From self-denial to self-fulfillment

 THE secret is to follow Christ. He himself said so. “If

you want to follow me, deny yourself, carry the cross and follow me.”

(Mt 16,24) We need to be most familiar with this very useful formula

in our life and try our best to live by it.

  

            The self-denial asked by Christ is not of the kind that

leads us to our self-annihilation. Far from it. It will rather lead us

to our self-fulfillment. It is asking that instead of our own selves,

we should have Christ as the center of our attention always, the very

core and substance of our consciousness. We need, of course, to

exercise our faith to live by this divine indication.

   

            And the reason is simple. Christ is the very pattern of

our humanity in its original state and the redeemer of our damaged

humanity. It’s him in whom we can have our ultimate fulfillment, our

true and lasting joy and peace. That’s why Christ said he is “the way,

the truth and the life” for us. We cannot go to God, our Father and

creator, except through him.

  

            We have to be wary of certain ideologies, cultures and

lifestyles that tend to replace Christ as the cause of our

self-fulfillment. Sad to say, these appear to be proliferating these

days. We have to learn to do battle with them.

  

            The self-denial asked by Christ will obviously require a

lot of effort and sacrifice. That’s because we have to contend with

our tremendous tendency to stick to our own selves—our own ideas,

desires, ambitions, etc. Besides, this tendency is constantly

reinforced now by the many allurements of the world, not to mention,

the tricks and wiles of the devil himself.

  

            But again, we can be sure that all this effort and

sacrifice is all worth it. We need to do everything to wean ourselves

from our own selves and start to rely on Christ completely. That

absolute reliance on Christ does not annihilate us. It will simply

bring us to our most perfect and ideal state. We should have no doubts

or qualms in pursuing that ideal.

  

            With Christ, we would know how to use our powers and

faculties properly. We would have a clear idea of the real and

ultimate purpose of our life here on earth. With him, we somehow would

know how to cope with all the possible situations we can have here,

including our problems, mistakes and failures.

  

            The self-denial asked by Christ does not remove our

involvement and engagement in our earthly and temporal affairs. It

simply puts them in the right context and the right direction. We

cannot deny that especially these days, we are exposed to many and

complicated distracting elements which we have to learn to handle.

             The self-denial asked by Christ frees us from unnecessary

baggage. It improves our vision and understanding of things, and

predisposes our heart to the real love which can only be a sharing in

God’s love and, therefore, our true fulfillment.

  

            We therefore should not have superfluous things, creating

needs that are really not needs, and thereby generating attachments

that can be a hindrance in one’s relation with God and with others.