Indifferent, self-indulgent, self-absorbed

THIS is the worst condition that we can find ourselves in, the very opposite of what is truly ideal for us. Instead of being connected and engaged to others, especially to God first, we choose to be on our own. Instead of reaching out to others, we prefer to pursue our own interests only. Instead of being empathetic and compassionate, we just focus on our own selves. We are supposed to be men and women for others. 

 We have to be wary and guarded against this possible scenario that unfortunately can be seen as getting common these days. Many people are trapped in their own world. If ever they go out of their own world, it’s because they are forced to do so or because doing so would actually serve their own self-interest. 

 These days, there are many people whom I consider trapped in the world of the senses, ruled mainly by their instincts and emotions, and easily vulnerable to mere impulses of the flesh and the usually improperly grounded worldly values and ways. Yes, many have fallen into all sorts of addiction and mental illnesses. 

 This is not what to be truly human is. A human being is a person, endowed with intelligence and will among many other faculties, and as such he is meant to be related to others. 

 In short, we are not only rational, but also relational. We actually cannot avoid it. This is where we have to consider more deeply certain duties that we have. We cannot be passive and indifferent to our relationships. Our growth, our maturity and perfection depend on how well we take care of this essential aspect. 

 We have to actively purify and strengthen them, enhance and defend them. We just cannot allow them to drift in any direction, blindly obeying the forces and impulses of the flesh and the world. They have to be directed. 

 We have to understand that we are made to enter into relations with others. Having relations is not a marginal or optional aspect of our life. It is essential to us. Even in our conception and birth, we need parents, we need a family, then a community, and all sorts of persons, both individually or collectively considered. 

 It is said that during the creation of man, God first made Adam. And though he already had relation with everything else in Paradise, God later thought Adam needed someone else “like him.” And so, Eve came along. 

 The story tells us of the kind of relationships we have. We have relations not only with objects, plant and animals, but also with other people, and ultimately, as well as primarily and constantly, with God. 

 In fact, the very basis of this relational character of our life is God himself. Though one, he is three persons. That’s because as God, he is never alone, nor idle and cold. Within himself and with the rest of creation, his eternal being and activity produce the three subsistent persons who are in perpetual relation with one another, precisely because of the eternal activity of knowing and loving within him and with the world. 

 This Trinitarian nature and life of God is the ultimate basis, pattern and goal of the relational character of our life. Thus, in the Catechism we are told: “The communion of the Holy Trinity is the source and criterion of truth in every relationship.” (2845) 

 And it adds something worth noting. “It (our every relationship) is lived out in prayer, above all in the Eucharist.” We need to understand then that our relational character is developed and lived first of all in prayer and in the Eucharist. Without prayer and the Eucharist, that relational character of our life is negated.

“Made partakers of the divine nature”

THAT’S from the Second Letter of St. Peter. (1,4) The complete verse says: “All things of his divine power which appertain to life and godliness, are given us, through the knowledge of him who has called us by his own proper glory and virtue. By whom he has given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature: flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world.” 

 While this foundational truth might stun us, our calling is to move from passive acceptance to active, lived application. This monumental truth certainly leaves us breathless, challenging us to not just contemplate it, but to truly walk it out. 

 That is why, St. Peter recommended the following steps to follow: “And you, employing all care, minister in your faith, virtue; and in virtue, knowledge; and in knowledge, abstinence; and in abstinence, patience; and in patience, godliness; and in godliness, love of brotherhood; and in love of brotherhood, charity.” (2 Peter 1,5-7) 

 To be partakers of the divine nature means to participate or share in the divine nature. We do not become God by our own nature; rather, God gives us a share in what he is living and giving. 

 The purpose of this participation is for moral renewal, enabling us to escape the corruption in the world. This participation in the divine nature is about being healed and transformed by escaping sin and living a new life. 

 This is the reason why God became man in Christ and made constantly present in the world through the Holy Spirit. In this way, we can truly become God’s children. 

 But for this truth of faith to take place in us, we need to humble ourselves so that the light of faith can guide us rather than we just keeping to ourselves in our own estimations and ways. Let’s remember that God is ever willing and eager to share his life and nature with us. Our sharing in God’s life starts with our faith in God, but for that faith to take root in us, we need to be humble. 

 We should spend time meditating on this truth of our faith, and we should try to overcome whatever awkwardness and disbelief we have about it. Truth is, given the way the world is developing today, with so much drifting away if not rebellion against God, we need some divine powers to put ourselves afloat in our true dignity as children of God. 

 To be sure, if we have the right intention to share God’s life, we would always remain humble and ever eager to help others. Otherwise, we would be playing the game of the devil! 

 With humility, we would be able to give our all to God. We can be generous and magnanimous just as God is overwhelmingly generous and magnanimous to all of us. There has to be that mutual dynamic of love and self-giving that has been initiated by God himself. God loves us first, and we have to learn to love him in return, a love that is also expressed in loving everybody just as God loves everybody irrespective of how they are! 

 Let’s not be afraid of the effort and the sacrifices involved in this process. It will all be worthwhile. If we truly try to identify ourselves with Christ, we would be confident that Christ himself would give us the same peace and joy that he had as he went through his own passion and death on the cross to recover our true dignity as children of God.

Pursuing the Trinitarian life

WITH the celebration of the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, we are reminded of the most important mystery of our faith, the fount of all the other truths and mysteries of our faith, since it shows us the inmost and intimate life of God in himself, even before being the Creator of the universe. 

 The relevance of this mystery in our life stems from the basic truth that we, as man, are created in God’s image and likeness, adopted children of his, and therefore made to reflect and, in fact, participate in this very Trinitarian life of God. The implications and consequences of this truth are endless, but let’s tackle at least a few of them for now. 

 Through this mystery, which was revealed to us in full by Christ, we are told that God, though one, are three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, because the absolutely one and simple God is never an idle God, nor a lonely God. 

 He is rather a God who is full of dynamism, an eternal dynamism of knowing and loving. His knowing and loving are no mere acts that begin and end, that come from potency to act, but are so perfect that they create the three eternal persons in that one God. 

 Since the life of God is Trinitarian, we need to know how to deal even while here on earth, even while pursuing our exciting earthly affairs, with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This will guarantee that whatever we do here would redound to our authentic good, that they are done with God and for God, and not just for ourselves. 

 In fact, our life should somehow reflect the Trinitarian character of divine life. God, though absolutely simple and one, is triune. That’s because even though he is one, he is not alone nor idle. 

 With his eternal dynamic life of knowing and loving, he generates within himself an eternal kind of spiral of relationship of Father, he who knows, the Son, the self-knowledge of God, and the Holy Spirit, the love between the Father and the Son. 

 These are persons who are consubstantial with each other, that is, each one of them is the fullness of God, and not just a part of God. They cannot be separated from one another. In the very one God, there’s one person who knows, another one who is known, and a third one who is the love. All these acting in eternity, and all at once. 

 For our life to reflect this Trinitarian life, we need to follow the teaching and example of Christ, the Son of God who became man who revealed to us this mystery of the Blessed Trinity. 

 Like him, we have to do no other than the will of the Father, and to do it in the Holy Spirit for it to acquire its ultimate eternal value proper to us. This is how our life and all our activities and concerns should be developed. 

 Perhaps as a guiding formula, we can use the expression: “By the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.” Such motto would also give us ideas of how to deal with each person of the Blessed Trinity, and really live in a Trinitarian way daily, as we ought. 

 We have to learn to deal with God in his Trinitarian life—that is with the Father who knows and loves, and with the Son who is the known and the loved, and the Holy Spirit who is the very love of God. Our knowing and loving should reflect the eternal knowing and loving of the Trinitarian God.