Serving without a spotlight

THAT’S what Christ told his disciples, and now, us. “Take heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them; otherwise, you shall not have a reward of your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 6,1) 

 As an example, he said: “Therefore, when you do an almsdeed, sound not a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honored by men. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.” 

 Christ wants us to practice our charity quietly, without fanfare, vanity or pride. We have to carry out what we may call as the ministry of the unnoticed. That way, we do good works with purity of intention. 

 Doing good while passing unnoticed was the way Christ lived charity. He helped a lot of people but refused to be given praise for it. Even in his best expression of love for us when he conquered sin and death through his resurrection, it was hidden. What was made public was his crucifixion and death. 

 This way of acting would ensure that our works of charity are fully directed toward God, and not for human applause, which can easily be used as a cover for hypocrisy. This may be called as a holy discretion which would only allow God to know the good works, protecting us from the dangers of vanity and pride. All the glory should be to God, making the effort to avoid diverting it to us, not even in a most subtle way. 

 This way of acting can only show the supernatural maturity we have reached. It reflects a shift from a “childish” need for approval to a living divine filiation where being seen by God alone is sufficient. 

 This should also be a lesson for all of us to follow. In all our thoughts, words and actuations, we should see to it that we feed our faith, that we are led to God, that in the end we manage to live true charity that includes all the other virtues. 

 We should do our best to avoid getting hijacked in the purely material or practical aspects of our life. We should imitate Christ in his discretion and restraint, in his art of passing unnoticed, in his effort to avoid grabbing unnecessary and dangerous attention from others, by seeing to it that our thoughts, words and deeds truly lead others to God, and not simply to us. 

 At best, we should simply be conductors to bring others to Christ. We should avoid making ourselves something like idols, objects of interest. The ideal situation would be that all who see us should see Christ, as he himself said it clearly to his apostles, then to us. 

 We have to learn to pass unnoticed while doing things that would lead others to Christ! We need to realize then 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 vanity, pride, greed, lust, etc.

Loving enemies as mark of Christian perfection

THIS is what we can gather from that gospel episode (cfr. Mt 5,43-48) where Christ told his disciples: “You have heard that it has been said, Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thy 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.” 

 And then he gave the reason for this incredible commandment by saying, “That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and rains upon the unjust and the unjust.” Then, at the end, he concluded by saying, “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.” 

 As we can see, the love we ought to have for one another should have no boundaries, since it has to include our enemies. We are asked to love without keeping score. Everything has to be done gratuitously. And our love would be more perfect, more meritorious the more unlovable our enemy would be.

 Said another way, we can say that loving our enemies can only show how mature our faith is, how complete our discipleship to Christ is, and how we are more identified with God who created us as his image and likeness, sharers of his life and nature. 

 Loving our enemies is not merely a human moral improvement. Rather, it is a living participation in the divine manner of loving, shaping us into the likeness of God’s fatherly goodness. Loving our enemies, therefore, constitutes the perfection of charity. 

 Still, we have to clarify that we love our enemies for who they are, children of God as we are, and not for whatever evil or mistake they have done. 

 We just have to understand that we can only manage to love our enemies if we truly are with God through Christ in the Spirit. He, after all, is the source, the power and the pattern of how this kind of love can take place. 

 So, the challenge to face and the task to do is how to immerse ourselves in God, practically identifying ourselves with him, since we are meant to be his image and likeness. Our true and ultimate dignity and identity is that of being children of God. 

 In other words, the fullness and perfection of our humanity is when we finally become like God which can only take place in heaven. But while here on earth, we just have to do our best to pursue that ideal. 

 To be sure, on God’s part, all the means are already made available. We are already given the doctrine of our faith so we would know what right and wrong are in our earthly pilgrimage. We are given the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, so we can truly be identified with Christ who is the pattern of our humanity. We have the Church and the accompaniment of angels, saints and holy people, etc. 

 On our part, we just have to learn to pray and to truly have a vital encounter with God, which is actually possible and doable, because God is already with us. Being our Creator who puts and keeps us in existence, he can never be absent from us. We just have to learn how to get in touch with him, for only then can we aspire to be in our ideal condition as man. 

 We have to understand that the commandment to love our enemies is due to the fact that we are meant to be truly one with God. And it is the fullness of love that can do that.

Not against, but beyond

THIS is about charity, the very essence of God. And as God’s image and likeness, we are supposed to also have this essence. It’s a charity that is not simply human and natural, but rather divine and supernatural. As such, it requires the very grace of God for us to have it. 

 But we have to understand that this charity that does not go against our human nature. It simply goes beyond it, purifying and elevating our human love to make it also divine. 

 This truth of our Christian faith is illustrated in that gospel episode where Christ spelled out how we have to love. “You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” he said. “But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him also the other; and if a man will contend with you in judgment, and take away your coat, let go your cloak also to him.” (Mt 5,38-40) 

 More than that, Christ also said, “And whosoever will force you one mile, go with him other two. Give to him that asks of you and from him who would borrow from you, turn not away.” (41-42) 

 It’s indeed a mind-blowing description of how our charity should be. We are asked not to retaliate from unregulated revenge while defending justice. We are directed toward patient endurance. 

 We are asked to train our heart to respond with mercy and self-giving, refusing to escalate when struck, giving more rather than grabbing back, being willing to endure inconvenience. 

 This is not, of course, about self-destruction for its own sake, but rather about self-restraint and mercy even while suffering injustice. That way, our response to injustice would not become another act of harm and would thereby end the cycle of counter-attacks. 

 We have to learn to overcome evil with good, a very intriguing part of Christian charity. Not only should we love our enemies, as Christ taught us, but we also need to drown evil with an abundance of good. 

 We have to try our best to erase whatever disbelief, doubt or skepticism we can have as we consider this teaching, since most likely, our first and spontaneous reaction to it would precisely be those conditions. We can ask, even if done only interiorly, “Is Christ really serious about this? Can this thing that Christ is telling us, possible, doable?” 

 When these reactions come to us, it is time to remind ourselves that we just have to follow our faith that definitely contains a lot of mysteries and things supernatural that we are not expected to understand fully. Like Our Lady and all the saints, we should just believe and do what we are told because it is Christ who said so, and because it is the Church that teaches us so. 

 That’s what faith is all about. By believing first, then we can start to understand things that are hard to explain or articulate in human terms. As they say, that’s how the ball bounces. We should not waste time trying to understand everything at once or at the beginning. Let’s be game enough to go through some kind of adventure that, no matter how the outcome would be, we know that God is in control of everything. 

 We should just beg for God’s grace.