YES, dear, we are meant for a supernatural life, or more bluntly said,
a life with God, a life immersed in God, a life in union with God
where his will and ours are supposed to work in sync but in all
freedom.
No coercion involved, no undue pressure applied. Just sheer love, with
all the forcefulness of freedom love generates, that makes us unite
ourselves with him, as he in the first place unites himself as our
Father, Creator and Savior, with us.
The love that is supposed to be the underlying law of our life has its
origin and fulfillment in God. Its best expression is when we share in
the very life of God. We should avoid trivializing the true character
of love meant for us, and reneging on our duty to develop a
supernatural life with God.
To be sure, our life is not simply natural, ruled by reason and will
alone, supported by our emotions and the whole gamut of bodily senses,
organs and systems. Nor is it simply conditioned by social trends,
economic and political developments, or historical and cultural
factors.
It is also supernatural, not only in its goal or orientation, but even
now, as in, here and now as we breathe. And that’s simply because
there’s something spiritual in us. We are not purely material beings.
We are meant for a supernatural life. Our human nature, with our
spiritual soul that enables us to know and to love, and therefore to
enter into the lives not only of others but also and most importantly,
of God, urges us to develop a supernatural life.
It’s a life with God always. It just cannot be exclusively our own
life, taken personally or collectively. It’s a life that depends
mainly on God who gives us the grace that purifies and elevates it to
his, but it also depends on us, on our freedom to correspond to this
loving will of God for us.
We have to develop a taste and even an appetite for the supernatural
life with God and of things supernatural in general. In this we have
to help one another, because in the end, this is our common ultimate
end in life—how to live our life with God, how we can be immersed in
God even as we are immersed also in the things of the world.
For this to take place, we need to learn to pray, to study the
doctrine of our faith, develop virtues, live in God’s presence to such
an extent that we would be able to see God in everything and to relate
everything to him. In other words, that we would know how to be
contemplatives even if we are immersed and dirtied by the things of
this world.
We need to have recourse to the sacraments, especially that of the
Holy Eucharist, because the sacraments are the ordinary channels
through which God’s grace comes to us. How wonderful if we get to
understand the true significance of the sacraments which are the
effective signs of Christ’s continuing presence and redemptive work
among us!
In other words, we have to develop a certain unity of life that is
founded on the truth that our life is supernatural, and not just
natural. We have to learn how to blend prayer with action, the sacred
with the mundane, the spiritual with the material, the eternal with
the temporal, etc.
With the increasing pace of modern life, with its fascination for
technology and values like pragmatism, etc., it’s crucial that we take
a close, serious look at our responsibility to develop a proper
relation with God, our piety toward him. This is most crucial because
our attitude toward others and toward everything else would depend on
how our relation is with God.
This is becoming an urgent necessity, since many now are the factors
that tend to snuff out our sense of piety. The many concerns and
pressures we meet everyday have an effective desensitizing effect on
piety.
This is not to mention that especially in our very complicated times,
we also meet a lot of puzzles and contradictions that erode our faith
and piety in a supreme being that is supposed to be supernatural, all
wise and all powerful.
To develop this supernatural life, with need to exercise our faith and
piety to the full. With faith and piety, we allow God, more than our
own devices, to guide us through any situation we may find ourselves
in, good or bad, big or small.
a life with God, a life immersed in God, a life in union with God
where his will and ours are supposed to work in sync but in all
freedom.
No coercion involved, no undue pressure applied. Just sheer love, with
all the forcefulness of freedom love generates, that makes us unite
ourselves with him, as he in the first place unites himself as our
Father, Creator and Savior, with us.
The love that is supposed to be the underlying law of our life has its
origin and fulfillment in God. Its best expression is when we share in
the very life of God. We should avoid trivializing the true character
of love meant for us, and reneging on our duty to develop a
supernatural life with God.
To be sure, our life is not simply natural, ruled by reason and will
alone, supported by our emotions and the whole gamut of bodily senses,
organs and systems. Nor is it simply conditioned by social trends,
economic and political developments, or historical and cultural
factors.
It is also supernatural, not only in its goal or orientation, but even
now, as in, here and now as we breathe. And that’s simply because
there’s something spiritual in us. We are not purely material beings.
We are meant for a supernatural life. Our human nature, with our
spiritual soul that enables us to know and to love, and therefore to
enter into the lives not only of others but also and most importantly,
of God, urges us to develop a supernatural life.
It’s a life with God always. It just cannot be exclusively our own
life, taken personally or collectively. It’s a life that depends
mainly on God who gives us the grace that purifies and elevates it to
his, but it also depends on us, on our freedom to correspond to this
loving will of God for us.
We have to develop a taste and even an appetite for the supernatural
life with God and of things supernatural in general. In this we have
to help one another, because in the end, this is our common ultimate
end in life—how to live our life with God, how we can be immersed in
God even as we are immersed also in the things of the world.
For this to take place, we need to learn to pray, to study the
doctrine of our faith, develop virtues, live in God’s presence to such
an extent that we would be able to see God in everything and to relate
everything to him. In other words, that we would know how to be
contemplatives even if we are immersed and dirtied by the things of
this world.
We need to have recourse to the sacraments, especially that of the
Holy Eucharist, because the sacraments are the ordinary channels
through which God’s grace comes to us. How wonderful if we get to
understand the true significance of the sacraments which are the
effective signs of Christ’s continuing presence and redemptive work
among us!
In other words, we have to develop a certain unity of life that is
founded on the truth that our life is supernatural, and not just
natural. We have to learn how to blend prayer with action, the sacred
with the mundane, the spiritual with the material, the eternal with
the temporal, etc.
With the increasing pace of modern life, with its fascination for
technology and values like pragmatism, etc., it’s crucial that we take
a close, serious look at our responsibility to develop a proper
relation with God, our piety toward him. This is most crucial because
our attitude toward others and toward everything else would depend on
how our relation is with God.
This is becoming an urgent necessity, since many now are the factors
that tend to snuff out our sense of piety. The many concerns and
pressures we meet everyday have an effective desensitizing effect on
piety.
This is not to mention that especially in our very complicated times,
we also meet a lot of puzzles and contradictions that erode our faith
and piety in a supreme being that is supposed to be supernatural, all
wise and all powerful.
To develop this supernatural life, with need to exercise our faith and
piety to the full. With faith and piety, we allow God, more than our
own devices, to guide us through any situation we may find ourselves
in, good or bad, big or small.
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