All-out compassion makes us truly Christian

THIS is indeed the true mark of a real child of God. It’s when like Christ we are not afraid to complicate our life just to help everybody, especially those who are in need of some pressing as well as precious help. 

 In the gospel reading of the Mass on the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, (cfr. Mk 5,21-43) we see Christ in the middle of his preaching journey being asked to cure a sick child and a woman with some issue of blood stealthily touching his vestment if only to get some healing of her illness. He, of course, attended to all these requests, not minding the inconveniences these caused on him. 

 We have to learn to complicate our life if only to attend to the needs of others in the best way we can. It’s in this way that we can become more and more like Christ, sharing in his sacrifices that, in fact, are meant for our own sanctification and salvation. It certainly would help us grow in the virtues. It’s how charity is lived in our daily affairs. 

 Yes, our life, indeed, if it has to reflect the life of Christ, cannot help but get complicated. But as long as we keep our faith strong and continue to be close to Christ, we can always manage, and avoid making a big issue out of this predicament. We can even find fulfillment in it. 

 We should not be afraid when our life gets complicated. As long as we are with Christ, we even would be willing to complicate our life. I think that is the proper attitude to develop in ourselves. We should not just wait for our life to get complicated. We somehow should complicate it by truly involving ourselves in the mission of Christ and in the lives of others. 

 Obviously, we should try our best to be properly prepared for this unavoidable condition in our life. Let’s prepare ourselves for this physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and morally. For this, we need to avail of all possible and appropriate means. 

 Let’s always follow the example of Christ whose heart flowed always with compassion, quick to notice the needs of others and to respond to them. And all this in all simplicity, telling the beneficiaries who were so bursting with gratitude that they wanted to broadcast what they received to the whole world, to keep quiet instead. 

 It’s an example that we should all try to imitate. One deep desire we should have is that of making as some kind of default mode that attitude of thinking always of the others, wishing them well all the time and doing whatever we can to help, despite whatever differences and conflicts we can have among ourselves. 

 It’s obviously not easy to do, but we can always try. With God’s grace and with our persistent effort, we can little by little and day by day hack it, such that it becomes second nature to us to think and feel for the others. That’s what compassion is all about. 

 Compassion starts in the heart, in our thoughts and desires. In this level, there is no limit in what we can do. Obviously, when we try to translate these prayers, thoughts and desires into action and material things, we can be greatly limited. But insofar as prayers and sacrifices are involved, the possibilities are unlimited.

Never hesitate to beg for miracles

NOTHING is lost if we dare to ask God for some miracles or some special and extraordinary favors. If God sees that it would really be for own good, he will surely grant it. If not—and he can only be the one to know if what we are asking is truly for our own good or not—then he will not grant it. And if we always trust in God’s providence, it would be the same for us whether God grants our request or not. 

 But we should not hesitate to ask for miracles. We, of course, have to do it with due homage to God, as what a leper did in a gospel episode. (cfr. Mt 8,1-4) And we should ask for miracles motivated only by our desire to give glory to God and not just for us to be freed of some suffering, inconvenience or disadvantage. 

 Said in another way, our desire to be freed of some suffering, inconvenience or disadvantage should be motivated by our desire to be in a better condition to give glory to God and to love him and others better. It should not just be a matter of self-interest only. 

 Yes, it cannot be denied that given our wounded condition in this life, we should realize that we need to ask for miracles, for some special divine interventions. There are times when we have to resort to extraordinary means because the predicaments at hand are just too big or complicated to tackle. 

 These days, in fact, this type of predicaments is getting plentier. In the international scene, for example, we are witness to the seemingly endless terror attacks on innocent people, done completely at random. These attackers are not afraid anymore to lose their lives. 

 The value of life has diminished tremendously. If it is not due to some kind of fanaticism, racism or extreme revenge, it can also be due to the cheapening of life in general through the widespread legalization of abortion and other anti-life practices. 

 We can also detect an increasing number of predicaments that often reduce us to helplessness. This can be brought about by the new technologies that, while giving us a lot of advantages, can also cause great harm. 

 Many people, especially the young, are now addicted to pornography, to uncontrollable games, to plainly wasting time. They are finding it harder and harder to resist the temptation. 

 They more or less know that what they are doing is wrong, but they still do it. But neither can we discount the fact that many people are now losing the sense of sin, of what is right and wrong, and of repentance. 

 It’s clear that the world today is into some serious sickness, more spiritual and moral than physical and medical. It’s not just some kind of virus that causes it. There seems to some kind of evil possession involved. Precisely in the gospel we are told that we are actually ranged against spiritual enemies, more powerful than the usual germs and viruses around. 

 And so, let us go to God like those helpless characters in the gospel who went to Christ begging for some miraculous cure. What is important is that we approach Christ with deep faith. In those miraculous cures Christ did, he always referred to the great faith of those who asked for those miracles. 

 Let us humble ourselves so that that faith can grow and show itself in deeds, like intense prayers and sacrifice. Remember what Christ told his disciples why they could not cure an epileptic boy. It was because of their little faith. (Mt 17,20)

How to enter God’s kingdom

CHRIST said it very clearly. “It is not anyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Mt 7,21) 

 Indeed, we always have to be open to God’s will and ways that oftentimes can be quite challenging and unattractive, since they demand everything from us. They require a lot of sacrifice. We just have to realize as quickly as possible that this is the language of real love. God gives us his all. We should also learn to give our all to him. As a saying goes: Love is repaid with love. 

 This truth of our faith is somehow highlighted when Christ gave this apparently harsh response to somehow who expressed his desire to follow him. “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” (Mt 8,20) 

 When we truly love and follow Christ, we would have complete trust in his will and ways, regardless of the cost it asks of us. We know that his providence never fails. And the unavoidable suffering we can encounter along the way are actually golden occasions for us to learn some precious lessons, to grow in some virtues, and in the end to make ourselves more and more like Christ which is actually the purpose of our life here on earth. 

 We should just be ready for wherever God’s providence would take us. We have to be open to it all the time. Even as we make our plans and pursue them truly as our own, we should not forget that nothing in our life is actually outside the providence of God who can adapt himself to us, even in our worst situations and predicaments, and still lead us to himself. 

 Let’s always remember that God’s will is the source of everything in the universe. The whole of creation in all its existence, unity, truth, goodness and beauty starts from God’s will and is maintained by it. The entire range and scope of reality—be it material or spiritual, natural or supernatural, temporal or eternal—is “contained” there, not only theoretically but in vivo. 

 The task of looking, knowing and loving the divine will, therefore, has to be made more known by us, because we tend to simply have a superficial knowledge of God, restricting him to some sentimental considerations or to some images we form of him in our mind. Hardly would we get to know what he wants us to do in any given moment, if we are mainly guided by sentimental considerations and visual or conceptual images of him. 

 Getting to know and do God’s will is what actually would comprise the very substance of our relationship with him. That’s simply because that is what love is all about, what it entails, which is the very essence of God, as St. John affirmed (Deus caritas est). Love is deeds and not just sweet words or feelings. Real love is deeds done to correspond to God’s will for us. 

 We need to develop the proper attitude toward God’s will. We should first be aware that there’s such thing as God’s will, and not just God’s image. We should cultivate the desire to know, love and obey it until we can make as our own Christ’s very attitude toward his Father’s will, “Not my will, but yours be done,” and Mary’s words, “Be it done to me according to your word.”

False prophets galore!

“BEWARE of false prophets! (Mt 7,15) That’s what Christ told his disciples. These days, this warning assumes a most urgent character, since we cannot deny that we are having many people who are presenting themselves as prophets and yet their messages can stir serious doubts in us. 

 There is indeed a crying need for discernment and prudence. And the first thing that we have to do is to pray, asking God for grace and light. And then we study thoroughly the messages or supposed prophecies articulated, always consulting the proper authorities, which in this case, is first of all the Magisterium of the Church before we go to some pertinent experts and professionals. 

 This is a delicate matter which should be handled very cautiously, and always in the context of intimate prayer. And that’s because even if some false prophets are involved, it does not entitle us to be uncharitable with them. Yes, we can seek to clarify, suggest and even correct, but we should refrain from being uncharitable. 

 Let’s remember that even a person who is openly against Christ can give some kind of a prophecy, as in the case of Caiaphas, the high priest during the time of Christ, who as the gospel narrated, “prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not the for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.” (Jn 11,51-52) 

 Yes, we cannot deny that the world today is now awash with demagogues and false prophets. It even looks like we have an infestation. Whether we look at the fields of religion, politics, business, the sciences, sports and entertainment, culture, etc., we can readily find clever leaders who have great talents in persuading people to their questionable beliefs and doctrine. 

 It actually should be no surprise. Since time immemorial, and even during the time of Christ, demagogues and false prophets proliferated. Our human condition, if not grounded on God, is vulnerable to it. We can´t help it. Our world can easily produce the necessary elements and factors. And we can never run out of potential materials. 

 These demagogues and false prophets have great capacity to read people´s mind, and know how to adapt their behavior and speech to what people want to see and hear. This, of course, regardless of whether their words and ideas conform to God´s laws or not. They do things quite independently of God, and often even hostile to God. 

 Of all these demagogues and false prophets, I am not worried so much by those who identify themselves as atheists, agnostics and free thinkers. We have freedom, and we just have to learn how to cope with some of its not-so-good consequences. If the lines of conflict are clearly drawn, then things are a lot easier to handle. 

 Just the same, these can already create a lot of mess. Consider a very rich billionaire. His investments and fund movements can spell prosperity or doom to a country and even to a region. His open support for abortion, euthanasia and same-sex union certainly causes severe headache to those who believe in following the moral law as taught by Christ and the Church. 

 The more dangerous ones are those who profess that they prophesy in the name of God but whose teachings slyly undermine the true teachings of Christ and of the Church, using highly manipulative tactics in their eloquence.

God and our mundane affairs

WITH Christ telling his disciples not to give what is holy to dogs, or throw one’s pearls before swine, (cfr. Mt 7,6) we are somehow reminded that in our worldly affairs, no matter how technical they are or physically straining and dirty, we should never forget that God is always there, and that they are meant to be done or attended to with God and for God always. 

 In other words, we should avoid being swallowed up by the mundanity of these affairs as if God has nothing to do with them. We should avoid being so absorbed by them that we would not have God in our mind and heart. 

 This definitely would require of us a certain discipline that would put God at the center and peak of our human activities. For this, we have to learn how to be recollected amid the hustle and bustle of our daily activities. 

 Yes, we have to learn this skill. It’s actually a fundamental and indispensable skill. Without it, there’s no other way but for us to get confused and lost in our worldly and temporal affairs. And instead of reaching our final and proper destination, we end up somewhere else. 

 We have to learn to gather all our powers and faculties together so they can be engaged with their proper and ultimate objects which, ultimately, are God and others. We have to see to it that everything we do and get involved in, somehow get into the lifelong dynamic of loving God and others. 

 What we have to avoid is our tendency to fall into self-indulgence, pursuing only or getting entangled simply with our own interests and goals which usually are of the practical, worldly and temporal ones, and nothing beyond. 

 What we also have to avoid is to have our powers and faculties scattered and often in conflict with one another, entangled with objects that, though having some validity, are not the proper and ultimate objects we should try to pursue. 

 This need for recollection simply indicates that our life consists of different aspects and levels that we have to orchestrate to be able to reach our final end. We just cannot go about reacting spontaneously to things, depending solely on instincts and feelings. We are meant for something much, much more than these. 

 Our tendency, given our fallen nature and the effects of our personal sins, is to get dispersed in our attention and to plunge into activism. In the process, we lose our interior serenity and eventually our true way. 

 The loss of serenity can lead us to bad consequences—loss of self-control and dominion over things, proneness to temptations, vices and sins, disorder in our sense of priority, etc. 

 For Christian believers, the source and end of their consciousness should be God. This is simply because the Christian faith teaches that God is the creator of the whole universe, including us, and continues to govern us intimately in our hearts. There should therefore be a living relationship between God and the believer. 

 We need to be focused always on him. Straying from him would be to stray from reality. It would lead us to make our own reality and our own world, with consequences that sooner or later will always be bad for us. 

 This human need for recollection will always bring us to the realization of the existence of God, with the corresponding rights and duties towards him. We should therefore see that everything in our life has God in it, or at least traces of God in it. We just have to learn how to discover God in these things.

Let’s be like St. John the Baptist

On the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, celebrated on June 24, we should also strive to be like St. John the Baptist who had the vocation of being the precursor of Christ, the one who prepared a people fit for the Lord. 

 We should have the same attitude as St. John the Baptist. Like him, we too should help in preparing everyone to be fit for the coming of the Lord. This definitely will be a very challenging task, given the conditions we are having today. 

 We cannot deny that there is a lot of ignorance, confusion and indifference to the things of God these days. The life of piety seems to be waning in many parts of our country, let alone, the whole world. Many people are hardly praying, and the practice of devotion seems to be facing extinction. 

 Just the same, we should not forget that regardless of what may appear to be a deep-seated culture of irreligion these days, every man continues in the deepest part of his heart to yearn for God. What the Catechism says about this is always relevant: 

 “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.” (CCC 27) 

 Yes, God himself will always draw us to himself in ways that can be very mysterious. And we, on our part, should try our best to discern the directing ways of God. This is where everyone has to do his part in preparing himself to see and follow God’s ways. 

 Given the current state of world culture that is now driven by the marvels of the new technologies and a big appetite for information, there definitely is a great need to make people see that God is very much in the middle of these developments. 

 We have to be wary of imposing specific norms of prudence that may have worked in the previous generations and eras but which are not effective anymore at this time. We have to learn to adapt things to the way people are, judiciously blending the old and the new, the traditional and the innovative. Let’s take initiatives and be unafraid of making some experiments. This will require a true spirit of discernment. 

 We really have to study and assess things thoroughly before we can come out with some guidelines to help today’s young ones who certainly have different sensibilities and sense of priorities. 

 In this regard, we should follow the example of St. John the Baptist who just persisted in calling for repentance as preparation for the coming of the Redeemer even if his call was like a lonely cry in the desert. We just have to pursue what we know is good and is God’s will, even if there’s no immediate social impact. The cry in the desert will have its fruits someday. 

 In the meantime, we have to patiently learn the doctrine, wage a continuous ascetical struggle developing virtues and convictions, then start to do personal apostolate, making use of whatever circumstance we have at the moment. 

 Of course, we should also try to aim higher and deeper, even going to public places to proclaim the good news in a world sunk in confusion, ignorance and error. All of these done always in charity, patience and hope. 

 Let’s remember this is God’s work more than ours.

Finding meaning and joy in our suffering

IF we truly are firm believers and followers of Christ, we have every reason to find meaning and joy in all the suffering, trials and challenges we can encounter in our earthly life. And that’s because Christ has conquered everything and has converted all the negative things in our life into means for our own purification and strengthening, our own sanctification and salvation. 

 We are reminded of this truth of our Christian faith in that gospel episode where the disciples were buffeted with big waves while they were in the middle of the sea, with Christ simply sleeping in the stern. (cfr. Mk 4, 35-41) As the gospel narrates, the disciples woke Christ up and asked him if he was not concerned about their precarious condition. 

 That’s when Christ asked them why they were afraid, and proceeded to calm down the sea, to the utter consternation of the disciples. “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?” they asked, showing that their faith in Christ was not yet strong and deep. 

 This gospel episode invites us once again to strengthen our faith in Christ so that we can find meaning, joy and peace in all the suffering, trials and challenges of our present life. In another instance, Christ reassured his disciples, and now us, that while we cannot avoid these negative things in our life here on earth, he asked us to be at peace since he has ‘conquered’ all these. (cfr. Jn 16,33) 

 What we should rather think and react when we encounter some suffering of any kind is that we are participating in the redemptive passion, death and resurrection of Christ. We are actually given an occasion and a privilege to identify ourselves more intimately in the redemptive mission of Christ. 

 There can be joy in suffering only if we identify ourselves with Christ. With Christ, suffering becomes an act of selfless love that can take on anything. Only in him can we find joy and meaning in suffering. With him, suffering loses its purely negative and painful character, and assumes the happy salvific character. 

 We need to process this truth of our faith thoroughly, always asking for God’s grace and training all our powers and faculties to adapt to this reality. That’s why Christ told us clearly that if we want to follow him, we simply have to deny ourselves, carry the cross and follow him. There’s no other formula, given our wounded human condition. 

 This self-denial and carrying of Christ’s cross will enable us to see that suffering is obviously the consequence of all our sins—ours and those of others. Embracing suffering the way Christ embraced his cross unites our suffering with that of Christ. 

 Our motive for it should be like that of Christ. It’s the desire to conquer that suffering and ultimately our death through his death and resurrection. It’s obeying God’s will just like Christ obeyed his Father’s will. “Not my will but yours be done.” 

 Our reaction to any form of suffering in this life should therefore be theological and ascetical. It should be guided and inspired by faith. It should not just be a physical or a natural affair. It should reflect the spiritual and supernatural realities to which we are all subject. 

 Everyday let us find ways of deepening our understanding and appreciation of this truth of our faith, and also of acquiring the capacity to live it as fully as possible, until we can truly say that we are finding meaning, joy and peace in our suffering.

Transcending our earthly and temporal life

LET’S remember that we are not meant to solely live an earthly and temporal life. We are meant for an eternal life, where our body, still retaining its material form, would be completely under the law of the spiritual and the supernatural. 

 We are reminded of this truth of our faith in that gospel episode where Christ told his disciples: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth—where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor moth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure, there also is your heart.” (Mt 6,19-21) 

 The same truth is also reiterated in the Letter to the Hebrews where it says: “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” (13,14) 

 In other words, we need to see to it that even as we immerse ourselves as deeply as possible in our earthly affairs, we do not lose our sense of heaven and eternity. In fact, the ideal is that as we go deeper in our temporal affairs, our sense of heaven and eternity should also become sharper. 

 This is always possible and doable as long as we are guided first of all by our faith rather than by our feelings and by our merely human estimation of things. Let’s always remember that it is our faith, our Christian faith, that gives the whole picture of our life—where we come from, where we are supposed to go, the purpose of our life here on earth, the true value of our mundane concerns, etc. 

 Let’s be theological in our thinking and reaction to the things of this world. For that, we of course would need some training. It should consist of always referring things to God, whatever they may be—good or bad, a success or a failure, a victory or a defeat, etc. We should feel the urge to do so. 

 If our outlook in life is guided by faith and when we manage to be theological in our thinking and behavior, we know that everything in our life indeed has an eternal effect. The earthly and temporal things in our life are not simply earthly and temporal. They can and should have a spiritual, supernatural and eternal value. 

 Christ himself said so. “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (Jn 6,27) And we can do this if everything that we do here on earth, everything that we experience in life, whether good or bad, is done or experienced with Christ and for Christ. 

 Thus, St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians said: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (10,31) And in his Letter to the Romans, he said: “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” (14,8) This is how we give eternal value to our mundane activities and circumstances. 

 This is how we can transcend our earthly and temporal life and prepare ourselves for the heavenly and eternal life meant for us, sharers as we are in the very life and nature of God himself!

Marks of a true Christian

WHILE there a many, even infinite, marks of a true believer of Christ, at least we can mention two that can clearly identify us as true Christians. These are when we know how to really pray, addressing God as our Father, and when we, like Christ, would have a forgiving heart. 

 We are somehow reminded of these marks in the gospel reading of the Mass on Thursday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time, (cfr. Mt 6,7-15) where Christ told his disciples about the “Our Father” or the Lord’s Prayer as the proper way to pray. In that prayer, there is an important part where Christ told us to ask the Father to “forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” 

 We have to remember that praying is our way of uniting ourselves with God, our Creator and Father, whom we are supposed to be always with, since our life, as an image and likeness of God, is meant to be a shared life with God. 

 Praying is to our spiritual life what breathing and the beating of the heart are to our biological life. That is why St. Paul clearly said, “Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thes 5,17-18) 

 When we manage to truly pray, we can also manage to protect ourselves from all kinds of evil, and to heal whatever wounds and weaknesses we may have because of our sins. A sense of holy invulnerability can come to us. We can find peace and joy in spite of the heavy drama of our life. 

 That’s because when we pray, we unite ourselves with Christ, and with him no evil can affect us badly. We may not be spared from suffering, but we would know how to convert that suffering into a means of our purification and eventual salvation. With him, everything will work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28) 

 The other mark of a true Christian is to have a merciful heart. Only when we are merciful to others would God be also merciful to us. (cfr. Mt 6,14-15) We have to be clear that this injunction to be forgiving is meant for everyone, and not only for a few whom we may consider to be religiously inclined. That’s why when asked how many times we should forgive, he said not only seven times, but seventy times seven, meaning always. 

 We have to continually check on our attitude towards others because today’s dominant culture is filled precisely by the viruses of self-righteousness, that feeling that we are superior to others, etc. We have to do constant battle against that culture. 

 That’s why we need to douse immediately any flame of pride and egoism that can come to us anytime. We have to learn to understand others, to accept them as they are, warts and all, while praying and doing whatever we can to help them. It’s not for us to judge their motives which will always be a mystery to us. 

 In fact, as St. Paul once said, we have to consider others as always better than us. Only peace and harmony can result from such attitude. The abuses that can arise will soon be overcome if we are consistent with this attitude. 

 Let’s be quick to ask for forgiveness when we commit sin and mistakes, and also to offer it others.

Let’s learn to always have the right intention

WE have to realize more deeply that our intentions play an indispensable role in our moral and spiritual life. It’s in our intentions where we can determine whether we are with and for God or simply with and by our own selves. 

 And if we would just have a little of common sense and, of course, faith, we know that we should always be, as much as possible, with God. Everything we do should always be for his glory which would redound to our own dignification as true children of his. 

 We are reminded of this truth of our Christian faith in the gospel reading of Wednesday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time. (Mt 6,1-6.16-18) There we are told not to show off our good deeds to impress others, but rather to do them in secret since God anyway would know them and would be most happy to see that we are doing them solely for his glory and not for ours. 

 But given the prevalent and strong world culture today where we are always egged to be strut our stuff, we cannot deny that we have a big challenge to face and tackle. Thus, this task of rectifying our intentions is going to be a tremendous one. 

 To be sure, we can only rectify our intentions when we are truly with Christ, eager to identify ourselves with him and to follow his example. Imagine that being God he emptied himself to become man and went to the extent of offering his life just to bring us back to him. 

 To have the rectitude of intention means to assume the very intention of Christ in coming to this world to redeem us. That’s the long and short of it. Outside of that principle, the only thing to happen is to fall into some forms of self-indulgence which can come in very subtle and even imperceptible ways. 

 It’s important that right at the beginning of the day, as we wake up, we already set our intentions for the day in their proper place. And all throughout the day, we should make some strategic pauses to see that our intentions are still on the right track. 

 We need to realize that we should offer everything to God and to do nothing other than to do his will, since in the first place, that is really the real purpose of our life here on earth. 

 We should develop an offering attitude which is the fundamental and indispensable attitude all of us ought to have. It corresponds to the reality that we are God's creatures, created in his image and likeness, made children of his through his grace, and meant to live our whole life with him. 

 Absent this attitude, we would be living our life wrongly. We would undermine our own nature, our own freedom, peace and joy. We would be at the mercy of improper forces that may give us temporary advantages but will surely destroy us in the end. 

 By offering ourselves to God, we would meet the most basic requirement of our human dignity as persons and children of God. Otherwise, we detach ourselves from the very source of life and of everything that is proper to us. We would stupidly dare to live our life by our own selves, relying simply on our own powers as if these powers did not come from God himself that ought to be used according to his will and laws.

True Christian love will always look like madness

WE have to prepare ourselves for this kind of love which is what is actually meant for us, since we are God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature. How God loves should also be how we should love him and others in return. 

 The gospel reading of the Mass on Tuesday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time features Christ (cfr. Mt 5,43-48) telling his disciples, and now us, that “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” 

 He made it clear that we can only become true children of God if we manage to follow this incredible commandment of his. He himself embodied that kind of love by offering his very own life as a way to bear all our sins and conquer them with his resurrection. 

 To be sure, we can only manage to have this kind of love if we truly unite ourselves with Christ who makes it possible and doable for us since he himself will do it for us—but also with us. We cannot deny that this kind of love will demand a lot of sacrifice. Thus, Christ himself said that if we want to follow him, we need to deny ourselves and to carry the cross. (cfr. Mt 16,24) 

 Since as humans we develop ourselves in stages, we should try to take advantage of our daily contradictions, both small and big, to develop this kind of love. We cannot deny that everyday we have to contend with some differences and conflicts with others for one reason and another. We should consider these occasions as an invitation and an opportunity to grow in the love God wants us to have. 

 We have to understand that true Christian love always gives itself without measure. That’s its essence. It leaves measure and calculation behind. It just gives and gives non-stop, not only 24/7 but from all eternity and through all eternity as well. 

 Consider the following. God created the universe without any necessity on his part. He just did it out of pure goodness, wishing to share what he has with other beings. This is the very essence of gratuitousness, the core of love. 

 Then he created us in his image and likeness, and therefore ran the risk of being freely rejected by us, his creatures, which was what took place and continues to take place up to now. 

 But in spite of that, God continues to love us, willing to undertake a very complicated plan of salvation, sending his own Son to us, since it is only God, not us even in our best efforts, who can save us. 

 For this, the Son had to become man, assuming not only human nature, but also the consequences of man’s sin and woundedness without ever committing any trace of sin. Then he died to our sin, his death delivering death to our sins. With his resurrection, we are given a way to conquer our own sins as long as we also die with him.

Going beyond our human standards

WE should never forget that we are meant to live our life with God. Our life therefore should not simply be purely natural and human. It has to be supernatural and divine. The standards we use should not just be human. They should be, above all, divine. 

 We are reminded of this truth of our faith in that gospel reading of the Mass on Monday of the 4th Week of Easter (cfr. Mk 5,37-42) where Christ told his stunned disciples: “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.” 

 And clarifying what that would mean, he said: “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles…” 

 Definitely, if we are to consider these words according to our human standards, we would find them crazy. But precisely these words of Christ are an open invitation for us to enter into his supernatural and divine way of life. We can only observe them if we have faith in Christ and do our best to follow him and identify ourselves with him, who after all is the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity. 

 We have to learn how to drown evil with an abundance of good. That’s how things should be. Instead of responding to evil with evil, hatred with hatred, we should rather respond to evil with good, hatred with love. That way we turn things around, rather than plunge into the spiral of evil and hatred. 

 This was specifically articulated by St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans where he said: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” (Rom 12,17-20) 

 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 reactions. We can ask, even if done only interiorly, “Is Christ really serious about this? Can this thing that Christ and St. Paul are telling us, possible, doable?” 

 With God’s grace and our effort, let us learn to live with unavoidable evil in this world. “Let them grow together until harvest.” That was the answer of the master in one of the parables about the kingdom of heaven. (cfr Mt 13,24-43) He was telling the servants to let the weeds sown by his enemy to grow together with the wheat. Pulling the weed out now would just endanger the wheat, he reasoned out. 

 This parable is an image of how our life now, with all its good and bad elements, is already the beginning of the kingdom of heaven. We have to learn how to live in this condition, where evil is unavoidable, without getting confused and lost.

God’s grace and our effort

THOSE two parables Christ told his disciples that compared the Kingdom of God to some seed that when planted on earth would just grow, become big and bear fruit (cfr. Mk 4,26-34) highlight the truth of our faith that God always provides for our needs but we also have to do our part. 

 And yet, if I may, we can ask the question—that if God is that compassionate and generous, then why is there so much suffering, poverty and misery around? It would even look like God is completely indifferent to this sad condition worldwide. It would look like many people are left to rot in their miserable condition. 

 The answer, of course, is that, yes, God is always compassionate. He cannot tolerate seeing people suffer. He will always provide for all our needs. He even went to the extent of becoming man in Christ who had to offer his life to attain the greatest need of mankind—our salvation. With that supreme act of compassion and generosity freely done, what other need do we have that would not be taken care of by God? 

 The truth is that God has provided us with everything. From our life with all its natural endowments to the air and water, to the abundant food from plants and animals and other resources, he has given them all for us to use and to live with the dignity of being children of God. 

 The problem is that we do not know how to manage them, how to care and help one another. There is so much indifference and self-indulgence, the germs that would develop into a worldwide pandemic of social injustice and inequality. 

 In those two parables that compared the kingdom of God to some seeds, we are made to understand that we just have to do a little to correspond to what God is giving us, and things would just work out. That detail of the parables tells us that with a little help from us, the full wonder of God’s grace would be revealed to us. 

 In other words, we have to be reminded that as long as we do our part, no matter how meager it is, God will astound us with his own tremendous power. The prodigy of God’s powerful compassion can take place. 

 We simply have to do our part of helping one another, starting with the little things until we would be challenged to tackle bigger issues that would require extraordinary effort and sacrifice. But then again, whatever investment of effort, money and sacrifice we have to give, even if in our own estimation it is already quite sizable, is nothing compared to what God will give us in return. 

 Corresponding to God’s will in our own small way is the highest yielding investment we can make. Let us remember that God can never be outdone in generosity. Christ himself said: “Whoever has (referring to one’s faith and trust in God) will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” (Mt 13,12) 

 Let’s not forget that when we are sparing in our self-giving to God and to others, God will take away even the little that we have. The law that should rule our life is that of love, of total self-giving no matter what it would cost, though most times, the cost is really little only.

Spiritual chastity before bodily chastity

CHRIST was quite clear about this point. In the gospel of St. Matthew which is the gospel reading for the Mass on Friday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, Christ said: “You have heard that it was said to them of old—Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Mt 5,27-28) 

 To be able to live this real chastity as articulated by Christ, we really need to fully give our mind and heart to Christ, something that can only take place when aside from our earnest effort to live this virtue, we would first of all ask for God’s grace. 

 We need to submit our animal self, i.e., our flesh, to the law of the spirit that is properly animated by the spirit of Christ. We should not just allow our flesh to work simply by its biological and corporeal laws that are surely erratic in their ways due to our wounded condition. We need to “educate” it, giving it its proper formation, so to speak. 

 This means that our feelings, emotions and passions should have God as their foundation and goal. This obviously will be a big and tremendous challenge given the way we are and how the world in general is nowadays. 

 Let’s remember that our feelings, emotions and passions play an important role in our life and in our relation with others, especially with God. As our Catechism defines them, our emotions and passions are “movements of the sensitive appetite that incline us to act or not to act in regard to something felt or imagined to be good or evil.” (1763) 

 As such, we can say that our emotions and passions play an important and crucial role in our life, since they somehow determine our actions and behavior that show and develop who we really are. Are we just a natural being, like the animals and plants, or are we rational persons with spiritual faculties and meant to have a supernatural goal? 

 We need to see to it that our emotions and passions should reinforce our identity and dignity as persons, made in the image and likeness of God, made children of his through his grace, and meant to participate in the very life of God. 

 Our emotions and passions which are an integral part of our humanity are not excluded from our over-all goal to be God-like. We are meant to be God-like in our definitive state of life in heaven with our emotions and passions still intact and used to the hilt. They are never suppressed or repressed. 

 Our emotions and passions serve as a link between our body and soul that are the constituent components of our humanity. We are not spiritual souls only. Our spiritual soul always goes with its corresponding body with its emotions and passions. In heaven and in eternity as it is here on earth and in time, we would still be having emotions and passions. 

 Thus, we need to educate our emotions and passions in such a way that they work for what is clearly our ultimate end. They should not be allowed to just develop at the instance of our hormones and instincts, nor by the many other blind or short-sighted impulses and trends in our social, cultural, economic, or political environment. They need to be reined in, to be guided and given proper direction.

Christian love requires total self-giving

THAT’S how Christ defines in so many words what true love is. 

 “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment,” he said. “But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.” (Mt 5,22) 

 It’s quite clear that Christ wants us to have nothing to do with any negative element, no matter how small or insignificant, no matter how internal only, in our relationship with others. 

 This, of course, is a big and seemingly insurmountable challenge for us, given our wounded human condition. But then again, if we would only try our best to follow the example of Christ, always begging for his grace, we surely can hack it, even if this Christian love has to develop in stages. 

 True Christian love demands everything from us. Thus, when Christ was asked what the greatest commandment was, he was forthright in saying that we should love God with everything that we have and to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

 Christ himself embodied this love when he, being God who became man, and while he did a lot of good things to everyone, was not contented with that. He assumed all the sins of men by ultimately offering his life on the cross. 

 True Christian love is synonymous with utmost generosity and magnanimity. There is no holding back of anything. It gives our all. It stands and burns consistently and even in a progressive way whatever the situation and condition, the challenges and trials in our life may be. 

 Thus, St. Paul said: “Love is patient and is kind; love does not envy. Love does not brag, is not proud, does not behave itself inappropriately, does not seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” 

 We have to realize that since God has given himself totally to us in Christ through the Holy Spirit, we should learn how to give ourselves totally to him and to everyone else. Yes, much has been given to us, and so, just as much is also expected, nay, required of us. 

 May we be generous in this department of giving back, convinced that what we seem to lose by giving is actually regained and multiplied a number of times, as Christ himself said, “For everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for my name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.” (Mt 19,29) 

 By giving back what we receive, we foster greater connectivity and communion among ourselves. This is urgently needed these days when, ironically, we have many more communication technologies than before and yet we seem to have more people isolating themselves from others now than before or, worse, creating division among ourselves. 

 Only in this way can we achieve that communion we ought to have with God and with everybody else. Never forget that we are meant for that kind of life in communion.

Christ is law’s fulfilment and perfection

CHRIST himself said so in no uncertain terms. In the gospel of St. Matthew (5,17-19) which happens to be the gospel reading of the Mass on Wednesday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, he said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not abolish but to fulfil.” 

 And he continued, emphasizing how absolutely important and indispensable he as the fulfilment of the law is, by saying: “Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” 

 Still more, he warned us that “whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” 

 Christ is not saying that the laws as articulated by the prophets and all the other God-sent messengers, and now the laws that we make, are useless or obsolete. They are always useful and relevant. But they can only go so far, and the best thing that they can do is to lead us to law’s perfection who is Christ, the original lawgiver and the very embodiment of what is meant to be a law. 

 We should not get stuck with our human laws. We have to try our best to go beyond them, always pursuing the ultimate expression of the law by progressively identifying ourselves with Christ, acquiring his very spirit which is actually meant for us, since we are God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature. 

 Christ as the perfection and fulfilment of any law we have is not concerned only about facts and data, about who committed some mistake and crime and who ought to be rewarded for some good deeds. He is not just after retributive justice. Christ as the perfection and fulfilment of any law we have, is also concerned about these, but goes far beyond them. 

 Christ as the perfection and fulfilment of any law perfectly blends truth, justice, mercy, compassion, magnanimity, etc. Christ sees far beyond the mere appearances of persons and the things they do. Christ sees them ultimately as children of God who, in spite of whatever mistakes, offenses and sins they commit, always deserve to be saved, to be pardoned and rehabilitated. Christ sees them in their ultimate spiritual and supernatural dignity, and not just their natural status. 

 He even goes to the extent of offering his life as a ransom for all our sins. He offers forgiveness even if we have not yet asked for forgiveness, as when he appealed to the Father, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Of course, actual forgiveness would also depend on us, on whether we at least show some signs of repentance and conversion. 

 So, we should try our best to make Christ as the guide when we make our laws. He is the one who can interpret our laws properly. He is the one that would give our laws their proper spirit, which in the end is the spirit of charity that summarizes and perfects all virtues and values. 

 Without Christ, our laws would unavoidably become rigid and harsh in certain instances. They would tend to absolutize certain things that actually should only have relative value. They would hardly recognize their limits, and so would find it hard to accept exceptions.

Receptive and responsive to God’s grace

CHRIST once told his disciples, and now us, that we should be the salt and light of the earth. (cfr. Mt 5,13-16) In other words, we should give the proper flavor and provide the proper light so all of us can be led to our proper destination. 

 This basic truth about ourselves gives rise to the duty that we have to help one another spiritually more than anything else. It is in our spiritual bond that actually gives rise to all our other relations with everybody else according to the different aspects of our nature. 

 This means that we should always give good example to others even to the point of inspiring them, i.e., giving them the proper spirit, the spirit of Christ. For this, we really need to have the very spirit of Christ ourselves, to be “another Christ” if not “Christ himself.” 

 Hopefully, we can echo St. Paul’s words: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal 2,20) This is the ideal to aim at, because Christ himself said, “I am the light of the world…the man who follows me will have the light of life.” (Jn 8,12) This can happen if we would only know how to be truly receptive and responsive to God’s initiative to make us like him through Christ in the Holy Spirit. 

 We have to realize that we are not only meant to live a natural life, but rather also a spiritual and supernatural life. God has created us in such a way that we have the capacity to receive and to respond to God’s will to make us sharers of his divine life and nature. That is why we are endowed with intelligence and will, so we can know God and his will for us, and choose to love him and to be like him. 

 We need to find practical ways to learn how to be receptive and responsive to God’s grace, to his sharing of his life and nature with us. Like, right in the morning as we wake up, the first thing that we should try to do is to address ourselves to God, offering ourselves and everything that we will be doing for the day to him. 

 It’s important that right from the beginning of the day, we get strongly focused on God. He should be the center of our life, of our thoughts, desires, words and deeds. And all throughout the day, we should try our best to keep this awareness alive. 

 Thus, we should avail ourselves of some effective plan of life to drive this kind of awareness going. Some practices of piety like periods of mental prayer and contemplation, spiritual reading, receiving the sacraments especially the Holy Mass and Communion, and other devotional means, would be helpful. 

 The ideal is that the whole day should be spent with God who, in the first place, is always around. He is in us and around us. He is wherever we are, and his presence is actually active, full of solicitude for us. We need to perceive this reality and act according to it. 

 Let’s hope that we can end the day convinced that we have spent it with him and for him. In other words, to be receptive and responsive to God’s grace is for us to be true contemplatives even as we immerse ourselves in our earthly and temporal affairs.

The divine wisdom behind the Beatitudes

OBVIOUSLY, if we are to use our human reason alone, without the guidance of faith, we would consider the Beatitudes a crazy idea. I’ve heard some supposedly intellectual commentators describe the Beatitudes as silly.It’s a reasoning that is trapped in its own web of ideas. 

​But if we would just try to fathom the divine wisdom contained in them, we would soon realize that the Beatitudes indeed articulate a most pure brand of love thatcontinues to burn and even to burn more strongly when faced with all sorts of contradictions in life. We need to realize that love becomes purer when it is challenged, rejected.

 

​Christ lived these Beatitudes to the hilt and, by so doing, defined for us what true love is, which is the very essence of God and the essence that is also meant for us, since we are God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature. How God is should also be how we should be.

 

​Let us remember that Christ left us with the new commandment before he ascended into heaven. And that new commandment says that we should love one another as he himself as loved us.

 

​And how did Christ love us? And continues to do so? By offering his life for us! By so doing, he assumed all our sins and offered forgiveness even before we ask for forgiveness. That’s how Christ loves us and how we should also love one another which is actually our way of showing our love for Christ, for God, since to love God is concretized by loving our neighbor, i.e., everybody else, including our enemies.

 

​It’s a supernatural kind of love that definitely transcends our human and natural way of loving and that definitely requires God’s grace, our identification with the very spirit of God as shown and shared with us through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Forget it when we think that we can have this kind of love by simply relying on our human powers alone.

 

​Again, we are reminded that we are meant to live not only a natural life. We are meant to live a supernatural life with God. Thus, as early possible we should make ourselves, mainly with our spiritual powers of intelligence and will, to be as receptive and responsive to the grace God abundantly gives us.

 

​To be sure, we cannot have this supernatural kind of love meant for us if we do not pray, if we do not avail of the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, which are the normal channels of grace for us, if we do not keep our relation with God alive through the development of virtuesand rejection of sin and temptations, if we fail to actively participate in the continuing redemptive work of Christ by doing apostolate, etc.

 

​If we would be faithful to the means made available for us to be with Christ, all those contradictions and challenges we can meet in life would be viewed as privileged occasions to grow in the true love meant for us. These contradictions and challenges are the concrete ways we can identify ourselves more and more with Christ.

 

​The Beatitudes convert what we usually consider as human disasters or clear disadvantages and inconveniences according to worldly standards into a source of joy, a means of our redemption, a path to heaven, narrow and difficult though it may be. 

 

​They expand our understanding of what would comprise as our true happiness by including those situations which we normally regard as unsavory and therefore to be avoided as much as possible and hated.

 

​They articulate divine wisdom for us!

 

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