Empowerment

FOR quite a while, the word, “empowerment,” became a

buzzword in many circles in our society. Among the Church people, for

example, they talk about empowerment of the laity, of the youth, of

the women, etc. Some socially minded people also talk about

empowerment of the poor, the indigenous people and the like.

            It’s indeed good and truly welcome that we have such

concern. Everyone of us should be properly empowered to fulfill the

goal meant for us, and not just our own subjective goals. That’s the

ideal that we should try to translate into reality.

            We just have to know where that true empowerment can

really come from. That’s because nowadays, with the plethora of

ideologies sprouting all over, there is a lot of confusion and even

outright error being propagated in this regard.

            True empowerment can only come from God in Christ through

the Holy Spirit who now inspires the Church Christ founded on the

pillars of the apostles and endowed with powers that assure her of her

fidelity till the end of time despite men’s weaknesses, mistakes and

sins. Remember Christ saying, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will

build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

(Mt 16,18)

            In saying this, we are not suggesting, of course, that

this claim be simply rammed down our throat. We should just look into

history and see how the Church, despite the frailty of those governing

it and the enormous challenges and crises it had to face and suffer,

has managed to survive up to now. The Church indeed has the authority

to convey Christ’s message and Christ himself to us.

            That true empowerment can only come from God through

Christ as can be gleaned from the following passages in the Bible:

-“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4,13)

-“Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” (Eph 6,10)

-“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with

power through his Spirit in your inner being.” (Eph 3,16)

-“The Sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of

a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.” (Habakkuk 3,19)

To be sure, this can only happen if we exert effort to identify

ourselves with Christ who, for his part, identifies himself with us.

In fact, Christ goes all the way by assuming all our sins and

conquering them with his death and resurrection. And he offers

forgiveness to us.

Our usual problem is that we do not do our part in this business of

living our life as a shared life with God in Christ. We tend to

declare complete independence from God and just rely on our own

so-called powers. This is something we need to correct.

We should try our best to learn the word of God, have recourse to the

sacraments which are the usual channels for his grace to come to us,

wage a life-long ascetical struggle of developing virtues and avoiding

temptations and sin, etc. The ultimate aim is that we become

increasingly Christ-like because each one of us is supposed to be

“another Christ.”

This is the real empowerment that we ought to have, one that is

compatible with humility, patience, compassion. It’s not an

empowerment that is triumphalistic in character. It is one whose main

ingredient is the cross of Christ. Suffering and dying with Christ are

essential in it.

It is an empowerment whose exercise of power is in the character of

serving and not of lording it over, an empowerment that brings us to

our eternal life in heaven, and not just some good life here on earth.