Daily with Christ

HOW to deal with Christ realistically in a day-to-day basis, or even moment-to-moment, is a challenge we have to face if we truly want to be consistent with our identity as Christian believers out to seek sanctity in the middle of the world.

We already know enough theory and doctrine about this aspect of Christian life. And now is the time to see how this ideal can be made real, how this truth of faith can be turned into life itself.

Of course, we cannot deny that we still need to catechize and evangelize about this truth of faith. This need can never be fully overcome. Let’s hope that more and more people can take up the duty to catechize and evangelize wherever their situations and circumstances can take them.

But together with that enormous task is the even more formidable effort to bring the doctrine into functioning reality. And we should never take this for granted. Much of the failure in evangelization actually stems from the scandal of the disparity between our words and our actions. We need to close, or at least, narrow the gap.

Far be it from us to be good only in words and intentions, but lagging way behind in deeds and behavior! Far be it from us to be Christian only in name or de iure, but not in concrete life or de facto!

We, first of all, have to remind ourselves that following Christ everyday, dealing with him moment to moment requires nothing less than real sacrifice, self-denial, carrying the cross. Christ himself already told us so, and he has shown it in deeds with his very own crucifixion and death.

We need to look for him, doing this earnestly and continually. It’s only when we look for him in the first place that we can aspire to find him, and once finding him, we can start to love and serve him.

We have to sharpen our sense of this need to look for him. We have to overcome our tendency to get contented with our own selves, our own ideas, our own goals. We should be wary of our tendency to be guided in life solely by our thoughts, if not simply by feelings, and then by the fads and trends around.

We have to dash that attitude by the simple realization that we are nothing without God, since God as our Creator is the very giver and keeper of our existence and everything else in it.

As giver and keeper of our existence, he is always in us and in everything. Not only that, he is also the maker of the nature of all things. Whenever we learn or discover something, we always have immediate reason to go to God, at least to thank him for what we have learned or discovered, and then later to figure out with him the purpose of our new knowledge and discovery.

This is how we can deal with Christ, the son of God who became man to reveal everything to us about God and about ourselves, in a day-to-day or even moment-to-moment basis. We have to be wary of cutting Christ out of

We have to be careful not to allow our mere feelings of joy and sense of purpose to dominate and lead us whenever we get to learn or discover something. This is the usual predicament we tend to fall into.

Instead of referring things to God, we make ourselves as the ultimate subject of any knowledge and discovery we make. This is ridiculous, since we would be distorting the reality of things, we would be making our own world.

If this goes uncorrected, the distortion can become systemic as it becomes part of our culture and can be articulated in various structures and institutions, social, political, economic, legal, etc.

We need to foster an abiding sense of recollection to be able to maintain the proper attitude and awareness of God and his will and ways even as we get immersed in our daily affairs.

And just like anything else that we like to accomplish, a certain plan, program or system is needed for us to be able to live in this way everyday. We need a time for serious prayer, we need to cultivate the art of presence of God, rectitude of intention, sanctification of our work.

We need to study the doctrine of our faith more thoroughly, develop virtues and avail of the sacraments. We have to learn how to use our time, organizing it in a way attuned to our need to deal with Christ daily.