Enhancing our dignity

WE have to realize more deeply that our dignity as a human person and

as a child of God is enhanced to the extent that we manage, with God’s

grace, to live as a family, as a community, as a people and nation,

etc., and all of these along the lines and spirit of communion with

God and with everybody else.

  

This is because as a human person with intelligence and will, we are

meant not only to know but also to love God and others and, in fact,

everything else in the world. We are meant to be connected with each

other and to live as an organic community. We are not just individual

persons. We are meant to be with others, with God as the first other.

  

And as a child of God, created in God’s image and likeness and

redeemed by Christ, we have to reflect the innermost inter-trinitarian

life of God, and the unity and love between Christ and the Father and

the Spirit.

  

Every opportunity we have to live community life, starting with our

family, and then our relatives and friends, our classmates, and the

many other aggrupations we get involved in, is an invitation for us to

grow and develop our dignity as a human person and as a child of God

to its fullness.

  

We have to be more aware of this fundamental truth about ourselves,

and to start taking serious action to conform ourselves to it. We can

start with our family life, seeing to it that we do everything to make

that aspect of our life really vibrant and meaningful.

  

Let’s not forget that it is in the family, the basic unit of society,

that everyone of us starts to develop both as an individual and a

social person. From there we are supposed to learn how to relate

ourselves to God and everybody else.

  

But, alas, can we truly affirm that the family nowadays is as it

should be? Unfortunately, I have been observing many families today

having unhealthy conditions. There is hardly any good family life.

  

Many husband-and-wife relationships as well as parents-children

relationships are tenuous. And among children, the spirit of

fraternity is hardly felt. There is a lot of cases of isolation and

fragmentation.

  

We really have to look into how we can make the family a strong and

cheerful one, animated by the right spirit of love that comes from

God.

  

In this regard, I was happy to read in Pope Francis “Gaudete et

exsultate” a strong affirmation of how we need to develop a life in

community and in communion with God and others in the different levels

of our life.

   

Here are some relevant words of his: “When we live apart from others,

it is very difficult to fight against concupiscence, the snares and

temptations of the devil and the selfishness of the world. Bombarded

as we are by so many enticements, we can grow too isolated, lose our

sense of reality and inner clarity, and easily succumb.

  

“Growth in holiness is a journey in community, side by side with

others…A community that cherishes the little details of love, whose

members care for one another and create an open and evangelizing

environment, is a place where the risen Lord is present, sanctifying

it in accordance with the Father’s plan…” (140 ff.)

  

It’s worthwhile taking note that by creating a community among

ourselves, we make God present in our lives and enhance our dignity as

human persons and children of God.

  

We sometimes think that to be with God is to experience some

extraordinary phenomena, when we can have God right where we are,

inside each one of us, and among ourselves and around us! We don’t

have to look far and to go far to have God.