Humility and greatness

THIS is the lesson we can learn from that episode of Mary visiting her cousin, Elizabeth. (cfr. Lk 1,39-56) Imagine our Lady, already knowing that she was going to be the mother of the Son of God, the highest honor and privilege a creature can have, offering her services to her cousin who was also conceiving a son who would turn out to be only the precursor of the one in Mary’s womb! 

 This is what the intimate and mutual relation between humility and greatness looks like. When one is truly humble, it can only show the greatness of his heart. And when one is great in stature and dignity, he knows he is there to serve more than anything else. True greatness is never shown in pride and vanity. It is proven and verified in humility. 

 Mary perfectly mirrors the humility and greatness of Christ himself who, as St. Paul said, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on across!” (Phil 2,6-8) 

 This mutual relation between humility and greatness is expressed when we manage to value others, whoever and however they are, above ourselves and when we look after their interest instead of our own. (cfr. Phil 2,3-4) 

 This is what we clearly see in the life of Christ. Let’s call to mind that stunning example of his when he shocked his apostles when he started and insisted to wash their feet at the Last Supper. 

 For us to have this humility and greatness in our life, we need to be always with Christ and Mary. We need to be in constant conversation with Christ and Mary, referring everything to them, asking them for the answers to our questions, clarifications to the many issues we have to grapple with in life, strength for our weaknesses and temptations, contrition and conversion after our falls, etc. 

 We should do everything to keep this state of humility alive in us all the time. We know very well how easy it is for us to take this virtue for granted. We have to realize more vividly how vulnerable we are to the ways of pride, arrogance, self-centeredness, desire for power and domination, etc. Humility keeps us guarded against these dangers. 

 And when we happen to receive praises and honors from others because of our good works, let’s keep our feet firmly stuck to the ground, not allowing ourselves to be intoxicated. We should not allow these praises and honors to go to our head and cast some evil spell over us. 

 Instead, we have to thank God profusely. All praises and honors belong to him. What we should realize also is that those praises and honors given to us are actually a sign that we have to give ourselves more to God and to others. Our sense of duty and responsibility should become sharper. 

 Those praises and honors that we receive are actually some kind of a test to see if we would still remain with God or we would now choose ourselves as our own god. We have to know how to pass that test, and so we need to really grow and deepen our humility. That is how we can be truly great!

Christian detachment and the digital world

WHAT a very good deal Christ is giving us! When Peter told him, “We have given up everything and followed you,” Christ immediately reassured him—and us—“Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers…” (Mk 10,28-30) 

 It’s good that we keep these words very much in mind so that we can protect ourselves from our strong tendency to get attached to the things of this world, making them irresistible instruments for self-indulgence instead of being powerful instruments of love for God and for everybody else. 

 In today’s digital world where we are provided with tremendous facilities and advantages, let’s see to it that everytime we use them, we have the proper intention. And that is none other than to love and glorify God and to help and serve the others. We need to have the relevant practices that would help us keep that proper intention. 

 The advances and progress in our sciences and technologies should challenge us to develop the attitudes and practices proper of a person who needs to be in constant relation with others, let alone, of a child of God who needs to always be with God. 

 We cannot deny that nowadays we are seeing a lot of people sinking in their self-indulgence, completely deceived by the pleasures these powerful facilities and technologies give them, not knowing that these pleasures have no other purpose than to trap them in their own world and bubble, and to cause cases of obsessions and addictions, etc. 

 We need to have a massive campaign to educate everyone on how to properly use these new technologies. This has to start in the families where the little children should be taught how to use them. It’s not to prevent them from using these tools, but rather to instill in them the proper attitude and practices. 

 Everyone should be taught that these new technologies should be used primarily and constantly to give glory to God and to help others. The pleasures, fulfillment and satisfaction we can derive from these tools should be the effect, first of all, of such love for God and for others. Otherwise, these pleasures can only turn into sweet poison for us. 

 Definitely, a considerable amount of sacrifice and self-denial would be involved here. But if things are also taught properly, everyone should be made to see that whatever sacrifice and self-denial would be involved would only lead to a certain joy that is most proper to us. The teaching method should be such that it is always done in a positive, constructive and attractive way, instead of in a negative, off-putting way. 

 This is a big challenge since many young people nowadays are easily turned off whenever some sacrifice would be involved. Thus, a lot of patience and creativity in teaching is a must. And more than just giving classes and modules, to carry out this duty of teaching people about the proper use of the new technologies undeniably requires accompaniment. 

 We have to know how to deal with the danger of self-indulgence, self-absorption and self-centeredness that these new technologies can occasion. Christian detachment has to be taught and lived properly.

Mary, Mother of God and our Mother

MAY 29 is dedicated liturgically to the Memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church. This Marian title was defined sometime ago due to the fact that if Mary is the Mother of Christ who is God, then she can rightly be called as Mother of God. This was defined in 431 AD in the Council of Ephesus. 

 And since Christ is the pattern and savior of humanity, then she who is the Mother of Christ can also be rightly called as our Mother, the Mother of the People of God which is what the Church is. Thus, she can be referred to also as the Mother of the Church. This was defined in the Second Vatican Council. 

 This truth of faith about Our Lady can somehow be gleaned from that part of the gospel when Christ, before he died on the cross, entrusted his mother to the apostle, John. “Woman, behold, your son,” he said to his mother. And to St. John, he said: “Behold, your mother.” (Jn 19,26-27) 

 Like St. John who took Mary to his home, we too should take Our Lady, Our Mother, to the home of our heart. It is important that we develop a strong, deep and intimate relation and devotion to Mary our Mother for, as one saint put it, she is the “shortest, surest and safest way to God.” With her we are assured of being with God. 

 We have to be wary of giving this very crucial truth of our faith just a lick-and-a-promise attitude. Given the way things are rapidly developing these days when are constantly being pushed and pulled every which way, we need to deliberately pause and give time to develop this relation and devotion to Our Lady. 

 We need to reach that point where we can truly say that we feel something special about Our Lady in an abiding way, and that we are quite aware of what she is telling and directing us. 

 When the world and the Church are undergoing many challenges, when we notice that the things that God created are being wantonly redefined according to human ideologies, we need to be truly close to Our Lady so we can remain faithful to Christ, our “way, truth and life.” 

 Mary has always been deeply concerned for the life the Church. Since the time of Christ and the apostles, to the different stages of human and Church history when several Marian apparitions and interventions took place, like the apparitions in Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, etc., she has been around to help us. 

 We, who are the People of God, the Family of God, the Church, should always have recourse to Our Lady. Thanks to God, in our country, we can still observe a great Marian popular piety, with every Marian feast vastly celebrated in many places. But just like anything else, these popular celebrations should trigger in us another conversion, a step further in deepening our Christian life, etc. 

 We should never be contented with just materially and physically joining the Marian festivities which are actually meant to nourish our faith and spiritual life. With each Marian celebration, there should also be some growth and progress in our devotion to her. 

 When we pray the Rosary or make a Marian pilgrimage, we should be able to feel that we are getting close to Mary and through her, to our Lord, Jesus Christ!

Practical implications of Pentecost

PENTECOST Sunday ends the Easter Season and leads us back to what we call as Ordinary Time in our liturgical calendar, the timepiece that enables us to live sacramentally with Christ as he continues with his redemptive work through the Holy Spirit. 

 It reminds us that the spirit of Pentecost, which is the Spirit of Christ, be lived in the ordinary things of our daily life, since everything ought to be lived always with Christ in the Spirit. In effect, we have to realize that Christ is always with us. He has not abandoned us. He continues to live with us, giving us the proper direction in our life. 

 Pentecost Sunday commemorates the fulfillment of what Christ promised his apostles about the coming of the Holy Spirit that would bring them to all the truth that Christ taught them and continues to do so. 

 It commemorates that day when the apostles who, together with Our Lady, were so filled with the Holy Spirit that they suddenly became bold in their apostolic work, even to the extent of speaking in tongues if only to reach out to all kinds of people. 

 It assures us that we should feel confident in all our apostolic undertakings despite the many trials, challenges and difficulties we can encounter, because it would be the Holy Spirit who would do things for and with us, if we would just allow him to. 

 We should have this abiding consciousness of this truth of our faith. We should make it form the conviction that whatever happens in our life, God in the Spirit will always be with us. We have to reinforce this conviction constantly both in good times and especially in bad times. We are never alone! God is always around! 

 We have to feel very much at home with this very wonderful reality and start to correspond to it as we ought. We have to go beyond our earthly dimensions and enter into the more fascinating world of the spiritual and the supernatural. 

 This does not mean that we escape from our earthly reality to be in the spiritual and supernatural reality. No. It means that while being deeply immersed in our mundane conditions, we also have to learn to go beyond them to be with God. This is what the word ‘transcendence’ means. 

 To be sure, we are enabled to do that, because of our intelligence and will. These are powerful faculties that would enable us to know and to love, and eventually to enter in the lives of others and ultimately to be with God. 

 And one secret that we can use to develop this life in the Spirit is precisely to give some spiritual and religious consideration or meaning to every act we do and to every situation, condition and circumstance we can find ourselves in. 

 We need to develop the proper attitude, skill and habit of giving spiritual and supernatural considerations to everything that we think about, say and do, so that we can really say that we would always be with God. That is the ideal that we should try to actualize. 

 One way among many other ways of doing this is to make use of the psalms which are inspired words that express the proper spiritual and supernatural attitude and reaction we ought to have to anything that occurs in our life. 

 Of course, we have to study and meditate on the psalms well so that we can internalize their real meaning and imbibe the spirit behind the words. We have to know the psalms that are relevant to every act we do and to every situation we can find ourselves in.

Limitless love and our limitations

THAT gospel episode where Christ asked Peter 3 times whether Peter loves him (cfr. Jn 21,15-19) somehow reminds us that love, which is supposed to be limitless and to be given without measure, needs to develop in stages given our human condition. 

 As the gospel narrates, after Peter responded in the affirmative to the first 2 questions, Christ told him to “feed my lamb.” But after the 3rd affirmative response of Peter, Christ told him to “feed my sheep.” 

 Then Christ proceeded to tell Peter, “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” These words of Christ could only mean that if Peter truly loves Christ, he should be ready to give his all, including his life, no matter how difficult that would be. 

 We have to realize more deeply that if we truly love God, which is also translated and is expressed in our love for everybody else also, then we should be ready to give our all, including our life, though this love too has to develop in stages. 

 We cannot deny that our earthly life is subject to many conditionings that can put some limitations to that possibility of giving our all for love. There are natural conditionings like the usual and normal process of growing from childhood to maturity that definitely allows us only to have a gradual understanding of what true love is. 

 Then we have the infranatural conditioning that are the effects of our sins and that can further distort our understanding of love. Still, we can always have the possibility to go beyond these conditionings because the grace of God is always made available. If we correspond properly to that grace, then we would be able to transcend our natural and infranatural conditionings that would put limits to our love for God and for everybody else. 

 Let’s remember that God himself showed his love for us in a gradual manner. After the fall of our first parents, there was a period of punishment. Then came the promise of the redeemer. Then the redeemer came. 

 And this redeemer, Jesus Christ, did not immediately give his all to us immediately. First of all, as a child, he needed to be taken care of, taught and brought up by Mary and Joseph. He spent 30 years of hidden life doing very ordinary things, mainly as a carpenter. 

 And even in his 3 years of public life, he showed his love in a gradual way by first preaching, going around, performing miracles, until finally he gave his all through his passion, death and resurrection. But all the while, he knew that he was giving his all spiritually and morally. 

 That should always be the example for us to follow. Even if we are subject to many limiting conditionings, we should try our best to give our all at least spiritually and morally by praying for everyone, showing concern and offering sacrifices for everyone, and always trying to prudently overcome our limitations. 

 We should be clear about aiming at giving our all, including our life, for the sake of love of God and of neighbor. We should never say enough to love!

One with God and with everybody else

THAT’S what we are meant to be. That’s what Christ prayed very fervently just before he was arrested and before he completed his redemptive mission through his passion, death and resurrection. It was like his last and final wish for us! “That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us…,” Christ said. (Jn 17,21) 

 You can just imagine the implications of these words! It should be very clear to us that we are meant to be truly one with God first, sharing his very life and nature, before we can be one with everybody else. 

 Our being image and likeness of God is not just a matter of being a faithful copy of God. A copy can have its own existence independently of the original. Our relation with God is not like that. We are meant always to be with God. 

 In another parable, Christ somehow underlined this truth of faith about ourselves when he said that we are meant to be the branches that are organically attached to the vine who is Christ. (cfr. Jn 15) Apart or detached from him, we can only expect death and barrenness, even if in human and worldly terms, we may appear to be vibrant. 

 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. 

 This unity was already hinted about or prefigured in the Old Testament, like the Book of Isaiah, where we hear the words: “This people have I formed for myself. They shall show forth my praise.” (43,21) 

 It is somehow referred to also in the New Testament when Christ said: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” (12,32) Of course, St. Paul said it even more clearly: “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one member one of another.” (Rom 12,5) 

 Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “The Church is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ’s Body.” (752) 

 We need to be aware of this truth about ourselves. Irrespective of our many differences and conflicts, we have to realize that we form one body, not in genetic, social, political or cultural terms, etc., but in the ultimate criterion of being image and likeness of God. 

 We have been made in his image and likeness and redeemed by Christ after we messed up the state of original justice in which we were created in Adam and Eve. We need to cooperate in Christ’s desire that we be ‘consummati in unum,’ that we may become perfectly one with him, as he is one with his Father. 

 To be sure, the unity spoken of here is not uniformity. It is not about building up a monolithic, rigid uniformity. It can tolerate, even encourage, a great variety of views and opinions, for these can only enrich and strengthen the unity Christ wants for us. We just have to learn how to handle this phenomenon that is somehow expressed in that American nation’s motto, ‘E pluribus unum,’ (one out of the many).

God, not us nor the world, defines reality

“I GAVE them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.” (Jn 17,14) These words are part of the priestly prayer Christ said just before his arrest that led to his passion, death and resurrection. 

 They remind us that it is God, whose word Christ faithfully transmitted to us, who defines reality. It’s neither us nor the world that define reality. Apart from God, the only thing we can accomplish is to distort reality. Apart from God, we would be building up a bubble that sooner or later would just burst. 

 That is why, Christ asked the Father to “consecrate them in the truth,” since “your word is truth.” (Jn 17,17) May we always be aware of where we can find the truth and how we can go along with the objective reality that is proper to us. 

 At the same time, Christ already warned us that because the world has its own ways that do not concur with God’s word, that is, with the truth, those of us who try to follow God’s word and who avoid worldly ways, would meet misunderstanding if not persecution. 

 In this, we should be ready. We cannot underestimate the pressure and the subtle, deceptive tricks that the world would exert on the followers of God. Nowadays, the mixture of good and evil is such that we are often left confused. 

 That is why we should just try our best to follow what Christ once said. “Be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” (Mt 10,16) It’s indeed a most intriguing piece of advice, but we just have to try it out. 

 Hard and even impossible as it may seem, we just have to try our best to achieve such condition, obviously with God’s grace, because as Christ himself warned us, in this world we would be like sheep in the midst of wolves. We just have to be clever without compromising our human and Christian integrity. 

 Definitely this is a combination that will be very challenging for us to develop. But we can always try, like taking one step at a time in pursuing this goal. For this, we may have to spend some time studying on how to develop it, coming out with some plans and resolutions along the way. 

 Truth is, we cannot deny that we are in an increasingly complicated world. There are now many smart people around, quick to rationalize their actions. This is especially true among our political leaders, who in their quest for power, will do everything—mostly unfair means and reasonings—to gain or keep that power. 

 But it would be a disaster to us if we respond to this complicated mess with our own version of convoluted self-justifications. This happens when we start thinking, judging, reasoning and concluding without God or, worse, when we think God's clear commandments are already obsolete, irrelevant, a drag to our interests, etc. 

 Definitely, in our effort to apply this piece of advice in our life, we would encounter situations that can dirty us. We cannot avoid having to deal with some forms of evil. It is therefore important that we are clear about the distinction between a morally tolerable cooperation in evil and the immoral and sinful one. 

 But as long as we stick with Christ as tightly as possible, we know that we can survive, and that as St. Paul once said, with Christ everything will work out for the good! (cfr. Rom 8,28)

What eternal life is

CHRIST said it very clearly. “This is eternal life,” he said, “that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” (Jn 17,3) Of course, we have to clarify that knowing God and knowing Christ can only take place if also love God and love Christ. 

 With God, knowing and loving always go together. One cannot be without the other. This is what is involved when we say we believe in God. We have to know and love him. Both are needed for us to achieve that union and identification with him so that we can share that eternal life that only God can give and share with us. 

 As we have clarified before, the process of knowing makes the knower (us) have the known (God) in him. But in loving, the lover (us) is brought to the beloved (God). In both these processes, the union and identification are made complete. 

 This union and identification with God is necessary for us since we are his image and likeness, meant to share in the very life and nature of God. We are not mere copies of God that can exist on our own independently of God, the original. We are meant always to live our life intimately with God, the original from whom we are the image and likeness. 

 That is why we can also say that while all creatures of God have a certain connaturality with him since every creature shares something with God the Creator, our connaturality with him as his image and likeness enjoys the highest degree. 

 That’s because while all creatures come and belong to God, we of all creatures come and belong to him in the most intimate way, since we are supposed to share in God’s very own life and nature. The other creatures do not have this kind of dignity. In fact, they are there to serve us who in the end and always should love and serve God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. 

 This is a truth of our Christian faith that we need to understand very well so that we can act on it and live it as best that we can. It is obviously something that we consider incredible. We certainly feel awkward about it, if not skeptical. 

 But we just have to level up our understanding of who we really are and start to feel confident that we can live up to that dignity because insofar as God is concerned, he has given us everything that we need to achieve our real identity. 

 That God has to become man to save us from our self-inflicted alienation from him due to our sin, and that this God-man, Jesus Christ, has to offer his life as a ransom for our sins, can only mean we are so special to him. Thus, a psalm expresses that amazement by saying, “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps 8,4) 

 Besides, that Christ had to offer himself as Bread of Life to be eaten by us so we can achieve even in a material way our union with him while here on earth, can only show that we are truly meant to be united and identified with Christ. 

 That is why, saints and theologians have described us to be “another Christ” if not “Christ himself.” And since Christ lives in eternity, transcending the limitations of time and space, then we too, if we unite ourselves with him, can live in eternal life, even while we are still here on earth!

Spiritual toughness

CHRIST already warned us about how our life here on earth is going to be. But he also has assured us that everything would just be ok. We should just stick with him through thick and thin. “In the world, you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world,” he said. (Jn 16,33) 

 We should put these words into our mind and heart and make them the principle to follow whenever we find ourselves in some difficult situations. For this, we should just learn how to suffer, since suffering is inevitable in our earthly sojourn. We need to develop a certain kind of spiritual toughness that is based on our faith and vital identification with Christ. 

 With Christ, we can learn how to be tough when we are made to suffer. Our faith, the ultimate source of truth about ourselves, tells us that suffering is due to sin, to the misuse of our freedom, to our disobedience to the will of God who created us to be his image and likeness, to be children of his, sharing in his very own life. 

 Yet, in spite of that, God our Father, who is all goodness and the very fount of love, did not and does not cease to care for us. And while allowing us to suffer the consequences of our sin and disobedience, he also showed and continues to show us up to now how to tackle suffering in our earthly life. 

 Toward this end, God did nothing less than to send his son to us. The son became man and took on all our sinfulness, culminating this mission with his death on the cross. In so doing and in resurrecting, Christ converts our suffering due to sin into a way of our redemption. 

 Thus, if we have to be truly Christian, we need to be tough, really tough. Christ himself was tough, but with the toughness of love that goes all the way of assuming all the sins of men by offering his life on the cross. To be Christ-like we need to be tough. At the same time, to be tough we need to be with Christ. Otherwise, whatever toughness we may show would not be the real toughness expected of us. 

 This toughness of Christ was described by St. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians: “For our sake, God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (5,21) 

 St. Peter made the same assertion: “Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” (1 Pt 2,24) In other words, Christ was not afraid of sin if only to save the sinner out of his love for all of us who are all sinners. He was and continues to be willing to assume our sins, as if they were his own, if only to save us. 

 He was not squeamish, prudish or puritanical in his attitude toward our sin. In fact, he was kind of pro-active about it, unafraid to get dirty as long as what really matters about us is accomplished and not compromised. That is why he was fraternizing more with the sinners than with the self-righteous. 

 As he himself said: “I came not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.” (Mk 2,17) And, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (Jn 3,17)

This business of giving glory to God

WHY do we have to give glory to God? Isn’t it egoistic on his part to command us to do so? Did he just create us to use us to give him glory? 

 These are questions that can come to mind when we are reminded of our duty to give glory to God in everything that we do. In a sense, these questions are understandable for us to ask. If we look at this duty from a purely human point of view, that reaction can easily come out. 

 But these questions should also lead us to ask more deeply why we have such duty. It is most likely that we are missing something. We may be failing to see the over-all picture. 

 True enough. If we look at this duty from the point of view of our Christian faith, then we can understand why we have such duty. And that is because if we abide by our faith that we have been created in God’s image and likeness, meant to be sharers of God’s life and nature, then everything we do should be an expression of glorifying God, our Father and Creator, from whom we should never dare to separate ourselves. 

 We are reminded of this truth of our faith when in the gospel of 7th Sunday of Easter, Year A, which falls this year on May 21, (cfr. Jn 17,1-11a), we see Christ who is the pattern of our humanity, the savior of our damaged humanity, glorifying God the Father. 

 “Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,” he said, “just as you gave him authority over all people, so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.” (Jn 17,1-2) 

 If we believe that Christ is “the way, the truth and the life” for us, then the relation he has with God the Father and what he does to the Father should also be our relation with God and what we do with him, that is, to glorify God just as Christ glorifies the Father. 

 Thus, we should always give glory to God. This should be the basic principle to follow in all our thoughts and intentions, our plans and desires, and our actions from the most hidden and personal ones to the most social and global. 

 Everything comes from him. Everything belongs to him. He is the source of all truth and goodness, the author of the ultimate reality. He should always be in our mind and heart, the beginning and end for everything in our life. Outside of this loop, we would be creating our own ivory tower, our own bubble, our own silo. 

 That is why St. Paul repeatedly made these reminders: “Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being, for the Lord and not for men, because you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Col 3,23-24) 

 In another occasion, he said: “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10,31) And still another: “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col 3,17) 

 We need to train ourselves to make God the beginning and end, the Alpha and Omega, of all our thoughts, words and deeds. We need to rectify our intentions and keep that rectitude all the way to the consummation of those intentions.

Why we can be confident in our life

“SO, you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. On that day, you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.” (Jn 16,22-23) 

 With these words of Christ, we have every reason to feel confident and at peace in our life even if we cannot help but get unavoidably involved in life’s complexities that can give rise to worries, anxieties and other forms of human suffering. 

 Let’s just strengthen our faith and keep our piety vibrant for only then can we manage to make these very reassuring words of Christ effective in our life. 

With this condition, we can afford to be hopeful and confident. With this condition, we can be like a good sportsman who would always train himself for his sport and play the game bent on winning though losses can also take place, and yet would still go on playing his game. 

 With that attitude, marked by confidence and courage, we can continue becoming a better person who knows how to take advantage of our defects and defeats, our weaknesses and limitations as a launching pad to develop the needed virtues. 

 That way, our weaknesses get transformed into some newly developed strengths, validating what St. Paul once said that it is “when I am weak that I am strong.” (2 Cor 12,10) The secret, of course, is to make our weakness as the very motive to go to God who gives us all the strength. 

 In this regard, having a strong faith means that we follow Christ who pursued his redemptive work all the way to the end, that is, to death on the cross, without running away. Even if on the way to Calvary he fell at least three times, as Tradition tells us, he would just get up and drag himself toward his crucifixion. 

 We too should not be hindered by our stumbles and defeats in life. They should not separate us from God. Rather, like a little child who runs to the strong arms to his father when he falls, we should go to God as quickly as possible since he knows what to do with our failures. 

 We should assume the mind of Christ who, when he fell a number of times on his way to Calvary, never let go of the cross. We have to learn to take refuge in our dignity as children of God who are assured to God’s help. We have to strengthen our sense of being children of God who always takes care of us. 

 That’s where we can manage to be always confident in life even if we encounter the unavoidable falls and defeats. Let’s not stay long feeling bad and sad whenever we fall. That’s not a good condition for us. We are meant to be happy and at peace, full of confidence in the constant help and protection of our Father God, so we can continue to do a lot of good and to carry out our duties and responsibilities. 

 For this also, we have to learn how to abandon things that we cannot handle well on the hands of God our Father. He is all too willing to bear all things for our sake, if we ourselves are unable to bear them.

Christian joy and the cross

A SAINT once said that Christian joy has its roots in the form of a cross. I suppose this affirmation can find validation in some words of Christ who once told his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.” (Jn 16,20) 

 In another part of the gospel, Christ also said something similar: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16,33) We have to convince ourselves that despite whatever happens in our life, we always have hope and we can always manage to be cheerful and at peace because Christ in the end will take care of everything, as long as we would just exert effort to be faithful to him. 

 But let’s always remember that our joy in and with Christ comes always as a result of the cross, of some struggle, of keeping our faith alive despite the many things in our life that can undermine it. We should just learn how to react properly to these faith-harming elements. 

 If our faith is strong and vibrant, we can always manage to have a sportsman-like attitude toward the unavoidable drama of our life where the forces of good and evil will always be at work. 

 It’s important that we don’t lose sight of our need for joy even as we go through the indispensable exercise of penance as we traverse this vale of tears we have in this world. And that’s because, as St. Paul said, the Lord is near. He is always around and eager to help us especially in our worst predicaments. This piece of news should gladden our heart even as we intensify our penitential acts to prepare ourselves properly to receive him. 

 This Good News, which with faith we can consider as already done, should remind us of the bigger picture about ourselves. We come from God and not just from our parents. We are meant to be with God in our definitive state of life in eternity. Our life here on earth is simply a training and testing ground to see if what God wants us to be is also what we want to be. 

 We should develop the appropriate sense of nostalgia and expectation that should bring us beyond the limits of time and space, and lead us to God in eternity. That’s where we came from and where we are meant to be. And for this, we have been given the adequate means, none other than Christ himself who told us that he is “the way, the truth and the life. No one goes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14,6) 

 We might find this idea incredible at first. We might even consider it as inhuman. But we need to be clarified about one thing. What our faith tells us, what God wills for us is not against our human nature. It simply goes beyond our nature. And since it’s beyond our nature, our faith precisely tells us to rely mainly on God who is omnipotent and wise to be able to follow God’s will for us that always gives us peace and joy. 

 The joy and peace that comes from God are always a fruit of a continuing spiritual battle to keep God’s love burning in us. It’s a joy and peace that is compatible with the cross, with all forms of suffering. It is not afraid of suffering which also has an important role to play in our life and in the redemption of mankind. With God, everything works for the good.

Truth is not just about facts and data

MUCH less is truth about a certain view or choice that may be supported by a majority of the people. Truth can only be found in God when the Spirit of Truth shows us what truth is. 

 We are reminded of this very important aspect of our life when in the gospel of St. John, Christ said that the Spirit of Truth “will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears and will declare to you the things that are coming.” (Jn 16,13) 

 To know the truth and to be in the truth are a matter of being discerning of what the Holy Spirit tells and shows us. In short, we cannot know and be in the truth unless we follow what the Spirit tells us. 

 We just cannot rely on facts and data and a majority vote to be in the truth. Understanding truth that way, without the inspiration of the Spirit, would just lead us to be deceived in a way that can be most subtle and convincing. But the result or the effect of such misunderstanding of truth would only be greater division among us or some harm. 

 Somehow, we can verify the effect of such misunderstanding of truth just by looking at how there is now a lot of division and misunderstanding among ourselves in spite of the tremendous developments we have in the sciences and the technologies. We can have a glut of facts and data and we can make choices by majority vote, and still the truth would elude us. 

 Facts and data need a proper spirit for them to serve the cause of truth. We need to realize that truth in the context or setting of our human condition needs a proper spirit. Without considering the proper spirit, they can only be used—or misused—by all sorts of possible human motives that in the end may not be right for us, or may just be self-serving to some of us but harmful to others. 

 The truth that comes from the Spirit of truth obviously can make use of facts and data and the results of some majority vote, but it will always be a dynamic one that in end would lead us to our ultimate goal in life—our own salvation, our attainment of the fullness of our human dignity as children of God, sharers of his divine life and nature. 

 We can ask the question: how can we see the truth amid our unavoidable biases and other conditionings that affect how we see, judge and react to things? The simple answer is to be like Christ who himself said that he is “the way, the truth and the life.” 

 Thus, in the gospel cited above, Christ clearly said that the Spirit of truth “will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason, I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” (Jn 16,14-15) 

 We obviously need to adjust our understanding of what truth is and of how we can be in the truth. To know and to be in the truth need to be pursued in the context of our relation with God through Christ in the Spirit. They just cannot be achieved through pure science or reliance to facts, data and majority vote!

Let’s take care of our spiritual life

WE are reminded of this very grave responsibility of ours in the Gospel of St. John where Christ told his disciples that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, would be sent to them and that the Holy Spirit would the one to convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation. (cfr. Jn 16,5-11) 

 The Holy Spirit, he said, will convict the world in regard to “sin, because they (the world) do not believe in me (Christ); righteousness, because I am going to the father and you will no longer see me; condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.” 

 In other words, the Holy Spirit would be the one to put our life in its proper and ideal state. He will be the one to help us keep and strengthen our faith, hope and charity, that is, our shared life with God. He will be the one to teach us how to deal with the things of the world, as well as with the enemies of God and of our soul. 

 We need to learn how to live our life with the Holy Spirit, which is what our spiritual life is all about. This is what sometimes is called as the Life in the Spirit. Our life is not simply biological and social, or merely natural. It is first of all a spiritual life that is poised to enter into the supernatural world of God as we are meant to do. 

 If we can only give to our spiritual powers just a fraction of the attention we usually give to our physical faculties, I think we would be much better off. Our problem is that most of the time we ignore the needs of our spiritual soul while we pamper and spoil our body. 

 Just look at the time, effort and money spent on things of the flesh—wellness craze, looks, sports and fashion, body cult, etcetera – and compare these with the ones spent for our spiritual needs—prayer, sacraments, interior struggle, etcetera. You’ll notice there can hardly be any worse inequality. 

 That’s why, in the long history of ascetical literature written and lived by saints through the centuries, there has been that consistent insistence to curb the tendencies of the flesh to give way to the more important aspirations of the spirit. 

 We need to sharpen our ability to discern the constant promptings of the Holy Spirit in our life. For this, we need to do some spiritual exercises like praying, offering sacrifices, having recourse to the sacraments, waging ascetical struggles, undergoing continuing formation, etc. 

 We need to convince ourselves that by living the Life in the Spirit, we would be putting ourselves on the road toward the fullness of our humanity. It’s in that Life in the Spirit where we would be freed from the constricting world of our senses, emotions and passions. 

 In this regard, St. Paul once said, "Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." (Eph 4,22-24) 

 We know that there’s always that tension between our flesh and our spirit, articulated by Christ himself when he told his sleepy disciples, Peter, James and John, to watch and pray, because “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” 

 To remedy this predicament, Christ taught that we enter by the narrow gate—putting ourselves to some inconveniences and discomfort, etcetera – because “wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to perdition.

The basis of our hope

WHEN Christ told his disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit to them (cfr. Jn 15,16-16,4) after he shall have died, resurrected and ascended into heaven, he was reassuring them—and us—that despite whatever we experience in this world, we can have hope to reach our final destination, which is to be with God in heaven, fully transformed into his image and likeness as God wants us to be. 

 We should just learn how to strengthen our hope always, since that is a crucial virtue to have. Given our condition of pilgrim here on earth, exposed to all sorts of challenges, trials, difficulties and the like, we should make sure that we are always on the move toward our ultimate, spiritual and supernatural goal. That’s what hope does for us. 

 We should not get distracted or entangled by our earthly affairs, whether good or bad, for as the Letter to the Hebrews would put it: “For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.” (13,14) Thus, we have to strengthen our hope always. Our earthly affairs should only be a means and occasion to foster our hope to get us to our ultimate destination. 

 Hope is first of all not just a virtue that we produce, cultivate or keep to ourselves. It is first of all a gift of God, given to us in abundance. It is the gift of Christ himself who, by the Holy Spirit, is made present in us through his words, his sacraments, his Church. All we have to do is to correspond to this wonderful reality as faithfully and vigorously as possible. 

 That is why we need to be most mindful of the truths of our faith, giving time to meditate on them and to make them sink in our very consciousness. We have to be wary of our tendency to be carried away by our earthly concerns, no matter how legitimate they are. For again, as the gospel would say, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mk 8,36) 

 It’s important that just like in that management style called MBO (Management by Objective), we have to have a clear vision of our ultimate goal and make it the strongest desire of our life, so that we don’t get entangled with the ups and downs and the drama of life. 

 Christ has warned his disciples—and us—that because of him, we will encounter severe trials that would go to the extent of testing our very faith. We have to be ready for this eventuality by always developing a sharp sense of discernment of what the Holy Spirit would be prompting us to think, say, do and react. 

 We also need to be constantly reminded of what Christ himself assured us. “In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16,33) We need to be ready when some fears, and worse, anxieties and depression, would come to us. 

 This, of course, will require some significant effort, because especially nowadays people are getting too hooked in their earthly, temporal affairs. Some of them who are considered more in the successful side, get too immersed in them that they forget their spiritual and supernatural goal. Others, who are more in the losing side, eventually fall into discouragement and despair. They end up finding no meaning in life. 

 We should do everything to sharpen our sense and virtue of hope!

Love, commandments, truth

WE need to know the intimate relation among this triad. Christ said it very clearly, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (Jn 14,15) And more than that, he also said that it is when we love him by following his commandments that the Spirit of truth would be with us and would lead us to the truth. 

 This is what he said: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you. (Jn 14,16-17) 

 It is important that we meditate on these words of Christ very closely if only to understand the relation of how love of Christ is achieved by keeping his commandments and how that love can lead us to the truth that nowadays is being twisted and distorted according to one’s whims and caprices, one’s biases and prejudices, creating all sorts of spins and narratives to suit one’s interest at the expense of truth itself. 

 This distortion of truth is most especially noticed nowadays in the fields of politics, journalism, and even in the sciences, philosophies and ideologies. Even open, unmitigated lies are peddled, and done with so much self-confidence and aplomb that it would seem that the devil, the father of lies, is having a heyday. 

 Many people nowadays just say and write, opine and claim or proclaim something with hardly any regard to our duty to check things with Christ first. They seem convinced that God has nothing to do with whatever they would be saying or claiming. 

 As a result, in spite of the powerful means of communication we are having, what we are having are more and worsening differences and conflicts. Instead of unity, we have graver division. Instead of generating more understanding and charity, we have growing cases of anger and hatred. 

 We need to remind ourselves strongly that we can only manage to achieve real love for God and for one another, and to be in the truth, when we truly follow and love Christ. We should dismiss any thought that tells us that we can manage to have them outside of Christ. 

 These days, it’s clear that the pressure to just say and write with hardly any reference to Christ is quite strong and seemingly irresistible. But we should just fight against that tendency. 

 With Christ, not only would we be in the truth. We would also be charitable, knowing when and how to say or assert anything. We have to be reminded that for truth to be real truth, it has to be charitable. Truth and charity always go together, though we should not understand charity as simply being sugary and always pleasing. Charity can have a bitter taste too. 

 And to be in the truth does not mean that we only use facts and data. Christ used many literary devices like parables, similes, metaphors, hyperboles and oxymorons to proclaim the truth. These literary devices were not meant to deceive us. They were not lies. 

 We too can use these literary devices but they should always be inspired by the spirit of Christ, for that can only assure us that these devices would point us to the truth. Again, let us realize more deeply the close and indispensable relation among love, the commandments of Christ, and the Spirit of truth.

We should be both friends and lovers

IN the gospel, there is a part where Christ tells us, practically defining for us, what is to be a lover and a friend. This is a crucial point to note, since sad to say, nowadays many people often say they are just lovers but not friends, or vice-versa, that they are just friends but not lovers. 

 Christ described and defined both when he said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (Jn 15,13-14) And reiterating how a friend should be, he said, “I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” (Jn 15,15) 

 It’s important that we get as much as possible the practical implications of these description and definition of a lover and a friend, because we are meant to be both. To be a real lover, we need to be ready to give everything of ourselves to our loved ones, God first and then the others, including giving our very life. Love is self-giving, and its perfection is when it is total self-giving. 

 You can imagine what this quest to be a real lover would involve! Definitely a lot of sacrifice, of self-denial, of gratuitous and magnanimous self-giving immediately come to mind. These, of course, will take a life-long process, but we should do it as early as possible and as steadily as possible also. The ideal is when we get truly ready to give our life for God and for everybody else. 

 And to be a true friend is to share what one has with others. And the peak of friendship is when we share the supreme good with others, and this is none other than God himself, when we help everyone to do his will and to be faithful to his commandments. 

 To be a real friend, we need to base our friendships on God’s goodness and orient it to God’s glory. The sharing involved in friendship should have God as the origin, center and goal. Otherwise, it would be dangerous friendship, one that often would not lead to real love. 

 In other words, if God is the basis and reason for our friendship and love, then we can always be both friends and lovers with everybody else. It’s when God is not the principle and goal of our love and friendship that to be both friends and lovers with everybody can hardly, if not impossible to be achieved. 

 We have to realize that if our love is true, that is, it is a love that is a vital participation of God’s love for all his creation, especially for man, then it is open to anything. That love remains steadfast and continues to grow and to be creative irrespective of how it is received by the object of such love. 

 It can be received well or not, it can be reciprocated generously or be betrayed. Regardless of the fate it falls into, that love will remain faithful. Thus, St. Paul once said: “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” (2 Tim 2,13) 

 And if we have the proper understanding of what true friendship is, then we should be friendly always with everyone. Irrespective of how they are—and this can include those who in our human standards we consider to be unlikable, or who have done us wrong, or who are even hostile to us—we should just try our best to be friendly with them.

Relation between real love and complete joy

The relation between the two has been defined by Christ himself. “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” Then later on, he said, “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” (Jn 15,10-11) 

 It’s clear that the secret to having the real love that gives us the complete joy is to follow the commandments of God. That’s just how things should be, after all God is the source and the power of all good things. 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to find love and joy somewhere else. Nowadays, that tendency is sharpened because of the many developments that while giving us a lot of good, can also give us a lot of dangers. As a result, many of us end up confused and lost, chasing after what only are mirages of love and joy. 

 We cannot overemphasize our great need to know, love and live as fully as possible the commandments of God to have the real love and the complete joy. In other words, living by God’s will is, in the end, what is most important to us. 

 It’s not just following our will which is, of course, indispensable to us. Otherwise, we would be undermining our very own freedom and our humanity itself. Whatever we do is done because we want it. It should be a fruit of our freedom. 

 But what is most important is to conform our will to God’s will, which is even more indispensable to us. Otherwise, we sooner or later would destroy our freedom which is the launching pad of our love, as well as our humanity itself, since God is the very author and the very lawgiver of our freedom, love and our humanity. 

 This is a basic truth that we need to spread around more widely and abidingly, since it is steadily and even systematically forgotten and, nowadays, even contradicted in many instances. We need to inculcate this truth to children as early as when they can understand and appreciate it. Then let’s give them the example of how it is lived. 

 God’s will is the source of everything in the universe. The whole of creation in all its existence, unity, truth, goodness and beauty starts from God’s will and is maintained by it. The entire range and scope of reality—be it material or spiritual, natural or supernatural, temporal or eternal—is “contained” there, not only theoretically but in vivo. 

 We have to realize more deeply that it is in God’s will that everything is made to exist and is kept in existence in accordance to his providence. Since we have been made with the capacity to know and to will, we have to live our life knowing and willing together with God’s knowledge and will, full of wisdom, love and mercy. 

 In other words, we have to cooperate with God’s providence, we have to live by God’s abiding will. Thus, St. Paul says: “Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” (Rom 14,8) 

 We have to learn to live by God’s will that is shown to us, thanks to God, by Christ, the fullness of divine revelation, who left us with his word and the sacraments in the Church. This is how we can have the real love that gives us the complete joy!

Let’s be united with Christ always

KNOWING who we really are—that is, that we are image and likeness of God, sharers of his divine life and nature, having been patterned after Christ—we need to realize that we are meant to be united with God always through Christ in the Holy Spirit. 

 We are reminded of this truth of our faith in that gospel parable where Christ said that “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you.” (Jn 15,1-4) 

 We need to realize more deeply that Christ, being the vine, is always with us. He is where we are attached to just as branches are attached to the vine. But we need to be fruitful, otherwise we would be taken away. It’s also good to note that Christ has given us everything so that we would be fruitful. He has pruned us with his word so that we can precisely be fruitful. 

 The challenge we have to face and tackle is how we can always be aware that we are actually united with Christ and be faithful to him by following his word and example, so that we can keep ourselves being united to him. 

 For this, we need to avail of some means that would help us to be always in his presence, aware and desirous to do his will and ways, even as we immerse ourselves in all our temporal and earthly affairs. 

 We have to be most wary of our strong tendency to do just our own will without relating it to Christ’s will. That would constitute as sheer self-indulgence that will shortly fizzle out just as a branch cannot live long when detached from the vine, the giver and source of life and fruitfulness. 

 Thus, we need to make several pauses during the day so that we can recover and keep our presence of God all day long, and put ourselves in the proper condition to carry out God’s will. 

 We have to learn how to resist being swallowed up and trapped in our temporal affairs which nowadays can be very irresistible and absorbing. We have to sharpen our awareness that our life is meant to be a shared life with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. 

 Yes, our life, whether considered in its purely natural aspect or in its supernaturally oriented spiritual dimension, that is, particularly our Christian life, is by definition a shared life. 

 We need to develop the skills not only to protect and keep this property of our life, but also to continually reinforce and enhance it. That’s because our life is always a dynamic affair, with new challenges and changing circumstances. 

 We cannot remain naïve and think that our life more or less would just automatically be a shared life. Some people say so, because they claim we cannot avoid sharing our life with others. 

 To a certain extent, that assertion is true. But neither can we be blind to the fact that we and the world in general have ways, often subtle and deceptive, that effectively annul this shared characteristic of our life. 

 We just have to be keenly aware that whatever situation we find ourselves in, Christ always has something to say, and we just have to follow it.

The peace Christ gives us

IT’S important that we understand the kind of peace that Christ gives us. As he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” (Jn 14,27) Very heartwarming words of Christ, but we have to know exactly what that peace is all about. 

 Yes, we have to understand that Christ gives us a specific kind of peace, one that definitely goes beyond the worldly definition and standards of peace. It’s a peace that is not simply the absence of wars, troubles, worries, etc. In fact, it is one that can only be achieved through constant struggles. As one saint would put it, it is a peace that is a result of war! 

 This is a peace that can only be achieved and felt when we try our best to keep a good relation with Christ. That is to say, that we develop a healthy interior or spiritual life that links us with Christ. With him, we can manage to have peace however the situation of our life and the world in general turns. It’s an all-weather kind of peace, a realistic one that can be enjoyed both in good times and bad times. 

 This is a peace that is not simply based on natural and human conditions. It is one that comes from God, that channels the peace of God himself who can transcend and resolve whatever twists and turns our life here on earth goes through. It’s a peace that comes as a result of God’s wisdom and omnipotence. 

 It’s important that we earnestly make the effort the identify ourselves more and more with God’s will and ways, since only then can we enjoy the true peace meant for us. God’s will and ways have been revealed to us through Christ and are now shared with us through the Holy Spirit working through the different instrumentalities of the Church. 

 Definitely this peace that comes from God will lead us to become more spiritual and supernatural in our ways, without of course compromising what is human and natural in us. But certainly, there will always be the need for disciplining our natural and carnal selves so we can enter into the spiritual and supernatural dimension of our life with God. 

 Thus, there is a need to outgrow our carnal selves, a process that will involve constant struggle. We all need to overcome our carnality and sensuality to allow reason and eventually our faith to take root, dominate, guide and lead us. That’s because we are meant to be spiritual men, not carnal men. Reason, will, faith, hope and charity—all these make up the spiritual character of our life. 

 We have to be careful with the many ideological definitions and descriptions of man that can contain certain elements of truth but still miss the core point. Man is not just a social, economic or political being. He is a lot more than these. 

 Much less is he a purely material being, completely imprisoned in time, space and worldliness, and detached from God, the eternal, supernatural, perfect being, who created him to be God’s image and likeness, as what some worldly ideologies teach. 

 When we manage to live our life with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit, then we can be sure of having that invincible peace Christ promised to give us!

The promise of the Holy Spirit

THE occasion this promise was made was when Judas, not the Iscariot, told Christ, “Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” (Jn 14,22) That was when Christ told him and the others with him that “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” (Jn 14,26) 

 All these were said because Christ was telling the apostles that whoever believes in his word, meaning his teachings, believes in God, and God would love him. We need to realize more deeply how important it is to know and convert into practice the doctrine of Christ which is now taught authoritatively in the Church. 

 The word of Christ is the word that would lead us to eternal life. Let’s remember that episode where Christ asked his apostles whether they would also desert him since a number of the people left him after he told them they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood to be united with him. (cfr. Jn 6,56-60) It was Peter who answered: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Jn 6,68) 

 We need to see the intimate relation and connection between Christ’s word and our need to be with God. Also, we need to realize the role of the Holy Spirit in this business of how to understand, obey and live Christ’s word so we can be with God. 

 We need to realize more deeply that the Holy Spirit perpetuates the presence and redemptive action of Christ all throughout time, with all the drama, vagaries, ups and downs that we men make in our earthly journey. 

 This is because the life and redemptive work of Christ, who is both God and man, just cannot be swallowed up in the past and confined to a certain space and a particular culture or set of circumstances. 

 Christ’s work has a universal and perpetual scope. It affects all of us, and it affects us not only in some physical or material way, but in a very intimate, personal way, with him, through the Holy Spirit, entering into our lives. 

 It has been prophesied that God will pour out his Spirit upon all men. The Holy Spirit is intended for all of us. We are all meant to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But this divine will obviously has to contend with the way we receive and do things, and that is, that we take to this reality in stages involving a whole range of human means of teaching, evangelizing, etc. 

 We need the Holy Spirit because only in him can we truly recognize Christ. Only in him will we be able to have Christ in our life, to remember all his words and even to develop them to attune them to current needs and situations. 

 Only in him can we see things properly. Especially these days when truth, justice and charity have become very slippery, and people are left confounded and vulnerable to fall into scepticism and cynicism, we need to be in the Holy Spirit to be able to sort things out and stay away from the mess. 

 We need the Holy Spirit to be able to read the signs of the times properly. The world is getting very complicated, and we definitely need the Holy Spirit to guide us. We cannot rely anymore on our politicians and other leaders. We, including politicians and especially them, actually always need the Holy Spirit.

We can do the work of God

YES, we can! Christ said it clearly. “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do.” (Jn 14,12) 

 Incredible, indeed! But that’s just how it is. If we would just bother to consider who we really are, then it should come as a given that we can do God’s work. Our life is truly a shared life with God, since we are his image and likeness, sharers of his life and nature. 

 While all creatures enjoy a certain connaturality with God, the Creator, we of all the creatures enjoy that connaturality to the highest degree. We have been created in such a way that we just don’t belong to God. Rather, we enter into the very life and nature of God himself. 

 That is why we are made a person, and not just a thing or some living plant or animal. As a person, we have been hard-wired in such a way that we can knowingly, willingly and freely relate ourselves not only with others and with all the other creatures, but also and first of all, with God himself. 

 Our spiritual faculties of intelligence and will can do that for us. That is why our life cannot help but be a shared life with others and with God himself. This is a basic truth about ourselves that we should try to continually remind ourselves of, if only to uphold it and reinforce it, since we also have the tendency to keep to ourselves rather than to continually relate ourselves to God and to the others. 

 Yes, we always have the tendency to fall into self-indulgence and self-absorption. We have to be wary of this danger that is clearly becoming widespread. Self-indulgence and self-absorption are a constant threat, especially these days when good and evil are so mixed up that we would mostly likely be left confused and easily taken by the sweet poisons that today’s new things readily offer. 

 The slippery slope to self-indulgence and self-absorption that takes us out of our road to our ultimate and proper goal happens practically everywhere. For example, we can start going to the Internet for the legitimate purpose of getting some information that we need. But along the way, we get distracted by something else that can appear interesting to us also. 

 So, we take a bite, and then another, until we fail to realize that we are already getting entangled and hooked. It is like being hijacked. We lose our sense of direction, and before we know it, we would already have forgotten why we went to the Internet in the first place. 

 We should always do things with God and for God. That would convert everything that we do, no matter how small and insignificant, into God’s work also. Obviously, doing things with God and for God presumes that what we do is in accord with God’s moral laws and is done as a way to glorify him and to help the others. 

 For this, we have to see to it that we do things always with Christ who clearly said that “whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters,” (Lk 11,23) and “I am the vine, you are the branches.” (Jn 15,5) 

 This is how we can do the work of God!

Ever strengthening our faith in Christ

“DO not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” (Jn 14,1) These words tell us clearly that Christ and God are one. Christ, we may argue, is just the Son in the Trinitarian God. He is just one person in three. 

 But we have to realize that the 3 persons in the Blessed Trinity are one God. The Father is God, The Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Not three Gods but one God, as our Nicene Creed proclaims. Obviously, this is a mystery to us, since it is a supernatural truth. But Christ precisely took pains to prove that he and the Father and the Holy Spirit are just one God! 

 His many miracles and sublime teachings could already prove that. And as if these were not enough, it was his passion, death and resurrection that would definitely tell us that he is truly God even as he is also truly man. 

 The distinctive character of Christ is that as God who became man, he offers us “the way, the truth and the life” (Jn 14,6) meant for us, since we too have been made in God’s image and likeness. 

 We need to look for him and know him, so we can love and serve him, and ultimately become like him. In fact, we are meant to be one with him—“alter Christus,” another Christ, if not “ipse Christus,” Christ himself. 

 We should therefore develop the proper attitude and practices to enable us to keep an interest in looking for Christ, in knowing, loving and serving him, and ultimately in becoming one with him. 

 In this regard we cannot emphasize enough the need for a strong and abiding faith so that in whatever we do in our life, this urge to look, know, love, serve and become one with Christ is always pursued. 

 That is why we need a plan of ongoing formation and an over-all plan of life, consisting of certain practices of piety that would keep this ideal of a life of faith alive and working. 

 We need to develop a theological mind, that is, a mind that is not only fed by what our senses show us, what our observations, experimentations, our studies can tell us. We should have a mind that is always guided by faith first and last and all throughout. 

 In whatever we think, say or do, let’s always try to look for Christ so that we can find him, and in finding him we can start to love and serve him, and in the end become one with him. 

 To be sure, Christ is in everything and is precisely showing and sharing with us “the way, the truth and the life” in any situation and condition we may find ourselves in. This, of course, means that we have to have a deeply contemplative spirit which does not mean that we should stay away from the world. 

 We can always be contemplative even as we immerse ourselves in the world, as we should, if we would just bother to learn to be contemplative. The world and the temporal affairs we get involved in need not be an obstacle to becoming a contemplative soul. Precisely, these things can and should be the occasion, the material and the means to engage us with Christ, and thus, for us to be contemplative!