We therefore should try our best to develop a sense of the
sublime and the supernatural while still immersed here in the things
of this world. We are meant for a supernatural life. Our human nature,
with our spiritual soul that enables us to know and to love, and
therefore to enter into the lives not only of others but also and most
importantly, of God, urges us to develop a supernatural life.
It’s a life with God always. It just cannot be exclusively
our own life, taken personally or collectively. It’s a life that
depends mainly on God who gives us the grace that purifies and
elevates our life to his life. But it also depends on us, on our
freedom to correspond to this loving will of God for us.
We have to develop a taste and even an appetite for the
supernatural life with God and of things supernatural in general. In
this we have to help one another, because in the end, this is our
common ultimate end in life—how to live our life with God, how we can
be immersed in God even as we are immersed also in the things of the
world.
To be sure, developing the sense of the supernatural and the
sublime is not a baseless and gratuitous exercise. It is what God
wants us to have, since we truly are children of his. It is not our
invention. It is, first of all, his will for us to which we have to
correspond.
We should not feel uneasy about this truth, because on the
part of God, he will do everything to make what he wants of us to be
fully realized. All we have to do is simply to go along with his will
and ways.
This sense of the supernatural and the sublime will do us a
lot of good. Even psychologically speaking, it is a tremendous help.
Imagine the calm, serenity and confidence it can give us! Imagine the
joy it provides us even as we go through the drama of our earthly life
that is often described as a vale of tears.
But the good that it gives us far exceeds what it does to
our psychological self. It is what shapes us into God’s children. It
is a clear mark that our faith, hope and charity are strong and
working. In short, that our spiritual life is healthy despite, and
also because of, all the trials and challenges we will be facing in
this life.
We should develop this sense of the supernatural and the
sublime by often reminding ourselves of who we really are. That way,
we would somehow be in a state of awe and amazement. We would somehow
feel reassured that despite our limitations, weaknesses, failures and
even sins, there is always hope to attain our original and ultimate
dignity because God will always be on our side. We just have to put
ourselves in his side too.
Perhaps as a concrete way of developing and keeping this
sense of the sublime, we should cultivate the practice of thinking
that we are entering heaven to be with God when we end the day and
have our rest.
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