Staying on course

OUR earthly life, it is said, is a matter of a journey, a

pilgrimage toward our eternal destination. Given our conditions here

where we have to contend with all sorts of things, there is great need

for us to stay on course, avoiding getting diverted and lost along the

way.

            To be sure, we already have been given everything for us

to stay on the right track. And that’s nothing else or no one else

than Christ himself who tells us that he is “the way, the truth, and

the life.” The constant order of the day for us, therefore, is how to

be identified with Christ all the time.

            We need to be deeply and permanently convinced of this

truth of our faith and also of its practicability, otherwise we would

be wasting time. That’s because we can appear to be doing a lot of

things and yet miss the goal to which we are meant to reach.

            Especially these days when we have to contend with more

and more things brought about by our technological progress, we can

find ourselves losing focus and getting confused and lost. Our

attention can easily get scattered, our thoughts become shallow and

narrow, our reactions automatic, mindless and involuntary.

            That is why we can never overemphasize the need to be

always vigilant, ever rectifying our intentions to make sure that

whatever we are doing or whatever situation or circumstance we can

find ourselves in, we are always focused on God and on his will and

ways.

            God is both the principle and end of our life, as well as

the pattern of our life as shown to us by Christ who is made alive to

us by the Holy Spirit. He is the one that enables us to blend all

aspects, situations and circumstances of our life into one consistent

unity. In short, that’s when we can have unity of life.

            We need to be wary of our tendency to get easily entangled

in our worldly and temporal affairs. Even if we are pursuing lofty

earthly goals, like philanthropy, social justice, economic well-being,

etc., we would still end up a big failure if all these otherwise

legitimate pursuits are not inspired and aimed at the twin love of God

and neighbor.

            When we notice, for example, that we are doing well in our

business and other professions, but are rather cold and indifferent to

our duty to do apostolate and to help others get closer to God, then

we actually are not loving God by doing his will. We are simply

pursuing our own self-interests. We are apt to be reproached by Christ

who once said: “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the world,

and lose his own soul?” (Mk 8,36)

            We cannot deny that this is the common phenomenon

nowadays. Many people are just after their own things at the expense

of their duty toward God and others. We need to see to it that in all

our activities, plans and concerns, there should only be one

objective. And that is to love God and neighbor, as we have been

commanded.

            We therefore need to devise some kind of plan of life

where everything mutually influences each other in pursuit of our

ultimate goal of loving God and others. For example, our prayer should

inspire our work just as our work should give fuel and inspiration to

our prayer.

            We need to close the gap between our life of prayer or our

contemplative life, on the hand, and our active life of work and our

involvement in worldly affairs, on the other hand. Our thoughts should

always be both in heaven and on earth, not one without the other.

            This means that we should develop and grow in our

spiritual life as we get more and more immersed in our earthly

concerns. This is what is ideal for us, and it can be achieved if we

just put our whole mind and heart into this pursuit. It’s not an

impossible dream. We can always count on God’s grace.

            We need to see the intimate union between the natural and

supernatural, the material and the spiritual, the temporal and the

eternal. These are dimensions and parameters that are involved in our

life, and we just have to learn how to deal with them.

            As said earlier, we already have been given everything for

us to stay on the right track as we go through our life. We just have

to be constantly vigilant, making the necessary corrections along the

way.