journey, needing to reach a certain destination. And there
are just
too many elements we have to contend with, and not all of
them are
good and proper to us. In fact, many of them can be
dangerous.
Just like when
we are driving a car, when we need to have
our eyes open all the time, looking not only at what is
in front, but
also at what is on the right and on the left, and from
time to time
also at the back, as well as to follow traffic rules and
road signs,
we need to have the eyes of our mind and heart open all
the time.
Thus, in the
gospel, we are told: “Stay awake! For you do
not know on which day your Lord will come.” (Mt 24,42)
That’s the big
difference between the vigilance on the road and that on
our life’s
journey. The former has our destination quite known. The
latter has it
still hidden behind all kinds of mountains and clouds in
our life.
The secret of
this lifelong vigilance that has to contend
with many mysteries is for us to be with God always. This
is always
possible and doable. That’s because though he is the most
mysterious
being, he is also the most accessible. Though he is the
remotest, he
is also actually the nearest to us.
We have to
learn how to handle this paradox. This is not
an absurdity. It is simply a truth that is beyond the
reach of our
natural reasoning. It is attainable only when we make use
of God’s
gifts of faith, hope and charity.
We therefore
should never take these divine gifts for
granted. They are our constant means, our indispensable
weapons. We
really cannot make any real progress in our life-journey
when they are
not used.
Thus, St.
Augustine once said: “The less a man has God in
his thoughts, the less is his soul subject to God.” Of
course, the
reverse is also true: the more one has God in his
thoughts, the more
he is subject to God who loves, cares, protects and
guides him to
reach his final destination.
We should
cultivate the proper attitude and skill of
having God in our mind and heart all the time. This is
actually a
necessity that we have to freely attend to, an option
that actually is
not optional.
God never
sleeps. His love and concern for us never wanes.
As long as we entrust ourselves to him, we somehow manage
to be
attentive and watchful even if we need to sleep and are
always subject
to our limitations and the consequences of our sins.
He gives us his
all-powerful and wise light, a light that,
in the words of St. Augustine, is an “immutable light…not
an ordinary
light perceptible to all flesh, nor is it merely
something of greater
magnitude but still essentially akin, shining more
clearly and
diffusing itself everywhere by its intensity.”
A psalm
expresses this truth more simply: “The Lord is
good and upright. He shows the path to those who stray,
he guides the
humble in the right path, he teaches his way to the
poor.” (Ps 24)
We should
disabuse ourselves from relying solely on our
human estimations of things. We certainly and unavoidably
have to make
certain human estimations of things, be it historical,
social,
political, economic, etc., but all of them should be
inspired and
guided by our faith, hope and charity.
Let us humble
ourselves to acknowledge this truth and to
act out its implications and consequences. We have to be
wary of the
many intoxicating elements of the world today that tend
to deaden our
sensitivity to this need for complete reliance on God, on
our faith,
hope and charity, even as we also need to make full use
of our human
knowledge.
Sad to say,
there are many instances where we can see many
people simply depending on their human estimations of
things, making
themselves practically the standard and the very law of
things, frozen
in their self-righteousness, confined in their own world.
It would be
good that at the end of the day, we make a
brief examination of conscience, putting ourselves in the
presence of
God, pleading for his light, and reviewing how the day
went, seeing if
indeed it is God and not just some earthly goals that we
are seeking.
This is how we
can be truly watchful, putting ourselves on
track to our proper ultimate end.
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