Speak and listen with charity always

SOMEONE sent me a podcast about how one should speak so that people listen and not get turned off. Among the mistakes that should be avoided in this regard are the following: neglecting to prepare, using filler words, talking too fast, talking too softly, forgetting to make eye contact, using distracting mannerisms, having low energy, misusing visual aids, etc. 

 I suppose there can be many more. We have all sorts of defects and limitations, and in spite of our good qualities, these negative elements always manage to come out, one way or another. That’s a fact of life that we should consider as a given. 

 Of course, we should try our best to speak in the most ideal way we can manage. There are courses and training for that purpose, and we should not ignore them. On the contrary, we should do everything to sharpen the skills we are taught in this area of public speaking. 

 But one thing we should never forget is the spiritual side of public speaking. This is basic and indispensable. And this can only mean that while we do everything to prepare ourselves adequately for this task of public speaking, we should not forget to speak always with charity. 

 And by speaking with charity, what is meant, to be blunt about it, is for us to speak with God and for God. Only then can we manage to know what to say and how to say it, given the conditions and circumstances of a given occasion. Somehow the unavoidable negative elements that will always hound us in our public speaking would be mitigated, if not healed, and can even become an asset or advantage. 

 This training in charity is most valuable for everyone involved in public speaking. Let’s remember that when we do some public speaking, we are not speaking only to clients or customers or possible voters, etc. We are speaking, first of all, to persons and children of God who have to be treated that way always. 

 Let’s remember that charity in the end is where the truth is. It embodies everything that is good and proper to us, irrespective of our personal conditions that can vary immensely. It can be forceful but not hurting, soft and meek but not spoiling. It gives us the best combination and blend of apparently contrasting or competing elements involved in our public speaking. 

 Now, if we have to speak with charity, we should see to it also that we learn how to listen with charity. With charity, we can always get something useful and enlightening even in the worst scenario that a particular public speaking event can occasion. 

 And this again is a matter of listening with God and for God. Listening with charity enables us to sift and process things calmly and properly. Even in moments of disagreement and conflict, no matter how serious, we can still manage to discern what God wants us to get from a particular speaker. And more importantly, we can manage to love the speaker even if he is clearly wrong about something. 

 The art of speaking and listening should be animated by the proper spirit of charity. Otherwise, despite the excellent techniques and skills we can have in these areas, we would be swallowing some sweet poisons that can lead us sooner or later to some disaster, spiritually and morally. 

 The training of speaking and listening with charity always should start in the family and reinforced in schools and in other platforms.

Despite all our stupidities

THERE’S always hope despite whatever stupidities we commit or fall into. That, I think, is what the parable of the prodigal son, (cfr. Lk 15,11-32) among many other instances in the gospel, is telling us. 

 Yes, we can be so bad as to lose what we may call as our sense of sin. In fact, that expression is now often heard, given the widespread anomalies and perversities we are seeing these days. But as long as man is man, God may be angry for a time, but it is his love and mercy that will always prevail in the end. 

 It may happen, as is illustrated in that parable of the prodigal son, that the bad ones may earn God’s love and mercy more and sooner because of their repentance, than the good ones who may appear good but in their hearts evil actually albeit hiddenly reigns. Still, both will always be welcome to God’s love and mercy. 

 We should just try our best to be as faithful as we can to God and everybody else. But with this fact of life that we are all prone to fall into sin, let us also try to go back to God as soon as we can. Yes, we may be afraid and ashamed to do so, but let that fear and shame not stay long in us. We should always count on God’s ever available mercy no matter how unworthy we feel we are of it. 

 Let’s remember that our sinfulness can offer us a great occasion to gain a great sanctity. Many great saints passed through this path of their sinfulness. To be sure, sin does not cause sanctity. It, in fact, is the cause of the loss of sanctity. But if handled well, it can occasion the way to holiness. It can trigger a strong impulse toward developing a greater love for God and for others, which is what holiness is all about.

  It’s really a matter of how we react to our sinfulness. If we are sorry for our sins and try to make up for them, then sanctity would be at our reach. God, always a loving father to us, will never deny his mercy. Neither will he deny his grace to make us as we ought to be—true image and likeness of his, and a good child of his. 

 In fact, if we go by the reasoning of St. Paul, God seems to have the habit of choosing the foolish things of the world, the weak, the low and the despised, in order to confound and shame the wise, the strong and the proud of this world. (cfr 1 Cor 1,27-28) Along this line, He can also choose a sinner to confound those who pride themselves in a worldly way as saints. 

 The reason for this, as St. Paul himself said, was “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor 1,29) As we all know, we have the tendency to replace God with our own selves. And so, God chooses the unlikely ones to put the proud in their proper places. 

 This is what happened to saints like St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Norbert, and many others who have become great saints in spite of or because of their very colorful past. As St. Augustine once said: “There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.” 

 There is always hope for everyone. God’s mercy, as we are told in the Psalms, endures forever. It is not God’s delight to see the death of a sinner but rather his conversion. (cfr Ez 18,23) And God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (cfr Jn 3,17)

Detached while immersed in the things of this world

THIS is the condition proper to us in this world. We have to see to it that we are detached from the things of the world so we can fully give ourselves to God. We have to be wary of our tendency to be easily attached and trapped in our worldly and temporal affairs, losing sight of our abiding and ultimate goal which is to be with God always. 

 This is what is meant when Christ declared what the greatest commandment was. “Thou shalt love the Lord they God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with whole strength,” he said. (Mk 12,30) 

 Reiterating the same point, Christ also said: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Mt 6,33) And St. Paul added: “Seek the things that are above.” (Col 3,1) 

 But this does not mean that we have to stay away from the world. On the contrary, we have to be immersed in it as much as possible, loving it the way God loves it. And that’s because God precisely placed us in the world to test us if what he wants us to be—that is, to be his image and likeness—is also what we ourselves would like to be, through the way we handle the things of the world. The world is where we have our constant contact with God. 

 Let’s remember that part of the original mandate God gave to our first parents, and now to us, is to “subdue the earth.” (Gen 1,28) That simply means that we have to develop the things of the world according to God’s will and ways, in accordance to what the parable of the talents teaches us (cfr. Mt 25,14-30). There Christ shows us that we have been given abilities and resources so we can fulfill God’s will for us and show our love for him. 

 But, yes, we have to be careful not to be trapped in the things of this world. We need to realize that the things of the world and our temporal affairs are precisely where God engages us. God intervenes in all the events, conditions and circumstances of our life here on earth. 

Our relation with him is lived and developed in the very things that we handle or get involved in this world. Our relation with God is not purely spiritual and intellectual, abstracted from the temporal and material dimensions of our life. Our relation with him is developed in the way we live our personal and family life, in the way we carry out our professional work, our business and politics, our social and cultural life, our concerns and the different issues we encounter in life. 

 That is why, our prayer, which is how we relate ourselves to God, cannot simply be an exercise of philosophizing and theologizing. It has to tackle what we can discern from what God is telling or showing us in our actual life that is immersed in the things of this world. 

 We have to avoid what we may consider as the extremes of intellectualism or spiritualism, on the one hand, and materialism and worldliness, on the other. We have to learn how to blend in our prayer these two dimensions of our life—the material and the spiritual, the temporal and eternal, the mundane and the sacred. 

 That is why we need how to be properly detached from the things of this world so we can give our whole selves to God even as we should immerse ourselves as fully as possible in the things of this world.

“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts”

THAT’S from Psalm 95,8 that is often used in many liturgical prayers. And rightly so, since we are notorious precisely for not listening to God but prefer to listen to our own selves and to the things of this world. 

 We should learn how not to harden our hearts so we can be discerning and docile to the will and ways of God who actually is directing and shaping our life to be what he likes us to be, that is, to be his image and likeness, to be sharers of his life and nature. 

 Otherwise, the only thing that can happen to us is to fall into all kinds of evil, no matter how gifted we are temperamentally or intellectually, etc. This thing was graphically illustrated in the Book of Jeremiah which said: 

 “This thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people, and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked heart, and went backward and not forward…” (7,23-28) 

 God is always intervening in our lives and in all things of the world. He is actually communicating to us in all the events, conditions and situations of our lives. We should be aware of this basic condition of our life and act accordingly, always referring ourselves to him, instead of just relying on our common sense, intelligence and all other forms of human estimation. 

 While all our human faculties should be used, and in fact, should be used all the way to their limits, they should first of all be guided by our faith in God. We should never think, plan, desire, say or do anything without referring ourselves first of all to God. 

 We should learn to discern God in all the things of this world. This is a basic skill that we should all learn to acquire. And that is because there is actually nothing in the world that is not ultimately a creation of God, even if we ourselves invent them. 

 Whatever we invent, discover, produce or make out of our own creativity will always make use of what God as creator has already endowed in nature. And so, even if we are already enjoying the most sophisticated level of our man-made technology, we should never forget that God is its very foundation, its law and author. 

 In fact, we should be most wary when we make progress in our inventions and discoveries, because we can tend to forget God the more advances we make in this department. We tend to give more credit to ourselves than to God. And from there, we can expropriate for ourselves what actually belongs to God. 

 This danger is dramatized in the Book of Wisdom where a divine reproach is expressed: “All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan…For from the greatness and the beauty of created things, their original author, by analogy, is seen.” (13) 

 We should not allow our human affairs, no matter how riveting, absorbing and exciting they may be, to be detached from that basic reference to God, our Creator who continues to govern all of his creation through his providence.

All laws should lead us to Christ

THAT’S what we can conclude if we are to follow what Christ himself said: “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Mt 5,17-18) 

 While it’s true that we make and follow laws for the immediate purpose of keeping some peace and order in our society, or for the purpose of practicality, efficiency, etc., we should always keep in mind that all our laws should lead us to Christ always and especially in the end. 

 But given the fact that the letter of the law cannot fully capture the spirit that it should have, we should realize that our laws need to have that dynamic process of refining, polishing and enriching. They should never be considered as static, or irreformable, unenrichable. 

 A lot of discernment is needed here. Prudence requires it. And the common good, which in the end is God and which the law should always serve, can often present competing interests that need to be resolved as fairly as possible. 

 That’s simply because charity, truth, justice and mercy, which our laws should embody, have aspects that can be mysterious and that will always demand new requirements from us. 

 Let’s hope that the proper structures are made available to address this ongoing need with respect to continually polishing our laws. This is part of the political life and legal system of any nation. Let’s hope that a continuing study and research be made in this regard. Our law schools and other legal centers could be tapped for this purpose. 

 Our human laws should be understood simply as guides and means toward our ultimate end who is God. They can have varying degrees of importance and indispensability. Some are quite important and indispensable. But they are not the end itself for us. 

 We have to be clear regarding the role of God in Christ in making and following our human laws. When we dare to tamper on the law of God to give way to what we may consider as appropriate in our human laws, we should be ready to face the inevitable comeuppance. 

 When, for example, God’s moral law for us is contradicted in our laws regarding sexuality, population, freedom, etc., we should not be surprised when we experience a rise in licentiousness, teenage pregnancy, a population level that is below replacement rate, rise in mental illness, etc. All forms of avoidable injustice can take place. 

 Obviously, given our wounded human condition here on earth, neither should we be surprised when our God-inspired human laws would involve a certain degree of sacrifice. We should not be too idealistic as to expect that our human laws can resolve all our problems and issues. We have to learn to live with that fact of life. 

 Our God-inspired laws should have charity as their abiding effect. But, again, if we are to understand charity as the one shown and commanded to us by Christ, we should expect sacrifice to be an integral part. 

 Let us hope that the making and the following of our laws can avoid certain political maneuverings and other factors—cultural, social, etc.—that can compromise the spirit that is proper to our laws. Rather, we should get the sensation that through our laws, we are getting closer to Christ.

What the Annunciation of the Lord teaches us

A NUMBER of precious considerations can be drawn when we consider the significance of this Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, when the Son of God gets conceived as man in the virginal womb of Mary. 

 One is that God always takes the initiative to come to us, to be with us to redeem us. The Solemnity highlights the great love of God for us, a love that is full of mercy that goes all the way to assuming all our sins and conquering them together with their ultimate consequence of death through Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. 

 That divine initiative brings to the surface our true identity and dignity. We are not just one more creature of God, but rather his most beloved ones, who are made to be his image and likeness. No matter how much we distort and damage that divine image in us, God will never forget us and will do all to bring us back to him. 

 This consideration brings to mind the amazement we can feel about ourselves, as once expressed in one of the Psalms: “What is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of man that you visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and had has crowned him with glory and honor…” (8,4ff.) 

 Another consideration is that this Solemnity highlights this basic truth of our faith that God and man share the same life and nature without erasing the distinction between God, the Creator, and man, the creature. And this is made possible due to the great faith of Mary who simply said, “Be it done to me according to your word,” when she was told to be the Mother of the Son of God, a proposal that simply is way beyond human understanding. 

 In other words, God wants to be born in us so we can be like him in Christ through the Holy Spirit. And we, on our part, like Mary should be as receptive as we can to that proposal. We should never dare to say No to that proposal. 

 We should learn how to react to this tremendous love God has for us. We have to learn how to repay love with love. And that means that we should try our best to identify ourselves as completely as possible with God’s will and ways. That’s how love works. 

 If we have to repay God’s love with love, then we have to do our best to identify ourselves with him, by getting to know and to live his very own will and ways as revealed to us in full by Christ and made perpetual through the Holy Spirit. 

 That is why we have to come up with a plan of life that would effectively capture and put into action this truth about us in our relation with God. We need a time for prayer. We need to study the doctrine of our faith. We need to undertake ascetical struggle, given our weaknesses, limitations and the enemies of God and our soul as well as the spiritual and supernatural goal that we have to pursue. 

 We need to become true contemplatives even while immersed in the things of this world. That means that our temporal affairs should be no hindrance in our abiding relationship with God. In fact, they should become the occasion and the means to keep us with God. Even the unavoidable negative things in our life should be a reason to go and to be with God.

The call for sobriety

A GOOD number of times, the Bible reminds us of the need of this virtue of sobriety. The following passages are a few of the examples: 

 - 1 Thessalonians 5,6-8: “Let us be awake and sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.” 

- 1 Peter 5,8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.” 

- Titus 2,12: Sober Christians deny themselves worldly pleasures. - Ephesians 5,18: “Be filled with the Spirit, and not drunk with win.” 

 We cannot overemphasize the importance and the necessity for this virtue, especially in the context of today’s world that is hounded by all sorts of developments that entice us to fall into obsessions, addictions and the many other forms of self-indulgence, which can snare us in a most subtle way. 

 Consider, for example, the number of people addicted to the social media. Cases are growing of people falling into certain uncontrolled irregularities and anomalies in their lifestyle. Mental and even psychological illnesses are also on the rise. 

 To be sober means being alert and in control of one’s thoughts and actions. It also means being aware of the dangers of the world, the flesh, and the devil. It definitely asks us to be very guarded against these dangers. 

 Sobriety helps us to distinguish between the essential and the accidental in things, issues and affairs. It enables us to establish a good sense of priority in the face of the many options open to us. It certainly allows us to be properly recollected and to have proper focus and sense of purpose in life. 

 Definitely, a certain discipline is needed here so that all our human powers and faculties—from the spiritual to the corporal, from our intelligence and will to our emotions, feelings, passions, etc.—would be properly submitted and ruled by the ultimate guide proper to us, that is, our faith in God, our Father and Creator, with its accompanying virtues of hope and charity. 

 Indeed, to have a spirit of recollection in the world is indispensable to us. We need to cultivate the skill for this. Remember St. Paul telling us: “If you have risen with Christ, seek the thinks that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.” (Col 3,1-2) 

 This need for recollection simply indicates that our life consists of different aspects and levels that we have to orchestrate to be able to reach our final end. We just cannot go about reacting spontaneously to things, depending solely on instincts and feelings. We are meant for something much, much more than these. 

 This human need for recollection will always bring us to the realization of the existence of God, with the corresponding rights and duties towards him. We should therefore see that everything in our life has God in it, or at least traces of God in it. We just have to learn how to discover God in these things. 

 If we have the proper spirit of recollection, everything in our life, whether good or bad, big or small, can be an occasion to know, love and serve God and others. 

 We have to work this skill out, helping one another, being patient and understanding with one another, since the road to it, aside from being narrow, is strewn with difficulties, traps and snares.

Sanctification a constant concern

THIS is what we can gather from that gospel parable about a certain man who planted a fig tree in his vineyard and who after 3 years sought for a fruit but did not find one. (cfr. Lk 13,6-9) Frustrated, he wanted to cut it down, but was appeased by the vineyard dresser to give the tree a grace period of one year. 

 Indeed, God expects us to bear the fruit of sanctity since he already has given us everything we need to achieve that goal. God had to become man in Jesus Christ so that we can be given “the way, the truth and the life” that we need in the context of our wounded condition here on earth. 

 We really have no excuse why we cannot achieve that goal, since with Christ any condition and situation in our life, including the worst scenario in our life, can be an occasion to gain and regain sanctity. As St. Paul once articulated, “all things work together for good to those who love God.” (Rom 8,28) 

 We just have to see to it that everything in our life—our work, for example—should have as its main purpose the achievement of holiness, and not just the fulfillment of some technical requirements and the attainment of some worldly goals, no matter how legitimate they are. 

 And the secret is always to do everything with Christ and for the glory of God. We should not just do anything with our own intention and on our own effort alone, because such way of doing things negates the plan that God, our Father and Creator, has for us. We should be guarded always against this strong tendency of ours to do things simply on our own. 

 It’s also interesting to note that the above-mentioned parable is preceded by a warning Christ gave to some people that we should stop comparing ourselves with others, especially when we think we are better than them, and thus, would feel self-contented. 

 Christ wants us to always acknowledge our need for repentance and conversion, since we cannot deny that in spite of the many good things we may already have done, we still are hounded by weaknesses, temptations and sin itself. 

 Let’s see to it that our work, for example, should have as its main purpose the achievement of holiness, and not just the fulfillment of some technical requirements and the attainment of some worldly goals, no matter how legitimate they are. Remember Christ saying, “What does it a profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul.” (Mk 8,36) 

 We should see to it that the Christ-and-Church provided instrumentalities lead us to have a living encounter with Christ, something that can happen only when we activate our faith, hope and charity through a functioning life of piety.

 “Do you think that these Galileans were sinners above all the men of Galilee, because they suffered such things?” he asked those who told him about those Galileans that Pilate put to death. “No, I say to you, but unless you shall do penance, you shall likewise perish.” (Lk 13,2-3) 

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

 God will always welcome us back, even if we appear to be already abusing the goodness and mercy of God. We should just put our mind and heart to this fact of life that we are all sinners and that we need to convert.

Intimacy and ardor

IN all our relationships, especially with God, the ideal condition to pursue and achieve is that of intimacy and ardor. While this would require tremendous effort and sacrifice, we should convince ourselves that pursuing it would be all worthwhile. Of course, we should not forget that we would need, first of all, God’s grace to be able to do it. 

 This condition should start first in our relationship with God, since all our other relationships would depend on it. To be intimate with God means to be fully identified with God’s will and ways, an identification that not only involves our spiritual powers of intelligence and will, but also our bodily powers, especially our feelings and passions. 

 It is this intimacy with God that would also fill us with drive, zeal and ardor to do things according to God’s will and ways. If our intimacy with God is real, it would inevitably lead us to be burning with zeal to do God’s will which is to love him and everybody else the way God loves everyone and everything. 

 To develop this intimacy with God, we need to exert the effort of nurturing the presence of God in ourselves, seeking and renewing the human devices that are so helpful for keeping a constant dialogue with him. We have to reach that point where we can truly say that we are saying affectionate words to him, praising, glorying and thanking him for everything. 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to simply go through the motions while doing some acts of piety. Our prayer should be a living encounter with God. This can be proven because such living encounter would unavoidably fill us with joy and peace despite all kinds of problems, setbacks, etc., that we may be experiencing at a given moment. 

 Besides, we would always be moved and motivated to do whatever we are doing in the best way we can. We would be driven with love that is not afraid to make sacrifices and is always generous in self-giving. 

 While this burning desire to do God’s will in the best we can would start in our mind and heart, we have to see to it that that ardor filters down to our senses and bodily parts, to our emotions, passions, memory and imagination. 

 Since in our piety there are things that we do often and regularly, like praying, going to Mass, etc., we need to see to it that our desire to show genuine love for God and others through these acts is maintained. We cannot deny that if we are not careful, we can easily fall into routine, and before we know it, we can appear to be more dead than alive when doing these acts of piety. 

 What can help is to repeat many times during the day many small acts of faith, hope and charity, in the form of spontaneous aspirations and ejaculatory prayers. They can serve as little twigs to maintain the waning embers of our piety if not to fan that dying piety into a bursting fire. 

 We really need to be always in this state of burning desire in spite of the condition of our body. As said earlier, it is first of all a matter of exercising our spiritual faculties to ask for the grace of fervent love. Let us hope that we know how to do this. We can only expect many good things that can come from this, in spite of the varying conditions and situations in our life, many of them, quite adverse to our spiritual health.

We need to live the Christian spirit of poverty

THAT parable about the rich man and the beggar, Lazarus, (cfr. Lk 16,19-31) clearly reminds us that we need to live the Christian spirit of poverty which, if understood properly, is not about what you have or what do not have, how much wealth you have or do not have. It is about emptying ourselves of any earthly attachments, even if we may possess a lot of resources in this world, to make sure that our heart is wholly given to God. 

 This virtue of poverty has the primary purpose of emptying our mind and heart of anything that can compete or, worse, replace the love for God and for others which is proper to all of us. 

 It’s not about running away from worldly things, much less, of hating the goods of the earth and our temporal affairs, but of knowing how to handle them, so as not to compromise the fundamental law of love that should rule us. 

 To repeat, it is not just a matter of emptying ourselves but rather of filling ourselves with what is proper to us. In short, we practice detachment to acquire and enhance the attachment right for us as God’s image and likeness and as God’s children. 

 Christ many times praised this particular virtue, referring to it in one of the beatitudes as being “poor in spirit.” Also, in that episode where a rich young man asked Christ how he could enter heaven, the answer was, after following the commandments which the young man said he was doing, to sell all he had, and to give to the poor and to come, follow Christ. (cfr Mk 10,21) 

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

 Christian poverty is always lived in joy and gratitude, and with a keen sense of what our earthly things are meant to be. That means that whatever wealth we have is used to give glory to God and to serve everybody else. It is not meant to be used for self-indulgence. 

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

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

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

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

Charity should inspire our pursuit for knowledge

INDEED! Otherwise, our pursuit for knowledge not motivated by and oriented toward love for God and others would only be a pure exercise of self-indulgence, prone to many other anomalies like pride, vanity, lust, greed, envy, etc. that definitely would undermine our true identity and dignity as persons and children of God who are meant for loving. 

 That’s simply because, as St. Paul once said: “Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies.” (1 Cor 8,1) And again, that’s because the very dynamic of knowing is for the known object to be in the knower, thus puffing him up, while that of loving is for the lover to be in the beloved, thus, edifying him. 

 We need to make everyone aware of this basic necessity of ours, explaining its why’s and wherefore’s. But even more importantly, let us find ways of how everyone, especially the young ones, can feel and act upon this necessity. It’s quite obvious that the pursuit of knowledge nowadays is motivated only by worldly and temporal reasons. 

 The pursuit for knowledge should always be understood as an effort that is linked with God, with his will, plans and designs for us. It should be related to this truth of our faith that we and everything we know and discover are meant for a supernatural life. 

 It should not be done independently of God, and much less contrary to his laws. We should never think the knowledge we accumulate, no matter how mundane, has no relation to God. 

 This is because everything comes from God and belongs to God, and everything is under a divine plan that is of course completely mysterious to us. Yet, in spite of the mystery, we are capable of knowing and understanding at least parts of it. 

 Our problem, of course, is that we often pursue knowledge fully at our own designs, with our own motives and purposes. We hardly relate it to God and his plans. 

 We sometimes even go to the extent of thinking that God has no business in this effort, or worse, that there’s really no God, and that we are just on our own to know and discover whatever we want and whatever we can. 

 This charity-inspired pursuit for knowledge, of course, is not easy to achieve. We have to contend with so many difficulties. First, there are our weaknesses, like our laziness and our attachment to worldly things. They hinder us in our effort to connect our knowledge of things with God 

 There also are temptations from the devil and the world itself that seek to bind us to our own world, keeping us quite egotistic and increasingly unmindful of God and of others. 

 Besides, the objective connection itself between our knowledge and God is charged with mysteries that can easily lend itself to confusion and indifference. It can lead us to get discouraged at the dark prospect of ever knowing it clearly. 

 But if our mindset is to know and discover this connection and relation, sooner or later we will see it more and more clearly. Obviously, we have to be patient, pursue the effort without let up, and use all the means to make this possible. 

 We, for example, need to reflect and pray. This practice has to be deeply ingrained in us. Our problem is that very few people realize this need. Many prefer simply to be very active and to enjoy things.

Humility helps us in many ways

WE can never overemphasize the importance of this virtue of humility. It helps us to be simple and sincere, transparent and consistent to our beliefs and words. We can avoid what Christ once complained about the Pharisees of his time when he said, “Do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.” (Mt 23,3) 

 Indeed, humility helps us to do what we are supposed to do, and to do it with love and great dedication, in a manner that is gratuitous and without any strings attached. With humility, our true color, our true identity as children of God would really come out. 

 Humility is what preserves whatever goodness we have, whatever we have received from God, since it is what makes us receptive to God’s grace. And if we happen to lose that goodness, it is also this virtue that helps us to recover it. 

 We should do everything to grow always in this virtue. Of course, this virtue is a very tricky and slippery one. The moment we say we are humble, the tentacles of pride start to grab us. We can never say we are humble enough. We have to continue to grow in it, always identifying the shifting frontlines of the battle for humility as we go on with our life. 

 The reason our first parents lost their state of original justice was precisely because they were overtaken by pride, by the thought that they can replace God. They were intoxicated by the goodness they were enjoying then. That’s why they disobeyed God’s command not to eat of the forbidden fruit. 

 For us to see the true value of humility, we only have to look at Christ. Being the Son of God, and God himself, he shows us how humility indeed preserves goodness and restores it once that goodness is lost. 

 We need to understand that humility involves giving our will to the will of God. It is a giving away that actually is not a loss at all but an immense gain for us. That’s because that is how we have been created, how we have been designed. Without God, like a branch cut off from the vine, we would just die and are capable only of doing evil. 

 And precisely because Christ did only what his Father commanded him to do, he managed to recover us from the state of sin and restore us to the state of grace. How truly important it is to be humble. It is what would enable us to obey God’s will, and to do so irrespective of the great cost in terms of suffering it may involve. 

 In the case of Christ, he managed to make that supreme sacrifice of offering his life for our sake. Humility, as we can see here, is never a passive virtue, much less a sign of weakness. It is strength, it is power, it fuels our capacity to love all the way to the end. 

 We need to do everything to grow in this virtue every day. Let’s never take it for granted, for many now are the occasions when we are tempted to be on our own, to fall into pride and blinding egoism. 

 Remember, it’s humility that preserves whatever goodness we have, and recovers it once it is lost. Let’s develop the attitude of doing what we have to do yet passing unnoticed, always eager to serve and not to be served. And as St. Paul said, “in humility, let each esteem others better than themselves.” (Phil 2,3)

“Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful”

CHRIST said it very clearly! We need to be merciful and forgiving of everyone since that trait or attitude would liken as to God our Father who wants us precisely to be like him. (cfr. Lk 6,37) 

 We have to make a shout-out of this word if only for everyone to follow this clear commandment of Christ: “Forgive and you shall be forgiven.” (Lk 6,37) He reiterated this injunction when he said: “For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences.” (Mt 6,14-15) 

 It’s clear therefore that we can only be forgiven if we also forgive others. This injunction is meant for everyone, and not only for a few whom we may consider to be religiously inclined. That’s why when asked how many times we should forgive, he said not only seven times, but seventy times seven, meaning always. 

 That’s also why he easily forgave the woman caught in adultery. And to those whom he cured of their illnesses, it was actually the forgiveness of their sins that he was more interested in. 

 To top it all, Christ allowed himself to die on the cross as a way to forgive all of our sins, and to convert our sins through his resurrection as a way to our own redemption. What he did for us he also expects, nay, commands that we also do for everybody else. 

 If Christ can offer forgiveness those who crucified him—and there can be no worse evil than killing Christ who is God—why do we find it hard to offer forgiveness to others? 

 It is presumed that all of us sin one way or another. No matter how saintly we try ourselves to be, sin always manages to come in because of our wounded humanity and the many temptations within and around us. As St. John said, we have to contend with three main enemies: our own wounded flesh, the devil and the world corrupted by sin. 

 The awareness of this truth is not meant to depress us but rather to keep us humble and always feeling in need of God. We should be wary when we would just depend solely on our own resources to tackle this predicament. We need God. 

 The awareness of this truth should also help us to develop the attitude to forgive one another as quickly as possible, since that is the only way we can be forgiven. When we find it hard to forgive others, it is a clear sign that we are full of ourselves, are self-righteous, proud and vain. It is a clear sign that we are not yet with Christ. 

 We have to continually check on our attitude towards others because today’s dominant culture is filled precisely by the viruses of self-righteousness, that feeling that we are superior to others, etc. These make it hard for us to be forgiving to others. We have to do constant battle against that culture. 

 We should not fall into the trap of putting justice and mercy in conflict. Both have to go together. Their distinction does not mean they are opposed to each other. Any appearance of conflict is only apparent. 

 But obviously the way to blend them together is to follow the example of Christ, and not just to rely on our own lights, no matter how brilliant these lights may appear. We can always forgive, and forgive from the heart, even if the requirements of justice still have to be met. 

 We need to be clear about the intimate relationship between justice and mercy. One cannot go without the other.

What Christ’s Transfiguration teaches us

THE spectacle of Christ’s Transfiguration (cfr. Lk 9,28b-36) teaches us, among other things, that we are meant for a supernatural life, that we need to develop the art of transcending the material and temporal dimensions of our life to enter into the world of the spiritual and the eternal, and that the care we give to our body should be oriented toward the ultimate glory we are supposed to share with God. 

 We have to develop a taste and even an appetite for the supernatural life with God and of things supernatural in general. In this we have to help one another, because in the end, this is our common ultimate end in life—how to live our life with God, how we can be immersed in God even as we are immersed also in the things of the world. 

 We have to help one another wean ourselves from the exclusive dependence on the sensible, material and even merely intelligible circumstances of our life. Yes, it’s true that we cannot avoid them, since they are an integral part of our humanity. In fact, we need them. But let’s understand that they are not the be-all and end-all of our life. At best, they are means, tools and occasions to develop our supernatural life with God. 

 We have to understand also that our supernatural life does not in any way nullify our humanity, and everything related to it—our senses, emotions, our family and professional, social, political life, etc. If anything at all, it promotes these aspects of our life, purifies them and elevates them to the supernatural order of God. 

 We have to disabuse ourselves from the thinking, now so common in many worldly ideologies and lifestyles, that the supernatural life undermines our humanity. Yes, there might be some awkwardness involved, especially in the beginning, but such problems and difficulties do not detract from the objective necessity we have to develop a supernatural life. 

 We also have to be more aware of our need to develop and sharpen our sense of transcendence. It is to help us cope with the fullness of the reality that governs us. It is the reality that includes the spiritual which we cannot see and touch because it is not accessible to the senses, and the supernatural which we cannot reach with our own natural powers alone but only with God’s grace, through faith, hope and charity that work on our natural powers. 

 We have to realize that the sense of transcendence does not mean that we ignore or have no need or simply give little importance to the here and now, to the material and natural dimensions of our life. Rather, we have to realize that our sense of transcendence can only be exercised through these natural dimensions of our life, but we need to go beyond them, not trapped in them. 

 Lastly, Christ’s Transfiguration also teaches us that our body is meant for eternal life. It may be reduced to dust when we die, but our faith tells us that it will be resurrected at the end of time. 

 We should subject the body to the dynamics of our spiritual soul that in turn is subject also to the dynamics of faith, hope and charity, or in short, the dynamics of the life of God from whom our soul springs as God’s image and likeness. 

 Yes, indeed, our body materializes the spiritual love proper to us. The impulses of faith, hope and charity should somehow be expressed in it, in spite of its limitations.

The gold standard for charity

THAT gold standard is nothing other than the way God loves us. It’s a love that has a universal scope, that can include enemies. It continues to burn whatever the situation and condition may be. It takes the initiative to love, not waiting for some favorable circumstances to come. 

 As St. Paul describes it in that famous hymn of love, it “is patient, it 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. It does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Cor 13,4-7) 

 Christ talked about this kind of love when he said, “You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you.” (Mt 5,43-44) 

 And he proceeded to describe this love by practically making it as the mark of human and Christian perfection, because he concluded this indication by saying: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5,48) 

 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. 

 This is, of course, a tremendous challenge for us to tackle. We most likely would be tempted to think whether this ideal of human and Christian love, practically a unicorn, is ever possible and achievable. 

 But that’s the truth of our faith. We just have to believe it and try our best to conform ourselves to such truth. We just have to content ourselves with the thought that this ideal can only be achieved in its ultimate form through the grace of God to which we have to correspond in the best way we can. 

 Definitely, we need to train ourselves to continually albeit slowly approach that ideal. Some discipline is needed. Some appropriate plans, strategies and practices are needed. 

 We need to learn how to expand our heart to make it more and more universal in scope. This can mean how to deal with the usual differences and conflicts we unavoidably would encounter in our relation with others. 

 Definitely, we need to be patient and hopeful, and kind of sport about the usual drama in life where there will always be things beyond our control. We have to learn to take certain things in stride. If need be, we should just roll with the punches. 

 Everyday, we have to make another step of progress in the art of loving our enemies. It could be in the area of patience, or in the skill of finding the saving grace of a person who otherwise is full of defects, or the virtue of hope and optimism. Opportunities to grow in these virtues will always be at hand. We need to seize every chance we have to grow in them. 

 We have to convince ourselves that all the effort needed for this would be all worthwhile. It will surely unleash the power of God’s grace and actualize the hidden potentials in our life.

God is our constant and ultimate recourse

LET’S never forget that God is always with us, eager to help us in all our needs. We cannot doubt this truth of our faith since as St. Paul once said, “He (God) who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8,32) 

 Our usual problem is that we doubt this ever-ready availability of God’s help for us. Because of that, we hesitate to go to him, or we may approach him but lack the proper dispositions to receive what God is eager to give us. 

 Let’s be like these simple characters in the gospel who, in their great need, approached Christ for help, for some miracle. They did so in great humility and faith, the basic and indispensable qualities we need to make ourselves receptive to God’s help. 

 Christ himself reassured us of this constant help of God for us. “Ask, and it shall be given you,” he said. “Seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.” (Mt 7,7) 

 And reinforcing this divine reassurance to us, he continued to say: “For every one that asks, receives; and he that seeks, finds; and to him that knocks, it shall be opened. Or what man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he reach him a stone? Or is he shall ask him a fish, will he reach him a serpent?” (Mt 7,8-10) 

 There’s always hope even in our worst scenario. And that’s because God never leaves us, but continues to love and care for us, in spite of all. He gives us everything we need to handle this situation. 

 We should be quick to realize this truth of our faith, and act accordingly. Let’s avoid aggravating the situation by avoiding falling into discouragement and depression, a fertile ground for the devil to tempt us into worse conditions. The devil obviously wants us to be alienated as much as possible from God. Rather, like the prodigal son, let’s return to God asking for mercy which he readily gives. 

 We cannot doubt that we have our human and worldly limitations. And yet in spite of that, neither can we doubt that deep within us is, at least, the desire to go beyond our limitations. 

 Given the fact that our human nature is not only totally material, but is also spiritual, we should not be surprised when we feel those seemingly contrasting sentiments. The truth is that we are a material being that is poised for eternity, for immortality. In the end, the truth is that we are meant to live a supernatural life, and not just a natural one. 

 This is where we have to entrust ourselves to the workings of the spiritual and supernatural realities that also govern our life. We have to remember that we are not ruled simply by biological laws or physical, chemical, social, political, economic laws. There is a higher law that governs us and that would enable us to transcend our human and earthly limitations. 

 This is the law of grace, a law that is spiritual and supernatural in nature. It is the law that enables us to go beyond our human limitations without, of course, compromising our humanity. It is the law that enables us to enter into the very life of God who created us to be his image and likeness, sharers of his life and nature.

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.