Saturday, April 30, 2016

Let’s be a gift to all

YES, we have to be a gift to everybody, starting with God
and with everyone else, including those who may not like us. We have
been wired and equipped for it. We are meant for it.

            Some words from the Church’s pastoral constitution
“Gaudium et spes” can give us basis for this assertion that otherwise
would be purely gratuitous if we fail to consider some truths of faith
about ourselves.

            “The Lord Jesus,” the magisterial document says, “when He
prayed to the Father, ‘that all may be one…as we are one’ (Jn
17,21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a
certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the
unity of God’s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that
man is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot
fully find himself except through a sincere GIFT of himself.” (24,
emphasis mine)

            It would be good to go through this doctrine of our faith
slowly so we can have a better understanding of our own selves and
develop the proper frame of mind and attitude toward ourselves and the
world in general.

            We are creatures, and not beings who happen to burst into
existence spontaneously. We come not only from our parents, but
ultimately from God. We are not only material beings, of purely
biological nature and completely of the world, We are spiritual
beings, children of God, created to be the image and likeness of God.

            We are meant to love one another, to offer ourselves to
others as gift. This should be the mentality we have to develop and
attain. This is where we find our true joy, our true fulfillment.
Everything that we do or is done to us should be a function of this
basic, indispensable purpose of our life.

            We have to realize more clearly that as a gift, we have to
be as precious as we can be. This is what we normally do among
ourselves, like during birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, etc., when
out of true love we give something as a gift to someone. It would be
something precious, meaningful, and as lasting as possible.

            We have to understand then that all the lavish love,
affection and care showered on us right when we were still babies is
done to make us a precious gift to others in the future. They are
meant to empower us later on to love, to give ourselves as gift to
others.

            That’s how things ought to work. We should be wary when we
think that all those good things given to us are just for us to enjoy.
That would be dangerous.

            In children, to think that way is understandable, and
that’s why they have to be educated, reminded and corrected from time
to time. If these good things are not understood as ways for us to be
a precious gift to others in the future and to empower us to love
others, then there’s no other way but for us to get spoiled.

            We have to train ourselves to be always mindful and
thoughtful of the others. We have to understand that everything that
we do for our proper personal growth and development, and for our
progress toward human and Christian maturity would depend on how all
these efforts get inspired by love, by that basic principle that we
are supposed to be a gift to all. Otherwise, everything will just come
to nothing, and will do us more harm than good.

            Of course, to acquire that mentality of being a gift to
everyone has to contend with a great variety of difficulties. We have
our weaknesses, there are many temptations around, we actually have
powerful enemies that would want us to think and care simply for
ourselves. We have to do constant battle with them.

            The gospel tells us already of a three-fold weakness we
have: the concupiscence of the eyes, the concupiscence of the flesh
and the pride of life. (cfr 1 Jn 2,16)

             And in another part, we are told about the powerful
enemies that would want us to get spoiled in ourselves. “For we
wrestle,” St. Paul tells us, “not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wickedess in high places.” (Eph 6,12)

            We have no alternative but to wage a constant ascetical
struggle for us to fall and to be in love all the time, making
ourselves a gift to God and to everyone else. Every victory in this
struggle, no matter how little, counts!

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