WE have to accept the fact that all of us are notorious
for abusing the many good things we receive from God, our Creator and
Father. Our intelligence, talents, health and whatever privileged
endowments and blessings God has gifted us, are often used to simply
pursue our own interest and personal goals, with hardly any reference
to God from whom all good things come, (cfr. James 1,17) and to our
duty towards others.
This is, of course, a grave anomaly that will do us a lot
of harm sooner or later, even if it can give us some advantages and
conveniences at the beginning. It is notorious for giving us a sweet
poison that will turn us in eventually.
We need to be more aware of this anomaly and try our best
to be guarded against it and to do something about it. The secret, of
course, is to be vitally united with God. That is to say, to make the
constant effort to be with him, which means that we should be full of
love, since God is love, “Deus caritas est.” (1 Jn 4,8)
And this love has been shown to us in full by Christ who
reminded us to love God with all our might and to love our neighbor as
ourselves. (cfr. Lk 10,27) Later on, he perfected these indications by
giving us the new commandment: that we love one another as he himself
has loved us. (cfr. Jn 13,34)
From all these above-mentioned considerations, we can say
that we really need to be more conscious of rallying all our human
powers and blessings to give glory to God and to serve everyone. Yes,
this is the real purpose of our human faculties and powers. Short of
that, we would be misusing these divine gifts.
Also, we need to realize that if true charity is to
inspire the use of our human powers, then we would use them to serve
everyone, and not just some people. Everyone, including our enemies or
those who oppose us or do not like us. This is what charity is! (cfr.
Lk 6,27-36) It has a universal scope with no trace of discrimination
at all.
It is this charity, as shown to us by Christ and commanded
on us by him, that will enable us to use our faculties and powers
properly. It is this charity that will purify our God-given endowments
that have been stained by our sin. It is this charity that will
eventually sanctify these powers and enable them to bring us to God
and to serve everyone.
That is why we really need to continually rectify our
intentions and to see to it that our actions would truly conform to
the requirements of charity. In this regard, we have to forget
ourselves and our self-interest, and to think simply of God and the
others, always ready to follow Christ all the way to facing and
bearing all kinds of suffering and eventual death.
We should not be afraid to do all this, because we have
been assured that “if God is with us, who can be against us?” (Rom
8,31) It is charity that will disarm our enemies, that will melt away
our weaknesses, that will heal the sin-inflicted wounds of our human
condition in this world.
It is not enough that we be smart, clever, practical, etc.
We need to live charity. Without charity, our smartness and cleverness
can even pose as a grave danger to us. They can deceive us with the
thought that we are doing well in our life when, in fact, we are
heading through a sweet slide toward perdition.
We need to make many acts of charity before, during and
after doing our tasks, using all our God-given human faculties and
powers. And these acts of charity should be our vital contact with
Christ!
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