Our need for accompaniment and continuing conversion

WE have to be more aware of this crying need. More than that, we have to come up with plans and strategies that would effectively address this need whose neglect has spawned a lot of scandals even among supposedly “good” people like the clergy and other religious leaders. 

 We cannot deny that even if we can consider ourselves as already quite mature, so gifted with impressive personal qualities that would make us believe that we can easily tackle the different challenges and trials we meet in life, we actually continue to have weaknesses that can act up in some hidden way. 

 We should never forget that despite our spiritual and moral strength, we will always have the so-called “feet of clay” (cfr. Daniel 2,33) which means that our earthly and human powers are actually unstable. Just a little disturbance of a temptation, falling into sin would just be a matter of time. 

 Besides, we have been warned that even a just man can fall seven times in a day. (cfr. Prov 24,16) St. Paul also said that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph 6,12) 

 And given the new challenges posed by the new developments around, like the Internet where good and evil play absorbing albeit confusing games, we cannot deny that our weaknesses, while dormant so far, can start to stir up and dominate us. 

 What can make things worse is when we would just keep our struggles and falls in secret. That’s when we would put ourselves in some hidden bondage. These cases of secret or hidden bondage can arise in the area of our human weaknesses. Thus, people can have this enslavement to pornography and sex, to drinks and drugs, or worse, to some evil spirits who can appear to them, as St. Paul warned us, as an angel of light. (cfr. 2 Cor 11,14) 

 In cases like this, the most important thing to do is to pray hard, offer a lot of sacrifices, and then open up with someone who can help those affected spiritually and morally. And if needed, some professional help from psychologists or psychiatrists who have good human and Christian formation may be availed of. 

 This is when we really wound need accompaniment and conversion. Accompaniment should be exercised in the higher and more important aspects of our life—mental, psychological, moral and spiritual, etc. In these aspects, we can never say that our need for it would already be fully satisfied. In fact, the older we get, the more experienced and accomplished we are in our life, the more would be our need for accompaniment. 

 And that’s simply because the challenges and trials we face as we get older and more accomplished become more subtle and complicated. And we always need the help of others to face them. Woe to us if we are left only to ourselves to face all of the challenges and trials in life. 

 We have to realize that that we need to be accompanied always by others as well as to accompany others. We should be both sheep and shepherd. There’s both an active and passive side of this need of ours for accompaniment. If we do not feel that need yet, then it is about time that we develop an abiding sense of that need.

Daily renewals

GIVEN the way we are in this world, marked as it is with frequent inconsistencies and infidelities, we need to see to it that this business of making daily renewals of our commitments to God and to everybody else should be taken up seriously. 

 For this, we have to be clear about what the real purpose of our life is, how we can relate everything in our day to this ultimate purpose of ours. But first of all, we should know what making these daily renewals is all about. 

 In the gospel, we can hear Christ saying: “My sheep hear my voice; and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish forever, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand.” (Jn 10,27-28) 

 That, in a nutshell, is the ideal condition for us to be in. It’s when we can abidingly hear Christ’s voice and follow him. We should be wary of our strong tendency to hear and be guided only by ourselves and by some worldly standards. We really need to humble ourselves so that we can let Christ’s voice to be heard and followed by us. 

 Right at the beginning of the day, we should already direct and set our mind and heart on Christ, promising to offer everything to him, to do things with and for him, and to know him more and more by going through certain practices of prayer, spiritual reading and theological study, and other acts of piety. 

 Besides those, we should make it an organic part of our lifestyle to always begin and begin again in our struggle to hear Christ’s voice. That’s because we cannot deny that we often fail to be consistent and faithful to our original intention to always listen to him and to follow his ways. 

 We just have to begin and begin again, never getting tired, since Christ never tires of us. This seems to be the law of our earthly life. We should not remain down all the time. We can and should always get up. 

 That we always sin is already quite known. St. John in his first letter said so. “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him (God) a liar, and His word is not in us.” (1,10) So, let’s just acknowledge our sinfulness and ask for forgiveness. Let’s avoid playing the hypocrite. 

 Besides, St. Paul vividly describes the constant inner struggle we all have between good and evil. From his Letter to the Romans, we read: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate...I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.” (7,15ff.) 

 And again, we are told that we are actually ranged against powerful enemies. Not only do we have to contend with our wounded flesh, and the sinful allurements of the world. We also have to do battle with powerful spiritual enemies. 

 As St. Paul put it in his Letter to the Ephesians, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (6,12) 

 Let’s remember this fact of life, and not waste too much time lamenting and feeling bad because of our weakness and sinfulness. All we have to do is to be quick to say sorry, saying it from the heart no matter how repeatedly we have to do it. And from there, let’s continue the process of conversion and transformation, going to confession often, cultivating the virtues, sanctifying our work and ordinary duties, etc.

Spiritual filters and purifiers

WITH all the things that we are now exposed to, we cannot be naïve to think that as long as these things are not instantly wrong, we can feel free to receive them anytime. That kind of mindset may be applicable in times past when things were quite simple and relatively clean. 

 But not anymore now. Many of the things that we used to take for granted to be good may now contain a lot of hidden dirt. And so, we need some kind of filters and purifiers, especially in our spiritual and moral life. 

 Before, for example, we used to take tap water directly from the faucet or the well, and it was just ok. Not anymore now. Water now needs to go through some process of filtration and purification for it to be safe water to drink. 

 If that is the case with ordinary water, it is much more so in the things that affect our spiritual and moral life. Movies, video clips, social media, etc. can give us a lot of information and knowledge, but they also bring with them a lot of dirt, mostly hidden, in terms of fake news, distractions, click baits, and all kinds of temptations. 

 We now have to learn how to deal with this reality that may have given us a lot of good, but also has led us to all sorts of anomaly, like addiction to pornography and self-indulgence, the rise of hidden bondage and all sorts of mental and psychological illnesses, the spreading of fake news, etc. 

 Basically, what is needed is for us to be truly anchored on God. We cannot overemphasize the importance of this truth. If we would just rely on our own powers, there is no way we can properly handle the things around that contain a complicated mixture of good and evil. 

 With God, we can always act with prudence, we would have a clear vision of the real and ultimate purpose of our life here on earth, we would be properly guarded against temptations and the occasions of sin. Somehow, we would have a good sense of priority among the many things that we have to handle, giving precedence always to our spiritual needs over our bodily needs, etc. 

 We should try our best that we be with God always. That is actually what is proper to us. Our life is meant to be a life with God always. Whatever we do should be done with God and for God. 

 With God, we would know how to filter the bad elements that go or are mixed with the good and legitimate things we handle everyday, including the very subtle ones that can easily escape notice from us. 

 We should see to it also that our true hunger is to be with God. This is how we purify ourselves. We should not be contented with feeling clean due to the filtering of the spiritual and moral dirt we do while handling the things of today’s world. We should be intensely attracted to God such that God should be our greatest and strongest hunger. 

 Let’s take care of our daily examinations of conscience where we can identify where we have gone wrong, where we need some improvement, and where we can make the appropriate resolutions, plans and strategies to tackle the very complicated challenges we are facing today.