If only we know...

THAT is, if we only know what God has given us, for sure

we would freeze in astonishment, and once recovered, would spring to

action to correspond generously to his great tremendous gift to us!

            That is, if we only know. The problem is that we hardly

know about this gift because we always tend to take things for

granted. We only or mainly see the physical things. Anything beyond,

anything spiritual and supernatural, is at best given a lick and a

promise.

  

            We need to make some changes, even some drastic

adjustments, in our way of perceiving and discerning things. We just

should not stay in the level of the material, the worldly and the

temporal. We have to learn to capture the spiritual, the supernatural

and the eternal realities in our life.

  

            And this means that we have to sharpen our faith, our

skill at praying such that we can truly say that we are having a

direct encounter with God our Father. We need to convince ourselves

that this is possible and doable. Precisely God’s tremendous gift to

us is he himself, his giving his own self to us, offering us whatever

is good to us all the way to offering us mercy and forgiveness even if

we have not yet asked for forgiveness.

  

            It is important that we pause from time to time to

consider this basic truth about God and us and to let it sink in our

consciousness so as to make it the motivating and guiding principle in

our life.

  

            We may have to do a number of things to achieve this goal

or ideal, and they may vary depending on the concrete conditions of

each one of us. For some of us, it may be a matter of taking the word

of God as found in the gospel, in the catechism, in the prayer books,

etc., more seriously.

  

            We cannot deny that for many of us, reading the gospel,

for example, is just a reading exercise, or at best a purely

intellectual affair. We fail to perceive the voice of God in it,

encouraging us to transform ourselves in becoming more and more like

Christ.

  

            It’s about time that we allow ourselves to be ruled by a

living faith that would enable us to see and hear Christ everytime we

read the gospel. The net effect should be that we would be moved to

follow Christ more closely and even to identify ourselves with him

more and more.

  

            For others, it may be a matter of seeing that our work and

study are occasions to relate us to God. Our work and study should not

just be a purely technical or intellectual affair. This attitude

toward our work and study should be improved.

             Truth is that our work and study will always have God at

their beginning and end. In fact, God should always be in the middle

of these human activities. In fact, he should always be in every step

of the way. Without God or putting God aside would simply put our work

and study in jeopardy. They would become an occasion for all kinds of

temptation and sin.

   

            We should aim at truly becoming contemplative souls who

not only believe in God, but also lives with him. We should be able to

see and hear him in all places and times. Our will should be in synch

with God’s will, which is what is proper to us, since we are meant to

be his image and likeness and to share in his life and nature.

  

            On the part of God, he has already given us everything

that we need to be as we should be according to God’s will. We have to

find ways of how to effectively enable each one of us, in our

distinctive conditions, to appreciate God’s tremendous gift to us!