From prose to verse

ONE shout-out students of the school where I work like to
make during special events is “We do ordinary things extraordinarily
well!” I feel good everytime they do that. But I also realize I have a
tremendous task of explaining to them why it has to be that way, and
more importantly, how to convert  it from a mere slogan to a living
reality.

            We have always tried to impart to the boys that if they
have the proper attitude and skills, they can easily convert the prose
of their daily ordinary work and little duties into a verse of love
for God and for everybody else.

            They just have to learn to find Christ in everything they
get involved in. That is the secret. And it can be done if first of
all their faith and piety are strong and working. Obviously for that
to happen, they need to overcome whatever biases they may have about
the practicability of living by their faith in their ordinary
activities.

            We have to learn to find Christ in the little things which
comprise most of our day, if not of our whole life. This is not a
baseless assertion, an act of fantasizing, of hunting lions in the
corridors of the house.

            This is as real and true as can be. Of course, it requires
faith, but if we care to listen to faith, we will, in fact, find it
reasonable and practicable, not something quixotic, cocooned in the
realm of the abstract, the absurd and the impossible.

            Christ is God made man. As God, he is involved in our
creation, in our getting into existence. As such, since it’s existence
that is involved in creation, he cannot withdraw from us, since by
doing so would be like God withdrawing our existence. Since we
obviously exist, ergo, he is in and with us by the very fact of our
existence.

            As God and man, he is our redeemer, the one who, in a
manner of speaking, would re-do or re-create us after our original
state of humanity has been damaged by our sin.

            As such, since we all need to be redeemed at all times, he
neither can withdraw from us, since by doing so would be like this
God-and-man, Jesus Christ, withdrawing from our redemption. Since we
need to be redeemed always, Christ is also always with us. He actually
cannot help but redeem us, because of his great love for us.

            We need to be more aware of this reality about ourselves,
since we often do not realize it, dominated as we are with the merely
material and sensible realities and with what is the here-and-now and
what is immediately felt. We many times fail to go beyond this level.

            This is not to mention that our sins themselves make us
insensitive to this reality which is also a truth of faith. And our
sinfulness can be such that we would not even feel the need for
conversion, thus putting ourselves in some state of invincible
insensitivity to the truths of our faith.

            This is the truth of faith that serves as the basis for
our belief that Christ is also everywhere and all the time, and
especially in the little ordinary events and circumstances of our day.

            It’s in the little things, in the care we give to the
small, ordinary, prosaic activities and concerns of the day that
proves whether we are really true to our good intentions and to our
fervent affirmations of love and care for the others.

            We need to train ourselves to see Christ in the little
things. The objective reality is that Christ as God is everywhere.
He’s not only in the extraordinary events in our life. He is always
with us.

            Thus, we need to learn to be contemplative even in the
middle of the world, able to see God in all the good, the bad, and the
ugly that the world contains. We need to learn how to be recollected
so that even as we engage our senses and faculties with the many
immediate things in life, we don’t lose sight of the ultimate end.

            We need to exercise our faith. We cannot depend solely on
what we see, hear or feel. Neither would it be enough that we move
only when we understand things. We have to follow closely what our
faith tells us, even if there are mysteries involved.

            God’s providence is such that not only is he present in
everything. He is also actively intervening in our life, especially in
the little things, drawing us and everything else to himself