The true value of the little ordinary things

WITH Christ comparing the Kingdom of God with a seed that is planted and that needs to be taken care of until it grows and bears fruit, (cfr. Mk 4,26-34) we are clearly reminded that this whole business of sanctification, which is how we start to be part of the God’s kingdom, will always begin in the little ordinary things of our life. 

 When we manage to see God in the little things and be urged to follow his will in carrying out our duties toward them, then we would indeed by on the right path toward our final destination which is to be with God in heaven. 

 We just have to learn to find Christ in the little things which comprise most of our day, if not of our whole life. This is not a gratuitous, baseless assertion, an act of fantasizing, of hunting lions in the corridors of the house. 

 This is as real and true as can be. Of course, it requires faith, but if we care to listen to faith, we will, in fact, find it reasonable and practicable, not something quixotic, cocooned in the realm of the abstract, the absurd and the impossible. Christ is all at the same time our creator, savior and model, and as such he can never be absent but is always present in all things, big and small. 

 Sad to say, Christ’s parables comparing the Kingdom of God to a seed seem to still be a breaking news to many of us who have the tendency to disparage little and ordinary things in our life.

 We should then try to make the necessary changes in attitude and understanding regarding the little things. We have to realize that it is actually in them where our true knowledge and love of God is developed and maintained. 

 When we fail to see, know and love God in the little things, it is very likely that we also will fail to see, know and love God in the big things of our life. Let’s keep in mind what Christ said in this regard: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.” (Lk 16,10) 

 In short, the point we should realize more deeply is that sanctity, our ticket to heaven, certainly requires heroism, even to the point of martyrdom. But we can be sure that by being consistently loving in doing the little things of life, especially when they are hidden and unappreciated humanly, we would already be very heroic indeed, even approaching the level of martyrdom. 

 What we have to do is to learn to find Christ in the little things which comprise most of our day, if not of our whole life. Another way of saying it is to learn to refer everything to Christ, no matter how little or insignificant it is. 

 We should always be with Christ at every moment of our day, offering things to him, asking him questions like, “Lord, how should I deal with this particular situation, be it an exciting work, a boring and tiring moment, etc.?” 

 We should never dare to do things simply on our own. Especially when we find ourselves in difficulties, in a quandary, in moments of temptation, etc., we have to go to Christ as quickly as possible and cling to him as tightly as possible. 

 And we should never forget to thank him all the time, for such gesture connects us with him in an abiding way. When we are with Christ especially in the little things of our day, how can we doubt about having heaven in us while still here on earth?

Piety of children and doctrine of theologians

WHEN Christ said that a lamp is not placed under a bushel basket or under a under, but rather on a lampstand, (cfr. Mk 4,21) we are clearly made to understand that if we are to be true followers of Christ we should faithfully and abidingly show the light of Christ everywhere. 

 For this to happen we should have both the piety of simple children and the solid doctrinal knowledge of our faith, like that of a good theologian. We have to qualify the theologian part since we sadly now are witnessing the emergence of so-called theologians who spew out their own ideas more than anything else. Their theology is not so much a fruit of their personal relationship with Christ as it is simply their own making. 

 We need to see the vital connection between Christ and the doctrine that we need to study and meditate on. Hopefully, we assimilate this doctrine such that it becomes flesh of our flesh, which is another way of saying that we should so identify ourselves with Christ that we become “another Christ” as we should be. 

 Our usual problem is that we tend to disconnect the two, raising all sorts of reasons why such vital link between God and the doctrine cannot be possible, if not always, then from time to time. 

 There’s obviously some point to why the doctrine cannot fully capture Christ and his teachings. And that’s because of the human elements involved in the doctrine. But in spite of that, we need to realize that in its substance and in its core, the doctrine is actually divine. 

 We just have to know how to distinguish between its divine character and its human elements that would unavoidably include some limitations. This is actually our human condition. 

 Truth is God always intervenes in our life and makes use of our humanity to come and be with us. We should not waste time making a big fuss about the human limitations that accompany this abiding divine intervention. 

 That’s why God through Christ in the Spirit has endowed the Church with the proper power and authority to teach his doctrine integrally and infallibly, much like we as a nation entrust our government with certain power to govern us in spite of the many limitations in the men running the government. 

 Except that in the case of God in relation to the Church, the act of empowering goes far more radically than what takes place in our empowering of our government to rule over us. 

 We need to consider the Church doctrine as the true and most precious doctrine that can bring us to our ultimate joy and end. It is not just a man-made doctrine that can give us some benefits and advantages, some social or economic progress, but not our ultimate supernatural end. 

 We also need to see the Church doctrine as the proper spirit that should animate any human doctrine we may make for some practical purpose we may have in the different aspects of our life—personal, family, professional, social, political, etc. 

 Thus, it is essential that we learn to know the Church doctrine or the doctrine of our faith such that this doctrine becomes the moving spirit behind our every thought, word and deed, behind our every plan and project, big or small, ordinary or extraordinary. 

 There is need for us to know how to relate the doctrine of our faith to our daily affairs and to our very serious and big projects and plans, and vice versa. At the moment, this expertise is hardly known, its need hardly felt.

Articulate and eloquent

THAT gospel parable about the sower and seed (cfr. Mk 4,1-20) somehow reminds us that we need to be most articulate and eloquent regarding our duty to proclaim in all places and to all kinds of people—from the most simple to the most sophisticated and complicated people—the saving word of God. 

 Obviously for this, we need to study well the word of God and now the doctrine of the Church, internalizing them to such an extent that we can feel confident that we truly are proclaiming God’s word and not just ours nor somebody else’s, nor just words of an earthly ideology. 

 Especially these days when we have a profusion of confusing and even openly conflicting views and opinions that are based only on things cultural, ideological, political, economic, etc., we need to learn how to be articulate and to be eloquent in remitting the unifying and saving word of God that really gives us the whole picture of things. 

 We have to be ready always to preach the word of God just as St. Paul reminded us once: “Preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience ad careful instruction.” 

 Let us ask God for the gift of gab so we can preach his word correctly, fluently and persuasively. Obviously, to carry out this mission, we need to know our Lord and his teachings. We have to go to him and read the Gospel. Reading and meditating on it should be a regular practice for us, a habit meant to keep us in touch with him. 

 Thus, every time we read the Gospel, we have to understand by our faith that we are engaging with our Lord in an actual and living way. We are listening to him, and somehow seeing him. We can use our imagination to make ourselves as one more character in any scene depicted by the Gospel. 

 For this, we need to look for the appropriate time and place. We have to be wary of our tendency to be dominated by a lifestyle of activism and pragmatism that would blunt our need for recollection and immersion in the life of Christ. 

 The drama of Christ’s life here on earth has to continue in our own life. Thus, we need to continually conform our mind and heart to the Gospel, an affair that demands everything from us. 

 Our problem is that the Gospel has ceased to be what it ought to be to many people. It has been downgraded as one more book among many others that we have. And worse, since it does not give us immediate practical knowledge, many of us give it low priority. 

 We really need to internalize Christ’s words, not in the way an actor internalizes his script. We internalize it by making it the very life of our mind and heart, the very impulse of our emotion and passions. It should be the soul of our whole life. 

 Thus, when we preach we cannot help but somehow showcase the drama inside our heart, giving others a glimpse of how our heart is actually taking, handling and delivering the word of Christ. 

 Preaching should reflect the condition of our heart as it grapples with the living word of God. It should not just be a matter of declaiming or orating, reduced to the art of speaking and stage performing, a mere play of our talents. We should realize that when we preach, we do so in the very person of Christ himself!

“Behold, I come to do thy will, O God”

THAT’S from a passage in the Letter to the Hebrews (cfr. 10,9) that spells out for us what the proper attitude we ought to have toward God in every event and circumstance of our life. 

 We need to spend time and effort to meditate on these words if only for them to sink so deep in our consciousness as to become the main principle of our life, since we are notorious for simply doing our own will instead of God’s will. 

 We have to learn how to live always by God’s will which in the end is what is most important to us. It’s when we can truly become members of God’s family as Christ said so clearly one time. (cfr. Mk 3,35) 

 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 and is, in fact, indispensable is to conform our will to God’s will. Otherwise, we sooner or later would destroy our freedom and our humanity itself, since God is the very author and the very lawgiver of our freedom 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. 

 How important therefore it is to take extreme care of how we handle our will. We just cannot use it at random, as in exercising at a wisp of a whim or a passing fancy. Our will needs to be properly grounded and oriented. 

 We just cannot allow it to be dominated or even largely influenced by physical or biological factors, or by feelings and passions and things of the flesh, or by merely social, economic, cultural or political elements. 

 It has to enter into some dialogue with God, no matter how mysterious that dialogue is going to be. The very least thing that we can do is to acknowledge that there is God and that we need to be with him. 

 We just cannot expropriate our will to be simply our own. We are meant only to be stewards of it, not its owner nor its designer, creator and lawgiver. It has to submit itself to the will of God, otherwise it would be working without proper foundation and purpose. 

 Mary’s “Fiat” should be an all-time motto for us, a guiding principle in our whole life. The submission of our will to God’s will is never a diminution of our freedom. On the contrary, it is the enhancement of our freedom. It is where we can have our true freedom and true joy. 

 We need to be more aware of this fundamental need of ours to conform our will to the will of God. Very often, we behave like spoiled brats who do not yet realize the importance of this need. We have to correct this tendency. 

 We have to train ourselves in the art of deepening our sense of obedience to God’s will, basing it on our faith, hope and love of God and others, and making it intelligent, truly voluntary, prompt and cheerful.

“Christ has destroyed death”

THAT’S what St. Paul said in his Second Letter to Timothy. The complete text is: “Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel.” (1,10) 

 With this assurance, we really would have no reason to fear death. Any fear of death is actually without basis. If we are consistent to our Christian faith which we should not only profess but should also live out, we know that when it comes and however it comes, it is the time when God, our Father and Creator, wants us to be with him. 

 We know that death is just a transition from our earthly life of trial to our definitive home with God in heaven. The crucial point is that we try our best, with the help of God’s grace, to do well in our earthly life. That is to say, that we manage to develop the love we are meant to have—the love of God and love of neighbor. 

 That’s when death can be considered like a rose in bloom that the gardener now decides to cut in order to put it in his house. Otherwise, or when we fail in our test of love in this earthly life, we also can be cut by the gardener but as a weed to be thrown out or burned. 

 We need to examine how our attitude is towards death which is unavoidable in our life here on earth. It’s, of course, a worthwhile exercise because many of us today have a wrong understanding of death that would lead us to unnecessary fears. Also, the many riveting concerns we have at the moment often prevent us from doing this important and crucial exercise. 

 Death should be understood, first of all, as a consequence of sin. In the beginning when our first parents were still in the state of original justice, death was an unknown. They were not supposed to die. Their and our immortality was supposed to cover not only our spiritual life but also our bodily life. 

 But death as a consequence of sin has been redeemed by Christ already. Remember what St. Paul said about this: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” (1 Cor 15,55) With the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, the curse of death has been removed. 

 And so, we should not be afraid of death anymore. As long as we have the same attitude that Christ had toward death, we will consider death as a liberation, a transition to our eternal life of bliss with God in heaven, a happy conclusion of our creation and redemption by Christ. 

 Our attitude toward death should the same as that of Christ who freely accepted death as way of bearing all the sins of men, so that the death of Christ, who is the Son of God made man, can fully repay the debt that man cannot repay due to his sin against God. 

 That is why Christ welcomed death. He did not avoid it. He went to it when it was the time to die. “I lay down my life, that I may take it again,” he said. “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (Jn 10,17-18) 

 With Christ’s death, the sting of death as a consequence of our sin has been removed. The eternal death that was due to us because of our sin has been conquered with Christ’s resurrection to the eternal life. Intriguing indeed to consider that with Christ’s own death, he destroyed death!

“Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life”

THAT’S the responsorial psalm of the readings of the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary time, Year C. The disciples of Christ, who found Christ’s teachings incredible, were finally made to understand that the words of Christ, who is indeed the very word of God, are what would give them—and us—the true Spirit and life meant for us. (cfr. Jn 6,63) 

 What therefore should our attitude be toward the word of God? I would say that basically it should be the same attitude that we have toward God himself. And the reason is this—since God is absolute simplicity with no division, parts or distinction in his being, his word must be his being, his whole divine substance himself. 

 We, on our part, make some distinction between God in his being and in his word because that is how we understand things in general. We need to distinguish and analyze things, breaking them into parts, before we can arrive at the whole, integral picture. 

 In fact, in the Trinitarian nature of God, the Second Person whom we refer as the Son, is described also as the very Word of God, the Divine Word, who is God himself insofar as he perfectly and fully knows himself and all his creation. So, God’s word is God himself! 

 The word of God which now comes to us through some human and natural instrumentalities through the Gospel or the Sacred Scripture together with Tradition and the Church Magisterium, should be regarded in that light. 

 Its primary purpose is to bring us back to God. And so more than just giving us some helpful earthly and practical knowledge, it gives us the ultimate spiritual knowledge we need to return to God. This character of God’s word is described in the following words in the Letter to the Hebrews: 

 “For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two-edged sword, and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (4,12) 

 Its purely eternal, spiritual, sacred and transcendent nature is now subjected to the conditions of time, culture, history, etc., in view of how we are. But we should not forget that it is primarily purely eternal, spiritual, sacred and transcendent, which with our spiritual powers plus God’s grace we can manage to abstract from its temporal, material, mundane and prosaic condition. 

 Let’s remember that God became man. With his incarnation, the divine word assumes the nature of a human word. And just as God became man to bring man back to God, his divine word becomes human word to bring and reconcile us with God. 

 Since God’s word is God himself and God is everything to us, we have to understand that it contains everything for our needs, especially our ultimate need to be with God. All things true, good and beautiful are contained in the word of God. 

 Thus, insofar as our philosophies, ideologies, sciences, arts and technologies contain truths, goodness and beauty, no matter how technical they are, we have to conclude that they also come from God’s word and belong there also. 

 Our sciences, arts and technologies can only articulate the more mundane aspects of the Word of God. But they should lead us to God. They should make us achieve a more intimate relationship with God, with everybody else and everything else in the whole universe. 

 We should make God’s word the primary and constant source of our knowledge! Everything else has to be animated by it.

Developing a growing intimacy with Christ

THIS is actually meant for all of us, but especially for priests and consecrated persons who are supposed to lead the way for others to fulfill this duty. The ideal condition for us is to become more and more like Christ, having his mind and heart, having his spirit such that we can approximate our true identity and dignity as children of God just as Christ is the Son of God who became man to bring us back to where we should be. 

 And by intimacy, I mean that abiding awareness of Christ’s presence in our life, such that it affects even our feelings and passions. We need to set our whole selves to meet this condition because only with this intimacy with Christ can we be able to be also intimate with everybody else, which is the ideal condition in our relation with them. 

 It’s when we are intimate with Christ and with everybody else when we can really see ourselves in our rawest and unvarnished selves. Intimacy is where the most fundamental expressions of our humanity are made, where we become aware of our personhood, and where our real identity is established and defined. 

 We have to understand that we have to exert conscious effort to develop our proper sense of intimacy. We should not allow it to develop simply by chance or by some random initiatives. We have to be very serious about it, always coming up with concrete plans and strategies to put it in place and to keep it going. 

 And the reason for this is that especially today, with so many things grabbing our attention, we always have the tendency to treat God and others in a very casual way, if at all. And so, our relationships will most likely remain in the superficial level and are mainly driven by self-serving motivations and not by love, which is the proper spirit that should animate our relationships. 

 We have to do everything to grow in our intimacy with Christ everyday. This should be a constant concern of ours. This is the most ideal condition that we can and should be in, and we just have to figure out how it can be achieved. 

 To be sure, this is no pipe dream. This is not only possible and feasible. It is first of all Christ’s will and he has given us everything so that we can truly get intimate with him, and be privy to his will and ways. 

 Let’s remember that the world gives us a lot of options to do what we want to do. And though we are given an autonomy to do what we want, and all of them can be moral, valid and legitimate, we should try our best to choose the one that we are convinced is what Christ wants us to do in a given moment. 

 We have to make sure that Christ strikes us as a living person, and not just an idea, a memory, an abstract character to whom we go as a kind of psychological or emotional prop, or a spiritual ornament. 

 We need to see Christ in everything and everyone. Thus, we have to learn how to be recollected and to be a contemplative especially in the middle of the world as we go through our temporal affairs. 

 Let’s be sure that Christ is precisely also in the middle of the world, in our mundane affairs. He is waiting for us there and is expecting us to turn these things to him, since these things are the very test Christ provides us to see if we truly believe and love him or not.

Relate everything to Christ’s victory

THAT’S the ideal thing to do. Whatever be the events and circumstances of our life, whether happy or sad, a victory or a defeat, etc., we should be quick to relate them to Christ’s victory of his passion, death and resurrection. It’s a victory that can handle everything in our life properly. More than that, it’s a victory that will be definitive. 

 Yes, if we have a working faith, we know that all our affairs can take part in the victory of Christ over sin and death. Thus, we would have every reason to be happy and hopeful and to remain calm despite whatever. This is actually the ideal condition of our life, and we should try our best to attain it.

 In that way also, we can be in a better position to see God’s will and ways, and to follow them properly. As we all know, we work or perform better when we feel light and animated by love, without as much as possible bearing the drag of a guilt feeling or anything negative. 

 Of course, we have to understand that Christ’s victory was gained through the cross, through his loving obedience to the will of his Father who wants him to assume all the sins of men, rendering death to all our sins by dying on the cross and then by resurrecting. 

 If we are guided by our faith, if we develop a theological mind and directed by it, we know that Christ has converted everything that is negative in our life into a way of our own salvation. 

 Everyday let us find ways of deepening our understanding and appreciation of this truth of our faith, and also of acquiring the capacity to live it as fully as possible, until we can truly say that we are finding joy in our suffering. 

 Let us often meditate on the passion, death and resurrection of Christ since it is from there that we can get the proper inspiration on this matter. Such meditation will wipe away any fear we may have toward any form of suffering in our life. 

 At least we can say that we would complain less when some suffering comes our way, or we would not lose our peace, would actually be game with any suffering, and our reaction to any form of suffering would go beyond the level of the senses and feelings, etc. We would get more and more convinced that going through some suffering would be doing a lot of good to us and to everybody else. 

 To train ourselves for this, we might have to actively pursue a plan of what is called as active mortification. We make a list of acts of self-denial and even of corporal mortification like fasting, abstinence and the recourse to ascetical instruments like the cilice and the discipline. 

 So, we just have to be sport and cool about the whole reality of suffering and death. What we need to do is to follow Christ in his attitude toward them. For Christ, embracing suffering and ultimately death, is the expression of his greatest love for us. We have to enter into the dynamic of this divine logic and wisdom so we can lose that fear of suffering and death. 

 Thus, we have to understand this very well. Unless we love the cross, we can never say that we are loving enough. Of course, we have to qualify that assertion. It’s when we love the cross the way God wills it—the way Christ loves it—that we can really say that we are loving as we should, or loving with the fullness of love. 

 What a lovely life we would have if we manage to relate everything to Christ’s victory over sin and death!

Always glorify God

THAT is actually what we are meant to do all our life here. It corresponds to our duty to give what is due to God, our Creator and Father, as we go through the ups and downs of our life here on earth. That is how we can manage to be happy, serene and confident despite whatever. That’s simply because glorifying God constitutes the best act of love we can give God. 

 Indeed, it is the best condition we can have in this life. To be able to glorify God presumes that we have been able to identify ourselves with God in his will and in his ways as revealed fully in Christ, the Son who became man to save us, offering us the way of how to be with God in spite of our limitations, mistakes and sins. It is in this condition that we can attain our supreme joy and our total fulfillment. 

 It corresponds to what St. Paul once said, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10,31) And the ultimate foundation of that assertion is because the purpose of our creation is none other than to give glory to God. In fact, the ultimate purpose of the whole of creation is to give glory to God, its creator. There is no other reason why God chose to create instead of just being by himself. 

 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 has 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. 

 Glorifying God is not an expression of selfishness on the part of God. He does not need that. He is the fullness of being already. But by giving glory to God, we make ourselves, and the rest of creation, to participate in God’s glory. That’s when we achieve the best and ultimate dignity we can ever have. 

 We need to be most conscious of this duty and do all we can to carry it out in every act we make, whether it is physical, mental or spiritual, etc. The big problem we have today is that instead of giving glory to God, we tend to give glory to ourselves, thinking that it is where we will find our joy and fulfillment. 

 That’s when we fall into vainglory that can come to us in many and very subtle ways. It can only be a false glorification of ourselves and a very deceptive one that can give us some degree of joy and pleasure but is actually setting us for a bigger and graver fall. 

 We have to be wary of this danger. Instead, we have to see to it that we are conscious in truly giving glory to God in all that we do and in any situation that we may find ourselves in, whether such situation is happy or sad, good or bad in human terms.

The need to continually refine our human laws

WE obviously have to be governed by the rule of law. Without the law, we can only expect disorder and chaos, and all other forms of injustice. But we need to distinguish between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and know how to understand and apply the law properly. 

 Ideally, both the letter and the spirit of a certain law should be in perfect harmony. But that is hardly the case in real life. The problem, of course, is that the articulation of the law is conditioned and limited by our human powers that cannot fully capture the richness of human life, considering its spiritual and supernatural character that will always involve the intangibles and mysteries and the like. 

 That is the reason why we can go beyond but not against a particular law, when such law cannot fully express the concrete conditions of a particular case. Because of this condition, there is always the need to continually update and refine our human laws to capture better the true spirit that our laws should have. 

 In this regard, we have to realize more deeply that it is in Christ, in following his commandment of love, that we can move toward the perfection and true fulfillment of our human laws. 

 Yes, that’s what St. Paul said in his Letter to the Romans. And if we believe that St. Paul was an apostle, a special vessel Christ chose to preach to the Gentiles, then his words ought to be believed. The complete passage is as follows: 

 “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” (13,8-10) 

 With these words, we are made to understand that it is love or charity that summarizes and fulfills all the laws there are—those that come directly from God and those that are man-made which are supposed to reflect God’s laws. 

 We just have to understand what this love or charity is, because we can also have all kinds of charity that may not exactly be the charity as it should be. We all know that we are notorious in doing this. Thus, we should first find where we can have the true essence of charity. 

 We know that charity is the very essence of God. St. John, in his first letter, said it clearly. “God is love.” (4,8) And that charity was lived and continues to be lived, shown and taught to us by Christ, who is the fullness of the revelation of God to us. 

 Christ himself summarized and perfected all the divine commandments given to us by revealing to us a new commandment—that we love one another as he himself has loved us. (cfr. Jn 13,34) The question to ask is: How has Christ loved us and continues to do so? 

 We know that Christ is the Son of God who became man to save us. He went all the way to assume everything human, except sin, though he was made like sin, just to adapt himself to us for the sake of our salvation. (cfr. 2 Cor 5,21) 

 Our human laws should try to capture this law of love that come from God. It’s love that knows how to blend truth, justice and mercy.

A beautiful description of the priesthood

THE Letter to the Hebrews (5,1-10) provides us that description that gives light to the nature, character, purpose, etc. of the priesthood. “For every high priest taken from among men, is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins,” it starts. 

 Already with these words, we are made to realize first of all the underlying truth of our faith that God and man indeed share the same life and nature. Because of this and of our human condition here on earth, marked with our woundedness that needs to be healed in time, some men are ordained to lead men back to God. 

 These men, of course, enjoy some special grace, a special vocation, that would conform them to be another Christ as head, and not just a member, of the living body of Christ which is the Church. Through Christ’s and now the Church’s sacrament of Holy Orders, they have an authority that is a sharing of that of Christ that empowers them to lead others to God. 

 Still, a succeeding passage gives us an interesting detail about priests. He “can have compassion on them that are ignorant and that err, because he himself also is compassed with infirmity. And therefore, he ought as for the people so also for himself to offer for sins.” 

 These words simply tell us that priests are also like anybody else, subject to the same wounded condition. And yet that woundedness, instead of being a pure liability, can be taken advantage of by making it an occasion to grow in greater love for God and others through repentance, conversion and atonement. 

 This can be validated in that gospel episode where a sinful woman barged into a party where Christ was invited by a Pharisee and anointed Christ with the oil she brought. When the host was quietly critical of Christ for allowing the woman to anoint him, Christ corrected him. “I say to you,” said Christ to the host, “her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” (Lk 7,47) 

 This should be the proper attitude all of us should have in the context of our unavoidable sinfulness. We can turn that sad condition around if we would only go back to Christ asking for forgiveness which Christ is most willing to give. We should never run away from Christ because of our sin. Worse things can only take place that way. 

 Still another passage gives us an enlightening if challenging detail about priesthood. “Whereas indeed he was the Son of God, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered, and being consummated, he became, to all that obey him the cause of eternal salvation.” 

 Our life, and especially that of priests, is always a matter of obedience to God’s will. But given our wounded condition, that obedience commands a great price—that of all the unavoidable suffering we have to go through in this 

life. In effect, we should not only expect suffering in our life. We should rather look for it if only to develop this obedience we ought to have to the will and ways of God. Of course, this lifestyle of developing obedience through suffering should be lived with naturalness. But the cross of suffering, in any form, should be made an indispensable element in our life.

“Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye”

WORDS of Mary to the servants at the wedding in Cana. (cfr. Jn 2,1-11) While the festive celebration was going on, the mother of Christ noticed that wine was running out. She approached him to inform him of the problem, but her request at first was denied. “Woman, what is that to me and to thee? my hour is not yet come,” he told her. But Mary knew how to handle that situation, and in the end Christ’s first miracle took place. 

 This is a beautiful story that highlights the fact that a good son would always try his best to accommodate whatever his mother would ask even if such request may involve some difficulty. Mary did not force him to accede to her request. She simply made things easy for such request to be eventually granted. 

 It cannot be denied that mothers somehow enjoy certain privileges with their children, if they are good children. Thus, Mary did not make an issue of the denial she at first received. 

 It’s this privilege that Mary enjoyed and continues to enjoy with Christ that a saint once said that she is “the safest, easiest, shortest, and most perfect way of approaching Jesus.” It would be a pity if we fail to realize how effective Mary can be as an intercessor for us. Not only that, she actually can anticipate our needs as dramatized at the wedding in Cana. 

 Indeed, Mary is the epitome of motherhood who knows how to be a mother even to God and to all of us. All of that because of her perfect identification of her will with the will of God, giving us a concrete example of how a human being can be so identified with God’s will that she becomes God’s perfect image and likeness as God wants her and also us to be. 

 We are often incredulous, even skeptical, about this possibility. But she managed to do it. Obviously, she was given the necessary graces for that. But she also corresponded to those graces with everything that she had, reflecting in the most perfect way the redemptive mission, full of suffering, of her son. How our Lady was and continues to be should also be how we should be. 

 And she is all there to help us achieve that dignity of being true children of God who can even be a mother of God and a spouse of God as our Lady was the most dutiful daughter of the God the father, mother of God the Son and spouse of God the Holy Spirit. 

 Let us just imitate our Lady’s perfect faith shown especially when she said, “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum,” (Be it done to me according to your word) during the Annunciation. With that faith which for sure she could not understand completely, she put herself entirely under the designs and dynamics of God’s will of love, of redemption, toward mankind. 

 Let’s see to it that our devotion to her grows. And if it is practically dormant if not dead, then let’s stir it up to life again. She is important to us. In fact, she is indispensable to us. She cannot be treated as an optional feature in our spiritual life, nor something decorative or appendical only. 

 While she is not God and, therefore, not to be accorded with the worship that is only due to God (latria), she rightly deserves to be given the highest form of veneration (hyperdulia) among all the saints who are already with God in heaven.

Strong in the faith

WE should aim at having our faith as strong as possible. This is the only way we can start and keep sharing the very life of God here on earth. That’s actually the ideal condition for us to be in. Otherwise, there’s no way but for us to lead a life that is mainly temporal, worldly and prone to fall into the ways of brute animals. 

 We are reminded of this need in that gospel episode where a man with palsy was brought to Christ for curing. Since they could not get close to him due to the crowd, they climbed to the roof, bore a hole and lowered the man with palsy until he landed right in front of Christ. Impressed by their faith, Christ first forgave the man’s sin before curing him. (cfr. Mk 2,1-12) 

 To be always with Christ should be the strongest desire we should have in our life. Unless we have this fundamental and abiding desire, all our desiring would be vain and futile. We need to realize this truth of our faith, and do our best to cultivate such desire in our life. 

 It may not be easy, given our human condition, limited as it is by our nature and handicapped further by the effects of sin, ours and those of others. But once we know this truth of our faith, we can always do something about this challenge. 

 To be sure, God, on his part, has already given us everything. The ball is actually in our court. We just have to pick up the means and start the ball rolling. To begin, we can make many acts of faith, hope and charity. 

 St. Augustine expressed this truth of faith very clearly: “The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire.” This assertion is certainly based on what God himself said: “Seek my face” (Ps 27,8), and on what Christ said: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Mt 6,33) 

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

 At one point, Christ lamented the common phenomenon of our lack of faith. “This generation is an evil generation,” he said. “It seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” (cfr. Lk 11,29-32) 

 If there is no faith, we will never see the things of God and the rich reality of the truly spiritual and supernatural world, no matter how much we spin our human powers to capture this reality. Not even our powerful sciences and technologies can enter into the spiritual and supernatural reality of our life. 

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

 The ideal condition is for us to feel our faith 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. 

 With faith, we can have hope and confidence as we go through the wind and waves of the ocean of life. More than that, faith enables us to live charity, especially its fine points and its more challenging aspects.

When we reach our limits

SINCE true Christian love will always ask for more and, in fact, endless things, we should not be surprised when at a certain point we will reach our limits. We know that we are supposed not to say enough in our self-giving, but given our limited natural condition that is poised to enter into the supernatural life of God, there will always be a limit in that self-giving. 

 When that moment arrives, we should just assume the very attitude of Christ who, when on the cross reached the limit of his self-giving in spite of the overwhelming effort to do a lot of good to everyone, just left everything in the hands of his Father. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” he said. (Lk 23,46) 

 We should just leave everything in the hands of God who will be the only one to complete and perfect everything that is meant for us. Remember St. Paul telling us: “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1,6) 

 This can only mean that while we do everything we can, we should in the end learn how to live a healthy spirit of abandonment in the hands of God. 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. 

 A healthy spirit of abandonment in God’s hands is necessary even as we exhaust all possible human means to achieve our goals or simply to tackle all the challenges, trials and predicaments of our life. We should never forget this truth of our faith. 

 In this life, we need to acquire a good, healthy sporting spirit, because life is actually like a game. Yes, life is like a game. We set out to pursue a goal, we have to follow certain rules, we are given some means, tools and instruments, we are primed to win and we do our best, but losses can come, and yet, we just have to move on. 

 Woe to us when we get stuck with our defeats and failures, developing a loser’s mentality. That would be the epic fail that puts a period and a finis in a hanging narrative, when a comma, a colon or semi-colon would have sufficed. 

 We need a sporting spirit because life’s true failure can come only when we choose not to have hope. That happens when our vision and understanding of things is narrow and limited, confined only to the here and now and ignorant of the transcendent reality of the spiritual and supernatural world. 

 We should never forget that God is always around. He never abandons us in spite of our stupidities. In fact, the more we stray from him, the more solicitous he would be of us. We should just learn how to convert this psalm into reality: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” (95,8) 

 We always have to go to God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. This is not an exercise of surrender and futility, but rather of conquest and victory. With God, everything always works for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28) 

 St. Paul precisely recommended this move. “Do not be anxious about anything,” he said, “but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 6,6-7)

Love always asks for more

THAT’S the very nature of love, if it’s true love, one that is a vital participation and reflection of the very essence of God which is also meant to be our own essence, since we are God’s image and likeness. 

 It’s a love that never says enough in spite of our obvious limitations and weaknesses. When we reach those limits, like Christ we would just commend ourselves to God’s own ways that go beyond our natural powers, making the impossible possible. As God’s image and likeness, the supernatural powers of God are also shared with us. 

 We are reminded of this truth of faith about love in that gospel episode where Christ had to deal with an increasing number of people seeking favors from him by curing them of their various illnesses. And yet, in spite of this challenge due to love’s demands, Christ never forgot to pray. He went to an isolated place to pray. (cfr. Mk 1,29-39) 

 This can only mean that while love can ask of us anything, it always follows a certain order. That love should always be based on God whose help and power we always have to implore. That’s why we should never forget to pray if we want our love to the true love. 

 This love should always be pursued and lived everywhere. And one area where it should be lived in a more aggressive way is in the area of politics which is a big challenge today. How are we going to humanize and Christianize our politics that now is assuming a clearly toxic character? How can we keep our politics from going to the dogs? 

 A cursory reading of the comments in social media immediately indicate a tone of bitterness and acrimony. There's so much bashing and mudslinging that an objective and fair consideration of the issues has become all but impossible. 

 Many people are making themselves instant political pundits who seem to know everything about the issues at hand. They shoot from the hips, voicing out their opinions as if they are infallible dogmas. 

 Some political commentators present themselves as if they have the monopoly of what is right and proper, flaunting their so-called encyclopedic knowledge of the issues involved. Any differing position is immediately branded as wrong. And they can come out with what may appear as brilliant arguments that are nothing other than sophistries. 

 They confuse bullying tactics for conviction and righteousness. And they justify their behavior by saying that this is the political reality of the times. In other words, if they don't act the way they are acting nowadays, they are not being realistic. 

 If they happen to have the upper hand in any issue, they usually gloat over their opponents who often are regarded as idiots, completely bereft of reason. They consider those in the other side as entirely no good. 

 This is now the challenge of love. How can we instill the real love in this kind of environment? How can we humanize and Christianize today’s politics? Politics is in urgent and constant need for evangelization. 

 Aside from proclaiming what is absolutely moral and immoral, the evangelization of politics should foster an environment of frank and cordial dialogue among the different and even conflicting parties involved. It should foster among the different parties a keen desire with matching effort to pursue the common good. Moral principles should be followed on top of the adherence to agreed rules of engagement as articulated in our legal and judicial systems, etc.

“For he taught them as one having authority”

THIS refers to Christ who, after preaching in a synagogue, left a deep impression on the people who compared the way he preached with the way the scribes preached. (cfr. Mk 1,22) 

 This gospel episode somehow reminds us, especially priests, about how preaching should be properly done. It cannot be denied that while preaching can lend itself to a varying number of styles, there is one indispensable element that should not be neglected. 

 And that is that preaching should be done in the person of Christ, and not just as our own. That is the most important aspect of preaching, otherwise we would be preaching something else, and not the things of God. 

 That’s why we need to see to it that we develop and ever polish the art of preaching, which is a vital extension and participation of the preaching of Christ. Through the powers of the sacraments and the liturgy, Christ’s preaching continues up to now, this time making use of authorized ministers. 

 This is how we have to view preaching. It’s not just some priest yakking at a certain point in the Mass. It is delivering and listening to the word of God as expressed once by St. Paul when he extolled the Thessalonians: 

 “We give thanks to God...because when you heard and received from us the word of God, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but, as it truly is, the word of God who works in you who have believed.” (1 Thes 2,13) 

 It’s about time that we give serious attention to this very important aspect of our life, since as we all know a lot of flaws, confusion and wrong practices have marred it through the years. 

 For us priests, especially, we need to internalize the gospel, God’s word where the life, teaching and example of Christ are recorded, not in the way an actor internalizes his script. We internalize it by making it the very life of our mind and heart, the very impulse of our emotion and passions. It should be the soul of our whole life. 

 Thus, when we preach we cannot help but somehow showcase the drama inside our heart, giving others a glimpse of how our heart is actually taking, handling and delivering the word of God. 

 Preaching should reflect the condition of our heart as it grapples with the living word of God. It should not just be a matter of declaiming or orating, reduced to the art of speaking and stage performing, a mere play of our talents. 

 Neither should it be just a display of our intellectual prowess or our cultural wealth. It should manage to show the actual living faith and love our heart has for God’s word, how our heart is receiving it and reacting to it. 

 Thus, preaching is a matter of how effectively we manage to show and teach Christ to the others. It’s never about us, the preachers. Rather, it can be about us in our effort to bring Christ to the others. Its success or failure depends solely on this. 

 St. John Mary Vianney, patron for priests, is an example of an excellent preacher. Though not very gifted intellectually and humanly, he managed to preach well because his heart burned with great love for Christ. 

 That love led him to an amazing eloquence, full of common and supernatural sense, that attracted all kinds of people, even the most sophisticated and complicated ones. 

 We need to learn to preach from a heart immersed in Christ!

Developing a burning zeal for souls

SOON after John the Baptist was arrested, Christ told the people, “The time has been fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the Gospel,” (Mk 1,15) after which he chose 12 apostles from among the disciples he managed to gather at that time. 

 This clear mission of Christ here on earth should also be shared by all of us if we truly want to be disciples and apostles of Christ as we should. We need to develop an apostolic zeal since it is actually a duty incumbent on all Christian believers. 

 It corresponds to Christ’s clear command, given first to the apostles but also meant for all of us, to go out into the whole world, preaching the gospel and baptizing them “in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” 

 This commissioning reflects Christ’s burning desire that his work of redemption has to go on till the end of time. His salvific work just cannot be made a part of history. It has to continue, for that in fact comprises the ultimate goal for all of us, believers. We are not meant only to have an earthly goal, but one that transcends time and space. 

 Christ is asking us to do our part, always together with him, just as he asked his apostles to do so. And that’s because, first of all, even if Christ being God does not need us to do this, he wants it that way since he is treating us the way he treats himself. That’s because we are his image and likeness. 

 It’s also for our own good. Our involvement in the apostolate actually matures and perfects us as persons and as children of God. It detaches us from our own self-centeredness and self-absorption, and draws us to the dynamics of love and self-giving. 

 We have to remember that loving God whom we do not see is accomplished by loving others whom we see. And apostolate is that exquisite part of loving others since it involves not only some material good for others, but their ultimate spiritual good. 

 Secondly, God has designed and wired us to help one another not only in our material and temporal needs, but also and especially in our spiritual needs that are aimed at our supernatural destination, nothing less than our participation in the very life of God. We need to realize more sharply that we are actually responsible for one another. 

 Of course, this participation in the divine life can only happen with the grace of God and never just by our own efforts alone. That’s why the second person of the Blessed Trinity became man, Jesus Christ, who offers himself as our way, our truth and our life. 

 With God becoming man in Jesus Christ, we are given not only some doctrine, but also and especially the sacraments and the Church itself that make Christ present and active in our life in any given moment. This happens par excellence in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. 

 We need to keep that apostolic zeal burning, fueling it with prayers, sacrifices, apostolic plans and initiatives that should bank on some traditional means as well as the new things like the new technologies that can do a lot to foster our apostolic activities. 

 We need to spread the saving doctrine of Christ, explaining it in season and out of season, but always with a gift of tongue and making use of the innovative means like the media and the social networks. These latter are in fact considered the new Areopagus, where matters of faith are explained and discussed.

Living our baptism into Christ

IF we wonder why Christ had to be baptized by St. John the Baptist, the quick answer is that Christ wanted to institute the Sacrament of Baptism through which we would be recreated from our wounded human nature due to the sin of our first parents to a new man, a redeemed man in Christ where the Spirit of God gets to animate our spiritual soul. 

 Thus, St. John the Baptist said, “I indeed baptize you with water; but there shall come one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to loose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” (Lk 3,16) 

 Now that with baptism we receive the mold of Christ our redeemer in us, we need to flesh it out. And the second reading (cfr. Titus 2,11-14.3,4-7) of the Mass of the Feast of the Christ’s Baptism which ends the Christmas season gives us an idea of what to do and how we ought to be. 

 St. Paul tells it to us clearly: “For the grace of God our Savior has appeared to all men; instructing us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and justly, and godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and might cleanse to himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works.” (Titus 2,11-14) 

 We need to meditate on these words if only to put ourselves on the proper path here in this world, having the proper attitude, outlook and lifestyle. We cannot deny that with how the world in developing these days, we tend to live a worldly, self-centered life, steeped only in the worldly values of convenience, practicality, pleasure, consumerism, etc. 

 With all the technological advances we now have, we cannot deny the fact that we are always tempted to try them, spending precious time and exploring the plethora of possibilities with them. 

 This is a good development, of course, but only if we are prepared for it, adequately equipped and clear as to their ultimate purpose. Otherwise, we would just be blown and swept away by the storm of novelties and curiosities they offer. 

 Thus, while they help us to be more driven in life, they also ask us, nay, require us to be properly grounded. A certain kind of sobriety is needed, since our tendency to be intoxicated is now always teased and provoked. 

 There is always a need to be careful and sober, since the pull of distractions can be both strong and subtle. It’s a daily struggle that has to be contextualized in one’s interior life itself or in one’s vital relation with God. It could not be anything less. 

 It’s this interior or spiritual life that enables one to see things from the point of view of God, and not just from any human point of view, cultural, social or economic. Sadly, this reality is often ignored by many people. There’s a need to restore the crucial role the spiritual life plays in our lives. 

 So, I always recommend that one submits himself to a clear plan of life that includes practices of piety spread out all throughout the day that would help him keep a lively spiritual life and a working supernatural outlook. 

 This lifestyle obviously requires sobriety, that effective self-control that involves knowing how to deal with our impulses and urges that need to be rationalized and later infused by faith and charity. 

 This is how we live our baptism into Christ!

With Christ, we can overcome the world

THAT’S what St. John in his First Letter said. “Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God,” he said. Christ himself said it in a most explicit way, assuring that everything will be ok as long as are with him. “In this world you will have trouble,” he said. “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16,33) 

 This divine assurance, of course, does not exempt us from waging a continual spiritual struggle all throughout our life. And for this, we should just learn the art of spiritual warfare, equipping ourselves with nothing less than the “whole armor of God,” as St. Paul in his Letter to Ephesians recommends. (cfr. 6,11) 

 With Christ, we can manage to drown evil with an abundance of good. We can manage to love even our enemies. We can always find ways to sanctify ourselves and the world itself, especially in the areas of politics and business, and the rapidly developing technologies that are giving us new challenges and trials. 

 Yes, we should not be afraid of the world. In fact, we can and ought to love the world without being worldly. That’s because God himself created the world which is given to us for our own good. It only became bad and dangerous when it already got affected by our sins. 

 And so, with respect to what the proper attitude we should have toward the world, we should always remember that it is also God’s creation and should be treated according to the will and purpose God has for it. 

 We should therefore know how to be in the world, without being worldly, trapped and imprisoned in worldly things, and failing to look, find and love God and everybody else. And the secret is to follow Christ who shows us how to be in the world without being worldly. 

 Christ, who is the very essence of wealth and human dignity, lived a very simple life: he had nowhere to be born or die, nowhere to lay his head, came to our world with nothing and left it also with nothing. In his public life, he sent his apostles to preach without extra luggage. 

 We need to understand that poverty and a certain detachment from earthly things are required for our hearts to be properly filled with the spirit of God and to enable us to fulfill our mission in the world and to pursue the real purpose of our life. 

 We have to be most wary of the danger of worldliness which is becoming practically irresistible these days. Yes, it’s true that we have to love the world since that is where God has placed us to test us if what he wants us to be is also what we ourselves would like to be. We should love the world the way God loves it, but we should not be held captive by it. 

 The secret, of course, is to see to it that our mind and heart are always with God. We should not allow ourselves to be fully taken by the charms and deceiving allurements of the world. We have to be completely detached from it, which does not mean that we should hate it. On the contrary, we have to be immersed in it as much as possible and yet love it but in the way God loves it.

Living our Christian faith consistently

WITH all the rapidly evolving developments we are having these days, we need to learn how to live our Christian faith consistently. This can indeed be a big challenge since this is practically like breaking a new frontier where things are still new and quite exacting. 

 To be sure, it’s not only how to level up our technical skills that is involved. The more challenging part is how to live our Christian faith consistently so we can avoid getting confused and lost, trapped in some kind of bubble, and learning how to make use of these developments to pursue our real and ultimate purpose in life. 

 To attain that consistency and unity in our life, there is no other formula than to follow the example of Christ. He should always be the reference point in all our actions and in all the different situations in our life. He should always be the guide and the standard. After all, he is the very pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity. 

 He teaches us how to blend the different aspects of our life, how to have a universal outlook, and how to blend the old and the new, the traditional and the innovative, so that everything in our life, no matter how different and even in conflict, can be properly resolved, even if it involves tremendous sacrifices. 

 With respect to the little and the big things in life, we should realize that while it’s true that we have to take care of the little things in our life, we should not forget that we are not meant to get detained there. We should always relate the little ordinary things in our life to the big and ultimate purpose of our life. 

 The same with the human and the spiritual and the supernatural dimensions of our life. Anomalies in this area can happen when in our confessions, for example, we accuse ourselves only of our failures to do our prayers, to offer sacrifices, to attend some daily Masses, etc., without mentioning how we have fared in our graver duty to do apostolate, to Christianize our work and society in general, to reach out to the poor and the needy, to be forgiving of others who may have wronged us, etc. 

 Among the things that we can do to counter our tendency to get accustomed to things and to fall victim to the desensitizing effect of complacency, routine and lukewarmness are the daily effort to make a good examination of conscience, a monthly recourse to a day of recollection, and a yearly spiritual exercise called a closed retreat. 

 These are good occasions to look more closely into how our spiritual and moral life has been faring, and to see, in a manner of speaking, what parts of our spiritual and moral life need to be cleaned up, oiled, or perhaps changed, revised or reengineered to adapt to changing circumstances. 

 We need to sharpen our desire to do these things because given our weaknesses, we usually do not like to do them. We should not forget that we like to enjoy more than to exert effort. Laziness and comfort-seeking is a legacy of our fallen nature. 

 These exercises can actually bring us to an indescribable sense of adventure, since we will realize sooner or later that there are many new things that are truly helpful to us and are waiting for us to discover. These new things would give us the sensation that we are flowing with the times, not stuck at a certain corner of time or a certain mold of culture.

Loving others the way God loves us

THIS was clearly spelled out in the First Letter of St. John. “If God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (4,11) Christ himself, of course, specified it beforehand when he, before ascending into heaven, said it as the new commandment. “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (Jn 13,34)  

We are meant for loving the way God loves all of us. It’s a love that has a universal scope. Even if it is not reciprocated, that love continues to burn. Christ himself said that we should love even our enemies. (cfr. Mt 5,44) Given that clear indication of his, we have reason to claim that God even loves the devils. 

 God cannot hate anyone, because everyone is a creature of his. But he, of course, distinguishes between the creatures whom he will always love and the creatures’ acts which can go against God’s will. He always loves the creatures but always condemns the creatures’ sinful deeds. 

 The secret of having the same love God has for us and for everyone and everything else is to see to it that we give our whole heart to him. Let us remember that it is in our heart that the image and likeness of God is imprinted. We should never think that our heart is just of our own making. It comes from God and is meant to be where we assume our true identity and dignity as God’s children, sharers of his life and nature. 

 Thus, on several occasions we hear God begging for our heart. In the Book of Proverbs we can read this passage, “My child, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways.” (23,26) And Christ reiterated the same truth when he told the one who asked him what the greatest commandment was—that it is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Mt 22,37) 

 We should just learn how to give our heart to God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. By so doing we assume the very identity of Christ and the dignity proper to us, which is to be a child of God, sharing the very life and nature of God. 

 Indeed, what is proper to us is to pursue that overwhelming duty to assume the very identity of Christ to the point that in any given moment, in any given situation, we would be looking, understanding, acting and reacting as Christ would. No matter how awkward we feel about this duty, and no matter how inconsistent we can be in this regard, we should just try and try, never giving up. 

 Anyway, we are also told by St. Paul that “He who began a good work in you will also be the one to bring it to completion.” (Phil 1,6) Ours is simply to try and try, as far as we can, which of course would require of us deep and solid faith and humility. 

 To be sure, every time we assume Christ’s identity in any situation, we somehow can manage to see things more clearly and to develop and live the virtues that flow from God’s true love, virtues like patience, compassion, affection, etc. 

 We should just disregard the many hecklers who can hound us along the way. They are unavoidable, given our wounded condition and the enemies of God and our soul. Let’s just proceed to do what God want of us—to give our whole heart to him!

True love goes all the way

INDEED, that is how true love is. It never says enough in its self-giving. If it would cost one’s life, so be it. It would always take the initiative, never waiting for some favorable conditions to start loving. It may involve some episodes of anger, but it would always end with mercy. 

 We can learn these qualities of true love from the first reading of the Mass of Tuesday after Epiphany Sunday. (cfr. 1 Jn 4,7-10) “Let us love one another, for charity is of God. And every one that loves, is born of God, and knows God,” it says. 

 And it describes the extent to which this love goes in this way: “In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because he has first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.” 

 It obviously would look like impossible for us to have that kind of love which we are meant to have since we are supposed to God’s image and likeness, sharers of his life and nature. We should not waste time worrying about that apparent impossibility. We are told that as long as we do our part, imperfect as it is, it would be God himself who would do it for us and with us! 

 If we truly love God and everybody else, with a love that is nothing less than a participation of the love God has for us and as commanded by Christ to us, then we will never say enough in our self-giving. 

 Even if such attitude would already seem to be going beyond common sense, our reason and other human and worldly standards that we usually use to measure our love, we would still go on giving ourselves, never saying enough. We would just give and give, even if we seem to consume ourselves in death. 

 This is, of course, an overwhelming prospect, but that is what true love is. It is some kind of madness that knows no limits. It is given without measure, without cost, without any calculation. 

 And even if such total self-giving is not reciprocated, it would still go on loving. It is purely gratuitous. Even more, even if it is not only unreciprocated but is also violently resisted and rejected, it would still go on loving. 

 Obviously, if we are to rely only on our own powers, there is no way we can have this kind of self-giving. This can only take place if we are truly identified with Christ, if we have his grace and are corresponding to it with all that we have got.

 It’s only in this condition that that we can go beyond the limits of our natural self and above the usual drama in life. We of course have our limitations, physical, mental, emotional, etc. And yet, as long as we are truly with Christ, we can still manage to give ourselves unstintingly. The spiritual and supernatural in us through Christ would enable us to give ourselves despite our natural limitations and worldly conditions. 

 It is God’s grace that does the trick. It’s when we correspond sincerely to God’s love for us that we get a self-perpetuating energy to do our best in any given moment. It’s when we can manage to do the impossible. 

 We need to help each other to do and give our best in whatever task we have out of sheer love for God and neighbor. The appropriate training should be established in homes, schools and everywhere. The proper climate and environment should be created for this purpose.