Pacquiao’s religious conversion

Boxers Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley

It was not only Manny Pacquiao who got defeated fighting the new WBO welterweight champ Timothy Bradley.

Practically the whole country and Pacquiao’s compatriots suffered the embarrassing, if not shocking defeat, too.

The only consolation is that many folks, here and abroad, think the Filipino boxing great won.

Most boxing pundits thought so, too, and no less than boxing promoter Bob Arum was upset about the decision, thereby promising a rematch.

But, that is neither here nor there now.

What is important now is to learn from the mistakes made, so the same will not happen again during the inevitable rematch.

While others may look at the factors that defeated Pacquiao in all of the twelve rounds, I am looking mine mostly from outside the ring.

Specifically, I am looking at Pacquiao’s much ballyhooed conversion to becoming an avid follower of the Christian religion and how he has become a Bible tooting individual.

I have no problem with Manny being religious now. Religion is good, but let us not over rate it. We can invoke prayers to be far from harms way, but prayers, per se, will not win you fights.

What will win fights is one’s boxing prowess and one’s will to win. It is about being hungry all the time to win and not because one is prayerful and can cite verses from the Bible that you think God will let you win.

Pacquiao has been professing he is a changed man now.

He gave up drinking, and he gave up gambling. He gave away his cockfighting ranch in the Philippines and sold his interest in a casino there, according to reports.

He found a spiritual adviser, and now spends his spare moments reading and discussing the Bible.

“I know now if I die today I know where I’m going,” Pacquiao declares.

O, yeah? I really wouldn’t bet on that.

For as long as Manny Pacquiao, the man, the politician and the boxer, continue entertaining and befriending the devils, the likes of Chavit Singson and Wakee Salud, he has not completely change at all.

The two ‘diablos’ were visibly present atop the ring before the fight.

Wasn’t it a bad omen that they were still around at a time when Manny was taking on his first fight after he has renounced evil and has declared himself now as virtuous?

Reminds me of a Spanish adage that goes: “Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres” (Tell me with whom you walk and I will tell you who you are.)

It is another way of saying, “A man is known by the company he keeps.”

 

The distasteful spoofing of crucifixion

 

A year ago I posted a blog entitled ‘Catholic Church should stop crucifixion, self-flagellation.’

Every Lenten season we see real simulation of self-castigation by fanatics as their way of atoning for their sins.

To these ill-advised penitents, their ignorance about the significance of Christ’s death on the cross has made their own painful acts nonsensical, as it is unwarranted, making the whole tableau pitiable and sadly entertaining only to the curious foreigners.

If these seemingly remorseful ‘devotees’ does not know any better, who would come to explain to them their anomalous actions in relation to the real Christian beliefs and give them enlightenment and relief?

Yes, that is right, the Catholic Church and its hierarchy. It is their mandate to educate the faithful about the beliefs and teachings of the Christian religion. It is their responsibility to preach and make known that man’s own crucifixion, in this day and age, is nothing but absurdity and distasteful spoofing of Christ’s greatest sacrifice made for humanity on the cross.

It behooves on the Catholic Church hierarchy, therefore, that understanding and conviction are well ingrained in the minds of the religious about the meaning/purpose of Christ’s death on the cross.

Christian theology teaches that Jesus Christ’s death provided the perfect atoning sacrifice for the sins of all mankind.

The death of Jesus was a unique, one of a kind, once for all death that ransomed mankind from sin and satisfied the righteousness of God and made it possible for man to once again have a personal relationship with God.

We are told two truths concerning the meaning of Christ’s death.  It was for sins.  It was for the unrighteous.  It was punishment for sins and yet we have already seen that Christ did not sin.  So whose sin was He punished for? We are given the answer.  He was punished for the sins of the unrighteous.  When he died, He was acting on behalf of others. And this pleased His Father so much so that His resurrection followed.

For someone, therefore, to be nailed on the cross to save himself from sin – past, present and future – and his family from any form of sickness is a folly, and if at all, a wishful thinking.

It has already been done. It will serve us well to meditate Christ’s passion and death on the cross.

We only have to understand it, believe it, and live by it.