind faces --- and that mostly, my angel is here no matter what and not anymore in the lone star I look up to at night. He merely changes his mode of connection and shows himself in a thousand modes depending on what really is relevant for the moment.
Realization leads to knowing that the star has far assumed the world I move into and that the angel has assumed each and every good things, persons and insights that have crossed my way. But the problem at times is the confusing patterns to where my angel must be traced, where part of it is going through a straight line amidst chaos and personal vulnerability and the other part is like crossing a sea of darkness headed by a little spark of light which seems to fade easily.

In this enormous world where there is so much to say, so many words to utter and so many persons to tell them, it is quite amazing how God puts the proper words at the tip of the pen of a person who can undeniably touch the life of whom the Almighty might has long wanted to reach and of whom he has wanted to be guided back into His loving light. It is rewarding that amidst darkness, an angel in flesh helps us in our way out of the darkness. As he humbly puts it, Fr. Dars is an instrument for God’s infinite graces to flow bountifully in our hearts and our mind, an angel waking us up in our deep sleep attacked by confusions and darkness. But he is one of the best instruments of God to wake us up, I suppose. It may be because of his uttered words but more so, it is through his writings that he ultimately manifests his angelic nature.

This compilation of Fr. Dars’s reflections, homilies, symposiums, and talks together with other academic papers made by his colleagues in the ministry has served as a luminous angel leading us back to the real spirit of our Christian tradition. This angel leads us to gather once more the shattered pieces of our own life and the belief we are into as well; that in fact, it faces us the reality that in as far as we have travelled as Catholic and Christian communities, we have also left others of our own kind groping in the dark and naked of human dignity.

This compilation of works is also a celebration of love, uniqueness, and wisdom incomparable because of its uniting force amidst its scattered themes and different inspirations. From Church documents toward living faith experiences and testimonies, it gives us a reassurance that God is not alienated from this Church and our people. From challenging and provocative insights toward the tear-jerker and emotionally touching articles, it leads us to a place where we can have a deeper encounter with the inner reality of things and how we can understand our own shatterpoint as persons. From poetry and songs toward essays, it places us in discernment of a transformative and reviving energy catching us up as we live as brothers and sisters bounded by one language, the language of the Divine.

At the end of them all, we see this angel leading us back to our one true home which is no other than the home prepared for us by God.

When I’m journeying, I never get afraid if the path is straight. It is somehow a reassurance that I can always go to where I must go. But in times that the path splits into two or more paths leading to different directions, that are most likely to happen for most of the time, I’m losing my confidence. Much more will I surely lose if I’ll meet a dead end. But thanks to the concretizations of my angel, which like signboards have made the journey no matter how long it seems, more bearable and productive.

Thanks to Fr. Dars, who in his own life, ways and through his writings, has been helping us in our journey back towards the gate of the great Kingdom that God has promised, a place which I guess, it will be best for us to work out in this earth. Some of his articles may have been dating back several years ago, but rest assured, the spirit is still knocking in the doors of our current life, an invitation to recollect and reflect on how we have travelled so far and a reinforcement to march ahead and keep journeying.


*made for Rev. Fr. Dars Cabral and his upcoming book.