SINCE we are
made in the image and likeness of God, we
have been given the power to be truly like God. In fact,
we are meant
not only to belong to God, as any creature belongs to
him, but to
share in God’s very own life as children of his. We are
not just any
ordinary creature. We are very special, the masterpiece
of all of
God’s creation.
That may be an
incredible statement that we can say about
ourselves, but that happens to be what our Christian
faith tells us,
no matter how undeserving we are of such dignity. And if
we are
Christian believers even if we cannot understand
everything that our
faith tells us, we know that such statement is true. It’s
not a
gratuitous affirmation.
This is what is
called, ‘capax Dei,’ an expression coined
by St. Augustine that means that we are capable of
becoming like God
or that we are capable for God. To be sure, this power is
a result
first of all of God’s grace. But that grace requires a
human
counterpart which comes in the form, first of all, of
humility.
Humility is the
virtue that makes us acknowledge that we
are nothing without God. It sort of opens our soul for the
grace of
God to enter. And it is this grace that transforms us,
irrespective of
our human impotencies, mistakes and errors, into becoming
children of
God.
And with God’s
grace in our soul because of our humility,
we can manage to receive the gifts of faith, hope and
charity. We can
believe natural truths that not only are difficult to
discover but
also to understand. Even more, it is humility that would
enable us to
believe supernatural truths where there is no way we can
fully
understand them, much less, explain them in a human way.
It is humility
that would enable us to be like Christ, to
be ‘alter Christus,’ who is the pattern of our humanity
and the
redeemer of our damaged humanity. It is when we are
humble that we can
manage to bear and to suffer all things, and to love even
our enemies,
offering forgiveness to our offenders, just like what
Christ did and
continues to do.
Pride, the
opposite of humility, is what blocks God’s
grace from entering into our soul. It restricts us to our
own powers
alone, which in the first place are given by God but
which we consider
simply to be our own. It gives us a false light, quite
convincing in
its effect on us, but is really deceptive. It cannot go
the distance
insofar as the demands and requirements of our authentic
human dignity
are concerned.
We have to do
everything to always grow in the virtue of
humility, by training ourselves to always be with God and
mindful of
everybody else. Humility is like emptying ourselves
completely so that
God can fully be with us and bring us to our fullest
dignity.
This will
definitely requires a lot of sacrifices. That’s
why Christ told us that if we want to follow him, we
should deny
ourselves, carry the cross, and follow him. (cfr. Mt
16,24) We have to
convince ourselves everyday that we cannot actually
follow Christ and
identify ourselves with him as we should, unless some
self-denials are
involved.
Without these
self-denials, which are the sure expressions
of humility, there is no way we can be like Christ. Our
capacity to be
like God, ‘capax Dei,’ would be compromised.
Let’s always
follow the example of Our Lady, whose
continual ‘Fiat’ (be it done) to God’s will, made her the
Mother of
God and our mother. Her humility catapulted her to be the
perfect
human person, just like how God wanted us in the
beginning, sinless,
pure, fully identified with God!
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