Truth and freedom flow from faith

WE need to be clear about the relation among truth, freedom and faith. Unless we know this relation and live by it, we cannot really keep the dignity that is meant for us. That is why Christ lamented over the unbelief of the people of his time because in spite of what he has taught and shown them, they continued to ask for signs. (cfr. Lk 11,29-32) 

 “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” These words of Christ tell us about the need to develop a strong faith and our need for constant conversion in life. Only then can we be in the truth and enjoy the real freedom meant for us. In other words, truth and freedom can only flow from faith. 

 We therefore should see to it that our faith should not remain only in the theoretical, intellectual level. It has to be a functioning one, giving shape and direction to our thoughts and intentions, our words and deeds. In fact, it should shape our whole life. 

 The ideal is that we feel it immediately. Indeed, it should be like an instinct such that whatever we think, say or do, or whenever we have to react to something, it is our faith that should guide us. 

 We have to understand that it is our faith that gives us the global picture of things, since it is God’s gift to us, a gratuitous sharing of what God knows about himself and about the whole of creation. It is meant for our own good, for us to live out our true dignity as children of God. 

 If we would just depend on our own estimation of things, relying solely on our human powers and human ways, we may happen to get some traces of truth and freedom, but it would not be the whole truth and the real freedom we would be having. We most likely would even be deluded in a most subtle way. 

 To avoid this condition and to be guided always by our faith that gives us the truth and freedom, we really need to have a living contact with Christ who is the fullness of God’s revelation to us. He is the substance, the content and the spirit of our faith. So, the first thing that we have to do is to look for him always in whatever thing we are thinking, saying or doing. 

 We need to check our attitudes and dispositions. Do we really look for him, in the manner spelled out by Christ himself, that is, with constancy, determination and persistence despite the difficulties? Christ assured us: “Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (Mt 7,7) 

 What obviously would help is the habit of reading and meditating on the gospel, at least for a few minutes everyday. In that way, we get to know Christ better, and to familiarize ourselves with his words, deeds and reactions to the different situations he encountered. Let’s remember that since he is “the way, the truth and the life,” everything in him will always be a guide to us. 

 We have to realize more deeply that Christ and each of us are supposed to be one. Our radical identity is actually that of Christ, before we assume other qualifications and descriptions of our identity. And as such, our mission and purpose of life cannot be any other than that of Christ. That’s when we truly be in the truth that would make us free.

Always show charity with affection

AN anecdote I heard sometime ago taught me the lesson that charity should never be dry and cold, but rather warm, full of affection. It was about a nun who got sick and stayed in bed for days in the convent. When asked how she was treated by her companions, she said that she was treated by the nuns in the convent with charity, but she missed how her mother treated her with affection. 

 For charity to be true charity, there should never be a distinction between it and affection. Charity should not only be an act of the will. It should always be given and expressed with affection. 

 Without affection, all signs and expressions of civility, mercy and compassion would be hollow. They would all be a sham, for affection is the beginning and end of charity, the integral packaging of love that can have its highest point in mercy and compassion. Charity without affection would be a strange charity. 

 And the model for this is none other than Christ himself who in spite of the seriousness of his mission—nothing less than human redemption that would have its culmination in his crucifixion—never neglected to show affection for everyone. 

 First, he lived 30 of his 33 years of earthly life in a family, and we can just imagine how the family atmosphere was when both Mary and Joseph knew who their son was. We can be sure that the home life the Holy Family must have been invariably characterized by affection, to say the least. 

 Even in his public life when Christ was busy going around preaching, he always showed affection and compassion with everyone, especially with those who were sick and possessed. With his apostles who went around with him, he always managed to spend time with them in some lonely place where they could rest and talk with greater intimacy. 

 It’s important that we make deliberate effort to develop our affective life. There now are many threats and dangers that can undermine it. We can now easily take others for granted, especially those who are close to us, like the family members. 

 We can easily fall into familiarity that may not breed contempt as much as it breeds indifference and unconcern. Then, there now are many distractions, especially coming from our new technologies, that can hook people into endless games and other self-absorbing and self-seeking activities. In this regard, there is a great need for self-discipline and a strong sense of order and priorities. 

 

 If not the above, then we can have the dangers of perfectionism, self-righteousness, obsessive-compulsive rigidities and oversensitivity. These can imprison us in our own world that can use as defense mechanisms such practices as rash judgments, the keeping of grudges and resentments, the unwillingness to forgive, etc. 

 There also are the dangers of sentimentalism, particular friendships, loquacity, gossiping, backbiting. 

 We have to learn how to deal with our unavoidable differences and even conflicts in some matters. We somehow should welcome these differences and conflicts because they serve to expand and enrich our understanding of things. 

 When we manage to practice affection in our family life, we actually would be putting ourselves in a good position to handle the demands of all the other aspects of our life—spiritual, professional, social, etc. 

 We can pray better, work better and relate ourselves better to the others when we know how to be affectionate in our family life. We can be very simple, and our ability to understand people and things better, as well as to discover more things of interest in others, would be enhanced if we are affectionate with others.

Just ride it out with the Lord

THAT’S the attitude to develop and to have in this life where we can expect undesirable things to come our way. Yes, there are options we make that in spite of our best efforts, turn out to be wrong in the end. And there will also be unfavorable conditions in our life that we cannot avoid. All kinds of tragedies and disasters can come. In all these things, let’s remember that there is always an upside. 

 Before all these, our attitude should be that of a good sportsman with a good sense of humor, knowing that as long as we stick with the Lord all the time, we know that everything will turn out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28) 

 These negative experiences can, in fact, impart in us many precious lessons and can occasion the development of many good virtues, like patience, hope and optimism, flexibility and versatility, toughness, etc. Worrying does not help. It can only make things worse. 

 These experiences can lead us to be more spiritual and supernatural in our outlook in life which is what is proper to us as persons and as children of God. We can become better persons through them. Our differences and conflicts with others can also be transcended as we are forced to work together to resolve a common problem. Nothing is actually a loss. Rather, we can enjoy a tremendous gain. 

 It is good that we consider this fact more thoroughly so that instead of being afraid of these unwanted events, we just have to prepare ourselves for them with a positive outlook and the proper spiritual and material readiness. 

 We are already warned in the Book of Ecclesiastes that there is time for everything (cfr 3,1) and that we should just enjoy what we are doing (cfr 3,22), instead of filling ourselves with fear and anxiety. We have to learn to be sport and game in this exciting and suspenseful life of ours. 

 The important thing to do is to simply ride things out, but always with the Lord. If our faith is strong and deep, we know that the Lord has already turned all the bad conditions of our life into a way of our sanctification and salvation, the most important purpose of our life here on earth. Indeed, we can afford to smile and to feel confident in all these bad experiences we can have. 

 There can be no worse thing in our life than the very passion and death of Christ on the cross, which we know was his way of bearing all the sins and evils we commit and get involved in this world. And yet, that passion and death led to his resurrection, the conquest and victory over all our sins and the negative things in our life. If we stick with him in our bad conditions, we too are assured of conquest and victory. 

 Let’s always remember that God never leaves us. We have to immediately dismiss the temptation of thinking that God has left us alone in certain moments. Only with him can the perishable things become imperishable. 

 We should make this truth of our faith vividly imprinted in our mind and heart as we go through the drama of our life or, better said, the very thrilling game of our life. That is why we need to spend time and effort to make this truth of our faith an abiding conviction in us. And we should be most eager to spread this Good News to everyone, especially to the young ones who still need to have a more complete picture of things.

What to do when tempted

OBVIOUSLY, the thing to do is to immediately go to Christ who will show us and empower us with the proper way to deal with the many temptations in our life. We should never just be by ourselves when these temptations come, thinking that we can rely solely on our own strength. Such thought definitely would come from the tempters themselves—our wounded flesh, the world’s allurements and the devil himself. 

 When we find this recourse to Christ difficult to do, we should just force ourselves to be humble, always acknowledging our helplessness before the forces of evil, and begging our Lord to help us. This way we can even convert these temptations into golden occasions to grow in our spiritual life. St. Paul said so in so many words: “In all things God works for the good of those who love him.” (Rom 8,28) 

 It’s only when we refer these temptations to Christ that things get clarified. Let’s remember that temptations will always make use of something desirable, anchored on some good and true things which are subtly and deceptively distorted and corrupted. 

 They will always appeal to our weaknesses. Thus, if we would just use a little bit of common sense, temptations can offer us some advantage since they point to us where our weaknesses are, where we have to focus our efforts to correct. 

 

 In a sense, temptations encourage us to develop the virtues that are affected by them. They remind us to be always humble and to ever depend on God rather than on our powers alone. 

 And so, we have to work hard in building up this relation with God if we want to keep some safe distance away from temptations. If our love for God is hot, the devil and the other tempters will find it hard to get near us, just like a fly would not get close to a hot soup. 

 

 Our usual problem is that we tend to be by ourselves when temptations come, and to rely simply on our powers which actually are already heavily compromised since our wounded flesh is an ally of the enemies of our soul. We always have a Trojan horse in our personal lives. 

 Without God’s grace we simply cannot do anything except to fall, if not soon then later. It would just be a matter of time. But when we are with God, we get to see the whole picture, and can distinguish the poison embedded in the many good, beautiful, true and sweet things that the temptations come with. 

 From there we would know what strategy to take. Very often, what can be effective is simply to ignore the temptation and to pour scorn on the evil spirits behind the temptation. This is effective if in the first place our spiritual life is healthy, with faith and love for God and for souls vibrant and strong. 

 But then when such faith and love is not that strong, the temptations can gain some foothold in us. When we notice this, our reaction should be just to stay calm and not to dare to get overexcited. When there is a storm around, we usually would stay home or at a safe place to ride it out, and avoid going around. 

 The same with this particular case of temptations gaining some foothold in us. It simply means that God is allowing these temptations to come to show us where we are weak, and therefore where we should do something about.

The danger of comparing ourselves with others

THIS danger is illustrated in that gospel episode where “the disciples of John approached Jesus and said, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” (Mt 9,14) 

 And Christ simply responded: “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” (Mt 9,15) 

 We have to be wary of this danger of comparing ourselves with others which is actually what is known as envy. It’s one of the most insidious anomalies that gives us the uneasy feeling that others are better than us in some respects. 

 We can even be envious of others who we know are doing evil and yet appear to be having a better time than us. Or it can come as a result of some personal frustrations, defeats and losses while others appear to only have successes and victories. We fail to realize that right from the start we already enjoy the highest dignity since we have been made as God’s image and likeness. Envy really has no place in or life. 

 The likelihood of envy to come to our life and its character have been described a number of times in some biblical passages like, “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.” (James 3,16) “You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.” (James 4,2) 

 Still more: “For you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?” (1 Cor 3,3) “Jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge.” (Proverbs 6,34) 

 Envy is usually accompanied by sadness and sometimes by hatred, anger, bad thoughts and impulses of revenge, fault-finding and bitter zeal. It comes as a result of comparing oneself with others without God in the middle. The standards used are highly subjective and restrictive. 

 What makes it worse is that it is something internal, usually suffered in private, quite hidden, and therefore hard to be corrected by oneself or by others. To cover it up some more, especially when one suspects that others are already detecting it, one usually uses all kinds of pretension and the ways of hypocrisy. 

 A nasty sense of insecurity bogs him. There’s usually a see-sawing attitude of liking and disliking, or the liking is somehow accompanied by a trace of dislike, a pinch of discomfort. One is not totally at peace when envy assails him. 

 Yes, envy is a very unfortunate thing to happen to anyone because it is a pure waste of time and energy. And because of it, many good opportunities that one can have are often missed. Of course, the worst effect is that one’s soul gets corrupted and can get completely wrapped up in his own miserable self-made world. He suffers alone. 

 We have to slay envy everytime it makes us its port of call. We have to let it know immediately that it is unwelcome. And the way to do it is to go to Christ immediately, praying, sacrificing, and reminding ourselves of Christ’s example and teaching. 

 We need to remember that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, however we are placed and situated in life. Not everyone can be bright, talented, successful, etc. Some have to do the menial job, take care of the little things, be at the background.

An active, not passive, hope

AS we are in this Jubilee Year of Hope, we need to be clarified about the true character of this particular gift from God which we have to duly receive and act on, making it an abiding virtue in us. Given our condition of pilgrim here on earth, we should make sure that we are always on the move toward our ultimate, spiritual and supernatural goal. 

 Hope should never be understood simply as total dependence on God’s omnipotent and merciful providence without us doing our own part. Hope demands that while we depend on God for everything, we should also do our part of the bargain, and should, in fact, do it to the limit. 

 Yes, everything depends on God, but everything also depends on us. It’s a 100%-100% proposition, though our efforts and power definitely would not match those of God. Let’s remember that as God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature, we need to try our best to channel in our life God’s tremendous care and love for us. We just cannot be sitting pretty, waiting for things to happen under God’s powers. 

 There’s always need for us to assume the very mind and heart of God as shown to us by Christ and made ever effective through the Holy Spirit. And the mission of Christ, who is our redeemer, should also be our mission. 

 Thus, we need to always take the initiative to reach out to others, especially those who are, in spiritual terms, lost. We should not just be contented with knowing what is right and wrong as shown to us by our Christian faith, nor with simply proclaiming them. Such attitude toward our Christian faith can only lead us to be judgmental. 

 We have to actively participate in the mission of Christ which is that of human redemption, starting with our own selves and radiating gradually and continually to the others, as far as we can. We should be most interested in how to save souls, rather than just knowing who are right and wrong, good and not good in their spiritual lives. 

 The gift and the virtue of hope involves a very dynamic process. Yes, while we have to be accepting of certain conditions over which we have no control, we also need to continually find ways of how we can grow in our spiritual life and help others to also grow in theirs. 

 In this regard, we have to take the initiative to give special attention to the things that we ought to have and which we do not have yet. And the same attention should also be given to others who may appear precisely to be the lost sheep. 

 For this, we should expose ourselves to the different ways people are thinking and behaving, trying to fathom the reason or causes for such way of life. We should avoid just dealing with our own kind. Like the Good Shepherd, we have to look after the lost sheep which, in the context of today’s world, can be the majority of the population. 

 We should not be afraid of the tremendous effort and sacrifices this would involve. But to do this, we really need to be truly united with Christ who in the end is the only one who knows how to understand everyone in all the differences and conflicts we can find ourselves in.

Total self-giving without being showy

THAT is the message of the gospel reading for Ash Wednesday. (cfr. Mt 6,1-6.16-18) “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them,” Christ said, “otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.” Then he continued by describing how we should give alms and how we should pray. 

 This total self-giving without being showy is achieved when we manage to glorify God always in our thoughts, our words and deeds. And that would even give us the best time here on earth, the highest “high” we can ever attain in this life. That’s simply because glorifying God constitutes the best act of love we can give God who is our Creator and Father. 

 Glorifying God can only signify that we are giving everything to him, everything in our life that includes not only the good things but also the repented bad and negative things all the way to our death. 

 It is an act of total self-giving and submission to him who is everything to us. Through it, we empty ourselves completely to fill ourselves only with God. It is where we unite ourselves to him completely and share in his own glory. 

 This act of glorifying God presumes that we do it out of love, out of freedom, and of total gratuitousness that corresponds to God’s total and gratuitous love for us. 

 Let’s remember that God himself through Christ had to empty himself by becoming man, out of sheer love for us. This is the language of love. One empties himself to fill himself with his beloved. We achieve this self-emptying and God-filling when we manage to glorify God. 

 We should see to it that whatever we do, we should try our best that we manage to glorify God. St. Paul precisely said as much: “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10,31) 

 We may have to make a very deliberate effort to do this, especially in the beginning. Hopefully, time will come that after doing this many times, it will become a habit to us, something that we do automatically. 

 But we need to realize that we have to take utmost care of our intention, making it as explicit as possible, and honing it to get engaged with its proper and ultimate object who is God. 

 We should try our best to shun being simply casual or cavalier about this responsibility. We can easily play around with it, since intentions are almost invariably hidden from public knowledge. We are urged to be most sincere in directing our intentions properly. 

 We can easily fall into hypocrisy and deception, doing what can appear good externally but is not internally, since we could refuse giving glory to God, which is the proper intention to have, and instead feed and stir our own vanity, pride, greed, lust, etc. 

 Thus, we need to actively purify our intentions, since we have to contend with many spoilers in this regard these days. In fact, we just have to look around and see how openly opposed many people are of directing their intentions to God. 

 We cannot overemphasize the importance of this concern. We have to do our best to see to it that we always have purity of intention in everything that we do, so that we only love and serve God, and because of that, we can properly love and serve everybody else.

Be poor to be truly rich

THIS is what Christ proposed to his disciples, and now to us. We need to be poor, to be detached from earthly things, so we can be filled with what truly enriches us. (cfr. Mk 10,28-31) 

 “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 and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come,” he said. 

 We have to understand well these words which at first sight can plunge us to disbelief, since we all know that we need brothers, sisters, parents, children, friends and everyone else in our life. We need houses and money and other material resources. God himself said that we have to love everyone, including our enemies. 

 He also wants us to “subdue the earth.” (cfr. Gen 1,28) We certainly need to be immersed in the things of the world if we want to subdue the earth. This can only mean that we have to deal with the things of the world, not to stay away from them. 

 What Christ’s words mean is that nothing and no one in the world, even those who are close to us, should replace our exclusive love for God that would actually give us the proper and inclusive love for everyone and everything in the world. 

 It’s when we fail to begin and end with God and to be with him in the whole course of life that we would put ourselves in danger, and of failing the gain God himself and everyone and everything in our life. 

 For us to live by this indication of Christ, we certainly need to continually rectify our intentions as we go through all our temporal and earthly affairs. We know how easily we can be trapped in the things of the world and forget the real way of dealing with them. 

 We easily think that by forgetting God or putting him aside in our earthly affairs, and then giving our full attention on the technical aspects of our affairs, we would be achieving our true fulfillment, when in fact, it would be a real loss. Such attitude toward our earthly affairs can only show that we are attached to the things of this world and that God is actually not important to us, he who is our “all in all,” as he should be. 

 How then should our attitude be toward the things of the world? It is to love them the way God loves them. 

 We have to embody that attitude articulated in the gospel of St. John: “For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believes in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” (Jn 3,16) 

 It’s a love that carries out what God, its creator, commanded our first parents to do: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it…” (Gen 1,28) “To subdue the earth” does not only mean to master and dominate it, or merely to make use and take advantage of it, although all these go into that divine command. In fact, we have to develop as much as possible the good potentials of the world. 

 Our worldly affairs should be motivated only by love for God, and with that love, we can love everybody and everything else properly! It’s that love which can gain us a hundredfold of what Christ promised us and of eternal life itself. This is how we can be poor to be truly rich.

Mary helps us to be docile to the Holy Spirit

LET’S use some legal jargon to bring out the truth of our faith about how Our Lady can help us to be docile to the Holy Spirit. 

 Whereas, God always intervenes in our life through Christ in the Spirit because he is our Creator and Father who will always be with us; 

 Whereas, it is always God who directs our life to its ultimate end which is to be with him in heaven for all eternity; 

 Whereas, our life is supposed to be a life in the Spirit, since we are meant to share the very life and nature of God, and for this reason, the Spirit continually prompts us as to what to think, understand, react, etc. to all the events and circumstances of our life; 

 Whereas, Our Lady, conceived immaculate, i.e., without original sin, enjoyed the perfect condition to obey and follow the will of God as evidenced during the Annunciation, and all throughout her life; 

 We can only conclude that Mary, Our Lady, is our best guide to discern and follow the constant promptings of the Holy Spirit in our life. We should always go to Our Lady if we want to discern what the Holy Spirit is prompting us and to follow his promptings continually. With her, we are led to Christ, to God. 

 All this because Mary is not only the Mother of Christ, and therefore can be rightly called as the Mother God. She is truly also our Mother since Christ gave her to be our Mother through St. John just before he died on the cross. St. John took her home but it was she who took care of him and the rest of the apostles who were in fear just after Christ’s death. 

 She truly also cares for us now as our Mother. And she does it the way she took care of Christ. She it was who understood Christ the best. She is the best teacher we can have in knowing, understanding and loving Christ. Her constant observation and pondering in her heart of what she saw in Christ is the perfect way we ought to follow in relating ourselves to Christ. 

 She is actually present in all aspects of our life, since as a mother who is already in heaven, she involves herself completely in our life, be it in the spiritual, moral or material aspects. She is never indifferent to our conditions, our varying situations and predicaments. She loves us with a human and supernatural heart, always oozing with human affection as well as divine love. 

 She is always around, especially during our difficulties. She is not scandalized by our sins and dirt, but as a mother she is eager to clean us up. With all the privileges given to her by God, she can always do all these things. 

 If need be, she will make extraordinary interventions in our life as when she makes special apparitions if only to convey an urgent message to us. And with her, things will always turn out well, since God cannot refuse her appeals on our behalf, as shown in that first miracle of Christ during the wedding at Cana. 

 We have to learn to deal with her, developing a deep, most childlike devotion to her. We can ask ourselves: how many times have we gone to her today? How often do we express our devotion to her during the day, from morning to night? How do we fulfil the many Marian acts of piety? Do we try to make a new loving effort every day to converse with her?

To be all things to all men

THAT’S from a passage in 1 Corinthians 9,22. It’s the ideal condition for us to pursue. It’s what would truly identify us with Christ, the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity, who is the very embodiment of this ideal. 

 Though each one of us is supposed to be a unique person, there is also something in us, a certain faculty and power, that would enable us to reach that ideal. It’s the spiritual dimension of our life and nature, endowed with intelligence and will, that would enable us to transcend our distinctive and unique character in order to have a mind and heart with a universal scope. 

 To top it all, we also are given the very grace of God, a sharing of God’s power, that would allow us to be “all in all” (cfr. 1 Cor 15,28) as God is. We just have to be aware of these endowments and gifts, and learn how to make full use of them in accordance to God’s will and ways. We are capable of having a universal heart and mind. 

 Yes, we may have our own tastes and preferences, our own temperaments and personalities, our own views and opinions, our own charism and vocation, or whatever status we have, but we have the duty to reach out to everyone, especially those who are different from us or even are opposed to us. They can even be opposed to God. 

 In this way, we would be imitating Christ who was willing to bear all our sins, as St. Paul said, to save all men. (cfr 1 Tim 2,4) This is the only purpose that can bring about the development of a universal heart. Short of this motive, the ideal of a universal heart that is proper to us is compromised. 

 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 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 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 wait for them to give reasons for us to love them. Even when they commit errors, all the more we should love them. 

 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 looks at us, that should also be how we should look at the others. We ourselves ask God not to judge us by our sins. Neither should we judge others according to their sins.

A good winner and a good loser

SINCE life is like a game, where we play hard to achieve something, we should not be surprised that there will be times when we win and succeed, and times when we lose. We should not be surprised and be unduly affected by this fact of life. 

 If we are guided by our Christian faith, we know that irrespective of how the earthly outcome of our efforts turns out to be, as long as we do everything with God and for God, the final victory is assured. 

 We should just try to be a good winner, gracious and humble, when we win, or a respectful and congratulatory loser, when we lose. We should just go on with the game of life, training ourselves to be a better player, but always for the glory of God. That should be the abiding motive of all we do in this regard. 

 With this motive, we will always play with the very charity of God, the very standard we ought to pursue in all our endeavors. We avoid playing with only human or animal and earthly standards to guide us. 

 With this motive, there will even be times when we allow ourselves to lose to make others win. We would be willing to make personal sacrifices if only to attain a greater good for the family, community and the world in general. 

 To achieve this kind of attitude, what we have to do is to unite our whole life, and everything in it, to the very passion, death and resurrection of Christ that is made a sacrament in the Holy Mass. It’s in the Holy Mass where whatever drama we can have in our life, including the worst scenario, is resolved into the victory and success of Christ’s redemptive work. 

 That is why we have to realize that the Holy Mass should be the center and foundation of our life. In it, we live our life and play its game with Christ who came to redeem us, giving us the proper “way, truth and life” meant for us, in the context of our wounded and sinful condition in this life. 

 We have to remember that for us to be truly human, to be a real person who is both grounded and oriented properly, and to be a good sport in life, we need to be Eucharistic in mind and heart, because the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is where we have our most precious treasure, our everything, our light, our purification, our salvation. 

 That’s where we have Christ not only in real presence, as in the Blessed Sacrament, nor as spiritual food, as in the Holy Communion, but primarily as our savior who continues to offer his life on the cross for us, as in the Holy Mass. 

 We need to be theological in our thinking to capture this reality and live in accordance to it not only from time to time, but rather all the time and everywhere, whatever our situation is. 

 We have to overcome the very common phenomenon of treating the Holy Eucharist as just a special part of our life that we may attend to in some special moments of the day or on Sundays and holy days of obligation only. 

 Our whole life should, in fact, be a Holy Mass, uniting everything in it in the ultimate sacrifice Christ made for our salvation. With it, regardless of how our earthly life goes and ends, the victory of Christ’s resurrection is assured for us.

“Everyone will be salted with fire”

THESE are words of Christ. (cfr. Mk 9,49) What he wants to tell us is that to keep our true Christian identity and dignity as we go through the drama of life here on earth, we should be willing to lose a hand, a foot or an eye, if these would cause us to sin. 

 In other words, we should be willing to suffer a loss of our integrality, our completeness, as long as we do not compromise what is essential in us. In short, we should be willing to sacrifice certain things if only to achieve what is most important to us. 

 But we have to understand this point well. We should not just be willing to go through some sacrifices, suffering and pain because they are unavoidable in life. We have to understand that we need to make sacrifices simply because, whether they are unavoidable or not, or whether we offer them for someone or something or not, they are an essential and integral part of our Christian life. 

 Christ himself commanded us so. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mt 16,24) These clear words of Christ do not limit our need for sacrifices to the facts that suffering and pain are inescapable in life, or that we are willing to suffer for something or someone we love. 

 Our need for sacrifice is first of all based on the fact that Christ commands it. We should not wait for suffering and pain to come before we make sacrifices. Neither should we wait to be moved to suffer for something or for someone we love before we make sacrifices. 

 We make sacrifices simply because Christ said so, and he said so because it is necessary for us. More than expiating for our sins, the sacrifices are a clear expression of a total self-giving which is the essence of love. 

 Sacrifices, as iconized by the Cross of Christ, are what distinguish a Christian. The cross is the sign of the Christian because it is the center of the saving life and action of Christ. It shows how much Christ obeys his Father out of love, and how much he loves us. 

 We have to learn to sanctify our sacrifices by uniting them with the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. That is how we make our sufferings and pain divine and with redemptive value. 

 It is by uniting our sacrifices with that of Christ that we can find the meaning and value of suffering and pain in this life. As a Church document puts it: “Through Christ and in Christ, the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful. Apart from His Gospel, they overwhelm us.” (Gaudium et spes, 22) 

 We should not doubt that the cross has a tremendous saving power. We have to learn to love it and therefore to look for it and to carry it, as Christ himself commanded us. We should not just tolerate it. 

 This, of course, will require a certain discipline. As the Catechism would put it: “The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the asceticism and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes.” (CCC 2015)

Prayer is basic in our life of piety

IT’S, of course, a given. Prayer is basic in our life of piety because that is our personal effort to get in touch with God. All other acts of piety would be of no value if they are not done as prayer or, at least, accompanied by prayer. 

 We need to learn how to really pray. It should not just be some exercise done out of compliance of a certain expectation. It should truly be a personal encounter with God who, in the first place, is always with us, ever solicitous of our needs and conditions, and eager to lead us along the right path toward our eternal destination. 

 With faith, hope and charity which, in the first place, God gives us, we can discern God’s presence in our mind and heart, and start to hear his voice that would surely tell us what to think, say and do. Let’s remember that, more than us, it’s God who is actually directing our life here on earth. What a pity it would be if we would just rely on our own estimation of things to guide us in our earthly sojourn! 

 For this, we need to learn how to be recollected all the time even while we immerse ourselves in our earthly and temporal affairs. This spirit of recollection would not in any way undermine our human activities, as many people somehow think. On the contrary, it purifies our human ways of doing things, and puts them on the right track. 

 This spirit of recollection may control our tendency to be simply spontaneous in our actuations, a tendency that is spurred and guided by our animal instincts and our temporal rationality that is not proper to our real human and Christian identity and dignity. But this spirit of recollection is what would truly help us in our activities. 

 This, of course, would require some effort on our part. We should just develop the discipline of spending time familiarizing ourselves with this truth of our faith, getting to know God more and more by meditating on his word that is available in many sources. And from there, let’s start to savor the words and deeds of Christ which show his great and infinite love for us, and develop an intimate relationship with him. 

 Let’s hope that out of our prayer, our direct encounter with God, we get filled with holy desires to do a lot of good, unafraid of whatever sacrifices may be involved. We should be men of desires to see God. 

 St. Augustine said that since we don’t see God now and yet we long for it, we need to keep on desiring it to prepare ourselves for it. That desire not only has to be maintained. It also has to increase as time passes. The time of our life, the time of waiting to see our ultimate end, God, is a time to cultivate our holy desire to the max. 

 His argument for this is beautiful. “Suppose you are going to fill some container and you know you will be given a large amount. Then you set about stretching your container.” It is to make room for the tremendous amount we will receive—God himself. 

 The idea of stretching or enlarging the container to receive a tremendous amount that we expect can be translated into not only keeping but also increasing our desire of God whom we expect to come to us in overwhelming abundance. In short, we have to make that desire fervent! We need to constantly feed it to keep it burning.

“Let charity with ardor blaze”

I SAW that phrase in one of the daily prayers for priests, the Liturgy of the Hours, or the Breviary. It struck me immediately since it reminded me of how charity should be. It should be ardent, never cold, and blazing, never like a dying ember. 

 Indeed, charity which is none other than a vital participation and the very expression of the love that is the very essence of God as shown in full by Christ, cannot be other than that. Despite our weaknesses, we should just try to develop such kind of charity since that would identify us with God as we should, his image and likeness as we are. 

 Remember the description of charity made by St. Paul: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Cor 13,4-7) 

 And in the Song of Solomon, we have this description of charity: “For love is as strong as death, and ardor is as relentless as the netherworld.” (8,6) 

 We have to realize more deeply that we are made for charity and we should try our best to develop that charity in ourselves, if we want to be consistent to our basic identity and dignity as God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature. 

 We, of course, have to continually ask for God’s grace to enable us to develop and grow in charity. But what can help us also is to develop that attitude of being pro-active in loving everyone, irrespective of how they are to us. Whether they are friendly to us or not, helpful to us or not, etc., we should take the initiative to love them, not only in terms of intentions and sweet words, but most importantly in terms of deeds, of service that should be done gratuitously. 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to judge others based only on what we know so far of them. Again, let’s remember what St. Paul said in this regard: “Love never fails,” he said. “But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.” (1 Cor 13,8-11) 

 Our judgment on others, based only our limited knowledge of them, can at best be only tentative. What should always abide in our relationship with others should be charity. That is why Christ even went to the extent of commanding us to “love our enemies.” 

 It’s when we have this pro-active attitude of charity that we can manage to be always in good spirit, full of desire to do a lot of good, to understand everyone, to find excuses for whatever faults and failures we see in others and in ourselves. It’s when our charity would indeed be with blazing ardor. 

 Obviously, for this to happen, we should be willing to make sacrifices and to suffer, because we cannot deny that we all have our weaknesses and mistakes. But then, if we have the proper understanding of these conditions, we know that they give us the chance to grow more in charity.

The Beatitudes define what a true Christian is

CHRIST himself made such description and definition of a true Christian. They strike us as something strange from a purely human point of view. But given our wounded condition and our ideal status as children of God whose essence is pure love, the Beatitudes give us the proper frame of mind as to how to handle our life here on earth which will always be marked with all sorts of contradictions and negative things. 

 The Beatitudes convert what we usually consider as human disasters or clear disadvantages and inconveniences according to worldly standards into a source of joy, a means of our redemption, a path to heaven, narrow and difficult though it may be. 

 

 They expand our understanding of what would comprise as our true happiness by including those situations which we normally regard as unsavory and therefore to be avoided as much as possible, and even hated. 

 But, my friends, at these times, these situations are hardly unavoidable. In fact, they are inescapable, what with all the growing differences and conflicts we are having among ourselves nowadays. If we have to be realistic about our life here, we better take the beatitudes seriously. 

 Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they who mourn, blessed are the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness or justice, those who are merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, those who are insulted…There can hardly be any worse predicament than all these! 

 Yet Christ reassures us that it would just be fine, and in fact he promises us a great reward, if not now then certainly in the life hereafter. And he is not bluffing because he himself underwent all those disasters and yet he conquered everything with his resurrection. In short, he has proven the veracity of this teaching with his own experience. 

 The beatitudes are so articulated by Christ in order to serve as a profound and most effective antidote to our strong, almost invincibly strong tendency to self-love, to self-indulgence. They are meant to extricate us from our own prison, our own world which is the antithesis of what true love is. 

They are meant to expand our heart to save it from being trapped by our own worldly and bodily desires. They are meant to teach us how to give ourselves to God and to everybody else, irrespective of how they are, which is what true love is. 

Love is always a matter of total self-giving, be it in good times or bad times, in favorable conditions or not. Love has a universal scope. It is supposed to be given without measure, without counting the cost nor expecting any reward. It can be very discriminating without ever being discriminatory. 

 In short, the beatitudes detach us from our own selves so that we can truly identify ourselves with Christ who is the very pattern of our humanity and the savior of our sin-damaged humanity. They are actually a way to our liberation from our own self-inflicted bondage to merely earthly and bodily urges. They purify us from any stain caused by our worldly attachments. 

 The great task we have at hand with respect to the Beatitudes is how to incarnate them in our life. We all know that we have a natural aversion to any kind of suffering, and that we hardly go beyond the natural or the infranatural aspects of our sufferings. We fail to see their purifying and redemptive potentials. 

 That is why we really need to discipline our mind and heart, our understanding and feelings, so as to align them to the saving ways of Christ. And one way of doing this is to develop in a proactive way a spirit of sacrifice, a spirit of self-denial and mortification. And this done and lived on a daily basis.

“Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you”

WHY oh why did Christ command his disciples so? (cfr. Lk 6,27) The quick answer is that despite our unavoidable differences and conflicts, even the very serious ones, in the end we are all brothers and sisters, we are all children of God, and we just have to love one another irrespective of how we are with each other. 

 We need to prepare ourselves to follow this commandment expressly articulated by Christ. We have to have a strong faith to trust his words, so that we would not consider them as a mere bluff, an empty puffy rhetoric, but rather as what is true, proper and ideal for us. 

 We have to have a strong faith to trust his words, so that we would readily understand that they are meant for all of us, and not just for some, and that they are necessary and obligatory, and not merely optional, though they have to be taken up freely, and not coercively. 

 We just have to understand also that we can only manage to follow this 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. 

 If, indeed, we are God’s image and likeness, if we are his children through Christ in the Holy Spirit, and therefore meant to adopt his mind, his will and his ways, and ultimately to enter into the very life of God, then we have no other alternative but to make this explicit injunction second nature to us. 

 Obviously, we cannot follow this principle on our own, relying solely on our own powers. We need God himself to enable us to do so. And he has given us that power through his grace which he gives us in abundance through his living word, through his sacraments, through his Church, and in many other mysterious ways unknown to us. 

 In fact, God gives himself to us through Christ who makes himself the “bread of life” which he asks us to eat, otherwise we would not have “life in abundance.” It’s really just for us to believe, to make that leap of faith, going beyond but never neglecting what our senses and reason can capture, so we can enter into a far richer reality given to us by faith. 

 This is the challenge we have to face—how to free ourselves from the controlling grip of our senses and reasoning, of our own human consensus and estimations of things, and to let ourselves be guided by the mysterious ways of our faith, full of wisdom and charity albeit always accompanied by sacrifices. 

 Only then can we manage to love our enemies!

Our mission at home and in the world

WE have to realize that we all have a mission in this life. It’s a common mission to seek personal sanctity that always goes together with doing apostolate. It starts with oneself, then in the family and eventually should cover as far as possible in the world. 

 We can somehow draw this conclusion when we meditate on the hidden life of Christ with Mary and Joseph in Nazareth. To be sure, that hidden life is as divine and with redemptive character as the public life of Christ. It gives us the idea that right where we are, usually at home and in the places of our work, are where we can find God and where we can start to carry out our duty of personal sanctification and apostolate. 

 We have to realize more deeply that given the way we have been created, our homes not only have a natural purpose but also a supernatural one, with these two dimensions vitally linked and mutually affecting each other. 

 It’s for this reason that we should try our best to make our homes always throbbing with the spirit of love, understanding, concern for one another, etc. We should try our best to make it bright and cheerful which should be the effect of a working life of faith, hope and charity in God. In fact, we should make our home a prefiguration of the definitive and eternal home meant for us with God in heaven. 

 And from the home, we should all try to leaven the world with the same Christian spirit. This is 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 manifestations, 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. 

 In short, we can be an active Christian leaven if we unite ourselves with Christ always, if we unite whatever we are doing, no matter how technical, mundane, and of low worldly value, with the continuing redemptive work of Christ. We can always do this uniting business, since all we have to do is to will it. 

 We should not take for granted the great leavening power of the little things that we do everyday. We may not see the direct connection between these little things and the sanctification of everyone in the world, but for sure the amount of faith and love with which we do these things have great sanctifying effects on everyone! 

 It will be Christ, more than us, who would do the job. Ours is simply to cooperate with him, since Christ works through human and natural means, without detracting from the supernatural means that he can always avail of. 

 On our part, what is needed is heroic fidelity to Christ which is usually lived in the performance of our usual work and duties. In fact, we have to understand heroism mainly in this regard, for very few and far between would be the occasions where we can live heroism in the extraordinary events and circumstances of our life. 

 If we understand this point very well, then we would also realize that our own sanctification, which will always require some heroism, can be achieved through the faithful and loving performance of our ordinary duties of everyday. 

 This is what would truly comprise as leavening the world. By doing with heroic faith and love for God and others the ordinary little things of the day, we can attain our ultimate, supernatural and eternal goal in life!

Sporting spirit in the spiritual life

IF there’s one aspect in our life that most needs a sporting spirit, I would say it should be in our spiritual life, in our relation with God and with others. It’s there, in the game of life, where we should play our best, knowing that regardless of how the earthly outcome of our game goes, we are already assured of victory, since with God, whether we win or lose in a particular game, we always win in the end. God does it for us and with us! 

 Of course, this assurance of victory should never undermine our duty to do and play our best. Neither should it undercut our duty to go through the proper, even rigorous, training we ought to undergo to prepare ourselves to face all the challenges, trials and different conditions of our life. 

 If we have a good sporting spirit, we would play with cheerfulness and confidence. And there would be times when out of charity and fraternity, we give way to somebody else to win a particular game. That’s how a good sportsman is. 

 Yes, we have to be sport and adventurous in facing the different conditions of our life. And it would greatly help if we too can have an abiding sense of humor. Otherwise, we would just easily fall into states of sadness, pessimism and despair when conditions are not favorable to us in a given situation. 

 This we can do if first of all we have a strong and deep faith in God, our Creator and Father. If we have that faith, we know that God holds everything in order through his providence. He takes care of everything, irrespective of how things go. Ours is simply to relate everything to him and to go back to him everytime we get astray and especially at the end of the day. 

 When we have this sporting and adventurous spirit, we, of course, would like to play to win and to get as much enjoyment as possible. We would give our best shot. But we also know that this is not going to happen all the time. There will be times when we lose in a game or when we get lost in our adventure. But regardless of how things go, we can always go back to God as we should, and everything would just be all right. 

 Thus, whether we win or lose in a game, succeed or fail in our adventures and projects, we can still manage to have fun and, more importantly, to learn precious lessons, as in, we get to know more about ourselves and others, about our strengths and weaknesses, about the virtues we need to develop and grow, etc. 

 There’s now a great need to promote this good sporting spirit as widely as possible. For sure, the world would be a much better place to live in, all bright and beautiful regardless of how things turn, if we manage to assume a good sporting spirit. 

 Obviously, to be able to do this, we need to have a certain sense of detachment from things in general even as we try to immerse ourselves in them. We have to learn the appropriate art and skill for this. We have to learn to flow with the times and to roll with the punches. 

 While we cannot avoid being affected in some way by the ups and downs of life, we should see to it that at the end of the day, we are at peace with God and with everyone else, asking for forgiveness from God for whatever mistakes we commit, as well as asking and giving it to others as the case may be.

God shares what he has with us

WE should relish this truth of our faith. God wants to share what he has with us. He takes the initiative. That he created us without us, endowing us with all sorts of things, foremost of which are our spiritual faculties and the grace which is already a participation in his divine life, are proofs of this tremendous truth of our faith. 

 It really would just depend on how receptive we are to this divine sharing to attain what is ultimately good for us. We have to learn how to be more and more receptive to this divine initiative, sharpening our faith to enable us to do our part despite the many mysterious ways this divine initiative works. 

 That he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from our state of sinfulness is another proof of this divine initiative. That Christ calls us to be holy, to be perfect, (cfr. 1 Pt 1,16; Mt 5,14) as our heavenly father is holy and perfect, which is what a vocation really is, is actually a call for us to be receptive to this divine initiative. 

 There really should be no doubt that God wants to share what he has with us. That God became man in Christ and that a woman can become the mother of the very son of God, that is, God himself, further prove that God and us are meant to share the very same life and nature, with God taking the initiative. 

 Thus, in all our needs, especially in the area of the spiritual and the moral, and even of the material, we should not hesitate to ask God for a favor. His delight is precisely to share what he has with us. 

 All this would obviously require of us to practice and live our faith to the full, knowing that the ways of God can be very mysterious to us. The way he shares what he has with us can go beyond our understanding, our common sense, our human estimation of things. 

 Thus, we need to find practical ways to learn how to be immediately and properly receptive and responsive to God’s initiative, to his sharing of his life and nature with us. Like, right in the morning as we wake up, the first thing that we should try to do is to address ourselves to God, offering ourselves and everything that we will be doing for the day to him. 

 It’s important that right from the beginning of the day, we get strongly focused on God. He should be the center of our life, of our thoughts, desires, words and deeds. And all throughout the day, we should try our best to keep this awareness alive. 

 Thus, we should avail ourselves of some effective plan of life to drive this kind of awareness going. Some practices of piety like periods of mental prayer and contemplation, spiritual reading, receiving the sacraments especially the Holy Mass and Communion, and other devotional means, would be helpful. 

 The ideal is that the whole day should be spent with God who, in the first place, is always around. He is in us and around us. He is wherever we are, and his presence is actually active, full of solicitude for us. We need to perceive this reality and act according to it.

Beware of the leaven of the world

CHRIST one time warned his disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod which they did not understand at first. (cfr. Mk 8,14-21) It took them time to understand that the leaven Christ was talking about was not the leaven of the bread but rather the doctrine or the teachings, the laws and the ways of the Pharisees and Herod. 

 The same warning remains valid and in effect up to this time, since there is no doubt that we are today flooded with all kinds of doctrine and ideologies that are becoming more and more in conflict with Christian doctrine and ways. 

 We have to be wary of today’s many false doctrines that can sound good and can come up with fair promises and assurances, but they actually lack the power to make things happen. They can contain many theoretical truths and can also be supported by a lot of data, facts and other so-called scientific findings, but they lack the most crucial element—the proper spirit. 

 Yes, false doctrines can give some measure of good results and satisfaction. But that’s where the real danger is, where the subtle treachery is committed. Without the proper spirit of God, it is nothing less than a sweet poison. 

 False doctrines are usually found, and in abundance at that, in the fields of politics, the social sciences, philosophies and ideologies, and in all the other human enterprises that are not animated by the Christian spirit. 

 They come as a result of developing some human systems that rely solely on human power and estimation. In a sense, these systems choose to go rogue in developing themselves. They prefer to be entirely on their own. God is taken out of the picture. 

 In some reports, for example, a number of political parties all over the world have dropped the expression, “under God,” in their pledges of allegiance or commitment. This omission is clearly a sign of the growing secularization taking place in many parts of the world. It’s when to be politically correct, one has to take God out of the picture. 

 Thus, there is an urgent need to undertake the work of evangelization, that is, to communicate the saving word of God to everyone. In a world that is becoming more and more toxic with all sorts of hot issues, confusing ideologies, belligerent opinions, etc., practically drowning us, there is the urgent need to let God’s healing word to reach and touch people’s hearts. 

 This task of evangelization belongs to everyone, whether one is a priest or a religious person or a simple lay person. Everyone should realize that it is Christ who is asking us to evangelize. He is actually appealing to us, begging us to help him carry out the continuing work of human redemption that definitely involves the evangelization of people 

 This is simply the effect and consequence of being a Christian who is supposed to be like Christ and to share his mission of evangelizing and redeeming everyone. We also have to apply to ourselves those words Christ told his apostles: “As the Father has sent me, so also I am sending you.” (Jn 20,21) 

 Evangelization is an integral and indispensable part of the whole mission of Christ—the redemption of mankind. While it may immediately concern itself in the transmission of the doctrine of our faith, it cannot go alone without being vitally and organically connected to the other aspects of human redemption.

Our need for God is constant and indispensable

IT’S the most basic need we have, since God is and should be everything to us. Our need for him is much more than our need for air, food, etc. Without him, we can only go nowhere, and worse, the animal part of our humanity takes over, and we know what that means. 

 It’s amazing that many popular love songs today regard the human objects of the lovers as everything to them. “You’re my everything” goes one title of such songs. Lines like “You give me strength when I am weak,” “You are the light that guides me in the dark,” “You are my inspiration in my moments of dryness,” etc. abound in such songs. 

 We, of course, can take those expressions with a grain of salt. They can even be legitimately used by us but referring them to the One who really matters in our life, and that is God. 

 The challenge for us is how to develop that sense of our constant need for God. We cannot deny that even if we are not afflicted with serious illnesses and problems, we always have with us our own load of weaknesses, we always have to contend with all sorts of temptations and sins around. 

 We may not be doing anything really wrong, but we cannot deny that very often we get caught in the grip of laziness, disorder, complacency and lukewarmness that sooner or later develop into something bigger and more deceptive as when we develop a hidden addiction to drinks, drugs, pornography, etc. 

 The challenge is how to make us feel that our greatest need is, in fact, God whom we ought to love first and last. He is the greatest good that we can aim at, infinitely better than any earthly good we can find in ourselves and in the world. 

 That is why Christ, when asked what the greatest commandment was, simply said that it is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mt 12,29) 

 God should be first, last and always in our life. Everything else should just be an occasion, a means, an instrument and reason to fulfill that need of ours. Let’s consider these words from the Book of Deuteronomy: 

 “Love the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and keep his commandments and ceremonies and judgments, and you may live, and he may multiply you, and bless you in the land, which you shall go in to possess.” (30,16) 

 And it continues to tell us what would happen if we fail in fulfilling this duty: “But if your heart be turned away, so that you will not hear, and being deceived with error you adore strange god, and serve them: I foretell this day you shall perish…” (30,17) 

 Let’s never forget that we are meant to be always with God. Our life, given the way we have been created, cannot but be a sharing in God’s life and nature. To stay away from him would be a fundamental anomaly that would have bad consequences for everything else in our life. 

 We should therefore give priority to our spiritual needs of prayer, recourse to the sacraments, development of virtues, the habit of having presence of God always, doing everything with God and for God, etc. 

 When we feel the sting of our weaknesses, and much more so, when we are assailed by persistent temptations, we should beg God for help. He is always around and is most eager to help. Things would just depend on how strong our faith in him is.

How to be trusting and to be trustworthy

GOD himself tells us how that is going to be. “Cursed be the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord,” he said in the Book of Jeremiah. (17,5) And he continues: “Blessed be the man that trusts in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence.” (17,7)

 No amount of human power, no matter how formidable, if not animated by the power of God, can stand the test of time with all the different conditions, challenges and trials we are going to meet in life. It would just be a matter of time before failure, in all its forms, can take place. Only God can assure us of victory, because he can even draw life from death, the worst failure we can have. 

 With all the things that we have to contend with in this life, we certainly need to have a healthy sense of trust in God’s loving and wise providence, abandoning ourselves in his will and ways that often are mysterious to us and can appear to be contrary to what we would like to have. 

 Especially in our dark and difficult moments, which these days are not anymore uncommon, when we feel so miserable that we can think that we have been deserted by God, we need to react immediately and reassure ourselves strongly that God never fails us. 

 It might be a good idea to rally the power of our faith that tells us that God takes care of everything. There is really nothing to worry even if we are made to suffer, since that suffering, if united to that of Christ, becomes something purifying and redemptive not only to oneself but also to everybody else. 

 It might be a good idea to come up with the different arguments of our faith to buoy up our drooping spirit that is weighed down by our many challenges in this life. God is a God of mercy and compassion. He, more than us, will take up all our suffering by bearing them himself—of course, together with us. 

 Precisely God sent the Son to us to save us. And this Son, Jesus Christ, perfected his redemptive work on us by assuming all our sins through his passion and death on the cross. He conquered sin and death and gave us the possibility of eternal life of bliss with God in heaven through his resurrection. 

 The merits of this redemptive work of Christ are made effective all throughout time through the mechanism of the sacramental economy that is provided by the Church. 

 Christ himself has told us that while troubles would unavoidably come our way in this life, we should not worry too much because he has overcome whatever troubles we may have. (cfr. Jn 16,33) 

 We should just make our faith strong and operative because that is how we can start and maintain our life to be a life with God as it should be. With faith, we start to share God’s knowledge of things and his power, and that is how our life should be since we are God’s image and likeness, meant to share in the very life of God. 

 When everything in our life is lived with Christ and for Christ, that’s when we can manage to be trusting of men who can never be perfectly trustworthy. Our trustworthiness can go only so far as our identification with Christ goes.

“He has done all things well”

THAT what the crowd said after they witnessed a miraculous healing of a dumb man by Christ. (cfr. Mk 7,31-37) On Valentine’s Day which is popularly known as a day of celebrating love, we should strengthen our conviction that the real standard of love is when, like Christ, we do everything well and win the same praise from others. 

 Love is not just sweet words, good intentions and nice feelings. It’s deeds done well. It’s doing things the way Christ would do things. We should love the way God through Christ loves us. This is the only way we can say we are truly loving. We should be ready to go through the whole scope of love as shown to us by Christ. Of course, it is a love that can only be achieved when we truly identify ourselves with Christ. 

 That means we should always be focused on doing God’s will in everything that we think, desire, say and do, and also in everything that takes place in our life. This is how Christ showed his love for the Father and for us. 

 In this regard, we should try to forget ourselves and think always of doing the will of God, following the example of Christ, and of thinking always of the others—thinking of what we can do for them. Love should not just be in intentions, but should be translated into action. 

 We should be clear about this truth of our faith. If we truly have love, the love that comes from God and not just our own idea of love, we would go the extent of willing to suffer and die for our beloved who in the end is none other than God, and because of God, is also everybody else. 

 And what can be a good sign that we have a true love, and not just some kind of infatuation and the like? I guess the answer can be derived from what Christ himself told us clearly. 

 And that’s nothing other than when we can manage, with God’s grace, to love not only our neighbor, but also our enemy. Of course, it is a loving with the love of God as shown to us by Christ himself who bore all our sins by offering his life on the cross. 

 Let’s remember what Christ said very clearly: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.’ (Lk 6,27-29) 

 He continued: “Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” 

 To be sure, if we follow this commandment, we would be loving God and others the way Christ himself has loved his Father and all of us. It’s a love that is totally inclusive on the part of the lover, irrespective of whether such love is accepted or rejected by the beloved. 

 This, in the end, is what can truly earn us the same praise Christ received from the crowd: “He has done all things well!”