OUR earthly life, it is said, is a
matter of a journey, a
pilgrimage toward our eternal destination. Given our conditions here
where we have to contend with all sorts of things, there is great need
for us to stay on course, avoiding getting diverted and lost along the
way.
To be sure, we already have been given everything for us
to stay on right track. And that’s nothing else or no one else than
Christ himself who tells us that he is “the way, the truth, and the
life.” The constant order of the day for us, therefore, is how to be
identified with Christ all the time.
We need to be deeply and permanently convinced of this
truth of our faith and also of its practicability, otherwise we would
be wasting time. That’s because we can appear to be doing a lot of
things and yet miss the goal to which we are meant to reach.
Especially these days when we have to contend with more
and more things brought about by our technological progress, we can
find ourselves losing focus and getting confused and lost. Our
attention can easily get scattered and dispersed, our thoughts become
shallow and narrow, our reactions turn automatic, mindless and
involuntary.
That is why we can never overemphasize the need to be
always vigilant, ever rectifying our intentions to make sure that
whatever we are doing or whatever situation or circumstance we can
find ourselves in, we are always focused on God and on his will and
ways.
God is both the principle and end of our life, as well as
the pattern of our life as shown to us by Christ who is made alive to
us by the Holy Spirit. He is the one that enables us to blend all
aspects, situations and circumstances of our life into one consistent
unity. In short, that’s when we can have unity of life.
We need to be wary of our tendency to get easily entangled
in our worldly and temporal affairs. Even if we are pursuing lofty
earthly goals, like philanthropy, social justice, economic well-being,
etc., we would still end up a big failure if all these otherwise
legitimate pursuits are not inspired and aimed at the twin love of God
and neighbor.
When we notice, for example, that we are doing well in our
business and other professions, but are rather cold and indifferent to
our duty to do apostolate and to help others get closer to God, then
we actually are not loving God by doing his will. We are simply
pursuing our own self-interests. We are apt to be reproached by Christ
who once said: “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the world,
and lose his own soul?” (Mk 8,36)
We cannot deny that this is the common phenomenon
nowadays. Many people are just after their own things at the expense
of their duty toward God and others. We need to see to it that in all
our activities, plans and concerns, there should only be one
objective. And that is to love God and neighbor, as we have been
commanded.
We therefore need to devise some kind of plan of life
where everything mutually influences each other in pursuit of our
ultimate goal of loving God and others. For example, our prayer should
inspire our work just as our work should give fuel and inspiration to
our prayer.
We need to close the gap between our life of prayer or our
contemplative life, on the hand, and our active life of work and our
involvement in worldly affairs, on the other hand. Our thoughts should
always be both in heaven and on earth, not one without the other.
This means that we should develop and grow in our
spiritual life as we get more and more immersed in our earthly
concerns. This is what is ideal for us, and it can be achieved if we
just put our whole mind and heart into this pursuit. It’s not an
impossible dream. We can always count on God’s grace.
We need to see the intimate union between the natural and
supernatural, the material and the spiritual, the temporal and the
eternal. These are dimensions and parameters that are involved in our
life, and we just have to learn how to deal with them.
As said earlier, we already have been given everything for
us to stay on the right track as we go through our life. We just have
to be constantly vigilant, making the necessary corrections along the
way.
pilgrimage toward our eternal destination. Given our conditions here
where we have to contend with all sorts of things, there is great need
for us to stay on course, avoiding getting diverted and lost along the
way.
To be sure, we already have been given everything for us
to stay on right track. And that’s nothing else or no one else than
Christ himself who tells us that he is “the way, the truth, and the
life.” The constant order of the day for us, therefore, is how to be
identified with Christ all the time.
We need to be deeply and permanently convinced of this
truth of our faith and also of its practicability, otherwise we would
be wasting time. That’s because we can appear to be doing a lot of
things and yet miss the goal to which we are meant to reach.
Especially these days when we have to contend with more
and more things brought about by our technological progress, we can
find ourselves losing focus and getting confused and lost. Our
attention can easily get scattered and dispersed, our thoughts become
shallow and narrow, our reactions turn automatic, mindless and
involuntary.
That is why we can never overemphasize the need to be
always vigilant, ever rectifying our intentions to make sure that
whatever we are doing or whatever situation or circumstance we can
find ourselves in, we are always focused on God and on his will and
ways.
God is both the principle and end of our life, as well as
the pattern of our life as shown to us by Christ who is made alive to
us by the Holy Spirit. He is the one that enables us to blend all
aspects, situations and circumstances of our life into one consistent
unity. In short, that’s when we can have unity of life.
We need to be wary of our tendency to get easily entangled
in our worldly and temporal affairs. Even if we are pursuing lofty
earthly goals, like philanthropy, social justice, economic well-being,
etc., we would still end up a big failure if all these otherwise
legitimate pursuits are not inspired and aimed at the twin love of God
and neighbor.
When we notice, for example, that we are doing well in our
business and other professions, but are rather cold and indifferent to
our duty to do apostolate and to help others get closer to God, then
we actually are not loving God by doing his will. We are simply
pursuing our own self-interests. We are apt to be reproached by Christ
who once said: “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the world,
and lose his own soul?” (Mk 8,36)
We cannot deny that this is the common phenomenon
nowadays. Many people are just after their own things at the expense
of their duty toward God and others. We need to see to it that in all
our activities, plans and concerns, there should only be one
objective. And that is to love God and neighbor, as we have been
commanded.
We therefore need to devise some kind of plan of life
where everything mutually influences each other in pursuit of our
ultimate goal of loving God and others. For example, our prayer should
inspire our work just as our work should give fuel and inspiration to
our prayer.
We need to close the gap between our life of prayer or our
contemplative life, on the hand, and our active life of work and our
involvement in worldly affairs, on the other hand. Our thoughts should
always be both in heaven and on earth, not one without the other.
This means that we should develop and grow in our
spiritual life as we get more and more immersed in our earthly
concerns. This is what is ideal for us, and it can be achieved if we
just put our whole mind and heart into this pursuit. It’s not an
impossible dream. We can always count on God’s grace.
We need to see the intimate union between the natural and
supernatural, the material and the spiritual, the temporal and the
eternal. These are dimensions and parameters that are involved in our
life, and we just have to learn how to deal with them.
As said earlier, we already have been given everything for
us to stay on the right track as we go through our life. We just have
to be constantly vigilant, making the necessary corrections along the
way.
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