comfort zone that usually takes place in such subtle and
deceiving way
that we can even think that we are having a hard time
while getting
into it and wallowing in it.
Let’s always
keep in mind what Christ said, ‘Whoever
wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his
cross, and
follow me.’ This is the path we have to take in life.
This tendency
to slide to our comfort zones comes as a
result of the combined tricks of our wounded flesh, the
world and the
devil. In that state and condition, we of course would
fail to do what
we ought to do. We trigger a process of deterioration and
decadence
that can be accompanied by deceptive air of complacency
and
self-satisfaction.
Yet, in spite
of all that, we actually never lose the
sense of what ought to be done. God’s voice, no matter
how muted and
distorted, never fails to do some tapping at our
consciences. There’s
nothing so bad and evil in this world that would
completely silence
that voice.
Our duty, of
course, is to be like many of these
high-fidelity gadgets that can quickly and faithfully
register sounds
so that we can hear God’s voice and feel the impulse that
it usually
gives us.
That voice and
impulse actually give us the meaning and
direction of the tasks we need to do at any given moment.
They are an
invitation to do things and to live our life not only by
ourselves,
with our own estimations of what is good, true and
beautiful, but
always with God, our Creator and Father, who made us to
be like him.
Let’s never
forget that our life here on earth has always
been some kind of a struggle, a warfare. For those who
believe in God,
it is actually a war of peace and love, not of mere
destruction,
violence, and mere avid desire for power, wealth and
fame.
It is a
beautiful war that can make use of a richly
equipped armory of spiritual and moral weapons. It is a
war to attain
our true dignity, or rather to recover it since we
actually had it in
the beginning of time but lost it through sin.
We obviously
cannot and should not belittle the kind of
enemies that we are ranged against. They are powerful and
skilled in
all techniques of deceit. Still we can have God with us.
He actually
never abandons us and, in fact, would pay greater
attention to us when
he would find us in danger of losing our dignity.
But we need to
correspond to his presence and his ways.
That is our problem, since very often we lull ourselves
with many
earthly things that would make us deaf to God’s
promptings and
interventions.
These earthly
things, for certain, have their objective
and legitimate value, except that we tend to use them out
of
proportion or with motives that are not quite right and
healthy. We
use them mainly to get a feel-good effect or for some
merely practical
purposes.
Our work is one
such earthly element that, while having a
objective value, can take us away from God and from our
real duties.
That’s when our work leads us to activism, workaholism or
‘professionalitis,’ instead of deeper sense of religion,
piety and
apostolic concern.
Other earthly
things could be food, drinks, sex, music,
movies, sports and other forms recreation and
entertainment. Nowadays,
we cannot deny the explosion of songs and films that can
make us feel
good but with messages that are quite questionable, and
with melodies
and themes that spoil the flesh but impoverish the
spirit.
Nowadays, I
often tell friends that while they may listen
to any kind of music and watch any kind of movies and
enjoy all of
them, they should also feel the need to immerse
themselves in sacred
music and films with spiritual themes, if only to have
some balance
and to keep our proper bearing.
It cannot be
denied that if we are constantly bombarded
with stimuli that are Godless or mainly mundane, then we
would slowly
lose the sense of the sacred, we would put ourselves more
and more at
the mercy of the worldly and the sensual.
We would find
it hard to pray, to make sacrifices, and to
do our real duties. We would put ourselves in the corner
of our
comfort zone, oblivious of what would really matter in
our life.
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