Covenant and commitment

IT’S good that we revisit, as often as necessary, some basic realities about our lives, so we would know how to live and behave with a sense of purpose and direction.

We just can’t drift aimlessly in life. Or worse, get entangled with very absorbing earthly affairs without touching base with our life’s fundamentals that specify its real and ultimate objective.

Among these realities are those of the covenant God, our creator and father, has with us, and the commitment we are supposed to make as a response to that covenant.

At the moment, these basic truths and their corresponding duties appear slipping from our hands, much like a loose ball in a basketball game that we need to recover as quickly as we can.

More, we need to have a good, deep and thorough understanding of these truths so we can have, in a manner of speaking, a firm grip of them, with the view of fully living out their consequences and implications.

As much as possible, we should avoid having a shallow idea of what our life is all about or what it is for. Sad to say, there are several factors that lead us and keep us in that predicament.

There’s, of course, our human weaknesses. They often hold us hostage in the state of mediocrity and complacency. Though we are meant and equipped to go deeper, we many times get contented with the externals, the appearances, the shallow, lazy and easy things in life.

Then there are the workings and effects of sin that can result in sophisticated ideologies, philosophies, and worse, cultures and lifestyles that can keep us away from going to the ultimate dimensions or frontiers of our earthly life.

We always have to keep an eye in this area of concern. Life is, of course, a work in progress. It’s a warfare with changing frontlines, with its wins and losses. It’s at least a very malleable dynamic affair whose shape and direction depends on how we as protagonists play it.

We just have to be clear about when things are getting serious or are heading toward a fatal compromise. We have to avoid these to happen.

We have to understand that there is a divine covenant with us. God wants to share nothing less than his life with us. Such is his original and strong will that despite our lack of correspondence, or even rebellion, he does everything, including sending his Son to us and the Son dying for us, to fulfill that will.

The history of this divine covenant has been long and tortuous, with endless rich lessons for us to learn. Its present mode, the New Covenant with Christ himself actually acting on us through the Church, the sacraments, his Word and workings of the Holy Spirit, is very much in operation in our midst.

But are we aware of this? Are we properly reacting and cooperating with it as we should?
The answer is both ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ The ‘No’ is obvious. But the ‘Yes’ is actually also there, perhaps hidden, since the Church, in spite of her human shortcomings, cannot remain indifferent to this divine will for us. God himself will not allow the Church to fail in its divine mission, no matter what.

Still, we need to learn how to correspond properly to this divine covenant. And that’s why we have to sharpen our understanding and appreciation of the idea of commitment.

A commitment is the flowering of all our human powers that should be made to play in our relationship with God. It’s based and engined by the theological and supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity. It, of course, requires all human virtues.

It is the full and maximum play of all our powers and faculties, as they get engaged with our ultimate end and not just any human goals. It’s what gives direction and consistency to the many parts of our earthly life, and brings us beyond it.

We are equipped for it but we need divine grace for it to take effect. Otherwise, we will just be in the state of potency, and not in act, with respect to our final goal.

We need to make this truth more known to all, its skills and other require
ments taught and spread. We can take advantage of the many occasions aspects of this commitment are lived by us as we enter into contracts, into marriage and family, professional dealings, religious vows and promises, etc.