Life is a mystery

THIS truth we should never forget.

No matter how busy we are and are unavoidably sucked into a frenzy of activities, we should never forget life is a mystery. We have to learn to pause and consider the world of mysteries that also govern our life.

No matter how much earthly knowledge we can accumulate, we have to remember that life with such knowledge does not lose but rather gains on its mysterious character. Even the most obvious fact right before us can drip with mysteries.

This is because by our very nature, we tackle not only the material reality. Due to our spiritual powers of intelligence and will, we cannot help but be at least introduced to the spiritual reality where natural mysteries abound. We can, of course, plunge into it.

Besides, in Christian belief we not only enter into the spiritual world, but through our spiritual faculties aided by grace, we are capable of being lifted to the supernatural order where mysteries abound even more and in a much higher level.

Mysteries are truths, repeat, truths and not merely figments of one’s imagination, that surpass our capacity to understand. They are always helpful to us. At least a few are necessary for us to develop properly as persons and ultimately as children of God which, in Christian faith, we are.

The world of mysteries is not an empty space, a limitless void, a dark reality we feel we have the option to bother or not. It is a shoreless ocean of truths and blinding lights that we have to learn to deal with, since they are relevant to our life.

“Man lives not by bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Lk 4,4) For a Christian believer, these words of Jesus confirm the reality and relevance of mysteries in our life.

We should do everything to keep and nourish our sense of mystery that includes a sense of the spiritual, the sacred and the supernatural. Anything that tends to undermine it should be rejected or at least acted upon, never ignored.

This sense of mystery is an abiding openness to the spiritual world, the continuing awareness of the truths of faith and belief, and a constant effort to relate these mysteries to our life, to our activities and concerns.

We should be careful because we tend to reduce reality simply to what is material and perceptible only to our senses. The spiritual reality is often ignored or even denied.

We should cultivate this sense as early as possible when we are still little children, bundles of joy still fresh from the womb, all the way to our old age, when we are already bags of bones ready for the tomb.

When we notice that we getting oblivious of this world of mysteries, as when we just drift into a mindless activism without any effort to study, reflect, meditate, pray, contemplate, etc., we have to react immediately.

We have to develop as early as possible the appropriate attitudes and skills to be adept in dealing with this world of mysteries. We no doubt are already equipped and outfitted for it. We just have to actualize these organs, senses, powers and faculties.

Just recently, I had the chance to prepare little kids for their First Communion. I enjoyed every minute of it as I relished probing their young heart and soul and seeing their very transparent eyes with only childish pranks to cloud them.

Mostly innocent and unexposed to the world of evil, they are all eager to believe and to enter the world of faith and mysteries. They just believe and don’t bother if they understand things or not. They have a naturally metaphysical mindset even if they immensely enjoy material things.

In the homily for their First Communion, I encouraged the parents and teachers to keep this sense of mystery of the children alive, and to develop it. For this, they the elders should give the proper example.

This is the challenge all of us elders face, because we often forget this world of mysteries and our behavior is hardly consistent to this reality