Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Accompanying and following up

IN this bounden duty of ours to care for one another, and
even more, to love one another as Christ has loved us, we have to make
sure that at least we learn to accompany everyone along the way of
life, always following him up to see how he is progressing.

            As parent, teacher, confidante, adviser or even just a
friend, we have to realize that we have this responsibility, and thus,
we have to equip ourselves accordingly. We have to learn to be mindful
and thoughtful of everyone, extricating our mind and heart from being
concerned simply with our own affairs and interests, or as some people
would put, from being concerned only with ‘what comes naturally.’

            We should not be guided only by what our senses can see
and feel, nor what our intelligence can perceive and discern. Without
rejecting them and, in fact, always using them, we should go beyond
our sensible perceptions and intellectual understanding of things and
allow the dynamics of faith, hope and charity to lead the way.

            These virtues of faith, hope and charity are supernatural
gifts that give us a more complete appreciation of people and events.
They bring us to another level, the level of the spiritual and
supernatural, or the divine level which ultimately is the end for all
of us and everything that happens in our earthly life.

            For this, we need to submit ourselves to a certain
discipline that would keep us thinking in terms of faith, hope and
charity, while making use of whatever data and info our senses and
intelligence can gather from the ground.

            In other words, that we develop a theological mind which
should not just be an intellectual activity but rather a genuine
personal contact with God, our Father and Creator who is always with
us for he is the one who keeps in existence and who actually guides us
through his abiding providence toward our proper end.

            Said another way, our effectiveness in accompanying and
following up others would depend on our actual identification with
Christ, our assuming his mind and heart which only have goodness,
wisdom and mercy to give all of us, and which only have redemption as
motive.

            It’s in this way that we develop the proper concern and
love for others. It’s in this way that we can manage to accompany them
always irrespective of whether they are near or far, present or
absent. It’s in this way that we can manage to go deep into their mind
and heart and to help them get back to God who is our final and proper
end.

            To put this ideal into practical terms, we need to make some kind of
daily plan that should start with using the spiritual means of prayer,
sacrifice and the sacraments before embarking on some human strategy.

            Let’s never forget that our concern for others has to be first
inspired by our love of God, since accompanying and following others
up is first of all God’s concern before it is ours. We are mere
cooperators and collaborators of God.

            We need to nourish this very crucial requirement of
vitally identifying ourselves with God. Thus, we have to make sure
that our prayer is real prayer, real contact with God where we can
really feel God’s attitude and sentiments toward us.

            And what can keep this vital link with God going is when
we also thoroughly study the doctrine of our faith, because it is in
that way that we concretize our accompaniment of the others. The
doctrine of our faith would indicate to us what attitude to cultivate,
what thoughts and desires to make, what words to say, what things to
do, etc.

            We should not be afraid to make attempts to reach out to
others no matter how many failures and disappointments we meet along
the way. In this we should simply be stubborn, not giving up. We need
to have the go-go attitude. We just have to adapt Alexander Graham
Bell’s attitude: “When one door closes, another opens.”

            We should be ready to do constant battle to things that
will constantly undermine or weaken this duty of ours to truly
accompany and follow up others. There are many distractions nowadays.
We can now easily find excuses to justify our neglect of this
responsibility.

            We really need time to pray and reflect, if only to
recover the proper attitude and outlook in this regard, and to develop
the relevant skills. With the world getting more complex and
challenging, we cannot afford to be left behind in this most important
department of our life!

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