THE LIVING must practice giving peace towards their neighbors if they wish for peacefulness in the afterlife, a Dominican priest said.
During the mass for the departed, Fr. Rodel Aligan, O.P. questioned the practice of believers who would hope for peace after death without offering kindness, love and justice, which he says are “prerequisites” to God’s kingdom.
“How can we be just in heaven if you are not just here? How can you truly attain freedom, enjoy freedom— if you don’t know how to use your freedom here?” Aligan said in his homily at the UST Santísimo Rosario Parish church on Saturday, Nov. 1.
“And how will we experience peace, if we cannot look for peace here? If we only look for chaos in our lives?” he added.
However, Aligan explained that freedom should be used for good, and not as an excuse to do whatever one pleases.
According to him, injustice breeds when people do not give what others deserve. He added that to love others, the faithful must offer kindness without burden or obligation.
These practices would result in peace being the ‘productivity of order in our own minds,” he said quoting St. Augustine.
“Once I am good in my relationship between me and God, and I’m good between me and my neighbor, then there will always be peace,” Aligan added.
He reminded the faithful that the celebration of the Solemnity of All Saints honors blessed figures who upheld the tenets of Christian values until they departed.
The former Sacred Theology dean invited attendees to emulate the saints and their love for their fellows, noting that each person has been bestowed with God’s grace.
“The Lord has given us all the means by which we can be saved… We all have that grace. And, if we want to meet him [in heaven], we can meet him there together,” he said.
The mass is part of the University’s series of eucharistic commemorations in suffrage for the departed from Nov. 1 to 2. F
