Banish anger quickly

WE get angry sometimes. Hopefully, it’s not very often.

Truth is it’s not a pleasant state to be in. And there can be many

reasons why we get angry. People commit mistakes, or they can offend

us or simply irritate us and other reasons can come out ‘ad

infinitum.’

            Our usual reaction to these events is anger. And it’s a

given that the more stupid the mistake is or the more malicious the

offense is, the more intense would be our anger. We can even fall into

a rage. The recent, unfortunate case of Senator Koko Pimentel is a

case in point.

            But we are told that we should not stay long in that

condition of anger. St. Paul has this beautiful piece of advice in

this regard. “Be angry, yet do not sin,” he said. “Do not let the sun

set upon your anger, and do not give the devil a foothold…” (Eph

4,26-27)

            It would be good if we can revisit these wise words of St.

Paul especially these days when in our present condition of being

restricted and confined in our movements due to the coronavirus, we

have the tendency to be extra-sensitive and volatile, and hence, more

prone to anger.

            Anger, of course, is a human emotion. As such, it has its

legitimate place in the sun, a role to play in our life. It is our way

of immediately defending ourselves when we feel we are threatened in

some sense.

            It’s just that it needs to be properly motivated and

directed. It just cannot be a mere effect of some hormones nor simply

an expression of a reflex reaction. It has to be purified and guided

by reason that in turn should be enlightened and animated by our

faith, hope and charity.

            Anger not guided by reason is pure animal anger, not fit

for our human dignity as persons and, most especially, as children of

God. It would be brute anger, not rational. And if uncorrected, it

definitely is a sin. In fact, it’s one of the capital sins. It not

only would be against our human nature. It would also be against God’s

law. It opens the gates for other worse things to afflict us.

            We need to see the facile vulnerability of our anger to

all forms of disorder that can range from pride to vanity to envy to

hatred, etc. That is why it needs to be quickly purified and subjected

to the requirements of right reason that is enlightened by faith, hope

and charity. Thus, that advice of St. Paul not to let the sun set on

our anger, giving the devil a foothold.

            To be sure, to rectify anger would need a good amount of

humility and patience also. Without humility and patience, reason that

is inspired by faith, hope and charity cannot shed its light. Without

humility and patience, we would be at the mercy of brute and worldly

forces only. Without humility and patience, we would not be able to

imitate Christ in dealing with those instances that provoke us to

anger.

            Let us try to adopt the very mind and attitude of Christ

in handling anger-provoking situations as articulated by St. Peter in

his first letter:

            “When they heaped abuse on Him, He did not retaliate. When

he suffered, He made no threats, but entrusted Himself to Him who

judges justly. He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so

that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. ‘By His stripes

you are healed.’” (2,23-24)

            In other words, any situation where anger is provoked, the

proper thing to do is to relate it to Christ who, in all humility and

patience, just absorbed all the unjust treatment so that “we might die

to sin and live to righteousness.”

            This is the only way we can properly handle all occasions

where we figure in anger.

What a big pity if…

INDEED, we have to admit that we practically are all

cowering in fear and anxiety, and suffering from all kinds of

privations, physical, mental and emotional, all arising from this

pandemic that we are having these days. But it would be a big pity if

in all these conditions we fail to take advantage of the golden

opportunity these conditions are actually offering us.

            If we are guided by our Christian faith, we know that we

are not meant only to suffer and then die. We are meant for joy and

bliss and life everlasting. But our suffering and death possess great

value that can do us a lot of good.

            If we have learned well from Christ’s life and example,

then we would know that our suffering and death can be our best and

ultimate expression of our love for God and for everybody else,

because Christ has made all human suffering precisely as the supreme

manifestation of love and as the ultimate means for our salvation.

            Remember Christ saying, “Greater love has no man that

this: that a man lays down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15,13) That

would be pure love, fully gratuitous, with no strings attached. And

it’s a love that is motivated by no less than the greatest need of

man: our own salvation, the full recovery of our dignity as children

of God.

            If we can only have the same attitude that Christ had in

accepting his passion and death as we go through our current rigmarole

of lockdown, quarantine and all that stuff, then we would be turning

our imposed sacrifices into something very positive, helpful and

constructive.

            No, we are not meant to suffer, and suffering is not God’s

will for us. Our suffering is always self-inflicted which God allows

to happen because he respects our freedom, no matter how much we abuse

it.

            But God knows how to turn our suffering and death around.

In Christ, we have been given the way of how to reverse the purely

negative character of our suffering and death into something positive

and redemptive.

            That is why we have to learn how to love suffering, not in

the perverted and masochistic sense, but in the way Christ accepted

his passion and death. He did no run away from it when the time came

for him to go through it. He presented himself, in fact, and embraced

all that suffering and death quietly in obedience to the will of the

Father for the salvation of man.

            Let’s remember that it is our sin that has brought our own

suffering and death. And it’s a sin that would require God himself

with our cooperation for it to be forgiven. Why? Because it is God

whom we have offended, and we on our own cannot undo it. It would need

God himself becoming man to undo it. By so doing, we have the way to

be forgiven of our sin.

            When we would finally be able to accept and live this

truth of our faith, then we would not be afraid of any suffering that

will befall us in our earthly life. In fact, we would welcome and

embrace suffering, convinced that we would be enriched and glorified

by it. We would be convinced that by embracing suffering we would be

tightening our identification with Christ, and would be showing the

greatest love we can ever have.

            Yes, love is proven more genuine and more Christ-inspired

if developed, lived and shown in the crucible of suffering. A love

that only thrives on good times is not an authentic love. It has to

have the form of the cross for it to be authentic.

            So, we can say that our present condition is actually an

invitation for us to mature in our humanity and in our Christian life.

There’s life after death

WE need to strengthen our faith in our life after death.

We need to reinforce that belief especially because nowadays there is

clearly an ebbing away from that truth of our Christian faith. We tend

to get distracted by the things of this world, and worse, to get too

attached to them as to ignore our life after death.

            The readings of the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A, clearly

tell us about this truth. We are meant for eternal life. We are meant

for a life with God forever. But we have to be ready for it, deeply

realizing that what we have now in our earthly life is precisely the

means and the path, not an obstacle, for us to enter into eternal

life. We need to see the vital link between time and eternity, the

material and the spiritual, the natural and supernatural.

            From the Book of Ezekiel, we read: “The Lord Yahweh says

this, I am now going to open your graves. I shall raise you from your

graves, my people, and lead you back to the soil of Israel.” (37,12)

Here, we already have an allusion of the truth about life after death.

            This truth is reiterated in the second reading from the

Letter to the Romans: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the

dead has made his home in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from

the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit

living in you.” (8,11)

            And all this point is rounded off with that beautiful

story of the raising of Lazarus where Christ clearly said: “I am the

resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies,

will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die…” (Jn

11,25-26)

            We need to develop a sense of the eternal life, making

ourselves eternity-ready all the time, knowing how to connect our

earthly time with the heavenly eternity.          We have to

constantly remind ourselves of what the Letter to the Hebrews has told

us clearly. “We don’t have a permanent city here on earth, but we are

looking for the city that we will have in the future.” (13,14)

            We have to train our mind and heart, as well as our

feelings and senses, to conform themselves to this truth of our faith.

In our personal prayers and meditations, let us consider from time to

time the reality of heaven and reinforce that primitive yearning we

have in our heart for a life without end, for a happiness that has no

limits, which can only take place in heaven.

            Let us remind ourselves frequently that our faith tells us

that we actually come from God, and not just from our parents, and

that we are meant to be with God forever in heaven after our earthly

sojourn which is meant to test us if we want to be with God or just

with ourselves.

            We have to learn how to link our earthly time with the

eternity of heaven by nourishing our belief that there is God and that

he is our Creator who gives us our very existence and that he

continually, without any gap or break, is intervening our life. We

have to be more aware of this truth, and more importantly, know how to

deal with it.

            We have to know what is of absolute value in this life and

what only has a relative value. We have to be more aware of the

ever-abiding providence of God. That way, we would always have

optimism despite the difficulties, challenges and possible mistakes we

can commit.

            Thus, it is important that we know how to pray, how to

strengthen our faith, hope and charity, how to relate everything in

our life to the ultimate eternal life. We need to be eternity-ready,

not just future-ready, with the figurative go-bag always by our side.

Channeling Christ

IF we are to be authentic Christians, we have to know how

to channel Christ to everyone in every situation. We have to know how

to show Christ to everyone. We have to have his mind, his spirit. Our

words and deeds, our reactions to things and our behaviour in general

should be those of Christ first before they are ours. The ideal state

for us is when anyone who sees or hears us sees and hears Christ.

            And this is because our identity is fundamentally based on

being God’s image and likeness. And Christ as the Son of God, the

second person in the Blessed Trinity, is God’s own perfect image and

likeness. Our humanity in effect is patterned after him.

            And as God who became man, Christ is the savior of our

humanity that is damaged by sin. Christ is therefore the pattern and

savior of all mankind before we put in our personal and specific

qualities, traits, peculiarities, etc., that would make each of us a

unique individual.

            It is this basic Christian pattern of humanity that makes

us all children of God and brothers and sisters among ourselves

regardless of our personal, racial and other various differences among

ourselves. It is this basic Christian identity of all mankind that

urges us to care and love one another. We have to see in each one of

us the image of Christ, and together with that image, the whole

Christ.

            That is why our theologians have described each one of us

to be “alter Christus” (another Christ). And Christ himself said that

he is “the way, the truth and the life.” Our life can only be true

life when it is lived in Christ who as God created us before it is

procreated by our parents. Our life has God the Son as its pattern and

Christ as its redeemer after our fall.

            We have to learn to show Christ to everyone everywhere.

And this is especially so among the clergy who are conformed to Christ

as head of Christ’s body, the Church. That is why the clergy should

always be mindful of who they are and who they represent. They have to

be clear about their mission in life which should be the very mission

Christ came into our world.

            That is why we cannot overemphasize the need for the

clergy to truly assume the identity of Christ. Whatever he says and

does should be done in such a way that it can be clearly seen and

understood that it is Christ as head of the Church, bent only on

saving men, who is doing it. They have to always assume the role of

ministers who work for Christ and not for themselves nor for anybody

or anything else.

            To put it bluntly, the spotlight should always be on

Christ. It would be a disorder if the clergy would grab it, even if

only partially, for themselves. Things should be such that after each

priestly duty, the people who benefited from it should be thankful to

Christ and should be made to feel Christ’s redemptive work on them.

            The clergy should see to it that all his talents and other

God-given endowments be fully at the service of the redemptive work of

Christ. They should always have rectitude of intention and the

constant awareness that it is Christ whom they are serving.

            They have to be most careful with the frequent temptation

to be proud, vain and feeling privileged and entitled because of their

position. They have to learn how to give themselves fully to their

ministry and yet know how to hide and disappear, so that it is only

Christ whom people get to see and hear.

            Their responsibility to personify Christ is graver than

that of the laity. They have to be so identified and united with

Christ in a living way that they can echo St. Paul’s words: “Be

imitators of me as I am an imitator of Christ.” (1 Cor 11,1)

Back to the dark ages?

OF course, not! If at all, this extraordinary time we are

having these days because of the coronavirus pandemic is a clear

invitation for us to learn to live for the future. In fact, it is

offering us an opportunity to learn to live for eternity. We should be

happy about this development. This pandemic is a clear blessing in

disguise.

          Yes, we have to learn to detach ourselves from time, whether

it is the prehistoric era, ancient, dark ages, medieval, modern or

contemporary time. More precisely said, while we live in time, we have

to learn to transcend it, setting our mind and heart always on

eternity where we are meant to be in our definitive state.

          It does not really matter what part of earthly time we live

in. What matters is that we know how to relate our time to eternity,

the natural to the supernatural, the material to the spiritual. Thus,

we should learn how to drop and leave everything behind when the time

comes for us to enter the eternal life, and be ready to face our

Father and Creator.

          Our usual problem is that we tend to get swallowed up by our

earthly condition of time and nature, ignoring the far richer reality

of our definitive life with God in heaven for all eternity. If we

would just know the ultimate parameters of our life as provided by our

Christian faith, then we would not really mind what historical era and

culture we belong to, since we would know how to relate our here and

now to our definitive life beyond.

          The things in this world and life only have a relative

value. They are meant to offer us the means, the reason and the

occasion to relate ourselves to God from whom we come and to whom we

belong in a most intimate way. It is our relation with God that has

absolute value. Everything else follows from there.

          And so, with the new conditions that now are imposed on us,

like the lockdown, quarantine, curfew, the social distancing,

disinfecting, etc., which perhaps may force us to do things that we

usually do not do anymore, like cooking and dish-washing, doing

laundry, house-cleaning, etc., we should just be game enough to go

through them.

          What matters is that we relate them to God. These tasks have

the same or even more potential sanctifying value than our usual

serious and more difficult jobs during our normal days. What matters

is that we put love for God in doing them. And since they are

relatively easier tasks to undertake, then we have a golden

opportunity of attaining some degree of sanctity in an easier way.

          But more importantly, these extraordinary conditions we are

having now are a good opportunity to really deepen our prayer life and

everything in our spiritual life which, in the end, is what would

endure for all eternity.

          We cannot deny that because of the usual frenetic lifestyle

these days—some of us would even describe it as having a fast and

furious lifestyle—we most likely give our spiritual life a very

shallow attention and care, if at all.

          Now is the time to polish our skill at mental and

contemplative prayer, at developing an abiding and practical spirit of

sacrifice, at polishing our knowledge of the doctrine of our faith,

and at achieving a stronger unity of life, where there is more

coherence between our faith and our life, between our good intentions

and our deeds, between the theories and principles we profess and

their practice, etc.

          With respect to our life of prayer, we should learn how to

really be focused in our conversation with God, knowing how to avoid

distractions and how to equip ourselves adequately so that our prayer

becomes meaningful and substantial.

          There are many good things that can be done during these

extraordinary days, many golden opportunities that can be taken

advantage of.

Go slow to go far

WITH all the restrictive measures we now have due to this

coronavirus pandemic, it might be good to re-appreciate and relearn

the precious lessons we can get from one of Aesop’s fables about the

race between the hare and the tortoise.

            Yes, we should try to be like the tortoise who may be

moving slowly in that race but was singlemindedly determined to reach

the finish line. And he managed to win the race, because even if he

moved slowly, he was steady in his pursuit and knew what really

mattered in that race.

            He was not distracted with the things he encountered along

the way. He did not waste time comparing himself with the hare who

clearly had an advantage over him in terms of speed. Most of all, he

was humble and just bore the mockery he received from the proud hare.

            We should try to avoid being like the hare who may be

moving fast and who clearly enjoyed an obvious and immediate advantage

over the tortoise. But he lost the race just the same because he

became overconfident. His overconfidence sprang from the fact that he

compared himself with the slow-moving tortoise. What really did him in

was his pride which made him overconfident.

            It’s not that we should not give due importance to the

good trait the hare had of moving fast. Let’s always remember what

Christ said about combining the smartness of the serpent and the

innocence of the dove. (cfr. Mt 10,16)

            It’s just that when circumstances force us to go slow, we

should also know how to go about it. More importantly, we should not

allow whatever advantage we may have over the others to go to our

head, making us conceited. We would be going against God that way.

            What we have to learn from the fable is to know the

consequences of the contrast between humility and pride. Humility

makes one see things more objectively while the pride blinds us with

our own biases. It was humility that made the tortoise know what truly

mattered in that race.

            What is more is that humility also attracts God’s grace

that will enable us to accept whatever happens in our earthly affairs.

Even if in the end, the tortoise lost, he would not feel bad about it.

He would accept that fate peacefully and with a sporting spirit.

  

            Pride blocks God’s grace and cuts us out of God’s wisdom

and everything else that he has. It has terrible effects on us, and

these can take place in such a way that we would not even notice them.

We have to stay away from pride by all means. Let’s always remember

what St. James quoted in his letter: “God opposes the proud, but gives

grace to the humble.” (4,6)

            But our humility should not mean that we give no

importance to the speed that the hare had. It’s just that that good

quality of the hare should not lead us to be proud and conceited. The

best condition would then be when we would have the humility of the

tortoise and the speed of the hare.

            But again, given the present circumstance, we should know

how to go slow by taking care of our prayer life, our faith, our

conviction that whatever situation we may find ourselves in can always

be an occasion to love God and others, which are the essential purpose

of our life here on earth.

            Also, let’s sharpen our skill in relating everything,

especially our mundane and temporal affairs, to God, making them the

reason and the means for loving God and the others. Our usual problem

is that we often forget God and our duty to love when we are into our

work, our business and politics, etc.

            We have to go slow in learning the vital connection

between the things of this world and the heaven we are meant to be in

eternity.

See as God sees

THIS is the ideal meant for us. We have to learn how to

see things the way God sees them. We already have been warned that we

do not see the way God sees, and, definitely, we have to do something

about it. “God does not see as human beings see. They look at

appearances but Yahweh looks at the heart,” we are told. (1 Sam 16,7)

We have to correct this predicament.

            Yes, we are meant to see things the way God sees them for

the simple reason that we meant to be God’s image and likeness. In a

way, we can say that how God is should also be how we have to be. How

he sees things should also be how we should see things. It’s as simple

as that.

            Only in this way can we partake of the light of God, and

thus become and behave as “children of light,” as St. Paul once said.

(Eph 5,8) As such, we manifest the effects of being children of light,

which are “complete goodness and uprightness and truth.” (Eph 5,9)

            Now, how do we do this? How can we reach this ideal?

            Since what is involved is mainly spiritual and

supernatural in character, we certainly have to use first the

spiritual and supernatural means. Of course, the human and natural

means should never be neglected, but we have to give priority to the

spiritual and supernatural means.

            This means that we have to rev up our life of prayer and

sacrifice, enlivening our faith and piety, because without these we

can never expect to get to the first base. And more importantly, we

have to have recourse to the sacraments, those mysterious and

supernatural channels of the very grace of God.

  

            In that way, even if we do not feel the supernatural

effects of the sacraments, we can be sure that we are identifying

ourselves with God as long as we receive these sacraments validly,

that is, without impediment which is mainly mortal sin.

            Let us hope that our faith and understanding in the

sacraments are such that they would encourage us to avail of them,

especially confession and holy communion, as often as we can.

            Together with the spiritual and supernatural means should

be the recourse to the human and natural means. May our life of prayer

and self-denial be a constant feature of our daily grind. We should

see to it that our prayer and sacrifice would lead us to have a living

encounter with Christ who is always with us and is very much

interested and in love with us.

            We have to grow in the different virtues, especially

humility and simplicity, so that our thoughts and desires come out on

the basis that we need God first before we need anybody and anything

else.

            We have to be wary of our tendency to expropriate as our

own God’s special blessings and gifts to us, like our intelligence and

the many other talents, thereby desensitizing us from our basic need

for God.

            To counter this, we have to have that attitude of the

blind man, Bartimaeus, who earnestly requested Christ, “Lord, that I

may see.” (Mt 10,51) We have to admit and confess our blindness,

regardless of how keen our intelligence may be, because only then

would we be able to see things as we ought, or to see things the way

God sees them.

            Let’s remember what Christ told the Pharisees who were

cocksure that they were not blind: “If you were blind, you would not

be guilty of sin. But now that you claim you can see, your guilt

remains.” (Jn 9,41)

            This is the paradox in our life that we have to learn how

to be careful about. We can only say that we can see things properly

if we see them with and through Christ. Otherwise, no matter how

brilliant and keen in vision we are, we will miss what really matters

in life.

Lessons from St. Joseph

WE have celebrated just recently the Solemnity of St.

Joseph (March 19). Once again we are made to consider the life and

example of this great man from whom we can draw precious lessons that

can be very helpful to all of us.

  

            The first lesson is that God loves all of us collectively

and individually with a love that can be considered a predilection

even if we consider ourselves as small, insignificant, very ordinary

according to our human standards, and even if we consider ourselves as

completely undeserving of such love.

            Precisely, what God did to St. Joseph, plucking him out

from anonymity and human insignificance, tells us that our ordinary,

insignificant status in our life is no problem or obstacle in

receiving God’s love as long as, like St. Joseph, we do our part in

following God’s will for us, whatever that may be.

            Of course, for St. Joseph, God’s will was for him to be

the husband of Mary, the foster father of Jesus. For us, God’s will

may just be for us to be a simple worker, a father or mother of a

family, or whatever. As long as we obey and follow that will, as long

as we make ourselves available to that will even if some drastic

efforts and sacrifices may be made, we are sure of receiving and

enjoying God’s great love for us.

  

            While it is true that we can consider St. Joseph to be

truly lucky to be chosen in God’s very mysterious providence as Mary’s

husband and Jesus’ foster father, we cannot and should not say that if

God wants us to be a simple farmer, for example, we would be less

lucky.

            The true luck and fortune is not in the kind of position

or status that God would like us to have in this life. Rather it is in

the love with which we correspond to God’s will and love for us.

Comparing our position with the status of St. Joseph would be nothing

less than pure envy, pride and vanity which are an anomaly for us.

            What we should rather see and imitate in the life of St.

Joseph is his total availability to God’s will, his quick and

courageous obedience in spite of the many sacrifices involved. This is

what truly matters in our life.

            To repeat, it’s not in the position we hold or the status

we enjoy. In fact, in the case of St. Joseph, in spite of his very

privileged position and status, he remained obscure in the eyes of men

in his time.

  

            Another lesson we can learn is that as long as we obey

God’s will like what St. Joseph did, everything will be taken care of

by God. St. Joseph managed to flee in haste to Egypt, bringing the

child Jesus and his mother, to escape the rampage of Herod.

            Yes, God takes care of everything. If we would just manage

to be close to God the way St. Joseph was, then we would closely

follow God’s ways which are always the ways of safety or ultimately

those that would lead us to our eternal salvation, even if unavoidable

sufferings may be involved. There is really nothing to worry about.

            Let us strengthen our devotion to St. Joseph. Let us

imitate his virtues, his strong faith in God, his obedience and

docility, his simplicity and humility, his fortitude, etc. Imagine

that many of the God’s messages to him were conveyed simply by dreams,

and yet he managed to believe them and to act on them.

            And yes, another lesson we can learn from the life of St.

Joseph is that God always intervenes in our life. He never leaves us

even if we feel he seems to be very far from us. He is always with us.

Just look at the life of St. Joseph!