Christian sense of shame

THIS is something to be recovered urgently and perseveringly. We are losing it. And the signs of such loss are emerging, all of them horrifying!

At the very least, we have to talk about it. We need to know more about it. Silence in this matter can only yield ignorance, confusion, a lot of misunderstanding. And this is dangerous both in our personal and social lives.
This is a very complicated thing. While its essence may be easily spelled out, its interpretations and applications, its concrete expressions and manifestations can require endless considerations.

In short, the objective ingredients and requirements of a healthy sense of shame should be made to integrate with the varied subjective conditions all of us can have.

For one, we have to reckon with the different general psychologies between men and women, the idiosyncrasies of different people's culture and social environment, the age of the persons involved, the economic profile, etc.

All these should be properly ventilated, and as much as is prudently advisable, the discussion should involve as many people as possible, since no one has a monopoly of how this sense of shame should be lived.

Of course, the media could be of great help here. Oh, how much they can do! If only the media can be truly objective, able to avoid the hidden strings their big and powerful clients can tie them with.

In the first place, there is that fatal misunderstanding, quite widespread, that a sense of shame should have no place in our lives. Shame is supposed to be inhuman, undignified, indicative of immaturity and underdevelopment.

That's why all around there is an obsession for shamelessness and fearlessness, irrespective of the reasons, motives, situations and contexts. The end message seems to be that one can do anything just to be shameless.

Again, another case of something taken to the extreme, exaggerated beyond recognition. Whatever good shamelessness can give is made absolute, and seemingly tasked to erase whatever good a sense of shame can also give.

We have to rectify this kind of mentality. We cannot allow ourselves to just go on mindlessly with what may be popular with the crowd. Some reason, and even more, the indications of faith, needs to imbue our attitudes and behavior.

Look at what we have now. Locally, we are constantly confronted with cases of flaunting frivolity. Being naughty and titillating, risqué in jokes, immodest in words, dress and manners, etc., are becoming the in thing.

Refinement, delicacy, modesty, meekness, and discretion are thrown out the window, scorned, degraded and ridiculed. Thinking before talking, considering people as persons and not as objects, are hardly known by many.

Yes, the social phenomenon called depersonalization is very much in the air. We are losing our right attitude towards persons. We are fast considering them only as objects, tools, instruments and means.

Starlets are becoming more daring in their baring, rich boys and girls find no wrong in being unrestrained in their partying, the elite get their high whenever they have the chance to show off whatever they have -- looks, jewels, their bodies, etc.

All these are disturbing symptoms of social decadence. They indicate a trend towards converting persons simply as objects, with the internal and spiritual values overtaken by the merely external and material values.
In the area of sex alone, a lot of things need to be clarified. Sexual modesty, very different from prudery, is hardly known.

How the legitimate sexual value can be integrated with love, which in turn can involve some sense of shame, is hardly known. The reality now is that many people are having a fiesta cheaply exploiting this angle.

Especially in TV shows, this need to talk about what comprise a healthy and even Christian sense of shame should be very clearly articulated. Local TV is flooded with inane shows, full of gossips and even foul language.

In fact, I would like to appeal to our big TV networks -- ABS-CBN, GMA, etc. -- to strictly conform with a clear code of ethics that should be well understood and appreciated by everyone working there.

We priests talk a lot about continuing formation for ourselves. We try to fulfill it, of course, and yet there are still a lot of things to be done, to be improved and corrected.

There is therefore have more reason for those in TV and other media to submit to an appropriate program. The big networks could not now take this need for some effective continuing formation for granted. An awful lot is at stake.

At the moment, we have gone really bad. I am just wondering, for example, at what social significance the gossip about the love life of Madame Auring, poor thing, could have.

We have to talk about this crucial sense of shame. For basic reference, I can cite a book written by the Pope when he not yet a Pope. "Love and Responsibility" has a very enlightening chapter about this sense of shame.

It's good to have fun. Let's just not forget about some basic responsibilities we have, responsibilities often taken for granted by us.