Filtering and purifying

THIS is a skill that is getting more and more relevant and

indispensable these days. With all the waste matter and other forms of

impurities and contaminants that now fill our environment, we have to

make sure that we, for example, filter and purify our water. We just

don’t drink directly from the tap anymore. We try our best to get hold

of water that is already processed, if not distilled.

  

            If this is true to our water needs, this is even more true

to our spiritual needs, that is, insofar as our thinking and willing

are concerned. In fact, filtering and purifying our ideas, thoughts,

intentions and desires is even more necessary since what are involved

are mainly invisible things—truth, goodness, beauty and such things as

our faith and beliefs, our loving, etc.—that are more important than

our material needs. And they require a more complicated process, so to

speak.

  

            We cannot deny that these days many things that at first

sight look good and can give us a lot of advantages can in the end

contain dangerous and toxic elements. The new technologies, for

example, can give us a lot of convenience and practical usage, but if

not filtered and purified, in a manner of speaking, they can also

plunge us headlong to moral perdition.

   

            Also, today there are a number of philosophies, theologies

and ideologies that can contain a lot of good principles, a lot of

truth, and yet somewhere along the line, they can also contain

doctrines that at best are questionable if not outright erroneous and

dangerous.

  

            Today’s fascination, for example, for diversity, tolerance

and correctness can be considered a progress in the general attitude

of people. The irony is that if not filtered and purified it can lead

to confusion and error about what is right and wrong, what is moral

and immoral.

   

            That fascination for diversity, tolerance and correctness

certainly fights against our tendency to bigotry and

narrow-mindedness. Again the irony is that such fascination can go to

extremes such that it becomes uncharitably intolerant also of those

who may not go along with it. It can go against its very own

philosophy. It can turn against itself.

  

            We always need some filtering and purifying in the

operations of our intelligence and will. I remember a friend who is

deaf and is given a hearing aid. He complained because the hearing aid

does not filter all the surrounding sounds. And so he hears all kinds

of noise and sounds in the environment at the same time. and he could

not hear what he ought or wants to hear

             And what is the filtering and purifying agent we should

use in our dealing with ideas, thoughts, desires and intentions? None

other than to be with God. Said in another way, the agent is to live

genuine charity.

   

            To be with God or to live charity makes us discriminating

without being discriminatory. It enables us to distinguish the

essential from the non-essential in life. It helps us to discern the

truth.

  

            We really need to do everything so that our union with God

and our ability to live charity is always sustained through prayers,

study of the doctrine, development of virtues, recourse to the

sacraments, waging of the ascetical struggle, etc. Without these

means, there is no way but to get contaminated by the many beautiful

and pleasurable impurities around.

  

            To be sure, with God and with charity as the filtering and

purifying agent, we would not be left vulnerable to the unavoidable

evils in the world. In fact, the contrary is true. We would be more

able to resist these evils, more keen in discerning what is good and

evil. We would know how to live with all the sins of the world without

compromising our true identity and dignity as a human person and a

child of God.