We are gods

THAT’S what Christ told those Jews who could not believe that he was the Son of God. “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy,” those Jews said. “You, a man, are making yourself God.” (Jn 10,33) 

 That’s when Christ told them directly, “Is it not written in your law: ‘I said you are gods?’ If he called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken, and the scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemes, because I said, I am the Son of God?” (Jn 10,34-36) 

 Then Christ appealed to them so they can believe that he was the Son of God and that we are meant to be children of God, sharers of God’s life and nature, by saying that if they found what he told them difficult to believe, then to consider the works he was doing, for they showed he was doing the works of God, his Father. 

 It’s very understandable for these Jews to find it difficult to believe that Christ was the Son of God, and God himself. It took time for some of them to believe him to be so. Christ had to perform so many miracles and many wonderful signs as testified by John the Baptist before some of them could believe he was the Son of God. 

 Now, that we are also children of God or that we are gods ourselves since we share in the very life and nature of God, as Christ clarified, that indeed is more difficult to believe. Before this truth of faith, what we have to do is to humble ourselves to be able to accept such truth, so unworthy we may feel to be, and then start aligning our thoughts, and will and all other faculties we have to such truth. 

 We need to level up our understanding of who we really are. We are not just a creature ruled by the laws of nature—be it biology, chemistry, physics, etc. With our intelligence and will, we also are a spiritual and personal being, poised to enter into the supernatural level of God. 

 Our life and world are not just natural. The reality that governs us includes the supernatural. And we can actually live in it because as Christ has shown and shared it with us, we are given God’s grace, which is God’s way of sharing his supernatural life and nature with us. 

 That God has to become man and that a woman can become the mother of the Son of God and can be rightly called as the Mother of God, since the Son is the same God as the Father and the Holy Spirit—all these should lead us to conclude that we are meant to be children of God, sharers of the divine life and nature. 

 We obviously would feel unbelieving before such tremendous truth of our faith about ourselves, but that’s just how and who we really are. The only way to accept this truth of faith is when we are humble enough to accept this truth in faith. 

 This is indeed a big challenge, a very tall order. And so, we just have to work it out as early and as earnestly as possible. We have to make this truth about ourselves more known, understood and appreciated. Let’s turn it into our life itself—with God’s grace and our relentless effort!

Eternal life only with Christ

“AMEN, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” (Jn 8,58) 

 Words of Christ that so confounded the Jews of that time that they started throwing stones at him. These are words Christ said to show that only with him can we have eternal life. Yes, we are meant for eternal life. 

 Christ himself also said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14,6) These words indeed require a lot of faith for them to be taken seriously and to be believed. We need to keep our focus on Christ whatever may be our condition, circumstance and situation in life. 

 But let’s remember that faith is freely given to us. God shares it with us abundantly, us who are his image and likeness, children of his, sharers of his divine life and nature. We should just accept that gift and make many acts of faith since the reality Christ is telling us is something spiritual and supernatural, something that simply goes beyond our natural capacity to understand. 

 Death therefore does not have the last word for us. As a Eucharistic Preface of the Mass for the Dead would put it, “Indeed for your faithful, Lord, life is changed not ended, and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.” 

 We always have to keep in mind that we are meant for eternal life. Our life here on earth is simply transitory. It is meant as a test for us to see if what God wants us to be, that is, to be his image and likeness, is also what we want ourselves to be. 

 That test will have an end, and that is our death. We should try our best to pass that test. And the secret is to stick to Christ always and as tightly as possible. He has given us his word and teaching, his example, the Church and his very own self in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. 

 Thus, he also said that whoever keeps his word will never see death. (cfr. Jn 8,51) He is referring here to the eternal death of being separated permanently from God. That’s when we fail in the test God has given us in this life. When we are with Christ, believing and living his word and will, our death would actually lead us to our eternal life with God. 

 St. Paul encapsulated this most wonderful truth of our faith when he said, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Rom 6,5) 

 No wonder then that Christ culminated his redemptive work with his passion and death on the cross. Only then would his own resurrection take place. Christ made this point clear when after being rightly identified by Peter as ‘the Christ of God,’ he proceeded to talk about his passion, death and resurrection. 

 “The Son of Man must suffer greatly,” he said, “and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” (Lk 9,22) 

 We have to deepen our belief that with Christ’s resurrection, sin and death have been definitively conquered, and a new life in God is given to us. We are now a new creation, with the power of Christ to conquer sin and death and everything else that stands in the way of our becoming true children of God.

Where to find true freedom

OF course, we can find true freedom only in Christ. He said so in very explicit terms. “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Jn 8,31-32) 

 We have to remember that freedom is not something that we ourselves created and give to ourselves. It is first of all a gift from God, and as such it can only be properly exercised when referred to God’s will and ways, as shown and shared with us by Christ himself, the God-made-man to offer us “the way, the truth and the life” proper to us. 

 We have to be most guarded against our strong tendency to regard freedom as something purely at the instance of our own will alone. For our freedom to be true freedom, or freedom in the truth, our will has to conform with the will of God. 

 Here, we can already see how important it is to know, love and live that will of God, regardless of how difficult that duty involves. We have to understand that the exercise of freedom should be always an occasion to be with God. Otherwise, we would at best have a fake kind of freedom. 

 We need to understand this truth of our faith well, because nowadays it is very easy to be confused about where to find freedom and how freedom should be. That’s because all sorts of ideas promoted by all kinds of ideologies and spread by powerful groups have been flooding the world since time immemorial. 

 Nowadays, freedom is mainly understood as the power to do whatever a person or a group would like to do. It is purely a subjective freedom, based only on one’s conception of it or on the consensus of a certain group. 

 There is also the erroneous idea that freedom is anything that gives one some pleasure, some convenience, some advantage, etc. Again it is an idea of freedom that is self-oriented, not other-oriented which is how it should be, since freedom is a matter of loving, and loving is self-giving, not self-serving. 

 Because of these confusing if not erroneous ideas, the sacrifices involved in loving the way Christ has loved us—Christ who is the standard of love and freedom—turn off many people who cannot accept the freedom offered to us by Christ. After all, Christ himself said that if we want to follow him, we have to deny ourselves and carry the cross. (cfr. Mt 16,24) 

 We need to promote the real freedom that is offered to us by Christ. We have to preach about it, in season and out of season, and explain it thoroughly, using arguments that are adapted to the different mentalities and cultures of the people. 

 Our problem in this regard is usually that of being ineffective in our preaching because we use complex or subtle arguments, examples, etc., that are above people’s head. This is not to mention the fact that many times people find inconsistency in what we preach and in what we do. We often do not walk the talk. 

 How important, therefore, it is to have a clear idea of the relationship between God and freedom, and between freedom and love. Given our very confusing times, when the distinction between truth and falsehood, good and evil, moral and immoral is blurred, it’s very urgent that we get hold of this distinction, if we wish to be on the right track in our life!

Careful with the world

“YOU belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world.” (Jn 8,23) Words of Christ addressed to those who did not believe him. With these words Christ is telling us that if we do not believe in him, we would be stuck in the world instead of heading for where he is, which is what heaven is all about. 

 We need to understand the true nature and purpose of the world. As a creation of God, the world is, of course, a good thing. But it only has a transitory purpose insofar as we are concerned. The world is made for us to be tested whether what God wants us to be—that is, to be his image and likeness, children of his, sharers of his life and nature—is also what we want ourselves to be also. 

 We have to be wary when we get swallowed up by our earthly and temporal affairs, making them the main objective in our life rather than a mere occasion and means for us to achieve our real goal as defined for us by our Creator. The world is supposed to be only a pathway to heaven where we truly belong. 

 The proper attitude we should have toward the world is to love it without becoming worldly. And the secret is to see to it that our mind and heart are always with God. We should not allow ourselves to be fully taken by the charms and deceiving allurements of the world. We have to be completely detached from it, which does not mean that we should hate it. On the contrary, we have to be immersed in it as much as possible and yet love it but in the way God loves it. 

 That is the challenge! So the question to ask is: How does God love it so we can also love it the way he does? We just cannot rely on our ideas and ways of loving the world, because without God, that loving would be suspicious at best. 

 We can enumerate a few relevant points. First of all, God loves the world because he created it and endowed it with all the qualities, both actual and potential, in order to serve us. That is the purpose of the world. We in our turn should use the world the way God wants us to use it. And this ultimately is to give glory to God. 

 Let’s remember that as Creator, God has given everything in the world its proper nature and laws whose purpose is nothing other than to give glory to himself. We on our part can only use and develop the world properly when we respect the God-given nature and laws of everything that is in it. More than that, we should try to discern how each thing in the world becomes a living part of the abiding providence of God over all of us. 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to ignore the designs of God in the world and to simply pursue our own personal interests, leading us to fall into self-indulgence. Rather, what we should try to do is act as a Christian leaven that infuses the Christian spirit in all our worldly and temporal affairs. 

 This duty to be a leaven for the world is actually very doable, because what is needed first of all is the intention to do so. We may not be doing something with big public significance or some external manifestation, but with the little ordinary things that we do everyday and done with faith and love for God and for others, we can already effectively leaven the world.

Let’s be merciful to everyone

A WOMAN was caught in adultery. The scribes and Pharisees then dragged her to Christ to test him if he would follow the Mosaic law of stoning such woman. He just kept quiet, until after a time he told those around that anyone who has not sinned may cast the first stone. 

 Then one by one they left, until the woman was left alone. Christ asked her, “Has no one condemned you?” “No one,” was the answer. Then Christ told her that neither would he, and dismissed her, telling her to sin no more. (cfr. Jn 8,1-11) 

 It’s a beautiful gospel episode that shows us how merciful God is. But we may ask, why is God so merciful, and why should we try to be as merciful as God is? 

 I believe that the answer is none other than that we are all children of God. Regardless of how live our life, God will always love us and will do everything to save us. He may be angry at our misdeeds and sins, but it is well known that his anger would only be for a moment, but his mercy is forever. (cfr. Ps 30,5) 

 To some extent, we actually show mercy at the mistakes of others. But we are notorious for having a short-lived kind of mercy and understanding. Not only that. We often are choosy as to whom and how to show mercy. Our brand of mercy is usually not of the same kind as that of God. 

 The challenge we have is how to cultivate this attitude and virtue of mercy that channels the very mercy of God. That’s because if we are meant to be like God since we are his image and likeness, children of his, we should be as merciful as God is. Thus, Christ said it very clearly, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Lk 6,36) 

 I imagine that everyday we have to make an effort to develop this virtue of mercy. Anyway, everyday we are given opportunities to practice some signs of mercy, growing in it at least a little, since we cannot avoid contending with all sorts of trials and challenges that are caused by others. 

 We ourselves commit some mistakes and are in need of mercy also. We have to be wary then when we feel we are superior to others or that we are so very saintly as to lead us not to feel the need to ask for mercy and to be merciful also to others. 

 That is why we also need to train our spiritual faculties, our intelligence and will, to develop that attitude of Christ of not wanting to condemn anyone but rather to be always merciful. Like Christ and with Christ, we should try our best to do everything to save a person who may be wrong in something or who may have some problems and difficulties. We have to have the same attitude even when it is us who would be the victim of the wrongdoing of another. 

 For this, we have to train ourselves to have the same charity and mercy that Christ had for all of us. In fact, it is the charity that Christ commanded us to live. “A new command I give you,” he said. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (Jn 13,34-35)

Death and our life everlasting

THE story of Christ raising Lazarus to life again (cfr Jn 11,1-45) is a poignant reminder that death does not have the last word for us. We are meant for life everlasting with God in heaven, or God forbid, eternal condemnation in hell if we fail to correspond to God’s love for us. Neither are pain and suffering the main ingredient or the ultimate goal of our earthly life. It’s joy, peace, victory, success, offered to us by Christ himself, our savior. 

 We need to be clear about these fundamental truths, so we be guided properly in our life, making the right choices, since our life is neither a matter of fate nor of luck, but rather of choice, first that of God who chooses to love us in spite of whatever, and that of ours. But we have to learn to choose properly. 

 Whatever situation we may find ourselves in, including the worst scenarios possible to our human, earthly condition, we can always manage to find joy and peace if we allow ourselves to be guided by our Christian faith, rather than by our human estimation of things alone. 

 We have to look at death from the point of view of faith. This gives us the ultimate measure of reality. Objectivity is not only matter of the senses nor of the intellect. We cannot simply rely on our feelings, our hunches, our reasoning. We have to use our faith, which our Lord in the first place gives us abundantly. 

 More importantly, the story of Christ raising Lazarus to life again reminds us that we need to rise from the dead, that is, the death of sin and its many dangers and threats that continually hound us all throughout our life. 

 Only Christ can raise us from such death. But we somehow need to dispose ourselves to such intervention of Christ. Yes, we have to work on our continuing conversion, ours and that of others. 

 That’s because conversion is a necessity for us, since no matter how good we feel we are or how good we have been doing so far, we cannot deny the fact that deep in our heart there is always a fundamental choice we have to make in every step of our life between good and evil, between God and us. And we often make the wrong choice. 

 We can never over-emphasize this need for our conversion and renewal. In spite of our best intentions and efforts, we somehow would find ourselves in some irregular, imperfect if not completely sinful situation. 

 If Adam and Eve, our first parents, still in their state of original justice, managed to fall into sin, how much more us who have been born already handicapped and wounded with original sin and exposed to all sorts of temptations and sin in our earthly life. 

 The Book of Proverbs tells us that “the just man falls seven times, and rises again.” (24,16) And our spiritual warfares are no trivialities, since “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Eph 6,12) 

 If we go to Christ begging for his mercy which he will always give, we will be made new again like a new-born baby. St. Paul tells us as much. “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here.” (2 Cor 5,17)

The divinity and humanity of Christ

WE need to strengthen our belief in the divinity and humanity of Christ. That’s because there are sectors who consider Christ only as a man, a very special kind of man, but not as God. There also are those who consider Christ only as God and not as man. That Christ is both God and man, “perfectus Deus, perfectus homo,” is often lost in their understanding and attitude towards Christ. 

 We are reminded of this need in that gospel episode where some Jews, inhabitants of Jerusalem at that time, again showed suspicion and doubts in Christ. “We know where is he from,” they said. “But when the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.” (Jn 7,27) 

 With that reaction, they were partly correct. They indeed knew from what place Christ came from. What they did not know is that Christ came from heaven. Thus, Christ said to clarify: “You know me and also know where I am from. Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” (Jn 7,28-29) 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to know Christ using human criteria alone. What should be used mainly is the faith which is a gift God gives us. It might be good to remit here the teaching of the Catechism regarding this particular issue: 

       - 479 At the time appointed by God, the only Son of the Father, the eternal Word, that is, the Word and substantial Image of the Father, became incarnate; without losing his divine nature he has assumed human nature. 

       - 480 Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason, he is the one and only mediator between God and men. 

       - 481 Jesus Christ possesses two natures, one divine and the other human, not confused, but united in the one person of God's Son. 

       - 482 Christ, being true God and true man, has a human intellect and will, perfectly attuned and subject to his divine intellect and divine will, which he has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit. 

       - 483 The Incarnation is therefore the mystery of the wonderful union of the divine and human natures in the one person of the Word. 

 This union of the two natures, divine and human, in the divine person of the Son of God is called the “hypostatic union.” This union is important for us to know since we too are meant in our definitive state of life in heaven to have this kind of union. Since we are image and likeness of God, children of his, sharers of his divine life, we are also meant to share in his divine nature even as we retain our human nature. 

 In other words, how Christ is, is also how we should be. If he is both divine and human, we too are meant to be both human and divine, but always in and with Christ, and never just by our own selves. 

 This is, of course, an incredible truth of our faith about ourselves considering the way we are in our earthly and temporal condition. But that is just how and who we really are. We just have to learn little by little to level up our understanding of own selves by strengthening our conviction of the divinity and humanity of Christ.

Christ is everything to us

“IF I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true. But there is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true.” (Jn 5, 31-32) 

 These are words of Christ that express his effort to identify who he really is and how he is related to God and us. St. John the Baptist had already given his testimony about him, and during his baptism in the River Jordan, nothing less than a voice from heaven was heard, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Mt 3,17) Besides, he did so many miracles and his teachings were so sublime that one can easily conclude that Christ must be at least some special person. 

 We need to strengthen our belief that Christ is everything to us. He is the God-man that offers us “the way, the truth and the life” so that we can recover our dignity and ultimate identity as children of God, made in God’s image and likeness, and meant to share God’s very life and nature. 

 We therefore need to develop the instinct of always looking for Christ, making him alive in our life and patterning our life after his. This business of always looking for Christ is a basic duty of ours, a grave responsibility, in fact. Without him, we would just be on our own, relying simply on our own light and powers that, no matter how excellent, can never accomplish our real ultimate need of our own salvation, our own perfection as a person and as a child of God. 

 We need to look for Christ so we can find him, and in finding him, we can start to love and serve him which is what we are expected to do to be ‘another Christ’ as we ought. This has basis on what Christ himself said: “Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you…” (Mt 7,7) 

 And finding him means that we make Christ alive in our life. He is not just a historical figure. Let’s remember that before he went up to heaven, he promised the coming of the Holy Spirit who would bring to us everything that Christ did and said. More than that, the Holy Spirit brings Christ alive in us. 

 We just have to remember that with Christ, it is not enough to know him. We also have to love him. With Christ, to know him truly is to love him also. In fact, we cannot say we really know him unless we love him too. 

 With him, these two spiritual operations of ours merge into a unity, although they have different directions. In knowing, the object known is in the knower. It has an inward movement. The knower possesses the known object. 

 In loving, the lover is in the beloved. It has an outward movement. It is the beloved that possesses the lover. The lover gets identified with the beloved. The lover becomes what he loves. When we love Christ, we are with him, and become one with him. 

 For this, we need to exercise our faith to the hilt. When we exercise our faith, we enter into a reality that goes beyond what we simply can see and touch and understand. With faith we can have hope in pursuing our ultimate goal of becoming like Christ. With faith we can manage to live the highest virtue, which is charity, with God as its object and others as its unavoidable co-object

Our objective self vs. our subjective self

YES, there is such thing as our objective self as contrasted to our subjective self. The former is who we truly are, while the latter is what we make of ourselves that may contain some truth, but it most likely will miss the most essential part of who we really are. 

 It’s important that we know this distinction, so that we can do what is proper to us. While we will always have the subjective self, we should not forget the objective self which is more important. 

 The objective truth about ourselves is that we are, first of all and always, children of God, image and likeness of his, meant to share in the very life and nature of God. We are supposed to be one with God. This truth should always be affirmed and lived as best that we can. Thus, we have to find ways of how to be always conscious of it and, more importantly, how to be consistent with that truth. 

 Our subjective self is what we know and understand about ourselves that often sets aside God in our self-knowledge. Our subjective self-knowledge is often based on what we can gather from our senses and what our human understanding can fathom. But it ignores the inputs of faith that actually contains the basic and general truth about ourselves. 

 Our subjective self is simply the result of the conditionings that we are subject to—like our physical and biological, our emotional and psychological, our cultural and social, our historical and educational conditionings, etc. 

 It’s important that we realize that while we are always subject to temporal conditionings, we should never forget the faith-based truth about ourselves that enables us to enter into the spiritual dimension of our identity that would set us to enter, with God’s grace, to the supernatural dimension of our life. 

 In this regard, we have to realize that Christ is the pattern of our humanity, because he is the Son of God and as such is the perfect image that God has of himself. Since we are created image and likeness of God, we can say that we are patterned after Christ. How Christ is should also be how we should be. 

 Thus, to have a proper knowledge of ourselves, to get to our objective self, we should know Christ. Knowing him leads us to know ourselves properly. And what can we say about who and how Christ is? 

 We can get some ideas about this from some words of Christ himself who said: “I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” (Jn 5,30) 

 Thus, to be like Christ as we should, we have to always do the will of God. That is how we can become one with God, his image and likeness, making us like Christ himself. 

 So, like Christ, we should do nothing other than the will of God. We have to be most wary of our strong tendency to do our own will, contrary to what Christ did who did not seek his own will but the will of the one who sent him. 

 We would know our objective self when we identify ourselves with God, a child of his who does nothing other than the will of God. We need to train ourselves as early as possible to assume the very identity of Christ who does not seek his own will but only the will of God.

Taking care of our conscience

CONSIDERING that our conscience plays a very important role in our life, we have to see to it that we take utmost care of it. It is supposed to be where we hear the voice of God who tells us what is right and wrong, what is good and bad. It is our immediate guide as to how we have to think, speak, act and react. 

 But we should see to it that it is truly God’s voice that we hear and not just our own ideas or the voice of another entity, which if it is not God, then it is something that is opposed to God. 

 We are reminded of this aspect of our life in that gospel episode where Christ was confronted by some leading Jews, accusing him of not following the Sabbath law because he cured a man who was ill for 38 years on a Sabbath. (cfr. Jn 5,1-16) 

 For our conscience to truly hear the abiding promptings of God, we need to always anchor our mind and heart on God. We have to remember always that we are meant to live our life with God. We should be wary of our tendency to live our life on our own, especially when we are quite gifted with intelligence and other talents. 

 Such gifts should never take God away from our mind and heart. Rather, they should work to make our consciousness of God’s constant presence and interventions in our life sharper. 

 When we notice that we are already relying more on our own powers and are slowly distancing ourselves from God, we should immediately correct it. The ideal condition for us should be that we be sharply aware of God’s presence and interventions. There should be no moment when we are not aware of God in our life. 

 This, obviously, will require a certain discipline, considering that we have this strong tendency to be on our own. In fact, right at the beginning of human history, during the time of our first parents, Adam and Eve, who were created in the state of original justice, that tendency already occurred. That is why they fell into sin, causing all of us to be born with original sin, that is, not in the state of grace as God wanted it for us in the beginning. 

 Again, for us, to contain this tendency, we need to truly live by faith, which would require of us total obedience and humility before God. This is the constant challenge we have to tackle. But while it certainly requires great effort and sacrifice, we should remember also that God always gives us the necessary grace so we can do what he wants us to do. We just have to correspond to that grace through obedience and humility. 

 The goal to pursue is that even though we may feel very awkward and unworthy about this, we should feel God’s presence all the time, we should somehow see him, have a living encounter with him, engaging him in a continuing dialogue of love. To be sure, he initiates that dialogue with us. We should just learn how to correspond. 

 Yes, to be keenly aware of God in our life, and to discern his constant promptings should be the normal thing in our life. When we realize that we are more aware of our thoughts independently of God, we should realize that we are taking the wrong track and, therefore, should correct ourselves promptly.

The importance of St. Joseph in our life

ON the Solemnity of St. Joseph which this year is celebrated on March 20 instead of the usual March 19, since the latter date falls on a Sunday that is always dedicated to the celebration of Christ’s life, we are reminded that this great and privileged man teaches us how to take care of Christ who as a growing boy also had to be trained in fulfilling the basic duties and virtues common to all humanity. 

 If we consider that Christ, as man, also had to be born, to grow and mature in us, then it should come as something automatic to us that having a deep devotion to St. Joseph can truly help us become “another Christ” as we should, especially in the “growing years” of Christ in us. 

 Let us remember that Christ is both God and man, his divinity is always united to his humanity. Knowing how Christ developed in his humanity could help us to understand and enter into his divinity. The humanity of Christ is the “way, the truth and the life” shown and shared with us to lead us to his divinity. 

 Yes, for us to be “another Christ” in his adult and mature stage, we have to learn first how to be “another Christ” in his childhood days. We have to learn how to bring up the child Christ in us into the adult and mature Christ. We just cannot have the adult and mature Christ in us without knowing the child Christ and what went through his childhood. 

 In this, we have to remember that Christ made himself subject to Mary and Joseph. In the gospel, there is a passage that describes this truth. It’s that part where the child Christ was lost and then found, and returned to Nazareth. “He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He was subject to them.” (Lk 2,51) 

 We have to realize that the Christ who in his public life went around preaching and doing many wonderful things and, in the end, offered his life on the cross for the salvation of all mankind, also had to learn how to do the ordinary and little things in his hidden life in Nazareth. 

 It definitely is a good idea to approach St. Joseph to ask him how to make the Christ as a boy in us learn some basic skills to become Christ in his mature and definitive stage in us. Yes, in a manner of speaking, Christ also has to grow in us from childhood to adulthood, and St. Joseph can play an important role in this regard. 

 Thus, we have to make our devotion to St. Joseph a real one, not just something sentimental, or something done out of mere compliance, or just for show. If our faith is strong and deep, we know that St. Joseph can be very much alive in our mind and heart and is eager to help us. We should be quick to discern what he is teaching us with regard to how to bring up the boy Christ to be the adult Christ. 

 Here we should realize the importance of the hidden life of Christ as a preparation for his public life. How Christ was as a child, how he was trained and brought up by Mary and Joseph somehow determined how Christ was to be in his adult and mature life. 

 The way he spoke, the way he worked, the way he treated women, the virtues of fortitude, endurance, humility, etc. must have been learned with the help of Joseph together with Mary.

Christian joy

THE 4th Sunday of Lent is usually referred to as “Laetare Sunday.” That’s because the Entrance Antiphon of the Mass of that day starts with the word, “Laetare,” (Rejoice). 

 It reminds us that despite the heavy spirit of penance during the Lenten season in preparation for the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, there is actually a good reason for joy also, because if we truly enter into the spirit of Lent, joy and penance always go together. 

 The gospel of the day’s Mass talks to us about the cure of the man born blind. (cfr. Jn 9,1-41) It’s a long gospel that narrates a beautiful drama, the interplay of God’s power in Christ, God’s caring providence over us, and the kinds and levels of faith that people can have, and that also considers the strengths and weaknesses of men. 

 Christ was passing by and saw a man born blind. His disciples immediately asked if the blindness was due to the sins of the man or those of his parents. That was when Christ raised their perception and understanding of our earthly condition to the supernatural level. 

 “Neither he nor his parents sinned,” he said. “It is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.” These words give us a great lesson for us to learn. Especially when we seem to be sinking with all the negative things in our life, we have to realize—and strengthen our belief in this truth of our faith—that God allows these negative things to happen to derive a greater good from them. 

 We have to learn then to be quick in referring all the negative things in our life to Christ, avoiding the tendency to be afraid or to be ashamed because of them, and much less, to be feel desperate and hopeless. These negative things in our life should not separate us from God. Rather they should motivate us all the more to go to him, since it is only through him that a greater good can be derived from them. 

 In the case of that blind man in the gospel, because he allowed Christ to treat and cure him, his faith grew from something nominal and weak to something that was strong and powerful. He ended up worshipping Christ—truly a happy ending, indeed! This is what Christian joy is all about. 

 The gospel also portrayed the sad case of those who did not believe in Christ. Despite the direct evidence of the miracle, they still refused to believe in Christ as coming from God, because he cured the man on a Sabbath, a very narrow-minded kind of reasoning. 

 Thus, Christ said these very intriguing words: “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” 

 These words tell us that we can only see things properly when we have faith in God, in Christ. Christ said it also very clearly in the gospel: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 

 We have to realize that unless we see things through Christ, we actually cannot see things as they ought to be seen. And seeing them that way certainly leads us to have joy and peace that the world cannot give, whatever the twists and turns of our life are here on earth.

Only with God can we love our enemies

CHRIST was once asked by a scribe what the first of the commandments was. And his answer was clear: to love God with everything one has got and, without being asked what the second and complementarily great commandment was, he also said, it was to love one’s neighbor as oneself. (cfr. Mk 12,28-34) 

 To the credit of the scribe, he took this response of Christ well. “Well said, teacher,” he said. “You are right in saying, He is One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 

 But we can ask, Is it really realistic and doable to love God with everything we have and to love everybody else, including the enemies, which in the end is what is meant by the word ‘neighbor,’ as ourselves? 

 Certainly, we have many reasons to have this kind of reaction. But Christ was clear about what we are commanded to do. Thus, if we have to believe and live out our faith, as we should, then despite what we may regard as a practical impossibility, we should just do as we are commanded. 

 We just have to understand also that we can only manage to follow that dual commandment if we truly are with God through Christ in the Spirit. He, after all, is the source, the power and the pattern of how this kind of love can take place. 

 So, the challenge to face and the task to do is how to immerse ourselves in God, practically identifying ourselves with him, since we are meant to be his image and likeness. Our true and ultimate dignity and identity is that of being children of God. 

 In other words, the fullness and perfection of our humanity is when we finally become like God which can only take place in heaven. But while here on earth, we just have to do our best to pursue that ideal. 

 To be sure, on God’s part, all the means are already made available. We are already given the doctrine of our faith so we would know what right and wrong are in our earthly pilgrimage. We are given the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, so we can truly be identified with Christ who is the pattern of our humanity. We have the Church and the accompaniment of angels, saints and holy people, etc. 

 On our part, we just have to learn to pray and to truly have a vital encounter with God, which is actually possible and doable, because God is already with us. Being our Creator who puts and keeps us in existence, he can never be absent from us. We just have to learn how to get in touch with him, for only then can we aspire to be in our ideal condition as man. 

 We have to understand that the commandment to love God with everything we have got is due to the fact that we are meant to be truly one with God. And it is the fullness of love that can do that. 

 Also, that we have to love everybody else, including our enemies, is due to the fact that everyone is an image and likeness of God. No matter how distorted that image is because of our misdeeds, that image of God in everyone of us will always be there.

Our true unity only with Christ

YES, our true unity can only be achieved when we are with Christ, when we have the same spirit of Christ. It’s a unity that is not uniformity and can be lived even amid our unavoidable differences and conflicts. 

 In his priestly prayer as narrated in the gospel of St. John (17,20-26), Christ expressed his most ardent desire that we be “consummati in unum” (consummated in unity) just as the Father and the Son are one. We are meant to be one with Christ, for that was his purpose for becoming man. 

We are meant to be living members of Christ’s mystical body which is now referred to as the Church. 

 The unity that Christ speaks of is not merely some natural kind of unity, achieved through social, cultural or political forces and laws, but a unity of spirit, of mind and heart, much like the unity that exists between God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

 We should always be concerned about unity, first with Christ and then with everybody else. Whatever may be our differences and conflicts, we should always be concerned about unity, not only trying to keep it but also trying to build it up, even at the instance precisely of our differences and conflicts. 

 Our differences and conflicts need not be divisive. If handled with the spirit of Christ, they can even generate the force to strengthen our unity. Our unity is not uniformity. We are not expected to agree in everything, and much less, in the same way and to the same degree. Especially in matters of opinion, taste and preferences, we are expected to have a wide range of variety, even to the point of getting in conflict. 

 We need to live out that ultimate desire of Christ which he expressed in his priestly prayer just before his passion and death. “My prayer is…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you…May they be brought to complete unity…” (Jn 17,20 ff) 

 This would, of course, require us to have the same mind, the same attitude and ways of Christ. To gather us into one family, he finally offered his life for us. He did not simply stop at telling us what is right and wrong, what is good and evil, what is just and unjust. Even on the cross, he offered forgiveness to those who crucified him. 

 We have to imitate this example of Christ, his example of true charity that goes all the way to being merciful and magnanimous. We know that he suffered the worst injustice in the whole history of mankind. While we can presume that he was most interested in having justice accorded to him, he eventually forewent it, since the greater good was the salvation of mankind. 

 This attitude shown by Christ should always be ours too. Yes, we are interested in justice, but given our human condition that will always be marked by weaknesses, mistakes, failures and sin, we should be ready to forego human justice to live out the more important value in our life, our love-driven unity among ourselves as children of God. 

 Thus, we have to learn how to be patient, compassionate and forgiving with everyone. In fact, we need to be proactive in this kind of attitude, not waiting for others to somehow deserve our patience, compassion and mercy. We should just reach out to them.

Christ is the fulfillment of the law

“DO not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.” (Mt 5,17) 

 With these words of Christ, it should be clear to us that Christ, who is the “the truth, the way and the life for us,” the pattern of our humanity and savior of our damaged humanity, should be considered as the fulfillment of any law we have in our life. 

 That is why we should really know him so we would know how to handle our laws. More than knowing him, we should love him since that would make us one in spirit with him. Let’s remember that we are meant to be like Christ, “alter Christus,” another Christ, as some theologians have told us, if not “ipse Christus,” Christ himself. Only then can we have the proper understanding and attitude toward our laws. 

 We need to realize that it is Christ who ultimately gives the real meaning and purpose of our laws. We have to disabuse ourselves from the thought that our laws can be based only on our common sense, or on our own estimation of what is good and evil according to the values of practicality, convenience, etc., or on our traditions and culture, etc. 

 While these things have their legitimate role to play in our legal and judicial systems, we have to understand that they cannot be the primary and ultimate bases. It should be God, his laws and ways that should animate the way we make laws as well as the way we apply and live them. After all, being the Creator of all things, he is the one who establishes what is truly good and evil. 

 And the will, laws and ways of God are revealed to us in full by Christ. That is why at one point Christ said to the Pharisees and scribes regarding the proper interpretation of the Sabbath law that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So, the Son of Man (Christ) is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mk 2,27-28) 

 So it is Christ who can guide us as to the content and intent of our laws. He is the one who can interpret our laws properly. He is the one that would give our laws their proper spirit, which in the end is the spirit of charity that summarizes and perfects all virtues and values. 

 For this, we have to learn how to assume the very identity of Christ. This may need a certain discipline, like spending time meditating on the life and teachings of Christ, developing the art of being recollected and contemplative so that we would always be aware that our thoughts, desires, words and deeds should always be with Christ and not just by our own selves. 

 We have to convince ourselves that our ultimate identity is that of Christ. We may feel awkward and skeptical about that truth of our faith, but that is just who we really are. We just have to our part to slowly, gradually and continually assume that identity to such an extent that with St. Paul we can say, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal 2,20)

Forgiving others likens us to God

THAT’S what we can learn from that parable about a servant whose debt with his master was forgiven but could not forgive the debt of his fellow servant. (cfr. Mt 18,21-35) 

 The parable was said because St. Peter asked Christ how many times one should forgive his neighbor. He was trying to be magnanimous when he asked if one should forgive his neighbor 7 times, which in the culture of that time meant many. Christ corrected him by saying, not only 7 times, but 70 times 7, which means always. 

 In that parable, the master clearly told the servant who could not forgive the debt of his fellow servant that he should forgive the debt of his fellow servant as he himself, the master, forgave servant’s debt. 

 “You wicked servant,” the master told the servant. “I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” 

 Again, we have to remember that since we have been created in God’s image and likeness, we should try our best to be like God who has fully manifested himself in Christ. How God is, how Christ is, should also be how we should be. In short, we can only have that forgiving heart if we truly identify with Christ. 

 That surely would require grace which is actually abundantly and gratuitously given. But that grace requires our human cooperation. We need to develop in ourselves, no matter difficult the challenge is, the appropriate attitude and virtues for this purpose. 

 We have to learn how to be always forgiving. Yes, the requirements of justice also have to be met, but forgiveness should always be given even while the requirements of justice still have to be processed. 

 One may ask: why should that be? Why should forgiveness be given even if the cause of justice is not yet resolved? The answer can only be seen when we consider who we really are. We are men and women, made in the image and likeness of God. Regardless of how we are, whether sinner or saint, that basic dignity of man cannot be erased. 

 This dignity of man is alluded to in one of the psalms: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet…” (Ps 8,4-6) 

 Yes, we have the dignity of being children of God, and not just one more creature of his. No matter how much we misbehave, God, being a father, will do everything to bring us back to him. And that’s what Christ precisely did for us. He even went to offer his life on the cross, offering forgiveness to those who crucified him. 

 God cannot forget and abandon us just because of our sins. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Is 49,15) 

 Indeed, God will do everything to bring us back to him. And it’s up to us to show at least some signs of repentance for our sins and to accept the eternal mercy of God. If we do the same to one another, we obviously would make ourselves like God as we ought to be!

Learn to live by faith

THAT gospel episode where Christ in the synagogue in Nazareth faulted the people for their lack of faith (cfr. Lk 4,24-30) reminds us that we have to learn how to live by faith, with our thoughts and intentions and everything in our interior world mainly inspired and directed by faith rather than just by our human estimation of things. We have to be wary of our tendency to literally disparage this divine gift of faith. 

 “There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land,” he said. “It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” 

 The reaction of his townmates to these words was one of fury. They even wanted to throw him from a cliff. That’s how bad we can also be with respect to our attitude toward being guided by faith. We prefer to think and live simply by ourselves, as if we can handle all the challenges and predicaments we can encounter in our life. 

 Living by faith is actually meant for all of us, since our life is a life with God. And living by faith is completely practicable, though it obviously would require a certain discipline. Yes, it will require a lot of effort and sacrifice, a lot of self-denial. But let’s also remember that there is also God’s grace given to us that would enable us to enter into the spiritual and supernatural dimensions of our life. 

 To live by faith means, first of all, that we believe that God is always with us. And he is not with us in a passive way, but is actually actively intervening in our lives. We should not question this basic truth about God and us since as Creator, God not only creates us but also keeps us in existence. 

 And given the way we are, with our intelligence and will, plus his grace since we are God’s image and likeness, we are meant to have a personal and intimate relation and connection with God all the time. We are supposed to have an abiding sense of his presence in us, discerning always his promptings. 

 We are not making this up. We are not fantasizing here, although it’s true that feeling his presence and discerning his promptings will certainly require a lot of effort. That’s because God is way above our nature to comprehend. It’s like having a case of “being so near yet so far.” God is present everywhere. We can always connect with him anytime, but he also remains as the most mysterious of all the mysteries. 

 That is why we need to go through a certain plan of life that would help us establish and maintain this abiding and intimate relation with God, always conversing with him, referring things to him, asking him questions as well as for help and enlightenment, etc. 

 We have to study the doctrine of our faith, now clearly and authoritatively taught by the Church, and then avail of certain ascetical and spiritual practices, like regular meditations, contemplation, recollection, retreats, etc. 

 The ideal to pursue is that of becoming a true contemplative even while being in the middle of the world. A contemplative person is always in conversation with God in all the events of his day and of his whole life!

Developing Christ’s universal heart

WE need to feel the need to develop a heart like that of Christ, a heart that welcomes and accommodates everyone, irrespective of how they are. It is a universal heart that is concerned only with the salvation of everyone. 

 That encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman by the well (cfr Jn 4,5-24) teaches us that we have to learn how to reach out to others, especially those in the peripheries, and show what Pope Francis calls as the culture of encounter. This can only mean that we are having or, at least, are developing a universal heart, i.e., the heart of Christ. 

 We may have severe differences among ourselves in the different aspects of our life, but we just have to reach out to everyone if we want to be like Christ as we should. 

 Toward this end, we have to learn how to be patient, how to rise above our personal things and learn how to give our heart to God and to everybody else. This obviously will require of us a certain sportsmanship, a certain toughness that is of the kind that can welcome and accommodate the charity of God in our heart. 

We have to learn to listen and not just to hear others, to look and not just to see them. We have to learn how to suffer with the others, how to be compassionate, how to make as our own the conditions of the others out of the love of God and souls. God himself did all these. 

 He made himself man in Christ to save us. And Christ, according to St. Paul, made himself like sin without committing sin (cfr 2 Cor 5,21), just to be with us and to lead us back to God, from whom we came and to whom we belong. 

 So, in our dealings with the others, we should always be motivated by love. We have to take the initiative to love them and not to wait for them to give reasons for us to love them. Even when they commit errors, all the more we should love them. That’s how love really is, the love lived and shown to us by Christ himself. 

 In the Psalms, we read that God “does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” (103,10) If that is how God treats us, that should also be how we should treat the others. We ourselves ask God not to judge us by our sins. We should therefore not judge others according to their sins. 

 Thus, our Lord explicitly said that we have to love our enemies, to do good to them that hate us and pray for those who persecute and calumniate us. This is how we are going to be identified as children of God who makes his sun to rise upon the good and bad, the rain to pour on the just and the unjust. 

 Love by definition involves all and is given without measure or calculation. This essence of love is what breaks us loose from our limited human condition to make our world universal, not entangled in some parochial, partisan or isolationist grip. 

 Love matures and perfects us. It checks on our tendency to be self-seeking and self-absorbed so as to be “all things to all men.” (1 Cor 9,22) It brings us not only to the others, but rather to God himself, identifying us with him, for “God is love” and is the source of love.

Love should be repaid with love

THAT’S how love should be handled. If we are given love, we should always give back love also. We have to be wary of our tendency to betray this fundamental law of our life, because instead of repaying the love we receive with love, we give back ingratitude, disloyalty, infidelity, if not hatred itself. 

 We are reminded of this aspect of our life in that parable Christ told his disciples about a landowner who planted a vineyard, putting a hedge around it and dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it to tenants, then went on a journey. (cfr. Mt 21,33-46) There we can see how good the landlord was in providing the tenants with a well-prepared field. 

 But as the parable unfolded, when vintage time came, the tenants refused to give what they owed to the landlord. Instead, they beat the servants sent by the landlord to collect the produce of the vineyard. They even killed the son of the landowner who was sent as the last resort to collect what was due to the landlord. Obviously, the landlord punished the tenants severely and leased the vineyard to more faithful tenants. 

 The parable is meant to expose that tendency of ours to be unfaithful and ungrateful to God in spite of all the good things he has given us. We should be most wary of this tendency and do something about it, being guarded against it and more, being generous and magnanimous in returning the good God has given us. 

 If we truly love or if there is love involved in any event, this is the dynamic that would take place. If we are given love, we also give back love, triggering what we may call as a virtuous cycle, the opposite of a vicious cycle. Love gets to grow more and more, since by its very nature, love actually knows no limits. It just gives and gives, even if great sacrifices are involved. 

 It’s important that we be always moved and driven by love. For this to take place, we should make an effort to always acknowledge all the good things God has given us—from our life itself to the many talents, gifts, fortune, privileges, favors, etc. we enjoy in life. Only in this way can we feel urged to be thankful, faithful and to enter into the natural dynamic of love where love is always repaid by love. 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to be swallowed up by the many powerful and attractive distractions we have nowadays, leading us along the ways of self-absorption, self-centeredness and self-indulgence. 

 As a matter of fact, we should declare an unrelenting war against our self-indulgence which has become a very formidable problem we all have. Yes, this has always been a problem to us, but these days it is much more so. 

 With the many new wonderful things that can instantly give us convenience, comfort, pleasure and satisfaction, many of us are trapped into the very sticky web of obsessions, addictions and the many other forms of self-indulgence that feed on our weaknesses, like lust, pride, conceit, gluttony, unhinged curiosities, envy, etc., etc. 

 We should never forget that what we enjoy in life should be always related to God. Otherwise, we would set ourselves in a position of danger. We should always feel thankful to God. Even in our moments of difficulties and human miseries, we still have reason to be thankful because God continues to be with us and to help us cope with them.

Why poverty and austerity are important

THE reason can be found in that parable Christ told his disciples about the rich man, dressed in purple, and the poor man, Lazarus, who was lying at the rich man’s door, covered with sores and waiting to get even the scraps of food that fell from the rich man’s table. (cfr. Lk 16,19-31) 

 As the parable unfolded, both of them died. The poor man was carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham, while the rich man was buried in the netherworld. While at first sight, the parable might strike us to be unfair, since if God is a God of love and mercy, he should therefore be willing to save both of them. 

 But I suppose that without detracting from the universal love and mercy God has for everyone, the purpose of the parable is simply to teach us about the deadly danger of worldly wealth and the great redeeming value of Christian poverty and austerity. 

 Wealth in itself is not evil as long as we do not allow it to corrupt us. In fact, poverty and austerity can be bad if they are lived in bitterness and anger, if not hatred against God. 

 For wealth to be a good thing, it has to be lived with the Christian spirit of poverty and austerity. That means that wealth is used to give glory to God and to serve everybody else. It is not meant to be used for self-indulgence. 

 Money and richness can become a problem when we are led to get attached to them such that we cannot anymore give ourselves fully to God. They can blind us with respect to our duty to God and to everybody else. We may give the appearance that we are giving a lot, but if it is not the whole of ourselves, then it is not total self-giving which God deserves and expects from each one of us. 

 Let us always remember that God wants the whole of ourselves. He wants our entire heart, not a divided heart. He wants to be everything to us, the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega. He wants to be given priority over everything else, including our own life. 

 Especially these days when we are practically bombarded with so many tempting things, we should really be guarded, otherwise we end up completely materialistic and consumeristic, completely dead and numb to the spiritual and supernatural dimensions of our life as children of God. 

 We need to regularly check on what we have at the moment, what our real desires of our heart are, to see if indeed we are living the proper spirit of poverty and austerity that Christ himself lived. We know how easy it is for us to lapse into the opposite of poverty and austerity, like greed, envy, etc. With the way the world is developing these days, this practice of checking is very important. 

 Poverty and austerity allow us to love God and others properly. They clean our hearts of any trace of selfishness and self-indulgence. They make us simple, enabling us to develop many other virtues with ease. They rid us of unnecessary burdens in our life. 

 Poverty and austerity actually enrich us with a richness that is proper to us. It is the richness of being with God and in communion with everybody else. They enrich us with the love that channels the very love of God for us.

How to properly regard our suffering

AND, yes, also our death, both of which are unavoidable in our life. In this regard, it’s helpful to consider the following words of Christ which he addressed to his apostles and to everyone who believes in him: 

 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” (Mt 20,18-19) 

 It’s important that with faith, we believe and accept these words, that give us a realistic view of our life and at the same time offer us a reassurance that everything would just be fine because Christ conquered suffering and death with his resurrection, and if we are with him, we too can conquer our unavoidable sufferings and death. 

 It’s important that we meditate often on these words of Christ, internalizing them, so that we can learn to feel at home with the reality of suffering and death, and can even be welcoming to them, knowing that if lived with Christ, our suffering and death actually possess redemptive value that is beneficial not only for us but also for everybody else. Our Communion of Saints would make sure that our suffering and death would have that effect. 

 We have to be willing to suffer the way Christ suffered for all of us. That is what true love is. No wonder that Christ himself said: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15,13) 

 No wonder also that as St. Peter said in his first Letter, “He (Christ) did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly.” (2,23) We have to learn to restrain our urge to make revenge whenever we are offended in some way by others. 

 It is this willingness to suffer that would show how, like Christ, we can go all the way to giving ourselves completely to everyone, irrespective of how they are. That is also why Christ commanded us, as an integral component of true love, that we even love our enemies. 

 In true love, the lover goes all the way to identifying himself with the beloved with the view of giving the beloved what is objectively good for both of the lover and the beloved. There is a kind of unification and identification between the two that is based on what is objectively good for both. 

 We have to train ourselves to develop this kind of love. And we can use the usual conditions, concerns and circumstances in our daily dealings with others to develop that kind of love. Whenever some differences and conflicts occur among ourselves, we should be willing to suffer for the others, bearing their burdens, even if we also try to sort out and settle these differences and conflicts as peacefully and charitably as possible. 

 This willingness to suffer should be an active thing, not a passive one, waiting for suffering to come. We have to look for the opportunities to suffer. That would be a real proof that we are truly in love. What is more, such attitude would help us in protecting ourselves from temptations, sins and all other forms of evil!

Be humble and hide and disappear

THAT’S the attitude to have if we have to follow Christ who at one point said, “The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Mt 23,11-12) 

 Those words of Christ were preceded by his observation of how some of the religious leaders behaved at that time. “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.” 

 He continued: “They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’” (Mt 23,2-8) 

 An authentic Christian is always a humble person. He will always channel the very humility of Christ which is not a matter of being timid or shy. It’s a humility that knows when and how to appear and disappear, when and how to show and hide, when and how to be forceful and mild. 

 We need to realize that if we have to follow what Christ teaches us, whatever talent, privilege, advantage we enjoy should be used purely for doing good, for carrying out God’s will for us, for giving glory to God. We should never adulterate it with any trace of self-indulgence, pride, vanity and the like. 

 We need to be guarded against our strong tendency to show off our good deeds. We need to find effective ways of how to hide and disappear whenever we do something good. 

 We can manage to do that if we always have Christ in our mind and heart. With him, we have all the reasons to be happy and serene. We would not feel the need to satisfy our egos. With Christ we have more than enough in terms of joy and peace, even if we encounter some difficulties and defeats along the way. 

 Humility is obviously the effect of being with Christ. It also a cause for Christ to be with us. It is what gives an opening to Christ to enter into our lives, giving him a hearty welcome. 

 With humility, we can start to think and act like Christ. We get to see things better, since we would be guided mainly by our faith rather than by our mere human powers. Humility leads us to enter into the spiritual and supernatural world of God, the world of grace that transcends and purifies our human intelligence and our other human faculties. 

 That kind of life, marked by the spiritual and supernatural life of Christ, is what is proper to us. We should try our best to develop and maintain it. Thus, we need to avail of certain practices and means, like prayer and meditation, recourse to the sacraments, waging interior struggle for develop the appropriate attitudes and virtues, etc. 

 Again we can only do that if we humble ourselves, always feeling the need to be with Christ and not just relying on our own human powers. Of course, we have to use our human powers also to the full, but always in the spirit of Christ which can only happen if we are humble!

Let’s learn to be always forgiving

THAT’S a clear mark of a true Christian. Christ has told us clearly: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Lk 6,36) There are no ifs and buts in these words. In fact, Christ continued to say: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you…For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (37-38) 

 Christ was and continues to be always merciful. How? Well, first of all, being the son of God, he emptied himself to become man. That way, he already adapted himself to our wounded, sinful condition. He identified himself with us so that we would have a way to identify ourselves with him. He preached the truth about God and about ourselves. 

 He gave preferential attention to the sick, that is, the sinners. He was always ready to forgive, his mercy and compassion having no limits—“not only seven times, but seventy times seven times.” (Mt 18,22) He taught about loving the enemy and lived it. He did not mind all the insults and mockeries that were poured on him just to accomplish his mission of saving us. 

 Even while hanging on the cross, he offered forgiveness to those who crucified him. And in the end, he assumed all our sins without committing sin by dying on the cross. In that way, he dealt death to all our sins, and with his resurrection he offered us a way for our own salvation and reconciliation with our Father God. He was thoroughly magnanimous. Yes, mercy is a clear mark of magnanimity. 

 We need to train our faculties—our intelligence, will, emotions, passions, memory, urges, appetites—to have this spirit of Christ of being merciful always. For this, of course, we need time, effort and a certain discipline to acquire this indispensable quality of a true Christian life. 

 Especially when we become a victim of some offense by someone, we really have to learn to forgive and to move on, focused on doing what we are supposed to do. We should avoid getting stuck with the offense, wallowing in anguish, complaints and hatred, and keeping resentments, grudges and desires for revenge. That’s why we need to deny ourselves, and carry Christ’s cross as Christ himself told us, to be able to do this. 

 Let’s remember that all of us have sins that need to be forgiven also. And as Christ said it clearly, we can only be forgiven if we also forgive others. “If you will forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offenses,” he said. “But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offenses.” (Mt 6,14-15) 

 Other relevant gospel passages are the following: “Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” (Mk 11,25) “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Lk 6,37) 

 What would be helpful here also is to develop a sporting spirit, so that even if we encounter failures, defeats, injustices, unfairness, etc., we would just go on with the game of life where we know God is always in control. With him, everything will work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28)

Humanizing God, divinizing man

THE amazing gospel story of the Transfiguration of the Lord (cfr. Mt 17,1-9) reminds us that in the end Christian life involves a dual process of how to humanize God and at the same time, how to divinize man. 

 And that’s because if Christ was transfigured, with his face shining like the sun and his clothes becoming white as light, we can expect ourselves to be so transfigured also, since we are actually patterned after him. We have some basis to conclude that the ultimate condition of our life in heaven would look like that of the transfigured Christ. 

 For this to take place, we have to follow the example of Our Lady whose faith enabled her to conceive the very Son of God in her womb. She made God man. And we can also say—and this is not a gratuitous affirmation—that God wants to be born in each one of us, to be incarnated in each one of us, precisely because we are meant to be his image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature. 

 That God wants to be one with us can be supported by the fact that God became man to recover us from our state of alienation from him. He gave his all for this to happen and continues to do so up to now and till the end of time. Not only did he become man, he also assumed all the sins of men without committing them, conquering them ultimately with his passion, death and resurrection. 

 For us to incarnate God in us, we should try our best to have the same faith as that of Mary, that faith that was described at one point by her cousin, Elizabeth, in these words: “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Lk 1,45) It’s a faith that shows total and unconditional belief in everything God tells us through Christ and now through the Church as always inspired by the Holy Spirit. 

 To which, Mary responded with her Magnificat that expressed what she glorified the most in her life: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” (Lk 1,46-47) We should also glorify the Lord in that way. 

 With God wanting to be born and incarnated in us, we now have to learn how to divinize our humanity. And for this, Christ offers us “the way, the truth and the life.” 

 Christ not only showed us the way of how to handle our human condition here on earth, nor did he only teach us the whole truth about ourselves. He also instituted the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, so that his very own life, which is both human and divine, could also be possessed by us. 

 We have to do our best to follow the very teaching and life of Christ. Our faith in him should not only be a matter of profession, intention and nice words. It should be expressed in deeds in a consistent and abiding manner. As St. James said in his Letter, “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?” (2,14) 

 When we follow Christ and Mary, we can develop a taste and even an appetite for the supernatural life with God and of things supernatural in general. We would be on our way to our own transfiguration and be like God himself in our ultimate home in heaven since we are children of his!