Bless me, readers, for I have sinned,

I spent 4 hours yesterday binge-watching Ryan Cayabyab YouTube videos of him singing duets with his wife.

So I'm now a cranky, sleep-deprived mom of 2 toddlers, 7 and a half months pregnant. For my penance, I prayed two decades of the rosary, but I still feel guilty.

I could have used those precious minutes to get adequate rest, but I couldn’t help myself. After watching the first clip of him and Mrs. Cayabyab, where they sang what he had written for his marriage proposal from 40 years ago, I was more than charmed. It isn't everyday you see a couple as happy together four decades later. The discovery was made sweeter by videos showcasing his entire family (parents and kids), like in this one.

The song that hooked me is titled Tunay na Ligaya (English Translation: True Joy). The music is light and crisp, belying the words which tell of a weighty love. Mr. Cayabyab opens with lines that reverse how metaphors usually work in poetry and music. Here are the first lines:

Di ko pansin ang kislap ng bituin

'Pag kapiling ka, sinta.

Kahit liwanag ng buwan sa gabi

'Di ko na masisita

Iisa lang ang naghaharing tala sa mundo

Tanging ikaw ang liwanag sa buhay ko

Roughly translated:

I don't notice the shimmer of stars when I'm with you, my love.

Even the light of the moon at night, I no longer see.

Only one star reigns in the world.

Only you are the light of my life.

Their lovely duet brought to mind the 16th-century Jesuit missionary Pedro Chirino, who wrote in his diary that native choirs in what would become the Philippines impressed him more than the best singing groups in Europe. If true, this is evidence that the Filipino gift for music has deep roots in the past. Cayabyab is but a recent permutation of this cultural trait.

//

So maybe my indulgence is a healthy expression of our longing for beauty? Chirino would probably agree, as would this essay from young De la Costa. The essay is called Re-discovering Ourselves. In it, he nudges us (Filipinos) to learn as much about the story of our homeland as those of our colonizers (The Americans). He did not mince words and called our treacherous ignorance embarrassing, albeit softened by the "slightly" he puts before it:

In the face of this single instance, it would seem slightly embarrassing to ask how much the average modern Filipino really knows about the...[extra line misprinted]...Philippines. He knows all about Daniel Boone and the conquest of the great American forests. Does he know how his own towns arose, or what strong hands raised up his churches? He knows how America got her name; does he know how Ermita got hers?...

I am not proposing we should not know so much about foreign history . I am merely suggesting we should know a little about our own. It was Chesterton, I think, who said that going abroad is but another way of going home: of going home via New York, London, Paris and Yokohama. Now, we have gone abroad but have not yet come home; for we are undiscoverers. (95-96, H. De la Costa: Writings of His Youth, 1927-1945)

I doubt the typical Filipino of 2024 knows anything about Daniel Boone and the great American forests. Still, we probably know more about Taylor Swift and Donald Trump than we do about how Manila was built. He thinks this is a mistake we should undo. Sounds right at first glance, but I'm not sure I'd always agree.

//

De la Costa's invitation makes me re-examine my screen time habits. I'm not ashamed to admit I prefer American content to Filipino content. I feel my mind expands in better ways after reading a piece from the Atlantic or a blog post by many an American stay-at-home mom than most of our local broadsheets and bishops.

When I'm exhausted and have no patience to swim through detached prose, I have less energy to read what the pundit 10 km from me is writing than what Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal has to say.

So, I do the colonial thing and happily offer my precious 20 minutes to my white tutors. But not because they're white.

Is it strange that their words sound homier and warmer? Reading their paragraphs feels like sitting across an old friend over tea. Weird as it sounds, they sound humbler and readier to listen to friendly criticism than local experts. There was (is?) a strong oppressive streak in the white man, for sure, but this seems to co-exist in tension with a profound reverence for the equalizing humanity we all share regardless of skin tone. This reverence seems weaker in local writers. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Local columnists often sound closer to a representative of the Inquisition than the liberal humanism she claims to advocate. Yes, she might be Filipino, but her story feels overbearing, even suffocating.

Would you consider me a traitor if I said many local public minds sound like unattractive know-it-alls?

I end Horacio's essay thinking, "Am I allowing colonialism to persist by reading what my colonizers' great-grandchildren write instead of those by my compatriots?" and " Was colonialism really because of skin color? Or was its ugly root perhaps due to a shared scar in all of us?"

//

Songs like Mr. Cayabyab's are the exception to my preference for foreign prose. His words tell stories rooted in the place that raised me, yet manage to anchor me in ways different from the American/ Australian/ British writers I enjoy. They awaken my soul to the blessing of belonging to my people and the reasons living among them is grace.

His music echoes wisdom that grows out of the earth I walk through daily, chiseling my heart ever since I took my first breath. He makes it easy to remember and love the great truths learned from my parents and grandparents' laps. His words whet my appetite for gentleness and quiet, faithful fortitude while cautioning me against consumerism and cosmopolitan convenience.

This reminder brings me back to that moment nearly a decade ago when I sat beside a mom in Ormoc outside her bare-bones home. She told me her most prized treasure was lying beside her husband and kids every night, laughing with them and swapping stories about the day that had just passed. They were survivors of typhoon Yolanda, which nearly devastated her home and town. Despite their poverty, her soul brimmed with gratitude and wonder.

Nine years later, my five-year-old echoes this mom's story when asked, "Who do you love more: the people you love or the things you love?". She quickly replies, "The people."

I see the same wisdom in the kindness that greets me whenever I enter a store or restaurant and the untiring devotion of parents holding children close along polluted streets and packed jeepneys. I see it too in the help many strangers extend to pregnant me and the natural respect the young pay to anonymous elders. It perhaps shines brightest in the giving that happens, even among those who seem to have nothing to give.

Our streets and systems are unapologetically classist (oppressive). Our institutions are crippled in more ways than fixed (corruption, bribes, and a dysfunctional education system). Still, lyrics like Mr. C’s make me believe there is wisdom to mine beneath the limping that surrounds and overwhelms me.

//

So, for now, I do partly agree with young Horacio. Committing oneself to knowing what is Filipino is worthy in principle, but maybe not from every Filipino.

Some energize and open windows to the sweet breeze of hope. Others exhaust. This bard and this mom are the breeze bringers. Their stories remind me that being born Filipino is something to cherish. It is at their feet and those like them that I want to sit and listen, to rediscover the country that raised me.

When I call him a "fool," I don't mean to insult him. I, too, am such a fool. 

Still, the economic irrationality of choosing the Liberal Arts for his university degree is apparent. A degree in pre-law or pre-med would have made more professional sense. He admits as much in this essay, "In Defense of the A.B." 

As in other poems and essays featured here, the insights in this article don't sound like an 18-year-old's, making it another remarkable showcase of his precocious intellect. 

He opened the composition by recognizing that most of us probably think a valuable education should maximize productivity. A Bachelor of Arts degree isn't that.  

In his words: 

His ability to appreciate the pragmatist's point of view suggests his was an undogmatic and considerate mind. 

He wasn't afraid to notice the weakness of his position and readily pointed out the uselessness of an A.B. Yet shortly after, he invited his readers to consider that maybe this uselessness is also valuable: 

Yet this is precisely the principal merit of the AB course;

He reminded his audience that life is more than expertise. Focusing only on honing professional skills is a weakness, not a strength. He warned this custom would lead to rigid minds, incapable of adjusting when circumstances change: 

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Not the liberal arts graduate, he argued. Since an A.B. student is trained to see the whole, he is better equipped to navigate unpredictable situations and maneuver its parts to achieve larger goals even without a rule book: 

I hesitate to agree with him completely, but I can see how the broader vision given by the liberal arts leads to agile thinking, which more structured and narrow disciplines are reluctant to develop/ encourage. 

Yet, this isn't his core reason for why the Liberal Arts matters. He guides us to behold its worth by posing these questions: 

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Through them, he returns us to the motif at the heart of this essay: to be human is about so much more than one's tasks. Then, he guides us to glimpse the "more" of our humanity in this almost poetic paragraph: 

Said another way, the Liberal Arts bequeaths its students the compass to all that makes life thoroughly and enduringly good. All that makes life an icon--a window to the gorgeous face of an untiringly loving God. Isn't this a priceless instrument? 

Yet experts today tell us this tool isn't just a helpful accessory; it's one we all need. Its absence can lead to serious health problems, including depression and addiction. 

De la Costa's words call us to notice once again that even we postmoderns still bear this impractical need. They also move us to seek all that quells this yearning with courage. This, of course, includes pursuits that expand the soul. Beyond-useful habits, like art, music, and literature, which, albeit impractical and usually unprofitable, are also as essential to flourishing as air and food. 

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Before I continue…

I’d like to apologize for the long silence. A lot has happened off screen since my last post. I gave birth twice and everything that comes with chasing kids all day has kept me from doing more for the Dela Costa project.

Still, I haven’t forgotten my promise to keep this online catalog alive. From this post on, I hope to publish something at least once a quarter, featuring the best snippets I find from his pen, and maybe later, words about him from those who knew him well.

Thank you for your patience. I really hope you enjoy these bits of De la Costa wisdom, as much as I did writing about them.

May his witty words add a bit of meaning’s sparkle to those hard-to-bear days.

Is history a science or an art?

We probably don’t think about this question as seriously as we should. Most of us might even retort, “does it matter?”

This delightful, Chesterton-esque essay makes it easy to see why it does, even for non-historians.

With delightful prose, the young (17 year old) Horacio pushed against the thoughtless bias, prevalent even during his time, that everything worth knowing is what happens within one’s lifetime. He bravely criticized this narrow opinion, but sweetly, and with wit. We catch the elegance of his claim in this first point:

Even without knowing us and the liberty-drunk élan we live in today, he knew how to woo us. He began his argument by putting forth a value many of us consider to be the most sacred of human values, namely, human freedom. Then, he asked us to remember why this sacred gift (and power) doesn’t usually abide by predictable laws. The laws which science studies, and is constrained by. Hence, he wrote, “there can be no science of history.”

Then, he wooed some more. He described history as “romance, quest, struggle” as well as “the fulfillment and breaking of a vow.” Stories of the past, if they capture the depth and breadth of our freedom, should mimic why TV dramas can hook us for hours.

They hold us in suspense and intensify our need to know what happens next. Their producers, masters of reminding us that with the best human characters, the audience never really knows which way the story will go.

In other words, history should be told more like netflix than national geographic. The latter narrates facts you can observe. But the former features how we choose, love, betray, and build. And isn’t that more exciting? That’s why the richest histories tell of deeds and dreams that flow from parts of us more like gods than beasts. Parts of us we can’t completely see, nor predict and measure.

Those godlike parts are what ancients called “soul”. Science has difficulty considering the soul because much of it can’t be weighed or proven.

Art is braver. It doesn’t see freedom’s invisibility as a barrier. Instead, it becomes its chance to bring what can’t be seen and grasped to life. That’s why art is a much better medium for re-telling how freedom has left its thumbprints on time:

Powerful words, aren’t they?

What these potent phrases underscore too is how our most godlike power is both glorious and perverse. Freedom enables us to build cities and fight noble battles, but it also makes tyrants and genocide possible.

A good history, therefore, will never be hagiography. It will never pretend like those who dwell within her pages are immaculate and infallible. Rather, it thrives on drama, tension, complexity, crisis, controversy. True histories whill include everything: success and tragedy, the sacred and the surly, and many juicy details in between.

To include the darker parts of our story is particularly important, I think, because it helps us appreciate the mystery and incalculability (unscientific-ness) of freedom. As well as its weighty responsibility.

We need to confront the ugliness of sin, hatred, violence and injustice, to recognize that freedom’s appetite for the good can be twisted. Has been twisted. And when twisted, even if unintentionally, can wreak more havoc than blessing. So, a good part of wielding this blessed power well, is to learn how to distinguish real goods from deceptive ones.

But when used well… when we choose to overcome challenges, and to rise above or transform moments that should’ve been destructive, freedom surprises in the best of ways. Then, in hindsight, the stories it lives out become food for awe. That’s when history pats humanity on the back, and makes us feel good about belonging to the mortal tribe.

This was why, for young Horacio, well written history could never be but “the most colorful and thrilling of romances.” (Ibid.,p.68)

Still, we know, this isn’t usually what our history classrooms feel like.

Most of them do little more than hand out uninteresting lists of names and dates. Yet, could this be our fault too? We must admit, we like the certainty of science and our teachers think they give us what our times have shaped us to want.

This essay makes us remember though that when only done as science, history becomes a bland bore. More sleeping pill than the wise and riveting tale it can be.

But if history is more proper as art than science, how about the need for accuracy? Isn’t science better at providing us with facts?

De la Costa appreciated facts, but thought they might be overrated too. What mattered just as much to him, if not more, were the deeper truths we can take from our shared past.

Science gives us who, what and when, but not the insight and meaning that makes the past lively and valuable.

For this reason, he thought scientific histories to be “misleading and utterly dull”, even if they are undoubtably honest:

In other words, what makes art the better vessel for history is its capaciousness. It fits both matter and spirit, body and soul. And the full human story includes both matter AND spirit, body AND soul.

Science, in contrast, only has space for the visible and measurable (the matter/ the body). It might be expert at reporting names and dates, but human stories worth telling, like all human experiences, must go beyond what eye can tell.

This is not to say history is the same as literature. History relies on imagination and interpretation, for sure, but its core is still evidence. Its raw material is still the archive. Still, it doesn’t stop there. It weaves what is found in documents into tales that help us see more deeply into our selves, and help us find a better way forward.

Here’s one good instance from the award winning Roosevelt biography No Ordinary Time, by Dorothy Godwin Kearns:

Though businessmen were already arguing for a suspension of New Deal regulations that bore on labor, working conditions and minimum wages on the grounds that such legislation restricted speedy mobilization, Roosevelt took the opposite tack. “While our navy and our airplanes and our guns may be the first line of defense, it is still clear that way down at the bottom, underlying them all, giving them their strength, sustenance and power, are the spirit and morale of a free people.”

When the president reached this part of his speech, Eleanor, listening from the living room of her Greenwich apartment, must have breathed a sigh of relief. She trusted that in her husband’s heart he intended, even in the fact of war, to preserve the social and economic reforms of the New Deal, but she worried that all the businessmen now swarming around the White House would demand an end to the hated New Deal as the price for their support. (p.60)

The quoted portion from Roosevelt’s speech is evidence from the archive, but the rest of the excerpt is an imagined portrayal of how Eleanor felt after hearing her husband’s speech. Of course, what Kearns imagines of Eleanor is still based on what she’s learned from archival research. But how she puts that instinctual knowledge to bear meaningfully on this one piece from the archive is the kind of artistry De la Costa described. An artistry that allows us a peek into Eleanor’s soul.

The Kearns excerpt makes me think that perhaps we expect too little from history, when all we ask from it is to tell us what happened. She and De la Costa show how the past becomes more relatable and alive when facts come with glimpses into the soul’s deeper yearnings.

Perhaps, if we saw history as they describe, as much more than a catalog of when. who, then it becomes more of the wise teacher we really wish it would be. As this Gandalf, it brings us to look more deeply into the mystery, beauty, lessons and drama of human freedom. And eventually not just of others who have passed, but also ours.

At 15,  I was too busy binging on Full House and chick lit to notice anything green outside my window.  I’m not sure I know of anyone who had awakened to the glorious green of trees at that age, except for Horacio de la Costa.

We see his fascination at nature’s beauty again in this simply titled poem called Nature’s Lesson, which he wrote at 15.

It’s worth reading through all the four stanzas to experience the delight with which he looked at the world’s most unadorned beauties.  The tone of his verses reveal his raw youthful wonder, even while exhibiting his precocious capacity for rich poetic imagery, lyrical writing, and profound insight.

He begins by inviting us to watch a man asleep on a patch of grass, beneath a tree. The description of how trees blanket the napping lad in shadow, to shield him from the sun, brings to mind the image of a mother covering her sleeping child.  This metaphor hints of the intimate connection Horacio must have felt to nature.

He lay there on the grass, asleep.

A kind tree mantled him with shade

And stood by watching. Soft and deep,

A soothing song the river made,

As past it glided ripplingly

On its blue journey to the sea!

Then, in the lines that follow, we find out the snoozing man is actually a poor, filthy vagabond:

He was a dirty tramp, all rags,

Who had sunk down upon the green

In weariness, just as when flat

The battle, and the soldiers glean

Whatever sleep they can, before

The fearful war–sounds surge once more!

Despite this jarring surprise, Horacio refuses to stay with the image of filth and penury. And in the next stanza, returns his pen to the pristine, soothing scenery around the beggar.

A dirty tramp: how lovingly

The nodding grasses touch his brow!

A dirty tramp: and still I see

The tender-gazing nearby cow!

Why, even kings had no such care

As this poor one, from Nature fair!

How dramatic that Horacio brings to mind the image of kings as he contemplates the sleeping poor man. This contrast leads to a poignant insight, which he offers us as a nugget of wisdom at the poem’s end:

So then if breeze and river-song;

And downward-bending blue of sky–

If birds that sing the whole day long,

All woo this dusty man and sigh

To serve him; why should not

I love him, and his happy lot!

Watching the rag-clad tramp cradled by grass, tree shade, and sky, and lulled to sleep by the lullaby of a gurgling river, young Horacio awakens to the richness of this man’s soul. Nature pulls him to discover this beggar’s true worth: a value as much as a king’s. Seeing this, Horacio decides to love him just as nature and nature’s artist has.

Might this have been another seed of his priestly calling?

Photo credits: cover photo by Sebastian Engler on Unsplash, second photo by Domenico Daniele on Unsplash

But ours wasn’t the Manila of young Horacio.  In the 1920s the city wasn’t as seductive as she is today.  Some even argue she wasn’t quite a city yet, but a cluster of connected villages. Then, her buildings were shorter, simpler, sparser.  Her streets were less crowded, but also coarser.  Here’s a short photo slideshow to help us imagine what Manila looked like during Horacio’s time as an Atenean.

Even with its slower pace and less noisy streets, in several poems and essays, Horacio doesn’t sound too happy about living in the city.  Here’s one example, an essay about about Horace and Catullus, two poets from the Roman empire.

Horace’s poetry symbolized life in the country, while Catullus’ verse captured the amusements of Rome. Horacio preferred the imagery and setting of his namesake, as he tells us in this snippet:

O Horace, you have been a glorious dawn to me, I looked for the fire of your passion, and saw it glowing on the hearth.  I pursued the fleeing spirit of your imagery, and I saw her dissolve into the meadow’s freshness, and the woods’ immortal youth.

Here, Horacio’s appreciation for Horace is unmistakable. He use of verbs like “look” and “pursue” reveal an eagerness when reading this ancient poet’s writings.  Yet, when he talks about Catullus his tone shifts and becomes more distant. It almost sounds like the commentary of a disinterested tour guide:

Thus, with Catullus we pace the streets of Rome.  Wide streets, narrow streets; alleys, boulevards, uphill, downhill; among the trees, beside Tiber’s tawny glide…

Later on, Horacio reveals his opinion of Catullus’ city.  He calls Rome cruel and describes it as inhospitable, superficial, even depraved.

But the stars of Catullus were cruel.  They placed him poverty-stricken, in a city where one must live in luxury to have companionship, and hate virtue to live in luxury.

We find a similar theme in another poem, entitled “Longing for the Sea”.  In these verses, Horacio expresses a strong desire to go back home, where it was easier to see the sea and mountains.   The city, in contrast, is suffocating and unpleasantly exhausting.

That is why my heart is pining, and there’s mist before my eyes

For the mountains and the dark blue sea;

For the morning and the sunlight and the Ocean as it lies

Deeply blue and softly peaceful, for the white-faced bluffs that rise

From the sea to greet each dawning, while the white spray blooms and dies–

That is why the City chokes me, and my spirit yearns and sighs.

O the magic of the dark-blue sea!

When he describes the sea here, he probably is thinking of  the town he was born in, Mauban, Quezon, located along the Pacific coast of the Philippines’ northern island of Luzon.

According to one of his students, Fr. Catalino Arevalo, Fr. De la Costa enjoyed returning home to Quezon even as a grown priest.  He even set up an office for himself  at his parents’ home after his father died, and would spend time there whenever he visited his mom– a ritual he tried to repeat as often as he could.

Fr. Arevalo also reminisced how as young seminarians, they would visit the De la Costa home and spend a few summer days swimming on the beach near by.   He agreed with the young Horacio that the coast along Quezon was unlike anything one can see in the city, especially today.   It isn’t surprising then that for the student Horacio, despite the attractions of the city,  Manila could never replace the natural masterpieces he could gaze at from Mauban.

The Philippines has been blessed with many such vistas, but sadly, too few protect and enjoy it.  Many Filipinos have been indoctrinated to prefer malls and movie theaters, and don’t seem too bothered when seaside views are covered up by walls, freeways, and commercial establishments.

Horacio’s longing to return to the sea, despite his success while a student in Manila, is a necessary reminder that the attractiveness of a modern city still can’t provide what unadulterated nature can show.   His words invite us to ponder whether the glitziness of urban life, as alluring as it is, give our spirits space to rest.  For beauty at its best not when it lures, but also fills us with the right kind of energy to live well.

Religion appears superstitious because somewhere in our postmodern consciousness, we have come to the conclusion that it’s nothing but man-made.

Man made religion, God didn’t. Since man is flawed, religion must be too.  So we replace it with something seemingly purer: spirituality.

Spirituality seems less adulterated because it is the self’s direct experience of the divine. It’s a personal encounter with what I perceive to come straight from God.

Still, at its core, spirituality is man-made because how do we know what you and I declare to be from God is really from him and not just from our imaginations?

So, how we typically look at both religion and spirituality actually hold something in common: they ‘re human pictures, if not idols, of God.

Christianity doesn’t quite work that way.  Or at least, shouldn’t begin that way.

In Christianity, both religion and spirituality start with God. It’s he who reaches out to human beings first.  He bent down, took on human flesh, and walked among the worst of humanity as Jesus, the great, controversial rabbi who dined with prostitutes and corrupt tax collectors.

Even if Jesus is no longer visible as he was to Peter, James and John, many people say he continues to reach out to them.  That’s why many convinced Christians believe in him. They experienced him call to them, even when they decided they were better off without him.

That’s the mysterious thing about the Christian God. He runs after those who run away from him.  He sees something priceless even in those who’ve decided he’s worthless.  He is, as the english poet Francis Thompson coined, “The Hound of Heaven”. Or, to use language we better appreciate: “The Stalker of Heaven.”  This God is one that eagerly looks for the most distant and miserable of his human creatures, hoping ceaselessly to bring them back to his embrace.

Horacio de la Costa read Francis Thompson’s poem at 15.  I don’t think Horacio avoided God in the way the poem described.  At least, not when he wrote it. Yet, despite his innocence, he seems gripped by Thompson’s words as we see in these lines where he echoes the verses’ main plot:

There is only one thing more passionate than the flight of a soul from God, one thing more fiery, more overwhelming.  It is God’s pursuit of that soul.  What then shall we say concerning the emotions of a poem in which is compassed all the swiftness, the tenderness, the blazing impetuosity of the divine chase after fleeing man?

Horacio doesn’t  talk about the poem in the bored way many of us wrote about our college readings. He doesn’t just say “the poem talks about God wanting even the most sinful human being.” He description is far livelier. He depicts God’s hounding as a “blazing impetuosity”– a fiery appetite that won’t rest until he’s captured the stubborn heart of each wayward child.

His passionate tone suggests Horacio was no longer focused on the stylistic genius of the poem when he wrote this essay.  His attention was instead pegged on the beauty of the experience the poem describes.  We see his own awe at the untiring, patient, all-embracing power of God’s love in these paragraphs:

But though this pity for the fleeing soul is very great, still the love of God and for God is even greater, and the joy and exultation of the chase’s outcome, when the pursued surrenders, and consents to be led ‘home’ again is almost overwhelming. This must necessarily be so, because before the face of God’s love all fear, all pity, all human sympathy is naught…

The soul clangs the silver knocker of the stars–and finds that God is there.  It rides bareback on the wearied chargers of the wind–lo! He is there.  It wantons with the trees and clouds and all the untrammeled children of Nature–and finds that among these stream the sunlight benediction of the Lord.

“Alas!” cries the distracted soul, “God’s love is everywhere.  Whiter can I flee from one who holds His stars a handful in one hand, who weaves His mantle of flowered meadows and will not let anything of His own to love me?  His voice is round me like a bursting sea; He drowns me, dissolves me in His love…I die…and when I live again, it is within His love…”

God’s love does not consider.  it does not weigh merit on spirit-scales, God does not love with a discriminating love.  His yearning is to press all souls to His bosom, and His desire is an illimitable desire.  His is a mad love, and unreasonable love, a glorious love!

What is striking is he wrote these snippets before considering to become a Jesuit.  The conviction we sense through them show a young man already certain that this untiring, generous, persistent, stubborn love of God was real.  Was this the seed of what later inspired him to choose the path of priesthood, despite his parents’ reluctance?

Even if not, his poetic words tell us Horacio’s faith was anchored not on stringent rules and passé rituals but on a love more powerful than the fiercest of human reticence. His faith, which combined both religion and spirituality, was built on a love so perfect, it doesn’t stop desiring to bless, even after betrayal and rejection.

At 15, he had discovered a love stronger than the worst of man and the worst of life.

Isn’t this the kind of love we’re all looking for? Perhaps, we might just not know it yet.

excerpts from “II. 1931-32:Freshman A.B., at Age 15,” Selected Writings of His Youth, 1927-1945, pp. 17-19.

photo by Michael Shannon on Unsplash

Yet, if we pay attention to the God our hearts long for, we want a God who bends down despite being up there.  A God whose love for us is so intense, he can’t help but step down from his throne and live with us, perhaps even, within us.

This is the God Horacio de la Costa describes in the following stanzas from his poem “After Christmas Communion”, which he wrote when he was 15.

And You have come to me, O Lord, to me!

Your throne above the lying seraphim

You have abandoned, and your majesty–

All, Lord, for one cold shrine whose lights are dim!

And you have stooped beneath a rotting door

Into my hovelled heart…so, there You stand,

Amid dark splashes half erased, on floor

And wall. My God, how can you lay Your Hand

To bless me in my depths; how can You let

The morning sunshine that is You stream in

Upon my ruined temple, gray and wet

With staining tears, and shattered by my sin?

from Selected Writings of His Youth, 1927-1945, pp. 44-45

Photo by Rachel Moore on Unsplash

This excerpt comes a rhetorical piece which Fr. De la Costa wrote and delivered at age 16. It won the gold medal for Best Presentation at the A.B. Rhetoric Expose, 1 March 1933. It’s amazing how at such a young age, he already saw the dangers and inconsistencies of modern popular democracy.  And this was before the internet and social media.

If only, more of us were as discerning as he…

In these paragraphs, he points out the sad contradiction found in modern democracies:

In the Philippines, we find the people bewildered–dizzy with the dinned reiteration of clockwork promises, of a graft-rotted government, dizzy, and vaguely wondering when political dreams will come true.  In America, the people are annoyed–as who wouldn’t be–when one has to go through the infernal trouble of penetrating a basement, remembering a password, and stumbling in the dark to get a glass of bad beer; in Russia the people are crushed, fed for fuel to the machines of the Five-Year Plan, turned and wracked like so many cogs and wheels…

This, then, is what constitutes happiness in a modern democracy.  “What!” you exclaim. “Happiness? When there is no faith to trust, no solid rule, no wine, no liberty?” Tush, sir–the situation is quite idyllic–the people mind their own business at the recommendation, approval, and direction of the state–oh, I assure you, sir, quite idyllic! The people have attained that rarest of human joys, political happiness; which, defined, sir is happiness subject to the restrictions and sanctions of the State.

Then, goes on to state his thesis more clearly:

I do not object to democracy as an ideal, abstract form of government, and one which in more enlightened age, and among better men, will doubtless be a splendor and joy; I do not object to a few good leaders who try desperately to preserve democracy from a corruption, but I do object, most vehemently, to the distortion of democracy practiced in godlessness and among people without faith and without a creed.

To close, he lists indictments against modern democracy:

I indict modern democracy as being a government not of the people, but of worthless and lying demagogues who dupe the people;

I indict modern democracy for usurpation of the free rights of man, and for accursed oppression of the masses by those who are supposed to represent the masses;

I indict modern democracy for throwing into the hands of ignorant irreligious people the terrible tempting weapon of absolute liberty and sovereign rule;

I indict modern democracy for sedulously serving not the people’s welfare but the lawless desires of power-mad politicians;

I indict modern democracy for being, not government but misgovernment, not rule but the violation of all rule, and of the high justice of the imperatorial God.

from H. de la Costa: Writings of His Youth, 1927-1945, pp. 53-54.

Photo by Eduardo Sánchez on Unsplash

O for one morning on my native hills

Blue sky and golden east, and as I pass,

Dripping dew-treasures on thy sunlit grass

The rustling leaves while whisper evening stills!

And just one noon under my childhood tree,

Whose bark is scarred where my first knife cut deep

By small hands wielded, till I fell asleep

Lulled by the murmur of the distant sea;

And oh, for one dim evening, when the glow

Of sunset lingers on the mountain crowns,

Like glory on some sainted brow…! Dusk drowns

My pain, and sorrows with the sunlight go.

Then will I know a peace no clamor mars

Such as my hill-raised childhood once had known

Amid those lonely trees, there skyward flown

I’ll love myself among the gardened stars!

from Selected Writings of His Youth, 1927-1945, p. 44

Photo by Andrew Coelho on Unsplash

Who will come through the night with me?

Through the blue-robbed night to see

The sweetly-glimmering stars?

Who will come to the soft-lit late,

And soothe all the white day’s pain

With the wistful gleam of the stars?

Who will laugh a laughter of joy

A silver laughter, without alloy–

With the laugh of the laughing stars?

Who will come, and make love with me,

Whose heart with my heart will flee

To the call of the burning stars?

from p. 35, Selected Writings of His Youth, 1927-1945, ed. Roberto M. Paterno

Photo by Mahkeo on Unsplash

I watch the last beams tremble from the hill

And cast a throbbing glow upon the wall

Of this gloom-haunted room; and as they fill

My dusk with magic, on my soul they fall:

And then I know that West is Heaven’s Hall,

Through whose barred gate God’s warming graces stream

Upon my twilight lifetime, gliding all.

And oh, that I could follow their soft gleam

And soar to that far, golden City, like a dream!

from pp. 30-31, Selected Writings of His Youth, 1927-1945, ed. Roberto M. Paterno.

Sunset (I)

Sunset (II)

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

Here, he compares the movement of sunset’s fiery colors to how waves ebb and flow. A unique way of describing sunset, since we usually think of sunsets as static pictures.  But here, he asks us to notice how sunset’s reds, oranges, and yellow actually move like the sea:

And now the tide of sunset’s rosy sea,

That washes shores of skiey blue at eve,

Recedes with unheard swirlings, silently:

Back to its source, whose fire-waves cloud-boats cleave.

And as the sunshine waters ebb and leave

The deep’ning azure fields, lo! on the grass

Of heaven twinkle dewdrops that the heave

Of golden flame has left. Their lights surpass

E’en those last, glorious gleams the West, in dying, has.

from p. 30 Selected Writings of His Youth, 1927-1945, ed. Roberto M. Paterno.

Photo by Patrik Linderstam on Unsplash