talks to us about the three parables of the lost sheep,
the lost coin
and the prodigal son, obviously highlights the wonderful
mercy of God
who takes the initiative to look after us when we, for
one reason or
another, get lost.
It’s very
heartwarming to savor those words with which the
parables conclude. They speak of exquisite joy. “There
shall be joy
before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance.”
And, “It was
fit that we should make merry and be glad, for this your
brother was
dead and is come to life again; he was lost, and is
found.”
With these
words, we have a clear idea of what would make
God happy. And that is when we come back to him after
straying from
him. That is when we say sorry. In short, it’s when we
develop a true
spirit of penance that reconciles us with our Father,
God.
This spirit of
penance is essentially that abiding
awareness that while we try to avoid sin or anything that
can offend
God and others, we also know that one way or another,
sooner or later,
we cannot help but fall into some sin, if not big ones,
then some
small ones.
This is our
constant predicament while we are still here
on earth. Our human condition is such that we would
always be haunted
by our own personal weaknesses, and by the many
temptations around,
not to mention the wiles of evil spirits that roam around
the world.
The spirit of
penance sharpens our awareness of this fact
of life which we tend to take for granted, especially
because, already
wallowing in the dirty waters of the world, we can reach
the point
when we can hardly distinguish between what is good and
evil. Worse,
we can consider what is actually evil as good.
That’s why even
during these times of tremendous progress
in knowledge, science, technology and in practically
every field of
life, there is also such dramatic and massive darkening
of conscience
as to approve, legalize and even sanction such inherently
sinful
things like abortion. To its proponents, abortion is now
a human
right.
What the true
spirit of penance does to correct this
dangerous tendency of ours is to relate our knowledge of
what is good
and evil to God, and not simply to our own experiences,
our own
feelings, our own estimations and consensus, no matter
how backed up
by powerful philosophies, ideologies and other
technicalities.
It is God, the
Creator and our Father, who is the ultimate
arbiter to know which is right and wrong, which is good
and evil. It’s
not us. We are not the creator of the universe nor of our
own selves.
We can only respect, reflect and follow what God the
Creator has
designed.
And since God
is God, infinitely supernatural and
mysterious to us, we have to realize very deeply that
this spirit of
penance can only take place if it is developed in the
context of
faith, a gift of his that would enable us to see a more
complete
picture of reality.
This spirit of
penance just cannot be a mere product of
our own making, based only on our estimations. It’s only
when it is
developed on the ground of faith that it enables us to
see things more
objectively, more deeply, more extensively.
To this gift of
faith which God gives us in abundance, we
have to correspond with humility, that attitude of
dependence on God,
in sharp contrast to that of self-centeredness and
self-absorption.
No comments:
Post a Comment