Where true greatness can be found

CHRIST gave us the clear answer to this question. “Whoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister. Ad he that will be first among you, shall be your servant. Even as the Son of Man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many.” (Mt 20,26-28) 

 In short, our true greatness is when we truly become like Christ, or “another Christ” as we should be. It is when we assume his spirit of wanting to serve and not to be served, even to the extent of offering his life for the redemption of men. It is when we humble ourselves so we would have the attitude of wanting to serve everybody else, no matter how undeserving we think they may be. 

 We need to discover the intimate and mutual relation between humility and greatness. When we are truly humble, it can only show the greatness of our heart. And when we happen to be great in stature and dignity, we should know that we are there to serve more than anything else. True greatness is never shown in pride and vanity. It is proven and verified in humility. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Those praises and honors that we receive are actually some kind of a test to see if we would still remain with God or we would now choose ourselves as our own god.

Our animality, humanity and Christianity

WHILE we can consider our life under many different aspects and levels, we however can somehow distinguish three basic levels or stages that our life is subject to, without denying our basic identity as a human being or person. And that is that we are animals, first of all, that need to be humanized and later on, Christianized. 

 We are, of course, biologically classified as animals since we possess all the defining characteristics of the animal kingdom. We have tissues and organs, hormones, instincts, etc. We are mammals with hair and mammary glands. We, of course, are on top of the animal kingdom, since we are what they call as primates, with backbones, grasping hands, binocular vision and a high degree of social organization. 

 But we are not just animals. Unlike the other animals, we are rational animals with intelligence and will, with the capacity to know and to love, to enter into distinctive relation with others. We are not detained only in the sensible world. We enter into the intelligible world. 

 This is what makes us a human person, with the capacity to enter into relationships. We have consciousness, capacity for empathy, creativity, resilience, and a sense of meaning and purpose of life. We can communicate through our language and abstract thought and reasoning. 

 But we also have to realize that because of our intelligence and will which bring us beyond the material and sensible world and introduce us to the world of ideas and to things abstract, we are poised actually to enter into the spiritual world that later on would bring us to the world of the supernatural. 

 This is where we have the duty to Christianize ourselves. And the reason is because we will realize sooner or later, if we become aware of our Christian faith and learn to believe in it, that Christ, the God our Creator who became man, is actually the pattern of our humanity. 

 Our humanity is actually still in the process of an ongoing creation where we are given a choice of whether we want to remain as another animal, or just human, or as Christian where we can achieve what our faith tells us about ourselves—that we are God’s image and likeness, meant to share in his life and nature. 

 We need to seek our perfection by humanizing our animality, and Christianizing our humanity. In other words, our creation is still a work in progress, with God creating and redeeming us through Christ but also needing our cooperation since God wants us to be like him. We somehow should also be co-creators and co-redeemers with God. 

 It’s a pity that many of us do not realize this truth of our faith and, therefore, fail to do our part in our own creation and redemption. Remember St. Augustine lamenting about this fact. “You were with me, but I was not with you.” 

 He also said that “God created us without us, but he did not will to save us without us.” These words imply that our creation by God includes his work of our salvation. This truth of our faith has basis on what St. Paul once said: “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1,6) 

 We need to be aware that we therefore have to cooperate with God in our own creation and redemption. Thus, we have to realize that we need to go through the process of humanizing our animality and Christianizing our humanity.

Personal sanctity always involves the apostolic duty

THAT’S how we have to understand our duty to pursue personal sanctity without let-up. It will always involve the apostolic duty because sanctity is not only about one’s own holiness. It is also concerned about the holiness of everyone else. 

 The word “personal” should not be understood as simply to be on one’s own. To be a person, gifted with the faculties of the intelligence and the will, enabling us to know and to love, means to be always related to others, first to God, ideally, and then to everybody else. A person is not meant to be isolated from everybody else. That would be an anomaly. 

 And so, when we are seeking personal sanctity as we should, since it is the ultimate purpose of our life here on earth, we should see to it that it is very much involved in helping the others seek their sanctity also. And if the pursuit for personal sanctity should be constant effort, so should it also be with respect to carrying out our apostolic duty. 

 Thus, when we talk only of our own struggles involved in the pursuit for sanctity without any mention about what we are doing with respect to our apostolic duty, that pursuit for personal sanctity would be hanging on air. It may present very dramatic episodes but it would be hollow and would miss the real goal. 

 To be holy is to have the very mind and heart of Christ, to have the very spirit of Christ. As such, it would inescapably participate in the very mission of Christ which is the salvation of humanity. Christ is not only the embodiment of holiness. He is also our savior. If we are to be like Christ, as we should, then we should be both holy and apostolic, intrinsically involved in the salvation of mankind. 

 We then have to realize that we just don’t do apostolate as if it is just one more task to be done on some parts of the day. We are first of all apostles, and our apostolic concern should be constant and abiding, even while we are asleep or doing all kinds of tasks during the day. We have to learn how to convert everything in our life as an occasion and material for doing apostolate. 

 Our lifestyle should somehow reflect the kind of life or relationship that exists among the three persons of the Blessed Trinity. If we are God’s image and likeness, and if God is three persons in one in perpetual relation and communion with each other, then we too should somehow channel the same life of continuing relation and communion with God and with everybody else. 

 Of course, we would find this ideal impossible. But that is a given. We are not expected to really achieve it with our own efforts alone. What we are expected is to try and try to pursue this dual goal of personal sanctity and apostolate, because as St. Paul once said, “He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil 1,6) 

 We should just believe what our Christian faith teaches us even if we do not quite understand it fully. That is exactly what faith is all about. It is about believing beyond what we can see and understand. As the Letter to the Hebrews puts it: “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (11,1)