Always in need of renewal

THIS is how we should always feel. Regardless of the many

things we may already have accomplished or the high esteem we may

already have gained among the people, we should never forget that we

are always in need of renewal.

            The Church itself, already in a state of holiness for

being the very mystical body of Christ, admits that it has to

continually renew and purify itself. This is how the Catechism puts

it:

            “The Church, ...clasping sinners to her bosom, at once

holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path

of penance and renewal. All members of the Church, including her

ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners.

                “In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed

with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time. Hence the

Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ's salvation but

still on the way to holiness.” (CCC 827)

            Thus, a Church institution that smugly claims its

spirituality is irreformably perfect is an anomaly, and is, in fact,

sowing the seed for its own self-destruction. It may have the

foundational charism from the Holy Spirit, but it should never forget

that it has sinners in her midst and, therefore, is always in need of

purification and renewal.

            And in spite of the original charism, the Holy Spirit may

make more modifications of that charism due to the changing

circumstances of the times. Fidelity to the charism is never a static

affair, since charism itself is neither a static, frozen or dead

thing. It is always alive and continues to adapt to the changing

circumstances. And our understanding of it can always stand deeper

improvement.

            Of course, it goes without saying that any development,

growth and modification on the original charism is always homogeneous.

The modifications are nothing other than a deepening and enriching of

the original charism, not radically changing that charism. The charism

is not meant to confine or restrict us to a certain way of life and of

doing things. It is always open to what the Holy Spirit prompts us to

do.

            This can somehow be gleaned from some words of Christ

himself. “For them I sanctify myself,” he said, “that they too may be

truly sanctified.” (Jn 17,19) Christ, who is holiness himself, goes

through the process of sanctifying himself still so as to sanctify

everybody else. Imagine that!

            Sanctity and everything involved in it—fidelity,

generosity, development of virtues, whether in the personal or

institutional levels—will always be a never-ending affair as long as

we are alive. It will always demand of us something. It is the

antithesis of the attitude that says enough to what the Holy Spirit

will show us.

            St. Peter also said something pertinent in his second

letter:  “Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to

goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to

self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to

godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.

            “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure,

they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your

knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is

nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from

their past sins.” (1,5-9)

            We should never stop growing in our spiritual life which

is a matter of growing in our love for God and for others. We ought to

feel the constant need for conversion and renewal.

The creativity of charity

IF we have the charity of God, we will always be creative.

Not only that. Our capacity to be flexible, adaptable to different

persons and situations and yet focused on our true goal—yes, that is,

not getting confused and lost along the way—will be practically

limitless.

            We should do our best to learn this creativity of the

charity of God as shown by Christ himself who loved us all the way to

offering his life on the cross. Christ’s creativity, flexibility and

adaptability went all the way as to be made like sin without

committing sin so we can be the righteousness of God. (cfr. 2 Cor

5,21)

            Learning how to be creative with the creativity of God’s

charity should be an exciting daily adventure we can have. Everyday we

never run out of occasions to be tested by difficulties,

disappointments, conflicts, etc., that, if regarded properly from the

point of view of our faith, can be the concrete occasions to discover

the different possibilities of the creativity of God’s charity.

            Let’s hope that we can be quick enough to see these golden

opportunities and take advantage of them. This learning of God’s

creative charity need not take place in big things. It usually takes

place in the small things—stretching our patience, for example, a

little bit more, or exerting an effort to smile and to disregard

impertinent situations, or trying to be positive, constructive and

encouraging in disappointing moments, etc.

            We need to remember that there’s nothing in our life,

whether big or small, good or bad, spectacular or ordinary and common,

that cannot be an occasion to develop this creativity of God’s

charity. God’s charity has all the power to convert these things into

opportunities of creative love.

            To be sure, we will always need the grace of God for this.

Thus, we should never forget to ask for that grace in our prayers. But

we have to do our part of exerting the necessary effort and

sacrifices.

            Indeed, to learn to be creative with the creativity of

God’s love will involve sacrifices, self-denial, letting go of certain

things that we have which actually will occasion a tremendous gain for

us. Let’s remember that if we are generous with God, God will even be

more generous with us.

            We need to make plans and strategies of how to discern

God’s will and ways of converting the events of our day as

opportunities to grow in that creativity of God’s charity. We should

be most aware of the importance of this duty.

            A day should not pass without trying to decipher God’s

will and ways. We have to remember always that nothing actually

happens in our life that is purely random, without purpose and without

possibilities for love to grow fruitful and creative. Let’s be keenly

discerning of these possibilities.

            To be able to carry out this duty, we have to meditate

closely on the life of Christ, especially the part of his passion,

death and resurrection, because it is in Christ’s life that we have

the pattern of how to be very creative with the creativity of God’s

love.

            Christ’s life should be etched vividly in our mind and

heart. Thus, we have to spend time studying and reflecting on his

words and deeds as recorded in the gospel, summarized systematically

in the catechisms, and taught authoritatively by the Church.

            We have to find time for this. It’s an investment that

pays us back with tremendous spiritual dividends.

The need for self-emptying

IF Christ had to empty himself if only to be like us and

with us, should we not also try to reciprocate the same process of

emptying ourselves so that we can be like him and be with him?

            St. Paul precisely had this in mind when he clearly said

in his Letter to the Philippians: “Have this mind among yourselves,

which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,

did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied

himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of

men...” (2,5-7)

            To empty ourselves the way Christ emptied himself is not

anymore an optional thing. It is a necessity if we truly want to

follow Christ, if we truly believe in him and love him, and if we show

that love by loving everybody else also.

            There’s no other way. Because of our unavoidable tendency

to fill ourselves with our own egos, no matter how good we feel we

are, we need to go through this process of self-emptying.

            We can be so full of ourselves, helplessly cocooned in our

own world, completely at the mercy of our social, economic, political

and other human conditionings, that we practically cut ourselves off

from God, and then from others.

            Thus, Christ himself commanded us that: “Whoever wants to

be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross daily and

follow me.” (Lk 9,23) This self-denial is precisely the self-emptying

that we need to go through.

            Everyday we need to have clear instances of practising

this self-denial and self-emptying. No day should pass without doing

some self-denial and self-emptying. We can never say that we can have

some good days when we can remain good without having to do some

self-denial and self-emptying. That just is not possible, given the

way we are.

            This truth should be clear to everyone. Self-denial and

self-emptying should be an integral part of our day. Our life will not

be a Christian life, or a life with Christ, if we do not practice some

self-denial and self-emptying.

            We surely will fail to develop our spiritual and

supernatural life with Christ without some self-denial and

self-emptying. We would be at the mercy of the erratic impulses of our

flesh, the deceptive allures of the world and the wiles of the devil

if we fail to have some self-denial and self-emptying.

            We need to learn how to deny and empty ourselves in order

to fill ourselves with God and with his love which is the only

authentic love that we can have. And this concern will be a

never-ending affair in our whole lifetime, because our heart will

always be an arena of the lifelong struggle between God and ourselves.

            To be sure, this self-emptying in order to be filled with

God’s love is not a matter of running away from our earthly affairs,

which will always be in need of material resources. It’s rather a

matter of making sure that our earthly and temporal affairs do not

convert into our end and god themselves, but rather as means to

develop our love for God, and with that love, also our love for

others.

            Christ assures us that if we have the proper priorities in

life, everything will just be fine. “Seek first the kingdom of God and

his righteousness,” he said, “and all these things will be given to

you as well.” (Mt 6,33)

The wisdom of silence

ESPECIALLY in these toxic days when we hear a lot of noise

in talk shows and in the field of politics, where we are bombarded

with all sorts of wrangling and bashing and slamming, it’s good to

revisit the indispensable role of silence in our life so we can

recover our proper bearing in this world that seems to be spinning

fast to self-destruction.

            Silence actually speaks volumes, a lot more than all the

ideas, words, theories and opinions we can produce. If it is the

silence of God, of Christ before Pilate and Herod, then we have the

silence that is the best response to all the clacking around.

            It is the silence that indicates that one is willing to

suffer and even die for whatever, because no matter what we say or do,

the world will always be in its erratic ways, and it will only take

the death of Christ to resolve everything, a death that leads to his

resurrection.

            That is why we are told to be patient, to deny ourselves

and to carry our daily cross. These are no defeatist divine

indications. They contain a lot of wisdom that goes beyond the wisdom

of the flesh, the wisdom of the world and of the devil who is the

father of lies.

            We need to see to it that we keep a firm grip on our

emotions. When not guided and inspired by faith, our emotions get

easily provoked and can open the gates for pride to come pouring in

and dominating us. And we end up with a worse scenario.

            Silence can be an expression of great strength, the

strength of Christ himself who was willing to suffer for the sins of

men in order to deliver death to our sins and conquer them with his

resurrection.

            We should always be guided by our faith, and more

specifically, by the example of Christ, especially in his passion,

death and resurrection where we can see the victory of silence over

the shouts of the people, “Crucify him, crucify him!”

            We have to spend time meditating on this Paschal Mystery

of Christ because that is the key that opens the gate of true wisdom.

There we will see that evil is properly responded with goodness, anger

and hatred with calmness, meekness and humility. There we will see

that shouts, screams and all sorts of noise are properly responded

with silence.

            If we respond evil with evil, anger with anger, then we

would just be acting out the primitive Law of Talion of eye for an

eye, tooth for a tooth, that would only lead us to kill one another,

or at least leave us all blind and toothless.

            Rather, we have to follow what St. John of the Cross once

said: “Where there is no love, put love. And you will find love.” We

should just focus on proclaiming the truth and all good values without

engaging in bitter discussions that can attract a lot of unwelcome

guests.

            The meditation of the Paschal Mystery lays to rest the

deceptive reasoning of our flesh, the world and the devil. It gives us

the global picture of things, broadening our vision and deepening our

understanding of things. It shows us the finer points of charity and

bridges the gap between our sinful world and our true definitive home

in heaven with God our Father.

            We should never underestimate the importance and necessity

of silence in our life!